The Faculty, with Janet Varney

This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question, why pay Netflix eight bucks a month for five seasons of Stranger Things when you can go on YouTube for free and watch teens fight monsters for a tidy 90 minutes, plus all the FOMCA you can handle?

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming.

Today's movie is The Faculty, the teen sci-fi horror movie, which could only be more 90s if it showed characters chugging crystal Pepsi at the warp tour.

It's Hello Peen, our month-long celebration of free horror movies and jokes about the male reproductive organ that some call the peen.

It's very exciting because today we're joined by an incredible guest.

She's an actor, improvisor, and podcast host.

You've heard her voice on animated shows like The Legend of Korra and on podcasts like The JV Club.

And soon, her new show, E Pluribus Motto with John Hodgman, right here on Maximum Fun.

It's Janet Farney.

Hi, Janet.

Hello, friends.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am glad that I showed up for a class today and didn't have my parent write me a doctor's note.

Guess I'm going to start making high school jokes now.

Wasn't that obvious?

I think that worked.

In case that wasn't obvious, that was not obvious.

Just look out.

Someone might try and put a weird worm in your ear.

Oh, hope so.

Yeah, that'd be fun.

Hey, before we talk about this movie, which is as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we're going to get to know our guest in a segment we call Talk to Guests.

Talk to guests thing.

Hey, Janet, your new podcast, E Pluribus Motto with John Hodgman.

You talk about state mottos and

the various signifiers that states use to identify themselves.

How did y'all come up with this idea?

Like any good podcast idea, Jordan, it came up doing a different podcast.

Everything, it's a real inception, inception, layer, layer, layer.

Hodgman was on the JV Club, and we were talking about a bunch of different things.

And there were a handful of things that we were joking about that we were like, I'd do a podcast about that.

I'd do a podcast about that.

But the one that really stuck, like I couldn't get over how much I would do a podcast about it.

And so, what he was this conversation about, and I think it was probably, what's the one that it's like the one that everyone always gives an example of and that Hodgman especially loves, which is like, ad astra, par, astra, astra, astra.

Right.

And so, and I was like, Astra,

meaning skyward, Yeah, like to the sky, we sky, to the sky stars.

Sky.

And so we ended up sort of threatening to make this podcast during a Max Fun drive.

And then, lo and behold, we started recording it.

And we are about to release our first mini-season.

They're kind of seasons of chunks of states, like in little groups.

So the first the first season will be 10 states.

And you could hear all about things like you know the state mammal and then the state like other mammal there's a lot

for these to all exist like who got together like you know the declaration of independence or whatever but like who got together and said there's got to be a bird a mammal a mineral a flower

exactly

exactly that is weird it's something we definitely explore especially because you may or may not be surprised to learn a lot of kids like sign petitions in classrooms and send it up the chain, and then stuff gets like signed in as legislation.

And then there are just, I guess, you know, powerful like mineral lobby groups that are like, well, we do, you know,

we do pick a lot of peaches here.

So there's just a bunch of like third graders in 1975 who are like, we love quartz.

Honestly.

And Michigan's just fucking stuck with it.

Yeah.

Kind of.

I don't know if it's Michigan in.

California.

Kind of.

There's a lot of moving parts to how things.

And some things are unofficial and some things are official.

And sometimes we go down the rabbit hole of like what it takes to make something official.

And that is also kind of gobsmacking.

I guess I will admittedly, my home state of California, I don't know the motto or mineral.

I'm guessing the animal is the bear because it's on the flag.

Guess what, buddy?

We haven't even gotten to California yet.

Maybe we'll have you on for California and we can can all discover it together.

I would guess that the motto of California, I don't know this, it's, oh, I spaced.

Oh,

oh, I saw.

I spaced.

I'm sorry.

Oh,

it's either that or that's what's up.

Yeah.

Oh, hell yeah.

California.

And, Emily, Tennessee's talk shit get hit, right?

Yeah.

Or at this point, it might be Hoctua.

I don't really know.

Yeah.

Our forefathers Hoctuid to it on this land.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Janet, you're joining us for Halloween.

When I asked you, you know, what your scary movie tolerance was, you, you're, you're like pretty game.

You like a scary movie?

Sure, yes.

I think I said to you, I'm up for almost anything, but I don't tend to care for like the really disturbing.

I mean, I gave Hereditary as an example.

I've never seen it, but it has been described to me, and I was like, nope, never need to see that.

Do not see it.

It'll fuck you up.

It fucked me up pretty bad.

So I don't need, yeah, I guess I don't need to go there.

And then, you know, but I can, I can sort of handle, I think, anything else.

Yeah.

Do you remember, and a listener asked us last episode what our first horror movie in the theaters was.

Do you remember yours or the first time you were ever just like fucking scared in a movie as a kid?

Well,

they re-released Bambi when I was a kid

and my dad took me and I had to be taken out when Bambi's mom got shot.

So for a long time, I had not seen the rest of that movie.

But you thought it ended there.

I was terrified.

I think I had a sense that it continued.

You're really not going to like Hereditary.

I know, I know, I've heard.

Believe me, I've heard.

Dead Mom City.

Oh.

But so, yeah, so I,

I mean, I was definitely like so scared and upset about that.

And again I don't want to spoil too much for people but there's a reason that Bambi doesn't have a mom for most of the movie

and and so that and then

for some reason I also am picturing like the seeing the first Batman in theaters which I loved so but so yeah but but but I think I mean I think I was a little creeped out by some of it.

I mean, you know, the Joker, like, anytime you fall into a vat of something that gives you

extravagant makeup.

Vats are bad bad news.

Yeah.

Just all

that.

Why do we even have them?

Who needs that much liquid?

Also, Jack Nicholson hitting on you.

It's rough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Makeup or gnaw.

Yeah.

It's weird.

But there is something about loving that movie that you're also terrified by.

I've mentioned this on the pod a couple of times, but one of my favorite movies, like top three, is probably Roger Rabbit.

But I was terrified of all that Judge Doom stuff when I was a kid.

Totally.

No.

I'm.

Can I kill your brother?

No.

Hey, heck!

No.

No.

So scary.

It's well documented that I can start crying just describing the scene with that shoe.

The shoe.

Oh, my God.

When that shoe

looks

up at

Doom as it's being melted and looks at it like, why?

I know.

It's devastating.

Yeah.

I definitely

recovered from that.

When I donate my shoes, I say goodbye to them.

Yeah.

I don't know if you're the right thing to do.

You got me through some interesting moments in my life.

Goodbye.

So, yeah, that shoe scene, I think that's what made me do that.

That's a great movie.

But yeah, the shoe scene is very upsetting.

He's very scary.

Well, yeah,

let's talk about a movie that I don't know.

Did it, I don't know if it traumatized any of us.

I think we've all, did we all see this in its theatrical run in 1998 or whatever?

Yep.

I think oh, I think I was

like jazzed to see this.

Oh, I was too.

