Varsity Blues

This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question: why pay a buck 99 an episode to watch Friday Night Lights when you can go online for free and watch a high school football drama with southern accents so bad they make the dad from season three of White Lotus sound like Willie Nelson?

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming.

Today's movie is Varsity Blizz, the 90s teen football comedy.

Comedy?

I don't know.

With wall-to-wall pop punk needle drops, the perfect music for telling your dad, I don't want your life.

With us, as always, always, well, not last week, but he's here now.

The super producer, the he freak, Matt Lieb, hitting us with those down-home drops.

Penis, penis, penis, vagina, vagina, vagina.

Hell yeah.

So excited to be back.

Sorry, Miss Land.

Sorry, Miss Land Before Time.

I was going to use that drop for Land Before Time.

Right.

And it just happened.

Right before Littlefoot's mom dies.

That's what she says.

After a big chunk.

Final words.

A big chunk is taken out by a sharp tooth.

Penis, penis, penis, vagina, vagina, vagina.

Yes, strap that tree star to your penis.

That's right.

Find the great valley.

Baboom.

You know what?

That's pussy.

That worked way better than mine.

I know.

I mean, they were both great.

They were all great.

Nothing anyone said has been bad.

Matt,

before we move on, should I give you a little chance to weigh in on the Land Before Time?

Was that a childhood movie of yours?

I love Land Before Time.

10 out of 10.

I didn't get to re-watch it for the pod,

but if my memory serves, it's one of the greatest dinosaurs movies ever made.

So

I feel like that's probably still right.

And after editing the episode, it looks like y'all pretty much agree with me.

Oh, yeah.

No.

Yeah, it's detected.

We love it.

Well, hey, we got a new movie to talk about.

It's Varsity Blues.

But before we talk about Varsity Blues, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we want to talk about something else we saw for free on the internet this week.

There's a new Nicholas Cage movie in theaters, it's called The Surfer, I believe.

I can't imagine we won't get to it at a certain point on this podcast.

Probably.

It looks pretty rad, but it kind of reminded me of all the great Nicholas Cage quotes over the years, all the great press quotes.

And this is one someone reminded me of, and it's just delightful.

One of his best, not his most famous quote, but

I think the real ones know that this is one of the finest cage moments of all time.

All right.

This is from a red carpet.

He is wearing like a plaid blazer.

He's wearing a plaid blazer.

I love it.

And he looks like a certain famous box of cookies.

And

I think the interviewer asks him what the deal with this plaid blazer is, and this is what he says.

I really like shortbread.

And whenever I'm in England, I go get a tin can of shortbread.

And I was feeling kind of happy, kind of like I was biting into some shortbread.

So tonight I wanted to dress like I was a can of shortbread.

What a treat.

I love him.

He sounds like the kid that was like, apparently, I've never been on television before.

Like that kid, he's just saying shortbread instead of apparently.

Nicholas Cage, an Oscar-winning movie star, behaves like a kid on the news.

He does.

Totally.

And I love the idea that Nicholas Cage just dresses like what he wants to eat.

I mean, when you have,

I guess, fame but no money, which I think is what he's famous for, then

you can really go all in on your eccentricities.

Today

I'm going to dress like an Oscar Meyer Wiener.

Tomorrow, you know, I'll probably dress like, I don't know,

a rapper from In N Out.

I was having a dream about ham salad.

ham solid

you know what's so funny is his voice almost sounds exactly like david lynch's but it's like five octaves lower yeah yeah and it's this it's similar vibes yeah they're both yeah they're the same kind of like weirdo from the same generation for sure yeah have you guys seen the trailer for his newest movie gunslingers No, no, can't you?

It sounds dope.

Oof.

It's, you got to see it.

It's going to be the the best trash ever, you know.

But my favorite thing is, so I kind of lost my voice because I just went to Florida and partied, and now I sound like this.

But his voice kind of sounds like it's like he's having a whisper like this.

Yeah, yeah, he's got it.

He's got kind of your Florida voice going on.

Yeah, yeah.

There's quiet, okay.

Yeah.

I love when he was going through his financial troubles,

one of the things that he had to sell was a genuine Stegosaurus skull.

And I just love the idea of him saying the words genuine Stegosaurus.

You know,

I'm sure I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I went to his estate sale and bought a painting from his house.

What?

Oh, no, I don't think I've heard this.

Yeah, so he, when he had his money troubles, as you mentioned, he sold his skull, but you could go to his house like he had died and buy his stuff.

And he had thrones, he had suits of armor, and like the thing I could afford is this little painting.

It's called Sacred Geometric Shapes for Meditation.

And yeah, I still have it in my house, and it used to belong to Nicholas Cage.

That's amazing.

I feel like you told me that, but I totally forgot.

Yeah, it sounds relatively familiar.

Was he there?

No, he was, I was kind of hoping he'd be there doing that like,

genuine Sagosaurus skull.

Exactly.

A bottle of hair that once belonged to Genghis Kong.

Awful cage.

Wait, that's actually pretty good.

What was the house like, though?

Yeah.

Oh, the house was a pretty, like, it was a really nice, like, Hollywood Hills mansion.

It looks like somewhere, like a location from Boogeynights.

Okay, okay.

Nice.

So kind of 70s vibes.

Yeah, yeah.

Sexy 70s.

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

Almost bought his copy of the Kama Sutra.

Oh, there.

I could have bought Cage's copy of the Kama Sutra.

What the fuck, Jordan?

Hang on.

How much was the painting?

Can I ask?

It was like 30 bucks.

What, really?

Yeah, I know.

Damn, Nick.

Some good deals.

Some good deals.

Hopefully,

his money troubles.

Want him to have money troubles.

But if he does again,

we'll be there.

Well, hey, before we get to the movie,

another little footnote here, real quick.

A couple weeks ago, we played a great video of a Miley Cyrus song syncing up to a swarm of bees that Emily provided.

