[BONUS] Stinky Pop: Christmas Special

Buying a car in Carvana was so easy.

I was able to finance it through them.

I just- Whoa, wait, you mean finance?

Yeah, finance.

Got pre-qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms, and shot from thousands of great car options all within my budget.

That's cool, but financing through Carvana was so easy.

Financed.

Done.

And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow.

Financed.

Right, that's what I said.

You can spend time trying to pronounce financing, or you can actually finance and buy your car today on Carvana.

Financing subject to credit approval.

Additional terms and conditions may apply.

Welcome to Only Murders in the Building, the official podcast.

Join me, Michael Cyril Creighton, as we go behind the scenes with some of the amazing actors, writers, and crew from season five.

The audience should never stop suspecting anything.

How can you not be funny crawling around on a coffin?

Yeah, that's true.

Catch Only Murders in the Building official podcast.

Now streaming wherever you get your podcasts.

And watch Only Murders in the Building, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Terms apply.

I'm Scott Hanson, host of NFL Red Zone.

Lowe's knows Sundays are for football.

That's why we're here to help you get your next DIY project done, even when the clock isn't on your side.

Whether that's a new Filtrate filter or Bosch and Cobalt power tools, Lowe's has everything you need to feel like the MVP of DIY.

So get it done and earn your Sunday.

Shop now in store and online.

Lowe's, official partner of the NFL.

Welcome to Stinky Pop.

We make so many pop culture references and tales from Stinky Dragon, I figured we need a pop culture show to accompany it, but it's only here because of our direct supporters on Patreon.

So, from the bottom of my heart, this is all their fault, and I hope they're happy with themselves.

Today, it is a Christmas miracle: a stinky gift from the Stinky family to you, our stinky audience.

Normally, shows like Stinky Pop and our other Patreon-exclusive shows are only available to our supporters, but we forgot to get you all something this year, so this is our gift to you.

A Christmas special where I've gathered our entire cast and crew to talk about our favorite holiday film or a favorite holiday film of theirs.

But you might notice something is missing.

Where are Gus, Barb, and Micah?

Well, they're in episode, their episode is part two of this special.

And you guessed it, it's only available for our supporters on patreon.com slash sneak dragon.

And to top it all off, I told everyone to turn their cams on so I can see their beautiful mugs.

And the video is also available on our Patreon, in case you're listening to this on the RSS feeds.

So I've got Blaine, Chris, and Ben to talk holiday films.

And to start it all off, everyone, roll initiative.

Oh,

wasn't prepared for this.

I don't have dice.

Hold on.

I like how that triggers things in everybody when you just say that

sentence.

We have this issue on behind the screen, one of our other patreon shows where micah gus and i will always roll initiative at the top to see who has to answer the question first yeah and we're always so excited when we roll low and with that i want to tell you john i rolled a nat one i've never been more excited in my life oh my god 1920.

wow we got the two extremes good job man i was i thought i was excited to go first

uh

oh and rolled over to 19.

where talkers is higher dexterity blains choice which i'll be I'll be clear, it was his second choice because he picked Chris's movie, but he was late to the draw.

Blaine picked Lethal Weapon.

Oh, what a weird pull.

I'm going to show a replay of Chris's reaction that he just did right now because that was like 20 emotions in about half a second.

It's so good.

19.

Am I actually going Lethal Weapon?

You said Lethal Weapon.

No, I said one was a different movie, but Lethal Weapon was.

And then I said, Chris

picked that movie, so you have to do Lethal Weapon.

Oh, my God.

I haven't watched Lethal Weapon in years.

Okay, man.

I'll tell you.

Good news.

I just watched it for the first time ever.

So we could have talked about it.

Yeah, it's great.

I can't wait to talk about this movie I've never seen.

Okay.

I have mixed feelings on Lethal Weapon.

Okay.

it's

here's it's very for first off.

It's very much what I'm calling NSFSD.

It's not safe for Stinky Dragon.

Um

because it is a it's rated R.

There

is nudity within the first minute.

Yeah.

There are drugs within the first minute and a half and trigger warning.

There is self-harm within the first five minutes of the movie.

Yeah.

So pretty 80s.

It's pretty pretty.

It's very 80s

written by Shane Black, directed by Richard Donner.

