The Running Man (1987)

Speaker 1 This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question: why pay 25 bucks to watch the new Running Man movie in 4DX when you can go online for free and watch the original while a friend or loved one shakes you around and spits water in your face?

Speaker 1 I'm Jordan Morris.

Speaker 2 And I'm Emily Fleming. Today's movie is the 1987 version of The Running Man, a movie with so many bad puns, you'd think it stars my dad when he gets drunk at Christmas.

Speaker 1 With us, as always, is the super producer, the he freak, Matt Lieb, hitting us with those timely, satirical

Speaker 1 Don't touch that guy.

Speaker 2 I did not think you were gonna do that one.

Speaker 1 I mean, there were so many to choose from. What did you think it was gonna be, Emily?

Speaker 2 I thought it was gonna be he's no longer sub-zero, he's just zero.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, to me, that was it was too bitchy, you know what I mean? I was like, wow, what a catty bitch when he said that.

Speaker 1 Um, no, I chose between that and his um, for some reason, re-reprising I'll be back.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 Well, part of me wonders if that sub-zero line makes an appearance in Batman where he's playing sub-zero.

Speaker 1 Well, he's playing Mr. Freeze.
Mr. Freeze.
And he talks about Zero. Is this the start of the YouTube essay where we posit that every Arnold Schwarzenegger character is the same guy?

Speaker 1 I mean, it kind of is.

Speaker 2 I got Sub-Zero confused, by the way. That's Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah. We're going to talk about The Running Man, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads.

Speaker 1 But first, we want to talk about something else we saw for free on the internet this week. Other free stuff.

Speaker 1 We're taping this podcast. A couple weeks out from its release, holidays are coming up, so we're banking episodes.

Speaker 1 For you, the listener, Halloween has happened. We hope it was fun to us here in our time.

Speaker 1 Halloween has yet to happen, so I'm still kind of on the hunt for spooky stuff, and I found something totally amazing. Okay.

Speaker 1 In 1987, the year this movie came out,

Speaker 1 Elvira hosted a three-hour-long radio show where she did sketches in between spooky songs. Now, she didn't actually go to a station.

Speaker 1 It was just a record that the like radio stations mailed out to all their affiliates, and they just put on this Elvira record. record and it was her introducing all these songs

Speaker 1 and someone uploaded the whole thing to YouTube.

Speaker 1 A YouTuber called Groovy Stuff has the whole, I think it's like three and a half hours without commercials. It is fucking amazing.
I've just left it on while I've been doing stuff all day.

Speaker 1 And it's just like goofy Halloween songs. And then Elvira doing little audio sketches.
You should listen to it.

Speaker 1 We have one. I just got a little clip from it to give you the vibes.

Speaker 2 The way have I told you about my new books?

Speaker 1 You'll want to read the official Elvira unauthorized autobiography, Lifestyles of a Bitch Who's Famous. I did have a little help from a ghostwriter.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's all about my glamorous life in Hollywood. But to keep it short, I only wrote about the men I didn't sleep with.
And don't forget. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 1 Fucking great.

Speaker 2 And so it's got like just like Halloween-esque music.

Speaker 1 So yeah, so it's her doing those sketches, some of which have an age grade. It's 1987.
Sure.

Speaker 1 Sure. But

Speaker 1 that one was good. That one was good.
And then it's just like, it's just like goofy Halloween parody songs, like sub-monster mash.

Speaker 1 There's one where it's the Beatles, I want to hold your hand, but it's a guy in a vampire voice going, I want to bite your hand.

Speaker 1 So much like first thought.

Speaker 1 I mean, it doesn't even...

Speaker 1 Usually it's the neck they bite. I mean, I guess you can suck from the hand, but I mean, come on.
I guess the end of Twilight, there is some hand sucking that happens. Okay, so there you go.

Speaker 1 See, that song makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 There's some good arteries in there. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 There's some blood in the hand. um well i could do it a blood in the hand it was worth two and blood in the bush all right well

Speaker 1 whatever so yeah groovy stuff on youtube uh even though halloween is over where where you are listener uh this is this is a great thing to throw on um and since we're kind of we us are in spooky season uh i wanted to ask about halloween activities uh matt you got a kid is she trick-or-treating are you dressing her up like a little pumpkin what's going on she is She's trick-or-treating.

Speaker 1 She is dressing up as a monster.

Speaker 1 This is just what she wanted. You know, when they're three, you ask them, what do you want to be? And then they just say, monster.
And you're like, this, I'm going to need you to be more specific.

Speaker 1 And then they start crying.

Speaker 1 So we found this monster costume that is just... Elmo is a monster.
Also, it is a monster. Also, the real monsters are human beings the whole time.
Oh, yeah, the real monster is man, sure.

Speaker 1 So it's like it could be literally anything. But we found this like hairy monster costume, and we showed it to her a month ago.

Speaker 1 And she

Speaker 1 has worn it every day

Speaker 1 since. I love it.
Love a little kid in a Halloween costume on not Halloween. That always rules.

Speaker 1 It's very cute, but also I have to like plead with her to like, please take it off. You can't go to school in the monster costume again.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of fighting with a very irrational, tiny person.

Speaker 2 The Matt's kid lore is starting out great.

Speaker 1 It's pretty good. It's an origin story.
My father wouldn't let me take off the monster. No.

Speaker 1 I know. Now I am the monster.
Everything I do, I'm like, oh no, is this some sort of core memory that's going to come around and fuck me? No.

Speaker 1 Will she at some point say, riddle me this, the Batman?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 I think that she's going to remember, I got to wear it every day.

Speaker 1 Not to school.

Speaker 1 Lots of goofy photos of her in the monster costume. It'll be fun to look at.

Speaker 2 What does it look like?

Speaker 1 It's a monster based off of this song by a children's musician named Laurie Berkner. It's

Speaker 1 the biggest monster is the name of the costume. Cool.
Cute. What color is it? Oh, well, his eyes are purple and his teeth are green.
He's big and he's hairy. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 And this is what he likes to do. He does the monster boogie.
The monster monster boogie. The monster boogie around the room.

Speaker 1 This rules. Family,

Speaker 1 you have done a spooky activity. I did.

Speaker 1 You went to Halloween horror nights at our beloved Universal Studios. This is their big, like, haunted yearly affair.
Yes. And I've been a couple years.

Speaker 1 I have not been this year, but I've been a bunch, and it's pretty scary.

Speaker 1 How did you hold up?

Speaker 2 Okay, so I went with Michaela Barnes, who we've had on the show, one of my besties,

Speaker 2 and I got some free passes or free tickets to go in by our friend David Hill, who we know from Mythical. And he is playing Ramblin' Rabbit in the WWE house.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 First of all, so he's a skeracter, which is a fucking dream job. I've always wanted to do this.
So he's one of the like monsters who jumps out and scares people when they come into the maze.

Speaker 1 That is wrestling-themed, question mark.

Speaker 2 Well, and Ramblin' Rabbit, when I looked it up, is supposed to be like a hand puppet.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's like a little like watch wrestling in a minute, but

Speaker 1 I guess there's some lore to

Speaker 2 a guy who is a character, and then this is like a side character type thing. It's like the cotton candy Randy to whatever the fuck,

Speaker 2 which is a character Jordan plays, if you, if you know, you know, but um, it so

Speaker 2 I was gonna not go into any of the houses, but I was like, okay, I have to go in to see my friend because he was like, I'm performing at these times.

Speaker 2 So I was like, fuck, I'm going to have to go into this house.

Speaker 1 I'm jumping out and yelling at 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he had like 45-minute shifts, but I was terrified to go in the houses. Also, there's areas that are scare zones throughout the park that you're just walking around and then stuff will pop out.

