Look Who's Talking with Hillary Busis

Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Black Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

All you need to know is that the name of the show is Black Jack.

He's hip, he's slick, and he's only three months old.

He's got David Sims' smile, Ben Hosley's eyes, and the voice of Griffin Newman.

And now all he has to do is find himself the perfect podcast.

So, a bunch of notes.

Not, not for what you did.

You did a good thing.

That is one of the more insane taglines we have ever covered.

So, in no part of this movie is he three months old.

That's true.

They pretty much leap from newborn to like

incredible points.

But right off the bat, no, no, even bigger point.

Now, there's a lot of style development issues with this movie.

There are many, many points.

We're going to, I mean, you can't.

I was launched on Letterboxd last last night?

This is truly one of the richest texts we have ever seen.

It's like a dumb bullshit movie that

was a huge hit and has been a little memory halted.

No, no, if you mentioned this to a 25-year-old, they have no idea.

Yeah, they're like, huh?

My brain is firing on all synapses, and I'm just like, I will never run out of things to talk about in this episode.

Now, you replaced names in the poster, right?

So instead of John Travolta's smile, you said David Sims' smile.

But yes, the poster says, yes, John Travolta's smile.

I don't know where he got that since John Travolta ain't his daddy.

Thank you.

Which this poster is misrepresenting.

Right.

And then it says he needs to find himself the perfect daddy, which is kind of the central conflict.

Right.

But like, if you want reading the poster, you're like, well, what's wrong with Travolta?

Jesus, the guy's had a few bombs, but do we need to be dragging him on his own movie poster?

It's also a wild choice that obviously the poster is just big old Mikey head, right?

Chewing on the title.

He's chewing on the title.

I think less.

I thought that's why the movie was a hit.

Oh, it definitely is.

Is the poster.

We're going to talk about it.

We're going to talk about it.

I should bring up the poster.

I have to say that.

Not just this image.

Everyone was like, he's talking?

Yeah.

I'm seeing.

It was, yes.

I'm buying.

People went, probably went to the window and were like, can I have one to the baby movie?

And they're like, it's not out for three months.

And they were like, well, I'll be here.

Like, I'll put some money down now.

Highest grossing films in North America of 1989 were in order.

Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,

Lethal Weapon 2.

Back to the Future Part 2.

In 1989?

Oh, yeah.

Well, maybe that's.

Did it come up to you?

Yeah, 1989.

No, Back to the Future Part 2.

And then Look Who's Talking.

Yeah.

Leak 1126th.

Look Who's Talking made three.

Wikipedia.

Wikipedia gave me false information, which this is the first time this has ever happened.

Once, as usual, maybe I'm looking at worldwide versus.

Worldwide, this movie was generally.

I saw on Wikipedia $300 million.

That's the biggest thing is like it was huge in the United States.

At the time of its release, I believe it was the single highest-grossing film worldwide in the history of Columbia Pictures.

Oh, wow.

And it was Travolta's biggest since Greece.

Yeah.

I mean, everything about, you cannot overstate how big this movie was.

It really was just the poster.

But also, like, I understand Travolta's star is dinged at this moment.

Kirstie Alley, at the time of this release, is on the biggest sitcom in the world.

Yeah, but that doesn't.

The poster

giant baby head.

The actors' names are not above the title.

They're just in the tagline.

They're just mentioning he's got John Travolta's smile.

Well, he doesn't.

Which means that they could be in the movie or maybe not.

They could just be naming the attributes that the baby has.

The movie goes out of its way actually, in fact, to say that he has George Siegel's eyes, not Kirstie Alley.

Does that make that clear?

That that's the one thing he got from Siegel.

Right.

He's got Siegel's eyes.

Right.

He does have Kirstie Alley's voice.

He does, in fact, have Bruce Willis's voice.

You could argue he has Kirstie Alley's smile.

I suppose so, but like it is also, that's the other thing that's busted about the poster where you're like, Kirsty Alley's voice is kind of what she's famous for.

Where they're like, oh, he's got Kirstie Alley's eyes.

I'm like, okay.

Yeah, but we know he has Bruce Willis's voice.

Anyway, the only thing that maybe could have made this movie gross more is if the poster was just Bruce Willis voices this, and there was an arrow pointing down to the baby with the sunglasses eating the title.

John Travolta's highest-grossing worldwide film of all time is Greece.

Now, obviously, that's one of those sort of box office turrets that's been bolstered by years and re-releases, but that's still humongous film.

Loku's talking is three.

What is his number two highest-grossing film worldwide in his entire career?

Wildhawks.

No, that is a low sixth.

I'm guessing because it's international tickets.

That's a very American film.

So it's not Bolt, and it's not

Battlefield.

It is Bolt.

It is Disney's Bolt.

And I think...

Which made $328 million worldwide.

What the fuck is that?

It was viewed as a disappointment.

At the time, it was something of a disappointment.

It's a movie.

It's kind of like...

It's a dog.

Yeah, it's like Toy Story, but if like the actor,

the dog who's in a movie was Bud Light.

You know, it's like a dog who plays like a last.

And what if John Schwolta was the dog?

No, what happened?

He's like a famous dog in movies.

So he thinks Galaxy Quest.

Magic.

Chris Sanders.

Yeah, it's a little like Galaxy.

He's a Galaxy Quest dog.

Chris Saunders, director of Lilo and Stitch, which is a huge hit for Disney, develops his like blank check follow-up project, which was called, I want to say, American Dog.

That was a very odd, interesting sounding film starring John Travolta and Thomas Hayden Church.

And it's an adaptation of American Beauty, but about dogs.

Totally.

Hayden Church is playing Minus Safari.

It was a weird road trip movie with anthropomorphic animals riding the rails that sound, it sounded really cool.

And Lasseter takes over Disney and immediately is like, this is too weird, fires him, and basically demands rewrites to make Bolt into what if Buzz Lightyear was a dog.

Right.

Like, the dog is so good in the movie.

He thinks he's that good.

Super weird.

He's the star of a like dog actor.

I saw it on a plane.

I remember it being service.

One of the most wildly okay movies ever made.

And the kid is like Miley Cyrus.

Correct.

Susie Esmond plays a snarky cat.

She's good, and the cat is exactly the same as Jesse from Toy Story 2.

She's angry because she was abandoned by her owner.

I said the Wild Hogs was his sixth highest.

I'm really, it's going to, I'm going to say it's his fifth highest because they're putting Austin Powers in gold member here.

Obviously, he's very funny.

And that's a John Travolta movie.

We all know that.

He's a gold member.

Where is hairspray?

Is hairspray four?

Hairspray is...

So he goes, Grease Bolt.

Look who's talking.

Saturday Night Fever is fourth.

Wild Hogs is fifth.

Face Off is sixth.

Pope Fiction is seventh.

And his eighth movie to gross more than 200 worldwide is Hairspray.

Did Hairspray fucking collapse overseas?

It didn't do great overseas.

Again, that's wild.

It's not wild.

That's a very American movie.

It's not American race.

You do not know what's going on.

He's got good fucking songs.

Good morning, Bonty Morning.

Yeah, I'm like,

although the hairspray was.

He doesn't sing that song.

I know, I'm just singing it.

Trollta.

Nikki Blonsky from the movie Hairspray Sing.

It's apocalyptically bad in that movie.

Trollta is the only problem in that movie.

I agree.

It's a disastrous.

I think that movie is like a 9.8 out of 10.

And then it has one radioactive performance.

He's really bad.

Yeah.

Michelle Pfeiffer's really good in that movie too.

Do you know who's good in that movie?

Everyone.

Everyone else.

Everyone in that movie is good.

Rules in it.

Latifah rules.

Pfeiffer rules.

Walking rules.

Marsden rules.

Nikki Blonsky rules.

You know, it's just, you look at the man's career.

He's got hits.

He's got hits in four different decades.

This is, look, this is a big movie to talk about Travolta's career.

This is, I'm going to say it again, one of the richest texts we've ever covered on this show.

Everything is like colliding in this movie.

How many Travoltas have we talked before?

I'm not counting Austin Power.

So we've covered Michael, the Nora Efron film.

Lucky Numbers.

Lucky Numbers, the Nora Efron film.

Basic.

Basic.

Wow, we've really done some bad Travoltas that

Travoltas.

That's a really good question.

Maybe not.

I'm not seeing anything.

That is good that we have covered.

I've seen plenty of movies that are good that we have not covered.

We have acknowledged several times my mother's description of Don Travolta.

He's so bovine.

I said that to my wife, and she could not stop laughing out of embarrassment.

By the way, people have misread that as a sort of size-shaming joke, assuming it was applied to late-period Travolta.

My mom would say that when I was watching Welcome Back Cotter reruns, when it was the most felt hunky version of Travolta.

And I'd say, what do you mean?

She goes, I think his face looks like the face of a cow.

I want to specify that her argument was he has a cow's face.

We also covered old dogs at a live show.

Of course.

So once again, we've covered Travolta's four best films.

Like the good films of Travoltas, we may cover someday.

I suppose we could do John Wu.

I doubt it.

Tarantino.

I don't know.

I do Tony Scott.

He did the Taking Pelum 123, one of his very, very normal, sane performances, grounded.

Death Shorty, we will almost definitely do

in some capacity.

Yes.

Do we have a Dominic Cena series lineup so we can do swordfish they just announced the 4k did you see that uh i'll be buying it yeah i will be buying you will have to hack onto the internet in order to buy your while getting a blowjob the scene in swordfish where it's like can you do this while getting a blowjob i'm like how is he

he's not getting hard while with a gun to his head more k's than you've ever seen i guess we could do sylvester stallone staying alive who directed he's been on bracket hillary that we're really going off uh tangent here yes well and you know what else we'll do we'll do terrence malak one day gosh darn it and he's in the thin red line for like two minutes because

because he was supposed to be in days of heaven correctness listen this is blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin david it's a podcast about filmographies directors who had just the kind of movie that really gets works the tangents on this episode i'm gonna call it i'm gonna point at the stands at the at the edge of the stadium this might be a hall of fame tangent episode just because of everything else this movie spins off into conversationally.

But this is a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they talk babies.

Hey, hey, it's the main series on the films of Amy Heckerling.

It is not called look who's podcasting now.

It is called Pod Times at Ridgeman Cast.

But I'm going to say, look who's podcasting.

It's us on this episode talking about Look Who's Talk.

Tag yourself.

Nailed it.

Yeah.

I'm Joan Rivers.

Right.

I'm John Trevolts of Smile.

Yeah.

Do you know Joan Rivers plays the girl baby in this movie?

You have to stick around for the end credits scene in order to see.

I did not know that.

Did you watch this film?

Yeah.

And did you see that bit, but you didn't recognize it was Joan, or had you already turned off your TV and left your home?

She does say her most famous.

It was that.

He was actually, it was raining.

His hands were in his pockets.

We are here to talk about Amy Heckerling's, I would assume, most successful financially film.

Yeah.

Look Who's Talking, a 1989 film about child rearing and

infidelity.

What else is this movie about?

Cab driving?

It's about a bunch of New Yorkers being like, hey, I'm so busy.

Get out of my way.

It's about how being a flight instructor is not a sustainable career.

How you can only give a Vigoda one bar of candy a day.

One bar.

It's about toupees.

Yeah, there's a little toupee sprinkled in there.

We were saying this right before we started recording.

For a movie that is only 35 years old.

36 years old.

Sure, 36 years old.

It's the same age as my brother.

This is one of the deadest modern casts we've ever covered in a way where I was just like, the opening crawl starts.

Look, I mean, it is like an in-memorium reality.

No one can expect Abe Vogodas to still be alive.

The man made it a long time.

He made it to like 95.

He did.

As did Olympia Dukakis, I think.

It said Siegel made it.

Olympia Dukakis made it to 89.

George Siegel made it to 87.

Okay.

Kirsty Alley, not so much.

Kirstie Alley made it.

Even Kirsty Alley, when she died, you were like, oh, man.

And she was 71 years old.

You're like, wow,

time has marched on.

I'm going to say too soon.

Of course it was too soon.

I don't want people to die.

Everyone should be alive.

I'm glad you got that.

Your stance out.

And of course, Bruce Willis has

retired from public life due to illness.

Now, Twink Kaplan, still going.

Twin Kaplan's still going.

But Joan Rivers also.

Joan Rivers.

Joan Rivers has died.

Twink Kaplan doesn't get solo card billing.

I think moves up to it in the sequels.

So you're saying that Twink Kaplan shouldn't be part of this conversation because she's on a split card.

Just saying.

In fact, she's a no-card in the opening credits, my friend.

I was just watching the film and seeing these great star names appear on solo cards over incredible special effects footage of sperm.

And I just kept being like, dead, dead, dead.

I'm just saying.

They all lived, most of the cast did at least live rich lives, which included making the film Look Who's Talking as part of the rich tapestry of their lives.

And the film Look Who's Talking 2, and indeed the film Look Who's Talking Now.

Are they all in now?

No.

Like, did Vagoda make it to now?

I think Travolta and Ali are the only ones that made it.

I think Twitch Kaplan's in all three.

I could see Trey Kaplan being like, yeah, sure, whatever.

I was like, I'll fucking do it.

Well, yeah.

Oh, look, I'm looking at Look Who's Talking Now.

Fucking George Siegel's in it.

Okay.

And here's someone else who's in Look Who's Talking.

And Vogoda?

Which we will be covering on our Patreon.

No A Pogoda.

Charles Barkley.

I did know that.

As himself?

Oh, is because Bark Like a Dog?

Oh, get out of here.

These people took five minutes making that movie.

If that's what they were thinking.

I just want to say, like, this is a film that spawned a franchise, a trilogy of films, but a two-season sitcom.

But a rapid franchise where the entire thing is contained within four years, 89 to 93.

It's the George H.W.

Bush era.

Nope.

The second movie came out a year after this.

They were were just like, go, go, go, go, go.

Those babies aren't getting any younger.

14 months in movies

are older.

Releases.

Right, right.

The sitcom has already ended by the time that now

is bombing in theaters.

Is that right?

What's bombing in theaters?

Now really.

Oh, look.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

We'll get to now.

Now, now shall be covered behind the paywall.

Now behind the paywall.

She's by whose son.

Of course, Amy Heckling did direct too, but we're here to direct, to discuss.

I'm here to direct you all all in the discussion of look who's talking i just wanted to it was a it was a an interesting stat that jumped out of my head amy heckerling has created three films that spawn tv shows so clueless of course had its spin-off show right with radio shows very successful there was a fast time show for one very ill-fated but jj pulled up in the dossier i did not know this out of seven episodes heckerling wrote and directed three now i'm like i need to watch the fast time i'm gonna watch it i'm gonna do it There's probably an I Never Could Be Your Woman, whatever that movie's called, like pitch at stars right now, right?

Someone's like, yeah, we could do that.

I'm just like, this woman did quietly spawn franchises, you know, talk about spawning in a quiet way.

What a segue.

This movie begins with spawning.

Hey, but who's our guest?

Have we introduced her?

Okay, Jesus.

The Hollywood editor at Fanny Fair.

She's a senior editor now, apparently.

Senior editor.

The Hollywood editor.

You've got that lodged in my head.

I can't believe that you guys are fucking this up.

I'm so upset.

But a more important credit that you said out loud, Hillary, while David was checking my notes here, late.

I was late, yes, because of a screening.

A woman

who can do it all.

Yes.

Yes.

Hillary Busis.

No.

That is what it says on my card.

I just want to call it.

Hillary.

Hillary Busis doing it all.

Ben, early, right?

Hillary, early or exactly on time?

You seem like you were right on time.

I'm exactly on time.

I'm punctual.

Okay.

I got here at 12.05 for a noon record.

Okay.

Are you seeing this are you watching i i have absolutely no patience for this you want me to do this in front of every episode griff i don't i i welcome the debate i just i'm building to something very specific here

okay yep i get here at 1205 you had done a coffee order i had placed a croissant i go oh where's the croissant you go i'm sorry i forgot it

you're like well david isn't here yet and he just texts us the train is rang slowly i was like you know what i'll go out go back out pick up the croissant i arrive two times before david arrives one time.

Then David arrives and immediately says, sorry, I'm late, although it's your fault, Hillary.

This is what I'm building up to.

Well,

you will immediately blame your lateness on me.

We have so much to talk about, but to explain what I meant by that, Hillary, I told Hillary I'm seeing together.

I was seeing a screening of the film together, which premiered at South by Southwest and was snapped up by Neon, I think, right?

They bought it.

So it's not coming out for a while, but they are, you know, I make taste.

So I guess they wanted me to taste make.

No, I don't know why they're showing it to me.

I told Hillary this and Hillary was like, oh, I didn't go.

I was going to go, but I didn't go because I didn't want to be late for your podcast.

And I was like, number one, being late for our podcast is a okay.

Yeah, it's kind of a segment.

Right.

Number two,

you know, we could have, right, we could have had the whole day together.

And then they

made my screening 10 minutes or 15 minutes late because they were waiting for someone to show up who never showed.

Godot, who I guess now works at the New Yorker or something.

But you just immediately jumped in.

And I just jumped you.

You made

Hillary, but Hillary actually had not.

Had not RSP.

It was not me.

