Ernest Scared Stupid, with Zac Morris of CZsWorld

Speaker 1 This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question: why pay Disney plus 10 bucks a month to watch nostalgic Halloween family films when you could go online for free and watch a nostalgic Halloween family film that might not be scary.

Speaker 1 Well, unless you're scared of mugging. If that's the case, this thing is goddamn hereditary.
I'm Jordan Morris.

Speaker 2 And I'm Emily Fleming. Today's movie is Ernest Scared Stupid, a wish fulfillment comedy for kids whose greatest dream is being friends with the local garbage man.

Speaker 1 With us, as always, is the super producer, the he freak Matt Lieb, hitting us with those ookie kooky drops.

Speaker 3 Let's see how you like a little Miak.

Speaker 1 Miiak.

Speaker 1 Miiac.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of Miak humor in this movie.

Speaker 2 Which I don't know what that is.

Speaker 1 Is it real? I assumed he made it up for the sake of a bit, but now I'm going to Google it. I mean, it's...
Hey, Grok!

Speaker 1 Okay, I don't...

Speaker 1 Grock might not know what Miak is. Grok might.
Grok might have a weird take on something that sounds like that.

Speaker 2 But I was like, maybe it's like Epicak,

Speaker 2 the thing that makes you kind of throw up. Maybe that's what it was.

Speaker 1 Will we solve the mystery of Miak? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Listen, Matt's looking into this, but first, we have a fantastic guest here with us to close out Howl O Peen. He's the mind behind the amazing YouTube horror channel CZ's World.
Zach Morris. Hi, Zach.

Speaker 3 Guys, thank you so much for bringing up the Miak thing because that was honestly my first question going into this. Oh, right.

Speaker 1 I like that we were all confused, but no one Googled it.

Speaker 3 I Googled it.

Speaker 3 The movie was one of the first Google results that came up, so I assumed that it was made up for the movie, but there was also some other stuff.

Speaker 3 So I was just wondering, like, is this one of those things that existed in the 90s, but people don't really know about it anymore?

Speaker 1 So there's not a lot online. Like Dunkaroos? Oh, Ghostaroo Stroll.

Speaker 3 I remember Dunkaroos.

Speaker 1 Milk.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Dunkaroos had a comeback a few years ago. This running joke in this movie, Ernest, in trying to kill an evil race of trolls, finds an ancient scroll.
This movie sounds insane when you describe it.

Speaker 1 It really is. He decides an ancient scroll that says how to kill them, and the answer is milk, but one of the letters has been removed, so he thinks it's Mia.

Speaker 1 Oh!

Speaker 3 Anyway, did anyone else go through all the letters in the alphabet in their head to try to figure out if there was another possibility other than milk?

Speaker 2 I just let things happen.

Speaker 1 I love it. To me, I don't like it.
That was like proto-wordle. You know?

Speaker 1 You have to figure it out. You're like, oh, I'm one litter away.
Miak.

Speaker 3 Full as milky seems so obvious.

Speaker 1 It's like his mink word. I would love to sit here and talk about Miak.
But we have Zach here. He's a horror expert.
So we're going to do our segment, Talk to Guest.

Speaker 3 Thank you guys so much for having me.

Speaker 1 There's a sting, Zach. Please don't talk over the stings.

Speaker 1 I work really hard on the stings. That's all people like about the show, honestly.

Speaker 2 But Matt takes a while to get the stings together.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I got a lot of them. I have to look through.

Speaker 2 We gave him way too many stings.

Speaker 1 And I work really, really hard, and I never know when to quit. Isn't that right,

Speaker 1 Clip? Yep.

Speaker 2 He never knew when to quit.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 1 That's from the movie, too. Yep.
Zach, you do these deep dives on your YouTube channel. You dissect horror movies.

Speaker 1 Whenever we have a horror person here, I like to ask, since people come to you for recommendations a lot, like,

Speaker 1 okay, The Exorcist. Okay, Hereditary.
What are the deep cuts? What are some of your favorite horror movies that you think people should check out if they haven't already?

Speaker 3 The answer that I always give to that question is is Triangle from 2009.

Speaker 1 I've never heard of Triangle from 2009. I don't know it either.

Speaker 3 Christopher Smith directed it,

Speaker 3 has Make a Monroe. It's basically like the shining at sea.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's a good pitch.

Speaker 3 Triangle referring to the Bermuda Triangle.

Speaker 1 Okay. It is so hard to suck a guy's dick in a dog costume when you're bobbing around on the sea.
Whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 Maybe not that part.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I look the same in a shower as the lady in the shining, whether it's on a boat or in a house.

Speaker 1 Wait, which time when she's young and hot or when she becomes old? Boom. Boom.

Speaker 1 My body isn't up to the bottom.

Speaker 1 And I look like a wave of blood getting off an elevator.

Speaker 2 I just ended my elevator of blood.

Speaker 1 Congratulations on your period.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 3 Thanks. I've done several shining Halloween costumes over the years.
So in high school, I did the guy that he's like one of the hotel staff ghosts that says, great party, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that's a deep cut. I like it.

Speaker 3 But I obviously did like a younger version because I tried the bald cap and it looks terrible.

Speaker 3 And then a couple years ago, I did Frozen Jack Torrance.

Speaker 1 Like, oh, that's a great costume.

Speaker 3 Which is like one of my favorite costumes that I've ever done.

Speaker 1 We should point out Zach is wearing a vintage The Shining shirt. Very cool.

Speaker 2 And then what's the hoodie? There's an alien face on it.

Speaker 3 This is my

Speaker 3 merch.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Ooh, that's a cool alien face. We'll have to plug your merch.

Speaker 1 Guys, we're going to have to start wearing our own merch.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 But we also, we need to get some new merch. My merch makes me look dumpy.

Speaker 1 I look dumpy in the merch.

Speaker 1 Zach, so we watched a horror comedy today. Do you have any favorite horror comedies?

Speaker 3 That's a good question.

Speaker 3 I mean, horror comedy is so subjective.

Speaker 2 I mean, Army of Darkness is a classic.

Speaker 3 Army of Darkness is a good one.

Speaker 1 Is there any like fucked up movies where you're like, this is funny?

Speaker 1 You're like, I yucked it up during 120 days of soldering.

Speaker 2 I know weapons is pretty fucking funny.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that definitely like, yeah, I think you're, you know, your Zach Kriegers and your Jordan Peels definitely has to have a little bit of that comedy DNA.

Speaker 2 Long Legs, yeah, had some funny moments too.

Speaker 3 I like weapons as a serious horror film. Oh, okay.
They're funny moments, but

Speaker 3 I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to think back on that.

Speaker 1 You know, here's my, I have a couple of hot takes.

Speaker 1 One, a movie that I yucked it up a lot. I think there's a couple I haven't seen.
There's a new Predator movie coming out. There's a new Osgood Perkins coming out.

Speaker 1 So I don't know that I'm definitively ready to say what the horror movie of the year is. In a great year for horror movies, it's Final Destination Bloodlines.
There you go. And it's really close.
Wow.

Speaker 1 It's so good. Is it funny too?

Speaker 1 It is. You're laughing.
You're like, when are these assholes going to die? What's going to get them? Is it going to be the rusty shovel? Is it going to be the wood chipper?

Speaker 1 Is it the glass of the margarita? Something's going to kill these fuckers.

Speaker 2 I have a hard time with those movies because I have like, I don't know. I think I have a lot of, what's the word where you have no control over your thoughts

Speaker 2 ADHD psychopath yeah well we've got we've got it real bad the ADHD but no like the um impulse control yeah well it's like the thoughts in your brain where it's like

Speaker 2 fuck like you're afraid is there an intrusive thoughts thank you intrusive thoughts so anytime I'm about to be go down a staircase I immediately think of like I have to focus on the stairs or else I'll fall down I'm gonna die or like I don't know I imagine the worst things that could happen in almost every situation that's what those movies are for.

Speaker 1 They're for

Speaker 1 you. Those movies are for making you afraid when you're doing the wash.
Yes. You're like, what got in the wash?