We actually couldn't find the

original poster at the moment, but the original poster has revealed themselves.

Yes.

Her name is Paige Reagan.

She's on Instagram at PaganRage.

She's a great musician.

You should follow her there.

Hey, let's talk about varsity blues.

It's time to talk about varsity blues.

But I don't want your life.

Thank you.

Wow.

Close.

Very close.

Your life is.

Just know how dare you.

Listen, I'm doing my best here.

You couldn't have gone.

I think you should have gone.

I don't want your life.

Yeah, I tried that too.

I was like, you know, I think people like it because it's bad.

If we're being honest, the stings are funny because they're bad.

They're a reacho.

Sure.

Yeah.

But then there's also things that you make, like the Walk to Remember song, which are arguably very good.

Beautiful songs.

It's a lot of contrasts, you know?

We all peaks and valleys.

Stones and valleys, baby.

So I, you know, I was in the pocket for this movie in high school, did not see it.

I know the like

stuff from it.

Oh, had anybody, had any of us seen it, Matt?

I had seen it.

Okay, cool.

Do you, were you, like, in high school?

Did you, like, go with a bunch of buddies and have somebody buy you a ticket because it was rated R?

God, you know, I would love to think that's what I did.

It was me and all my cool friends went to go to the movies together, but it was probably my sister and my dad who came.

Mostly because this is more for my sister than it was for me.

She is a big Dawson's Creek head,

and I was like, well, you know, football movie sounds kind of sick.

It's got a little Dawson's Creek in it.

Okay, fine.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I think that the two things that kind of have endured from this movie.

I don't want your life,

said by James Vanderbeek to his father, when the father is trying to get him to want his life.

And the whipped cream bikini.

That's right.

There is a saucy scene where a woman comes out wearing nothing but whipped cream and some cherries.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, that was like in the trailer and shit.

So yeah, I definitely like, you know, it's one of those images that burns in your brain if you see it at the right age.

So

you never forget the whipped cream bikini as, you know, as at least as someone who's attracted to women, because as a kid, you think, well, there's nothing hotter than that.

Like, I love titties.

Yeah.

And I love sweets, you know, and then it's only when you become an adult that you're like, well, that's disgusting.

That would be so gross.

I just don't

practice.

It's like, I mean, it's like, there's a version of that that's hot, but, you know, you get from the shower right after.

Yeah, you're going to get itchy.

You're going to get itchy and sticky.

I mean, I think that that reminds me of stories, like, you know, horror stories that people would tell each other about, like, if you did that, put whipped cream everywhere and they forgot to wash it, and then a bunch of spiders like with vagina.

And then, like, a bunch of that's how you get ants.

Yes, but you get, you get vagina ants,

pussy ants.

It's the David Cronenberg version of this movie.

Yeah.

Maybe that's what that movie was that I saw just the cover of on the VHS.

Yeah, the ants.

Maybe.

Maybe she was doing the whipped cream bikini.

And she was in a whipped cream bikini.

It went wrong.

That's the explanation.

Yeah.

I don't think we're ever going to find the movie from the poster that I've told everyone about.

No.

People have sent ones that look, it's like, oh, yeah, you found something that kind of looks like it, but it's not it.

Yeah.

I think I just made it up.

Might be a dream movie.

It might be a movie that lives in your head.

Feverdream.

Well, yeah.

I was, yeah, both of those kind of moments are kind of interesting to talk about in their own ways.

And let's do it.

Let's talk about this movie.

We open on the logo.

It's an MTV movie.

MTV made fucking movies at one point.

Who knew?

Now it's just a place place for Rob Deerdick to watch phone videos.

But MTV makes like Yellowstone and Landman.

Oh, yeah, those are like paramount things.

Do they have MTV logos before?

They sure do.

I didn't know that.

Oh, my God.

They have the, I want my TV.

Like, that'll look like, oh, my gosh.

Yeah, they do.

There was another movie that, you know, they did Napoleon Dynamite.

That's right.

Oh, sure, yeah.

And then there's this movie called

Better Luck Tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That movie is so good.

If we can find that in the future, I'd love to, because it was crazy.

Yeah, MTV, kind of a cool, cool movie, movie company at one point.

Yeah, pretty cool.

So, yeah, they did this movie.

You know, and then we cut to a montage.

A Texas flag, an American flag.

We get a little voiceover talking about how, in Texas, football is a religion.

This monologue is being performed by Mox, played by James Vanderbeek.

Matt, I'm going to need you to cook up a new drop.

Square wrist head.

Oh, I'm very square head on this man.

I didn't cook that up, but I did cook up this.

Football.

That's it.

That's pretty good.

Hey, you know, we're experimenting.

I was sitting there waiting for the Godzilla drop, and you know what?

I like this one better.

Godzilla.

Yeah, I don't want to wait for our lives to be football.

Football.

Yep, that's right.

He's a football guy, But he's reading Slaughterhouse 5.

So this guy, this guy's not just a fucking jock.

He reads Kurt Vonnegut.

Surely he's got a lot of other interesting qualities we'll learn about.

We actually won't.

This is the only thing about this guy.

He has zero qualities.

Anyway,

it kind of, what was that movie that he did where he was also a smart ass kind of was it rules of engagement or no laws of attraction or something like that i don't know a lot i have not seen a lot of van der beek in my in my day i did not watch dawson's creek yeah so he played the most van der beek i've ever consumed well he also had van wilder and stuff he did quite a few of these kind of cool dudes that played sports or were high school guys and they reynolds was van wilder

Ryan Reynolds.

Yeah, Ryan Reynolds was Van Wilder, but maybe James Vanderbeek was in it.

No, no, no, you're right.

Emily, these are similar men.

It's not a not a not an unreasonable thing to

get confused.

Vanderbeek could have played Deadpool 1,000%.

I just want to say.