I just want to say Hillary innocent.

Hillary innocent.

Maybe guilty.

MTA, as it always is, you know, mildly guilty, but they do their best.

And may I just add to some context?

The room does smell of

toasted ass croissants.

Inverted quality.

Now, I'm glad you brought this up and we're not moving on from this because

I'm not disagreeing with the charge, but I think your wording.

I'm pleading guilty.

No, I think the wording's a little wrong.

Your honor.

What's the word?

What's wrong with that?

I intentionally smoked a croissant.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Cajun style, you said.

Did you hit the Cajun style button on your toaster?

Halary, do you know that I'm a pit master?

It was a Creole croissant.

Correct.

Okay, let's get into it.

Here's my question.

It's not irrelevant.

I like the fruit woods.

That's what I tend to go towards rather than the nuttier ones.

Is it indisputable, and then we can talk about look who's talking, that John Travolta's last sort of meaningful role was Robert Shapiro in American Crime Story, because obviously, like after that, there is Gotti, but we're not counting Gotti, are we?

We're not counting the family.

I'm going to say that his last significant role was mispronouncing Adina Manzel's name, but that was before.

Was that before?

American Crime Story.

Yeah,

well, because president is 2012.

Yeah, 2013.

That was certainly whatever.

Yeah, that was his biggest cultural moment of the last 10 years.

But I agree.

And you know what?

I thought he was so fucking good in the People versus Ocean.

He's great.

Everyone is locked in in that, and it's a cast of lunatics.

And I was like, this is a weird casting choice, but he's taking big swings and supporting role and whatever.

And I was just like, this is going to open up new corridors if he doesn't feel the need to be like.

And now 10 years has passed.

He's not done interesting shit.

Well, he's just like been a bald guy in a red box action movie for 10 years.

Did you read the log line for That's Amore, which is the movie that he has been?

We're all excited for the Green Book guys, That's Amore.

But a movie that has been shut down, that is like only half filmed and is the like censor.

Isn't his last name in it, Amare?

Yes.

That's Amore.

And it's amusing.

That's amazing.

I'm sorry.

It's Patty Amore.

He falls in love with

Catherine Michael.

Played by Catherine Amore.

Written and directed by the son of the man that Green Book was based on.

It's Nick Val Longa, Academy Award, two-time Academy Award winner, Nick Val Longa.

Yes.

Who loves to write movies like Thatsamore and tweet like, you know, whatever, Bush did 9-11 or whatever.

But there were like four different controversies around that samore and it might never be finished.

Right.

Like Rust got finished, but that samore is not finished.

They stopped filming two years ago and have never resumed.

It's just, we're going to do a lot of Travolta career context here.

I'm just going to talk for a sec.

And I'm sure you guys had the same experience I did.

Maybe not, but I, you know, I look, I fire up this movie last night.

I have to watch it.

It's been a long week for me.

But hey, 96 minutes of babies talking, how bad could this be?

Sure, America fell for it.

Why weren't you?

One second into the movie, I'm like, well, this isn't what I thought the movie was because the movie begins.

Well, I guess the sperm, I was like, sure, sperm.

Sperm is the thing that I remember.

That I sort of knew about, but no, but Kirsty Alley having an affair with George Siegel, I was just like, well, I didn't know about this.

I didn't know that.

I thought the movie was, she and Travolta have a baby.

I thought it was that simple.

Yeah.

Now, I did, I think, know that, yes, this was not going to be a baby geniuses style mouth replacement, the baby actually talks movie, which I think.

Except that there's a lot of scenes in the end of the movie where the baby's mouth is moving.

Slapping his mouth.

Pin and that.

Pin in that.

It is a little

disconcerting.

Yes.

There's some interesting techniques.

But then it's sort of a Garfield-style.

That's how I describe it.

Which, of course, he does have a Garfield in his crib, and Hillary, you and I are going to discuss his crib.

The baby safety in this movie.

I mean, you would be sent to jail.

It's an interior monologue that only the audience can hear.

Right.

And it's mostly him going, like, hey, who's this lady over here?

She's got a bottle.

Hey, let me add it.

You know, it's basically just that.

I didn't know those came in jumbo size.

Re a pair of breasts.

That's what Mike used to do.

And he doesn't even breastfeed.

Why does he say much when he looks at the boobs?

No, we know, in fact, that she puts breast milk in a bottle.

She's not a broken breast.

She pumps.

She openly pumps.

She's glad she's a working mom.

She's a bumper, Jerry.

I'm glad that Seinfeld didn't do a breast milk episode.

She's a bumper.

She's a bumper.

And as the movie goes on, I, right, I'm like, wait, didn't Amy Hackerling, there's a whole thing with her.

where her kid found out that, you know, the dad she thought was her dad is actually not her dad and and her dad was Harry Rollins.

Can we just zoom out and say this really quickly?

Right.

And then I Google it and I'm like, oh, that's what this movie is about.

I forgot, you know, like I put it all together.

And America in 1989 was just like one ticket, please, to all of that.

What's so absurd about that?

And the part that really leaps out to me is that Kirstie Alley's character is named Molly.

Amy Heckerling and Harold Ramis' illegitimate daughter is named Molly.

Can I just zoom out on this for a second and just lay this out very cleanly, right?

Amy Heckerling marries Neil Israel, who then becomes, or at this point already has created the Police Academy franchise.

So he'd already done America a solid.

Yes.

Yes.

And he wrote Look Who's Talking 2 with Amy Heckerling.

Yes.

Not Look Who's Talking 1, though.

I think has a producer credit on this?

Possibly.

Nope.

No?

Okay.

But they are divorced by the time the second Look Who's Talking comes out.

They divorced in 1990.

Right.

And this film came out in 1989.

Their divorce happens in between these two films being released 14 months apart.

Okay.

They are married.

They have a child.

I'm doing a very quick synopsis here just so we can later unpack this more.

She married Israel in not the country, the guy, in 1984.

She had her daughter, Molly, in 1985.

This is a great comeback movie in the lineage of what we talk about, where she was basically coming off of two things that didn't help her career and was like, I need a movie that's a can't-miss hit to become something that fits fits me undeniably for hillary johnny dangerously which was basically it's sort of like a mild flop passion project

and then european vacation which i think monetarily did okay but nobody was happy with it is this kind of it was almost a uh it ends with us situation where it was like this movie was a hit enough to justify a sequel and yet everyone hated this one the prerogative on vacation three is fix it her and chevy like fight incessantly like everything about about it's a problem.

She has a miserable experience.

People don't like the movie.

It's a success almost in spite of her.

And she's like, I need something to get my agency back.

Her and Neil Israel have a bit of looking at their daughter and doing voices of what they think her interior monologue is.

Very relatable.

Right.

Doing this bit together.

Her and her comedy writer husband.

To be clear, though, when Amy Heckling says it, I'm like, no, every parent does that, Amy.

You're not original.

But she thinks about it.

What is original?

What is this movie?

Is just being the first person to go, like, that's a fucking movie poster.

But that's not what she did.

Secretly, what she did was, I'm going to fucking get one over on Ramos.

This is what's crazy about this movie, okay?

Because I make a character base on him.

Do you know anybody?

He's a disgusting man.

This is the subtext of everything that I just said.

The child that Neil Israel thought was his own was actually the byproduct of a years-long affair that she had had with Harold Ramis.

Is that true?

Like that he thought it was his kid?

I believe so.

Okay, I didn't know that far.

Perhaps that ultimately led.

She certainly was raised by him and was like that's my dad i know that you know she certainly doesn't know that harold ramus is her father until she's the grown-up right yeah uh i perhaps it's the cause of their divorce i don't know we'll dig into the dossier but they are raising the child that is secretly harold ramus's child while she's pregnant he's like i'm going to leave my wife the plot of this movie is what harold ramus did he was like i'm going to leave my wife i know i've knocked you up i'm going to do it and then he ended up with a third the only difference is that she wasn't a single mother at that moment that she was married to another man and they were like we're both gonna leave our spouses and then ramus instead falls for someone else and ramus is her secret father which she doesn't know for like 20 years so there's this incredible like synthesis of amy heckerling being like this is a blockbuster movie idea just what a simple hook the baby talks and also was like my my stature is kind of dinged i could maybe get a huge movie star to do two days of voiceover and sell the movie on that in a way i'm not going to get a huge movie star to agree to be the star on set every day.

So that's part of the calculation.

But really, this movie is her grinding her fucking ax about the Ramus thing.

I'm like, what a W for her that she gets to do that and have a giant smash hit that like, you know, rebounds her career.

It is like it, it's like a Taylor Swift song.

And then her fucked husband co-writes the sequel.

Yeah.

Well, he's going to get some residuals.

But beyond that, my main man, John Travolta, being like, can I hit your eyes in this weird train?

And he also revives his career.

Sort of.

He revives his career in 1994.

Well, but it's the weird thing with Travolta Reese had so many comebacks.

Yes.

And this is a comeback, but it's right.

It doesn't make him cool.

He's financially successful.

Yes.

It makes him famous again.

This has always been my contention is that like people like to say Travolta was saved from the wilderness by Tarantino.

Like no one had thought of Travolta in 15 years.

And I'm like, I think it is closer.

to pre-McConnaissance Matthew McConaughey.

Right.

Where it's like he's still in the mix.

He makes fun family movies.

Series of rom-coms that were big hits that were not respected.

And I think more than anything, the industry was like, we thought this guy was going to be a serious movie star, and now he's kind of a lightweight.

He is bankable.

And then there's even the arc of like, look who's talking is huge.

The movie, like, he doesn't do anything with it.

He makes two more Look Who's Talkings and like three other bad movies.

He really only makes one other bad movie, which is called Shout.

White Man's Burden is shot before Pulp Fiction, but comes out after.

Very normal movie.

but look who's talking now is one year before pole fiction like he has this arc of like is travolta back as bankable even if not legitimate that within four years

who's talking now is the kind of movie that you make where you're like fine i'll i'll be the heroin addict in that weird guy's fucking script i guess right okay yeah that like i whereas like you know whoever tarotino was thinking of apart from travolta who's like i'm not touching this thing it's too vile and the franchise has like rotted so quickly travolta's like i'm talking to a dog.

I'm fine.

Yeah.

Sure.

I have to talk about it.

I don't think that he talks to the dog, but the dog talks near him.

We'll find out what happens.

That was like the first movie I saw in movie theaters.

Is look who's talking now?

One of Hillary.

I was born in 1988, so I am at the same age as

Mikey Bruce Willis.

David, yes.

This episode is brought to you, The Listener by Mobie, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe.

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The glove-to-hand pick.

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of course.

David Mussolini, Poland, son of the century.

It is,

look,

it's an exciting project, but it's really funny to be like, guys, Mussolini!

Here's what's funny about it.

Just to peel back the curtain for a second.

We get like messages that are like, hey, you guys good with this ad?

Yeah, here's the copy for the ad.

And as shorthand, it was texted to us as, you guys good with the Mussolini ad?

And I was like, Mussolini sponsoring the podcast?

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And I will say, not to sound like a, you know, a little nerd over here, but it is actually very interesting to consider Mussolini's rise to power in in these times.

You know, he was sort of the original fascist, and the way that he sees power in Italy is

unfortunately something we should probably have on our minds right now.

I'm not trying to be a loser right now.

He's not like me right now.

This is the kind of thing I say.

It's a very interesting part of history and I feel like because, you know, other World War II things became

whatever, the history channel's favorite thing, you don't hear quite as much about Mussolini's risk to the power.

Yes, no, you're right, unfortunately, sadly, tragically, frighteningly.

He's he's not a hugely this is a hyper relevant time and this is a theatrical hyper visual tour deforest starring luca marinelli martin eaten himself remember that beloved member of the old guard that's right a movie i love uh episode that people considered normal

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Usually it's kind of like, eh, shorts, they, you know,

critics are raving words.

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remarkable the telegraph a complex portrait of evil financial times yeah no i i it's uh joe wright uh one of the one of the scarier people i ever interviewed i've told you that story right

he was he was he knows he's kind of a cool guy also that's we've batted him already he's certainly gotten interesting he's very interesting he's very interesting and he's made some great movies and he's made some like big swings that didn't totally connect totally that's really interesting he actually is a blank check filmmaker unlike a lot of some people i get suggested you're like sure it doesn't fit the model This one does.

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You can watch Mussolini or you can watch non-Mussolini things.

Yeah, they got lots of movies.

I got a lot of things.

Bye.

David.

Okay, okay.

I'll be very quiet.

Oh, I'm used to it.

Producer Ben is sleeping.

Oh,

Hazzy, Hazzy boy is

Hazzy.

Getting some

multiple dashes.

What's he sleeping on?

He's sleeping on one of the new beds we got from Wayfair for the studio for our podcast naps.

But this is a big opportunity for us.

We get to do the first ad read for Wayfair on this podcast.

No, No, no, Griffin, you're clearly not listening to past recordings.

Ben did a Wayfair ad for us recently.

You listen to past recordings?

Yeah, sometimes.

That's psycho behavior.

It is.

Look.

He did that when we were sleeping?

Look, apparently we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day,

you might not think Wayfair, but you should.

Because Wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day finds.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Absolutely.

And just try to, David, just, if you could please maintain that slightly quiet, We don't have to go full whisper.

I just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

I mostly just think of Wayfair as a website where you can get basically anything.

Yeah, of course.

But Wayfair is also the ideal place to get game day essentials, bigger selection, created collections, options for every budget slash price point.

You want to make like a sort of man cake style?

Okay, fine.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry.

You know, Wayfair

stuff gets delivered really fast, hassle free.

The delivery is free.

For game day specifically, Griffin, you can think about things like recliners and TV stands, sure.

Or outdoor stuff like coolers and grills and patio heaters.

Like, that's, you know, that's all in the winter months.

David, you have like basically a football team worth of family at home.

You got a whole team to cheer up.

This is true.

You need cribs.

Your place must be lousy with cribs.

I do have fainting beds.

I have cribs.

Sconces?

Chaise lounges?

I'm low on sconces.

Maybe it's time to pick up a few.

That's the kind of thing that would make your home team cheer.

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David, there's only one shame to this ad read.

Don't wake Hazy.

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that I didn't find out about this in time before I already purchased coolers, grills, folding chairs, patio heaters, recliners, barware, slow cookers, sports-themed decor merch for my favorite teams, and more.

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Cleveland Browns, of course, Fonte Mac, no matter what.

Okay, that's the end of the ad read.

Hillary, let's let's do a little Look Who's Talking history cataloging.

I would love that.

Okay, so now is the first movie you see in theaters.

It's one of the first.

The first movie I saw in theaters was the re-release of 101 Dalmatians, which was like that same year.

Mine was Jungle Book.

This is a thing we've talked about that culturally is gone.

And I think Annie.

For many generations, the first movie a kid would see in theaters was a re-release of an old movie.

100%.

I went to that Jungle Book.

I think I went to that 101.

It was, of course, it was like, what else are you going to do?

And if you were a parent, you were like, there's going to be like three of them this year.

Yeah, well, there'll be three wide-release Disney like reissues.

Yeah.

Mine was famously John Houston's Annie.

It's the first film I saw in theaters, a re-release of that.

I was going to say.

Weird movie.

When you saw now in theaters, am I correct in assuming that you had not seen the first two?

That this was just your parents being like a talking dog movie for Hillary.

I mean, I think it's like, yeah, there are three children and we have to do something with them.

We will take them.

Right.

Dog talks because Milo and Otis were hanging around somewhere.

Homeward Bound was a big, big touchdown.

If an animal talks, a child is there in the early 90s.

Which is funny because this is not a children's movie.

Look who's talking.

This is not.

My guess is that now has a more PG flavor.

Like, right?

Like they probably.

If I can sidebar here quickly, I, to my great surprise last night, realized that I have never seen this movie.

Oh, I think that's true.

I knew I had never seen this movie.

The reason I find that surprising is in my like parents' very overprotective media control as a child, we had the Disney Channel, and this was an era before Disney Channel had much original programming, certainly didn't have original

reruns of shit.

And they were just like Nickelodeon's too cynical and too dark.

Like there were all these things that they banned that were for kids.

And they were like, anything that's on the Disney Channel, we assume is safe.

And Disney Channel had this weird rotation of like left-handed, less-like sequels and flops.

that that they would air all the time that I would see so often where like I have seen I think both Look Who's Talking Now and Look Who's Talking To 15 times, but have not seen them in 30 years.

And but you have never seen this one because this one probably

I had also seen.

But also, the Disney channel couldn't probably afford this one.

But Look Who's Talking To.

I remember on like my 11th or 12th viewing, my mom walking in and being like, This is not appropriate for you.

Like clocking, like this one's weird.

Yeah, sounds like your mom's head was really on a swivel.

Yeah.

The 12th rewatch.

She's like, Wait a sec.

By now, it is like, in my memory, absolute kiddie shit.

It's like, yes, yeah.

And two is the midpoint, but two has...

Well, but two has a lot of like poop jokes, right?

Like, two is a little more juvenile.

Two, I remember has crackpipe shit, which was.

Well, hey,

it was 1990.

It was in the news.

Yeah, right.

But yes, it's more.