Speaker 1 One screw?

Speaker 3 They absolutely need a podcast kill in a future Final Destination movie.

Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 I did a video a while back talking about Final Destination disasters that have come true in real life.

Speaker 1 Yes, I watched that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, most of them have.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 3 So that's probably not helping.

Speaker 2 Some of them are inspired by things that happened as well, but then there's ones that happened.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it talks about both, like real events that inspired stuff in the movie and stuff that happened in the movie that just came true in real life.

Speaker 1 Hot take number two. Everybody around this time of year loves Hocus Pocus.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I watched it recently. I didn't watch it as a kid, but I watched it recently.
I'm like, this is good. This is funny.
This is fun. This is campy.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 There is a movie. There is a hocus pocus movie for people who fuck, and it is called Elvira Mistress of the Dark.

Speaker 2 Yeah, baby.

Speaker 1 Once you grow up, Elvira Mistress of the Dark. That should be your Halloween horror.

Speaker 2 Elvira and Ernest would have a connection.

Speaker 1 You know, they were such, like, our childhood had so many of those fictional characters who were celebrities. Yeah.
And where are they come? Where are they from? Yeah.

Speaker 2 From the Groundlings.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Peewee, Groundlings, Elvira, Groundlings.

Speaker 1 But then there was like Mr. T, Ernest.
It's like, who are these people? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, interesting.

Speaker 1 Most of them rapped, too.

Speaker 1 Most of them also had a rap album.

Speaker 2 Well, some fun things. I'm kind of an Ernest freak.
I love Ernest so much. He's from Nashville.
I'm from Nashville.

Speaker 2 But he was doing stand-up in Los Angeles. He was a comedy store regular.
Right.

Speaker 2 And he was besties with Robin Williams.

Speaker 1 Hey, hey. When they started out.

Speaker 2 And so when you're watching this movie and he goes into these characters, these weird characters that are like kind of like multiple personality tangents he goes on, you immediately think of Robin Williams in Aladdin and how he did these impressions that would kind of move around.

Speaker 2 And you're like, okay,

Speaker 2 which was the chicken and which was the egg here? Yeah. I don't know.
I feel like with that trend, I'd never seen it before until the two of them started doing stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Not only that, but if you look at early Jim Varney's stand-up,

Speaker 1 there's a couple of bits that he does that are, were like regular, essentially memes for David Letterman that he would just say out loud.

Speaker 1 And people are like, why does he keep saying, Ma, did you make any beans?

Speaker 1 And, and, and, you know, it would just be randomly he would say that. Yep.
And then I saw this, uh, this clip of him doing stand-up in like 78, and he's doing a bit. I was like, oh, shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Letterman was taking directly from him. So he's kind of a legend who never got his due.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I think he did get his due.
He, he was very successful. He was the

Speaker 2 like host of opening day of Disney World. Hey, okay.

Speaker 2 Because he, so he started out doing local like commercials after he was like trying to make it in LA didn't quite get regular acting work the way he wanted moved back to Nashville Started doing commercials with his buddy who was like an ad executive created this character to do like local grocery store commercials and then Purity Milk which is in this movie oh yeah purity milk is like a callback fun started doing purity milk commercials and he's this idiot neighbor that is talking to Vern

Speaker 2 who's his neighbor you know what I mean Vern like that's this whole thing whenever people

Speaker 1 in the movie. He never talks to Vern.
Not in this one.

Speaker 2 Not in this one, but he goes, No, what I mean, Vern, is kind of like, and I say it all the time. People are like, what the fuck did you say? I'm like, wow, you're not my dad.
I forgot.

Speaker 3 So I guess he really is the counterpart to Elvira because Elvira hosted the opening night of Haunted Hayride this year.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 2 Yeah, she used to have a live show at Knott's Berry Farm.

Speaker 1 I went. I remember that last year.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I went to go see her perform and I got to meet her backstage and she was drinking a Budweiser.

Speaker 1 Cool chick.

Speaker 2 Fucking love.

Speaker 2 Love her. But yeah, Ernest,

Speaker 2 those commercials became such a big deal in Nashville and stuff. And then there was a Indy 500 like race or something.

Speaker 2 And Mickey Mouse was going to make an appearance there, but Ernest made an appearance and people cheered more for Ernest than for Mickey Mouse. Wow.
And so the

Speaker 2 head of Disney at the time, Bob Iger, or who was it?

Speaker 1 Who was that back in the 90s?

Speaker 3 Was it Michael Eisenberg, I believe? Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 He was like, well, who the hell is this Ernest guy? And so it was that day at the Indy 500 that made him go, this guy's cool.

Speaker 1 And they gave him a four-picture deal.

Speaker 2 They gave him a bit. Yeah.
And then he had a TV show for a little bit that was a little weird. I binge-watched all of them today.

Speaker 2 There's only 13 episodes. He didn't make it for very long.
It wasn't that good.

Speaker 1 That's funny that back in the day, only 13 episodes is a failed show. Right.
And now you're like, oh,

Speaker 1 that's a successful Netflix show. Yeah, exactly.
It's a Netflix show where everybody goes, damn, how'd that last so long?

Speaker 2 Yeah. He was also a regular cast member in the Johnny Cash variety show.
Johnny Cash had a variety show for a little bit.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, he's a legend. I love him so much.
He's somebody who just did commercials and then

Speaker 2 fucking got movies all about a character.

Speaker 2 And then he was slinky in Toy Story.

Speaker 3 I'm glad that you're here to explain Ernest to me because this was my first exposure to Ernest in general.

Speaker 2 I realized how much I was like, oh, God, this is, because everything he does is so weird from the characters he slips into. And you're like, why is he a big-breasted old woman?

Speaker 3 My My thought was like, okay, is this kind of a proto-Mr. Bean type of thing? Kind of.
I guess now it would be like

Speaker 3 what they do with the Tyler Perry characters. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Kind of, yeah. Yeah, it's all kind of cut from the same cloth.
I think Ernest walked so the clumps could run.

Speaker 2 That's, yeah, probably so.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's actually talk about what happens in Ernest. Scared, stupid.

Speaker 1 We start out, and there's a spooky song playing, and it has a little bit of a hip-hop beat behind it.

Speaker 2 And I am like, I love this song.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. god is Ernest gonna rap over the credits and he doesn't and I'm like it's 1991 why is no one rapping the plot of this movie in the movie

Speaker 1 anyway but he's mugging he's mugging it up in front of a bunch of classic horror clips

Speaker 1 things that are really cool he's just making faces um and then we get a flashback scene in Briarville Missouri and just the uh Chiron says long ago I kind of like that I kind of like the timelessness there so as the horror history man I'm constantly trying to put together together the timeline in my head.

Speaker 3 And as soon as I saw long ago, it's like, okay, you're not giving us a year. You're not even giving us an era.

Speaker 1 Help me out a little bit. How am I supposed to deep dive?

Speaker 2 Well, when it's a kids' movie set in the South or in Missouri, which was split during the war, we try not to

Speaker 1 rush. There's a lot of implications.
We don't live in a fantasy world where nothing bad.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's post-Civil War.

Speaker 1 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 3 See, I like figuring out when things take take place because I think it's just interesting to put together the timeline.

Speaker 3 But I also believe that if you don't really specify, it can kind of make the movie feel more timeless because it's like, oh, this could be at any time.

Speaker 3 You could watch it 20 years from now and it could still be.

Speaker 1 And all the people in this scene are just kind of generic villagers. They are villagers.
Well, the olden times.

Speaker 2 And then Ernest is playing kind of the, I guess, either the town mayor or a preacher, whatever. He probably would have burned women at the stake.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 That kind of thing. But they're not doing that in this.

Speaker 1 They're not.

Speaker 1 They're simply burying someone who looks different. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it is a troll. It is a troll.

Speaker 2 I felt a little bad for the troll in this first scene because you see the net go over the troll and then you're like, he must be so scared.

Speaker 1 Hurt trolls hurt people.