Shane Black, known for a lot of movies, uh, known for a Christmas movie I love, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.

Um, great one, um, which is a very good one.

He loves Christmas movies, he does.

Robert Danny James Christmas movie.

Yeah, even his Iron Man movie was a Christmas movie.

Um, so Chris, you pissed, picked Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang?

No,

okay, you said Chris's movie.

No, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas movie, Christmas movie, yeah, Shane Black does a thing with he he writes movies that are like not Christmas movies, but they take place during Christmas.

Yeah.

Well,

I would disagree on that with some of them.

Like, I think Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a very Christmas movie, but maybe you're right.

Maybe you're right.

I'm actually, I'm going to watch that over Christmas.

Robert Downey Jr.

and Val Kilmer.

It's fantastic.

Robin Debbadoodoo.

Huh?

Robert Downey Jr.

I'm just repeating you.

Richard Donner.

Didn't realize Richard Donner directed Lethal Weapon, director of Superman, Christopher Eevee, Superman.

And

one of my favorite obscure movies, which I use to reference my relationship with my girlfriend, Lady Hawk, because I'm an early morning

morning person, and she is like a night, a nocturnal person.

And Lady Hawk's all about this story between, about

this fantasy relationship between these two characters, where one is

stuck as a hawk during the day, and then the other one is stuck as a wolf during the night.

Hold on, I'm writing Argus

because apparently I need to immediately end this podcast and go watch Lethal Weapon with what you've described in the first five minutes.

Now, it stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and I.

Yes.

Don't say the last word.

Don't say it.

I'm sorry.

It's a quote.

I didn't mean to.

It's a good thing.

Gary Busey's also in it, too.

And

he plays a real cool assassin bodyguard guy.

You know know what's funny about Busey in this film is that he

was good teeth.

That man has teeth.

He got super in shape between this movie and his last movie.

This was his first movie of coming back to films and he wasn't super big.

This was like the first time he had played like a villain.

Joshua.

And so this was like a restart for his career.

I will say, as problematic as he is now, I was such a big Mel Gibson fan during this, like, the 80s and 90s.

Yeah.

And

I will admit, the man is jacked and ready to be an action hero in this movie.

He's so ripped.

I'll say this about...

him in this movie is he, you know, Mel Gibson's Australian.

And you can definitely tell in this movie.

It's like

I'm from the.

Yeah.

I don't think he is.

Oh, yeah.

I'm just from the Midwest, eh?

I don't know about that.

I thought I read that he was born in America, but lived in Australia for a while.

Maybe, but he has a.

In this movie,

when he's like, yeah, I went to Vietnam.

I will argue, though, that this movie is definitely an 80s action movie.

It is like Shane Black wanted to write a dirty hairy story, a man who is so

far gone and his only skills are like killing people, but he finally finds a use for it that is helpful.

And to be clear, Mel Gibson, like, kills, like a man every 10 minutes in this movie.

It's a high body count.

It's a high body count.

It's a really cool dynamic between a very energetic, like action,

like hungry, young cop, and then a grizzled, older cop who's a little bit more by the books.

Danny Glover's character.

Yeah, he's just like, I just want to play it cool until retirement.

That's like the classic line.

Like, I'm getting too old for this.

And he's like, oh, it's like he's, that started the trope of like, ah, one week away from retirement.

I have one.

I have a question about a scene with Danny Glover.

And Blaine, I want to hear your read on this scene.

It's his action.

He's not in the toilet.

No, he's not in the toilet.

He's in the bath.

Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

His opening scene is he's in the bath, and then his family comes in to sing happy birthday.

It's a little weird.

He's like, he's fully just in the bath.

There are some suds covering the parts, but like,

I'm a dad.

If my kids ever did that, I would scream at them to get out of the bathroom.

Like, and these aren't toddlers.

Like, his daughter's like, like, 18, basically.

And they all come in, sing happy birthday, give him a hug.

He even jokes to pull his like young son into the bath, that kind of thing.

It's a weird like kind of moment.

moment um these were a different time

i really do think is a difference in like a time thing and then like that's just a family dynamic that we probably don't know about how else are you supposed to show the family camaraderie if not set in the bathroom while you're showering not with a denude scene yeah yeah i do actually think that there is something to that bin though where it's like they're like we need to like show that this family is so close knit tight knit that this father if something happens to his daughter would do anything and where are you the the most vulnerable The shower.