But it's like when my mom watched me, walked in on me playing GoldenEye 007 on my Nintendo 64 and was like, Are you looking through the eyes of a man holding a gun who's shooting people?

And I was like, I'm James Bond.

Let's get alone.

I was was at a GameStop, and there was a mother with two children, like a teen girl and a younger boy, probably like eight or nine, right?

And the girl wanted to buy something.

And the boy was like on his absolute best behavior, being a little polite gentleman, being like, Mother, could I perhaps bother you?

It would mean so much to me if you bought me one game.

I'd love to play a game.

And he hands the game to her.

And she's like, it's used.

How much?

It's almost $20.

Sure.

Fine.

And then the teen daughter walks up and is like, are you really going to let him play a game that's all all sex

and drug dealing and guns?

And the mom turns around and is like, Timothy, you get right over and goes ballistic and then calls over the GameStop employee.

And it was Grand Theft Auto V.

Yeah, wow.

That girl must have felt so proud of herself.

And she was.

How old was the kid?

The kid was like eight or nine.

And he was

a little awesome.

He was like, Mother, it's a driving game.

Yeah, I will be following the rules.

Yes, some break the rules within Grand Theft Auto.

David, this kid made that exact argument and one

can do it.

Over.

Good for for him.

That was incredible.

Good job, Kiss.

He was a twist.

I would never even go to the sex stuff.

And she's like, in that case, I will buy you the game.

But if I walk in and there's sex stuff happening.

Yes, that's what it felt like.

Okay, so do you remember when you saw the first two or did you ever?

I mean, that's the question.

I remember having seen this movie.

Most of what I remember, again, is the opening in my.

Which two opens the same way.

So when it started, I was like,

maybe

that's what I'm thinking of.

Maybe I've seen two and I assumed it was one.

I also, I'm mentally linked to my sperm.

So whenever I put it anywhere, I can see it swimming.

So it's a very normal image for me.

I was under the impression at the beginning that that sequence was like real footage of the inside.

Oh, like as a kid, you're like, no, it got like a medical camera.

Right.

It's a pretty good effect.

And realizing that it was like a puppet was a big disillusioning.

I think the effects are amazing, except sometimes the puppet is no good.

You know, like sometimes it's fine and they're kind of obscuring him.

I like how weird the puppet looks.

Me too.

I like all of them.

It's true that an actual human fetus does look insane.

Yeah.

That's right.

I mean, exactly.

Don't worry about real.

They look weird.

And my memory too has even more puppet that's

like reels the clock and is like, we're not going to start with the daughter being born.

Right.

Sure.

Right.

We're going to slow this back.

We're going to show conception because that's what you came here to see.

It looks let's say it is a good ending gag to have them kiss and then cut to the sperm again.

It's a great ending gag.

John Travolta is that Vera.

Immediately.

It's a great callback.

Yeah, of course Travolta's fucking oozing tea in this movie.

I run

very hot and cold on Travolta.

I'm run.

I'm realizing hot, hot, hot.

I think this is both such a good movie star performance from him and such a great example of what I would call a movie star movie, where you're like, it is so much the two of them and their charisma and their chemistry in a way that sells a ton of shit that makes zero fucking sense.

And in so many ways, I'm like, that is the ultimate power of a movie star.

Not like, you do a good job in Killers of the Flower Moon because you have a well-developed relationship with Martin Scorsese.

Like, that's good acting from a movie star.

Movie star shit is just like nonsense that you will through charm and energy into like

when he abducts the baby and takes it to the airplane hangar.

She should have him holding it.

She could have just left him.

Why is he even known?

Took your baby out to hang her.

Check out some tits.

Beyond the fact that she doesn't have him arrested, there are 20 moments in this movie where the actions of the John Travolta character should cause the entire audience to stand up and demand a citizen's arrest.

And yet, and you're like, I get why you'd want this guy hanging around.

It's pretty fun.

I'm going to open the dossier, actually.

Okay, so Amy Heckerling's two films are very, as we said before, this were very difficult experiences for her.

European Vacation, especially was such a train wreck.

And working with Chevy Chase, who in every other project I've heard is a really stand-up normal gentleman, but apparently in that one, there was a little tension, right?

You know, it had broken her dang brain.

I like some of the quotes that JJ included: where I'm not going to get into it, but I had difficulties with certain cast members.

And I'm like, oh, yes, Beverly DiAngelo, notoriously difficult.

Whereas everyone who's ever worked with Chevy Chase immediately walks off set and into inpatient treatment

and debates whether they want to work ever again.

Oh my God.

Is there one story in history?

We'll talk about this on that episode where it's like someone's like, I really had a, I really, he's a stand-up guy, you know, and he always called me like when my, you know, kids got married or like, you know, it's like some nice story about Jeffy Chase.

I genuinely never heard anything like that.

I think there are people who like tolerated him well.

And I think like even Dan Harmon would be like, there were moments where he could be so so kind and generous that were confusing.

Like the people who complain about him the most will sometimes give him.

And yet two times I saw him do something weirdly nice.

No one has ever been like, yeah, we get on like a dream.

Paramount offers her a film called The Woofie Boys, which was going to team the writers of Revenge of the Nerds with the comedy duo of Michael O'Keefe, Academy Award nominee, and Paul Rodriguez.

Not Academy Award nominee.

No.

She doesn't make that film.

It doesn't work out.

It did come out, I think, and it was a flop.

But it's a Dark Knight of the Soul moment where she's like, these are the things I'm getting offered.

And she has made this real like career choice of post-fast times.

I don't want to get pigeonholed into the female coming of age teen sex comedy.

And nonetheless, of course, she does develop the Fast Times television show for CBS.

And that is the first time that she writes since her student film days.

So I guess it does get those juices flown a little bit.

She said she liked working on the show, despite the show not being a success.

But I do have to imagine there some degree with her of like she makes this johnny dangerously choice i'm gonna zag i'm gonna do something to branch out and like uh avoid the type casting she has a baby from the industry she starts doing the bit with with what's this pain i i was just gonna say though while johnny dangerously bombs and european vacation is disliked she's watching the entire like teen sex comedy explosion which she's opted out of.

Like, I'm sure a bunch of these scripts that she rejected are now huge hits.

There's nothing that's as huge, though.

Like, what's a movie from the 80s that she would be like, I wish I made that?

Like, they all suck.

I, I, I do, they suck.

I disagree with them all sucking.

Well, which one's good?

But I think more so.

Wait, like, like, all the John Hughes's, you say so?

David dislikes John Hughes.

Well, I, I actually, no, I actually wasn't thinking of those as sex comedies.

So those aren't sex comedies.

Then let's remove sex comedy.

I'm thinking of 18 movies, yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

I might, yeah, I mean, right.

I mean, sure.

But John Hughes is an auteur, obviously, in his own right.

I think that's the bigger thing is that, like, she's probably looking at what happened with John Hughes and

directed a John Hughes script, European Vacation.

I know, which she didn't enjoy.

Right.

But it's like, should I have been doing something like this and crafting my brand in a way that is consistent with the movie?

I don't think so.

Because what she says is she starts doing baby voice with her husband and their new baby.

And she's like, this is a movie.

But she has the thought of like.

I can see how this would be a hit, but I kind of want to do like Mean Streets.

I don't want to do a cute family movie.

It's one of those things where she's like,

I'm a new mother.

This is the idea I had.

I think I should pursue it.

But there's a side of her that's like, that's not cool.

Like, that's not, you know, it's probably like, I don't want to do the whoopie boys and I don't want to do talking baby, but talking baby, it is.

Look, it is a big thing.

And I think it was more so in this era still than it is now.

But there is a sometimes under discussed distance.

between things that are successful and things that are respected by the people who green light movies, Where, as much as people are crass and like, we want to make hits, there is that kind of thing of like, there's the kind of hit that everyone in the industry looks down on, which she has to know, like, even the best case scenario of the talking baby movie, I will be the person who made the talking baby movie.

The critics awards will not be flowing in for talking baby movies.

And they're probably going to offer me like other talking blank movies if this is successful.

Although, what is so wild about that, too, is you kind of, the talking baby part lifts right out.

You really don't need it.

You You don't need it.

What is really fascinating is that it's maybe like 10% of what this movie is doing.

It's yeah, like you said, originally

two days, maybe.

Like, I feel like it could have been like a couple hours.

Yeah, very little.

They actually just mic'd a dinner that he had.

It was actually, he didn't even have a script.

They were just waitress walked over.

It was like, oh, those come in jumbo size.

Well, no, it's because lunch.

Yeah.

It was how they did the kid in monsters thing.

They just followed him around with like a boom mic.

Into the toilet.

Yeah.

The film was originally called daddy's home now that would not have been successful no no especially not if it's the same post i truly as we were saying before like 50 of the box office is just the big baby head and look who's talking is the title in a very honey i shrunk the kids way where you're like you've told me everything i need to know in one image to speak to what hillary just said Heckerling thinks no studio is going to really be that interested in a movie about a woman having a baby and all her issues.

Nobody's going to care.

But if you make it about a boy baby who's voiced by Bruce Willis, even if that's not that crucial, yes, that is kind of what she is doing.

That's what I love about this movie.

She's Trojan horsing in a little shiv to old Ramus as well.

You know, it's like such a weirdly personal movie, but beyond that, you're also just like, there aren't even impersonal versions of this movie being made at this point.

Like, who's making a movie, like a broad studio comedy that is like trying to deal with, in some degree of emotional realism, the struggles of a single working mother in a big city.

Now, with Ramos, the only thing that's a little different is

that it's not like he had a fling with a third woman.

The third woman he ends up with is Erica Mann, who is then his wife for the rest of his life.

So, who knows what happened there, like in terms of who was the most in love with who during this messy age

competition.

So, the parentage of Molly was a secret until 1999.

Ramos told his daughter Violet that she had a half-sister.

When Molly was born, Ramos took Violet to the delivery.

She wrote about this in her memoirs.

There's an excerpt.

Her book is very good.

Right.

Yes.

And then there's a big excerpt from it.

But so it basically doesn't go public until the memoir.

Is that correct?

Right.

Molly does not learn this herself until years later.

A meeting is arranged when she's 18 years old with her and Ramos.

But Violet.

However, if you see Waku's talking, yes, there are subtle allusions to this situation in the text of the film.

If you squint, you see,

exactly.

Martin Brest, this is the great quote, who is Amy Heckerling's ex-boyfriend, ex-ex-ex-boyfriend.

You know, they did it back in the film stool days, calls her up and says, it's the most profitable private joke ever.

I mean, that is what is like incredible about this film.

Apparently, Amy Heckerling would handwrite her scripts.

Yeah.

What a psycho.

That was serial killer behavior.

There was a really good New York Times piece about her like 10 years ago, I want to say, as sort of like the forgotten queen of the comedy who still lives in New York City in the Upper West Side with her mother and stays up until five o'clock in the morning drinking coffee and handwriting scripts.

And it was sort of framed as like, why is no one greenlighting Amy Heckling things anymore?

Oh, did they say vamps or?

I think it was post-vamps.

Warner Brothers, Disney, and Orion all passed, but TriStar

is interested.

They think the script needs some work.

They work on the script.

I don't know.

Who cares?

Who cares?

It doesn't seem like anything.

It's not like fucking, you know,

I'm just surprised.

Be like the final version and be like, the baby doesn't even talk that much.

But this is what I think is so fascinating is this is still an era of movie marketing where you can trick people into going to see a movie, giving them an incomplete picture.

And if they still end up liking what they see, they won't take to the internet and like burn the world down because the internet also doesn't fucking exist.

Like the trick is get them in the theater with the talking baby thing.

Hope that the grown-up drama works enough that they're not angry.

Jonathan D.

Crane, a producer of many Blake Edwards films, but also John Travolta's agent, gets to be the producer of this movie.

Because he, whatever, he's interested.

And I guess he has some comic talent.

The budget is just $8 million, $4 million of which went to Travolta and Alley and stuff.

So this is a pretty cheap movie.

$8 million movie that made 300 million worldwide.

Yes.

But basically, Crane is like, I can give you Travolta.

Great.

And I can keep the budget low.

Does he rep Alley as well?

I don't think so.

Both of them are Scientologists pinning that.

Yes.

He does.

move the production to Vancouver.

I'm sure you noticed, guys, that this film, despite being said in New York, does not have that New York-y, you know, vibe.

But there are a lot of people yelling in like outer borough activities.

True, Hong Kong, beep, beep.

But like, you you know i kept trying like squinting me like what street is this and then i realized like oh this just wasn't it's vancouver street yes right anytime new york is specifically non-specific i'm like this smells like vancouver to me heckerling when she realizes that travolta is interested kind of rewrites it a little bit my guess is kind of gives it a little more of a vinnie barberino spin i mean she does right sure and she throws in a couple dancing things because she likes him dancing who doesn't kirsty alley uh had broken out pretty recently in cheers because she joins cheers in 87 So like it's only a couple years into her Cheers run.

And what year is Search for Spock?

Or no, she's in Wrath of Conscience.

She's in Wrath of Conscience.

Which is 82.

Okay.

And obviously she rocks in that.

Now,

in a 2012 interview, Allie described Travolta as the greatest love of her life.

Okay.

She was married when she made this movie to Parker Stevenson.

But she, quote, said, believe me, it took everything I had inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John and be with John for the rest of my life.

It would have been very look who's talking.

It would have been very look who's talking about it.

It would have been very a lot of things that happened.

Is he already married to Kelly Preston?

I don't know, but I'm just going to offer this quote

and the audience can make of it what they wish.

One of the ways Travolta charmed Allie during their first on-screen kiss, Travolta kept breaking out into a Barbara Streisand impression singing, Papa, can you hear me from Yentel?

Mikey the Baby was played by four different babies.

Great.

Don Travolta marries Kelly Preston in 1991.

Wow.

Okay.

So he was available.

So he was on the market.

Bruce Willis got a percentage of the box office for his role.

He probably made an estimated about $10 million for this movie.

Incredible.

We showed him this footage of babies and he said, okay, I get it.

Yeah, I'm sure he did.

I don't know what else he got.

$10 million.

But I think he improv some stuff.

You know, he had fun.

It definitely feels like

a guy who thinks he's funny, but isn't a comedian being like, Amy, let me just riff one.

Olympia Dukakis had just won an Oscar for Moonstruck and is in this role as the lady.

Playing the same role.

She's good at that.

Well, you're going to find the man.

Yeah, Kirsi Allu's sister Cher does not show up, but

we wouldn't be surprised to see him.

And

the visual effects are done by Todd Masters, who works later on Tales from the Crypt and Adam's Family Values.

And the sperm was vinyl sperm and little fishing weights, and they dumped it in a tank and they had an underwater camera.

Man, it's fascinating.

Heckerling was concerned that the film would come off a little pro-life, right?

You know, a little too.

There's always a problem with any pregnancy movies.

A problem with Knocked Up.

It's a problem with Juno, where it's like

a character can't have an abortion because they don't know.

It's a single word in this movie,

which felt pretty progressive for 1989.

Yes, although it's mostly Stiegel being like, oh, I wouldn't want you to do that.

I also.

Look at my marble desk.

How the fuck did that thing get moved in there?

I think there are absolute logic apps in this movie that you could pick apart for.

It makes sense that she wants to have a baby.

I was going to say, I think by the end of the film, you completely get her decision because there is this part of her that thinks like Siegel will eventually come back around.

Like that she thinks having the baby will ultimately win him over, that she clearly never wants to extinguish her flame for him.

Well, nobody had written He's Just Not That Into You Yet.

Exactly.

It wouldn't come for 20 years.

Yes.

It took Greg Barrent to solve that one.

The film was shot while TriStar was being purchased by Sony.

Sony was afraid to even release this movie.

They considered Travolta box off as poison.

Heckerling also thinks that, like, whatever, they, you know, were sexist.

I, you know, like, just kind of like, but the film tested so well

that it got a wide release.

There was also a plagiarism lawsuit.

Brought by a baby?

It's just something of like, hey, you had a meeting with me about my movie, which was called Special Delivery.

Settled amicably.

I don't know.

Like, it's just one of those things where I feel like the studio.

You can only write from one movie about a woman.

There's only one story that a woman can tell.

But I want to just do this quickly.

Okay.

Sean Travolta.

Basically, like small supporting part in horror film Devil's Reign.

Then Carrie.

Then Saturday Night Fever.

He's one of the youngest people ever nominated for best actor.

Then Grease.

Then it's like immediately, moment by moment.

Okay.

Then he has like Urban Cowboy blowout.

Staying alive, which is...

Well, it's a flop, but he's good.

Blow it to flop, but he's great in it, right?

Staying alive, which is

sort of like a point of mockery.

And then immediately the run after that is so fucking bad.

Like you've gone from like, obviously all of this, Welcome Back Cotter.

is happening right he has his like sort of tv idol dumb but he stops doing welcome back Cotter in the 70s.

Yes.

Right.

So Welcome Back Cotter, that movie run.

And then it's like two of a kind, his other movie with Olivia Newton-John.

Very bad.

Perfect.

The Jazzer size movie with Jamie Lee Curtis.

The experts.

I don't know that one.

I mean, just look at the poster.

He's going,

it's him and Air Gross.

