Speed Racer
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Transcript
This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question: why pay a movie theater 20 bucks to watch Brad Pitt in F1 when you could go online for free and watch a racing movie so intense, just the colors alone will give you a headache and make you have to lay down.
I'm Jordan Morris.
And I'm Emily Fleming.
Today's movie is Speed Racer, the 2008 adaptation of the classic cartoon that perfectly simulates what it's like to watch a manic episode.
With us this week, filling in for the vacationing super producer Matt Lieb, is our buddy Stephen Ray Morris Morris, the super producer in his own right and the host of the Sea Jurassic Wright podcast Stephen play a little sound whoa
that was my one connection the wachowski's matrix I'm just gonna do a Keanu review whoa whoa oh that was good okay so the wachowskis directed speed racer you were doing a famous line from the matrix whoa that works perfectly good whoa
excellent whoa
and of course that was from the scene where they ate the chocolate cake that made you come that that Is that in The Matrix?
It's been a while since I've watched it.
Yeah.
That's just about all I remember.
And then some stuff about free will.
I don't know.
But the cake makes you blast.
Yep, it does.
Before we get into Speed Racer, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we know that sometimes free movies demand cheap food.
So we're bringing you a segment called Cheap Ass Snacks.
Cheap Ass Snacks.
So I have something I want us to all try because a little bit of setup here.
So last time we did this segment, we tried Green Day's Slurpee.
The band Green Day has a Slurpee.
They're important to this show because they invented the Godzilla remix.
Yes, that's like the greatest Godzilla-related music of all time and Green Day-related music of all time.
It is, yes, it is both Green Day's best song and Godzilla's best song.
It's the Godzilla remix of Brain Stew on the Godzilla 1998 soundtrack.
I'll go ahead and say best thing about that movie.
Yes, 100%.
Because, you know,
that and the lady from News Radio.
Oh, yeah.
Good to see her.
Always good to see her.
Always good to see her.
So
when I was getting the Green Day Slurpees for us to try on the air, I noticed that Green Day at 7-Eleven also had a caramel iced coffee.
What?
And I'm like, okay, well, we got to try that.
This movie is perfect because...
It is what it's like when you've had too much coffee.
Yeah.
The movie.
100%.
And so I went to 7-Eleven going, great.
We'll do the Green Day coffee.
We'll do a little sequel to the Slurpees because we loved them, right?
We loved those.
We did.
They were really good.
They tasted.
So the other thing is when we were tasting them last time, I was like, it tastes like cotton candy.
That's weird.
And then it was saying it was green and it was grape is like what the flavor was.
Oh, yeah.
But it was cotton candy grape.
Oh, not yet.
Flavored.
So we liked it.
We hadn't had a Slurpee in a minute.
And so we're like, oh, my God.
This is great.
So I'm like, would we like the iced coffee as much as we like the Slurpee?
Okay.
So I sent you two a text last night saying, hey, just so you know, when we tape this tomorrow at 8.30 p.m.
or whatever, we're all going to have to drink coffee.
Yeah.
You were nervous about it.
Stephen said, I'll drink yourself.
I'll have it all.
I'm just like, I'm not going to drink the whole thing.
No, sure.
But yeah, it hit me.
But I was surprised by Stephen's reaction, which is, I'll drink everybody else's.
Yeah, I'm dead inside, so I need as much as I can get.
Can you do a coffee this late?
Yes, I have, yeah, I definitely have done coffee this late.
I'm dead inside, but also I'd like to be outside, which is also sleeping
is what I mean.
Like alive, dead is like sleeping.
And I'm having a hard time sleeping.
So this is like,
I got to chill a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, good news.
The Green Day promotion at 7-Eleven is over.
So we're going to have a nice, calming, slurpee instead.
Here's what they've replaced it with.
Okay.
No.
The Green Day shit is gone, and it's all Jurassic Park at your local 7-Eleven.
So I was like, well, this is a bummer.
We can't try the coffee, but our fill-in producer today is the biggest Jurassic Park fan I have ever met, and I've met me.
So serendipitous.
Yeah.
So what we have in front of us is
the Jurassic Park branded Slurpee from 7-Eleven.
I want to make sure to get the name right.
I'm looking at the website.
It's called Mission Deep Blue.
Wow.
Which
I'm sure you hear that name and you're like, of course, Jurassic Park.
Yes, no, classic.
And not a chess-playing computer.
So, this is Mission Deep Blue.
Stephen, you have a promotional Jurassic Park slurpee cup.
Yes.
Emily, they did have a couple more Green Day cups.
So I got you a Green Day cup.
Yeah, yeah, keep the turkey.
I bet you if you sold these on eBay later on, they'll be worth a lot.
Ooh, especially if they're still
on to them.
Yeah, so I had a little bit of mine in the car, but I want to get your guys's.
Cheers.
Hey, no, dude.
Oh, sorry.
We actually have to do it.
Okay, we clicked.
We clicked.
I hit the glass.
And Steven is outside the booth and hit the glass with his cup.
So
I had a little bit of this in the car.
I'll talk about my thoughts.
Tasty, I think a very traditional blue raspberry.
It could be that they just put a Jurassic Park logo on the blue raspberry
filter.
I don't like it.
Not a fan?
No.
Blue raspberry, it's a weird flavor, but I feel nostalgic for the time when I worked at a movie theater.
Oh, okay.
She probably had a couple of these.
Oh, yeah.
They would just,
the thing about movie theaters is that the actual food is worth nothing.
It's just you pay for the cup.
Okay.
Essentially.
And so they would just let us take as much Slurpee and popcorn as we wanted during the day.
As long as you could just hold it in your hands.
Exactly.
As long as you weren't using a valuable receptacle.
Exactly.
Here's the thing cool about the Green Day Cup, too, is there is a QR code for a rock out to a curated playlist
for Slurpee fans.
For Slurpee fans?