All right, cool.

We have a setting for the scene.

Let's go.

Writer's room.

Let's get it going.

Well, you joke, but Lethal Weapon 2 has a pretty good scene in a bathroom.

Is that the bomb diffusal scene that I'm thinking of?

Maybe.

If you can say, just say.

These are very old movies.

There's a bomb.

Yeah.

Is it the word diffusion?

Is that how you do you diffuse or diffusal?

Yeah.

On a toilet in the bathroom.

Okay.

It's like, that that is the other thing I wanted to comment about Lethal Weapons.

So like, I think my logic behind this movie, and then I'm assuming what Chris's movie is, is I don't necessarily have to have a Christmas movie be about Christmas.

I think in my life,

Christmas has kind of just become a setting.

It's not, I've separated from the true meaning of it in some ways, and I just like the vibe of Christmas.

So I like movies that also just have the vibe of Christmas.

Every now and then you see a tree and you hear some Christmas music and you're like, oh, this is a good setting.

This feels warm.

This feels comfortable.

And I like that.

And I would say on that note, this movie, because Christmas for a lot of people

can be sad times because they feel, you know, it's winter, there's less sun.

And if you can sometimes feel separate, you know, if you don't have family or you're missing people from family or friends or something, like Mel Gibson, this entire film.

Yeah.

And this movie, I think, is a good,

I don't know, echo of that where

a lot of people feel that way, but it also, you know, has some heart to it that makes you, you know,

can help you feel better.

You know, Blaine and Chris are really selling it on me.

I think December 25th, I'm going to get my family together.

I'm going to draw a nice bath.

I'm going to gather them all into the bathroom and we're going to watch Lethal Weapon 1 and 2.

It's so not a pivotal moment of the movie.

It just stood out because it was the introduction of Danny Glover's character.

And I was immediately like, this is weird.

Are they looking at his junk?

Are they trying to to avoid it the entire time?

What are you doing?

Don't think about it.

I do.

I do like, Chris, that's a good point.

I think this shows the range of Christmas and how people can celebrate it.

Some people are surrounded by their loving family.

Some people are alone and going through like serious stuff.

And it's just like, it just covers the breadth of the emotions of the holiday season.

But it's set in LA, so it's still warm and sunny.

And it, yeah.

And it shows, I don't know, people finding other

communities.

Finding family in other ways.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I also enjoy that, just also from a franchise perspective, Lethal Weapon has probably like the best.

I don't know.

They did sequels really well, in my opinion.

I don't think that the sequels are all that weak.

I think that the second one is just as fun and epic and is just as quotable.

There's four of them in.

Joe Pesci.

Joe Pesci getting introduced is great.

And Renee Russo, who's another one.

I'll say this.

Sorry.

You're good.

The fourth one, I haven't seen them in a while, but the fourth one I feel kind of is the weakest sequel because they took, you know,

Riggs, who's this like, you know,

loose cannon.

Yeah.

He's a loose cannon, mate, from Los Angeles.

And then by the fourth movie, he's completely like,

you know, reversed.

and so he's kind of the dynamic of the characters completely changed, and it's kind of taken the

I can understand that.

Like, there's got to be a point where he's got to progress past that.

No, I understand that, and that's why it just takes away from the foil, like the dynamic of Martin being like this crazy guy,

let's get nuts, and then Murtog being like, Let's, you know, calm it down and stuff.

I got a family, yeah, yeah, like Mel get Riggs gets

he's he's like, he's not crazy until he's super crazy in this movie.

Like, he plays it cool and

chill and like a very charming guy, and then he's insane.

And then he's fighting Gary Busey in,

was it raining or was it a hydrant was broken?

I can't remember.

He's a broken.

Fighting him shirtless in the street as the entire LAPD force watches and goes, let him have this one.

Yeah.

It seems to be like kind of the opposite trajectory of actual Mel Gibson.

I'm looking at his Wikipedia page right now and I'm looking looking at

80s Gibson and 90s Gibson, who's like, like 90s Gibson, he looks kind of like Henry Cavill.

Like he's like wearing like, you know, nice button-down suits.

But his actual like Wikipedia page article image, he looks completely unhinged.

He's those like crazy guys.