The big two.

Two NYC guys get jobs starting a nightclub in small town USA.

They don't know it's a spy training model town

in the USSR.

That film has Kelly Preston in it.

So my guess is where they met.

That's where they met.

That's right.

Right.

Chain of gold.

Chains of gold, which I've never heard of.

Just like ACT.

That's a TV movie.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Experts is the last thing right before Look Who's Talking.

So he's coming off like a horrendous run.

Then Chains of Gold TV movie in between Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking To.

Then something called Eyes of an Angel.

Eyes of an Angel was not released in theaters until after Pulp Fiction came out.

Wild.

But that was made in between Look Who's Talking 2 and Look Who's Talking Now.

Shout, which is his like inspirational music teacher movie.

And then Pulp Fiction.

Like the Look Who's Talking things were the only things keeping him relevant for 10 years, even if they didn't make him cool.

David, what?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David podcast about philographies is brought to you by Booking.com.

Booking.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what I was about to say.

Booking.

Yeah.

From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S., booking.com

has the ideal stay for anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please.

God, I'm trying to think of anyone in my life.

Perhaps even in this room.

Ben, who's like, what's an example of someone I know who maybe has a very particular set of

people bringing me in and there's only one other person in the room?

There's one other person in the room right now.

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

I'm definitely not someone who insists on 800 thread count sheets.

No.

That's an example of a fussy person.

But people have different demands.

And you know what?

If you're traveling, that's your time to start making demands.

You know, you've got

a partner who's sleep light, rise early, or maybe, you know, like you just want someone who wants a pool or wants a view or I don't know.

Any kind of demand.

I'm traveling and I need a room.

with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote pod record.

Sure.

Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure that's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

Well, think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you.

Yes.

You got to have air conditioning.

I need air conditioning if I'm in the North Pole.

Look, if I can find my perfect stay on Booking.com, anyone can.

Booking.com is definitely the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking for.

Like for me, a non-negotiable is I need a gorgeous bathroom for selfies.

You do.

You love selfies.

As long as I got a good bathroom here for selfies, I'm happy with everything else.

Look, they're again, they're specifying, like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or a hot top.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that for you?

You want one of those in the recording, Stupid?

That'd be great.

You want to start.

You want to be.

I'll be in the sauna when we record.

I was going to say, you want to be the Dalton Trumbo, a podcast.

You want to be Splish Splash and what's going on.

You look good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge.

And while recording, I'm on mic, but you just were going back

as I moved to the

kinds of demands that booking.com, booking.

Yeah, yes.

You can find exactly what you're booking for: booking.com, booking.

Yeah.

Booking.com.

Book today on the site or in the ad.

Booking.com.

Booking.

Yeah.

Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, I'm, this isn't a humble brag, it's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes, when sponsors buy ads based on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

Right.

They love it to get a little bonus Ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But something very different is happening right now.

That is true.

We had a sponsor come in and say, We are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Macon Blair's remake of...

Reimagining.

Reimagining, whatever.

Yeah, reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're

excited to see it.

But, Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

Yeah.

It's so great.

Let me read you the cast list here in billing order, as they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Tremblay is Toxie's son.

His stepson.

His stepson.

Okay.

Wade Goose.

Yes.

Great name.

Give us the takes.

We haven't heard them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

He's talking.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like

David sizzling.

Yep.

And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang-ass freak.

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Truma.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches.

Yes.

With my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making Toxic Crusader jokes.

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested.

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary.

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just something that means a lot to me.

And they knocked it out of the fucking park.

Okay.

It somehow really captured.

That sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original Toxie movies.

And they have like updated in this way that it was just, I was so pleased with it.

it's gooey it's gooey sufficiently gooey tons of blood tons of goo

uh great action it's really fucking funny it just it it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version cinniverse last year released terrifier 3 unrated yeah big risk for them there i feel like it's a very very intense movie and one of the huge hit more interesting yeah theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years want to make that happen again here

tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicaver.com slash blank check to get your tickets.

Blank check, one word.

In theaters August 29th.

Yup.

And Ben, it just says here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says summon the nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon summon the nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band hell yeah who are also mercenaries cool and drive a van

with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill and that's all i'll say okay

and they are The most dang-ass freaks of dang-ass freaks.

I'm excited to see it.

And your endorsement, I think, carries more weight than anyone else is in the world on this.

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvenger.com/slash blank check.

Do it.

Do it.

Do you like John Travolta?

I'm pointing at Hillary Pius.

I mean, who doesn't?

I think some people don't like John Travolta.

When I dislike him, he drives me insane.

You think some suppressive persons don't like John Travolta?

Yeah, you're right.

Those people aren't in touch.

They're overloaded with you.

I'm watching this movie.

Yeah.

And I really have the realization of like, I love John Texas.

He fucking is working his terms on me.

So it's really great to see this.

It really is.

When he is good, I find him undeniable.

When he is bad, few people annoy me.

When's he bad?

I mean, like, I believe you, but like, what's an example?

You just gave like 50 examples.

Well, he's not bad.

No, I would.

Those movies are bad.

I would say.

He's fine.

Most of the movies we have covered him on in the show.

I do not like him in Basic.

I do not like him in Lucky Numbers.

Basic is

a really out-of-pocket performance.

Like him in Michael.

Those are all him trying weird things and I think really not working.

I don't mind him in Michael.

I forget where I sort of settled on him.

He's terrible in it, but I don't think he totally works.

I obviously

love old dogs, but must acknowledge this performance and that is demented.

I think his hairspray performance is like a war crime.

That is, that's all time low.

Hairspray is just a mistake, I think, on everyone's part.

Like he shouldn't have been.

I get why they thought of him.

I get why he wanted to do it, but it doesn't make any sense.

But like I

Gene Hackman's recent passing at the time of this recording, I watched Get Shorty.

I do think that is my single favorite Travolta movie star performance.

Get Shorty.

He is so phenomenal.

He's carrying that.

Yes.

And it is such like quiet, controlled work that is just charisma and presence.

When he works, I'm just like, you can't argue with this.

But he sometimes just has the absolute weirdest instincts.

I mean, and sometimes those work for it.

Like Robert Shapiro in the People vs.

O.J.

Simpson is a crazy, that's a crazy performance that he's giving.

And like his very frozen, like Easter Island face, like, but it works.

And he's making like very big expressions of like playing the eyebrows.

Yeah.

You know what friggin stinks?

Phenomenon.

Phenomenon's not a bad movie and he's kind of bad in it.

I confuse Phenomenon with Michael.

They're kind of.

They're the same movie.

No, no, no, no.

Michael is sort of a, well, Michael's a comedy version.

Phenomenon is like flowers for Algernon with ES.

He's very serious and sacrament he has a brain

disorder he's got brain illness that gets

he's a regular guy but is killing him and then he gets he gets like hit by lightning or whatever and he becomes a genius becomes a super genius he gets like all kinds of magic powers and it slowly kills him my parents very dull movie to see that movie in theaters and i thought the title was monomana yeah that's what the title is the title is monomena that's what i thought

And then when they were like, no, it's Phenomenon.

And I was like, oh, so on the Muppet show, they're saying Phenomenon.

So then when I would watch the Menomina sketch.

It's just misunderstanding turtles all the way down.

100%.

But yeah, no, I just, I think he's a very strange movie star.

And it's also like, it is interesting that like once pulp fiction happens, he has like a pretty fucking like bulletproof run for a number of years there.

Even shit like Phenomenon getting to $100 million.

It's called Menominon.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I would not say that he has a bulletproof run, Griffin.

That is not true.

But I would say that Get Shorty was a hit.

White Man's Burden was not.

I would say

that was before.

Oh, my God.

This guy is obsessed with how White Man's Burden was shot before Paul Fitzgerald.

That is his burden.

That's your burden.

Remind you of that fact.

Newman's Burden.

Michael and Phenomenon, I feel like, are both movies where it's like they make money but aren't popular.

Broken Arrows.

They both make like $9,700, right?

Yeah, like somewhere in there.

It doesn't like totally hit the bottom until Battlefield.

No, but I'm saying Broken Arrow is similar where it's like it's a hit, but you kind of wish it was bigger.

Face off, everyone's happy again.

But let's not forget Mad City, She's So Lovely.

Okay.

Right.

You know, where it's like starting to get face off is a hit.

Civil Action doesn't do well.

It's sort of mildly respected.

I like that movie.

General's Daughter is a weird hit.

Primary Colors also doesn't do well, but he's good in it.

Yeah.

But you know what I mean?

But you're right.

No.

And then, but then General's Daughter, which is a sick movie that sucks.

Right.

Right.

Kind of cruised to 100 million.

It's like a boilerplate hundred now in the middle of it.

And then, of course, what happens here in 2000?

I'm seeing he made some very normal movies, Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers.

Yeah.

Right.

And then wheels completely off the wagon.

And yet he keeps being a star.

That should be so hobbling to make Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers, where it's like all sides of you are despised, right?

But then it's like, all right, domestic disturbance is bad.

Swordfish kind of made money.

Yeah.

Basic

did okay.

Like he's still going to be a movie star.

Ladder 49 did okay.

Yeah.

You know, like like, it's kind of hobbling along all the way to Wild Hogs where people are like, he's back.

Sort of.

Right.

He enters a period of being a B-list movie star with A-list recognition.

Like, he's consistently getting a movie to like $50 or $60 million without a labor.

Someone who plays well overseas, so you can always get some money on your international rights.

I've heard that crews love him.

That the studios love him.

That he's very amenable.

You know?

The opposite of Jeffy Chase.

Yeah.

That's cool.

But yeah, 2007, when he has Wild Hogs and Hair Space.

Wigmakers love him.

There was that moment.

Mommy reader, meter operators love him.

What are you talking about?

He wears a wig.

The guy's hair is au naturelle every single day.

The only reason he chose to shave his head is because he was inspired by his good friend Pitbull.

End of story.

How many times does he need to say this?

We all know how much hair he had.

He just thinks it would be cooler to look.

If we're talking about hair, we should really talk more about Kirsty Alley.

So Kirstie Alley.

Kirstie Alley's hair deserves above the title bill.

It's so gorgeous in this milk.

It is a special effect in and of itself.

So large and yet not in that 80s way of like, oh, she's got this big done-up hair.

No, it's no.

I feel like you would touch it and it would be like, feel like real hair.

It feels like

it's trying to temp it down and it's fighting.

My Seinfeld, like to invoke George again, where he's like, how big is her hair?

And he's like, big.

And he's like, if I stuck my hand in it,

would I be able to get it out?

Yeah, it's big, but not in a Jewish way.

Here's my, I'm going to call you out, Griffin, but not in a like accusatory way, but I feel like you don't like Kirsty Alley because you're such a Shelly Longhead.

Because when we did our Wrath of Khan commentary, I remember you kind of kept being like, yeah, but she was no Shelly Long.

Salmon Diane was better than Salmon.

Kirsty Alley didn't tell Shelly Long to leave the show.

No, of course she did.

I feel like I had, I for years didn't watch the Rebecca era because I felt such solidarity.

And I with Joey Long being what?

Rich Jamie?

Being the greatest romance of our time.

We're talking about cheers, just our time being 35 years ago.

I, when we did the track commentaries, I want to say I had maybe only recently finally gotten through the Rebecca years.

And I just feel like the show is kind of a shadow of itself at that point.

Well, she's coming in in like season six.

But also, her run is longer.

Like, that's the wild thing is the show runs so long where I'm just like, the show is kind of running on fumes.

I think she's good on the show I don't totally like the way they write that character well they didn't know what to do with her yes it was like she's like a boring straight man for like a while but they also do the weird like look who's talking thing where they're like she's obsessed with a rich man who will never leave his wife for her that's just the vibe that kirsty alley that was her thing um so i i think at the time of the track commentaries i was holding it against her a little more while trying not to feel like i was explicitly holding against her watching her in this i was just like kirsti alley's fucking good.

She rocks in this movie.

She's so charming.

I enjoy her in this movie.

Yeah, I'm trying to think, like, so what?

Obviously, I guess I like her the most as Savik in the great film, Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan.

I really enjoy her on cheers.

Yeah, I think it was a very good performance.

I was a Veronica's closet watcher as a kid.

I think that's probably how I first knew of her.

Maybe the single least surprising thing I've ever heard about you that I opened the closet.

I took a peek.

I took a peek.

You checked out the rack.

No, it's just like I watched any sitcom.

The rack on the closet, I'm saying, like the coat, like the

sitcom.

So you just keep the TV going.

You keep NBC on or whatever.

So I watched Just Shoot Me.

I watched fucking, what was the one with

Suddenly Susan?

I watched this.

Right.

Caroline and the City.

And they all have the same kind of vibe where it's like, it's Manhattan.

We're yelling at each other.

You know, Grace Under football, Grace Under Fire.

Grace Under Fire, at least.

Oh, well, Spin City's good.

Yeah.

Is it?

Spin City is good.

Spin Cin City is good.

All right.

That's what what I love.

Any theme song where it's just that saxophone goes jackhammers your ear for 30 seconds.

Yeah.

Also, any sitcom where, like, once a scene, Richard Kind could run in and be like, what's wrong with the fact switches?

I mean, truly, SimCity is all flamethrowers.

And then the Sheen Locklear era.

It's not like it's bad, but it really does feel wrong that they're there.

Yes, Boatman?

Kind?

Oh, Ruck?

Oh, no, O was on.

Oh, is on our list, you freak.

But wasn't, oh, no, Carla Gogina was on it at the beginning.

Yeah, but she gets written out fast.

They don't have a

room for her, really.

But it's.

I was confused because, of course, Karen shares scenes with Michael Boatman on our list, one of the few actors of that era to be on two shows, Simon Coleman.

Boatman was riding the boat between shows.

That's why I think that's it.

You're forgetting Connie Britton, of course.

Connie Britton.

The Great Berry Bostwick.

The Great Berry Bostwick.

And such.

And Alexander Chaplin, who is very funny on that show.

And Bradley Cooper's ex-wife, Jennifer Esposito.

Speaking of people like.

Cut that out.

So,

but

Kirstian, yeah, did you like Veronica's Closet?

Before we talk about the film, I just really, we need to get you on the record about Veronica's Closet.

I never, I never watched Veronica's Closet.

I never watched Veronica's Closet.

I was still like pretty exclusively watching Nickelodeon, I feel like, at sure.

It was like 97.

So you're not maybe ready for the.

Yes, I'm very, very young.

Veronica.

But no, but I loved I.

I loved it because she owned owned like a victoria's secret style right like it was like a lingerie brand yes okay so that makes oh that's why they call veronica's closet i see what what what clever wordplay um

i knew kirstiali mostly from it takes two the olson twins movie yes yes we discussed this yeah you were an it takes two girl i was a two of a you say this like you can't be both they were not they were not similar i know and yet because guess what i was a big olson twins person i was both you like two of a kind get you a griff who can do both i like two of a a Kind and Two of a Kind came later.

They're completely different.

I liked both.

It's not a competition.

Two of a Kind is also the name of a John Travolta.

A bad movie.

John Travolta movie.

A terrible, but a perfectly serviceable sitcom.

Wonderful.

Christopher Sieber.

That's the thing.

I was watching, and they'd be like, what are the twins up to?

And I'm like, let's get off the twins.

What's going on with Sieber and Sally Wheeler?

Yeah, is there an excuse to let him sing?

Like, let's figure it out.

Christopher Sieber is, and I want this on the record, and I hope against hope that Christopher Sieber listens to my podcast, which I'm sure he does not, one of the greatest American comic actors alive.

I love the actual action.

He's a great theater actor, too.

Agree with you.

Lord Farquhad himself.

Yes.

Basically, if they're like, we are doing a Broadway musical with like an insane sort of villain role, he's ideal for it.

He was just in Death Becomes Her.

Oh, it's very fun in the prom.

Seeing the Bruce Willis part?

Yeah.

Yes.

I didn't see.

So I was.

He was, he was good.

He gets like a showcase second act, like 11 o'clock.

Sounds like the kind of thing he would mash into the upper deck.

No, I think it's still, I think he's still on it.

I would think he would stick around until at least Tony season.

Yeah,

he's in the show.

They might have now.

Said you a ticket?

I think so.

I saw him do Into the Woods.

Who is he in Into the Woods?

I really was one of the princes, right?

But am I remembering he was the wolf?

Am I wrong about this?

Was he double parallel?

He was.

That's the brilliance of the casting.

It's like how Captain Cook is also Peter Pitt or also Wendy's dad.

Yes, okay.

So that's what I saw him crush that

in a production with Vanessa Woolie.

Yeah, 2002 Into the Wolf.

And I want to say John Cullum was the narrator.

Yeah.

Laura Benanti with Cinderella.

We might have been at the same time.

It's possible.

He, of course, was Lord Farquad and Treacherous.

Why don't we do the whole CRISPR?

Because he fucking rules in a, he's not in this movie and he's never actually Christy Alley.

His connection is so tenuous.

Yeah, it is pretty tenuous.

I love Chris's superstar.

Christy Alley.

Going back to her.

She made an Olsen Twins movie with Steve Gutenberg.

That's why.

That's where this began.

Sure, sure, sure.

It also dropped Dead Gorgeous.