Speaker 2 So I got a little warm-up with the clowns coming at me. And I just went, I'm going to scream, but then I'm going to laugh after.
I'm going to think of this as, and I'll get through it.

Speaker 2 And it did help. It helped because it was funny to be scared.
Yeah. Eventually.
So Michaela was like, we're going to do the tour, the like. tram ride or whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So the like tram that you usually take around Universal Studios.
Right.

Speaker 1 They put you on it. And then at some point it like, oh no, we're breaking down.
And then you have to like get off, which I always fucking. Oh, I didn't know that.
I've never been.

Speaker 1 It's really fun to get off the tram.

Speaker 2 Oh, I love that.

Speaker 2 I didn't feel that way at first.

Speaker 2 And, but I,

Speaker 2 and so we got off and it was like the Megan kind of ride. So it was like there were a bunch of Megan's everywhere.

Speaker 1 That's iconic.

Speaker 2 And like some other random stuff. So you get off, you go into this room.
I can't remember what else was going on.

Speaker 2 I kind of blacked out, but it was like a lot of girls dressed as Megan, jump scares, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 I came out the other end and I was like, okay, it was the Purge and Megan like come together, like fused together. What are we doing?

Speaker 1 Throw a Zetomorph in there.

Speaker 1 The Bye-bye Man.

Speaker 1 Exactly. The Bye-bye Man meets a Predator.

Speaker 1 Exactly. I think I always want to see what happens.

Speaker 2 I got through that okay. Like I got through it okay.
And I went, okay, I'm feeling warm. Yeah.
Let's do it. Let's let's fucking go.
And so we

Speaker 2 did the WWE house. I did a different one before that.
I can't remember what it was, but the WWE house, which was pretty scary, I'll be honest.

Speaker 2 And I knew it was David Hill when he popped out because he's a giant. He's like super tall.
And he came out and Michael and I both pointed at him. We were like, hey, hey, buddy.

Speaker 1 And he was like, ah, like he kind of was in zombie makeup.

Speaker 2 No, he's in a giant rabbit head

Speaker 2 with like crazy, you know, foaming teeth and stuff and like overalls. It's like in a hillbilly kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre house.
I love that.

Speaker 2 So it's like WWE lore and Texas Chainsaw Massacre like mixed together. I did fine.
I did fine.

Speaker 1 I did fine.

Speaker 2 And so then

Speaker 2 I like Michaela got me to do the, what the fuck is that? The show, the video game show that's out.

Speaker 1 Was it Five Nights at Freddy's?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 the line was way too long for that.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 that's the hot shit. That like

Speaker 1 Fallout, maybe.

Speaker 2 It's the Fallout one.

Speaker 1 like, I like that show. That Fallout show is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 Me too. But oh, oh, man.
I was not ready. I peed.
Um, okay.

Speaker 1 Kind of a lot. All right.

Speaker 2 So I was doing okay.

Speaker 1 Pants, huh?

Speaker 2 It's like, yes, it was like, you know, the people who were trying to get on and kill you and take your resources. And I knew the ghouls or whatever were going to come.

Speaker 2 But the zombie bear, there was a giant, like,

Speaker 2 animatronic bear that came out and it popped out of this wall and I went, Michaela, no.

Speaker 1 Michaela, no, no.

Speaker 2 Like, I was like, I can't do it. I can't do it.
And as soon as I got past the bear, the ghouls all jumped out at me and I peed.

Speaker 2 I wore black jeans, so it was okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No, nobody.
You could hang out for a couple more hours. When you say a lot, you mean like...

Speaker 1 A second.

Speaker 2 It would have shown if I was wearing blue jeans.

Speaker 2 You could have seen it from the back.

Speaker 1 That one was the wiser.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wore black jeans. It was fine.
But I did it. And I'm glad that it's over.

Speaker 1 We're very proud of you. Sounds fun.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Well, it was fun because Michaela was just laughing at me the whole fucking time.

Speaker 1 It does sound fun for her, for sure.

Speaker 2 And I kept grabbing her shirt because she kept like walking too far ahead of me. I was like, where the fuck are you going? I'm so mad.
But it was fun. It was very fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, Halloween. We had fun.
We hope you did too.

Speaker 1 But now we're going to talk about The Running Man,

Speaker 1 a remake, I think, in theaters this weekend. We're talking about the original.

Speaker 1 Okay, totally wild that we've been doing this podcast for, you know, a year and a half now. And so many of the movies that are free with ads are like cheese from the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 1 How the fuck have we not done an Arnold movie until now? Yeah, that is wild.

Speaker 1 Amazing. I think it's our first Arnold movie, and I think maybe our first Stephen King adaptation, too.
So that's this is a Stephen King adaptation? It sure is. He wrote it under another name.

Speaker 1 This was a Richard Bachman, but you know, I think they, that it was found out to be him, you know,

Speaker 1 it was his like alter ego pen name, sort of his, uh, what was the, what was that country? Garth Brooks was also Chris Gaines. Oh, Chris Gaines.

Speaker 1 This was his Chris Gaines. Chris Gaines.

Speaker 2 This was Chris Gaines.

Speaker 1 This was his Sasha Fierce. Yeah.
Okay, there it is. I thought it'd be fun to check in and see, like, I guess I don't know how y'all feel about Arnold.

Speaker 1 I love Arnold. Do you have any favorite Arnolds?

Speaker 1 Yeah, any thoughts? Arnold rules. I mean,

Speaker 1 watching this movie or Predator or anything that he's in in this period from like, I don't know, 84 to 99.

Speaker 1 He is

Speaker 1 fabulous. He's hilarious.
He's strong. He's sexy.
He can barely speak English. I know.

Speaker 1 And it's just so fun.

Speaker 2 He's doing his best.

Speaker 1 He's doing his best and he's doing a pretty good job. But he was just in so many great action movies

Speaker 1 in this period of time. And yeah, it's a shame that this is the first one that we've done because it's not necessarily his most iconic role, but it is still very good.

Speaker 1 It's very Arnold. It's a very Arnold Arnold movie.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, he might be my favorite Republican.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
yeah. And he's a California Republican, which is

Speaker 1 little baby horses, as we've learned from Instagram. Yep.
Yep.

Speaker 2 Sure, he's got some infidelity issues.

Speaker 1 Who doesn't? You know, he's a politician. He's married to a Kennedy.

Speaker 1 We should be glad he's still alive. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I definitely like loved this.
kind of movie as a kid. Like I loved an Arnold.
I loved a Van Damme. I loved a, you know, a Stillone

Speaker 1 um so yeah i've definitely seen this movie a ton and all the kind of like related movies um yeah i think only you know i think there's only a couple of them that you can say are like actually good movies today sure um but yeah this is definitely like this is a like flavor of cheese that like i'm just so all about so there's five i would say there's got to be at least five Arnold movies that are still great today.

Speaker 1 I could name them off the top of my head.

Speaker 2 Well, Total Recall is a classic.

Speaker 1 Total Recall is a good one. True Lies.

Speaker 1 True Lies. True Lies Rips.
Both of the Terminator movies.

Speaker 1 Let's say all of the Terminator movies. Sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Junior. Junior.
Jr.

Speaker 1 Jingle All the Way. All of the movies.
So we're basically naming all of his films, which are all good. He has never made a bad movie.
He has not made a bad movie. You've heard it here first.

Speaker 2 This is the first time I ever saw this movie, though. This is not Running Man.
Same.

Speaker 2 I will say I got it confused with Not Running Man.

Speaker 1 The Long Walk. No!