Yeah, this was one where we've talked about this in the Godzilla 98 episode.

There used to be a soundtrack, like, what are they called?

Vending machines.

There used to be vending machines for soundtracks and movie theaters, and I got faculty and Godzilla.

Hell yeah.

And from those.

I'm going to have to go back and listen to you talk about the Godzilla soundtrack because I could not pull a single song from that.

Oh man, it's lit.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

Not as amazing as this soundtrack, though.

I think faculty's soundtrack is way better, in my opinion.

Well, the Godzilla soundtrack just had brain stew with Godzilla screaming in the background.

Yeah, that's what I'm imagining.

No, there literally was that.

Okay.

It was the Godzilla remix.

That should have like offspring squid monster remix.

And then

you got to keep them separated.

Well, hey, let's start talking about it.

The faculty from 1998.

We open on a football game.

And I think maybe the most famous needle drop from this, this is definitely the song I associate with

this movie, The Offsprings.

The kids aren't all right.

See, the famous song is The Kids Are All Right, but they switched it to talk about the dark underbelly of suburbia that lies beyond the white picket fence.

Ooh, suburban pirate, George.

Why did I pirate during that?

Why did I pirate?

I was always on board for it.

I'm glad you did.

Armatees, my sheepish parents making me go to church when I don't want to.

I just want to hang out at the hot topic and smoke the cloves.

Oh my God, I have cloves right now.

Do you?

Should I smoke one?

Mail me one.

Yeah, mail me one also.

I want to taste that little song.

You can get them in Nashville.

Do y'all have memories about this song?

Like, this song, I mean, growing up in Southern California, this fucking song was everywhere.

I guess I don't know what's.

I thought it was the brick in the wall song that was playing at the beginning, but I don't know.

That's a little later.

And yeah, so they have a lot of like famous covers of classic rock songs.

I think

the offspring opens the movie.

Now, this song, you know, 90s pop punk banger, I think most would agree.

I have not forgiven The offspring for a recent song.

Are y'all familiar with Cruising California, parentheses, bumping in my trunk?

No.

This is an offspring song from like five years ago or something.

I'm I'm I just I need I need people to hear this so I know I'm I didn't hallucinate it.

that you want is directly out in front, and she's waving her caboose at you.

You squeeze out you, she calls you out in boom.

I know you heard that bass opening.

Okay, Matt, cut it off.

You're

what?

I love that.

It's telling a story.

That's true.

And it's got Godzilla in it, just like you added the Godzilla.

Don't give the song more points by adding Godzilla.

So anyway,

I don't know.

Bump it in my trunk

gives me goosebumps and not in a nice way.

I don't know.

Maybe we'll be playing it on this show for 10 years.

It might be.

I was not.

I was in a, I feel like I was in a snobby, like

maybe getting into some like

Brit poppy kind of stuff in this era.

Like, I definitely was not into American pop punk.

Right.

Like, everyone.

You're talking like Oasis or like, yeah, like pre-Oasis, I think.

Like,

the hardship pulp.

And, like, you know, yeah, like, like, yeah, I would say pre-Oasis, but Oasis came in there.

And yeah, but, but, yeah, so this would have been a song that I would not have been able to tell apart from any number of other songs.

And that's what I thought when it started to come on.

I was like, oh, it has that

nanny-nanny boo-boo.

lady

or some 41

or

don't bump in my trunk yeah um so as the song's playing we got a football game going and the coach he's a mean guy he's played by robert patrick the t-1000 from terminator 2.

Everyone is in this movie.

Everyone is in

person.

Stacked cast.

Movie.

Absolutely stacked.

It's amazing.

Basically everything.

It's a fantasy school to go to.

Yeah, I know, right?

I know who I wish were my science teacher now.

Didn't know I wished it before, but then I watched this movie and you're like,

yes, I do wish that Jon Stewart had been my science teacher.

Oh, no.

Is it too early for a hunk watch?

Yeah,

we can do what we do.

We can do a hunk watch.

Yeah, so let's do it.

We talk about...

Janet, on this show, we have a segment called Hunk Watch where we name a hunk of the movie.

Emily, sounds like you got somebody in mind.

It's Honk Watch.

Oh, it's Jon Stewart.

All the way.

Jon Stewart looks great in this.

That goatee

is weird.

Yeah.

He still looks good with a, you know, a 90s goatee.

My dad tried that one.

We tolerated it

for a year or so.

But like, yeah, he's...

He's cute.

He's kind of gross and creepy in the teacher's lounge at one point.

But that, I remember the line that he says in the teacher's, he's like hitting on um

one of the i guess the nurse or whatever and then she won't respond and he goes i guess stab me in the eye or whatever i'm like oh that's where you fit that line in huh

and that happens later it happens later the movie's good um

yeah i will i will go ahead i will go ahead and shout out the divine miss bb new earth oh hell yeah

she is smoking in this by the way how about just bangs watch Hump watch bangs watch.

I have bangs right now.

I felt seen.

I'm

super seen by everyone in this movie.

Like somehow everyone had bangs.

You're so right.

I think that I identify the most with Clea Duvall's like greasy bangs because I'm trying to grow these out and it's like

every net flicking my fingers, flattening them down.

10 there.

Famke also sporting some short, I guess, yeah, short 90s bangs.

Maybe a little,

I would say maybe hair a little too long for how short the bangs are or vice versa.

But she is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.

She's my hunk for the movie, for sure.

I love her.

I will always love her, and I love her.

Do you have a Fomka role that you consider to be the iconic one?

Well, I definitely remember my mom took me to see the James Bond, the 007 that she was in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so then, so being introduced to her as a bit of a sadomasochist, if memory serves, she kills a man with her thighs, I believe.

Child mind did not understand why that was so exciting, but

I definitely was

very much on board for that.

And I'll never,

I can't, you know, I can't, I can't tease apart just how great she was in that because a lot of those roles are thankless.

You know, they certainly have gotten better, but like they were very thankless.

And she was doing so much with what they gave her.

I was like, what a star.

Yeah.

So, yes,

hunks, hunks for fucking days in this thing.

So we have Robert Patrick.

He's the coach.

Now, this is important.

He sees a sprinkler, and he doesn't like that it's going off because at this point in the movie, he doesn't like water.

Later.

He might change his tune vis-a-vis

water.

But at this point in the movie, he doesn't like it.

So he's trying to stop the sprinkler, and a mysterious shadow looms over him.

Who is it?

We'll find out later.

We go to the teacher's lounge.

It's Bibi Neworth.

She's the principal.

In this movie, it's an alien possession movie.

When the alien gets you, in some cases, you get sexier.

So she's

most cases.

Most cases.

Not all cases.

Now, there's one that's not their one.

There's just a couple of the teachers who just don't sex.

It wasn't, their bodies rejected the.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

You're right.

You're right.

That will come later.

But BB New World, she's complaining.

There's no money for anything.

They're going to have to reuse the set from R-Town for the drama department.