I think he is unhinged.

I think deep at his core.

He's on the thread a little bit.

Yeah.

I do think, though, that's very true for people oftentimes who are going through issues, mental issues, or, you know,

depression.

Sure.

They can seem super happy and friendly and funny,

but also have issues.

Like they're very good at hiding.

He is severely suffering from what is clearly PTSD and

depression.

He is mourning the loss of a significant other, and he was in what is it, Vietnam?

Vietnam.

Yeah.

And

one of my favorite little things that I was reading, because I like to, for any of these movies we talk about, Stinky Pop, I like to do a huge deep dive as much as possible into like articles about it and interviews and stuff like that.

And

I love reading about the pre-pro or the production of the film where they were like, yeah, we worked really closely with LAPD.

Mel and Danny did like extensive training for like two months prior to filming.

And then they had supervisors on set the entire time.

And they were like trying to make it as, you know, real for the LAPD experience.

And I thought that was hilarious because throughout the entire film, they do stuff that is very illegal, awful, and very awful.

You know, um,

and and I was like, but I get like why it's the action movie thing, you know.

But like, it all, even that fight scene with Busey and him at the very end, I'm like, this is when they told the suit, like the tech supervisor,

don't don't tell us this is this can't happen.

Uh, we need Mel to be shirtless and uh using uh what they described as like new fighting styles that hadn't been really seen in

movies.

Um, he liked Capuera and Jiu-Jitsu and stuff like that.

Cambera.

I love those.

They're so cute.

Cute.

They're very cute.

I do like...

Blaine, tell me this.

What is your favorite thing about this movie?

Is it that whole thing that it is not really a Christmas movie?

Is that why it's a favorite of yours?

Or what is that that you, because I think this is one that you said

you've watched this a lot.

So

what's the draw?

I think, I don't know.

I don't know if it's like a Christmas draw at all, but I do like the unlikely friendship that develops between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson's characters and like how good their chemistry is.

Because I remember at one point,

Riggs does something super unhinged and he puts himself in another person's life in danger.

I think it was like the jumper.

Yeah, he does something that's like

that's insane that he should not have done.

It's very unsafe.

Yeah.

And it's at that point that like

Murtog is such a good detective and he just like he knows this guy's not right.

and he is like a

like a like a comet just like hurling through and he's gonna just whenever he hits he's gonna explode and everything around him is gonna get destroyed and he's like I want no part of that and he like he's like you got to button your stuff up and I and like this like talk where he's like get it together and stuff and it's just such a cool dynamic where it's like I'm I'm I'm clean I'm almost at retirement you're not gonna mess this up for me and this other guy is just like I don't care

You know what's funny is I just realized, is that the arc and dynamics of Riggs and Murtaugh's relationship and the lethal weapon plot line all the way to the very end, how the movie ends, is almost identical to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy.

I just watched that, yeah.

Where it's less shooting, though.

Yeah, there's way less guns, way less death,

way more holiday elements.

Although Plain Strange Automobile is a Thanksgiving movie,

I think the best Thanksgiving movie.

But it still ends with like, you know, this like crazy person that you never thought was going to be integrated into this family.

And at the very end, they all have, you know, their meal together.

Lethal weapon, I think the only real Christmas elements were that there is a gunfight in a Christmas tree farm at the very beginning.

And then they end the movie having Christmas dinner together.

I don't think Christmas is a part of it, the rest of the movie.

And that's totally fine with me.

It's a backdrop of a cool movie.

Also, they,

okay, real quick side tangent, the trailer, if you haven't watched the movie, or even if you have, just go watch the trailer for the first one.

I love watching the trailer.

Some of the 80s.

They use this song, and I think that they use it in the movie, but it's like, it's like a clock ticking to kind of just like show like...

you know, oh, like things are going off.

Like you don't know if it's like a clock ticking because it's a bomb or because time time is running out, but it's like this cool song.

And I remember being obsessed with that song, and I could never find it.

And they used it again in

Sean of the Dead.

Oh.

Or maybe Hot Fuzz.

I think it might have been Hot Fuzz.

That may be.

But, anyways, I was obsessed with the song.

And then I ended up cutting a version of it for a student film in college because it was just such a good, like, high-energy, like...

tense, tense musical thing.

Yeah, no, this movie's great.