Yeah, not necessarily Green Day fans, but Slurpee fans.
And I am very tempted to go ahead and check that out.
Yes, Emily, scan the playlist.
I would love it if there was no Green Day on it.
It was all just Hollow Notes.
What if it's just the Godzilla song?
Oh, my God.
I mean, that's the tie-in we all want.
Godzilla X Slurpee X Green Day.
Okay, it's all Green Day.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Wow.
Brain Stew is number 10.
But is there...
Come on.
Is there not a...
There's no Godzilla Remix.
No Godzilla Remix.
Huge fucking mistake.
Y'all, you gotta.
So it looks like it's just, I guess, all of their favorite songs.
There's like 50 songs.
Is that all the songs they have, essentially?
I mean, they crank them out.
Green Day, they put out an album every couple of years.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, it should have been Fuck Off is the first one.
And then the second one is Fuck Off Fidlar Alt Mix.
I don't know who Fiddlar is.
Oh, Fidlar.
Fiddler is a great band.
I like them.
Their name stands for Fuck It Dog Life's a Risk.
Ah, cool.
Yeah, they rip.
Well, you guys, we needed a brainstew with the Godzilla remix, but you know what?
Steven is a giant mega JP fan.
Yes.
Do you like seek out all this stuff when a new movie comes out?
Do you do the toys and the promotional Big Macs and stuff?
I think it was, I think I'm a little more nostalgic for obviously the original stuff.
I think, you know, it's like everything in a bygone era.
You look at those McDonald's cups and they were a work of art.
Yeah.
Whereas nowadays, it's, you know, it's cool, but it's very like extreme 13-year-old vibes, you know?
Yeah.
But yeah, I definitely like, if I can find like a McDonald's cup on eBay, I will definitely pick it up.
Yeah, we should probably hold on to this Green Day Cup for sure.
Probably should.
And, you know, I'll hold on to it because I hold on to all my action figures and everything.
So I will keep it safe.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Okay, no problem.
Emily, what's the best
when you were a kid, did you like go for the movie promotional tie-in stuff?
Not at the theater.
I think that I had some Land Before Time stuff from Pizza Hut.
Oh, right.
We talked about this, the hand puppets.
Yeah, the hand puppets, but there was also stuffed animals, and I'm not sure if they were related to Pizza Hut or something else, but I recently
got on the horn with the Flemings
and asked if we still had the stuffed animals.
My mom went, oh, yeah.
Okay.
We've still got them.
And I don't know where they've got them, but.
They're waiting for you.
They're waiting for us.
She says that she didn't throw them away because they were too precious.
Where to go, mom?
We kept them.
We have Littlefoot, Sarah, and Spike, and Pete.
And then Littlefoot's dead mom.
Yep.
There's a corpse one.
Yes, there's just a corpse one.
His eyes don't open.
Which, honestly, probably at this point, Littlefoot looks like his dead mom.
Yeah.
But we couldn't get a ducky because ducky was like the one everybody wanted.
I have that.
Do you?
Everybody has that fucking thing.
It really wasn't hard to find.
And people made it sound like it was going to be valuable.
Like all of that beanie baby stuff was so bizarre.
Sticker in the Green Day Cup.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, like the, I remember the Princess Die one was very available at every Cracker Barrel we went to.
At Cracker Barrel?
Oh, yeah, Cracker Barrel had hella beanie babies.
Oh, wow.
Growing up in Orange County, I feel like we didn't have Cracker Barrel growing up.
Yeah, we didn't have a close Cracker Barrel.
When we went to visit my relatives in the south, Texas and Louisiana, we would pretty regularly go to Cracker Barrels and have a great time.
Yeah, there's a long wait usually, which is annoying, but it's like an after-church meal, or it's when you're on a long drive with the family.
So it's like a treat to go there.
Yeah, it's like a meal you can stop and buy a rocking chair, I guess.
Yeah, we never bought the rocking chair.
It's a Stein Memorial.
I got to tell you, I looked at the rocking chair price points, and they're not as expensive as I thought they would be.
Oh, yeah.
When I was a kid, I always thought those were going to be like $1,000 or something.
And I don't think they are.
But we never got one of those rocking chairs.
But yeah, we'd go to the gift shop and get a lot of beanie babies.
Have you, either of you been to Frankenston's?
What's that?
No.
It's like a nerd swap meet.
It's like the vendor part of a convention, but it's out in Pomona.
And there's literally a vendor that just sells all old McDonald's toys.
Whoa.
Old beanie babies.
That's like in high school.
I got my first bootleg anime.
Oh, cool.
The gathering cards.
I love an excuse to go to Pomona.
It's truly like a 30-minute drive on the 60.
Fabulous.
It's so much fun.
Every, I think it's like Wednesday and Saturday.
Like Stan Lee would go and do signings and like random wrestlers.
Maybe you should go there with your book.
Oh, yeah, sure.
But yeah, they just set up a little card table, sell some graphic novels.
Yes.
But yeah, there's literally a booth where you can buy all old McDonald's toys from like our childhood.
Should we do a live show at this?
They do some live streams.
A free with that.
You just haggle for some Taco Bell Demolition Man digital watches.
Oh, hell yes.
That would be a good idea.
They might.
Well, yeah.
Okay.
So
some final words on the 7-Eleven.
This thing sucks.
Emily's not a fan.
Stephen Ray Morris, what do you think?
I think it's like Orange Julius, where I'm glad I tried it again, but it's not something that I'm going to be...
going back to.
Yeah, I'm like having fun drinking it.
It's tasty, but yeah, I think the Green Day one was a surprise.
It tasted like
a new flavor that I had never tasted before.
This is just a very familiar meat.
It's just the blue, regular-ass slurpee, right?
Well, yeah.