I like Ryan, but Vander Beek is also very talented.

He could have done it.

So, yeah, he's reading Slaughterhouse 5.

His little brother comes in.

His little brother has like a makeshift Jesus cross that he is like made for himself.

The little

has this running gag where he gets into a different religion every scene.

This does not pay off, and it is never as funny as the Jesus thing is kind of a fun gag because he's trying to eat breakfast, but he's on the cross.

Yes.

That was funny.

Yeah.

I liked him when he was Nation of Islam guy.

That was pretty funny.

That's a weird one.

Yeah.

Even though it's very specific to, it's like not, he wasn't Muslim.

He was very specifically Nation of Islam.

Malcolm X guy.

Yeah, which is like a Malcolm X type guy, which is a funny visual, but also very confusing.

Yeah, it does not enter into the story.

I maybe would guess it was added in at a later time when they realized the movie wasn't funny enough.

Anyway, so the kids, he's dressed as Jesus.

It kind of points to this movie being a little wackier than it actually ends up being.

I'm like, oh, maybe it's kind of crazy, but it's not really.

That's like why you said it was a comedy, and I was like, where?

Like, I don't know.

Emily, people think you're coming up with that stuff off the phone.

Yeah, so it had, yeah, it has, it's a, it's a dramedy, I guess one might say.

So James Vanderbeek, his buddies come to pick him up.

We meet the whole crew.

He's got a he's got a big guy buddy.

What is it?

Does anybody remember this guy's name?

Billy Bob?

Billy Bob.

There we go.

They're in the south.

Easily.

Even though no one sounds like it.

Yeah, easily my favorite character in this whole movie.

Yeah, Billy Bob's pretty great.

He's a big guy.

And, you know, they write a lot of big guy jokes for him.

He's dipping, when we first meet him, he's dipping, I think, a folded-up pancake into peanut butter, which actually looks kind of awesome.

I'm like, I kind of want to do that.

Yeah, and he's drinking maple syrup straight from the bar.

Again, kind of like, oh, is this movie going to be wacky?

It's not really, but these first couple minutes have some wacky shit.

And they also pick up, hey, it's the 90s.

Paul Walker is in this.

The opposite of a jump scare.

I'm like, hey, there's my boy.

R.I.P.

We love to see.

We love it.

We stand a low-energy king.

I love him.

I love the fast movies, and

those were popping off right when I was doing my job where I did a lot of press junkets.

So I got to do a lot of little press junkets with Paul Walker.

And I could tell he loved those movies.

So, you know,

I have nothing but love for this guy and was so glad he popped up.

Yeah, it was very sad.

I used to do this joke where I would say,

let's see, and starring Academy Award winner Paul Walker as a joke.

And then he passed, and I was like, well, there goes that joke.

You know, because it's not nice to

be able to.

I think Paul Walker knew what his lane was.

Yes.

I think Paul Walker maybe would have made

jokes.

Definitely.

Anyway, yeah, I'm hard to believe we haven't done a fast movie on this yet, huh?

Oh, someday.

We've been saving it.

I feel like I feel like we always know that they're on there.

It's always available.

Yeah, maybe when they drop the last one, we'll do it.

Anyway, hell yeah, hell yeah.

Those are fun.

So

anyway, so Paul Walker's there.

He's kind of like the star quarterback.

First needle drop of the movie.

Nice guys Finish Last from Green Day.

Good song.

Under maybe like not the most famous Green Day single, one of my faves.

Not our favorite from a soundtrack.

No, no, no.

Needed a little bit of Godzilla.

Could not compare.

No, but still, fun needle drop for a 90s movie.

Yeah.

John Voigt is their coach.

He's giving a big old coach speech.

Boy, this isn't as fun as it should be.

John Voigt's really doing this down the middle.

This movie, like in general, needs to be campier.

Like it doesn't get it.

John Voigt is kind of phoning this in.

It's not as fun as it needs to be.

Well, also, it's, I had a, okay, so I played sports in high school.

You swam, Jordan.

Yeah.

Did you play every year?

Oh, yeah.

But did you play sports, Matt?

No, no, I did drugs.

A sport of the mind.

That's right.

Mind sports.

Mind sports.

I was the Serena Williams of Smoking Weed.

I had a lot of flashbacks while watching this video.

Oh, yeah.

Did you have like a mean coach?

I did.

I did.

She was very intense.

She had veins that would pop out of her neck.

She was so angry all the time.

But she had the biggest diamond wedding ring.

And that made up for it.

I don't know.

I could stop staring at it.

Wow.

But she was.

She was tough.

And a lot of people got injured all the time and then just were expected to well what she do is like kind of treat you if you get injured You did something wrong like it's your fault

and then it's like punishing you by sitting on the beat on the bench but people

it was like watching this kind of made me go why do these adults give so much of a shit about this like john voig is his character is such a loser it's he's such a loser i know so crazy that these adults all his dads are losers and i think this movie like

that's the pioneer knows that,

it's weird.

The movie doesn't, like, the movie doesn't know what it's doing.

Like, it, yeah, it seems like maybe there's a kind of a,

anyway, there's something there about the parents kind of being too obsessed with the kids.

They kind of get at it, but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Yeah, I think it's just kind of like towns like that

in places like Texas.

For sure, yeah.

That's, that is, it's so important to everyone.

And I feel like maybe the point of this was to show you how ridiculous that is, maybe.

Yeah, I think, yeah, ultimately, it seems like the movie is like, this is silly.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was

not based, it felt like it was trying to be based in reality, but nothing was realistic about this movie.

Yeah.

I mean, the teacher secrets.

That's a stripper.

A stripper.

Yeah.

And also.

No one involved in this movie had been to Texas or knew the rules of football.

Exactly.

And then like

18-year-olds getting into a strip club and drinking all night.

Like, what are you talking about?

It's so fucking crazy.