Speaker 1 In that hurt trolls hurt people. I don't know.
So these villagers, they are burying this troll.

Speaker 1 The whole thing is being presided over by a kind of fire and brimstone preacher played by Jim Varney. He plays a lot lot of characters in this.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of like the start of the legend. They bury this troll.
And then we go to the modern day.

Speaker 1 Oh, and the kind of curse that the troll puts on is that the descendants of the preacher will get dumber and dumber. Great setup.
We get fucking Ernest Lore.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 Like, great. We now know Ernest's backstory more.
He has a curse put on him. An explanation for why he's dumb.
Although, we get introduced to him.

Speaker 1 He's a garbage man, and he's set up this very Peewee-esque Rube Goldberg device on the garbage truck. And I'm like, it doesn't work great, but he's not dumb.
That's amazing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's like a really fantastic engineer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I think that the implication is he's very childlike and kind of like maybe reckless and frivolous.

Speaker 2 And so he's just kind of this ugh townie who's kind of, oh boy, your concern is, why is he hanging out with our kids again? Sure.

Speaker 2 Which, you know, he did a lot of, a lot of his movies were him being a camp counselor and him being like, so the implication that he's friends with kids made more sense in those movies.

Speaker 1 Yeah, in this one, the whole town just kind of lets him. Let's him hang out with kids.

Speaker 2 So if you've never seen another Ernest movie, this is like, why is this old man hanging out with kids?

Speaker 2 But it makes more sense in other movies.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, also, you do so many really cool timeline videos. I really love your timeline videos.

Speaker 2 You did a really cool one about long legs, too, with very little information, which is, we just watched Long Legs, but you're like, your stuff about the Saw franchise, I really liked.

Speaker 3 That's one of my favorite ones.

Speaker 2 You had so many people from Saw. Very, very cool.
So you couldn't do that with this. We don't know when the fuck it's going to be.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, Emily, as someone who's probably seen every Ernest movie and TV show, is there continuity in the Ernestiverse?

Speaker 2 I'll be honest. I've only seen Ernest Goes to Camp and Ernest Cares 2.

Speaker 1 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2 I haven't seen the jail one.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's that's the best one. I know.

Speaker 2 So the only continental.

Speaker 1 He gets the electric chair and it gives him electric powers. No.
Are you fucking kidding? 100%.

Speaker 1 He goes, I am Electroman. No.
And I mean, I'm against capital punishment, unless it's hilarious. Wait.
Is it hilarious? Are you fucking with me, though? No, that's 100% real. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 I actually have never really seen any of these movies other than, like, I had a, I had, there was a family that we hung out with as kids, the Plotkins. The Plotkins loved Ernest.

Speaker 1 They sound like they love Ernest. Yeah.
Oh, I don't know if the Plotkins Plotkins still love Ernest. I hope they do.
Hey, Jordan, are you going to come over again, watch another Ernest movie with us?

Speaker 1 The Plotkins love us some Ernest.

Speaker 3 It sounds like one of those fake names that your screenwriting teacher makes up.

Speaker 1 That's an example. Borst Plotkins.
Borst. True.

Speaker 2 But yeah, no, I watched the show. Like, my dad loves Ernest.
My dad also loves Pee Wee. We're like that kind of family.
But so we quote him a lot.

Speaker 2 There's also a lot of local people from Nashville that are in the tv show that are also like performers doyle and debbie you got to look them up it's a nashville like comedy music duo the dude from doyle and debbie is a writer and he performs in the tv show but um yeah it's the timeline wise i don't know it's just there are some recurring characters though like the two um dudes who run the hardware store and are always having a scheme oh yeah sure sure those guys are and there is i i did read that uh earnest dog rim shot who i will at some point call rim job on this and it'll be funny.

Speaker 1 It'll be funny when it happens. It's accidental.
I'm not intentionally going to call the dog Rim Job. It'll just happen because the dog's name is Rim Shot.
It's just going to happen. Sorry in advance.

Speaker 1 Calling the dog Rim Job.

Speaker 3 I think there's even a moment early on where he kind of mumbles it and it does sound like he says Rim Job.

Speaker 2 Cute dog though. And I don't remember that dog from any of the other.
I feel like.

Speaker 1 I think I read that Rim Shot recurs in one other movie. Okay.

Speaker 3 That's a shame because I thought he was like the star of the show.

Speaker 1 He was amazing. Rim shot amazing.

Speaker 3 He's like pulling levers and driving cars.

Speaker 1 He drives cars. He does.

Speaker 2 Made me cry.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Almost die later in the film. So Ernest and his dog, they are, they drive the garbage truck.
They're in danger of getting fired because they won't clean up the yard of a kooky local eccentric.

Speaker 1 So he promises to clean up and they go over to this kooky local eccentric's house. There's all this like garbage sculptures in the yard.
It It looks really cool. Yep.

Speaker 1 Kookie Local Eccentric, Earth a fucking kit. Yep.
Oh, crazy. My God.

Speaker 1 One of three cat womans in the 1996 Batman, the greatest cat woman, if you ask me. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 the villain from the Emperor's New Groove, the funniest. Isma Isma, the funniest voice in a movie filled with funny voiceover performances.
Earth a kit. Fucking lovely.
She really.

Speaker 1 Everything she says is funny in the movie.

Speaker 2 Well, I also really appreciate this performance because she's a very glamorous woman. Right.
Like, and she's very stunningly beautiful. Yeah.
Cheekbones that could slice a million diamonds.

Speaker 2 But she didn't give a fuck. She went full-on

Speaker 1 Uggo with a bunch of people. She's a crazy witch.
She's like a crazy steampunk witch.

Speaker 1 She rocks.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so he's trying to get her to clean up her insane totem yard, and she won't do it.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, the neighborhood kids who Ernest is friends with, they are building like a haunted house out in the yard, and the bullies wreck it. The Murdoch kids.
Oh, I hate those. I hate those.

Speaker 1 They're worse than the the plot kids. Oh, the Murdochs are always buying up News Corp.

Speaker 1 Were they Rupert Murdoch's kids? I believe so. I believe so.
Wow, hey, grab.

Speaker 2 I love that.

Speaker 2 I do like that, because when people have bullies, like in kids' movies, I always find them to not make sense. Like, this is not how bullies would talk to people, but fighting over tree houses.

Speaker 2 Pretty

Speaker 1 total bullies.

Speaker 2 That is stuff that kids would fight over, for sure.

Speaker 3 I love how they also have, like, a radar for wherever the main character kids are. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like they're just in the middle of the forest at some random tree, and then they just show up and immediately start throwing rocks at them.

Speaker 1 How'd you find it so quickly? Seeking bullies.

Speaker 1 We put an Apple Air tag in your backpack. Even though those won't be invented for 25 years.
We're the Murdoch.

Speaker 1 Everybody called each other buttheads. I love that.
The kids' movies of our youth, everyone called each other butthead all the time. I guess it was the naughtiest thing you could get away with.

Speaker 2 Honestly, butthead and butt face were pretty funny.

Speaker 1 Butt face is like pretty good. Fart Knocker.
I never read that one. Oh, Fart Knocker's great.

Speaker 2 I will say that sometimes I talk about how certain actors will do a role that will then get them. You'll see why they got a part in another movie.
Eartha Kit did Harriet the Spy

Speaker 2 a few years after this and was an eccentric old lady. Harriet the Spy, too.

Speaker 2 It was really good.

Speaker 1 She's great.

Speaker 1 We should watch Harriet the Spy. And so at some point, the kids whose haunted house got destroyed, they go to Ernest for help, and he explains to them the legend of the Ottoman Empire.

Speaker 1 And this is when he plays the like multiple characters. Yes.
It's an old lady, it's like a war general. One of them is in brown face.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So, you know, 1991. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it's confusing, but he is also like very talented and clearly. He's crushing all of these characters.
And I have to say, at least for the one where he's playing the

Speaker 1 Ottoman. Yes.

Speaker 1 I guess I'm not familiar enough with like Ottoman Empire.

Speaker 2 Is it Attila the Hun related to that?