It's like classic 80s.

It's from a time where you didn't need a CGI helicopter out running an avalanche of

monster trucks, like the Fast and the Furious franchise.

It's just like you watch this and you're not at all invested because it doesn't feel real, but you watch this and you're like, no, this feels like real action.

It's funny you mentioned helicopters.

The original ending did involve...

more action as opposed to kind of ending on that fight scene and it was going to involve like a car chase with helicopters.

So Lethal Weapon came out 87.

Yeah.

Die Hard came out 88.

Yeah.

Both are set during Christmas.

Yeah.

Do you think Lethal Weapon inspired Die Hard to be set there?

Or they were in production over Larry.

Die Hard was based off of a novel.

Yeah.

It was one of those things of like, man,

if I had a nickel every time this happened, I'd have two nickels, but it's still weird that it happened twice that close together.

It's frustrating because I think Shane Black often gets

miscredited for doing die hard.

There's so many similarities.

There was like a funny panel where he was on it and someone's like, when you're writing die hard, he's like, nope.

Nope.

I think I actually

there was like with all these movies, there's always a million actors that are looked for this stuff.

And I think it was like Bruce Willis was looked at for Mill Gibson's part.

The last thing I want to talk about, Lethal Weapon, because we do have two more movies to talk about, and I want to be able to give time for those, is I want to tell you my only experience ever with Lethal Weapon prior to watching it

yesterday, two days ago, something like that.

For some reason, you know, back in the day when we were kids, you would turn on the TV and just flip to the channels and find movies.

I flipped through the channels, found Lethal Weapon, and the only scene I'd ever seen, and I was like, I was waiting for it the entire time I was watching the movie, is Mel Gibson hanging from the chain and getting electrocuted with that sponge thing.

And that was the only scene I'd ever seen of Lethal Weapons.

So I had no idea what this movie was.

So even watching, I was like, oh, he's the lethal weapon.

Okay, now that answers the question.

That's nice to know.

Yeah, because

there's a line.

Yeah.

That's what I was saying.

I finally experienced it.

I know who's the lethal weapon.

It's Mel Gibson.

I talked to Josh Flanagan, a friend of ours.

And we were writing, and like he, I think, has some sort of connection with Shane Black, but he was always talking about how Shane always writes characters who are the best at what they do.

Yeah.

And Martin Riggs is like, he's like the best soldier.

He's the best at what he does.

And I think that that always makes for a fun character where it's like, he's the best there is.

I would highly advise people to check out Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang and Nice Guys, which are, I think, two of Shane Black's best films.

And they're also Christmas settings.

Nice Guys is not.

But Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang is.

Well, Nice Guys ends on Christmas.

There is a Christmas moment, I think, in the very end.

I think

we're going to go back to Shane always doing Christmas settings.

Zarman 3, Shane Black, also Christmas.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

So good.

He loves to pair people together.

But that's Lethal Weapon.

I think it's a choice that I'm.

No one's surprised that it would be in Blaine's Cadre of favorite movies.

Speaking of Blaine's Cadre of favorite movies, Chris, what movie did you pick?

You know my name, but

who saw too many movies as a child, another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne Rambo Marshall Dylan

Blaine with the next line

what something about Yippy Kai

doesn't say that

he says it, doesn't he?

No, then he goes, Well, I was always partial to Rory Ross.

Yeah, and then they have some more stuff, and he's like, blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, Yippee, K-I-A, Mother Effer.

Trucker.

Mother Trucker.

I'm so glad we got that on video.

For anybody who's watching the video version of this video, Chris Ferrer is so excited on video.

Chris has tried to bring in his

Gruber impression as often as possible, which is very fun.

For those who don't know, Die Hard is the movie we're talking about.

You haven't said the name.

1981.

We've talked about it already.

We've talked about it already.

I have two things I want to say about this film.

This is the second time I've watched it.

I've re-watched every film that everyone picked, even the ones that I've seen before.

The only one I had never seen before was Lethal Weapon.

And I actually want to say thank you, Blaine, for giving me an excuse to finally watch the movie.

I love ticking off movies off like my I Never Watched It list.

And this was just a great excuse.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I've never seen it.

Go through the whole franchise because when Renee Rousseau shows up.