Speaker 2 Marathon Man, which also written by Stephen King.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, it was,

Speaker 2 what's the one with Dustin Hoffman where he like pulls out all his teeth?

Speaker 1 Oh, Marathon Man.

Speaker 2 I got it confused with Marathon Man, and I like sat down going, oof, this is going to be a long movie. And then it was this, and I went, well, when's he going to pull out his teeth? I'm so confused.

Speaker 1 After he meets Peter Pan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This movie is a bunch of jazz or size and jumpsuits.

Speaker 1 Still very grim in many ways, but a lot more fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah,

Speaker 1 let's talk about it. It starts with a crawl and Atari graphics letting us know that the year is the dystopian future of 2017

Speaker 1 and the world. Everyone's fighting for resources.
It's a police state.

Speaker 1 Media is run by the government. I'm like, is this a dang documentary? Is this a government documentary?

Speaker 1 And then I watched Idiocracy, and I'm like, is this a dang documentary?

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 It's like it truly is.

Speaker 1 And then I watched Grizzly Man, and I'm like, is this a dang documentary?

Speaker 1 Anyway, but yeah, it, I know, like, cliche to say, but the satire in this kind of hit. I'm like, it does.
Yeah, a lot of this is like, I don't know, feels

Speaker 1 very now and is like

Speaker 1 Black Mirror episode. It's a Black Mirror, which also, like, when I watch those, I'm like, is this a dang documentary? Is this a dang documentary? Yeah, every time.

Speaker 1 And just in terms of like

Speaker 1 the sort of dystopian future movies of this era, I mean, obviously, there's, you know, great ones like Blade Runner, but it's a great premise because this is not too far off. If you've ever watched,

Speaker 1 you know, a Twitch stream and wonder what's going to be the future for America, you know, it kind of feels similar to that, you know, just like, are we just

Speaker 1 hurting people for money now? Is that what I'm doing? I know. How long before one of these little Twitch Twitch streamers has to fight an electrified opera singer? 100%.

Speaker 2 It's going to happen. Well, I mean, that's Mr.
Beast. Right?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 these are all Mr. Beast scenarios.
Kind of, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's basically this.

Speaker 1 You can see him making the little thumbnail face being like, I made my friend fight an electrified opera singer. Thumb toy!

Speaker 1 Thumbnail toy! Yeah. Why can't he smile with his eyes? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's because his soul has left his body.

Speaker 1 Anyway, as we mentioned, television, it's run by the state, and the most popular show is The Running Man, where convicts fight for their freedom. We go to Arnold.
Yeah, it's him.

Speaker 1 His character has a name. I forget what it is, but Arnold.

Speaker 1 Oh, Ben. Oh, yeah, sure.
It's like Ben Kent. It's like, doesn't even.

Speaker 1 Isn't he Richard?

Speaker 2 Ben Richards. Or Richard Schwartz.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 something very all-American. It's Arnold Schwartzen.

Speaker 1 His name is Arnold.

Speaker 2 I really like the name Ben. It's a nice name.

Speaker 1 Nice name for a nice man.

Speaker 1 Or a dog.

Speaker 1 Yeah, great dog.

Speaker 1 So Arnold is a helicopter guy. He's flying his helicopter around, and his boss wants him to open fire on unarmed protesters, but he's not going to do it because he's a good guy.

Speaker 1 And so they send him to the Wilshire Detention Zone. There's a lot of like little L.A.

Speaker 1 things. You know, this is one of those LA is a hellscape movies, which I always kind of like.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, he's at the Wilshire Detention Center. Maybe he can visit the La Bray at Tar Pits when he gets out.
That's always a fun thing.

Speaker 1 On a little field trip.

Speaker 1 And we see Arnold with a little beard. You don't see Arnold with a beard a lot.

Speaker 2 Oh, that is a shame.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you like the beard on him, huh?

Speaker 2 It's amazing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he should have a beard more often because, I mean, it's like when a guy like that who has an amazing jawline has a beard, it's like, okay, fuck you. I get it.

Speaker 1 You look hot no matter what you do.

Speaker 2 But it looked really soft.

Speaker 1 It did look soft and kind of wispy, too. I would maybe imagine him with a fuller, thicker beard, but it was a little wispy.

Speaker 1 But yeah. And with a cigar in his mouth.

Speaker 2 Fuck me, daddy.

Speaker 1 He's chomping a cigar for most of this movie, and a lot of times some very inappropriate situations.

Speaker 1 You could tell that was kind of his little things like, I have to be smoking a cigar. I like it.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 It's really fun. And it totally goes with this movie, which is just over the top and campy as fuck.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, him just like smoking a cigar while he's giving a speech to the resistance totally makes sense. Um, so yeah, a big fight breaks out at the Wilshire Detention Center.

Speaker 1 This is where we get the first Arnold pun of the movie. He throws a guy, he picks up a guy, throws him over the ledge, and says, Can I give you a lift? Anyway, and it's all

Speaker 1 downhill from there, pun-wise.

Speaker 1 Hey, hey, hey. Just get better.

Speaker 2 It just, it depends on what your opinion of puns is.

Speaker 1 Yes. I like, I mean, every time he does this, I'm like, okay, this is great.
I mean, it becomes a game at some point where you're just waiting for, all right, what is he going to do with this?

Speaker 1 You know, it's just throughout the movie, every time he's right about to punch someone, right about to kill someone. It's just, it's, at some point, you go like, is there a script here?

Speaker 1 Are they just like, Arnold, now, just say whatever pun you can do. You do it.

Speaker 2 You know what? I kind of want to go through life for a week just thinking of puns for everyday situations.

Speaker 1 You could pun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 See if I can pun. Well, I'm alone a lot, so it's like

Speaker 2 it's going to be tough.

Speaker 1 I'll figure it out. Like if you should.
So you're like, you know, if you were like, just like making breakfast, you could be like.

Speaker 1 What's cooking? But that's too literal. It would have to be.
It would be challenging.

Speaker 2 What came first? The bitch or the egg?

Speaker 1 There you go. You're cracking an egg.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 What you got to do is get into various fights.

Speaker 2 Myself, no problem.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, you're scrolling the street and finding someone to fight.

Speaker 1 You look and you see.

Speaker 2 I got in a fight with my building manager, but I'm not going to get into it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I'm just saying, next time you see the building manager, bring a bushel of apples and say, you know, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and then you hit him.

Speaker 1 I don't know, you know, something like that. Right.

Speaker 1 I've made good friends. It is harder than it looks.

Speaker 2 It is. I've made good friends with the maintenance people.
They're my buddies. And this lady, she just sucks.
And we all have a laugh about it together.

Speaker 1 That's funny. I like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just hit her with apples sometime, like Matt suggested.

Speaker 2 One day I'll move.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that'll show her.

Speaker 1 So, Arnold, he escapes from the detention center and he goes to the underground resistance. How do you know it's the underground resistance? Because they have fires and barrels.

Speaker 1 And if you're trying to overthrow the government, you light a fire in a barrel.

Speaker 1 Also, we have a bunch of dudes in berets. I think this is the worst hat in the movie.

Speaker 1 The worst hat.

Speaker 2 Which is saying a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of shitty hats because the costumes in this are like, there's a lot of crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but yeah, they've definitely used beret to like signal underground resistance.

Speaker 1 I don't know where that trope came from, but apparently, again, if you're trying to overthrow the government, you light a fire in a barrel and you put on a little beret and you look like you look bad.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 Arnold, he's not going to join the resistance. He's like, I'm not into politics.
I'm into survival. And one of the resistance guys says, these days, it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, what am I watching a dang documentary?

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 so. After this, so he goes off to, you know, just be his own kind of self-preservation guy.

Speaker 1 And then we meet.