The director of this movie is now the current president of Paramount Pictures.

That checks.

That checks.

Which checks.

Further proof that white guys fail up.

Anyway, white guys finish first.

Well, but for the sake of our own careers,

we think you did a great job.

Oh, yes.

Great job.

We would all like to be on Star Trek.

Yeah, I did.

Yes.

I loved all the titties and the slurs.

I really think I could be an asset to the writer's room for Landman.

Put me in the writer's room for what is it?

It's called, I think it's called Mobland.

There's also a place, a show called.

There you go.

Matt, you would be great on the

mobland.

I'll go to the land man.

Yeah, Landman, Mobland.

Let's put them all together.

That's five times fast.

Anyway, so James Vanderbeek, he goes to visit his girlfriend.

Amy Smart.

Good to see Amy Smart and something.

Love him.

It's always fun to see.

He's got giant pants.

His pants are so fucking big in this movie.

They're so cool.

That's how I wore them.

Those were matte pants, right?

Yeah, 100%.

Those are matte pants.

Big pants.

Big mat.

Going off to a corn concert.

Yeah, he's keeping the pants got to be big to keep all the weeds.

That's right.

And the fucking huge dick.

Look how many pockets I have.

For all these condoms I'm not going to use.

So, yeah, so he meets his girlfriend, Amy Smart.

She does not have qualities either.

We go into the locker room.

The dudes are doing Roids, and they're saying casual, homophobic slurs.

All right.

It was the 90s.

It's 1999.

I think that was the peak of that.

And while people still, unfortunately, say these things, we now have the good sense to maybe not put them in our teen movies.

Yeah.

But yes,

a real shock and bummer that the movies of our youth are so full of this.

I want to point something out.

We do have a

segment of our show called Oldest Teen, where we pick out the oldest teen in the movie.

But I have a new guy.

Oldest teen.

Sorry.

For this movie, this is the oldest teen movie.

Oh, yeah.

You can't just pick one guy.

Yeah.

I maybe would argue that I think Grease 2 is a worse offender.

Sure.

Maybe.

What was that weed movie we watched?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, Reaver Madness.

Reefer Madness.

But these are some old fucking teens.

Yeah.

Billy Bob in particular.

This guy is great.

A bright spot of the movie.

He is comfortably 45.

Yes.

Easily.

And they have extras in the movie who are actual teens, and it's so stark.

They're just in a class sitting next to a fucking grown-up.

There's like a literal child there, and then someone who's getting their like their PhD in physics.

You understand that you've cast a bunch of old people.

Like, you just don't have any extras who are actually teens.

What are you doing?

All the dads look like they're maybe five years older than you.

Yeah, they're son.

Yeah.

They showed one, they go to a party at one point, and they have a guy who used to play football.

And they're like, he played football, you know, back in the day.

And he looks the exact same age, but they made him bald.

Right.

That was the only way that they could age him.

It was ridiculous.

So, yeah.

So

we see like a scene at a family barbecue.

The dads are all fighting.

The dads, like, kids all played football.

They're arguing about whose kid is the best at football.

James Vanderbeek, like, throws a pass at his dad.

He's trying to hit a beer can off his head, and he hits his dad in the face.

So, like, oh, he's not that good.

But Paul Walker can do it.

Anyway, they're at a, we get a scene in the sex ed class where we

slow down.

I'm sorry.

Just real quick, that scene, we saw somebody,

a baby-aged Jesse Plemons.

Oh, you know, I was wondering that.

There's a kid there who looks like Jesse Plemons.

Jesse Plemons?

It's got to be.

I mean, I'm going to look it up just because, you know, I don't know for sure.

Well, that would make sense because he went on to do Friday Night Lights.

That feels like, you know, those

roles that people have that you go, oh, that's why they got the role in the next season.

Right, yeah, just like a lazy casting director.

Yeah, that's him.

Jesse Plemons.

Yeah, I looked at him.

I mean, he is a very, he's like one of those guys you look at and

his face burns into your retina.

He's a distinct man.

Yes, very distinct.

You know,

we just did Talented Mr.

Ripley, which we had Matt Damon and we had Philip Seymour Hoffman in it.

I think Jesse Plemons is like

an amalgamation of both of those men.

Absolutely.

Jesse Plemons is

if they had a baby.

Yes, yes.

Phillip Seymour Damon.

So yeah,

maybe a little Plemons in this.

Oh,

So, yeah.

I looked it up.

It is him.

I just want everyone to know.

I saw it.

Crazy.

Okay.

Wild.

So, yeah, we get a scene in Sex Ed class.

We got a pretty sexy teacher.

We'll see more of her later.

They made sure to say that all of the football players are 18.

And I think we know why they did that.

Yeah.

They want to get away with something.

And it's like, yeah, I don't know.

I think at least they do, you know, sometimes in these movies when they don't do that, I'm like, come on, just do that.

Yeah, so it's, but also, yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

So, yeah, Billy Bob collapses in class.

He is really hurt.

He's maybe got a concussion or something.

Oh, for sure.

He's got a concussion.

The thing about this movie that I...

I did that gave me like flashbacks and kind of was traumatizing is how many injuries I remember kids at my school getting in every sport.

Like every sport, somebody was fucked up all the time.

And it was like, why are we

so into this?

Right.

Yeah.

Why is this allowed?

It's so weird, like, how much pressure you're putting on yourself.

I don't know.

I get it.

I know it's a big, it's a big deal in America to be into football, but I got to say,

it's out of every sport I watch, there's more injuries in this than any sport.

And they stop and start all the time.

I don't like watching football.

I don't get it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this movie did, did, I think, the problem with it is it did too much.

It was trying to be too many things.

I thought, you know, with the, you know, the Billy Bob storyline that it was going to be about like.

I thought he was going to die.

I thought he was going to die.

I kind of thought it was going to be about like.

I think nothing happens to Billy Bob.