Speaker 3 The Ottoman Empire is not your Ottoman Empire.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's not my.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, for me, I was like, I don't really, I can't confirm or deny whether or not this costume is correct. So I'm just having fun.

Speaker 2 Well, he, so Jim Barney was a classically trained actor. Yes, he was.

Speaker 2 He studied Shakespeare and

Speaker 2 he did theater in Tennessee and stuff like that, which I did a lot of that too.

Speaker 2 And that always made, that makes me feel so happy because when I started doing stand-up, being an actor or a theater person was like corny and they made fun of you for it.

Speaker 2 And they were like, you're not really a stand-up. And it's like, no, people

Speaker 2 went to performance school before doing stand-up back in the day. And now you're just some guy in a...

Speaker 2 dirty sweatshirt and you think that makes you edgy right whatever i'm like fuck those dudes i did public speaking competitions

Speaker 1 learn breath control learn Alexander technique.

Speaker 3 What I could not confirm is in the movie, it shows him like in different costumes every time he switches among all of these personalities.

Speaker 3 But then the other characters act almost as if they could see all of the different costumes. So what were they seeing? Were they just seeing him like kind of skits out?

Speaker 3 Or were they actually seeing what we saw as the movie audience and seeing him? literally changing all these different forms.

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 2 I think that we're seeing what Ernest wants you to see.

Speaker 1 Guys,

Speaker 2 and what we hope the kids are seeing when they look at it.

Speaker 1 Clear, this is a movie about a schizophrenic garbage man.

Speaker 2 He's a man who tells, he spins yarn.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Did any of the did this all happen in Ernest's head before the garbage truck crushed him? Absolutely. Maybe.
It's all a dream.

Speaker 3 You brought up Final Destination earlier. That's a Final Destination Bloodlines kill.

Speaker 3 Yeah!

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 A trash compactor? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Hell no. I can't watch that movie.
Sorry, y'all.

Speaker 1 I'm going to see it.

Speaker 2 I can't do it. That's too scary to me.

Speaker 3 And actually, there's a second final destination kill.

Speaker 3 Right after they tell the legend and it kind of zooms out and it shows that it's this girl giving her school report, the teacher looks out the window and sees Ernest getting dragged on the pavement by his garbage truck.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's in two, right?

Speaker 3 That is... No, that's in four.

Speaker 1 Okay. Let me.

Speaker 1 And I love the final destination.

Speaker 3 I love how the teacher just sees someone getting dragged behind a garbage truck and just kind of looks at it and doesn't acknowledge it. Like, not going to react to it.
Not going to call the police.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I saw a guy fall off of a bird scooter, I just kept driving.

Speaker 2 That happens a lot. Yeah, you wrote a scooter here, didn't you?

Speaker 1 I did. You scooted.

Speaker 2 Wow, you are a brave man.

Speaker 1 You're not, you're not, you're not written some sort of e-scooter. This is your rig, right? Yes.
Okay, that's cool. Yeah, this is owned.

Speaker 2 This is owned. I'm not coordinated enough to be doing that.
I don't even ride a bicycle and I don't drive.

Speaker 1 Does anyone in how much Final Destination die from getting milk spilt on them?

Speaker 1 Not yet.

Speaker 1 Well, then maybe Ernest is ahead of its time.

Speaker 3 With all the allergies these days, I could see that being

Speaker 3 a terrible thing.

Speaker 2 They said this in California. It'd be dead kids everywhere.

Speaker 1 Throw peanuts at the trolls. Their throats will close up.

Speaker 3 Or it could be like the milk is filled on vegans and they feel like they're dying.

Speaker 1 Right. Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 I mean, clearly those trolls had allergies.

Speaker 1 Like, don't worry, it was oat milk. And the trolls are like, oh, okay, I'm fine.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, trolls, as we mentioned, they're in this movie. The kids find a treehouse to get away from the bullies.
They defend the treehouse by throwing cat food and pizzas at the bullies. Very funny.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 A fun little note about those pizzas. Yes.
Those were props from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Secret of the Ewes. Really? Yeah.
Those were recycled pizzas. Recycled from the famous pizza movie.

Speaker 1 That's right. And because I watched it going, that's a lot of money to just throw.

Speaker 1 Well, we know the people who did the practical effects for Ernest also did the Killer Clowns from Killer Clown from Outer Space.

Speaker 3 Okay, I was going to bring that up later because as I was watching it, one of the trolls, I was like, that looks so much like one of the clowns from Killer Clowns from Outer Space. It was.

Speaker 3 And I double-checked, and it's definitely slim just with the repaint.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 that was our first Halloween movie this year. We call it Halloween.

Speaker 1 Do you have an opinion about Killer Clowns from Outer Space?

Speaker 3 It's a fun movie. It's definitely like an atmosphere movie to me.
Sure. I get requests to do an episode on it from time to time.

Speaker 3 And whenever I watch it, there's just like not really a lot of lore to talk about and analyze. Yeah, but like, I love the imagination behind it and the look of the clowns and stuff.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was one of my favorite Halloween horror nights mazes a few years ago when they did that.

Speaker 1 Oh, they did it before.

Speaker 3 Yeah, just being in the same room with them. Like, the clowns just feel like so big and alien.

Speaker 2 I'm going on Friday.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I've never been. I don't do well in haunted houses.

Speaker 1 This is Universal Studios' big Halloween haunt, and they have mazes and they're all themed to movies and stuff.

Speaker 2 Yes. One of our friends who

Speaker 2 legend from Mythical David Hill.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 He is a performer in the WWE house.

Speaker 3 No, that was a strange one.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's

Speaker 1 a wrestling haunted house. Yeah, he's something rabbit.

Speaker 2 I can't remember the

Speaker 2 name of the character, but I'm going with another friend of the podcast, Michaela. She's going with me and she will laugh at me.
She will not help me.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be very scared. I don't do well.
I love horror movies. I don't want to live in a horror movie.
That's the deal. But and I also hit a man with a brush the last time I was in a haunted

Speaker 1 and I got kicked out.

Speaker 3 It happens all the time. Yeah.
I find videos of people jumping on the scare actors.

Speaker 2 Well, no, it's not that I'm jumping. It's just if you jump out at me, my fight or flight will turn into fight.
And I don't mean for it to, but I just had a brush in my hand.

Speaker 3 Yeah. One of my favorite viral videos is it's like an interview happening at a school or something.
It's supposed to be a scare prank. They've got a guy hiding in the nearby trash bin.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 And he's, you know, the guy just asked an interview question, like, oh, what do you want to be for Halloween?

Speaker 3 And then when he answers, the guy pops out of the trash bin and screams and tries to scare him. And the interviewee, his first

Speaker 3 inclination was to just like sock the guy in the face.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He just falls back into the trash. Spiral video classic.
Yeah. Oh, my God.
Do you have a, do you have a famous favorite like haunted experience?

Speaker 1 Do you have a favorite like haunted house or maze or anything like that? You did a shit ton of them.

Speaker 3 Like last year I did a video where I went to every haunt in Southern California.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 3 So it was my most ambitious video I've done.

Speaker 3 So it was 22 haunts in general, or it was 22 haunts overall. But there's also more than that because like, you know, Halloween Horror Nights has 10, Knotts has 10.
Sure. Six Flags has 10.

Speaker 3 My favorite one overall on the trip was this one in San Diego called Haunted Trail of Balboa Park. Okay.
It's basically like a bunch of mini-themed areas.

Speaker 3 And they also have this thing called the experiment maze where they just kind of, because most mazes, you know, there's, they call it a maze, but it's a set path that you go through and they want to maximize capacity and everything.

Speaker 3 But in this, it's just like this brick room with a strobe light, and they let everybody run around in there, and there's scare actors going around, and you literally can't find your way out.

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 3 It's just chaos.

Speaker 2 Okay, David Hill is Ramblin' Rabbit.

Speaker 1 Ramblin' Rabbit. So if you go to Hollywood Horror Nights, you know,

Speaker 1 say hi.

Speaker 1 Don't go with a brush.