It's a big touchstone for a millennial woman.

And she's great in that.

She's an incredibly funny actor who, unsurprisingly, Hollywood, right, didn't have too many parts for.

I think she was a little weird.

Her later in life activities would suggest.

She was right.

One of those people where her celebrity became about more than her.

Well, she was a tabloid punching bag for like the last 20 years of her life.

Yes.

In a way that seems to have really like warped her brain.

She made several shows about being fat and being being in Hollywood at the same time.

But they would have really, no, they would have subtle titles like fat actress, though.

Like, or Kiercey Alley's Big Life.

At least that one's trying to put some sugar on it.

Look at this.

Like, Look Who's Talking is a massive success in 1989, right?

And she is also two years into a run on America's favorite sitcom.

Then she does Madhouse, which I feel like is a movie that came somewhat recently for reasons I forget with her and John Larrakette and Sibling Rivalry, a Karl Reiner flop.

Then Look Who's Talking To, Look Who's Talking Now, and then Village of the Damned, which is a pretty thankless role in a bad movie we've covered.

And then the next year, it's like it takes two.

Like, I'm a little fascinated by for all the spilled ink of like how hard it was for TV stars to make the jump to movie star in the 80s, the 90s, and the early 2000s.

There are these cases like her and Ted Danson where like they do it.

They have a big hit, and then they cannot sustain it in any way.

Just have to keep making Luku stockings until you fade back to TV.

Right.

You make three men and a little lady, and then they're just like, now go back to TV, you fucking piece of shit.

Kirstie Alley's good in this film.

I filmed against kind of her best performance.

She's good in the movie.

Yeah.

She's sovic.

She'll always be sophic.

But I think this is like the best showcase of what I think she's good at.

Yeah, because she, you know, it's not like it's requiring great range.

Yes.

But she's really good.

I also think it's like a role.

It's obviously not like this is one-to-one with Heckerling, right?

In like the circumstances of this woman's life.

Well, yeah, she's an accountant.

She doesn't write movies.

Exactly.

Totally different.

Right.

And she's not married to some cock who's writing police academy sequels.

But I'm like, I think it's part of what was underlined for me in watching this is like her Cheers character feels like it is very much written by men who are like, you know, it's some like career-obsessed woman who's like going gaga over rich guys and is like a neurotic mess.

and then this feels like the same character book written like intelligently and compassionately yes yes

just to some degree i mean it's got it's got 80s politics there's insane there's a couple right there's a couple moments that there's so there are so many times where she talks about how disgusting she looks

because of you know like her weight and just also like the difficulties of being a single mother but it does feel like that uh that like roger ebert quote about allie mcgraw in love story where she has the disease that just makes you more beautiful like single motherhood, just like she's like radiating like health and good humor and talking about how she's Dolly Parton puppies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She lost that baby weight very quickly.

If she ever had it.

I mean, she lost it in the, she went,

I'm throwing a pillow across this, the room.

She plays Molly Jensen.

This movie CPA.

Opens with City.

Sperm.

The movie opens with the J.

I can't emphasize that enough.

She has an affair with one of her clients, Albert, played very well by George Siegel, who's a great slime ball.

And I got to like wipe the screen every time he shows up.

Yeah.

And he is the CEO of the Chubby Charlies franchise.

This is like a thread I was trying to do.

They briefly mention it.

It's not very explored.

But it sort of seems like he is the owner of a Chuck E.

Cheese-esque chain.

Right.

He's a lunatic because his office has a marble desk and he's getting in like, I don't know, like Navajo paintings or something.

The aesthetic is crazy.

He's insane.

It's like a joke, like rich guy with no taste.

I think the characterization in his office and the arc of his office evolving is really good.

That like this guy.

He wanted more of the interior decorator.

The guy has money, but no taste and just keeps on buying big things.

And he has like a 50s diner jukebox corner of his office, but then he's also like, but I appreciate ancient art and like local craftspeople.

It made me like long for a time where this was like.

charmingly insane rich people.

Oh, like this is the kind of rich person we have for you.

Where I'm like, oh, this grossly rich man who has $5 million and buys nice desks rather than like buys countries.

A daughter named Astron.

Spaceships.

Yeah.

Expensive desks, I should say.

A daughter named Astron.

He knocks her up, promises to leave his wife for her, but then she catches him with another woman, his interior decorator, of all people.

In a dressing room.

Yeah, while vintage shopping with Twink Kaplan.

He hits her with a line that is so brutal and well written by Amy Hackerling that I have to wonder if Harold Ramis said it to her, which is like, I'm in my selfish era, essentially, right?

Like, you know, that feels transcribed.

It really does.

And it really does feel like the kind of thing a bananas 40-something divorce guy would say, where it's just like, I know I like knocked you up, but like, I want to have fun right now.

Like, I'm allowed to be single.

You know, like, that's his brain.

And he's rich, obviously, which is.

I wondered also if the stuff about like his, his wife being into like past lives, is that like a Ghostbusters like dig?

That's a good question.

Am I taking it extra literally?

His first wife who we never see right is a kook we sort of you know just like a new age type in like that merry 80s way

yes but i not to jump all the way to the end but i love the like the final stage george segal after that relationship falls apart where he's just like i've never gotten to be alone i need to know what it's like right that's his new form

and then his additional like the the being a father stage of my life is over i need to move on to something else

nine and 11.

that's a really good line too.

Yeah, um,

so I'm watching this movie, and I, and of course, we're occasionally cutting to her uterus, and uh, baby is in there going, Hey, what's going on?

I'm in like a uterus or something.

Am I wrong

in thinking that the first line of dialogue comes from a spermacida?

I'm a sperm being like, I got in this, I made it, right?

Right, and then you have like fetus puppetry, yeah, yes, um, which I will say, I think basically every line, I'm not proud to say this, but I'm gonna say this: Every line, puppet fetus Bruce Willis says, I found funny.

At that stage, I'm like, I get the gimmick of here is her outer life drama.

And here's the baby inside being like, I got to move into a bigger place.

Like all of that shit, albeit hacky.

And a lot of it's just the charisma, Bruce Willis, who I love, was working for me.

So, Hillary, you've been pregnant.

I have.

Not to dox you on air.

Forgot to mention that in your credits in the introduction.

Well, it is the most defining quality of

my identity.

Yes.

Of course.

Right.

Yes.

That was you doing it all.

No, you've had a baby.

I thought.

I've, in fact, had two babies.

You've had two babies.

David, please don't cut short hair accomplishments.

I thought.

Yeah, I get from this administration, I get a stipend for each additional white child I have.

Do you guys know the world's really bad?

Oh, but they're Jewish.

They're Jewish in Italy.

It doesn't count.

They're not going to be leading our great white future that are going to be a lot of people.

It's all back to Nick Vallalonga that Italians don't count anyway.

I'm watching this movie and I was kind of like, oh, is this going to be a pregnancy movie?

Like, is it going to be a, because now I'm realizing, one, I didn't know what this movie was.

Like, I thought this movie was something completely different.

That's the moment when I realized I'd never seen this before.

What am I in for?

Because it jumps basically from her being like three months pregnant to the baby is born, right?

That's the thing.

It's not a pregnancy movie.

I was a little let down.

I was kind of hoping for some good gags about like the

pains of being pregnant, but there's not much apartment.

Pregnancy stuff.

Pregnancy jokes, I feel like all of those tropes are so well worn that I actually appreciated how little the movie is about.

Exactly.

Maybe she was like, there's nothing here for me.

Like it has her throwing up.

Like it has her like eating.

She can't fit into her clothes.

No, she's still bad now.

Yeah.

And here's just a real Griffin opinion, though.

I was just so into that puppet baby and all his creepiness.

But I'm just like, and I like the game of like cutting inside outside.

Wait, some music is building and a chair is being panned over.

Puppet baby is going to be an Avengers Doom Day.

He's on the Puppet Baby Time Look who's talking.

What I'm seeing here that the puppet has aged weird.

It's been 38 years.

The chair thing was such a bungle, in my opinion, and yet has gifted us one of the most incredible meme structures that I think will never get old.

They've made it so fucking easy for us to put anything on the back of a chair and laugh and laugh and laugh.

So I'm watching this movie and I'm like, the the hell is Travolta?

Like, and I'm not even like, I need to see him.

I'm just like, I thought he was in this movie.

You thought he was the father.

You thought the mother was.

You thought he was the father.

Misled terribly.

And then, of course, she goes into labor right as Siegel is breaking up with her for good.

And she gets in a New York City yellow taxi cab.

As we all know, also, labor begins immediately.

Of course.

It's like, whoa, I'm in labor.

I got to get out right now.

And you have some New York tough guy jokes of like her trying to get a cab and the guy being like, I'm late for a meeting.

Right.

Yes.

The guy, hey, I was here first, lady.

So she gets in the cab, and Travolta, I'm locked in right away because he does play perfectly the ah shit of pregnant lady's in my cab, but also the heroic kind of like, I will, hell or high water, get her to the hospital.

I feel like the way that he drives is not entirely necessary.

What?

How's gonna get through all this stuff?

He drives like he's dancing through.

He drives through the construction site.

Yeah, there's no other way.

It's right.

He's dancing through the raindrops like only John Travolta can.

It is kind of crazy that look who's talking ostensibly has two car chase sequences.

It does.

Well, because it it has that structure

where every half hour they're kind of like, we need something kind of extremely different.

Something bigger has to happen.

Right.

Yeah.

So every half hour, but the movie is 90 minutes long.

Yes.

It's 90 minutes long.

Hill.

Three times.

You had two babies.

I have been pregnant for two.

I've been present for the delivery of three babies, but two deliveries.

Can you just get Demerol injected into an IV when you're in labor?

I don't think you know in 1989 she

possibly

the whole point of the the epidural was like, that's so we don't pump drugs into your veins.

It is so.

I'm just, this was a specific point.

You guys probably have no graphic.

Something that I feel like nobody's like, hey, you want some Demeril?

She's like, ah, yeah.

And that's obviously going to affect the baby so much more than an epidural, which doesn't make you high.

It just numbs you.

And this is like, this is the fucking drugstore.

It's a big pain in there.

Yes.

Well, and then that leads to the joke where the baby is high.

And that's going to be uncomfortable.

The greatest joke in the history of movies.

Obviously, the baby is wafy, creepy.

Obviously.

Look at his head.

It's boring.

As comic screenwriting, I'm all the way on base.

I was just wondering.

Like, I think if my wife had been like, hey,

this whole labor thing is a real, like, I don't feel so good.

Do you have any demeron?

Put some fentanyl right in my eyeball.

I just imagine you putting your arms.

around your wife and labor and going, honey, just imagine how funny it would be if the baby started acting stoned inside of you.

Do it for that.

Do it for the baby.

There are things about the pregnancy that I do feel like are very specifically 80s, like the Lama's jokes.

Many, many jokes about Lamaz.

It comes up.

John Travolta brings it up.

He doesn't have anything to do with his pregnancy.

Everyone's learning to breathe.

George Siegel keeps complaining that she isn't keeping her body tighter while being pregnant.

Right.

Oh,

my wife only gained 22 pounds.

Her reliance on Dr.

Spock.

Of course, who was a hero to them all, and her correct calling out of his left-wing progressive politics, which is part of why my mom's generation loved Dr.

Spock.

No offense to Dr.

Spock.

Fun fact about me as a child, I thought that Dr.

Spock, the baby guy, and Spock from Star Trek.

I guess this is not unusual.

Why wouldn't you?

One and the same.

I think I believe.

I believed it maybe for too long.

Especially when a fellow Vulcan is on screen, as he's mentioned.

Anyway, I've never seen a Star Trek, but we can.

But we were probably both raised with Spockian techniques.

Right, but we don't even write yet.

Where it's like, put the baby directly on their stomach to sleep, fill their crib with choking hazards and suffocation.

Do you guys know that you can't put anything in a crib right now?

It has to be empty until they're a year old.

That is the end of it.

I did not know this.

Oh, really?

Okay, this is what I was wondering.

This is uncommon.

Unless you've had one, there's no reason for you to know that.

We all, as parents.

When did the shift?

In the early 90s, because of

sins.

And it has had a very immediate, like, yes, and yeah, positive impact.

Like, so many fewer kids die now.

Wild.

But I'm glad I got through right before that that I was born in Nancy

with a busy crib.

That is the thing.

Before, before crib culture, when you woke up.

Exactly.

If you, and we're probably the last generation this will happen to, because now,

you know, people who are older, their parents will have also done face-up to wake-up.

But our parents are like, I put you in your crib right with an Encyclopedia Britannica.

Like, you know, my entire cast of Sesame Street.

Yes, exactly.

Like open claims.

Yeah.

And you're like, so like when you're great, you know, when your parents are babysitting your kid, you're like, just put them fucking on their back in an empty crib, please.

And they're like, not one pillow on their face, please.

Let me.

I did it with you.

Nothing was wrong.

You can't put a goddamn thing in there.

Wild.

So when she puts her baby right in his crib that has a Garfield toy and stuff, I was laughing.

Well, there's also scenes where she's just holding him in the cab.

She's not even using a car.

Absolutely.

She just pops into that cab.

I don't even, does she put a seatbelt on?

Who even knows?

She's a busy lady in the city.

It's the go-go 80s.

There's no time time for it.

You would get arrested.

That's to do.

Chubby Checkers is very

lucrative business.

Never explain what Chubby Checkers is.

But you can put it together.

Yes.

I assumed that it was like a Johnny Rockets, like 50s-style theme wrestling.

That could be true.

It could be something like that.

It's definitely a mascot character used to be.

Only you would clock the mascot character.

Because she breaks it.

Sure, right.

It's like a big mascot.

I remember her smashing.

Maquette.

Yeah.

I also, I'm sorry, it's Chubby Charles, which I only correct because I kept being like, is this a dig at Chevy Chase?

That the more they say it, the more it's.

Given what we know about Amy Heckerless.

Right, yes, the more they say.

Given the petty.

There's the scene where her boss is chewing around.

She's like, I don't want the Chubby Charles.

And she keeps saying it, and it starts to sound like Chevy Chase.

That's a conspiracy theory I can get behind.

I also want to note that her doctor, her OBGYN, well, two OBGYNs are from the X-Files and also Twin Peaks.

Don Davis plays the OBGYN who's like,

your clock is ticking.

Major Briggs and Cigarette Smoking Smoking Man.

And then Cigarette Smoking Man is the actual guy who gives her the Demerall, which maybe it's Cigarette Smoking Man.

Exactly.

Maybe he's being nefarious, trying to create a breed of stoned babies.

Stone talking.

Exactly.

Super weapons to combat alien invasion.

Babies who can sell you wine coolers.

She has the baby.

And Travolta is there.

They mistake him for the father, much as you did before you saw the movie.

He's merely the cab driver, but then they tell him to.

I don't know what comes inside the hospital.

This is what I'm saying.

The next act of the movie is

it's like three things.

It's like she's embarrassing.

And why is John Travolta's here?

Right.

She's embarking on single motherhood and the baby has an internal monologue.

She's kind of dating around and trying to find like someone, you know, who can be in her life.

Also, Travolta's just kind of hanging out.

Right.

This is the part of the movie that even more than the baby talks is a complete creation.

Oh, and we're also supposed to find it charming when he uses her address to commit fraud so that Abe Vagoda can be in the nursing story.

We just want to

step backwards and explain the arc of John Travolta's character in quick.

He's a cab driver slash flight instructor.

Right.

Right.

He's a cab driver whose real dream is to teach people how to fly.

He's from New Jersey.

But that doesn't pay the bills.

He's from Inglewood, New Jersey.

His close relative is his grandfather, who he wants to get played by Abe Vogoda.

Yeah.

By an aged Abe Vagoda.

Yes.

Not as aged as he would become.

I was going to say, he's got like 30 years left on the clock at the time they're filming this movie.

But he's, you know, it's a gum-heavy performance from Dakota.

I think

you watch this movie and you understand why his death was misreported so many times.

Yes.

Yes.

He looks like he's not long for this world.

I'm shaking him awake every morning.

He's still in there.

Okay, okay, okay.

He's still going.

Good job, babe.

You watch this movie and you're like, oh, so it was a posthumous release, right?

And you're like, this guy hasn't even made one appearance on Conan yet.

That's true.

This guy's not even a war.

Conan is but a twinkle in the eye of Lorne Michaels in 1989.

He's talking inside Lorne Michaels' belly.

Exactly.

Please, Griffin, his boss.

I'm sorry.

It's so dark in here.

I like the idea of Lauren Michaels pulling a junior with baby Conan O'Brien, a creepy puppet with the hair.

I can't do Lauren.

Doing the string dance.

John Travolta drops.

Kiercelli off at the hospital.

They assume he's the father.

Goes into the liberty.

She's so drugged out, she does not remember that he's there.

Then like a week later, seemingly, he shows up at her place.

She's like, What are you doing here?

Lets him in, is like, how did you find my address?

I can't find my purse.

Someone stole it at the hospital, only in New York.

Minutes later, he reveals, I have your purse.

That's why I'm here.

That's why I know your address.

I'm bringing it back to you.

I'm sorry, right?