It's like a weird fake out.

Yeah.

They did a couple of fake outs in this movie.

There was another moment which

maybe just for the sake of whatever, I should preface this comment

that it it did make it seem like a suicide plot point was about to happen.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then it did not.

It did not, but it was like there were a bunch of fake outs for Billy Bob

that were cheap to me that I didn't like.

It was,

and I think it's like, decide what movie you want to be before you rent the equipment.

Sure.

That's how I feel about it.

And don't make the solution a bunch of random movies.

You know,

if you can't, yeah, pick one.

Yeah.

Pick one and a half or something.

So yeah, so there's a lot of weird tone stuff in this.

So Billy Bob, we think he has a concussion, but in the game, Lance, Paul Walker, is the one that gets hurt.

He goes to the hospital and James Vanderbeek fills in for him and becomes the new star quarterback and like the biggest fucking celebrity in the town.

Yeah.

He goes to this house.

And the house parties in this are really fun.

The house parties in this really make you want to go to a house party.

They do.

You know, they're giving beer to a pig.

They're having fun.

Man, I didn't get to go to any house parties in Florida.

Oh, man.

I'm so bummed about that.

Yeah.

You probably lucked out.

I can imagine a house party in Florida is just the beginning of an obituary.

Not for them.

Yeah.

I'm going to be fine.

Yeah, I am.

But no, yeah.

Yeah, the house parties were crazy.

And the injuries, well, the other thing is they were doing like

painkillers also.

There's this whole other

painkiller.

It's a very serious story that they just gloss over.

Totally.

So we know that Paul Walker's character has a knee problem already, but he doesn't tell anyone, but he's taking like a bunch of, I don't know what he's taking, you know, narcotics.

Yeah.

And then when he gets this injury, they're like, yeah, he's not going to be able to play.

He's going to lose his scholarship.

But also he had like so much scar tissue around his knee that he would have been fucked anyway.

Right.

And it's like, I don't know.

This is sad.

They're like old men by the time they're 18.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's a real

issue that would have been great to explore.

Yeah.

If the movie had decided, you know, it didn't want to necessarily be the movie that made the whipped cream bikini happen.

Yeah.

And if you think that like, okay, you got Paul Walker and James Vanderbeek, who's more likely to make an ouchie on their knee?

It's Vanderbeek all the way up.

Yeah, the world's most delicate seeming man.

Yes, and he's like the only person on the team that doesn't get any injuries.

It's crazy idea.

So, yeah, so at this party, the prankster of the group, Tweeter, he steals the police car.

Tweeter's fun.

He drives around with a bunch of naked babes and tries to get James Vanderbeek to come in the car.

This is kind of interesting.

I do like that, like, in this kind of gratuitous nudity shot, you also get to like see Tweeter be naked and see his butt.

That's a kind of a these movies didn't usually have like equal opportunity nudity.

Yeah, it was usually like a bunch of tits, and then like it's kind of nice that we're you know, we're something for everybody.

Uh, Twitter's a Twitter's in great shape, and he's got tattoos.

It's like, again, 18-year-old with a guy, yeah, I know, crazy to me.

I don't know, I know, yeah.

This guy, yeah, this guy is a not a high school student, this guy is a bartender at an airport.

Yeah, he's abandoned his second family, like

no kidding.

But

so, yeah, so Vanderbeek doesn't go around with the naked babes, but he does take an invitation from Paul Walker's girlfriend to come over when her parents aren't there.

So again, he is

intertwined with Amy Smart, but he has this moment of weakness and he goes over to Paul Walker's girlfriend's house and she comes out in the whipped cream bikini.

Yeah.

Strategically placed cherries.

And they like start to kiss, and then he can't do it.

And she starts crying.

And this,

like, there's a lot going on here.

Like, right.

There's the potential for a great comedy scene here, right?

Like, a, oh, this is funny.

Like, you're crying in your whipped cream bikini or like, you know, having to break up with someone while they're wearing a whipped cream bikini.

They don't play it for laughs.

Like, that, they miss that.

And she does this, like, monologue about why she tries to sleep with football players.

It's because she wants to get out of the town.

Yeah.

And like, that's her way to do it.

And I'm like, huh?

Well, you didn't get the comedy of this, but like.

I do kind of like that they gave her a little bit of motivation and inner life.

Like, usually the naked babes in these movies, like, they're just punchlines.

The movies are kind of mean to them.

And I'm like, huh.

Well, like, it's not the most robust character, but it is, like, interesting that they're like, why is she doing this?

And it is, like, interesting that they give her a moment.

Yeah, I thought, I was hoping they would,

you know,

they do this thing later on where she kind of like thanks him for, you know, not being weird or something.

Yeah.

And then she kisses James Vanderbeek in front of Amy Smart.

On the lips.

Yeah.

That's cool.

And so there was part of me that was like, you know,

you know, you humanize this character, but now we're back to like, you fucking slut.

Like, that.

Yeah.

So it was like, again, it's like, I feel like there was a tug of war going on, figuring out where they were going.

Yeah, she's a mess.

She's a mess.

Yeah.

She's a mess.

She's also in Landman.

She's a landman?

Oh, yeah.

You guys should watch Landman.

It's wild.

Like,

I'm not.

We got to do a Landman podcast.

Yeah, you really do.

Landman is crazy.

My stepdad can guessed on it.

He loves it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, for sure.

He could.

But yeah, no, people get really weirded out when I say that I watched Yellowstone and like Landman.

That's not weird.

That's crazy, you guys.

You gotta watch it.

But yeah, she's in Landman.

And I want to tell you,

she's even more beautiful now than she was in Varsity Blues.

It's wild.

It doesn't make sense at all.

I mean, she's great.

She like...

is on a hit show and not just like the woman who did the whipped cream bikini, you know?

Yeah,

that is like a pretty cool credit.