Speaker 1 the host and president, the host of the Running Man and president of the network. He's kind of an Andy Cohen figure.

Speaker 2 Or what's the wrestling guy?

Speaker 1 The head of the family. Oh, the Defined Man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's a little of that, too.

Speaker 1 He's played by Richard Dawson, the one-time host of Family Feud.

Speaker 1 So this guy hosted Family Feud. And if you've ever seen like those super cuts of the host of Family Feud, like French kissing all the moms in the families, that's this guy.

Speaker 2 This is this guy.

Speaker 1 This is this guy.

Speaker 2 Because he kind of does it in this. Yes, he does.

Speaker 1 It's fucking amazing casting.

Speaker 1 He maybe was a real creep in real life, but he seems like a great creep in this movie. His name is Mr.
Killian,

Speaker 1 as if this movie couldn't get more on the nose. Yep.

Speaker 1 We love it. We love the not subtle satire.

Speaker 1 So he's looking for a new competitor for the running man.

Speaker 1 And there's this thing, there's this joke where they're like going through these like headshots of convicts, and you see their name in their little picture.

Speaker 1 And one of the convicts is named like Babyface Mulligan, and it's just a picture of an actual baby.

Speaker 1 No, I didn't notice that.

Speaker 1 I like that the movies of this era could have just these wackety schmackety sketch comedy jokes in them. Like, it's babyface.

Speaker 1 And it's a, you know, they just like don't care about tone that much, and it makes them really fun.

Speaker 2 If you were a criminal, um, like the worst crime you've ever done, what would be your convict name?

Speaker 1 Oh. Oh, the worst.
Okay, what's the worst crime I've ever done?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that's a good question. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or something you

Speaker 2 bad thing you did.

Speaker 1 It's Maddie Cheats. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because I cheated on this test in college and it was like crazy hard.

Speaker 2 The heroine doesn't play into anything?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, I guess heroin Matt. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I feel like, you know,

Speaker 1 jumping. Needles McMatt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, Maddie Horse Face or whatever is a little too out of.

Speaker 1 I mean, I was thinking of like cool crimes, like when I cheated on that test. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jordan threw up in the bathroom at UCB once and just left and didn't tell anyone about it. Did you flush? I threw up in the sink.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 you can't flush that. So if anybody from the Upright Citizens Brigade information, he would be Jordan the Sink.
Jordan the Sink. That's a fucking cool name.
I'm the sink baby. What would you be? Yes.

Speaker 2 I stabbed a kid in the sixth grade with a pencil, so let's see.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 Emily, number two. Poisoner.
Yeah, Emily.

Speaker 2 Emily the lead.

Speaker 1 Oh. Yeah.
Yeah, number two. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Number two. Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 1 Okay. We got the sink.
We got number two. And we got heroin guy.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the fuck. No.

Speaker 1 I'm horse face killer. I'm horse face killer.

Speaker 2 What is this horse face thing? What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Well, because like horse is like heroin. I'm trying to like, you know, scratch it a bit.
So it's not just like the sad junkie.

Speaker 1 Horse face is great.

Speaker 2 You'd be the nice junkie. Wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2 So horse is another term for heroin?

Speaker 1 I mean, no one's ever, I've never heard someone say it, like, seriously. No one's ever heard of it.

Speaker 2 Well, then I hate this. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1 Okay, fine. I'm sad, Matt.

Speaker 1 We'll keep brainstorming our talk games.

Speaker 1 So Arnold goes to what he thinks is his brother's apartment, but his brother apparently got thrown in jail, who does live here, is Amber. She is played by Maria Conchita Alonso.

Speaker 2 Yeah, where is she from? I recognize her.

Speaker 1 She is, I mean, I know her from Predator 2, but she's a real 80s babe. She is a, like, you know, maybe kind of an unsung 80s babe.
She was out there

Speaker 1 being hot throughout the 80s and 90s. Maybe not getting the respect of, you know,

Speaker 1 your Michelle Pfeiffers. The Michelle Pfeiffers, the Christy Brinkleys, but she was out there being hot and running around.
We salute her. Maria Conchita Alonso.

Speaker 1 So yeah, she is a jingle writer, but she also has a lot of like contraband, like books and music.

Speaker 1 She turns on a workout video because

Speaker 1 I love how it's the 80s. They just assume Jazzer size will be around forever.
They're like, well, this is not a fad. Everyone will always be Jazzer sizing.

Speaker 1 So she watches jazzer size, and it's hosted by

Speaker 1 a guy who won the running man. It's Jesse the Body Ventura as Captain Freedom.
And he hosts this Jazzercise show in a bad wig. Yeah.
And he's truly incredible in this.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 he and Arnold, this is the second team-up that I've seen them in because they're together in Predator 1 as well. Predator 1, which came out also this year.

Speaker 1 These two movies came out the same year, and it's him and Arnold in both of them. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so yeah, he is very funny and over the top in this movie.

Speaker 1 But Arnold, he's like trying to get some money and get out of the country.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 he really terrorizes this woman, which is one of the icky things about the movies of this time is like our main character will just be really violent towards women, and then at the end, they fall in love.

Speaker 1 You know, so you know,

Speaker 1 there's a little 80s 80s ick in this movie, particularly kind of here, but she is great. And they do, when they're not, you know, when he's not threatening her, they are a fun pair.

Speaker 2 Okay, I looked up some stuff about our girl, Maria.

Speaker 2 Crazy long filmography.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. She's still doing, she's like still in movies.
Like she is just like fucking amazing.

Speaker 2 She's amazing. Also, looks like a million fucking bucks.
Like, don't want to, I know it's not appropriate to reveal a woman's age, but she was born in 1955.

Speaker 1 That was right.

Speaker 2 And I'm looking at a picture of her from 2011.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 It's like ageless, beautiful. But yeah, crazy fucking femography.
Yeah, good for her.

Speaker 1 So she has a pass to get out of the country. So he like kidnaps her and takes her to the airport.
They dress as tourists. Arnold kind of wears a spoofy Hawaiian shirt and like,

Speaker 1 you know, kind of like a Panama hat. It's another one of the bad hats in this movie.
Not worse than the Bray, I think, but it's also kind of a bad hat. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Panama hat was the classic, I'm trying to flee the country at an airport, like disguise. A Panama hat was like, I'm just a guy who's going to go to Fiji for normal tourist man.

Speaker 1 I'm a Midwestern tourist. I want to snap for a while.

Speaker 1 I'm so tired of being born and raised in Ohio.

Speaker 2 It's like putting one of those

Speaker 2 cocktail umbrellas on the house.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's not going to do shit.

Speaker 1 Not fooling anybody.

Speaker 1 So she like punches him in the balls and like screams for help, and that gets him captured.

Speaker 1 And that's what will get him sent to the running man. Oh,

Speaker 1 he tries to run, and they, um, they, like, the, the kind of like SWAT team chases him and they shoot him with this net gun. I just wrote down on my notes, cool net.
I love the net.

Speaker 1 You guys like the net? I I love the net.

Speaker 1 Favorite Sandra Bullock movie. Yeah.
Great Sandra Bullock movie. Great weapons catch up.

Speaker 2 There's some things that technology-wise, like that they just went, okay, we'll do this conspiracy stuff, but technology-wise, we're not going to go that advanced.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. They predict some stuff, but not others.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like the running mans, when they get them into the gauntlet where they're supposed to fight people, they make them down, like go down a crazy slide. Right.
Elevators existed

Speaker 2 at this time, which is wild. I know they needed to do that for whatever, for action, but it was funny to me.
But also, you have one pass to get out of the country and you can use it for two people.