He got in right under the wire, right before Giuliani would clean this up, take Travolta's and the people like them off the street.

It is a weird series of information being revealed.

Like the order is strange, but you're like, oh, this is like why he has a reason to see her again.

It's a bit of a me cue.

And then she like kicks him out.

And you're like, okay, so where does the movie go from here?

And then a couple days later, she's in her lobby and he's like pulling mail out of her mailbox.

Yes, he's sort of right.

That's, I don't know how he's fishing it out, really, but I guess he sort of gets something in through the little mailbox.

They tear you at flight instructors.

How to commit mail fraud.

Jimmy, it out through the vent.

So he can pretend his father has Manhattan residency to qualify him for some kind of home.

He's using her address to do this.

He doesn't know one other fucking guy.

Right.

He's like, I need to get not in Manhattan.

In the good home in New York, in New York City, but I'm outside city limits.

So I have to fake your address.

And she was like, why would I let you commit mail fraud?

And he's like, I brought you to the hospital and brought you your purse back.

And she's like, not enough.

He offers babysitting in exchange.

And she says, yes, absolutely.

I will let you watch my childhood.

This man I've met twice.

Many times.

A man I just met fishing mail out of my mailbox.

The fact that she has a mother played by Olympia Dukakis.

Academy Award winner.

Academy Award winner and a wonderful actress who I once shared an elevator with at the old UCB building that we used to record this podcast in, which also had a lot of audition.

Oh, she must go to Ripley Greer studios.

And I took a very silent and respectful elevator ride ride with her and was like, in the presence of a legend.

She'd fucking come over all the time.

She loves the baby.

And yet she's like, nah, cab driver.

Hey, ring, ring, ring.

Where are you?

I got to go on another date.

It seems like they just live in like Queens or something.

They could be there really easily.

He lives in Jersey.

Like, how, I mean, like, it's like, this is what I'm saying.

He's not even close.

In that same elevator ride, didn't she throw water in John Mahoney's face?

You were respectful, but she stoically threw water in his face, right?

Go on.

That's wonderful.

I like her and the husband.

The husband is sockerling's father.

Yes.

Oh, wait, really?

Yeah.

Amy Heckerling's family is all over this movie.

He's just deeply personal.

The gag with him is so funny.

They're all like, it's a family of accountants, right?

They've all got adding machines at all times.

And all he seems to want to do is use his adding machine.

Or read Accounting Magazine.

Oh, when he's laughing at the Accounting Tree magazine, I loved that.

I ate that up too.

That's a good gag.

I think all of that is funny.

I think because Dukakis is such a pro.

Like, she elevated, that material is very hacky, you know, in the wrong hands, right?

Oh, yeah, where Kirsty Alia is like, Nick, how could it get any worse?

And then she's like, honey, I'm coming over.

Lou Heckerlink is the dad.

He looks like a Lou.

He's got two film credits.

Look who's talking?

Look who's talking to you.

There you go.

Yeah.

Did he get backhand also?

Yeah, he better have.

Oh, speaking of 80.

This is him adding up his backhand.

Doing adding machines.

Her misleading that it was the sperm donor.

Oh, right.

Oh, sure, right.

She has this cover story of, right, I didn't get knocked up by a married woman.

I'm just a woman.

Like, what you must be a lesbian or something?

That's the thing.

She's like,

this is something that you would only do if you were very ugly or perhaps a lesbian.

Right.

And Travolta also hits her with the, are you a lesbo?

It comes up a few times.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

But let's also remember: like, 15 years earlier, the Mary Tyler Moore show starts in which a woman is single and lives in an apartment, and people were like, well, this is the snuff film.

Right.

What is this?

Sick pornography on our legal the idea that she would want to pay for herself on a date is like so ludicrous yes right he has to say to her like hey she likes to get pissed on during sex you know what i mean like when the guy's like let me let me take you aside for a second and tell you this lady won't pick up the check

Note that we're talking about all this stuff in the movie and that we're not remarking on the fact that there is a baby in the movie who Bruce Willis's voice comes out of his brain every few minutes.

Is essentially the thing the whole movie.

And it's what Hilary said.

You don't need it.

No, it's what the movie was sold on both in terms of selling it to the studio and selling it to the audience, both to great success.

And yet it sounds like in Heckling's telling of it, they were just like, look, you're not going to get controlled performances at a baby's.

We bring babies on set.

We let them do what we want.

We don't have video playback.

We look at the footage.

We find the footage that we think is interesting.

We cut it in.

We show it to Bruce Willis.

And we're like, Bruce, you got anything to say here?

Like, I assume they had lines written for the babies, but she was also like, we can't impose lines on them and expect them to hit the marks or get the facial expression we want.

Maybe the slightly, I mean, by the time the movie is over, he's like two years old, which in the movie, in the world of the, the world of the movie has no idea what a baby does at different ages.

How old is he?

Because his career isn't talk yet.

He's I know he'll.

Do you know that a baby, you know this?

A baby can't jump until they're like two and a half.

Yeah, I mean, I remember that's the kind of like I remember one doctor's visit where they were like, does your daughter like kick a ball if you give her like a soccer ball?

And we were like, we're not that kind of family.

The situation just hasn't arisen.

But, you know, like the obscure check mark.

But no, the conceit of the movie doesn't work if the baby can actually talk in its own baby voice.

Right.

Which I remember, and we'll talk about Look Who's Talking To next week.

being a little confused by that as a child where he's like toddler aged and is still dubbed by Bruce Willis.

That happens.

And so in the second movie, he's still, it's still internal internal monologue.

Yes.

But he's of an age where he should be able to talk.

Right.

By Look Who's Talking Now, they are just played by child actors.

They speak in their own voices.

It's only the dogs talk.

Right.

It's, of course, DeVito and Keaton.

Right.

Diane.

Yes.

But there's a bit of a like Rugrats-y thing where you're like, is it like Angelica being the one who speaks both languages?

That like at this point might be, there's an internal monologue and an external monologue.

You are getting at the weirdness of Rugrats, right?

Where Angelica has has crossed the liminal barrier.

Right.

Where you're like, is Angelica close to the bottom?

Oh, she's bilingual, yeah.

Or is she like in some ghost rider state where she can walk both?

But it's Rugrats is so funny because it's like Chucky kind of seems older than Tommy.

Well, he is.

He's canonically too.

Okay, and Tommy's one.

Tommy's one.

Tommy's also bald as fuck.

This guy hasn't grown anything.

This guy is Travolta level bald.

Right, and Tommy's just like t-shirt diaper.

Chucky dresses like a little gentleman.

He has a t-shirt and shorts.

Well, he has a very fastidious single dad who takes a lot of time to pick those outfits up.

Shoes with laces.

Tommy's not that.

That is affordable.

Tommy's pigeon-toe.

Google Gogg outfits.

Tommy doesn't even wear pants.

No,

but that's my question.

It's like, does Chucky talk a little bit?

Only Angelica and Susie.

And there's three.

Phil and Lil.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How old are they?

They're only 18 months.

I feel like they're right.

They're the midpoint.

Yeah.

Tommy's the youngest.

Well, then Tommy has a little brother.

And then there's the little one.

Okay, so Dill is born and Dill can't even speak in a way that the babies hear the babies hear dill go like me

okay it is coming true your your uh tangent call out this is really

you know what happens so similar to when linus got rerun in peanuts where it's like linus was the baby in peanuts yeah linus is introduced as a baby by the time the rena rerun shows up linus has aged up to the same age as the other characters of charlie brown but they have an age right but that linus wasn't the same age as them no linus

is the same age

But that's why Linus was so obsessed with the blankie.

But then I think ultimately, this is like a nice discovery that makes the character richer, that him being an older child still relying on the blankie gives him more of an alternative.

That's an iconic Linus is that he has the blankie and right, he can't get over it.

And I guess like he's still supposed to maybe be a little younger than like Charlie and Lucy and Schroeder and Pepper and Patty.

They're not twins, they don't have to be.

But this is what I'm saying.

But Charlie and Lucy at all don't age.

I must, I must just call out, I must just connect these dots.

Shermie, we have all of these.

We all love Shermie.

We all love Shermie.

Violet.

Yes.

Woodstock is the bird.

Frida.

I must.

Are you naming actual peanuts?

Yeah.

Or just like children in Park Slope schools.

Both.

I must connect these dots.

In the third and final film of theatrical Rugrats trilogy, Rugrats Go Wild.

The new hook.

It's a crossover with the Wild Thornberries.

Thank you.

The new hook, much like Look Who's Talking Now, is for the first time we can hear the dog talk.

Because Eliza Thornberry famously can talk to animals.

And who plays the voice of the dog?

Bruce Willis.

Correct.

Episode's over.

It's all connected.

It's all incredible stuff.

Rice is a Wendy's.

You're right.

You're right.

It's all connected.

I mean, Willis.

And that movie was check notes.

Gigantic financial fluff.

Willis,

you know, it's funny with him that, right, that he has multiple like voice performances because he's also in Beavis and Butthead, right?

And like, Over the Hedge.

Who can forget?

Where he replaced Jim Carrey.

Because Jim Carrey said, I'm a method actor.

I can't do this process of one animation record session every four months.

What am I supposed to do in between the sessions?

I swear to you, that is what he said to Jeffrey Katzenberg.

What has he been doing to prepare for Sonic then?

Well, he's just like looking at his bank account and being like, hmm, little low.

Maybe never mind.

Yeah.

His argument was basically like, once I start prepping a character, I cannot let go of it until production wraps.

Whereas animation, you work on it for like three years and every six months they're like, we got a couple of new lines.

Right.

And Willis was just like, over the hedge, great.

What's about a hedge or something?

Let me hit that microphone.

It's just funny.

He has to be.

He has to put a microphone in my bathtub.

I love Bruce Willis's voice.

It's just funny that, right, that he had the little side gig.

Well, it's always felt like that is like the one vestige of his sort of like past history of being first and foremost a comedy star, that the more he became an action star and like audiences rejected him doing comedy.

It's like, if it's just my voice, they'll let me be funny Bruno.

But this was a big thing when Jim Carrey finally agreed to do Horton Heroes a Who.

They promised him like, we will.

He was like, you must airlift me to the jungle of Newell.

Well, first off, they got him agree to do the movie because he was already filming yes man and he was so deep into character

right that's how i got him to give me 50 grand make me a turkey sandwich you could send him any script during the production of yes man and he had to sign on just like when you he was doing liar liar the man couldn't lie you could get anything out of him he couldn't lie uh no they like promised him on horton here's a coup that they wouldn't do any pickups that they were like we will do one week of recordings with you and you say whatever you want and then you can shed the character of horton that has been weighing on you so heavily.

Well, he is an elephant.

Yes.

Yeah, heavy.

Think about it.

100%.

He was the elephant in the room.

I've never seen the animated Horton Here's a Who.

Is it any good?

No, it sucks and is for losers.

Noted.

There's like no good Dr.

Seuss adaptation.

Well, apart from, I guess, the original Grant Shell.

No theatrical.

Yes.

Right.

How's the Lorax movie?

I've never seen it.

I've heard quite stinky.

Yeah.

I think all the theatricals are bad.

Because my daughter loves the Lorax book.

Yeah.

There's an anime shorter than that.

Oh, is she a narc and a scold?

Yeah.

She's a big Onceler fan.

All the like Chuck Jones' half-hour Seuss adaptations are good.

Yeah.

Sure.

You can't make a Dr.

Seuss adaptation that's longer than 25.

That's a problem.

No, his books kind of are a little short.

And hand-drawn animation is the best style because you just, it's a one-to-one with.

Isn't there a new cat in the hat movie coming though?

There is.

Bill Haters in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's up with Hater?

Come on, the Pod Hater.

Let's

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look who's talking i there are like three phases of mikey as a character right there is uh fetus in utero mikey which for me 10 out of 10 comedy gold yeah and then there is right infant mikey there's baby section where i feel like all of the jokes are bad like i i'm sitting there the first 30 minutes and i'm like god i i was feeling the way you were feeling about travolta

Where I don't deny Travolta's performance this at all, but the way you had the total reassessment of like God Do I love Travolta?

Does Travolta just make me so happy?

The first like 30 minutes of the baby sounding like Bruce Willis, I was just like, God, I miss Bruce.

I love Bruce.

Bruce means so much to me.

What a charmer.

And then there's like a mid-section of it just feels like the absolute laziest first-past jokes of him going like, hey, where are we going?

And it's like, to be fair.

Well, the thing about,

I guess, that probably is mostly like, being picked up again.

I think that you can probably also relate to this experience of you have a kid, you spend, you know, a year wondering, like, what's going on in that head of yours?

And then they start talking and it's like, banana, banana, banana, banana.

Like, that's what they've been thinking this whole time.

That, that.

It's just that.

I see that.

I see that.

What is that?

That, that, that, that, that.

That's all they're thinking.

This is what I found.

They're not like, oh, mother.

This is what I found funny and frustrating.

is like, okay, in utero, we understand the comedic potential there, right?

When he's out as a baby, they just have like no take on him comedically, considering that's the genesis genesis of this project is like let's narrate what we think our daughter is is thinking right now right when he gets into like his weird non-speaking toddler age i think it gets good again and feels like this is where the gimmick kind of makes sense where it's him interacting with travolta there's more emotion

on their connection yeah because now you are all in on that right and you're like there's a little tension to the idea that the baby is just like mom i want this guy to be my dad and she's like Right.

And I'm like, now it's good again.

Now I'm in.

She, and I think he has good jokes again.

I also think the few times they let babies interact with each other.

I think those are funny.

That works.

Yeah.

Anytime it's like, because it's like, oh, baby just doing commentary on adults, I'm like, it's starting to get a little like, well, this, there's an interesting interpersonal drama going on.

And then the baby just makes like a one-liner.

Anytime it's the bit of babies being like, hey, how's it going?

Funny.

It's like, how do you, do you like my new haircut?

I felt that whole back and forth.

Yeah.

That excitement.

Don't make me wear the lambs.

I look like such a loser in the lamb shirt.

And I think like Heckerling was smart about like getting this footage of babies and then being like, you know what'd be funny is if with the footage we have, they were saying this.

When you were saying like there's weird lap flip stuff of sometimes towards the end, his mouth is moving.

It feels like they she just let them talk and say whatever.

Yeah, they're talking to a toddler.

And then she was looking at who was talking.

Totally.

And then dub it over with whatever.

There are moments at the end where it feels like the dubbing is almost syncing up, where you're like, did the kid actually say a proper sentence

i looked for who was talking yeah but then i sat my ass down and listened wow

but yes the middle section of the movie is what we described and then it starts to barrel towards you're like right so she's got to get with travolta yeah

and who by the way has just been like hanging out but recently no because the early negotiation is like she's paying him great question 1989 Manhattan accounting.

George Siegel makes a joke where I think he says 10 bucks an hour, where he's like, what is she paying you all double it?

Yeah.

Sounds about right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's making an assumption.

I don't know if he actually knows.

Yeah.

And he makes an ass out of it

frequently in the film.

You're so, you're so enlightened.

David is being wise as hell in this episode.

The early negotiation, which feels like a classic movie setup, is like, here's the handshake deal.

10 letters get sent to me in exchange for five babysitting appointments.

And I'm like, okay, so this movie is going to track.

I'm going to pretend to be your boyfriend until the spring dance.

Totally.

It's going to track five babysitting appointments.

And by the end of it, they fall in love.

And instead, the movie does this crazy time jump.

of what feels like it is at least a year.

The movie kicks into a montage and I'm like, yeah, sure, we're in a montage.

I get it.

Time has passed a little bit.

And then hard cuts to, yes, like a toe-headed talk.

She looks like Macaulay Culkin.

And Travolta has seemingly been there every single day

because it seems like she never stopped working right so he's essentially this kid's nanny like he's yes he's spending nine hours a day he throws the kid in the trunk does it you know 12 hours on some movie you're just teaching him how to fly right once in a while he sprinkles in some flight lessons is this the movie that made travolta get into flying planes or did he or is it just that he's like hey you know what i love

i think it's a chicken and egg thing i wouldn't be surprised if she didn't write it in because he was already into flying planes possibly I'm going to try to carbon date this, but go on.

John Geralta earned his private pilot's license at the age of 22.

Oh, wow.

So he's just around the same time as he entered the Church of Sarantology.

Yes.

And possibly he was entering other things.

We don't know.

And we have no comment on what he was entering.

No, it couldn't be more vague about that.

If he was 22, that's like 74.

So it's like early in like Welcome Back Cotter time or whatever.

You know, it's not, he's not even in front of the colour.

Well, so then that definitely must have been a thing to appease him.

Probably.

Yeah.

I mean, again, this movie was produced by his agent.

Like, I think a lot of things were done to appease him.

If he had been into trains,

exactly.

Yeah, he played.

Amateur train conductor.

Subway conductor.

That's my favorite thing about Travolta's plane obsession is unlike Harrison Ford, when Travolta flies planes, he wears a little pilot outfit.

Have you seen that?

Yeah, because he, well, because he owns a jet.

Right.

And he's got wings and he puts on a hat.

Right.

Like Ford flies little planes or whatever.

Right.

He only flies planes that he can crash.

He flies very crashable planes.

Right.

And he does it dressed.