Yeah, I was reading up on interviews, and she showed up in a lot of the interviews I was looking at, and they were talking about her being a really good

pivotal addition to the group.

I finally get this movie, Die Hard.

And you didn't before?

No.

Because I will say that on its surface,

it's very easy to judge the movie as a

soulless action movie.

Oh, but it's not.

Let me finish.

Let me finish.

Let me finish.

A soulless action movie that its only real claim to fame is some, you know, obviously iconic and cheesy visuals that people like to repeat.

You know, John McClain crawling through a vent, his bloody feet, you know, stuff like that.

Or its argument, is it a Christmas movie or not?

I get it.

It's actually a comedy that takes place in an action story.

And if you watch it, for some reason, the second time I watch it, it's actually made with a lot of effort.

And maybe this helped that I read about how the movie was made and all that.

And that probably can really help you appreciate movies more, especially if there's a lot of really interesting stuff out there.

From like, I read stuff from the cinematographer and the writer and the director and all these people and interviews with like,

what's his name?

Dad from Family Matters.

Reginald Val Johnson.

Yeah, Val Johnson, all that kind of stuff.

And I really enjoyed it this time.

I did not enjoy it the last time I watched it.

I thought it was a dumb action movie.

I'm glad I re-watched it.

This movie is actually pretty fantastic.

John, let me be the first to say, welcome to the party pal.

Okay, okay.

Okay, wait.

That was great.

You've seen the movie, right?

Die Hard is the movie I like start the holiday season.

Okay, good.

I love watching Die Hard.

I've had my brother watch it every Christmas.

Okay.

It's like something my brothers and I all watch together.

I love that movie.

I got to show it to Kristen, I think, last Christmas or the Christmas previous to that because she had never seen it.

And I was like, Oh, it's December.

I gave you die hard.

Die hard.

Okay, and the other thing I wanted to say, really quick before I give you, Chris, a moment to talk about why you love this movie is: I have a really fun fact about this movie.

This movie wouldn't have happened if Sybil Shepard hadn't gotten pregnant.

Go on

before, while the movie was in pre-production, they were trying to cast John McClain, which they actually went through tons of people.

They wanted to get Bruce Willis, but he had a scheduling conflict because he was a TV actor.

This was his foray into film.

And he was doing moonlighting with Sybil Shepard.

But thanks to the fact that she got pregnant, it shifted his schedule enough that for the beginning of production, he was Michael J.

Foxing it, and he was filming moonlighting during the day, and then he would go to the Fox Plaza and film Die Hard at Night, night, which is crazy.

But it actually, I'll talk about how that actually helped the movie.

But because his schedule opened, he was able to take this movie, and that is the only reason that he was able to do Die Hard and why we have Die Hard the way it is.

So thank you, Sybil Shepard, and your child.

Way to go.

Yeah.

Okay,

Chris, why do you pick this movie?

Well,

I want to quickly address the claims that it's not a Christmas movie, just to get that out of the way.

I'd love to hear this.

It's 100% a Christmas movie.

I would agree.

The entire plot takes place at a Christmas party the night before Christmas.

There's Christmas decorations throughout the movie.

The soundtrack is almost entirely Christmas movies.

I mean, Christmas music.

There's Christmas music everywhere.

He just played Christmas movies for the soundtrack.

It was just like clips from

Christmas tale.

And

it ends, again, in LA, but

with

surrogate snow

falling down.

Oh, you know, it's like the papers, yeah, the burning papers.

Yeah, which, by the way, Shane Black wanted, I forgot this other thing, Lethal Weapon was going to end with all that stuff and

a snow of cocaine is what it was supposed to end with.

Genuinely.

Chris, I'm glad you brought that up because I actually thought long and hard about this.

And I've come up with, I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with this, but this is my take on it.

You guys know what the Bechtel test is, right?

Yes.

Bechtel to those.

Yeah, Bechtel test is, does a movie pass the Bechtel test?

It can if there are two female actors that have a conversation that is not about another man or a man.

I've come up with the Ebenezer test.

Can this movie have happened how it worked if Christmas was removed?

Now, I would actually argue,

not to remove, you know, your choice.

I'd say lethal weapon actually

could work perfectly with the entire Christmas element removed.

However, Chris, you are correct.

A pivotal reason why John McLean is at the

name of the Nakatobi Plaza.