Sounds like Mission Deep Blue was failed.
oh it went extinct when it there you go there's some jurassic park uh tie-in language we love it extincts anyway uh hey let's talk let's talk about speed racer 2008 uh emily you had never seen this movie never uh had you did you ever watch the cartoon as a kid no okay i didn't i remember this coming out and it looked so cool in the trailers and then everyone said it was bad so then i didn't see it but it made me feel sad because matrix was so cool we all loved it it.
And it feels like the fact that this movie failed, it really kind of robbed all of us from other mainstream possibilities with the Wachowskis.
I feel like it kind of tainted the legacy in a way.
A little bit.
Yeah.
I mean, this was the Wachowskis' first movie after Matrix.
And I mean, there is something fucking cool about that, by the way, is that like, okay, we made this big, crazy sci-fi series.
We're going to make a cartoon comedy for young kids.
Like, there is something amiable about that.
And the swing of this movie is fucking wild.
It's a big swing, but it's also not big enough, in my opinion, for the amount of money that it costs.
I'm sure, yeah.
Because
we all know about Spy Kids and like those movies that cost maybe a fraction of this movie, and it look the fucking same.
Yeah, this does, this does, I would call the look of this movie Spy Kids is a good example.
I would say that the
graphics of this movie, and you know, kind of there's there's some internal,
like some inside shots that are just in sets and buildings, but when they go outside into the real world, it's this like cartoon CGI world that's really heightened, really colorful.
I would say that to me, the thing it reminded me the most of is, you know, when you're bowling and you get a spare, and there's that screen that will play a video of pins dressed like cavemen, and then the ball is a Tyrannosaurus.
Oh, that sounds amazing.
That
sounds like who made the graphics to this: the people who make the bowling alley strike cartoons amazing i mean there's another um movie something in lava girl i remember there's another movie that oh shark boy and lava girl shark boy and lava girl to be honest like i when i was looking at this i'm like this just looks like that looks like it's made in robert rodriguez's garage in austin yes it does like it just it was not as remarkably gorgeous as I thought it would be, but I also wonder if this movie was meant to be seen in 3D.
Was it in 3D when it came out?
Oh, I'm sure it was.
I mean, this came out in 2008.
So, yeah, I bet we're at the height of 3D movies.
When I graduated college, but I don't remember any other 3D movies
around that time.
Sabatar was around here, so there would be a lot of 3D theaters, the Marvel movies, it's kind of started to come out.
It feels like it was intended to be 3D.
I don't know if it was.
I should probably look that up.
Well, yeah, well, let's talk about what happens in the movie.
We got a great collection of cool, freaky logos, and we meet our heroes.
Yeah, that was kind of cool.
The logos are great in this.
You could tell that they were like, we're going all in.
Yeah.
This is a big deal.
Sure.
So, yeah, we meet our main character, Speed Racer.
As a kid, he's a nervous kid in class.
He can't pay attention because he's thinking about racing.
Definitely a little bit of a, you know, now that we're a lot more educated about, you know, like different types of, I guess, neurodivergent.
I hate that word because it's not necessarily a medical term, but we all know what it means.
And I'm like, I relate to this kid a lot.
Sure.
Like you and I, who have attention
diagnoses, it was like, oh yeah this kid is um I totally identify with this kid he cannot pay attention in school he's thinking about racing all the time he's drawing little racing cartoons we get kind of a cool scene where we're like going into one of his cartoons um that's neat but the teachers they don't like him because he thinks about racing too much so uh the principal has a talk with his mom played by susan sarandon fucking great to see her in this they
They they dress her so cool in it.
She's so cool in it.
She looks awesome.
And she's just, it's always amazing to see her in something.
And she looks like she could be anyone's mom at any point in her life.
Yeah.
Like, never, she doesn't look like a grandma to me, even to this day.
She looks so, she's awesome.
And yeah, they have, there, she's kind of in this like heightened 50s kind of housewife stuff that's kind of like
a little cyberpunk madman.
Yeah, the whole aesthetic and the look of like furniture.
Every time you see something that is real, like tangible objects, it's the coolest design I've ever seen.
Like, also, I looked up Speed Racer was not released in 3D.
Oh, no.
Oh, my, yeah.
What a big miss.
There you go.
Money on the table.
Money that this probably would have wanted to make because it was a bomb.
Yep.
So, yeah, we go outside for the first time.
We see the kind of crazy cartoon world this is set in.
Speed is picked up by his brother, Rex.
Who is that guy?
I don't know that guy at all.
He's secretly Racer X.
That's what they name in the cartoon X.
In the cartoon, every time you would see Racer X, the narrator would come on and go,
Racer X is secretly Speed's brother.
Anyway.
So this was
a cartoon.
Where did the cartoon originate from?
The cartoon is Japanese, and it was kind of dubbed and brought over here and shown on Saturday mornings.
I watched it as a kid.
It wasn't like a favorite of mine, but the fucking theme song of this is so epic.
Steven, would you mind?
So
at the end of our chat, when we go to our break, let's play a little bit of the OG Speed Racer theme song.
Cool.
Because it's one of the great cartoon theme songs.
Okay.
And I'll say, also, if you're watching this on YouTube,
as of this recording, all the Speed Racers are also on YouTube.
Fucking watch it.
It looks so cool.
It sounds amazing.
What a treat.
Cool.
Anyway, so Speed's brother picks him up.
The age gap between kids in this family.
Speed's brother, I don't know how old he's supposed to be.
He looks like he's in his late 30s.
Speed Racer looks eight.
Yeah, he's got a receding hairline.
Yeah, if he's supposed to be a teenager, he's definitely the oldest teen.
Oldest teen.
And so, yeah, Speed is eight.
His brother is 35.
He looks up to his brother, who's a big racer.
He goes home to his dad, played by John Goodman, like everybody likes in this.
Is it weird?
Okay, so I know that people don't like being compared to celebrities because anytime you get compared to a celebrity, you want it to be the hottest person in the world.
I think you and I have both experienced that.
I'm having a tough time with that these days.
Oh, me too.