Jokes on them.

The play R-Town doesn't typically have a set.

No, it doesn't.

Maybe that's the joke.

The drama.

I think that is the joke.

I think the joke.

And guess what we did in our high school the year this fucking came out?

You added a set?

Well, no, we did our town, and it didn't have.

So we all, when we went to see this movie, gave each other a knowing high-fived.

Yeah.

Well, wait, should we do that?

And we pledged to keep our virginity forever.

But we haven't talked about like it's that.

Have we talked about that it's directed by Robert Rodriguez and that like Kevin Williamson of Scream, like they brought him in to do some punch-ups and as happens, I guess he got most of the credit.

But the two guys who wrote the original are also in the credits, which is good.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, obviously, like behind the camera, fucking awesome, Robert Rodriguez, who did from Dust Hole Dawn and El Mariachi and Desperado.

Like, oh man, I want to see this guy make a horror movie again.

He makes spy kids movies now, which are great.

Good,

good for the fans of, but oh man, he's so good at this.

That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it.

This movie is like one of the best, like, teen accessible,

like, PG-13, I think, horror movies that's ever been made.

Like, it's scary, but it's not like you know, scream, violence, and gore scary.

Like, it's a perfect little side.

Yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice, if you're, if you're a little bit of a, if a timid kid like I was seeing this in theaters, this was a nice, like, this is a nice, like, amount of terror.

So, yeah.

And it doesn't feel like it's, like, adults trying to write teenagers or adults trying hard to hit something.

Like, it feels like it hits it.

I mean, I certainly felt that way then, you know, when I watched a target audience, like I definitely felt like, yeah, you get it.

Adults feel like they're aliens.

Adults, I don't know what adults are doing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like sometimes the marker is, do you want to be these people?

Like when you're a teen?

Like, I don't know.

Sometimes when I think old people write teens, it's like they seem

intolerable and you don't want to be them.

Like I still kind of feel like mean girls is that.

I'm like, there's a middle-aged woman who wrote this.

And

none of these are

likable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, faculty, I was like, I want to be everyone in this movie.

Like, so bad.

Yeah.

I think, you know, like Scream, a great screenplay.

And yeah, you can see why they had this guy rewrite fucking everything,

you know, for five years after Scream.

I mean, he wrote, I know what you did last summer.

Like, it's, you know, this guy did all of these.

Yeah.

So Bibb Neworth, she's complaining about

the school not having enough money.

She's leaving for the day, but the coach comes in and he's acting real creepy.

And then he does the creepiest thing one can do, which is

try and kill her.

He asks her if she has a pencil, and then he stabs her in the hand with a pencil.

So there's a lot of like school implement being used as weapon in this movie.

Stabs her with a pencil.

Very horrific scene.

And then he says, I've always wanted to do that.

What?

You've always wanted to stab Frasier's ex-wife with a pencil?

That's a very specific thing to want.

Anyway, it's just a catchphrase for the sake of one.

Anyway, and she's running around.

This scene is so fucking this scene is so well done.

It's like very suspenseful.

All the suspense work.

You never really know where, you know, Robert Patrick is.

He's chasing her around the school.

She finally makes it out, and the like dowdy drama teacher is there.

And oh, she's going to help her.

No, she is bad too, and says, stabs her with scissors and says, I've always wanted to do that.

Now,

the

you know, it doesn't pay to think too much about the logic of these things, but I wonder,

so they're aliens, and they put the alien in your ear to

it's a parasite, I guess is right,

but it doesn't get it doesn't erase who you are.

Yeah, you kind of ex you kind of coexist with it, yeah.

Yeah, I think you become this like,

I don't know, you're just maybe all of your impulses come to the surface, which they didn't explore that much because then they kind of become mindless zombies in a way.

Yeah, there's not like super hard and fast rules about these things.

And like, my thing, when I watched this movie, I've seen this movie a ton.

I watched this movie.

I've watched this movie two times this month.

So like, you know, I'm in it.

This part of Somalia is like, well, why are they stabbing her and stuff?

They just need to put the parasite in anyway.

It just makes the scene scary.

I don't know about that yet.

So we need something else scary.

And this starts quick.

Like this this chase scene and this the stabbing of the pencil, I did not like pause to see what the time code was, but I was like, oh, this has just happened.

Like this,

and in fact, isn't it a cold open?

Like it is.

There is, yeah, it like takes you to the titles after this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, so something's going on.

And now we meet the kids.

Josh Hartnett rolls up in his muscle car.

Oh, talk about bangs.

Yeah.

Is that the muscle car song, Janet?

I don't know.

I just felt like when we meet the kids, maybe there was like a music version of Another Brick in the Wall Part 2.

I don't know.

Yeah, somewhere up here.

It might have been.

That was beautiful, too.

Josh Nett, Josh Hartnett, I do believe, is the oldest teen in this movie.

The oldest teen.

He's 12.

Yeah.

And there is a little bit of, there is a little bit of an explanation.

They do explain that he was left back, which I think is a great little detail because of the student teacher romance stuff that's later.

It makes it a little bit less icky.

So I'm glad they did that.

And it also explains why Josh Hartnett looks like

your college chemistry TA.

Yeah.

So we're meeting the kids.

Josh Hartnett, he's got a muscle car.

He's selling drugs.

It's a powdery drug that you snort out of a Bic pen.

It's called Scat.

I love fake drug names in movies.

Oh, I didn't catch the fake drug name.

It's called Scat, yeah.

Gross.

Which is, you know, also animal shit, but kind of a fun, yeah, fun thing to be.

And a kid called it.

It's also a fun jazz style of singing.

There you go.

A lot of fun stuff to be called scat.

We got Elijah Wood.

He's a nerd.

He's a little nerdy guy.

Oh, those baby blues, though.

My God.

Piercing blue eyes on this

Jordana Brewster is there.

I mean,

I'm just going to be naming great people.

She's the popular girl.

And you know, she's popular because her sweater is knotted around her shoulders.

And that's how the popular people wear their sweater.

Transcending through time.

That's the universal sign.

Yes.

And we got her boyfriend.

I don't, I have not retained this actor's name.

He didn't become super famous, but he's just a fucking working guy that's in everything.

He's a football player, and then we meet kind of our last kid.

Yeah, again, another like not super famous person, but like working person you see in everything.

Mary Elizabeth Hutchinson is the character's name.

She says her, oh, Mary, Mary Elizabeth Beth Hutchinson.

She says it her whole name every single time.

She's the new kid from the South.

She is from the Sioux and she has moved here to this state that they are in.

She's just sexy foghorn leg horns.

Yeah.

Dude declare.

Clea.

Oh, say, say, don't put that alien in my ear, son.

And her and a dog clock in.

Anyway.

So, yeah, and then we go back to the teacher's lounge.

Selma Hayek is there for two scenes, and she is treating Harry Knowles, who's the guy from Ain't It Cool News, which was like the cool movie blog at the time, like one of the first things on the internet.