May not apply it.

Dressed like the character from Shrinking or whatever.

I just like that like Travolta's like, I want to be a pilot.

He does the whole like, catch me if you can.

Do any kids want to come up and visit?

I'll give them peanuts and pretzels.

Little wing pens.

I mean, obviously there's the kind of rom-com-y, although Hecklering apparently doesn't like this movie being called a rom-com, but it, you know, it sort of is one.

Yeah.

It's more about their relationship than it is about the baby.

I also think for the element of the film that is like the most constructed, right?

Not referencing her own life, I do think it's kind of an interesting emotional setup for a movie, which is like woman who just had a child, whose like parentage she is obscuring, trying to figure out how to date someone.

as a new single mother, specifically through the prism of, I'm not just trying to find a boyfriend, I'm trying to find a father.

Like, I think that's a good setup and a thing that people were making fucking movies about.

And then goes on on some of the worst dates of all time.

Those guys are good, bad dates.

Yeah, it's one kind of finicky weirdo and one guy who yells at the waiter and then two payments.

The episode of Sex in the City with the freak show.

Does this resonate with you?

Of course.

Of course.

I feel like the montage of three to four bad dates pretty much always hits.

Like, I always like that.

Just like, let's bring in some funny actors to do like stupid stuff.

I like that you have some more expressive, heightened, heckerling cutaways that like really show off kind of more directing style of like, there's the control freak guy who gives the notes about the silverware and the glass of water and whatever.

And then she cuts to him noting Mikey's organization of socks.

Like shows them all older.

Like what if we got married?

How would they apply as father?

Whatever their weird quirk is.

The dream, the dream sequence of if she married Travolta and she was just pregnant constantly.

Is great.

That sequence is so much fun.

And then what's the one that ends with the scanner's esque head explosion?

No, no, she had explodes Seagull.

Right.

Right.

And they actually, right, they had to think about it because they were like, we don't want that to be too scary.

Yeah.

So they like filled his head with little balloons and stuff.

Right.

Yeah.

Like to make it a little more goofy.

I like that scene.

I do too.

I think this movie's very well directed.

It's also funny that Travolta feeds his family garbage.

Yes.

Oh, right.

Right.

Yeah.

The cut ahead to the future when they're about to bone and she's like, no, I don't want my child to be raised by like a grease ball or whatever.

by a dumpster diving right and she's like if you peel the lettuce the first layer of the lettuce from the garbage off it's perfectly good hillary yeah i didn't actually ask you this did you like this movie oh yeah i enjoyed it

it's a breezy watch like i i so comedies can age very poorly but i think that this honestly is not i don't know no this is a good nobody's gonna be mad after they watch this it's fine i'm assuming uh you know the next two movies are bad i am pretty like Six-year-old Griffin would disagree with you.

But I'm pretty satisfied that this is like...

I was like, this is a really entertaining movie.

It's broad, but I get why it happens.

And the Trojan horse aspect of it is so fascinating where it's like she used this as a disguise to make a movie about other things she found interesting, which is the primary beat of this movie.

Ben, we had our art show recently, and we had an installation where we built a porch, a replica of your childhood porch you used to watch movies on.

And we'd do like an artist is present Marina Bronovich thing where you'd sit on the porch watching VHSs and people would come up and talk to you.

And I saw someone on the Reddit said that they had walked in and heard you in the middle of having a really good conversation explaining why Michael Mann is better than the Marvel cinematic universe.

Sounds

and your line that they walked in on was, when I watch a Michael Mann movie, I can tell this was made by one person.

Marvel movies aren't made by one person, which is such a good, concise distillation of, I think, what so much of our podcast is about, right?

That like movies are made by many people and they're a collaborative process and they're impacted by all these things.

And yet, basically, the single greatest calculus we use for whether or not we think a director is interesting and worth devoting an entire series to on this show is, do the majority of the movies feel like they are a reflection of that person?

For better or worse, that like there is something individual and personal about them.

And for this being a movie that has so many weird like calculations of like, I need a hit.

and like talking baby that just feels like a box of a slam dunk even if i'd rather be doing something edgy or whatever everything about this feels like it was made by one person And it has like some weird like 90s, 80s studio notes, script note bullshit in it.

But yet I'm just like, the way everything is like shot, the cohesion of the tone of performance for a movie that is very strange, even just like the rhythms and like the shot structure and the editing and whatever.

I'm just like, this is a weirdly personal movie for her.

Wrap it up in like a big high concept comedy that also feels like she's like getting to make it the way she wants to.

And I was was so pleasantly surprised by that.

I mean, I think it's partly because she's a smart director.

She's working with a low-ish budget.

So my guess is whatever she wants to do, as long as you're not costing the studio money, yeah, go for it.

Like we don't give a shit about this movie like that much.

We talk about like the danger of taking the talking horse movie, right?

Where it's like this trap that people fall into where it's like, hey, we know there's your personal project you want to make, but that's kind of risky.

There's this really hot script about a talking horse.

And if you sign on to this, this thing is a can't-miss hit.

And then you'll have the cachet to make whatever you want.

And what happens is they make the talking horse movie dispassionately.

The movie bombs, and then your box office poison.

No one.

The secret is make the talking horse movie as the personal movie.

Yes.

And obviously, part of some shit that happened to you.

Is that she started it?

Make it personally implicating Harold Raymond for being an asshole.

Like, no pun intended.

She was able to incubate it holistically from the beginning.

But I'm just like watching this and my mind is blown by like, she figured out how to do that.

The exact trap that most people don't survive.

And she made it into her biggest hit.

Um,

agree.

Good, good job, Amy.

And she kind of rescued her entire career.

And because of that, we get clueless, which is thus, I'm the person I'm.

And so, if, if for no other reason, yeah, you have to appreciate Lucas talking for giving us clueless.

There's no way she's getting the money to make an Emma reboot.

And, you know, maybe because it was a teen movie, like,

like studios would be a little more interested, but we're, you know, it's like, oh, but it's like, thank God she made this because she gets to make clues.

Yeah.

Is this her meeting with Twin Kaplan or was she already friends with Twin Kaplan?

Great question.

Because Twink later becomes Twink Kaplan, of course.

A regular in all of her movies and also becomes like a co-producer on her movies.

Yeah, they're very

close, but creative ally.

Don't think she had made a movie with Heckerling before, but you're right that she goes on to produce some of her movies.

And she's such a funny actor.

She's Kirsty Alley's best friend, but will end up being one of the teachers in Clueless.

We can consider this.

Yeah, Miss Geist's origin is that first she was a hard-charging accountant in the Go-Go 80s, and then, you know, she decided to go

to Beverly Hills.

Yeah, do something a little more rewarding.

She decided to come in, if you know what I'm saying.

Wallace Sean.

There's no way that Hillary would know what you were saying because Hillary has not seen a Master Builder, the Jonathan Demi film.

I really think that's weird.

Hillary, I thought you worked in entertainment journals.

It's a terrible blind spot.

Hillary, just to tell you this, because I do like to tell people sometimes, there's a Jonathan Demi film that is a master builder, the Ibsen play, starring Wallace Sean.

Okay.

I was thinking Master Builder like Legos, but that makes more sense.

What a difference a name makes.

What a difference, a master builder.

Yeah, rather than the master builder.

And

there is a scene in this film.

Ben, you never saw it, right?

Because you weren't on that episode where Wallace John

is sitting in a hospital bed and someone knocks on the door.

He's in hospice care at home.

Yeah, sure, right.

That's it.

Someone knocks on the door and he goes, come in.

And it is the most like foghorn sound you have ever heard.

It is the most bizarre line delivered in the history of cinema, and it feels like he accidentally clocks the lens in the middle of saying it and then looks panicked that he did that.

Come in!

Come in!

It really sounds like you're being told to go to an air raid shelter.

Anyway,

that's why he said that.

Thank you so much for that detailed explanation.

Decade of dreams.

Other stuff to talk to.

Travolta tries to have sex with Kirsty Alley.

She's like, I'm so into it and you seem great, but I just don't want, you know, you, you know, loser in my life.

Is it after the flight, after he takes her in the plane?

Yes.

And then it's like, and then, of course, right, the, right, the rom-com misunderstanding, this is something I was trying to say before, must happen of like, hey, you told me you were unofficially.

It turns out it's George Siegel.

Hey, how could you lie to me?

I'm off to Jersey.

I'll see you later.

Bye.

I'm going to be out of the movie for 10 minutes.

Here's the thing I like that before that,

the like obstruction from them getting together isn't like, oh, she doesn't realize until the last five minutes that she's been in love with Rolta the whole time.

They use

Josh.

Right.

They make that connection in the halfway point.

She has that like nightmare flash ahead sequence, right?

And then is just like, wait a second, I can't just be motivated by, do I like a guy?

I'm on this father quest.

and starts almost doing this kind of like classist judgment of him, combined with him being a lunatic and a weirdo.

Combined with him stalking me.

Right.

And I think also the other unspoken part of it is like her son does have this strong bond with

John Travolta.

Although

I do also take

some umbrage at the scene where John Travolta is listing off all of Mikey's favorites and like a two-year-old child doesn't have, doesn't care about Michael Jackson.

I mean, once again, how old is he?

He's his favorite fucking singer.

Michael Jackson.

Ham on Rye.

There's a scene.

There's two scenes in this movie that if I describe them to you, the listener, and you, the guest, and you, the host, you'll be like, hey, that sounds sweet.

That sounds really sappy.

And they are the scene in which John Travolta sort of gives some friendly advice, fatherly advice to the kid before he's like not going to see him again for a while.

And Kirstie Ali listens in on the baby monitor.

Let's also acknowledge that when he first comes.

Let me keep talking.

Let me finish my point, Griffin.

Shush.

And then the second thing is the capper at the movie, which is that the kid's first words are data, which we've already.

Which I think is the slam dunk.

Exactly.

It's like the reason you write the whole screen.

You see it coming.

Look who's talking.

Look who is talking.

Super effective.

And if I'm Kierste Alliot, I'm pissed that his first word is a mama, but that's a separate comment.

The kid always says data first because it's easier to say things.

This is actually a true thing.

Yes.

Scientifically.

Easier for your mouth to say it.

But both of those scenes sound so sappy, but Travolta makes them not sappy.

And the scene where he's talking to the kid on the baby monitor is actually quite funny and light while still being sweet and like heartwarming.

And of course, I'm sure the techerling too, master of tone here, like, you know, calling her a master of tone in a movie that starts with come.

But I mean, that's sort of the argument for it where you're like, the movie should collapse at that moment.

And those scenes are really sweet, as is the scene where Christiale of court tends to Abe Vagoda when he's had too much candy and become a monster.

It's nice that there's

a reciprocal.

But there is a reciprocal aspect.

It's not just her realizing that he's a good caregiver.

It's him realizing that she cares enough about him too.

Like it's not, it's all good screen.

The thing I was going to say, David, before you so rudely cut me off from rudely cutting you off,

a double rude, was I think that's like built very

deliberately and well in the movie that like when he comes over to bring back her purse, he starts talking to the kid like a grown-up.

And she sort of catches it coming out from the bedroom.

It's the bit where he's explaining the coffee and puts the breast milk in the coffee, but it's sort of like, fuck, he like engages with my kid like a real person, which we talk about all the time, David.

It is like a big movie star test that, like, if people, if movie stars are good with kids, it somehow immediately makes them feel even shinier.

I think part of it is like the extreme skill challenge of like how hard it is to act with a child, but also that you kind of like can't fake the charisma.

And if you like, are nice to a kid and it seems genuine then everyone likes you more like it's more endearing um i i think that's like i i genuinely think it is a huge part of dustin hoffman fucking winning the kramer versus kramer oscar yeah yeah yeah yeah beyond all the emotional scenes in that movie is just that like half of it is him making breakfast with the kid and you're like fuck he's good with this kid he is and travoltes i had a breakfast travolta's good with oh he learns yeah he learns to fry an egg or whatever what a feminist hero he is you know he needs to get an award for being able to feed his kid one time yeah and also he was married to one of the greatest villains in Disney history.

Maleficent herself.

Exactly.

The most evil lesbians.

Yes.

Travolta is just from second one, good with the baby.

He's great with the baby.

He's all the scenes where he's dancing around with him and stuff.

It's so cute.

It makes the premise work.

And I think you're right.

It's like super endearing.

Now, he also does shit that is insane.

She falls asleep.

Is like, watch the baby for a little bit while I take a nap.

He decides to take the baby out on the town.

Doesn't say, do anything to indicate where they've been.

Disappears for hours.

And then she's like, I'm so angry at you.

I called the cops on you.

I'm only going to let you babysit my son 87 more times.

While I go to my aerobics class.

Right.

And then there's the similar fuck-up of like, I get it.

It's a complicated film, there's a lot going on in her life at that moment.

The moment in this film that strains credibility for me the most is her leaving Mikey with Abe Fogoda after he's just gone fucking Rocky Balboa.

They have been talking about Vagoda.

The orderly is also in the room.

There's another adult there.

An animal who escaped the pen and was like brutalizing people.

And then she's like, one candy bar and they're like, mistake.

We, no big deal.

It's fine that he punched a nurse and he can watch the baby for a while.

Honestly, do you want a cup of coffee?

Well, because the mistake actually was that the orderly doesn't speak English.

That he just says, no problem.

A very odd scene.

Right.

And that also Abe Vagoda is so horny.

Even in the middle of showing family photos, if a hot, young, 87-year-old piece of tail walks down the hallway, he's got to throw his tumpers in and chase after.

His blood is up.

Yeah.

I don't know, man.

Which then leads to a surprising set piece, like a movie where you're like, again, it's got a feeling of like, we need one more set piece, right?

Right.

Is that he gets into the calves.

The kid escapes from the retirement hall.

I'm feeling that entire, like the entirety of like baby's day out is based on that sequence in this movie.

Yes.

Rival studio executives' eyes lit up.

There's like a baby in a car.

Look who's driving now.

It is kind of a funny bit that he gets in the back of a car that's being towed.

And so it appears that he's driving.

This is so he can say data.

And she's like, hey, you know what?

I'm with you.

Cut to jiz.

Cut to birth of a girl.

Roll the credit in the dog.

Like we're truly, it's kind of like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

We're going to leave.

We're going to leave.

Kirstie Alley, a liberated 1980s businesswoman who has never heard of the birth control pill.

Seriously.

But we're not going to bring that up.

Kirsty.

Travolta, pull out.

Come on.

I know you got it in you.

I like, look, they clarify what is actually happening very quickly and that there are some time jumps happening within edits.

But if the movie were to end four minutes earlier, you could read it as the second John Travolta kisses Kirsty Alley, he comes in his hands.

There is.

Instead, they then cut to a delivery room and you're like, okay, some leaps have been made.

Look who's just in now.

Who's just in now?

Who's talking?

This is the kind of movie where I'm like, it's great for blank check because we can do a bunch of tangents and still not go that long because it's 90 blessed minutes and it's not a lot of action, really.

It's not streaming.

You got to buy it.

You got to rent it.

I bought it on iTunes.

I got an out-of-print Blu-ray.

Griffin is off mic telling us that he has an out-of-print Blu-ray of just the first one?

The 30th anniversary.

This was fairly recent, 2019, and still out of print.

Yeah.

So then I had to buy a DVD trilogy box set

for two and three, which is awesome.

What are some of the special features we're talking about?

It's a great question.

On this one, for Look Who's Talking Now, I see an apology.

This has a heckling commentary, which I miss.

Maybe we'll give Look Who's Talking a second watch.

I think the DVDs have

checking here, nothing.

Absolutely nothing for this.

There were no deleted scenes because everything hit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nothing was left.

Yeah.

I did read some interesting

Look Who's Talking 2 has one of those like weird fabled, the TV cut of the movie has 20 extra minutes in it.

It's longer?

Yes.

They would do this.

If movies were like too short, in order to fill a larger programming block, the studios would offer to cut back in deleted scenes to allow the film to justify more ad breaks.

Right, yeah.

And right.

Most of the scenes are stupid, right?

And Look Who's Talking 2, they sound insane.

In 2010, did you know that Neil H.

Moritz of Fast and Furious tried to reboot this movie?

It makes perfect sense.

I had the thought.

With Travolta and Allie as the grandparents.

No.

I had the thought while watching it.

That bums me out.

It is crazy they have not revived this.

Like four years later, they hired Jeremy Gerillik, who wrote The Breakup and a lot of other studio comedies to write it.

And then nothing has happened since then.

Well, like Baby Geniuses was a pretty big bomb.

Like maybe talking, talking, our audience for talking babies, I think, was sated.

Or our appetite for it was sated.

It's been a while.

Yeah.

And I feel like you could reset the table with a good look who's talking movie.

Okay.

I think I have a pitch.

Okay.

It's like a prequel.

Okay.

Okay.

Look who's talked.

And it's set like generations ago.

And you can make it old timer.

Look who hath been talking.

Yeah.

And when you say it,

what?

I think more needs to be said.

It can't just be the like who, so, but then what do what is who are the central characters in the going back generations?

I understand, Ben.

In the family, in the family.

Yeah, like it's the baby, but, you know, or Christiale's ancestors.

And what do they do

apart from talking?