Yeah.
It's always like, okay, there's in Teen Witch, which we did a couple, you know, the teacher that ends up going away with a a
Spanish lover.
Yeah, maybe the girl created out of thin air.
Yeah, that teacher who's like maybe 60 years old.
They're like, oh, that looks like.
And to be honest, I see it, but I don't want to.
So
this happened to me recently.
Oh, yeah.
And people, strangers, people can shut the fuck up.
You guys know that, right?
And yeah,
and if you're on our social media and you want to say something to us, don't tell us who you think we look like.
Just say, I like the show.
And also, maybe go, you're hot.
Sure, that's fine.
No need to compare how hot we are to another hot thing or unhot thing.
So one of the five people that I get a lot,
most of them are good people.
One of them is a noted monster.
I won't talk, I'll just say, I look like someone.
Fictional monster.
No, I look like an actual guy who is bad.
I'll talk.
I can't possibly imagine.
So I am just at a bar, minding my own business, waiting to see a a band.
Okay.
I am just sitting there by myself and this woman taps me on the shoulder and she's like,
I hate to tell you this, but you look like this guy.
And I'm like, why did you do it?
You said, I hate to tell you this.
You could just say hi.
You could say, have you seen this band before?
I don't think she was trying to like pick me up or anything.
I just think she's like, this will be funny.
I'll tell this guy he looks like this famous piece of shit.
Well, I think that some people do this because they think they're so so special that they notice something
that they think no one else noticed.
And I want you to know you're never special.
I know.
Yeah.
10 people do this to me every day.
I'm on the internet.
People will at me with this shit.
Oh, and trust me, I've thought these same things about different people, and then I just don't fucking say anything
because I'm a nice person.
And you definitely don't preface it with, I hate to tell you this.
Yeah, but like, or just, you know, it's, it's, but here's, I'm going to do it.
Yeah.
My dad does not look like John Goodman, but the way that he talks, his voice,
and the way that I would hate to disappoint him.
Yeah, no,
the way that I feel about John Goodman.
But I also do think John Goodman is a handsome man.
He is.
But also, he, I think, went to the same college as my parents.
Oh, really?
Missouri guy.
And then I was like, oh, he does sound like they're Missouri guys.
Like, why they sound like that?
But yeah, every time I see him, I find him incredibly charming and attractive at any age.
He's great, of course.
But he doesn't look like my dad at all.
In college, we were like casting a student film and getting people from L.A.
And this guy, we wanted like a John Goodman type and we're like, oh man, you're perfect.
And he's like, oh, I do stand in for John Goodman.
Oh, wow.
Great.
Sure.
There is, if you want to get real horny, everyone who likes men,
go check out John Goodman's like first commercial he ever did for an aftershave brand.
Oh, neat.
Good God.
It is like, it's wild.
It's wild.
Also, there's an old video of Bill Nye I just saw recently.
Out of this world, hot.
It's okay.
Yeah.
So these are things that
porn isn't working for me anymore.
So you just Google Bill Billy.
Well, the Bill Nye thing was like a serendipitous thing because it just popped up on TikTok and someone put sexy music to like a compilation and that did it.
Okay.
Who to thunk?
I'm ovulating.
And so Bill, so John Goodman is the dad.
and
I'll talk about every member of this weird family.
So, Christina Ricci is in this family.
Yeah, couldn't tell what the fuck she was doing there.
She is like a friend of the family who Speed Racer is into, but they treat her like a sister, so it seems real incesty that they're into.
And the younger version of her, which I did not realize was supposed to be her,
because the chemistry between Speed Racer, played by Emile Hirsch, and Christina Ricci, non-existent.
No chemistry at all.
But the little girl is from Modern Family.
She's the nerdy little sister from it.
And it was nice to see her.
I will say,
I love Christina Ricci in this.
I just love her.
And she looks as awesome as
Susan Sarandon does.
She does.
And that haircut, no one in the world would look cool in that haircut.
Yeah, they try and make them look like the cartoon characters in a way that's like amiable.
They're like, we're going for it.
Yeah.
And Christina Ricci is so good in this and understands the assignment and understands to act like a cartoon character.
Emil Hirsch.
I think a lot of it is they give him nothing.
Nothing.
He is the only characteristic he has is likes racing.
Yep.
He's a cipher and it reminded me of what they do with Milakunis in Jupiter Ascending, which we've also talked about.
Wow, you're right.
She is just this kind of blank slate that craziness happens around.
And I mean, almost a little bit.
That's almost Keanu in in the Matrix at first, at least.
But he,
they have the
when you're doing it with Keanu Reeves, you have the greatest blank slate of all time.
You have the guy who fucking perfected blank slate, you know?
Yeah, he was doing something with it.
And yeah, and I think just like this fucking underwritten main character is such a problem in this.
I get that there's supposed to be cartoons and they're supposed to be broad, but give him something.
He's not funny.
He's like, yeah.
There is something about a chosen one thing in all of the Wachowski movies, I guess.
And he's definitely a racing chosen one.
Right.
And this is something, I watched something about how, like, why are there so many orphans in movies?
Yeah.
And it's because you can give them, they don't need a backstory because they don't have one.
Sure.
They, their story starts now, kind of thing.
And I guess we did get backstory about Speed Racer, whose name is Speed.
His name is Speed Racer.
They're the racer family.
It's, yeah, okay.
And, but anyway, one thing that definitely didn't translate from a cartoon into this, one thing, what am I saying?
But this one, at least we got like family, the family is what really is his whole personality.
Yeah.
And it's like, wow, all these family members are so interesting.
And then
our main son with no personality.
And yeah, and, you know, at least the older one, his personality was hot.
Yes.
And we couldn't give Emil Hirsch one of those things.
His personality is Neckerchiff.
Keckerchiff, which the little brother in this movie, we've had some killer little brother characters recently.
Loved this little brother.