So a little cameo from this guy.

The legend goes that Harry Knowles was on set with Elijah Wood and said, Peter Jackson is making a Lord of the Rings movie.

You should audition.

Anyway, no way.

Yeah, it's in the IMDb trivia.

I don't know if any of that's true, but

so no faculty, no Elijah Frodo Baggins?

Yeah, no Elijah.

Yeah, we would have, yeah, we would probably would have had, you know,

Jean-Claude Van Damme as Frodo.

It sounds like it.

Is that also in the trivia?

They were this close.

It was audition.

They are the same height.

Yeah.

That's true.

That's true.

That's true.

So back in the teacher's lounge, we noticed the drama teacher, once dowdy, is now all glammed up.

As we mentioned, when you get the parasite, you get a little sexy.

I want to shout out Piper Laurie.

Would you please?

From Twin Peaks, and I believe from the movie Carrie.

I think she plays the mom of Carrie.

Oh, yeah.

Carrie's basic.

Yeah, great choice.

Another great poll.

Feels like there are reasons, like whether or not these reasons were real, they're the kind of actors you can imagine also choosing to cast for like confusing faculty member types.

Like B.B.

Newarth is both great as like a very cool person and also great as this very sinister person.

Piper Laurie can be super sinister.

Robert Patrick, hello.

You said it yourself.

Like you, he, it seems like he is T2 in every movie he does.

Yeah, he you have a sense that there could be just a robot body was Robert Rodriguez was he involved with dusk till dawn he directed it so Salma Hayek I guess he went wow you've been in a horror movie get in here like

well and she's I think she's a bit of a muse of his right because she was in Desperado also

yeah

But anyway, yeah, like they're all you can you could sort of go, oh, I could see why it would make sense to you to cast almost all of these people.

Then there's the older woman who kind of reminds me of like a Ruth Gordon who was in Rosemary's Baby.

So that's like where my mind attaches to that.

Like, well, Ruth Gordon was not alive anymore, but they found someone who kind of looked like Ruth Gordon who was in Rosemary's Baby, a super creepy movie.

Yeah, and again, I think these, I think you're right about that, Janet.

I think there is like these movies, I love this era of horror movies because they all feel so well made.

And I think that's because they are like consciously trying to reference classics, right?

Like Scream is psycho, you know, like, and and I think this movie, they are like trying to get like paranoia movies and possession movies.

And I think that like,

it does, I don't know, it's just so much, I think it's more well-made than it has to be.

And I think a lot of these movies like were.

Even not just horror, but like Clueless.

Do you know what I mean?

Like Clueless is like similar era and it's the same sort of like, wow, you really took.

like something that you were inspired by and turned it into what could have been this most stupid movie in the world and instead is this like beautiful little classic you know yeah you're right.

You're absolutely right.

Said in high school.

So yeah, and we got a couple more.

We got a couple more kids.

Maybe the last of our kids we haven't been introduced to, Stokely.

She's a goth, but one of those goths who has a giant visible Tommy Hillfinger logo on her shirt with a black shirt.

She's wearing it ironically.

Right, exactly.

Yes.

She's wearing it ironically.

Oh, God, I'm just one of these Tommy Hillfinger sheep, right?

Well, should we mention that Tommy Hillfinger pretty much did all of the costumes for this movie?

I didn't know that.

It was a whole, there was huge ad ad campaigns in like 17 magazine.

I remember I saw it in 17 and was obsessed with it.

It made me want to see the movie even more.

Sure.

So yeah, you'll see a lot of people.

So there's like, yeah,

there's online.

It's kind of fun to, yeah, check out some of the faculty Tommy Hilfinger commercials with all the cast goofing around again.

There's magazine ads.

They're a ton of fun.

So yeah, so her and Jordana Brewster like hate each other.

Jordana Brewster comes up and says like, that's a lovely shade of black you're wearing today.

And Stokely says, fuck you, gutter slut.

It's so,

it's so five to five.

Stokely rolls.

Stokely totally rolls.

All of Stokely's insults are great.

You know, maybe, maybe time to mention at this part, like, there's some 90s shit that hasn't aged really well.

There's a lot of, like, gay jokes being made about Stokely, and they kind of suck.

And I think just, like, if you, if you watch this movie, just kind of like, be prepared, there's going to be that little like.

Well, you know, Mine Girls has the same thing.

There's like, sure, totally.

Yeah, the character that's the goth girl, that is the number one insult they gave her.

It went on for a long time.

Yeah.

So, yeah, if you see Mean Girls and that felt icky to you, this is going to feel icky too.

But, you know.

That being said.

Huge shout out to Clea Duvall, someone I know and like very much and respect.

And she also made, but I'm a cheerleader right around the same time,

which was a great, and

really has been like

very queer positive.

She herself is gay and you know, she's, she has a partner and has, and has, I think, advanced us further than this movie would pull us backwards

to the point where I had forgotten that like

Like when it started, I was like, oh yeah, a proud lesbian in this movie.

I'm so proud of this movie for being so fierce and cool about it back then.

And then as it like unravels and you're like, oh no, she's straight.

It's like so disappointing.

Yeah.

Yeah, she is.

But rest assured, she's not straight.

You know what I mean?

She's a freaking icon.

Oh, great.

That's great to hear.

And she is awesome in this movie.

She is so fucking good.

And yeah, and definitely like, you know, kind of transcends the icky jokes.

So, you know, just if you're watching, just know that that's coming up.

Also, the smudgy black eyeliner in this for her is something I've taken screenshots multiple times.

I'm going to try to do that soon.

You'll succeed.

Yes.

I would have.

I would have, if I was in high school, I would have followed this girl to so many Ramstein concerts.

I would have

also, she was.

Oh, I'm going to.

I'm also going to see Ramstein.

Like,

she,

I don't, do we see any other goths?

Like, is she that novel that, like, that's what Jordana Brewster has?

It's like, you wear black a lot.

You wear black.

Well, they're unlike everyone else in the school.

There was the girls that our little Atlanta girl go and introduce herself to, where she's like, hey, do you know where the office is?

And then this girl just kind of has a cigarette and like, oh, that's right.

I think maybe they're coded more as stoners, maybe.

Oh, fair enough.

If we're looking at high school, I mean, it's nebulous for sure.

You're right.

Side note,

there's a lot of kids smoking on campus,

which feels strange because I was in school at the time that this movie...

is displaying what school looks like.

And you could not smoke on a football field and have your coach not suspended.

Of course.

Well, this was set in Iowa, wasn't it?

Or Ohio or something.

Well, maybe names are different there.

But they showed it in Texas.

And there's a bunch of like dazed and confused actors in this, too.

So I think they showed it in Array.

I guess you could smoke on campus everywhere else.

No, no, no.

No way.

No way.

They must have been doing that, ironically.

Part of the fantasy.

Part of the fantasy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Elijah Wood, he's hanging around on the football field drinking apple juice, just a fucking nerd who loves his apple juice.