Speaker 2 I guess this is 1987. They were like, airline travel will never be strict.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
It's so wild when you look at stuff from this era and people are just like strolling up to the airline gate and going like, any tickets? Can I get on the plane?

Speaker 1 Or like, I'm here to pick up my mom. I'm smoking.

Speaker 1 We live in a future hell dystopia where there are armed guards at the airport. And it's like, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's

Speaker 1 there's no dogs. There's no machine that looks into the inside of your body every time you want to go on a plane.
That's weird. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He tries to like fake his way out of not having two tickets by being like, oh, you left it in your, you probably left it in your purse. You know women leaving things in their purse.

Speaker 1 And he's doing these sexist jokes to the guard.

Speaker 1 Just being so conspicuous. Just being so conspicuous.

Speaker 1 So he's caught. He's, and he is entered into the Running Man.
They captured two of his buddies from the Resistance, and they're like, do the Running Man, or we'll kill them.

Speaker 1 Anyway, they dropped the buddies into The Running Man. Anyway, so that happens.

Speaker 1 We get a big long dance sequence.

Speaker 1 So the Running Man has official dancers. It is the most 80s thing you have ever fucking seen in your life.
Awesome. That the dances in this were choreographed by Paula Abdul.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Of course they were. Of course they were.
I think she was a Laker girl at the time, and all the dancers are Laker girls from around.

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't know. 87.
I feel like maybe Paula Abdul had something at that point.

Speaker 1 No, you might be right. I don't know enough about that.
She was a choreographer after that.

Speaker 2 So she's like became, I think she was a choreographer first. And then, you know, we saw that movie Honey.
Oh, yeah. Honey.

Speaker 2 They say a lot of that story was lifted from, you know, the real life story from A, the choreography from that movie.

Speaker 1 That's the scene where honey choreography.

Speaker 2 Well, I got to tell you, these dance moves made me go, I wish I took dance lessons when I was a kid. Like, I didn't want to do it.
Like, all my friends were doing it.

Speaker 2 I just felt very uncomfortable with my long, gangly body.

Speaker 2 And now I'm like, yeah, I think I could get into it, but I don't, I don't know if I could be able to do it physically anymore, like really try for it.

Speaker 2 But it looks so cool I thought these this choreography was rad and also I love leotards. I want some leotards in my life I want some blue leotards in my life.

Speaker 1 It's a hilarious like joke that they have these dancers before this like brutal gladiatorial display But you like once you get past the joke of it, you're like this rocks Like everyone looks awesome.

Speaker 1 Their dancing is awesome. The music rules.
It's like so much fun.

Speaker 2 Well, it's kind of like what's that the game show the hunger games well yeah there's a lot of hunger games kind of vibes but the that game show that we have where there's like suitcases and all these hot girls are holding suitcases

Speaker 1 yeah i'm like oh yeah we just have hot girls doing shit in every game show yeah that's true wheel of fortune yeah you need a hot a hot girl uh yeah just being like here are the correct letters you need some notches

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 1 um helps you know where to look yeah if you need to look at something yeah american men are simple. All we want is a pretty girl to tell us where to look.
Yeah. I do that for mythical.

Speaker 2 I do that for mythical, but I just point to my tits.

Speaker 1 Every time you see Vanna White on screen, you go, hi, mom.

Speaker 1 Where do I look? Where are the vowels, mommy?

Speaker 1 Help me, mommy. I can't find the vowels.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 they

Speaker 1 bring out Arnold to go start the Running Man, and he is in a fucking neon yellow jumpsuit. I have watched the trailers for the new Running Man.
He's not in the...

Speaker 1 It's Glenn Powell. Glenn Powell is in the Arnold role because Glenn Powell must be in all films.

Speaker 1 He is not wearing the jumpsuit, and to that I say fucking cowards.

Speaker 1 Put him in the jumpsuit. That's the whole thing of this movie.

Speaker 2 Well, maybe they're like, Tron is already doing these jumpsuits. We don't want to repeat

Speaker 2 the Tron thing.

Speaker 1 Could be. Yeah.
The whole thing about the Running Man is not caring about it being stupid. Let it be stupid.
Yeah, it's dumb.

Speaker 1 They need to let these movies be stupid. You're going to remake them.
Don't make them gritty. I've had enough of grit.

Speaker 2 But the thing is, in 2025, we don't know that we're stupid yet.

Speaker 1 That's true. We still don't know.
I know.

Speaker 2 No, we don't know.

Speaker 2 I know. Well, us three do.

Speaker 1 We're the only ones you know.

Speaker 2 We're the only ones. And our listeners.

Speaker 1 We all know. We all know.

Speaker 1 We're in on it. Free with ads at maximumfund.org.
Free with ads at maximumfund.org. Let us know if you're stupid.
Slash join. Slash join.
Slash join.com slash email. Let us know how stupid you are.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so they, as Emily mentioned, to get to the like Running Man Arena, which they say is a piece of LA that got like demolished during the quake of 97.

Speaker 1 They put you in. I was like three years off from the real

Speaker 1 big quake.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 1 Running man.

Speaker 1 Running man predicted it um they put him in how would you describe this thing it's like a little ride it's a water slide kind of thing i kind of know what they put van dam in and time cop a little bit yeah it's uh

Speaker 1 what do you call it it's like um what's what's that sport that they do in cool runnings oh the luge or bob sledding yeah it's like it's like a bobsledding uh track essentially but you're in sort of a roller coaster yeah you're in this little it's a fun ride it's a fun funny one ride before they kill you.

Speaker 1 That's anything else. It's not

Speaker 2 fun to me at all. As somebody who hates roller coasters, I did confront my fear of haunted houses a little.
I didn't do the terrifier. Hell fucking no.

Speaker 2 But, and I will not do that fast and the furious roller coaster that they're still building at Universal.

Speaker 1 Oh, I can't.

Speaker 2 Fuck no. It's on a hill.
They're building it on a hill in a place that has earthquakes, Jordan.

Speaker 1 no nobody's gonna get final destination on that a hundred percent don't go on it please

Speaker 2 when you go you're gonna have to let me know so I can pray for you I can put

Speaker 1 your family put your name

Speaker 1 sounds like someone's not gonna be part of the family

Speaker 1 gotta be part of the family go on the wood

Speaker 1 fuck that family

Speaker 1 anyway so they're in the running man arena and it's time to pick a stalker they the the contestants run from the stalkers who are these like heavily themed villains.

Speaker 1 And like, this is a great little detail that to me is like a good, a good satirical thing is that all of the people in the audience, or most of them, are like old people.

Speaker 1 It's like little old ladies and little old men. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 I mean, of like when you see like our people of our parent, I think our parents are all kind of nice folks who didn't get Fox News at all. Sure.

Speaker 1 Luckily, but it's our parents' generation all got fucking Fox News, and now you know, you see like just them saying fucking awful, brutal things on social media.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 of course, like, it's these little old ladies who are like out for blood and can't wait to see these guys die.

Speaker 1 I don't know, really, like, I think meant to be very funny at the time, but kind of chilling to see these little old ladies who are now like radicalized and want blood.

Speaker 2 One of the ladies, the second, like, she's not very old, she's probably middle-aged. That's Miss Yvonne from Peewee.

Speaker 1 Oh, neat. Okay, there you go.

Speaker 1 R.I.P. RIP.
But yeah.

Speaker 1 So the first little old lady, she gets to pick the stalker, and she picks Sub-Zero. No, unfortunately, not the Mortal Kombat villain.
I know I was bum too. I was bum too.
That would have been sick.

Speaker 1 He's a hockey-themed villain.

Speaker 1 And they throw Arnold and his dudes into like a hockey-themed area.