Yeah, Nakatobi Plaza.

Is because he is coming in town for a Christmas party.

Now, he wouldn't have come into town for and stayed

for anything else other than if he had done that, it would have just been him awkwardly staying with his like on-off, you know, ex-current wife kind of thing.

Current wife.

And it would have been very.

They're married, but not together.

Estranged.

And it was the Christmas party is what wraps the whole thing together.

And you're right.

There's all kinds of other Christmas elements, including

the sweater that he writes on with blood on the guy that he kills with the little ho-ho-ho and that kind of thing.

It's just, I'm so glad we're recording videos so we can see what your mouth has to do to do your Alan Rickman.

It's weird.

it's the same thing you have to do whenever you do.

Oh my god, now I'm trying to think

of a quote.

Oh, I just gave it, I blew it.

Now I have a machine gun.

There it is.

You gotta lock the jaw out.

You do, you do.

A lot of unique.

I feel like it's the same thing you kind of tend to do when you're trying to do a Mate voice.

You have to shift your mouth in a way of like.

Mateed would like Alan Rickman, by the way.

What were you going to say, Ben?

That's all right.

My name is Matid Confisius.

That's actually pretty good, Ben.

That's a bad

kid.

Another fun thing I learned about this movie, it has four Academy Award nominations.

Oh.

Kudos to it.

Well-deserved.

It's four the categories you would expect from this movie, film editing, visual effects, sound mixing, and sound editing.

But I would actually argue

I think it actually earned all of those nominations.

And for some reason, maybe it was was the way I watched it this time.

It's actually got a fantastic sound mix to it.

It's,

I don't know what it was, but like the even just the gun shot sounds were just, they really hit me in the chest.

And it was, it's, it's,

Bruce Willis's performance is actually very subtle and different than previous action heroes.

They, they wrote the whole thing to be like, what if, like, just the every

regular guy, yeah, yeah, was a, was an action hero.

Um,

not an action hero, action hero.

Yeah, not, not like a Schwarzenegger or a

Rambo or something like that.

Well, that's, that's the whole thing.

It's like, oh, you think you're a Rambo, you think you're John Wayne or whatever.

It's like, no, he's just like a guy who's, you know, it's like, he's just a dude.

And that's why they, I mean, he, he was not an action, action hero.

No.

When they cast that.

He did comedies.

He was a TV comedian.

Yeah.

I mean, this is, this is, this is why we have Bruce doing all those kinds of movies.

I was actually talking with my partner while I was watching this movie, and she asked, like, who would you cast if you were to reboot Die Hard these days?

You know, like, because Bruce Willis is such a, I don't want to come like an everyman, but he's so different from someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger in any of these action movies, right?

Like, who would fit today?

Bruce is a very subdued actor.

Paul Rudd.

Oh, Paul Rudd?

Oh, that would be, I mean, it'd be a very different dynamic.

Yeah.

But it it would be really funny.

It'd have to be a comedic style actor.

You said Schwarzenegger earlier, and I mentioned Frank Sinatra.

So this was supposed to be like an adaptation of the book The Detective, and they made that into a movie starring Frank Sinatra.

And I think that there was somewhere in there that they had to offer the role of...

John McClain to Frank Sinatra, but by this time he was super old.

He was 70.

He was 70 when this movie was.

So he wasn't going to take it.

But then also...

It wasn't funny if he had.

Oh, yeah.

Like, that was was the funny thing.

They had to offer it to him.

And I'm like, man, Frank should have taken it.

Just

should have taken it.

But John McTiernan directed this, and

he also did Predator and Commando.

And in Predator and Commando, they have, I think, a fictional country called like Valverde or something like that.

Yeah.

And

these are real, I think they reference that in this movie.

So these are all like in the connected universe.

Predator and Commando.

McTiernan cinematic universe.

And I think John Matrix was also supposed to be the same character.

McTiernan actually wrote one of, or directed one of my favorite action movies of all time, which does star Schwarzenegger, Last Action Hero, which is a parody on the action movie franchise, and it's fantastic.

I highly recommend people check that out.

John McTiernan rocks, and he just got out of prison, so I hope you direct someone to banger.

Wait, why was he?

It was like tax fraud, wasn't it?

Tax fraud.

Yeah, that's always rocks.