And he finds a box

in a box.

Yep, yep.

He's drinking just a little motto box of apple juice.

Not a pint glass.

No, just a box.

No, I always.

No, I'm a man.

I drink my motto.

You drink apple juice out of just FYM.

Of course.

Yeah.

So he finds a weird thing on the football field.

He takes it to hunky teacher Jon Stewart.

It's a little cocoon thing.

They put it into water and it turns into a bad 90s CGI alien.

Hey, I thought it looked pretty good.

I did.

I love how it looks.

I love the, I think in this case, the like jank of the

CGI makes it look kind of creepy in a fun way.

Yeah.

And when people's like faces start getting tentacles and like worms underneath, like...

I think the fact that the CGI isn't the best makes it look a little weirder and creepier.

Yeah.

Maybe so.

I mean, I don't know if, yeah, I wouldn't have perceived that that's why, but I do think that it's fun and creepy.

I also don't think they were too ambitious to the point where they were biting off more than they could chew.

And I think some of the practical effects towards the end

were pretty cool.

Oh, yeah.

So it's a little alien.

It's self-replicating.

And then we go back to Football Guy.

He's in the shower.

And then, as we've discussed, the scariest thing in the entire world comes in.

An old woman who is nude.

All right.

Can we talk about this for a second?

Matt, I put it in the notes that I really think it's time for a new sting about this.

Old naked lady.

Thank you.

Janet, I wonder if you thought about this too.

There's so many...

horror movies that have an old naked lady in it as like one of the scariest things.

It's like a woman over 50 without clothes is like, ah, like, you know, like barbarian.

Do you you think the Shining kicked that off?

Or was that something that was happening before then?

Oh, you might be such an iconic one.

You might be the proto.

Maybe everyone is like, ooh, nothing creeping me out more than that.

Well, maybe Psycho is the proto of that.

Like, you have an old lady's

body that they're preserving.

You're right.

You probably had to get her naked to do that, you know?

To take her dress, yeah, sure.

That's an old lady killing a hot naked lady.

Oh, that's

close.

Yeah, once you merge the two.

Yeah, that's true.

But yeah, and I was, um, I don't know if you've seen the substance yet, but that is basically the horror of the entire movie.

I feel like they're definitely playing into it, but I haven't seen it.

I've heard you see it quite a bit.

It's like satiery kind of about oh boy, it is terrifying.

But yeah, there's another old scary naked lady.

We've seen a couple in these movies.

I can't wait to count them all.

Yes, so we have

old, scary, naked lady.

Part of her hair comes off.

That's pretty gross.

later, uh, Elijah Wood and Jordana Brewster are looking for clues together.

They're a mismatched pair.

He's a nerd, she's the popular girl.

Um, they have a fun, flirty little banter.

Um, well, yeah, they work for the paper, they work for the paper, yes.

They're looking for a story, a big story for the school newspaper.

You can say scoop, it's fine.

Oh, I would never say scoop.

That's for journalists.

I respect journalism,

so I would not say scoop.

Okay,

No, that's okay.

Journalists are heroes.

So they hear the teachers coming.

They hide in the closet and then get a bunch of info dump about the aliens.

They need water to survive.

And the old naked lady had an alien in her, but like the body was too old and couldn't survive.

Not enough moisture.

Not enough moisture.

They need young, moist people.

They need young

moist teens.

And then Selma Hyatt comes in.

They stick the alien in her ear.

And

the two teens run away.

They get their parents.

The parents come back.

Elijah Wood's dad, played by Christopher McDonald.

Yet another fucking, oh my God, I love this guy.

He's

maybe best known as the asshole in every Adam Sandler movie.

Shooter McGavin.

Yeah, not nearly enough of this guy in the movie.

The movie should be about him and Elijah Wood dealing with aliens.

Who plays his mom?

Is that that's not Bonnie?

I don't think it's anyone of note.

For a second, I thought maybe it was Bonnie Hunt, but

this would be the time.

I mean, they would totally cast her as the mom in this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I think you're right.

So they go to the school and the kids get gaslit like crazy.

No, that wasn't us

killing Selma Hayek.

We were doing CPR on a CPR dummy, and everyone believes the adults.

They don't believe the kids.

So they take Elijah Wood goes back to his house.

He's grounded.

Dad takes away his phone, takes away his TV.

Mom mentions to lift up his mattress and take away his porn.

Did y'all notice this?

The porn magazine was just called boob.

No, I didn't see what it said.

Boob singular.

One boob for fans of single boobs.

All right, let's not kink shame here.

Some people just need to see one.

That's true.

I don't need to see both.

I'm not, what am I?

If I see two, I'm like, ah.

Yeah.

Get that other one out here.

Everybody's got a favorite of, I got a favorite of mine.

Sure.

Yeah, the other one can get the fuck out.

That's good.

He also had a Mac.

Yeah.

He had like a really nice computer, and I was like, rich.

Oh, yeah.

Sure, sure.

Listen, I did some extensive Googling.

Boob, a fake magazine.

There was no boob magazine.

I Googled for hours.

I Googled for hours.

I found some interesting materials, but nothing about the magazine.

I wonder who did the props for this because they probably had to make that magazine if they put redos in there.

I know.

Listen, we never get a response when we ask for people to write in.

But please, if you know who did the props for the faculty, would love to hear the story behind Boob magazine, free with ads at maximumfun.org.

That's our email address.

Yes,

we stand a legendary periodical.

Okay, so back at school, Stokely and the football guy, they have a little thing.

We're creating some mismatched pairs here.

The two people you never think could be together.

They have a little thing for each other.

Josh Hartnett and Mary Beth have a little thing.

They go into a closet together and are kind of sexy together.

Okay, again, we don't need to talk about plot holes too much, but spoiler alert, she's the queen alien.

Why doesn't she turn him here?

She has so many chances to turn them.

I think it's just that they figured out the twist later and then didn't go back because, yeah, it seems very random that she turns out to be the queen just because like there's so many times.

Oh, you think they figure out the twist later?

Interesting.

Maybe.

It reads that way to me.

It seems like maybe they figured it out later.

Well, here's how I thought about it.

I thought maybe she was like, these are the smartest kids.

I'm going to study the human race by hanging out with the most interesting smart kids who are onto me so I could see where all the little weak spots are in humanity like kind of thing that's I like that explanation and that she could be toying with them like you know sort of like also Josh Hartnett is hot maybe she was just horny could be yeah and I mentioned this earlier but Josh Hartnett's bangs are hilarious like he has these yeah bangs but then yeah like thing in the back it was like a cockatoo in the back it was so weird I think they were maybe do you I feel like they were also trying to make him look younger like even though they already had to explain that he looked older because he was older.

Yeah.

That seems like the kind of haircut that they give a guy where they're like, this will help.

That's true.

This will make you look like you're in high school.

They should have given him a giant lollipop, too.

Little hat with propeller.