Speaker 2 Can we talk for a moment about the sets?

Speaker 1 We can, yes.

Speaker 2 They suck.

Speaker 1 They're very janky. This is a very homemade looking movie.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this was the thing that really made this movie not good for me because everything kind of looked the same. It all looked like everything was happening in a half-assed laser tag.

Speaker 1 That's a good way to describe it. Yes.

Speaker 1 Some kids came in for a birthday party as soon as they got done filming.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and so it wasn't, the tension wasn't high. I wasn't very scared.
The kills weren't, you could barely see how people were dying.

Speaker 2 The character, like,

Speaker 2 corniness and stuff was fun. But then because of the set,

Speaker 2 the tension sucked.

Speaker 1 They spent all the money on Arnold Schwarzenegger. They're like, what are we going to do?

Speaker 2 And that fucking slide.

Speaker 1 I get like $600 worth of cigars a day.

Speaker 1 Fly those in. Get some cardboard and some tinfoil.
We'll make it work.

Speaker 2 But also,

Speaker 2 another thing they probably spent a lot of money on was all of the side characters. There's a lot of little characters everywhere, and I'm sure that made them qualify for SAG Healthcare.

Speaker 1 And, you know, God bless.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, they're,

Speaker 1 yeah, so they fight Sub-Zero in

Speaker 1 a hockey arena. He kind of slaps the guys around like they're hockey pucks.
That's kind of fun.

Speaker 1 Arnold strangles him with barbed wire, and then, yes, says the now infamous catchphrase that we still all say to this day he here's sub-zero now plain zero it's so confusing it's like you it takes you a minute yeah it took me a while and then i just read it in sort of like a valley girl accent and i said oh i get it yeah i wrote it down because i was like oh matt's totally gonna do that for us

Speaker 2 but then he had another line as they were leaving because there's like toxic gas that they're putting in the room for some reason that that doesn't play out in any way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they like try to

Speaker 1 move them like from one room to the other with toxic gas. But yeah, right.

Speaker 2 Nothing ever happens. So he was like, let's get out of here.

Speaker 2 He goes, good thing you killed Sub-Zero. And he goes, he was a real pain in the neck.

Speaker 1 Right. And it's like, I guess you put barbed wire on his neck.
Yeah. It's like, it happened too long ago, though.
You don't, you have to think about like, oh, yeah, how did he kill that guy?

Speaker 1 It happened too long ago is what the other character should have said.

Speaker 1 That happened too too long ago. I don't get it.
Do something to his neck. I know he's always saying these things to people who weren't there for it.
Like, who's this for, Arnold?

Speaker 1 Like, they don't know who you're talking about.

Speaker 2 It's just for me.

Speaker 1 I enjoy the jokes. It helps me to kill if I'm laughing.

Speaker 1 Which is why the callback is the funniest thing. In this movie, they do a callback to I'll be back from

Speaker 1 Terminator 1,

Speaker 1 you know, and

Speaker 1 which came out in 84. This is in 87.
He says, I'll be back.

Speaker 1 And then he says, Killian goes, only in a rerun, which is like, okay, so.

Speaker 2 I liked that response.

Speaker 1 I liked it too, but a little bit, I was like, yeah, but you set it up with sort of a catchy

Speaker 1 callback to another movie. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It only works if he never said I'll be back before. To me, I was just like, okay, fine, fine.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess I saw that I'll be back was like this kitschy, corny thing. And then I liked the only in a real rerun line back to him because it was very sinister.

Speaker 1 It was. It was good.
And it is amazing how good Richard Dawson is at this. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It's pretty damn good.

Speaker 1 I did make this thing just for fun. I'll be back.

Speaker 1 And I could.

Speaker 1 Is that from this movie or is that from, did you get the sound from Terminator? That is from Terminator. But, you know, it was just because it was clearer in the Terminator clip.

Speaker 1 But I figure we're going to be using that a lot because, let's be honest, this is not going to be our only Arnold movie.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 Our Arnold August.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Just brainstorming.

Speaker 1 We need another.

Speaker 1 Oh, Arnold April. Arnold April.
I can't wait.

Speaker 2 Should we do Jean-Claude Van Damme January?

Speaker 1 Jean-Claude.

Speaker 1 January. Jean-Jan Damuary.
I don't know. Listen, I love a theme month.
You don't have to twist my arm to do a theme month. You just have to twist the spun.
Yeah. Oh.

Speaker 1 So, yeah. Anyways, so the next stalkers they have to fight are Dynamo and Buzzsaw.

Speaker 1 BuzzSaw, am I getting that guy's name right? Was that Chainsaw? Yeah, anyways. It was Buzzawaza.
Buzz Saw. Buzzsaw.
Buzzsaw and Dynamo. So the wrinkle is they've captured Amber.

Speaker 1 She was like sneaking around. She kind of wants to, like,

Speaker 1 she knows that they're trying to frame Arnold, so she's looking for like the raw footage of him in the helicopter.

Speaker 1 They like doctored the helicopter footage, so it looks like he killed the protesters, but Amber wants to to find the real footage. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 AI is like a kind of big part of that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, there's a deep fake thing later where

Speaker 1 they try and deep fake it into looking like Jesse Ventura killed Arnold. Again,

Speaker 1 is this a dang doc documentary?

Speaker 1 Can I say it? This is a dang documentary.

Speaker 2 Do we need a sting for that?

Speaker 1 Because it's probably going to happen. I will have to figure out a way to fit that into three syllables.
Dang documentary. It's a dang dock.

Speaker 2 It's dang dock. Ooh.

Speaker 1 Dang dock.

Speaker 1 That's a good. It's dang dock.
Dang dock.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so yeah, so Buzzsaw is a guy with a chainsaw, which is like, great, this rules. But then

Speaker 1 the thing happens that just kicks this fucking movie into the stratosphere. Dynamo is a man covered in Christmas lights.
He has a light up mohawk.

Speaker 1 He shoots lightning out of his hands and he sings opera.

Speaker 1 Incredible. It's incredible.
That is the actual actor singing opera. He's like a trained opera singer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so that's actually him. And so they have to like fight these two guys at once.

Speaker 1 Buzzsaw drives a little motorcycle, and Dynamo has a little like go-kart car.

Speaker 2 Not a go-kart car. It looks like a Tesla cybertruck, but tiny.
Like a power wheels, Tesla cyber truck.

Speaker 1 Right, like a cyber truck for kids. Yes.
For your little asshole.

Speaker 1 Your little asshole having a fucking birthday?

Speaker 1 put your little piece of shit in this asshole car

Speaker 1 fuck him right that's what he says on the box yeah

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 anyway so they

Speaker 1 you know there's it's it's kind of just like mayhem up until you know the final 10 minutes of this movie they kill uh the so the buddies Arnold got in with they're trying to get to a satellite to send like proof to the rebels that blah blah something something

Speaker 1 You know, the buddies get killed. Arnold chainsaws Buzzsaw and like the balls.

Speaker 1 And then, oh, okay, so then they fight Dynamo, who like electrocutes the like nerdy tech guy.

Speaker 1 And then they flip Dynamo's little cyber truck.

Speaker 1 And then Arnold like refuses to kill him. And it's this moment where it's like, I'm not going to kill this unarmed man.
This helpless man.

Speaker 1 They do this in action movies so much where they want to show you that the hero is a good guy. You've killed so many people, Arnold.
Right. Just kill one other guy.

Speaker 1 Like, it doesn't matter to us at this point. It was very strange because I had to like rewind it a bit.
I was like, did I miss this part? Did he not actually kill all those other guys?

Speaker 1 And I was like, no, he did. He'd been killing people.