Yeah, so the final family members are the little brother, Spridal, and again, the age gap.
Like, this family had three kids.
20 years apart.
They went, we lost one.
We got to make another spare.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Just like tires.
We got to make another spare kid.
But also, Susan Sarandon is apparently been fertile for 60 or 70 years.
I think that that is Susan Sarandon's appeal.
She just seems like she's been like 35 or 60 her whole life.
So Spridal is the little kid and his friend or brother is a monkey named Chim Chim.
Now, things I love about this movie, in this CGI fucking soup, they use a real monkey.
It's the best.
I love it.
I hate there's so many CGI animals in movies.
Just train an animal to do something.
Maybe it'll kill a member of the crew, but it's worth it.
I kind of wanted to look up, was like, this is one of the chimps that rips people's face off later on.
I don't know.
Chim Chim.
No.
But yeah, it's true.
I think that nowadays
you can't really use animals.
Yeah, I know.
There's humane society stuff.
So, I mean, maybe that is better for the animals.
And I'm sorry if I'm advocating for actual animals.
Whatever, but fuck those animals.
Yeah.
Put on some overalls and steal some candy.
It makes me laugh.
Give me some belly laughs by throwing some poop at a mafia guy.
Yeah, do the whole closing credits of dancing.
Oh, he does everything.
The monkey dances over the credits.
It's pretty cute.
Yeah, the monkey is like one of the best decisions in this movie that is full of decisions.
Yes.
Do you think that it's interesting, our childhood was pretty much riddled with movies about kids becoming best friends with animals?
Yeah.
Like we had Andre, which is about the seal.
Oh, sure.
We had
Free Willie.
We had, we did a flipper with Elijah Wood.
Oh, yeah.
There's all kinds of movies that are just about kids befriending animals and or animals playing basketball.
Sure.
And now that there's just like none of that.
Now it's like an animal that is fictional, that is all CGI.
And yeah, and I guess that's kind of the how to train your dragon movies or kind of that.
But yeah,
and then you know, it's the kids who got the raptor in Jurassic Park now.
So yeah, it is.
Oh, fly away home.
I just remember that.
I loved that movie.
With the geese.
The geese.
And Jeff Daniels, my kind of animal.
I had to migrate with him for the winter.
like a goose.
Anyway, so that's that's the racer family.
But yes, Emily, as you alluded to, the brother Rex, he apparently died in an illegal cross-country race, and like speed is like filling the void where his brother died.
And then we've also got this kind of mafia plot, right?
There's this big racing company that wants Speed Racer to like race for them.
And they're like a big fancy company.
And there's a guy.
Oh, what is his name?
I wrote it down.
It's, oh, Mr.
Royalton.
Yeah, he's in a lot of stuff, that actor.
I recognize him.
This actor is great, and yeah, he does a lot of villain monologuing, and it's some of the best villain monologues.
He's probably the best performances throughout the movie.
He's really carrying this thing for sure.
And they, and you know, and
so the thing about the plot of this movie is that, like, they tie racing.
What is a thing about the plot of this movie, Jordan?
They tie racing to a mafia plot to raise stock prices.
Well, it's also like
the evils of corporate, like corporations and stuff like that.
So, which what is a mafia?
But sure, there you go.
Dirty money, rich motherfuckers.
I know.
And yeah, and that is like, I mean, I could tell the wachowskis like believe in this shit.
They're like, we're going to teach kids about how fucking corporations are in line with.
Is this what the cartoon was like?
The cartoon is very, the cartoon is really like cutesy and for it's just vroom vroom go race.
Vroom room go race.
So this was just like, let's talk about contracts and deals.
Stocks.
And they talk about stocks and there's stock tickers like flying by their heads.
I know.
I found this to be like what kid could sit through this movie?
I know.
It was also like two and a half hours long, or maybe that's just how I feel about it.
No, the movie is very long and feels very long.
And yeah, it is like the shit in Star Wars where they talk about trade blockades.
It is just like that.
It's like the Wachowskis have never met kids.
Yeah.
I don't know if they've ever met kids.
It's hard to say.
Because I think there is shit in this movie that kids would love.
love, and it has like stuck around.
So maybe modern kids do like this.
I don't know.
Let us know.
Do you have a kid who likes the Speed Racer movie?
Well, this modern kid doesn't like it.
On maximumfun.org.
So there's this.
So there's this organization that's trying to track down the, that's trying to track down the mafia.
And the mafia, they're torturing a guy, and you pull out to reveal they're doing it on a truck that's zooming down the freeway.
And then Racer X is chasing after the truck.
This shit is so fucking cool.
It is.
That shit is the coolest part.
Rips.
This scene.
And kind of scary.
It's a little scary, and all the mafia guys are dressed like Dick Tracy guys.
That's what I was thinking, Jordan.
Yeah, and I think this movie
is a Dick Tracy dupe in a lot of ways.
Exactly, but it doesn't look as good.
No, and Dick Tracy looks so much better because it is.
It's all practical.
It's all just like painted sets and guys with weird makeup, and it still looks awesome.
Both are about as nonsensical plot-wise, so maybe they took some plotting tips from Dick Tracy.
But yeah, definitely, like, all the like mafia guys look so Dick Tracy.
There's a, there's a, definitely somebody driving the truck who's wearing like a leopard fedora.
I think that's the worst hat in the movie.
Oh, for sure.
The worst hat.
There's a gag where the mafia guy has a piranha tank on the truck.
Okay, yes.
It gets a hole in it, and he makes one of his goons plug it, and the piranhas chew off his finger.
There is a couple of like physical gags in this movie that are like a bunch of people.
When the blood kind of of fills up the tank.
That are so good and funny.
And like the mess of this movie is so disappointing because like there's so much good shit.
There's so much good shit that just gets buried by the piranha stuff was so scary too.
Yeah, totally.
Which I'm kind of like, okay, the piranha tank, that's where this like CGI
bullshit makes sense to me.