Little shoe with buckles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Little sailor suit.

Well, they also did the long-sleeve t-shirt underneath the regular t-shirt.

The shoes.

Yeah, that's some grunge holdover, I guess.

But that's also like, that's high school.

You're not wearing that at 20-something, I don't think.

Well,

yeah, that's true.

Depends on if you live in Seattle.

Yeah.

So, Stokely and Elijah Wood, they're in the library trying to figure out what's going on.

They have a very Scream-esque discussion about how sci-fi could be predicting actual alien attacks.

You can really tell when they hired the Scream guy to rewrite this.

They're like, and you got to do Scream stuff in this.

Do a Scream, but for sci-fi.

And he's like, All right, I'll do a little scene where they talk about how sci-fi movies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway,

this felt a little bit like by the numbers to me, but, you know,

a fun little

90s signifier there.

Then they go back into Jon Stewart's class, and he's acting weird.

He's probably an alien.

He is.

He goes after them.

And

this is the moment in the movie that I remember the most is they take the paper slicer.

Yeah.

Best use.

You talked about it earlier: best use of just regular school things.

Hell yes.

And they chop off his hands, and the fingers like go everywhere by themselves.

It's so much fucking fun.

Every time I see one of those things, I'm like, the faculty,

the faculty,

look out, Jon Stewart.

Yeah, if you think about it.

Why are you on his side?

Because I want aliens to take over.

No, look out.

You know, I was thinking, like, if you think about it, this could be Clue, but the faculty version.

So we got scissors, pencil, paper cutter.

How many other high school objects could you have?

Pen.

Pen

with drugs in it.

The drug pen.

Dodgeball.

When was there a dodgeball?

I'm just thinking of things at school.

You know, if you were to go to the house.

Oh, yeah.

Tommy Hilfiger sweater around the shoulder.

Shirt.

Oh, yeah.

Strangled.

That's the news.

There you go.

Juice box.

Straw.

Gently, carefully prodded into your skin.

Yeah.

Tiny little plastic white straw.

Totally.

Bag of peanuts if the kid has a peanut allergy.

Oh,

hell yeah.

That's too low.

Too fucked up.

So they stab him in the eye with one of Josh Hartnett's scat pens, and that's what does it.

The drug in scat, or whatever the ingredients of scat are, dry out the aliens and make them have crazy foam come out of them.

And we figured it out.

We got to go back to Josh Hartnett's house and get all the scat we can to kill the aliens.

So they're like in Josh Hartnett's house.

He has a whole like chemistry lab where he's like making drugs.

I love this.

And then it's kind of like the scene in the thing where they start accusing each other of being an alien.

And the way they find out who's an alien is you have to do the drug and prove you're not an alien because the drug would kill you.

This is so much fucking fun.

It's all these like the nerdy kids who have never never gotten fucked up before get fucked up.

It's great.

And yeah, which, by the way, this is my, maybe my worst nightmare.

Like the idea of, like, that's a real uncomfortable, sort of triggery thing for me because I have been drugged without my consent.

Oh, dear.

Not this, I don't want to scare.

I mean, it wasn't like, don't take that too far, but like a friend of mine in high school, like,

assumed I would want to do something I didn't want to do.

Oh, boy.

So anytime there's like any thriller, any movie where like a cop is undercover and they're like, why don't you do some more of this Coke or whatever?

And you see the cop's mind going like, this is really going to fuck me up.

Like that is so uncomfortable for me.

So this scene where you have to prove you're not an alien by like getting high is definitely maybe the scariest part of it.

I tell you, the first time I got high was by accident.

I was in middle school and I was super sick.

I had like, I don't know, the flu.

And, you know, you didn't call out in the 90s.

You You just went to school.

So I took Dayquil.

And the thing is, our family had the,

you know, the frozen juice from concentrate that you would just put in a

thing and then just put water in it.

That's great juice.

We always did that.

And we had like the same container for the juice all the time.

I guess my parents had made some kind of a punch situation like nights before.

And I thought it was the passion fruit juice because it was kind of like this muddy, yellowy brown color and i put it in a glass took my dayquil and then chugged that and the thing is you don't really after dayquil you're like blech like you don't taste anything and then my dad went did you just drink from that thing and i was like yeah and he goes uh you'll be fine

I mixed it with a drug and an over-the-counter drug.

It was like probably some kind of a gin.

I don't know what it was.

It was not like it was Nyquil.

But it was Nyquil.

But it was Dayquil mixed with whatever liquor was in that thing.

And then I just, you're already not supposed to do that.

I just went to seventh grade.

Oh, that was crazy.

That's nuts.

Were you, did you ever feel scared about it?

Were you like, I feel weird?

Or were you like,

he didn't tell me what it was is the thing.

So in retrospect, I know what it was.

But at the time, I was like, I feel crazy.

I guess this juice has a weird thing that interacts with Dayquil.

I didn't, I didn't, it didn't put together in my brain that it was alcohol.

Yeah.

I was a very naive girl until college, and then it was like, went nuts.

Yeah.

But now, but now your drink at a bar is vodka and Dayquil, right?

Yes.

You order that.

I like that scissor.

Sure.

I liked a Robo trip

at the IHOP.

Sweet.

So,

so, okay, we're doing, we're doing drugs.

We're proven we're not aliens.

Jordana Brewster, she's got the aliens in her.

A bunch of weird worms are in her face.

Ah, they run away from her.

She gets away and gets into the driver's ed car.

Great little detail.

Someone, like a school alien came to pick her up in the driver's ed car.

Love that.

And so the kids who are left, they decide they've got to go to the school and kill the queen.

They're just like, if we kill the queen, we'll figure it out.

And something, and then everybody will be fine.

And something, and then not.

Because that's what science fiction has told us.

Spoiler alert, that's what happens.

They were right.

So we're going to talk about the thrilling conclusion of the faculty 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 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 talking about the thrilling conclusion of the faculty with Janet Varney of the JV Club and the new Max Fun podcast.

E pluribus motto coming soon to a podcast thing near you.

Okay, the kids in the faculty, they're going to go kill the queen.

They get to the school.

It's getting them one by one.

Oh boy, they're all turning.

And the football team is chasing them all over the place.

Boy, howdy.

They have to go out to Josh Hartnett's car, and then Fomka Jensen like attacks him, tries to like seduce, kill him.

She gets stuck in the car, and like her legs are hanging out.

And then he like stops short.

It sends her flying, and it like chops off her head, and her head grows tentacles and starts crawling around.

And her body is looking for it.

It fucking rules.

Yeah.

We love all of this.

Yeah, I think that there is a little bit of a weird

suspension of disbelief with people go back to normal after you get the queen.

Because poor BB Neworth, I don't think there's any coming back from whatever happens to her

in the next scene.

And getting decapitated, really?

She just goes back to normal after that?

That's wild.

I know.

If her tentacles, did she get back to her body while she was still able to have the alien power of regenerating?