Speaker 2 But I think in a movie, there's like this thing where standing over someone who is helpless and penned down and killing them is somehow grotesque.

Speaker 2 And then just killing someone in action is like, well, whoopsie, I had to do it.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then after he spares this guy, Amber's like, what happened to Buzzsaw? And he's like, he had to split. So he spares this guy and then just makes a mean ass joke about his buddy.

Speaker 1 He just killed him. He just murdered a minute ago.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so yes, this movie's morality is strange.

Speaker 2 I kind of thought that Dynamo was meatloaf for a minute.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, I can see. Yeah, this would definitely be the era where you would stick meatloaf and stuff.
They tried to get meatloaf for sure.

Speaker 2 But, fun thing, the old guy who's like the head of the resistance or whatever, who was helping them get their collars off.

Speaker 1 Yes, Mick.

Speaker 1 That's Mick Fleetwood. Mick Fleetwood.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that'll come later. They meet the Resistance, and it's fucking Mick Fleetwood, and they call him Mick.
I think I read it in the IMD.

Speaker 1 I better read the IMB DV trivia that they just wanted you to think it was him. The guy from Fleetwood Mac just started the resistance.
It rolled.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Dweizel Zappa is in the resistance as well.

Speaker 1 Zappa, yeah, a lot of fun little cameos in this.

Speaker 1 The last stalker they have to kill is Fireball. He has a play.

Speaker 1 What's that? That's Scatman, I believe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's Scatman.

Speaker 1 I'm the Scatman. He could have fought the Scatman.
That would have been a great villain.

Speaker 1 Scatman is also a cool crime name, like Babyface. Babyface, the Scatman.

Speaker 2 He's the guy who's shit in the sink.

Speaker 1 Right, exactly.

Speaker 1 So, Arnold, you know, Fireball shooting fire.

Speaker 1 And then he blows up Fireball with like a Rode Flare. He's like, what a hothead.

Speaker 1 Maybe the best joke in this, they do an immemorium for the stalkers that died.

Speaker 1 and then the dancers do this like like serious dance, this like serious dance for the stalkers. Yeah, for Buzzsaw and for Fireball.
They're like singing their names. Yeah, it's pretty great.

Speaker 1 Um, and yeah, so then, so you know, all the

Speaker 1 stalkers are dead. Um, Arnold, Arnold, and Amber join the revolution with Mick Fleetwood, and we are about to get to the thrilling climax of The Running Man.

Speaker 1 And we'll tell you about it when we come back.

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Speaker 1 We're back. It's free with ads.
We are talking about the running man.

Speaker 1 Okay, so all the stalkers are dead. So they do a thing.
This is what we alluded to this earlier.

Speaker 1 They do like a deep fake where they make it look like Jesse Ventura as Captain Freedom is killing Arnold in the ring.

Speaker 1 He's so mad about having to do this, by the way. It's like one of my favorite scenes in this where he's just like, he just runs in, like, god damn it, I won't do it.

Speaker 1 This is about patriotism. And you don't know what exactly he's talking about until.

Speaker 1 But also, he has hair. He looks great.
He looks amazing. I just have some questions about 9-11.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy, Jesse.

Speaker 1 Let me ask my questions. Is he still alive?

Speaker 1 Oh, he's very much alive.

Speaker 2 And are we happy about it?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. He's a good guy.
How are the takes? How are the takes? Yeah, how are the takes. The takes are pretty much the same kind of 9-11 questions, but

Speaker 1 they're not like, I don't think they're like, I have, you know, what is COVID really? Like, I don't think. He's a different kind of wacko.
Okay. Yeah, I haven't looked too deeply.

Speaker 1 I think he's still like a 2008 wacko and not a 2020 wacko. I miss the wacko.

Speaker 1 I just miss it.

Speaker 2 I know. It was so tough for us to accept that we were all so bloodthirsty that we went into wars that didn't need to happen.
I know.

Speaker 2 So then we made up a bunch of conspiracy theories to make ourselves feel better.

Speaker 1 It was so much better. Remember, conspiracy theories are just like Tupac is still alive.
Right. What if there was Bigfoot? That's fun.
Bigfoot's around.

Speaker 1 The ancient aliens do.

Speaker 2 Katie Perry and Zoe Deschanel are the same person.

Speaker 1 Ooh, that's a fun one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 See, these are fun conspiracies. They all

Speaker 1 have to be so terrifying.

Speaker 1 Anyway.

Speaker 2 Emily Fleming's titties are removable.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What?

Speaker 2 I have different sizes that I hang on the wall.

Speaker 1 Do you notice you never see Emily's tits and butt in the same room?

Speaker 1 Well, she removes them and puts them to the other one.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 the deep fake happens.

Speaker 1 The rebels, they upload the raw footage of Arnold to

Speaker 1 the TV network that just is beamed out over this whole world. They see Arnold being a good guy in the helicopter.
Everyone just immediately believes it.

Speaker 1 So crazy that everyone immediately believes it. I was like, okay, but it's clear we do live in a world with deep fakes.
Why would they think this is the real one?

Speaker 1 Yeah. But like people's opinions in this world like oscillating wildly kind of works for me.
And I'm like, yeah, people just believe the last fucking thing they saw.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it is pretty crazy how they just like, Now he's good. We thought he was bad, but now he's good.

Speaker 1 Especially since the like in the real undoctored video, he says, No, I can't shoot those people. They're unarmed.
I'm a good person. It's like,

Speaker 1 no one would actually, if that's what he said verbatim, no one would believe it. You know, so, right.

Speaker 2 Well, my favorite thing is the little old lady that is the host's favorite. Yeah.
Our host has a favorite little old lady that he's like, give me a little kiss and everything at the

Speaker 1 same time.

Speaker 2 But by the end, she's the one calling bullshit.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think it was her calling bullshit.
Like somebody who was a favorite, like this was her show, changing her mind.

Speaker 1 And saying, oh, he was a bad motherfucker.

Speaker 2 Yes. But it's like, sometimes somebody who was bad before can make all the difference by changing their mind and admitting that they were wrong.

Speaker 2 Everybody talk about that at Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Yay, there you go. You got a little homework.

Speaker 1 So he, you know, the rebels break in. They just like start executing everybody.

Speaker 1 He throws Richard Dawson into the little go-kart and pushes him into

Speaker 1 his own little trap.

Speaker 1 And the go-kart, instead of just depositing him in the running man arena, just shoots him out at a billboard of himself and it explodes. He doesn't do anything.

Speaker 1 It just works differently when this guy is in it. Like, it just kills you immediately.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 yeah. So some home alone logic.
Yeah, the movie's over. He needs to blow up.
And then Arnold says, oh, what does he say? That hit the spot.

Speaker 1 He's like, okay. I missed that one.
That's a pretty good one. Yeah, that hit the spot.
Pretty good.

Speaker 1 And then,

Speaker 1 because this movie was made in 1987, we have to have a tonally inappropriate torch song come up over the credits.

Speaker 1 Kenny Loggins did not sing this, but it is a genre of music I would call log-ish. It is not Kenny Loggins, it is log-ish.

Speaker 1 Matt, can you play this torch song and we'll go. I don't know.
It's pretty fucking loud.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's the guy who sang St. Elmo's fuck.

Speaker 2 Oh, hell yeah. Play it on the loudest speaker.

Speaker 2 Burning like the highest fever.

Speaker 2 There it is.

Speaker 1 Yay, Stu's Arnold.

Speaker 1 Anyway, that's the Running Man.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, Arnold and Amber Kiss. And there you go.
Which, whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like, okay, well, this guy who threatened you for half the movie anyway. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Honestly, I'm going to go jogging to that song.

Speaker 1 It rules. Yeah, it's a great one of these songs.