Like you needed to have this on a truck and then make sense of that.
That's perfect.
But when they were going to put the dude's whole, the driver's hands, like both hands in there, I was like, I hate that.
I also watched Kingpin recently.
Oh, yeah, sure.
And that whole putting the hand in the bowling ball thing.
Oh, yeah.
I hate the, I hate that.
I hate that.
Hands getting jumped.
Like, it bothers me.
So there's this mafia plot.
Racer X is after the mafia, and they enlist Speed Racer to, like, be a part of, like, a three-guy driving team that's going to capture the mafia somehow during the the same cross-country race that his brother died in.
It's like the CIA, but for racing.
Right, yeah.
It's like what Racer X is.
Sexy, fun CIA.
Yeah.
And you can immediately tell that they're trying to imply that it's his brother.
I didn't know the backstory that Racer X is his brother.
Yeah.
But I knew immediately it was Guy from Lost.
Sure.
Like I went, oh, Guy from Lost.
Yeah.
If they're trying to convince me it's his brother, I can see lower half of face.
And I know I don't have that Clark Kent blindness.
Yeah, I know.
You could see Racer X's chin.
Yep.
His big old chin.
And nose.
Mm-hmm.
And nose.
But yeah, that's like the big meme of the cartoon.
If you like talk to a fan of the cartoon, they would go like, oh, Racer X is secretly speeds Long Lifest Brother Rex.
You know, it's like a, it's like, yeah, it's like the catchphrase of the show.
In the cartoon, did they ever find out about it?
I don't know.
I didn't watch enough of it, and I don't know if it ever followed like continuity.
I've just seen episodes here and there.
And I did watch a couple
after I watched the movie because I wanted to ride myself, and I really liked them.
I think they're going to be able to do it.
I'm going to watch that.
I'm going to see.
Are they on YouTube or?
They're on YouTube.
Okay, I'm gonna watch it.
Yes, as of this recording.
So, speed, they get into this like cross-country race.
This is with a bunch of like crazy racers.
Just shit I love in this movie that I don't like.
Is
there's a scene where they're bribing the other racers who all have a theme, and there's these kind of like glamorous girl racers, and they give them diamonds.
Yes.
And then there's these like mercenary guys, and they give them a bunch of cash.
And then there are Viking racers and they give them pelts.
It's so funny.
I got to tell you, I was watching this while painting
something and I looked up to receive this like visual with the Vikings and went,
I guess.
And then I just
like, do I rewind it to try to figure out what the fuck this is?
And then I just went, we're just going to accept it and keep on moving.
And I'm glad you explained what that was.
Yeah, it's really funny.
And there's this other, the other scene that I fucking love in this, there's a scene where these, so Mafia's kind of onto them at this point.
They send ninjas to break into their house.
Everyone in the movie does karate.
Just knows karate.
Fucking Trixie knows it.
Speed Racer knows it.
Yeah.
And the ninjas kind of fight the family.
And there's a scene where John Goodman grabs one of them.
And the ninja notices a ring.
And you see this zoom to the ring that says like Greco-Roman Wrestling Society.
And then John Goodman does all these fucking wrestling moves.
He's spinning the guy around over his head.
I remember this.
The ninja's ninja stars come out of his pocket, and then his car keys come out of his pocket.
That is so funny.
This is so funny.
The ninja's keys come out.
Anyway, so in one of the episodes of the cartoon I watched, this character, Pop, does do wrestling moves on somebody, but they say he was part of the Westside Grunters and Groaners.
Which they should have kept for this movie.
The The Westside Grunters and Groaners.
That's such a dad
name of something.
That's, I guess, the wrestling club.
I love it.
Anyway.
So, yeah, so the third guy in their crew hurts.
Oh, yeah, they've got an Australian guy in the crew.
Yeah.
Who I thought for sure was going to die.
Yeah.
He gets poisoned and taken out.
But he, but he comes back.
He comes back at a certain point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This guy's pretty hunky.
I don't know who he is or what he does.
I've seen him in in something but he was i'm i'm happy he got a job yeah he was good uh so yeah there's a big like fight everybody's karate it looks really cool the i mean fucking
yeah cold take the washowskis know how to shoot a karate scene yeah and they're like very good at casting yeah let's be real um so trixie replaces this guy they go on the race uh they capture some of the mafia guys the monkey throws shit at them um
and then speed racer wins and we're a we're almost to the final race.
The final of the 30 or 40 races in this movie.
And they all look the fucking same.
Like they're on a Hot Wheels track.
Yeah, it's like a Mario Kart.
It's like a Hot Wheels track with a bunch of light brights happening during an electrical surge.
You don't know how big it is or where the end is.
So
you can't feel away about the race because you don't know how it's going.
Yeah, exactly.
The only thing that you feel is about the drag racing stuff, the illegal racing.
That kind of looks dangerous.
And then you go to the real races and you're like, what is this?
there's a yeah there's a cartoon of a zebra running next to them why
uh okay so we're almost the final race and we'll talk about it right after this
You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.
And
maybe you stopped listening for a while.
Maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.
But no, no, you would be wrong.
We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.
Yeah.
You don't even really know how crypto works.
The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.
We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.
And if not, we just leave it out back and it goes rotten.
So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.
We're back.
It's free with ads.
We're about to talk about the final race, the grand prix in Speed Racer.
Yep.
So, I mean, you know, there's just a bunch of fucking races in this, and some of it, there's some good stuff in it, and then sometimes it's just boring and hard to follow.
there's like a final bad guy who uses a spear hook to like hook his car to speed's car
and then like he gets away but the media notices it so that's like the undoing of the bad guy like oh he did the spear hook so we're gonna take down the guy there's a lot of stuff about illegal like you know dirty racing but then there'll be moves that speed racer does with his car and guns and missiles so that's okay i'm like well i don't understand regulations right this spear hook thing takes a guy down, but then Speed Racer just shoots guns at guys.