Yeah, I guess you're right.

That's true.

The thing is, is that if they had just learned to harness this alien, it could have saved lives.

It could have regrown limbs.

Yeah, because here's the thing.

It would be like a miracle drug.

The downside of being an alien that it, or like a person that has the parasited side of you, is that you get hot and get hydrated.

And you don't give a shit.

Those are the two things.

That sounds great.

That sounds great.

Yeah, besides all of the killing, it seems like the aliens just kind of want to share the body, which I'm, if it makes me hotter and more happy, I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I don't know.

Who's the real monster in this movie?

Humanity.

It was on.

Who, I ask?

I

can think about things.

Side note: I, in my memory, because I have not seen it recently, although I have seen it definitely more than once, several times, but I forgot, I, in my mind, the whole thing is at the school the whole time.

Like, I forgot that there are scenes

in my mind.

I was like, oh, yeah, it's one of those bottle movies where everything is suspenseful and just takes place inside the school.

And then I was like, wait, why are they at?

Oh, I guess they go home and stuff.

Yeah, they go home for a little bit.

They go to Elijah Woods' house.

Yeah.

Part-time jobs.

Did not remember that though.

Real space left.

So

at the school, yeah, they get Bibi Neurath.

They trap her in a volleyball net.

And they assume that just because she's the principal, she also must be the queen.

Like, it's a one-to-one ratio.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, the logic of that is that is a very much, that is like a kid logic.

It's like, well, of course, the leader of the school is the leader of the aliens.

Josh Hartnett just shoots her in the head, and then she, like, pops up.

She was an alien the whole time, and they dump the rest of the like

scat on her.

And then she just

get rid of it.

That's true.

Yeah, that's a good, that's a fun little thing to notice if you like, you know, kind of know what the twist is.

Mary, Mary Beth Elizabeth

Jensen

Hutchinson

Atlanta.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

Hutchinson Atlanta.

She like dumps the whole thing on her.

Yes.

And I think as you will, as we will find out, she's the queen, so probably was doing that on purpose, sacrificed her, her lackey or whatever.

Anyway,

so yeah, we're kind of chasing them.

They're getting chased through the locker room.

Mary Beth Elizabeth Atlanta.

She

comes out naked, kind of reveals herself to be the queen, and then like transforms into this gross alien squid monster.

It's cool, which looks fucking awesome.

Yeah.

Really cool.

It's a mix of CGI and practical.

So there's a CGI character for far away, but when you get close up, it's a gross puppet.

We love that.

It's got a little bit of a little shop of horrors thing going on.

It does.

Good point.

I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right.

It's a cool little creature.

I like it.

Yeah.

It's great.

So there's something where it swims in the water.

It jumps in the like school pool.

And because they're from a water planet, it's very quick and sinister in the water.

Chlorine, not a problem.

Not a problem.

Yeah.

Even though I feel like that's pretty much what was in the scat.

That's a good point.

Again, don't think too much about the faculty.

If you want to enjoy the faculty, who knows?

Whatever.

It's a saltwater pool.

They have a lot of those.

Great.

And there's this great scene

where she is in her human body and chasing them through the locker room.

But the shadows around the room are her tentacles.

It just gets impressionistic for this scene.

And it's great.

These are like gorgeous shots, really creepy.

Yeah, Final Transformation.

Elijah Woods, kind of the last man standing.

She aliens out, chases him through the like bleachers.

Alien gets stuck in the bleachers.

This Cool.

This was so cool.

This is an awesome scene.

And then he like stabs her with the remaining scat.

And then she kind of glitches out, foams out, and dies.

But she spits those

parasites into Elijah Wood's face.

Oh, yeah.

It's like it goes into his face.

And I know that must have been a combination of practical effects and special effects, but it looks painful.

It was so creepy and good.

And you were like, oh, no, he's done for.

He's going to die.

And then they all fall out of his face when she dies.

So cool.

So cool.

But yeah.

Greg loved it.

Totally.

Yeah.

Totally awesome.

And yeah, definitely just another example of like, and everyone's just fine after this.

Like, he got fucked up so bad.

It also makes me wonder if the Mary Beth Dig in Atlanta was like a girl that the alien took her body

and then infects her.

I wonder what, yeah, how presumably there was some point at which they it picked her.

And then, in which case, what's going on in Atlanta?

Oh, no.

Sure.

Yeah.

It'd be funny if just like, oh, yeah, and Atlanta is taken over by aliens.

And stop Ohio.

Stop.

Sure.

Oh, yeah.

So, yeah, as we mentioned, everybody's back to normal.

No one's head is off their body.

No one has melted.

They're not back to normal.

They're better.

They're better.

They're sexier.

And everybody's

all the couples have coupled up.

I don't know about Stokely.

That outfit.

No, definitely not sexier.

Last year.

They made her like preppy, and it was like, no.

Also, a few people are dead.

And a few people are dead.

Old lady.

Yeah, old lady.

I think Jon Stewart is dead.

Yeah.

No, okay, so this is kind of funny.

And, you know, it has one of those endings that I love where they show the cast and then

they like flash the name of the cast member and then show a little scene of them in the movie kind of looking cute, right?

Yeah.

And they show, when they get to Jon Stewart, he's wearing an eye patch and his hands are bandaged.

I guess, did they shoot a scene with him where he's back and fine?

He just has a, anyway.

And that's the way of, I mean, that's the only communication that Robert Rodriguez gives us that, like,

he's still around.

I think there's a lot.

I forgot about that.

There's a lot cut from this movie.

I was mentioning this to Emily.

There's a whole cut character.

There's a character named Venus, and the actor is in all the Tommy Hillfinger ads, but it's just not in the movie, except in the background of one shot.

So who knows what the Venus plot line was?

But there you go.

So, yeah, everybody's coupling up.

Stokely has a worse outfit.

And then Elijah Wood turns to Jordan and Brewster and says, Boy, things sure have changed, haven't they?

Just like saying what happens at the end of a story.

Yeah,

all of the all of those lines right at the end are so

weird that I was like, I guess this is like, again, intentional, Stepford wives-y, kind of satirical,

like satirizing the end of a horror or a sci-fi movie.

I don't know.

Because

it's so self-aware most of the time, if not all of the time, that when that happens, you're like, okay, well, this is definitely they're doing something here.

It's not just that bad, bleeding.

Yeah.

It'd be really funny if Elijah Wood said that at the end of Lord of the Rings.

He could.

Well, things sure have, we certainly went there and back again, didn't we?

We certainly have returned to the Shire, haven't we?

But we're changed.

We're changed from our adventures.

Yes, we are.

That seems like a note, so like just a dumb executive said, like, and he has to say they changed.

Oh, God.

Because I read a screenwriting book anyway.

So, yeah,

that's the faculty.

Before we rank the movie, we're going to talk about the best lines in the movie.

Now, Emily, I noticed in our doc, you had put the best lines.

And I think we can all agree that the best stuff in this movie, dialogue-wise, is all of the Stokely slams.