Baby talk.

Pick a time period.

Okay, so it's sort of like 19th century.

I liked the half, so let's set it in the Renaissance.

Okay.

Ah, the kid's like, ah, that Mona Lisa sure looks like she's following me up.

You can't make this movie too far ago, like in the past, because of maternal mortality rates.

Yeah, it would be a little grim.

It'd be like, infant mortality, to be fair.

Hope I dodge that dysentery or whatever.

Right, a baby's born and suddenly becomes the fifth oldest person in the town.

But I like that then if it's sent Italy, he still's got that accent.

Oh, that's true.

He's going to be like, Mama Mia, dysentery.

God, he's saving the pitch.

He's winning us back in the room.

It's one of these things that like, you're like, I can't believe they haven't rebooted it yet.

I can't believe they haven't remade it yet in a sort of modern studio thinking.

where you're just like, if you're just looking through the books, right?

And you're like, wait a second, these movies made like 400 million dollars 30 years ago and we haven't done anything since and the premise is so clean but as you said i do feel like these movies are completely forgotten now i think basically everyone younger than us doesn't know they exist I think you're entirely I think we were the exact generation of kids who were born right as they were coming out and saw them on TV.

And anyone five years younger than us is just like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

I texted so like various friends being like, hey, did you know what this movie was about?

Like, you know, with what I bet, you know, like other Harold Raymond stuff.

And all of them were like, you know, I've never seen it.

Like, even the ones who were so-even the ones who were like in their 30s, even your Esther Zuckermans, who's a little younger than us Hillary, but messages

could write an entire book about this movie.

She could.

There's a lot.

Esther was kind of like, yeah, that wasn't actually one of our movies.

So it was never in the rotation.

And so it's been forgotten.

This whole movie feels like it's been memory hold.

Obviously, Heckerling makes Clueless after it.

So that becomes her 90s masterpiece.

Yeah, I don't know.

Travolta makes pulp fiction after it.

So that's his, you know, his great era begins later.

But yet there's the alley went on to fat actress.

This is just crazy.

For a couple of stops along the way.

She opened the closet.

But this is far and away Heckerling's biggest hit.

Maybe that says more about movie-going audiences than the quality of the movie.

But this is her only movie to make 100 million domestic, and it flew past that.

It flew past it to 140 domestic.

It made 300 worldwide.

It does help to make a movie that's ostensibly a family movie.

Like, I'm sure that a lot of parents were taking their kids to this thinking that it would be a kid's movie.

Despite it being PG-13,

oh, it's PG-13?

That makes sense.

Yeah, it opens with sperm.

Well, you don't see them coming from a penis.

You know what?

I'll say, even the third one is

pretty active imagination.

The third one is PG-13 for quote off-color language.

The film came out.

October 13th, 1989.

Number one of the box office.

It opens to $12 million, and then it has insane legs.

It just rides out the whole holiday season, basically.

It is number one of the box office for five consecutive weeks, making basically the same amount of money every week.

That's like, it was like the Barbie of its moment.

Yeah.

Its cultural impact was similar.

Yeah.

The tie-ins were insane.

Number two at the box office is also new.

It is a

horror film.

Okay.

A first sequel.

Well,

in one of the big franchises.

In one of the big three slasher franchises.

It is the fifth film.

Is it the dream child?

That is not what it is.

Fuck.

But that's coming out in, I believe, 89.

So you're in the right ballpark.

You must tip your hat and admit it was a gentleman's guest.

That's all I'm asking of you.

Okay.

Is it thank you?

Is it the curse of Michael Myers?

It is Halloween 5, The Revenge of Michael Myers.

Of course, the curse is the sixth one.

That's everyone.

Which is the insane one that's like Michael Myers is who he is because a cult worships him.

Right.

And or whatever.

Is that the Rudd one?

The sixth one is the Rudd one.

That's the Rudd one.

The fifth one is the one with Jamie

played by Danielle Harris.

Right.

Who has her fans in the Scream Cream?

Scream Queen.

Scream Queen world.

Yes.

The sixth one is the one that hilariously ends with Donald Pleasant's off-Mike being like, oh, you're like killing me or something.

Who knows what's going on?

Like, because they couldn't figure out what the ending should be.

Get away from me.

That rules.

Yeah, we'll do them someday.

Maybe the movie should get worse.

When you're watching Halloween's four, five, and six, you're like, hey, man, there's nothing wrong with being a four out of 10 movie.

You know what I mean?

Or in Alex Frost Perry's opinion, a 15 out of 10 movie.

Number three at the box office is a

thriller.

That was also a bit of a comeback for a 70s Oscar-nominated star.

That's a thriller.

Who had taken a bit of a break.

We're taking a break.

But there are no babies talking in this movie.

Is it Sea of Love?

It's Al Pacino in Sea of Love.

This is a big thing that David and I bond on as we both hold the importance of Sea of Love as a comeback moment for Pacino.

People don't talk about it.

But quietly, that was his big swing back.

You could say that Sea of Love was the name of the title sequence for Look Who's Talking.

Yes.

Yes.

Very true.

Hillary?

That is

100 comedy points.

100 come points.

It's a comedy.

I don't want that.

Sorry.

I don't accept this.

Fine, return them.

They're good at all major stores.

Excuse me.

I have 100 come points from Blank Check.

Yes, yes, of course.

Welcome to Bed Bath and Beyond.

Does that still exist, Bed Bath and Beyond?

Or is it?

Yeah, it does.

I mean, not an industry city, but

you can buy bath bombs, which are, let's admit, it's one of the cummier products around.

Number four.

How else would you describe what a bath bomb does?

I know, not that way, honestly.

I would say cummy.

Number four at the box office is another thriller, not one that I know,

Starring a guy who's more of a TV star.

Yeah, he plays an airline mechanic sent to prison when framed by crooked police officers.

Drama or comedy TV star?

Drama.

Is it a Sellek?

Tom Selick.

It is.

How the fuck is that your...

Well, good guess.

Thank you.

This is the beautiful mind in here.

Yeah,

it's a something mind.

Okay.

Is it called like hijack?

It's called, it's a Peter Yates film.

So kind of a real director.

Yeah.

Director of Bullet, obviously and other you know good movies um

it's called an innocent man

not a movie i know uh it looks like uh tom salak plays an innocent man and you've got f murray abraham is someone called virgil kane i bet that's a nice guy think that guy's nice griffin virgil kane was a man right isn't that the name of the fucking guy in the band songs yeah yeah i believe so there you go that's i mean it's a rich gumbo obviously uh number five at the box office dropping from number one the week before so a a bit of a steep drop for this film, which is a very chill and normal movie about a cop who's not weird going to a country where he fits in just fine.

I'm sorry.

Can you restate that one more time?

It's a it's a it's another thriller.

I mean, it's October, I guess.

Cop who's another like R-rated thriller.

It's about it's just

a country where he's a what if a U.S.

cop went to a foreign country to solve a crime and he has to like get used to their underworld and their way of doing business.

It's not like Black Reign.

It's Ridley Scott's Black Rain with Michael Douglas.

And also I'm seeing here a little co-star called Cocaine is here.

Second build.

Number two on the call sheet is Coke, Bricks of Coke.

Kind of surprised, not one, but.

That is a movie where Andy Garcia gets decapitated on screen with a katana.

Spoiler alert.

Good movie.

Damn it.

You should watch it.

It will still rock when that happens.

Wait, why is the rain black?

I don't think it is.

It's just one of those movies movies where they're like, wow, Japan is so crazy.

And you're like, relax.

Ben, you should Google the poster for Black Rain, which looks like if someone did the world's longest line of cocaine and then sneezed onto a one-to-one.

See what I'm saying?

Number six at the box office, new this week, is my mother's favorite movie of all time.

Fabulous Baker Boys?

The Fabulous Baker Boys.

A great movie.

Do you like the Fabulous Baker Boys?

I don't know.

Hillary, you would love it.

Why are they so fabulous?

Tell me.

They are Jeff and Bo Bridges.

Give her the pitch.

Jeff and Bo Bridges play slightly washed up lounge act, double act

piano bar guys.

Michelle Pfeiffer plays like the new lady they hire for her act who sort of gets in the in between them romantically.

She got an Oscar nomination.

My mother was charmed and watches it anytime it's on TV.

Her two favorite movies are That and I Know Where I'm Going.

Did you see Pal and Pressburger movie?

Did you folks see

Bill Maher's segment?

No.

No, absolutely not.

No, No, no.

Look, I usually don't fall for the trap.

What did Bill Maher do now?

He did a segment complaining about, since when are they called sex workers?

Which is, let me say.

I'm always mad about like language thoughts that happened 10 years ago.

You know what I mean?

It's like, that's not even new.

He got angry watching the Oscars and hearing all the winners from Enora constantly thank the sex worker community.

And so for a month, he's been thinking about that.

Correct.

Doing.

I'm also like, a little funny for Bill Maher, someone who perhaps says, helps that industry thrive.

Again, no comment.

No, I don't know.

I don't know.

Allegedly.

But he calls out the, in his mind, weird history of how many actresses have won Oscars for playing sex workers or been nominated.

And he lists a bunch.

And one of the ones he included was Michelle Pfeiffer in the fabulous Baker Boys.

And he had like 20 other inclusions in that where I'm just like, what do you think sex work is?

You would think he would have a set definition.

I would think he of anyone might have the clearest definition.

I think maybe she's a former escort in that movie.

Maybe there is something to that.

He just starts getting really fungible.

Well, I'll just say that if this segment

is him going, new rule, you got to give me more than a week to get used to a new phrase.

Like, this is his.

Everyone's like, Bill, it's been a decade.

And he's like, we did this with homeless and now it's unhoused.

And I'm just like, can you relax?

I'm like, who gives a shit?

You are on television.

Shut the fuck up.

No one is policing you.

Bill Maher.

So Fabulous Baker Boy is number six.

Parenthood is number seven.

A sort of also, if you want, a slightly more mature film about parenting.

A slightly more mature film with the world's catchiest diarrhea song.

That movie's good.

There's a lot more pregnancy movies.

There's a lot more pregnancy movies than like actual parenting movies.

This is true.

Interesting.

Well, obviously, lot of movies where parenting is a plot element, but right, but like movies about parenting.

I mean, I think it's probably because working with child actors is not at the top of anybody's list.

But that's right.

Pregnancy has a natural arc also.

It does.

It has a beginning.

It has an end.

But even like Tully, whatever that was five years ago is treated as a bit of a novelty.

Tully was interesting, right?

Because it was about early motherhood and how it breaks your brain and it's not in enough movies and all that.

Yeah.

That movie just shouldn't have a twist.

No.

I give that movie a full star higher rating.

Oh, wait.

Yeah.

The camera's moving again.

I'm hearing somebody.

Tali has been added to the cast of Avengers 2.

Which one?

Who knows?

It is really unfortunate when novelists and screenwriters learned about

post-partem psychosis because that just really gives you an easy out.

Right.

That you can just do a twist.

Right.

Number eight at the box office: Uncle Buck.

Ben.

Love.

One of my favorite movies.

My roommate, my former roommate, Molly's favorite movie.

Speaking of of my

people in my lives, favorite movies.

Any Heckerling's daughter, Molly.

I have to unfortunately credit an anonymous poster who I can't remember, but just the commenter on some fucking movie website 10 years ago said, why does Uncle Buck have the mise-on-sen of a 1940s Fritz Lang Fox noir?

And it has stuck in my brain forever.

That movie is like weirdly moody and darkly lit.

In a way that I give two thumbs up.

Number nine at the box office when Harry Mentalee heard of it?

No, still hanging in there.

Hanging in there after 14 weeks.

And new at number 10, possibly the greatest film ever made by this filmmaker who's made a couple movies and had some other stuff going on with him.

Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Yeah, definitely one of his best.

A couple things I want to call out here from.

That's new this week in 66 theaters.

Here's the alley's character probably would have gone to scene at Travolta.

I don't think so.

Yes.

A couple things I want to call out.

Travolta wants things with explosions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This was conclusively columbia's highest grossing film overseas they had never had a film perform this well outside of america it uh usurped kramer versus kramer wow well it must be really easy to dub the baby in other languages this is the other thing i want to build to shravolta gets credit for this idea that he was like you should stunt cast the baby in every country So every country, they found some kind of Bruce Willis analogue where they were like, who's a beloved sort of rap scallion, cool, bad boy, funny star?

And you could put their name above the title, and it's a fucking really smart business.

You're minting money.

Yes.

It was like the key to this movie's success.

All of that to say, it is very funny that when Heckerling was first pitching the movie to Sony, according to JJ's notes here, her first suggestion for the voice of the baby was Tommy Smothers of the Smothers.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you know, she's still got a little old school in her.

Right.

And their note was like, he is funny.

Can we get someone that people also

like care about?

Come on, come on.

Right.

As she puts it, I was missing that he needed to be funny and cool.

In Look Who's Talking To, of course, Willis is joined by Roseanne Barr.

Yes.

Roseanne Barr replaces Joan Rivers.

And then Damon Wayans plays like his best friend.

He's a kid at the school at nursery school or something.

He's Mikey's best friend.

And then you also have what I remember being the best performance in the film, Mel Brooks as Mr.

Toilet.

This is a topic.

There's a lot of potty training stuff in Look Who's Talking To?

I just want to be in those trenches.

In my memory from 30 years ago, Look Who's Talking To might be the funniest movie ever made.

If Mel Brooks is voicing a toilet, I'm laughing already.

Pretty good.

Yeah.

In Toy Story,

is he a chair?

No, he's Meliphant Brooks.

Oh, he's the elephant.

That's right.

It's like him and Carl Riner.

There's like a whole bunch of stuff.

I'm trying to remember when he was which.

Right.

She,

Carol Burnett.

Carol or Carl Rhino.

He's Carl Rhinoceros.

Good Paul Hillary.

They're in the closet.

I didn't actually remember.

I was just thinking puns.

Betty White is a teething ring.

She's Bitey White, too.

Right.

That was a little more tortured.

And it's interesting just because Betty White didn't really work a lot at that age.

So it's sort of interesting that she made the cast list there.

You know what?

Remains one of the funniest things.

No, God bless.

Salute to Betty White.

She did it.

Like $100 million in every bit of like media machinery being devoted to Betty White's 100th birthday and then her dying one week before that.

When like every magazine in the country was like, Congrats, Betty, you made it to 100 and then she died.

Do you think it was pointed?

Yeah.

She was like, fuck you.

You don't control me.

I don't need this.

I won't conform to your narrative.

Ben has just sent a text.

We can buy an autographed laser disc of LaCouse Talking for the low, low price of $911.

Never forget.

Autographed by whom?

Kirsty Alley.

Okay.

Amy Heckerlink.

Some other people.

Twink.

Twink.

Twink's on there.

Twink Kaplan signs her name with an exclamation point.

As she should.

What's her actual name?

That's a really good question.

Yeah, it's probably not Twink.

It was a different time.

I've seen it.

Maybe it's short for something.

Her real name was Bear Kaplan.

I don't get it.

That was a joke about Twinks versus Bears.

Oh, I've got a Kaplan.

I don't get it.

Yeah, obviously.

Naming different sites.

I'm not finding a real name for them either.

Wow.

Pinsurpris.

Interesting.

Hillary, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thanks for having me.

Long over to him.

Anything?

Well, the listeners don't know who I am, but.

Hey, wrong.

Oh, I have it all, including their attention.

I have it all.

She occasionally got a film credit as Theodora Kaplan, so some people think that might be her.

Some people, the Truthers.

Okay.

There's a community.

The Kaplan Truthers.

Yeah.

Hillary, is there anything specific you want to plug?

Oh, I mean, come to come to vanityfair.com where I'm editing things every single day.

Thank God for that.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

Hillary finally got on the show.

It's been far too long.

Far too long.

Hillary's been really mad at me this show.

You have all the power here.

I distinctly remember meeting you for the first time, Hillary.

Even meeting you too late, having too many mutual friends and having heard of you and being a fan of your writing for a while.

But

after

we were at the same screening of Doctor Strange and the multiverse of Madness,

and you just standing up.

You can't say that after you entered the multiverse of Madness.

After you entered the multiverse of Madness, which has the end credit sequence, as shocking as Joan Rivers voicing a baby at the end of Look Who's Talking?

Clea appears.

Right.

And I just remember you standing up and going, Am I supposed to know who that is?

Classic Hillary.

That does sound like me.

Yeah, it was really good.

It was a distinctive moment.

Thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Tune in next week for Look Who's Talking 2.

Yep.

Made at a Scream 2-esque pace.

It came out literally 364 days later or whatever, like so fast.

They're Irish twins.

They're Irish twins.

These are Irish twins.

Yes.

14 months later.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yep.

And I just want to, and as always, read an important quote here from the dossier, special effects artist masters on the most difficult shot to pull off.

Quote, it was my first use of visual effects.

We called them electronic effects.

We had one shot that took us 115 takes to get.

It was little Mikey playing with his placenta.

It required 12 puppeteers.

People were hanging upside down.

What an achievement.

Worth it.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims.

Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostley.

Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J.

McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by A.J.

McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J.

Birch.

Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Our production assistant is Minnick.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

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