Like, it's great that she like kept acting and doesn't just like go to cons and

find pictures of the whipped cream.

I mean, she did Resident Evil.

Like she's got cool, like, I like her career and she seems like a cool chick.

If she's not a cool chick, don't tell me.

I don't want to know.

Yeah, we don't want to know.

That's right.

I don't want to know.

So yeah, so she kisses him at school and it like drives a wedge between James Vanderbeek and Amy Smart reasonably.

But the but the foot back to the football hijinks.

They go to a strip club.

They're 18.

They're doing shots at the strip club.

And Billy Bob gets up and strips.

It's like pretty funny.

You don't want them to be just making fun about this as a big guy, but he is very likable and fun to watch in this.

He's the best.

Yeah.

And wouldn't you know it?

One of the teachers, one of the strippers gets up there.

The song Hot for Teachers starts playing.

No, it was so stupid.

Yeah, it's their teacher from school.

The sex ed teacher.

Yes.

I like that her character, her stripping character, is a teacher.

Like, she is not trying to hide it.

Like, yeah.

And I thought it was funny because they gave her a little bit of depth because at one point she's like pulling away from school before you know she's a stripper.

And he, James Van der Beeke, like she says bye to him.

And he goes, Wow, she's got a really nice car for a teacher.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

And then you find out that she's a stripper.

And I was like, well, that's funny.

They gave us a whole little storyline about this.

Yeah.

You know, it seems all very inappropriate but for this kind of movie oh and completely unlikely but i will say they didn't you know it was an equal opportunity employer for this movie that nobody's storyline was good yeah yeah so like the women were not written well

exactly but the men weren't written well either no

so it's like whatever but i will say amy smart's character i was so confused by her because once james van der Beek becomes the new quarterback superstar, she's like mad at him.

She's mad at him.

Yes.

It's weird.

And I'm like, why is she mad at him?

He's on the team.

Wouldn't you think he was going to maybe play at some point?

Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

The way that they frame it is that, you know, get too big for his britches.

Well, no, right.

There's that.

But even before that, she was mad about it.

And the way they frame it was he's been riding the bench all season.

Paul Walker's the star quarterback.

He's got a fucking like billboard.

Right.

And Amy Smart is like, you know, when is football over?

And he's like, it's just four more games.

Don't worry about it.

And then he becomes, you know.

Matt, that southern accent was way too good.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, you can't do that.

I'm just a good old boy from Keckie.

Mr.

Texas.

But here's on my exit, even Keki.

The annoying thing about it was that after he stops riding the bench, because Paul Walker gets hurt she's mad as if there's still not just four games left it's like the games why does it matter that he's playing now what does and what does anyone want what do you want anyone want to happen it's just like yeah um well also can i point something out that really pissed me off

they still have to go to state yeah Yeah, so what do you mean four more games?

You got way more games, dog.

If you guys, you think you got way more games.

Yeah, that's true.

It's so weird.

No one involved in this movie has watched ever played sports because, like, they probably didn't want to pay for other jerseys or something.

I don't know.

But, like,

you know what they didn't want to pay for was beer labels.

In the strip club, all the beer bottles just say beer on them.

I love it.

Most generic, like, generic, lazy.

But you couldn't, like, make up a fake like beer for the movie.

Sure, yeah.

Yeah.

Fucking stupid.

Old Samson's.

There, I just did it.

Old Samson is fine.

No one can really.

But yeah, like if you, once you win,

I don't know what it was, like districts or regionals or whatever the fuck it is.

Champions, champions, you go to state now.

So when they were talking, Jays Vanderbilt was like, I never played football again.

I was like, bitch, you just quit on your team before state.

Everybody got to go to state.

You're just going to bail on your team now?

Asshole.

Like, it pissed me off.

We're getting into the I Don't Want Your Life scene.

It kind of happens here.

They kind of start to lose, and Dad gets mad at him.

He does the I Don't Want Your Life.

Which I thought was bigger than that performance.

That was the biggest.

It's such a meme, and it sticks in all of our heads.

But it is, it kind of pats.

I'm like, oh, he just did it.

It's just a throwaway in that scene.

And I'm like, sure.

It's such a memorable line.

But also, what do you want your life to be?

You've never told us.

You've never, like, I guess you read that book one time.

Maybe two times we see him with the book.

But he

yeah, I guess he gets a college scholarship for academics later.

To Brown.

And I'm like, who is this guy?

Like what you don't have to have him sit down and go like, I don't want to be a football player.

I want to be a writer.

But like

something.

The second half is important.

I don't want to be a football player.

I want to be

what?

And then later he's like, I only want to play football when it's pure.

Okay.

What does that mean?

At the end of the movie, he's like, and I never played football again.

What the fuck?

What do you think about it?

It's not bad to like football.

You can like it.

Yeah.

It's just, yeah, it's infuriating.

This, like, this, like, who is our main character?

Whoever figured it out.

Whoever wrote this movie hates football, I think.

I think football is dumb.

Yeah.

Small downs.

I think so.

And the thing is, I wouldn't say I hate it, but I certainly don't like it.

And so I should.

I'm sure about it if you wrote a movie about it.

For sure, but you think if this movie was by someone who hated football, I would like it.

And I don't.

Yeah, it's like the satire stuff isn't like funny enough.

And yeah, I know.

It's just like, and yeah, and like, I like, I'm not a huge sports guy, but like a well-done sports movie is great.

Like, oh, Friday Night.

The League of Their Own is an all-timer for me.

Yes.

All the Rocky movies, all the Creed movies, I love, you know, I don't run any of his sports.

The Remove of the Titans is my favorite football movie by far.

Okay.

But yeah, there are like Friday Night Lights is amazing.

So yeah, this was like, it was like if Dawson's Creek tried to be Friday Night Lights.

No.

So yeah,

we're kind of, you listen.

We got the I don't want your life.

What life does he want?