It's kind of like, you know, our current political climate.
Things don't matter anymore.
For sure.
You just do whatever.
Spearhook, bad.
Gun, fine.
Who cares?
Exactly.
And yeah, so Speed Racer gets away from this guy and like goes for the finish line, and he's just blowing up cars.
Like Speed Racer is killing so many people.
He's murdering so many men.
Just like the final stretch of this, he blows up every car he passes.
He kills some of these people, right?
Well, we didn't see their faces, so it could have been like the movie Cars, where they're just sentient cars.
It could be the idea.
In which case, they're dead.
Yes, there you go.
Were they alive to begin with?
I don't know.
I don't know.
The philosophical questions behind the movie, Cars.
And then, oh, so there's a thing where
Racer X takes off his mask earlier in the movie, and it's not his brother.
So I guess if you've seen the cartoon, that's a big blow.
Like, oh, they're not doing it.
And then at the end of this movie, they show that he just got plastic surgery, and it is him.
so he went from being a hot white guy to being a different a different hot white guy pretty similar hot white guy what crazy plastic surgery wild wild and they dyed the hair darker what yeah gave him gave him a better hairline than the teen version of himself from the past yeah sure whatever uh so yeah uh some some whatever plastic surgery that's a twist i guess uh maybe they would do it in a sequel if they got a chance to make it which they didn't.
Yeah.
And then he kisses Trixie, and then, but the boy, what a dry ass experience that was.
There's kind of a little funny little gag where the kid pauses the camera and says, like, this isn't suitable if you haven't had your cootie shot.
I know.
That was really cute.
The brother was cute.
And then I kept, as the kiss was about to happen, I was like, what a sterile,
unsexy kiss.
And then the kid popped in, and I'm like, that saved how bad the kiss was, was the joke about it.
And I was like, thank God for that kid.
Well, yeah, that's the plot of speed racer we're gonna rank it but first we got to do the honk watch
wad um
easy for me susan saranda jesus fucking christ yeah it's that's that's the one for me too god she's the most beautiful like no matter like whatever age any picture any whatever she's still stunning but i loved the aesthetic of yeah the the clothes that everything she just i don't know oozes sex appeal every time she's on camera you can't not pick her.
She's great.
Yeah, I know.
A lot of like,
there's a lot of like corniness in this kid's movie.
It's not between the leads.
It's kind of just out.
I mean, Susan Sarandon even has like a little more chemistry with Emile Hirsch than
she does.
100%.
But even the bad guy who was like, he was going to get her pancake recipe.
He was like, Mr.
Royalty.
Yeah, he was like, oh, your pancakes are so good.
And she's just like so kind of unfazed by it.
She's so unengaged.
And then I remember when he's trying to sign Speed Racer to some corporate gross contract,
they like, he goes, so, Mrs.
Racer, what do you think about my family?
And it's like, her husband's right there.
Yeah.
And he's asking her and not the two of them, just her.
I was like, Jesus Christ.
It's like, and her husband's like, I get it.
Yeah.
It's like, I understand.
Everybody cares what she thinks and not what I think.
Like, because she's such a babe.
It's like, yeah.
One, yeah, okay.
Well, that's the hunk watch.
We did it.
We all agree.
Yes.
So now we got to rank this movie, but wait.
What?
First, we got to go to a break.
Oh, okay.
Okay, we're going to go to a break, but first, do you generally not know the theme song of Speed Racer?
Okay, okay.
This is awesome.
Stephen Ray Morris is going to play the theme song to the original Speed Racer, and we're all going to love it.
Okay.
Here he comes.
Here comes Speed Racer.
He's the demon on wheels.
It's hate.
He's a demon and he's gonna be chasing after someone.
He's gaining on you, so you better look alive.
He's busy revving up the powerful Mach 5.
And when the odds are against him and there's dangerous work to do,
ghosts be great, sir.
Ghost be great, sir.
Ghost be great, sir.
He's on the fight.
He's got him down the tunnel like a
deep.
All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.
Let's learn everything.
So let's do a quick progress check.
Have we learned about quantum physics?
Yes, episode 59.
We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?
Yes, we have.
Same episode, actually.
Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?
Episode 64.
So, how close are we to learning everything?
Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet.
Oh, we're ruined!
No, no, no, it's good news as well.
There is still a lot to learn.
Woo!
I'm Dr.
Ella Hubber.
I'm regular Tom Lum.
I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.
And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.
Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.
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We both enjoyed the theme song to Speed Racer.
Before we rank Speed Racer on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials, I want to let you know how you can listen to our bonus episodes.
You go to maximumfun.org/slash join.
You become a member of Max Fun.
You get to hear our bonus episodes and all the bonus content for Maximum Fun.
Stephen, you and I just recorded kind of a cool bonus bonus thing with Jordan Jesse Goh.
We are watching on our show
on Jordan Jesse Go, we're watching movies that have podcasting in them.
And so we watched Pitch Perfect 2 with John Hodgman, who is in the movie.
Oh my God.
Who had never seen the movie before?
I've never seen any of those movies.
Oh, they're good.
They're really funny.
And John Hodgman watched it for the first time and talked all about being on set and doing the movie.
And he talked about teaching the Green Bay Packers how to make a martini.
Oh my God.
So you can listen to me.
Now I want to see the movie, but I also need to hear this episode.
It's a great episode.
We are watching Free With Ads TV.
We've watched a bunch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
We've watched the Street Fighter cartoon.
Yes.
Gotham, all kinds of.
Peewee.
And we've watched Pee Wee, the pilot to Pee-Wee.
Which is, as of this recording, still all of Pee-Wee's Playhouse is available free with ads on YouTube as of right now.
There you go.
Watch some Pee-Wee.
Listen to us talk about it.
MaximumFun.org slash join and maxfunstore.com for all your free with ads merch.
Okay, Speed Racer.