Speaker 2 I'm scared. I plan to only go in that house or whatever.
I don't think I can do any other ones. I know that as you move through like the park, it's also people popping out.

Speaker 2 But I don't think I can do it.

Speaker 3 I'm going back on Thursday.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 3 The WWE one was interesting because it's like, yeah, the costumes are cool and stuff, but I don't, you know, I'm not a WWE guy. I don't know anything about the lore.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I had no idea what I was experiencing when I went through that. I was like, okay, that's a strange one.

Speaker 2 It was like an Ernest Scared Stupid for you.

Speaker 1 It was.

Speaker 1 What's any of this?

Speaker 1 So yeah, Ernest,

Speaker 1 they find a treehouse for the kids, but that's where the troll is buried. And he comes to life and starts grabbing neighborhood kids and turning them into little wooden dogs.

Speaker 2 Is there some kind of troll lore about turning kids to wood?

Speaker 1 I don't know. It seems Scandinavian to me.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's very true. But I was like thinking about so they don't eat the kids.
He's harvesting these kids in wooden statues, and somehow that nourishes the

Speaker 2 trolls the children.

Speaker 1 So he shoves the child dolls into a slot in the tree, which makes them grow these slime bulbs. It looks like

Speaker 2 3D printed Uniclo things that they did for a little while. Remember the people that they you could get yourself 3D printed?

Speaker 1 I have a little figurine.

Speaker 1 Sounds adorable and haunted.

Speaker 2 It took some of your soul. Yeah.
Wow. But yeah, it was like, how is this nourishing the pods that birth the trolls? I guess I'm overthinking it.

Speaker 1 You know what? Yes, yes. I know anytime where I'm like, how does this? I'm like, never mind.
Whatever. I love asking about like how during an earnest movie.

Speaker 1 Of all the movies, Sue asks, just no, you just go with it, dude. He's just having an episode.
Yeah. That's true.

Speaker 2 But it just feels like a very, there's a lot of love that went into this movie. So it feels like maybe there was some thought in this.

Speaker 2 And maybe there is some like folklore into trolls that I just don't know about.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And as,

Speaker 1 as we mentioned, these are the, you know, a lot of these characters are from the same shop as Killer Clowns and all the practical stuff in this looks awesome.

Speaker 1 It's a real set ass movie and a real puppet ass movie in a really fun way. And yes, things are a little janky and a little cheesy sometimes.
That's part of the charm. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the troll is always covered in boogers. Just guys got so much

Speaker 1 for days.

Speaker 3 I was kind of amazed at like how long the troll is on screen because usually when you have like a good looking prosthetic like that it's like all right we're gonna try to get all these shots done in a day or two but there's a good amount of screen time for the trolls you see that troll he evolves at one point uh yeah oh yeah that looks really cool

Speaker 2 um but he also has like two noses on his face like that go on either side in the nose section that was pretty rad i thought that was cool design so ernest decides he's gonna catch the troll and this leads to a bunch of shenanigans The thing, my favorite part of the movie.

Speaker 1 So Ernest is setting a giant bear trap. There's a couple giant props in this movie.
I always like a giant prop. Yep.
Always funny. Setting a giant bear trap.

Speaker 1 And to bait the trap, he has had his dog, Rimshot.

Speaker 1 He's like, I'm going to dress you up like a delicious little kid. And he dresses the dog up like a Boy Scout in a little tent.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, not only did he dress the dog up like a Boy Scout, but he got him a little tent. I love it.
Anyway, I love the giant bear trap too.

Speaker 1 So yeah, a lot of fun stuff like that.

Speaker 1 I believe he gets caught in the bear trap as well. He does.

Speaker 1 Well, that Ernest. If he's set in a bear trap, it's not going to go as planned.
He's got a few traps that he gets caught in, and every time I'm like, he has to have broken a bone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, or broken a nose. He's got two.

Speaker 2 He does get smacked by a truck car door at one point.

Speaker 1 Oh, the troll died.

Speaker 2 He fucking died. I loved that a lot.

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 but this isn't working. Ernest can't capture this troll.
Trolls running around, grabbing kids, turning them into wood, sticking them in the tree. There's a big Halloween party in the middle of town.

Speaker 1 There's a mom and a kid who are fighting. The mom has a pizza hat.
I think this is the worst hat.

Speaker 1 All right, here it is. The worst hat.
There it is.

Speaker 2 I just love Zach experiencing this.

Speaker 1 I got more things where that came from, Zach.

Speaker 1 We have one of Eddie Redmane yelling. Yes, we do.
Remember Eddie Redmane?

Speaker 1 Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.

Speaker 1 I can't find it. There's too many of them.
Anyway.

Speaker 2 Also, if you want to guess about who's the tallest person in the movie, we have a lot of people.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I think it's Jim Varney.
Jim Varney's a tall drink of water. What's the tall guy? He's maybe one of the.

Speaker 1 Oh, you know who I think is the tallest guy in the movie? They torment. The kids torment a guy in a convenience store.
And they steal milk from him later. I think he's the tallest guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Jim Varney's 6'1.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's the tallest guy. You mean he's the tallest guy.
There you go. It's a good show.
It's a good podcast.

Speaker 3 It's not the troll.

Speaker 1 Not the trophy. It's definitely not.
It's not Rimshot.

Speaker 3 It's not any of the kids.

Speaker 1 Okay, there's a very

Speaker 2 spooky. When I saw this as a kid, it spooked me out.
I'm sure, yeah. But the one about how when the troll turns a child into the wooden doll, he can mimic their voice.

Speaker 1 Very creepy.

Speaker 2 That was so, and he's just like, he is taunting characters with the voices of the children. And it's really, I hated it.
It freaked me out.

Speaker 2 The best jump scare for me, though, is the little girl or little blonde girl who wants to look under the bed for the troll, looks under the bed, bed, gets up, turns over, and the troll's in the bed with her.

Speaker 1 Pretty good scare. Pretty good, pretty good.

Speaker 3 See, I thought it was going to be that like the teddy bear that she was holding turned into the troll.

Speaker 1 That would have been good, too, because they show you that bear a couple of times. So I think that's a pretty good horror movie thing.

Speaker 2 It was. There's some good fake outs in the movie, and I was really scared as a kid.
I think the practical effects on our main troll are pretty gnarly. They look cool.
Yeah. Yeah, they're cool.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, that.

Speaker 1 So, so, Ernest, he can't, he can't kill this troll. It's attacking the town.

Speaker 1 But Eartha Kit has a magic scroll where they have,

Speaker 1 it's clearly written, kill them with milk, and he thinks it's whatever that other thing is. Miyak.
Miyak. I googled it.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just for the movie. It's just made up.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway,

Speaker 1 that's going to lead.

Speaker 1 He does find some. He does find a jar of something that he shakes at the troll.

Speaker 1 I bet you didn't think I could get any this time of year.

Speaker 1 It is very powerful.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so that's going to lead to the the final showdown with the trolls, and we're going to talk about it right after this.

Speaker 3 Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like.

Speaker 3 That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel.

Speaker 1 Diddy Rock's been on Lake

Speaker 3 Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Real Billy Joel. No problem, Griffin.

Speaker 1 We're back. It's Free with Ads.
We're here with Zach from CZ's World. We are talking about Earnest, Scared, Stupid.

Speaker 3 Now I know why it's called Free with Ads.

Speaker 1 Yes. Oh, you didn't.
Oh,

Speaker 1 you didn't know before? Well,

Speaker 3 now I can be sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I've had people do that.

Speaker 1 No ad went there, by the way. No company will sponsor this show.
We've tried. Not yet.
We're trying to get there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we are currently just free. That's right.
But

Speaker 2 the movies are free with ads, except for sometimes they're on library apps, which don't have ads.

Speaker 1 We are extending into the world of libraries and also get those libraries. Big news, Canopy recently followed.
Followed us. Thank you, Canopy.
We love your free library movies.

Speaker 2 We'll do an ad for you that you can't show to kids.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Every movie is free with ads if you know where to look.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 2 That's true, but we try to do it on the up and up, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so

Speaker 1 these trolls, they're attacking the town.