We don't know.

And how will he feel when the movie is over?

We won't know that either, but the end of the movie is coming soon, and we'll talk about it right after this.

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I'm Jordan Morris.

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We're going to talk about the finale of whatever this movie is called.

What is it called?

Oh, yes.

Varsity Blues.

Yes.

Varsity Blue.

Boo!

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, like, Billy Bob is like kind of having a meltdown.

I kind of forget what happened to him.

He's like injured the whole time.

Nothing ever.

No, he thinks, like, the coach blames him for Paul Walker's character getting injured.

And Billy Bubb is

an emotional guy and he gets bullied a lot.

And

I hate watching him get bullied.

It makes me so bad.

He's got the scene where he's like crying and like shooting all of his old trophies with a shotgun.

I know.

And that's the scene where I was nervous because I was like, oh, God, what's going to happen?

I hate this.

And then it didn't, nothing happened.

And James Vanderbeek kind of comes and comforts him.

And this is kind of a sweet scene.

Like, they have good chemistry and

it's nice.

There's this weird, like, filmmaking doesn't make sense moment where James Vanderbeek shoots a picture of John Voigt with the shotgun, and then we see Billy Bob throw a liquor bottle at the thing, but we don't see it break.

It

shattered my mind.

I'm like, am I insane?

Usually, anyway, just like

also, why does this 18-year-old boy have an enormous shotgun?

Manufacturer is crazy.

I know, I know, but it's still still wild.

Junior high graduation.

Jesus Christ.

So we're going into the final game.

Amy Smart and James Vanderbee make up for some reason.

She gives them a pep talk.

Such a wet blanket.

I don't get like, she's like, now I'm happy you're a football player.

Yeah, it's weird.

She just flips on it and forgets about the fact that he kissed that other girl.

She's just like, now I'm, now you're a hero.

And they play the Foo Fighter.

I think she was a figment of his imagination.

I don't remember.

No, she's not real.

It's like, yeah.

Remember her talking to anyone.

Yeah.

Who did she talk to besides him in this movie?

Wow.

Amy Smith was dead the whole time.

Yes.

Wow.

That's the Shyamalan twist.

I love it.

So

it's the final game, and they're kind of losing.

And John Voigt wants to give somebody who hurt himself steroids, and all the team is like, well, we're walking out.

And then John Voigt walks out and packs up his office.

There's kind of a funny, not intentionally funny shot of like them playing football.

And you cut to John Voight cleaning out his office.

Yeah, I'm like, and that's pretty good.

I feel kind of bad for him in that moment, which is sad because he was such a piece of shit.

Yeah, um, he was gonna destroy um James Vander Beek's character's chance at Brown because he got into Brown on scholarship and he said, You better play good, or I'm gonna ruin your transcripts, you know.

You know, if I get what I want, yeah, what a weird shot.

He got in for academic, yeah, anyway.

Yeah, it's it's it's very strange.

My favorite thing about his character, though, is he's like, so he's won 23 district championships in a row or whatever which was like my coach when i played we won state every year except for the years i was there

it's not your fault

i don't know but um you just didn't want her life i didn't want her life emily put that put that shotgun down stop shooting all your trophies

but it was he had that huge statue that's like dedicated to him huge bronze set statue.

And at the end of the movie, James Andrew Beat goes,

he never coached football again, and they didn't remove the statue because it was too heavy.

Yeah.

That's weird.

Yeah.

So they like win the game.

Billy Bob kind of

makes the final play, and he's the hero.

It was so adorable.

That made me so happy.

It was cute.

I know.

Everything with him is really cute.

Another needle drop.

You know, I think it was.

There goes my heels.

I feel like this was the first time I ever saw, like, that created a meme.

That's the third thing that it did that stayed in pop culture: people slow motion running to There Goes My Hero.

Oh, maybe this is this the first time that happened in Spanish?

I believe so.

I mean, it's it came out around the same time.

I don't know.

Did Foo Fighters make that song for this movie, or did it just was already on an album?

It was probably on an album, but I like to believe that they made it for Varsity Blues.

They saw Varsity Blues, they saw an early screening, like, we have to write a song.

Guys, get in the studio now.

It's got to be about heroes because it's a heroic moment.

I need a hero.

No, that's already done.

No, that's awesome.

No, there's also a Collective Soul song on the soundtrack that plays during the credits.

And I love Collective Soul.

And I just want to say they're on tour with Live and Our Lady Peace right now.

That's a lineup.

I've got to go.

I got to go.

I got to go.

It's amazing.

It's like all the grainy 90s SNL bands.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, that's kind of the end of the movie.

We get some voiceover.

James Vanderbeek says the thing about the statue and that he never played football again.

It's so baffling.

Why?

Do you like it?

Who knows?

Anyway, that's the end of Varsity Blues.

Hey, it's time for Hunk Watch.

It's Hunk Watch.

I'm going to give it to my man, Paul Walker.

We love him.

Always good when he turns up.

He's fun in this.

He kind of becomes the catch.

His little arc.

He hurts himself, and then he coaches the team at the end, and he becomes a coach.

Oh, he becomes a coach.

I forgot.

That was a nice little.

Yeah, that was nice.

Any other thoughts on the hunks of this film?

I like Tweeter.

I like a short king.

Tweeter.

A short king who steals cop cars.

Let's do it.

Yeah, Tweeter was going to be my answer as well.

I don't know the name of the actor.

Apologies to

apologies to Tweeter.

Yeah, he is just one of those guys from one of those things.

You know, you just see him in things.

very 90s guy he's not steve zahn that's kind of how i've

had him in my mind um but yeah i thought he was great and i thought the character of all the characters in this uh movie his character was the most um

fun

because he truly did not mind going to jail for doing crimes yeah yeah i think even as he's steal a cop pair yells i'm going to jail like yeah yeah well the thing is he got to do the most stuff out of everybody in the movie.