We're gonna rank it on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials.
Emily, as the first timer, I'll let you wrap it up.
I have had seen this movie.
I had heard that, you know, I also avoided it in theaters, but like had people say, like, you gotta watch Speed Racer.
It's actually good.
It's actually good.
There's stuff about this movie I love.
Like, there's stuff about this movie that I'm like, I can't believe this is the choice.
I love that it's like so for kids, you know, and there's some things about the aesthetic I really like, but just like between the cool shit is just like frustrating, boring stuff.
Right, right.
And I don't, I don't think it looks that cool anymore.
Yeah.
And yeah, and I think that the like the cool stuff is the practical stuff.
It's the costumes.
Absolutely.
The cool, it's the cool like art direction.
It's the cool costumes.
So yeah, I think if you like, again, if you like the wischowskis, which you should because they're geniuses,
like you maybe even kind of want to watch their flops.
Yeah.
So yeah, I think.
Which we have and maybe we will continue to do.
Sure.
Yeah.
So yeah, if you're into the wachowskis, like, you know, I'm sure you'll get a lot from watching this.
And yeah, but I think you can get the cool parts via clips.
If you like are curious about the good stuff.
I'm sure there's clips.
Maybe just watch those and it's fucking too long.
So yeah, I think I'm I'm gonna give it a I'm gonna give it a I'm gonna give it a five.
I'm gonna go five because the good stuff kind of elevates it.
Emily, what do you think?
Well, just like every movie I don't like, I'm going to try to be kind by: will it be fun in the background of a party?
Sure.
Just to have on a screen.
And I do think that it would.
I think that the coolest thing that should be about this movie is the racing because racer is in the title and the races are just absolute nothings to me.
Like it's nothing to look at.
There is no stakes.
I don't know what the fuck's happening.
It's just a bunch of blurry mess.
And that makes me so angry.
And it's also so long and it's mostly about how corporations are evil.
And I don't think that's for kids.
I don't know any kid who wants this movie.
And the fact that there's like no sexual chemistry between the two leads.
I'm giving this a two.
Okay.
A two for Speed Racer, a two for each tire on his car plus two other tires.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
Okay, that's our Speed Racer episode.
Hell yeah.
Emily, got anything coming up?
I'm on Mythical Kitchen, which is a channel on YouTube.
If you love watching Jordan, myself, and Matt on Good Mythical Morning, they also have a channel called Mythical Kitchen for their cooking segments for Chef Josh, who is their brilliant chef.
And along with the other kitcheners, I sometimes get to join.
And we did a new Meals of History that should be coming out very soon, if not already.
We did Meals of History is when I make dishes throughout history with Josh.
and we just did one from Dodge City, you know, get out of Dodge, that kind of thing.
So you usually play like a crazy character from the time period.
Right, or I play an actual historic character, but in this case, I did not.
I played a sheriff who was not good at it.
Okay.
Keep an eye.
Keep an eye out for it.
Yeah, he was a little too nice.
Just a little too nice of Dodge City.
Kind of a beta sheriff.
Yeah.
That's fun.
Kind of.
Those Mythical Kitchen videos are great.
Emily's hilarious in them.
You get to watch some cool things.
Yeah, go watch all of the Meals of History episodes from Mythical Kitchen.
That's cool.
Doing all that.
I think we got like 25 episodes now.
So if you want to see me at various nerd events in July, boy howdy, I got a couple for you.
I'm going to be at GalaxyCon in New Orleans, July 11th through 13th.
So please come see me at GalaxyCon in New Orleans.
And San Diego Comic-Con, I'm going to be there doing some really cool stuff.
Dates and times, TBD, but keep your eye peeled to this space that you listen to.
For more information on that, I hope to see folks out at those.
Stephen Ray Morris, thank you so much for joining us.
Yes, always happy to have you.
You're the producer of Jordan Jesse Go, but you also host a pod.
We alluded to it.
It's called Sea Jurassic Rite.
It's about Jurassic Park and some affiliated franchises.
You guys have had some cool stuff because, I mean, the new movie's coming out.
So you guys are some very excited about it.
And it's like keeping, when the movie drops, it's going to be like other people who love Jurassic Park.
We're all going to be celebrating.
It'll be fun.
Ooh, can I tell you?
I
made myself ride the ride.
The Universal Ride?
The ride.
I have a hard time with animatronics.
I'm very scared, but I also like it.
In the ride, it's terrifying.
Yes, but also the drop and everything.
But yes, the animatronics are terrifying and they've changed a few things.
There's more
things that I didn't know I did.
Where did you go?
I went about a month ago.
Oh, shit.
And
luckily, somebody got me a big tinky, a tinky, tinky drink.
A big tinky drink.
A big tinky drink.
And I chugged it.
And they were like, you're going on it.
And then I was like, oh, no, oh, no.
I mean, that's kind of the way to do it, I feel.
And I made myself keep my eyes open for a lot of it.
And then I closed it for the drop because that, when it comes through and then the thing drops, I can't, I can't do it.
I can't do it.
So, but you'd be very proud of me.
And I would love to force myself to do it again.
And then if you want me to to come on and talk about the ride, I would love to ride.
That would be so much fun.
Oh, my gosh.
I will talk about the ride.
I was going to say the other thing you can do, especially during the summer when that line is long, it's called the Medello Challenge.
And so, you know, there's those giant, like, tall boys, and you have to, the challenge is to try and drink as many of those in the line before you get on.
Oh, that's just me in line.
I don't really know if that's a challenge.
Assuming we have the DMV.
The most I've done.
And that's why I don't drive.
The most I've done is two and a half.
So it's
impressive.
That's something you shoot for.
You pray you're going to piss everywhere.
Like at some point, that's a lot of liquid.
True, but we're all wet anyway.
So people will.
Yeah, you just pee in that thing.
Nobody will notice.
All right.
Tune in next week when our movie will be Honey.
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