Yes.

These are all fucking home runs,

beautifully delivered.

I agree with all your choices, Emily.

Matt, do you want to play us some good Stokely slang?

Before we play those,

I mentioned that I have

some cloves

in my apartment.

And I don't know why I'm saving them for a special occasion.

And I recently found out you're not supposed to inhale, which I didn't know that in college.

No one knows.

So while we play these, I'm going to try to smoke a clove correctly in honor of Stokely.

This is exciting.

This is very exciting.

Crash the Varn Casey.

Fuck you, titbags.

I think Stokely, maybe it's from your plan.

Blow me blood part.

Like blow me blood spartan.

Blood spart.

Perfect.

So good.

Emily, how's that clove?

It's hard to do.

Yeah.

Am I doing it?

We're not 16.

I don't think I do it yet.

We're not 16 anymore.

But you're not inhaling.

That's right.

You're just puffing.

You're just puffing on it.

I know.

I don't know.

You know, with a cigar, do one of those.

Nya, go, nyaw.

And then let the I can't.

I can't.

I'm just going to inhale it, guys.

No, no, no, don't.

Emily, all right.

I'm sorry.

I wanted to do it.

Maybe while you're smoking, we can play some of that Cheryl Crow song you like so much.

Oh, yay!

I have a big Cheryl Crow head.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Superman and distractions.

Good evening, good time.

Just wish I was here.

Resuscitation.

I'm sorry, but

Godzilla works so good in music.

Everything.

Some call him the ultimate musical instruments.

Some just love that kind of

spooky

organ playing that is in a lot of her early music.

I love Cheryl Crowe.

That's great.

But I also love Creed's cover of 18.

That is such a banger.

Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

Yeah.

They have a lot of like school-themed songs, get a little cover.

Yeah, yeah, good old, good old Creed.

I mean,

and as Creed, as Creed probably would say, wasn't the first 18-year-old Jesus Christ?

Did you think about it?

Did you think about it?

Thank you.

Well, hey, we're going to rank the faculty on a scale of 1 to 10 super loud commercials when we come back.

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 Lom.

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.

We're back.

It's free with ads.

We are here with Janet Varney from all of the podcasts.

We're going to rank the faculty on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials because that's what you have to pay to watch it.

Janet,

you're our guest.

You'll go first.

One to ten.

What do you think?

I like to copy what other people say and decide.

So it's going to be very hard for me.

We can circle back to you if you want to.

Yeah, circle back to me because I probably will just explode the difference between you.

No, sure.

Matt, Matt, what do you think?

You want to rank this one?

You watched it.

You watched this in an island, you said, right?

Yeah, I was at an islands and I watched it on my phone.

And when the waiter came over to get my order, he said, What would you like?

I said, Water.

He said, Okay, great.

Is that the faculty?

Yes.

And I was like, Yes, it is.

And now we are best friends.

The way it was meant to be seen.

Yes, yes.

And

in front of island nachos and Tiki Fries.

Hell yeah.

Man, that's a night.

It was a night.

Bro, you got to call me the next time you're.

I know, dude.

That's true.

Tiki fries.

You got to go to Glendale and hang out at the islands.

Then we get a great gallery.

That's a great islands.

Yeah, I'm going to give this a nine, actually.

This was surprisingly great.

I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking this is a great movie.

Kind of silly, though.

You know, fun time, forgettable.

As an adult, you really appreciate just how well made the movie is and how it's a movie you can watch from beginning to end and be like, I had a lot of fun.

So

I'm giving it a hard nine.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I'm going to go similar.

I'm going to say it's an eight.

Again,

it's just a really like, really super well-made movie.

Great performances, all the actors you like.

If, yeah, if you're a 90s kid, there's going to be so many like, oh my God, I love this person type moments in this.

Yeah, as we mentioned before, there's some stuff that hasn't aged great.

So, you know, I think if you're kind of like watching it with that in mind, you're going to have a great time.

Yeah, it's an eight for me.

I watch this movie pretty regularly.

Again, this is my second watch of this this month.

And yeah, I love it around Halloween.

So the faculty, faculty cult classic.

Yeah.

Emily, what do you think?

Nine.

Okay.

It's so good.

I almost did 10, but then I started comparing it to Empire Records, which I believe I don't remember if I get it.

maybe I didn't give it a 10, but

it felt like it was in that vein, but didn't quite get to that level of nostalgia feel-good that Empire Records did.

But yeah, I could watch that movie over and over.

And the soundtrack, you get points for that for sure.

Faculty, high marks all around.

Janet Varney, what do you think?

I'm going to give it an eight and a half.

Told you I'd split the difference.

Went ahead and did that.

So

good job, the faculty.

Very fun movie.

I, yeah, I wish I'm going to echo what you said earlier, Jordan.

I wish that Robert Rodriguez would come back and make us a few more faculty-level,

like, easy-to-watch, still creepy, classy, weird, funny, dark movies into it.

Let spy kids, more die kids.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

That says it all, doesn't it?

Well, hey, that's free with ads.

We did the show, and now we're going to do the plugs.

Janet Varney,

so much great stuff, many great podcasts.

The JV Club is your amazing interview show that's been going for a while now.

It's funny, fascinating,

conversations with your favorite funny people, actors, comedians, all those sorts.

And it kind of is related to this movie because you start your conversations talking about...

people's time in high school.

Yeah, for sure.

I can't tell you how many people were infected by

aliens or alien viruses when they were in high school.

You've heard it, and yet the still movie still works, even though I've heard those stories so many times from real life.

Yeah, check it out.

And then, yeah, check out E Pluribus Motto with John Hodgman and myself.

We even ask for a lot of listener interaction.

So

check the socials for including Max Funs for the opportunity to weigh in on a state you love or a state you live live in.

Video clips, audio clips, emails, we're incorporating all of that into our journey, our virtual road trip.

Amazing.

The JV Club and e pluribus motto, finer podcasts, there are not.

Emily, you got anything?

Well, I'd say everybody go check out my Etsy store, Phlegm Gems.

I should have more and more fall stuff coming out every week.

And a little plug for the show: before we recorded this episode, we did a really fun live streaming AMA on MaxFun's YouTube channel.

So that was

a blast.

If you want to watch that/slash listen to that, that is archived on MaxFun's YouTube channel.

We will throw the link to that in the show notes.

And yeah, maximumfund.org/slash join.

That's where you go to support all the great podcasts we've been talking about today.

And if you join up with MaxFun and support the network, you're going to get a ton of bonus content, including our pilot episodes.

We review free with ads TV pilots over there.

And also,

you can listen to the pilot of this show.

We will have the pilot re-recorded of this show in Emily's living room for Max Fun members.

So, if you want to hear

a

jankier version of this with a lot more segments we didn't need,

maximumfun.org/slash join.

Okay, that's the show.

Tune in next week when our movie will be Children of the Corn.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Supported directly by you.