Speaker 1 The kids figure out the milk thing and they go on this little milk getting rampage where the tall convenience store guy turns out. Purity milk, by the way.

Speaker 2 You can see the purity.

Speaker 1 I didn't know that. And so that was an actual product that Ernest did a commercial on.

Speaker 2 He did purity ice cream ads a lot. That was like the first purity thing that he did because kids really liked him.
So he would do these guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was right there. Mad within the movie.

Speaker 2 And boy, you can, exactly. You can watch,

Speaker 2 there are great compilations of Ernest commercials.

Speaker 1 Oh, they're so good.

Speaker 2 And bloopers from them.

Speaker 1 They're really good.

Speaker 3 And do those fit into the Ernest Timeline canon?

Speaker 1 Right. I hope so.

Speaker 2 I did do.

Speaker 1 Where does the Chevy commercial go? Is it before or after he joins the NBA?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. He did the basketball one.

Speaker 1 Slam dunk. Slam dunk Ernest.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I should do that.

Speaker 1 I should watch that.

Speaker 1 Ernest also went to africa i do not want to watch that one that was one of the maybe we'll skip that if we do an earnest rewatch maybe we skip earnest yeah there's earnest goes to like goes back to school there's one of those maybe a very earnest hanukkah we won't watch

Speaker 2 yeah so like he kind of disney kind of released him from his contract at one point i think after this one

Speaker 2 was it yeah yeah and this is a touchstone movie which is a disney label yeah but after this he kind of the guy who created earnest with earnest like they went on to do independently made Ernest movies.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But he was still doing Pixar stuff, so he still did Slinky and all that stuff.
So he was still doing things just not Ernest.

Speaker 1 Jed Clampett in the

Speaker 1 Billies movie? He was

Speaker 1 a wonderful career. Anyway, so we find out that Milk kills the trolls.
The tree has sprouted all of the slime globules and these all turn into a bunch of funny trolls. They're all really cool.

Speaker 1 They all have little weapons.

Speaker 2 And they are the killer clowns.

Speaker 1 And most of them are the the killer clowns from outer space but they're brown and dirty and they have axes um i like how the trolls come out of the pods just with their weapon ready yeah i was born with this dude that um like dagger thing that the big bad troll had where he was like stabbing it through the truck i was like cool dagger very cool he just had that in the tree yeah i know all the trolls just kind of have a weapon that uh they have sometimes and not other times oh i wonder if there's action figures oh i don't know oh there is there's gotta be yeah yeah really yeah toddling mcfarland's gotta have made these little guys, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, probably, but I saw an Ernest action figure with

Speaker 1 the main troll, whatever his name is. Check it out.

Speaker 3 The action figures are just like the killer clown action figures, but they don't mean brownies.

Speaker 2 They're just carved out of wood.

Speaker 1 Carved out of wood. You can paint them different.
They can either be killer clowns from outer space or killer trolls from inner space.

Speaker 1 So the kids use, they throw milk on the trolls and they melt into a bunch of slime. It's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 And then we had the last troll like evolves the big bad goes yeah he

Speaker 1 like summons demons and then he becomes he get well he just gets grosser right he has little tentacles that come out of his face what else do we got on him yeah it's it's bigger claws i feel like the claws

Speaker 2 got bigger and then the wiggly

Speaker 2 has come on him yeah the wiggly things out of his hair the way they moved and stuff was really fun.

Speaker 2 I loved that. I don't know if it made him stronger.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 He just seemed well now he's immune to milk.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. Oh, that would be great video game.
It'd be like if you were Mario and you got the little

Speaker 1 uppies.

Speaker 1 I don't play video games. I'm immune to milk.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 So Ernest learns that the other thing that kills trolls, in addition to milk, get this. Unconditional love.
So he grabs the troll. The heart of a child.
The heart of a child.

Speaker 1 He starts dancing with the troll. This is very funny.
And then the troll just blows up.

Speaker 2 Well, he kisses him.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's right he kisses him it's so gross it's really gross yeah but it's funny troll's gross and then uh all the kids come back to life um and he has the slime on his face for the entire rest of the he does yes they are not afraid of a snot yeah gag in this and all the all the acting in this is pretty like broad and sketchy except for the the woman who plays kenny's mom she is fucking acting she i look at her i'm like i believe you think your son was dead yeah

Speaker 1 yeah right just this one person acting in this movie where no one else is.

Speaker 2 I'm pretty sure that is an actress who is also from the Ernest television scheme.

Speaker 1 Is she?

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's there's some actors who made appearances, like the two old guys that always have a scheme

Speaker 2 at the Hardwood store, and they're like selling you, oh, yeah, I got troll spray.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got all this stuff. We pass them up.
They like scam Ernest and say that they have all these troll-repellent products. Which is fun because they have the logos on them, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was thinking about how so many movies we watch that are like horror, kind of campy horror, like Killer Clowns. There's There's the two doofus dudes who drive the ice cream truck.

Speaker 1 The two guys, the horny.

Speaker 2 This is like the two doofuses who are just selling crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 And then like Bulk and Skull, Power Ranger.

Speaker 2 It feels like the two dude like duo thing is like a big thing in like, I don't know, 90s stuff.

Speaker 1 We love two idiots. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, Jay and Silent Bob.

Speaker 1 Jay and Silent Bob.

Speaker 2 Oh, the two guys from Hocus Pocus.

Speaker 1 Devis and Butthead. I mean, need we list more dumb duos? Bill and Ted?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, but they're not the main people. They're like the sidekicks.
Like the two dudes in Hocus Pocus. They're kind of, they steal the shoes and and everything.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 so Ernest, yes, they've blown up the troll. We forgot to mention this, but Rim shot the dog.
Catching myself, say he's he. Good job.
Thank you. Haven't said it yet.
Took you a while. I mean,

Speaker 1 I said I was going to say it. Rim shot.

Speaker 1 Come, dog. Come, fuck, dog, full of cum.
Penis dog fun.

Speaker 1 Eat my ass, doggy. Oh, man.
You know what I mean, Vern? Peanut butter on my dick, Vern. Oh, fuck.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so the dog got turned into the thing, and then it comes back to life because he killed the troll. And that's.

Speaker 2 It's one of the most... And the kids from the past.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the villager kids come back. The nondescript time period.
Eartha Kitt

Speaker 1 says hi to her kid sister.

Speaker 1 who is now born again in this time. Yep.
So therefore, you actually can date the movie based on the fact that Eartha Kid is, what, we'll call her 60 years old in this?

Speaker 2 I think they're trying to make her look older than that.

Speaker 1 Oh, are they?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're trying to age her up for sure.

Speaker 1 Okay, even if say she's 90, it's like, okay, so I think they're trying to do that. From the early 1900s.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
There you go. Creating the Earnest Scared Stupid timeline may be a little more interesting than we thought initially.
Yeah. Is it? Maybe.
Is it? You could. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I think it was post-Civil War, pre-Titanic.

Speaker 1 Ah, Gilded Age. Somewhere in there, yeah.

Speaker 1 But in Missouri, nobody knows. No one here kills it.
Eric Moss will. Call Eric Moss.
He'll do it.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so that's the end of Ernest Scared Stupid. We're going to talk about what we thought of the movie, but first, you know, we got to do the hunk watch.
Oh, yeah, baby. It's hunk watch.

Speaker 1 Zach, for you,

Speaker 1 we like to name a hunk of the movie. It could be someone you thought was fine,

Speaker 1 or it could just be, you know, someone you thought gave a great performance.

Speaker 1 A hunk, if you will.

Speaker 1 We'll start and you we'll let you land the plane uh i will give it to uh earth a kit who i think is so good in this but obviously like i was obsessed with that 60s batman show as a kid yeah she is one of the prominent babes in my brain when i think of when i think of a babe i mean it's a it's it's a it's a few people and earth a kit in the catwoman outfit is one of them oh my god she's great also her christmas songs are the best christmas oh i haven't heard her christmas yeah her santa baby is amazing

Speaker 2 All of her music to me kind of feels like holiday-esque.