He did.

I know.

It's like maybe the Twitter movie is the one we want to watch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Something tells me he's got a rough home life.

He's like, you know,

he's the one that has the narcotics and is giving them.

He's giving drugs to Paul Walker.

Yeah.

He's getting naked in cop cars that he stole.

And yeah,

he's got a rough life.

He's a mess.

He and Allie Larder should have been together.

That's the.

Who's Allie Larder?

She's the

whipped cream.

Oh, whipped cream lady, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, they should have been together.

They would have been fun.

They would have been fun.

Now that we've talked about the hunks, we're going to talk about what we thought of the movie overall.

But wait, you're going to have to hear a message first.

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We're going to talk about what we thought of Varsity Blues.

But first, we want to let you know we got a new bonus episode up for you.

The second part of the pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If you listen to this episode, you like to hear us talk about 90s shit.

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Yeah.

Hey,

let's go around the horn, talk about what we thought of this movie.

We're ranking it on a scale of one to 10 super loud commercials.

Emily, you want to go first?

Sure.

I was very disappointed.

I hadn't seen this movie.

I remembered it was a big deal when it came out.

And yeah, it was all over the place, tone-wise.

It was like I could never settle in.

I could never like get into the world because it was just like, I don't know, it seemed like a bunch of vignettes that could have been after school specials.

I didn't know what the fuck it was.

But again, I love a movie that you could have on in the background of a party.

That's right.

And people will be stoked to see it.

I'm going to give it a two.

Nice.

Fair, fair.

Matt, what'd you think?

So I was

coming at it from like, oh, I'd love to see this movie again.

I remember as a kid

enjoying it.

I mean, you know, it was a movie, so I liked movies.

I don't think I saw a bad movie.

Well said, Matt.

Yeah, I don't think I like legitimately saw a movie that I hated while watching it until I was in college.

And so, yeah,

to revisit it, I was shocked at how many serious themes they attempted to put in and then just

chickened out.

And I think there was about five of them.

So for every theme they chickened out on, I'm going to deduct a point.

So I'm giving it five.

That's what I'm giving.

All All right, fair.

Yeah,

I think if I had seen this movie

at the right age, maybe it would be special to me.

And I understand why it's special to people.

Like, if you saw it at the right age, like, you probably thought it was funny and the drama worked for you, and you liked seeing the boobs and the butts and the whatever else you saw in the movie.

And yeah, it has a couple of memorable things and a couple of like nice moments and performances, but like is not a movie, like does not hang together as a movie at all.

Yeah, so I think

it's a three for me.

Yeah.

Yeah, much, if you're looking to remember the 90s, much, much better 90s nostalgia.

Yeah, for sure.

All right.

That is

Varsity Blues.

Why can I not remember the name of this uncle?

Because it sucks.

Hey,

let's do some plugging before we go.

Emily, anything to look at?

All right.

I would love it if you guys,

well, I want you to log on and join Max Bun and listen listen to our bonus content.

I also live on another bonus content channel called MythicalSociety.com.

And I have a show called Emily, Have You Seen This?

where I

show, you know, clips and things I found on the internet and talk about them.

It is a whole show composed of the other free stuff segment from this show.

Pretty much.

That's right.

But it's stuff I would never, ever put on this.

on our show.

Yeah.

It's even weirder than the shit that she's

kind of dumb.

Yeah,

it is actually.

So, yeah, I would love it if you join Mythical Society.

We're all in a bunch of content on mythicalsociety.com from over the years.

If you just put our names in the search bar, you're going to find a bunch of weird shit.

So it's a cool thing to belong to.

It would mean a lot to me if you supported it.

I love you.

Goodbye.

Matt, anything?

Yes.

Please, if you are in the Los Angeles area on Friday, May 30th at 7 p.m., my wife and I are going to be at the Elysian Theater doing a live podcast, the Obituation Room Live

in Los Angeles.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

There's going to be some great guests.

We're going to talk politics.

We're going to do jokes.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

So please get your tickets now.

Friday, May 30th, 7 p.m.

It's a great theater, too.

It's a great theater.

And it's small, but it looks big.

So buy your tickets before they...

I mean, that's what I love about it.

Sell it, Matt.

Sell it.

Yeah,

it's a tiny theater that looks huge.

And so when you sell 100 tickets, you feel like you're performing for a crowd of thousands.

So be one of those thousands.

Be one of those thousands.

You can do it.

Yes.

Yeah, I'll remind folks that Godzilla versus Los Angeles is in comic book stores now.

You can go grab it.

It's a fun Godzilla comics anthology.

I wrote one

series.

All of the money goes to Wildfire Relief, so it's a good cause.

Yeah, I maybe want to remind y'all about some cartoons for a second.

I've written some cool cartoons that have been coming out lately.

There's a new season of Jellystone on the Mac

streaming app.

It's been out for a couple months, and

that show, it's a really lovely, funny, weird show.

I really loved it.

Will they ever make more?

I do not know, but the episodes they have are really great.

They let me

kind of head up a big crossover episode they did called Crisis on Infinite Mirths, where a bunch of the old Cartoon Network characters come together.

Oh, that's so cool.

Powerpuff Girls, Dexter Indeedee, the whole gang.

Nice.

And yeah, I also wrote for the new season of Teen Titans Go that is currently airing on the Cartoon Network and coming to Max periodically.

I love that little show.

It was so, so much fun.

And the episodes turned out great.

So yeah, if you're, listen,

we don't recommend you pay for streaming platforms on this show, but if for some reason you do,

support the stuff we do, yeah, support the stuff we do.

Only subscribe for things that involve us, nothing else.

But also, watch Landman, it's crazy.

Yeah, maybe, maybe check out Landman.

Welcome for Landman.

The Landman link will be in the description.

Yes,

all right.

Tune in next week when our movie will be Batman Returns.

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