Speaker 2 It's like it's just the drum machine is so fucking good. And then the way that the voices are.

Speaker 1 Everybody's on the highway.

Speaker 2 i don't know if those are the lyrics someday you guys are gonna have to explain what the wall of sound is to me because i listen to that and i go that sounds like a wall of sound which was created by a murderer but i'm still intrigued as to what it is

Speaker 1 what is it maybe that's a future bonus episode what explains mad explanation style of philspector

Speaker 1 well yeah the famous christmas album that's right um it's a ramones album nobody liked um Anyway, so we're going to say what we thought about the Running Man, but first, you know, we got to do the Hunk Watch.

Speaker 1 God damn right, we do.

Speaker 1 It's Hunk Watch.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go ahead and give it to Dynamo. He's the man.

Speaker 1 Unsung hero of the movie. Beautiful voice.
Dynamo, he's the best.

Speaker 1 Emily, Matt, you have any thoughts on the hunks of this film? I do. Yes.

Speaker 2 What do you think? It is Arnold with a beard.

Speaker 1 I mean, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, give it to me, Fuzzy Daddy, with a cigar.

Speaker 1 Put it out in my eye.

Speaker 1 That's what everybody wants. Oh,

Speaker 2 sorry, guys. I'm at that point in my cycle where I am feral.

Speaker 1 Burn me. Wow.

Speaker 1 Me, it has got to be Jesse the body Ventura. He is

Speaker 1 so hot. He's so fond.
He's inquisitive. He's inquisitive.
He just has questions about metal, steel beams, and fire.

Speaker 2 You guys are good at impressions, I just want to say.

Speaker 1 Really, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You do sound like Buffalo Bill, too. It's a little bit like, was she a great big fat person? It's just the same thing.

Speaker 1 It's just a very similar impression. Yeah, yeah.
I can kind of only do one voice.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I thought he was great.

Speaker 1 I wanted more of him. I don't remember what even happens to him.
He fake kills the fake Arnold.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. We don't really see.

Speaker 2 I bet there was some kind of contractual thing where they were like, you can't kill him.

Speaker 1 Well, I thought, you know what I thought they were going to do? Closure. I thought the closure was going to be he's about to, you know, kill Killian, and then

Speaker 1 all of a sudden, you know, Captain Freedom comes out, Jesse Ventura's character, and he's so mad that they made him fake kill him

Speaker 1 that he doesn't beat up Arnold, and instead they both kill Killian. That's what I thought.
Yeah, that's what I was waiting for.

Speaker 1 And then they go out to the jungle to kill the predator because Arnold's the same guy.

Speaker 1 All this happened to one guy.

Speaker 2 Well, the other thing is, like, at the end, the security guy for Killian is out there with Arnold, which I'm like, I don't remember this guy barely at all.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And you're right. It feels like we could have had Ventura out there instead.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's very strange.

Speaker 2 But yeah, he was the schedule conflicts.

Speaker 1 Scheduling conflicts. Must be.
But he was great in the scenes. Great in this movie.

Speaker 1 All right. We're going to rank the running man on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials when we come back.

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Speaker 2 With more continuity than comic books?

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Speaker 1 We're back. It's free with ads.
We are going to rank The Running Man on a scale of 1 to 10 super loud commercials. But first, I wanted to remind you to go to maximumfun.org/slash join.

Speaker 1 That's how you join up with Max Fun. That's how you keep this show coming.
And that's how you hear all our bonus episodes. We've done a lot of cool stuff lately over there on the bonus feed.

Speaker 1 We got a review of the Pilot of the Twilight Zone.

Speaker 1 We got maybe some holiday content coming your way a little bit later. We have something special for the holidays planned.
And we have finished our Mr. Darcy ranking.

Speaker 1 We have watched three different filmed adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. We are ranking the Mr.
Darcy's. To find out what our rankings are, you got to go to maximumfun.org/slash join.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's rank the running man on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials. I've seen it before.
I'll go ahead and go first.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 this is the kind of cheese that I really enjoy. I like an 80s Arnold movie.
I'm going to give it a seven. I don't think it's the best 80s Arnold, but I think it is a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as I mentioned, there's kind of some icky stuff in it that, you know,

Speaker 1 you might expect from an 80s action movie.

Speaker 1 But if you can kind of get past that stuff and just kind of want to see some puns and explosions and crazy costumes and jazzer sizing uh this this movie is a hoot so i'm gonna give it a seven um matt what'd you think i am going to give it a five uh i enjoyed it um as much as it deserved to be enjoyed.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 if I had seen it as a kid, I would have sort of a nostalgia thing and really, I think, would have had enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 But because this was my first first time you know i was like okay it was fine it was good i mean it's not my favorite arnold not my favorite richard bachman you know richard bachman has written so many other great

Speaker 1 that he wrote thinner thinner uh oh another stephen king yes because well same guy same guy he just oh pretended he pretended to be uh richard bachman i thought this was like he was the director and he directed a bunch of stephen kings but i forgot to pay attention earlier No, it's literally just a pen name and I can't imagine being so prolific that you're like, this is written by another guy.

Speaker 1 I need to make up another guy. Yeah, there's too many books.
People are going to be weirded out.

Speaker 1 But yeah, not my favorite Bachman, not my favorite. Arnold, I'm giving it a five.
I very much enjoyed it. Emily, what'd you think?

Speaker 2 I'm going to give it a six.

Speaker 2 I had a great time with it. I thought the music was cool.
I think the choices were unpredictable.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's a great way to describe the choices in this film.

Speaker 2 I kind of love that when it's like something that I'm like, well, that doesn't make sense according to what has happened before.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Like, it was, I did have to watch it twice because I found myself drifting

Speaker 2 when the fight started.

Speaker 1 They're a little boring.

Speaker 2 They are. And I think it has a lot to do with the set.
And that's me.

Speaker 2 It matters to me a lot because it felt like there wasn't enough differentiation between where they were fighting and like and stuff. So I had to watch it twice.
Second time had way more fun

Speaker 2 because I was like, okay, I need to pay attention to what's happening. And I had a good time.
So I would put it on in the background of a Halloween party for sure. So it's a six.
I had a great time.

Speaker 2 Love that song. Gonna listen to it tonight.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Let's do a little plug-in. Anybody, anybody got anything? Emily, you got something? Blim gems, please.

Speaker 2 Holidays are are coming. I plan to do multiple little drops.
I know I usually do like big drops for the holidays, but I feel like things sell out.

Speaker 2 And then it's kind of, I feel like if I know that I'm giving them every couple of weeks, and then, you know, I'm going to do that. And so keep your eyes out for Flim Gems.

Speaker 1 Matt, you got anything? Nothing. Okay, I'm going to remind people to go to their local comic book store, grab a copy of Predator, Black, White, and Blood, number four.
It's a Predator anthology.

Speaker 1 Hey, Predator, that's a little connection to today's movie, Arnold.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Isn't that right, Arnold?

Speaker 1 I'll get back. Whoa!

Speaker 1 Okay, anyway,

Speaker 1 just, oh, just side note. So

Speaker 1 a Running Man remake is coming out.

Speaker 1 I think the weekend this episode drops. The weekend before this, a new Predator movie is coming out.
These movies both came out the same year. There are, no one is having a new new idea.

Speaker 1 Yeah, fuck it. This, what a, what a, just a, a great reminder that nobody's making any.
I love it. I love time as a flat circle, but

Speaker 1 like with creativity, where we're just like, we're done. Everything is existing, IP or dawn.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's all.

Speaker 1 Tune in next week when our movie will be The Notebook.

Speaker 1 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows, supported directly by you.