Speaker 2 And it makes you feel like you're wearing a smoking jacket.

Speaker 1 Ugh, I was going to say that. Is Santa Baby the original?

Speaker 2 I don't know if that's the original.

Speaker 1 It's not the original, but I think it is.

Speaker 1 It's one of the most prominent ones.

Speaker 1 But her I Want to Be Evil best.

Speaker 2 I Wanna Be Evil is so good.

Speaker 1 Best Earth Akits. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 She's a killer. She's so amazing.

Speaker 1 Matt, any thoughts on the hunks of the film? It's got to be Earth a kit just because, I mean, she, because the other choice is either the troll Trantor. Oh, yes, Trantor.
We didn't say his name.

Speaker 1 That's his name? I guess. Yeah, I just looked at him.
I didn't know he had a name. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or Ernest. You know what? I'm going to go with Ernest.

Speaker 2 I'll give it to Rim Jobs.

Speaker 1 I could give it to Rim Job. Good old Rim Job the dog.
I'm giving it to Ernest because, again, I know, you know, we've had differences on whether or not he got his due.

Speaker 1 I don't think he has ever gotten his due. No, Jim Varney is a legend and deserves to be.
He needs a statue somewhere.

Speaker 2 I bet he's got one.

Speaker 1 There's probably an Ernest statue somewhere, but there needs to be a Jim Varney.

Speaker 2 He does have a big portrait at the comedy store.

Speaker 1 He does. That's cool.
And that's cool.

Speaker 2 But yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm giving it to Ernest. Emily, any thoughts on the matter?

Speaker 2 I'm giving it to the fire and brimstone Ernest.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 2 with the gray mutton chops and the hio,

Speaker 2 he can, you know, send me to hell. Sure.

Speaker 1 Easily. You like a traditional earnest.

Speaker 2 Well, I want one that'll tell me I'm bad.

Speaker 1 Yes. Shame.
Burn me the steak, daddy. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 That one.

Speaker 1 Shame, Vern.

Speaker 1 Zach, what about you? A hunk of the film?

Speaker 3 My first thought was the woman,

Speaker 3 like the mom of that one kid who is totally acting circles around everybody.

Speaker 3 Because she kind of reminded me of like almost a proto-Chris R from the room, like the one person

Speaker 1 who takes a circle.

Speaker 1 Great, great analogy.

Speaker 3 But after thinking about it more, I think I have to give it to Rimshot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there we go. You want five minutes? You want five minutes, Danny? Well, I've got five fucking minutes, Danny.
That's like one of the greatest lines in bad movie history.

Speaker 1 Chris R, shout out to you wherever you are.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But yeah, Rimshot can drive.

Speaker 2 Loyal friend can survive a troll.

Speaker 1 Can survive a troll.

Speaker 2 Ah, indeed. There we go.

Speaker 3 And looks great dressed up as a little kid.

Speaker 1 He does. He does.

Speaker 1 Hey, who doesn't love a little Boy Boy Scout outfit? Shit. I'm keeping that in.
No. Keep it in.
Jack up the volume. I'm going to double it.
Doubled it.

Speaker 1 Anyway, that's the hunks. We're going to rank the movie on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials when we come back.

Speaker 1 What's more action-packed than prestige television?

Speaker 2 With more continuity than comic books?

Speaker 1 And more reality than reality television?

Speaker 1 It's professional wrestling.

Speaker 1 And to better understand wrestling as the ultimate form of entertainment, you need the Tites and Fights podcast.

Speaker 2 This is the perfect wrestling show with a lot of love, a lack of toxic masculinity, and just the right amount of butts, cats, and spandex.

Speaker 2 Listen to Tites and Fights every Saturday on Maximum Fun.

Speaker 1 We're back. It's free with ads.
We're here with Zach from CZ's World, the wonderful YouTube channel. We are going to rank Ernest, Scared, Stupid on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials.

Speaker 1 But first, we want to remind you to go to maximumfun.org/slash join. Uh, there's still a little bit of spooky season left.

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Speaker 1 It's time to rank. Ernest Scared Stupid on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials.

Speaker 1 Zach, you're a guest. Go first.

Speaker 1 You didn't know who Ernest was. You had never been scared stupid in your entire life.

Speaker 1 What did you think of this movie, 1 to 10?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, that basically ties into what my takeaway from it was. I feel like it would be an amazing nostalgia movie if I had seen it when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 But because this was my first experience with it, I didn't have any of that nostalgia.

Speaker 3 So I'm the type of person that logs everything that I see on Letterboxd.

Speaker 1 Oh, nice. Oh, no.

Speaker 3 So you said 1 to 10, right? Yes, 1 to 10.

Speaker 3 So if I adjusted for that scale, my rating would have been four out of 10.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's not as bad as I thought it would be.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Follow Zach on Letterbox, too, I guess.

Speaker 3 I was a little nervous like halfway through watching it because I'm getting pretty close to my 1,000th watch on Letterboxd and I was like, oh no.

Speaker 3 I hope I didn't make this number 1,000 on accident.

Speaker 1 I want it to be Airbud.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 I want it to be Free Willie 3.

Speaker 2 I love that we took up a space.

Speaker 1 That's so funny. Like, people are people are worried about you.
Like, what's wrong with Zach? Now, this, we are lore.

Speaker 2 We are all lore together now.

Speaker 1 We are all lore, aren't we, though? Uh, yes, I will go first as maybe the person who has had the second least Ernest experience. Uh, I like this movie, I had a lot of fun watching it.

Speaker 1 I think that, like, if you aren't nostalgic for it, maybe a use case for it is I think it would be fun to watch with kids. I do think kids would like this movie.

Speaker 1 I think a modern kid would dig it and find Ernest funny. So, yeah, I'm going to give this a Halloween six to watch with kids.
I think it still would be a total blast.

Speaker 1 And yeah, and if obviously you, you know, were a Jim Varney fan from when you were a kid, I'm sure there's like a ton of stuff you'll love in this. Uh, Matt, what about you?

Speaker 1 I'm going to give this a solid seven. I really enjoyed this movie upon rewatch.
I think what I enjoyed more than anything was just Jim Varney doing whatever he does. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's like, um, you know, a lot of comedic actors got their, you know, whatever vehicle vehicle there was for them to, like, play multiple characters.

Speaker 1 You have your Eddie Murphys and whatnot, or, you know, Martin Lawrence's.

Speaker 1 You really can't watch any Ernest movie without being like, damn, this guy could literally do anything. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he, you know, him just having this one character is, it's kind of a crime against humanity. Yeah.
So I loved it. Seven.

Speaker 3 Well, it's not just one character, is it?

Speaker 1 Right. Well, that's what I mean.
It's like it was the vehicle for which. But the old woman with the neck brace never took off in the same way.
Right.

Speaker 1 Never got to see old woman uh with the neck brace finds the pirate treasure right you know yeah she never went to jail she never went to jail so uh she actually never saved christmas there are compilations of that character

Speaker 1 and she is in in in jail at one point too yeah because it's earnest but yeah everything kind of had to be funneled through earnest whereas like you know i i other actors got to do other you know movie franchises anyways i'm just nostalgic for him and i love him and uh yeah seven i'd like to point out that at one point, Ernest abducts two kids inside of a trash dumpster, and he never goes to jail either.

Speaker 1 That's okay. He already eventually goes to jail.
He already went to jail in a different movie. Exactly.
And then he got out of jail because he saved Christmas. Right.

Speaker 1 And then they pardoned him because he saved Christmas and he got scared.

Speaker 2 Oh, I need to watch the Christmas one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he almost went back to jail, but then he escaped to Africa. And we're not going to be able to do it.
And we're not going to. Maybe that is a non-canonical entry.

Speaker 1 We don't know whether or not it's as bad as it sounds. We don't know.
We're not. We'll never see it.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 we're going to let Ace Ventura when nature calls slide. Everybody will watch that one.
No.

Speaker 1 Not Ernest goes to Africa. Let's not watch either Ace Ventura movie.

Speaker 1 No Ace Ventura movie.

Speaker 2 Both of them are bad. Both are bad.
But he comes out of a rhino butthole.

Speaker 1 That's true. Listen, not everything in the movie is bad.
Yeah, that's true. Some of the stuff.
Anyway, Emily. Yeah.
We haven't even said this yet. You're dressed like Ernest.

Speaker 1 You are doing the podcast dressed as Ernest.

Speaker 1 I think I kind of know where you're going to go on this, but I would love to hear what you thought.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, first of all, I just have

Speaker 2 such a soft spot for him just because of the unlikeliness of this character becoming

Speaker 2 a star, like a Disney star, and just how cool it is. He's a huge hero of mine.

Speaker 2 I think this movie, I haven't watched all of the movies, but I think this is the one that looks the coolest and it was so ambitious. Yeah.
I mean, I think it scared the crap out of me as a kid.

Speaker 2 And watching it now, it's just so joyful. And I love the effects.
And I love him. I don't feel like anyone commits to stuff like this.
Yes.

Speaker 2 I think his commitment to this character is even more effective than any Jim Carrey thing I've watched.

Speaker 2 I think it's, it's just, he's so, like, his whole body is in it, his face, everything. And it's not cringy to me.
I feel like he's so

Speaker 2 charming. I think he's so charming and authentic.
And I, I just, and handsome, and I love him. So I'm going to give it a 8.5.
8.5.

Speaker 2 For what it is, for a movie that is like a kid's movie for Halloween, I think move over hocus pocus.

Speaker 2 This is my movie.

Speaker 3 So having grown up with it, are you able to explain some of the jokes that might have gone over my head?

Speaker 2 Maybe. Which ones? Well, not Miak.

Speaker 1 We can't do that.

Speaker 2 I didn't know what that was going on.

Speaker 3 There was one that stuck out to me where

Speaker 3 those salesmen are selling him all of the anti-troll stuff, and then they sell him like an album or something.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Top troll love songs. Yes.
Yeah. Here's what I think that joke was because it's it's baffling.
I think they are just selling him crap that you would have bought off TV. And I think there were like

Speaker 1 late night commercials for like compilations of love songs.

Speaker 2 Yes. Also, they're kind of you know attached to the CMT lore, like country music television and stuff.
And there would be, you know, late night, buy the Johnny Cash compilation.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 and it's like, like, so it's just kind of hawking, like

Speaker 1 garbage. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And like.

Speaker 1 Crap that you would get from an infomercial, I think. Yeah, or Cracker Barrel.

Speaker 2 There's like whole, my dad's on a Cracker Barrel

Speaker 1 album. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they have like a, it's like 10 songs like done just for Cracker Barrel with like all these different bands.

Speaker 1 Like the restaurant? Yeah.

Speaker 2 But there's, so there's stuff like that, but I feel like they just have this hardware store and they'll kind of hawk whatever. They're just shysty.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I think that makes sense because it felt like it was referencing something specific. Yeah, I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 2 I think those guys are also like characters on the show and stuff. Right.

Speaker 1 Did you not grow up with the TV infomercials trying to sell you albums? No.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I remember like Kids Bop and now 35 or whatever.

Speaker 1 What about Pure Moods?

Speaker 3 I think he's Pure Moods. I don't remember.

Speaker 1 I think he's cheese.

Speaker 1 Do you remember the song? It's a return to innocence.

Speaker 2 That was so perfect that we're gonna have to do copyrights.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. We're not gonna get sued.

Speaker 1 Don't sue us, Enya.

Speaker 1 Or whoever. Probably Enya.

Speaker 2 I think it was.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, you gotta find that sting.

Speaker 2 But yeah, no, there was, there's a lot of infomercials at night trying to sell us crap. That was fun.
But I think those two guys are characters that are on the TV show.

Speaker 2 And they appear in, I guess, other movies. But the larger gentleman who talks, the other one's kind of quiet, he in the TV show is like a radio guy who's like, hey, join me on this radio.
I got the.

Speaker 2 So he's kind of that character.

Speaker 1 Zach, now that every single thing in Ernest Scared Stupid makes sense,

Speaker 1 we've done it. We've tied up every loose end.
None of it doesn't make sense. No, there's one loose end.
Oh, what's the loose end?

Speaker 1 It's Enigma, not Enya.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Oh, fuck. I'm sorry, Enya.
Yeah. Don't cancel our plans.

Speaker 1 I dream of rain. I dream of rain.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 You gonna do a remix? No, I'm just gonna play the song.

Speaker 2 You better do the Godzilla Roar. All right.

Speaker 3 Hang on.

Speaker 1 Ooh, very soothing. If people know it's coming, they're gonna like it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I love this song.

Speaker 1 Anyway.

Speaker 2 That song slaps.

Speaker 1 I don't care what anyone says. Shows become impenetrable to someone who's never heard it.
Just like an Ernest movie. Just like an Ernest movie.

Speaker 1 Zach, thank you so much for being here and having Ernest explain to you perfectly.

Speaker 1 You do an amazing YouTube show where you deep dive into all the greatest horror movies.

Speaker 1 Tell us about any recent favorites and anything else you want to plug.

Speaker 3 Recent favorites and horror?

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. Or videos that you've made you think people can check out?

Speaker 3 We brought it up recently, but Weapons has been my favorite this year. Yes.

Speaker 1 Me too.

Speaker 3 In terms of of new projects to plug, I do have a new channel that I just launched last month called Pumpkin Metal. Okay.

Speaker 3 Instead of doing horror history on that one, I do pop punk and metal band history. Hey!

Speaker 1 What bands have you done so far?

Speaker 3 Ice Nine Kills, Falling in Reverse, Boys Like Girls. Fallout Boy, which is like a massive two-hour episode.
Yay. And I also did a fictional one on Jack Block's character from School of Rock.

Speaker 1 Okay. Hot damn.

Speaker 2 I'm subscribed now.

Speaker 1 This is very cool.

Speaker 3 Probably by the time this comes out, I'll also have released my System of a Down episode.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 That's my favorite band. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, CC's World on YouTube. There's also merch.
Pick up some merch.

Speaker 1 Emily, you got anything?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Matt, got anything? Oh, you know it, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 Call me names. I'm sorry.
I asked you for a plug. That was nice of me.

Speaker 1 All right, everyone. If you are a motherfucker and you want to go see some stand-up comedy, you should come up with a stand-up fucking comedy.

Speaker 1 Yes, you should come out to see some stand-up fucking comedy. Yeah, Saturday.

Speaker 2 I don't know. That's part of your lore.

Speaker 1 You can't do it standing up. I can do it standing.
I just can't. I can only come standing up.
That's what I was doing. Oh, that's what it was.
Okay. I have to have straight knees.

Speaker 1 November 1st, that's a Saturday. I will be at the Ice House for a show called New World Disorder.
Come out to that, please.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 As of this release, you can go to a comic book store right now and get Predator, Black, White, and Blood number four,

Speaker 1 a Predator comic book anthology with a story from yours truly. Go pick it up.
It turned out so cool. If you do grab it,

Speaker 1 post a pic. Tag me in the pic.
I'd love to see people with their copies of Predator, Black, White, and Blood number four.

Speaker 1 And while you're at that local comic book store, pre-order your copy of Venom 252 coming out December 3rd. That has a backup story from me about an all-new alternate universe Venom backup stories.

Speaker 1 They are sometimes at the end of the comic. They finish the comic, but this particular backup story could

Speaker 1 be the beginning of something. I don't know.
Maybe it's starting something. It's ending something, but it also could be beginning something.

Speaker 1 So you're going to want to pick up Venom 252 coming out December 3rd.

Speaker 1 And if you're in the LA area, November 8th, I will be at the Burbank Book Festival and at Revenge of Comics and Pinball for their comic creator block party. I hope to see you at those events.
Okay,

Speaker 1 tune in next week when our movie will be the First Wives Club.

Speaker 1 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

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