Hey, hey, justice for Ted John Maternan.

I'm still.

You what?

How long was he in prison?

Oh, I don't know.

I think he got out a decent amount of time ago.

And I know that he currently has

something in production, but it's been like in production hell for a minute.

I'm still stuck on Frank Sinatra and Die Hard.

Just imagine getting through that whole movie, and you get to the end, you're like, you're a loose cannon cop.

How did you stop the bad guy?

And he turns to the camera and he goes, I did it my way.

My wife.

Like, oh, I went fade to black.

Oh, what a great movie.

Ben, you got some zingers in this puck.

Yeah, yeah.

Ben Shaw.

I'll have to be more bad.

I'm waiting for these moments.

Another fun thing I read about this movie is I was reading an interview by the cinema photographer, Jan DeBon,

who

shot Die Hard, but then also directed Speed and Twister.

So accomplished filmmaker.

They were talking about how it was either him or maybe I was reading

D'Souza, who was one of the writers on it.

They were talking about how in action movies you need to have a hate cute,

which is like a meet cute in rom-coms, but it's between the hero and the villain.

And the hate cute for Die Hard actually came out of a moment on set where a crew member was talking with Alan Rickman, and he was unknown at this point.

This is actually his.

This is the first movie.

Yeah, this is his launch.

He was a stage actor.

And known a little bit in London, but not known or England, not known at all here.

Anyways, they were like, you know, hey, we, you know, we hear a lot of like English actors have like an American accent.

And Alan Rickman's like, oh, I don't have an American, I have a Californian accent is what I can do.

And so he did it.

The writer heard him and said, and went and grabbed

someone else, like the producer, and was like, Alan, do that again.

And he did it again.

And then they went and grabbed the director and he's like, do it again.

And so Alan's like, did it again.

He's like, why are you making me do this?

And they were, and like, D'Souza and the director look at each other.

He's like, do you get it?

And he's like, oh, yeah.

And so that's why Gruber and McClain meet each other and Alan Rickman pulls out that fantastic American.

Oh, you're one of them.

You're one of them, aren't you?

You're

so good.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

I want to know what the line was that the guy heard that was like, do it again.

Do it again.

Like, keep delivering that line.

I can't remember.

Actually, I think they wrote it down.

But I love that.

I love moments like that.

Like, they were writing, rewriting a lot of the movie.

While shooting.

Yeah.

Which is crazy because they actually were highly prepared for the movie because

they wrote the movie.

The first writer, I can't remember his name.

D'Souza got his hands on it, and he had access to Fox Plaza

before they actually started Principal Photography, which is where they shot.

Because it was actually under construction.

So they used

that in the movie.

They were incorporating elements of the...

It's like one of those dream location finds where it's like this.

Playground.

Yeah, this playground.

This very obelisk-like tower that looks like it should be this super advanced

business building.

But then it was also partially under construction.

So they had plenty of place to do filming in there.

It had a rooftop for them to do.

So many good action devices.

Well, yeah, and that's what I was going to say was that they got to go through and

blueprint the script around the building.

And so that's why all the action is very meticulously scripted and shot in very specific ways because they basically went in and planned the whole thing in the building.

I've had dreams about that, but in a terror nightmare dreams before.

Explain.

Well, you know how you always have those dreams where you show up and you realize you...

you skip the class and you have a test or something.

Sure.

It was when we were at Rooster Teeth and

it was like Laser Team 3 or something.

Oh my God.

I was talking with Matt Holm, who was directing it.

And he was like, yeah,

we don't really have the script for this next scene, but it takes place in this room.

Like, do you think you could do it?

Yeah, five minutes.

Oh my God.

We're shooting it.

We'll be here in an hour.

I probably shouldn't tell you guys this, but that's sometimes how it feels when we're filming Stinky Dragon, where I'm like,

okay, here's an empty room.

From how you wrote our first

quarantine campaign for RTD.

That's

an empty from that.

There were sometimes days we'd wake up and I go, all right, Gus, I got three sentences for you.

One of them is descriptive.

Have fun.

Good luck.

Also, I did some quick research.

John McTiernan actually went to prison because he was doing a lot of wiretapping illegally.

Oh, really?

He did go into some financial problems.

Wiretapping.

He filed for bankruptcy.

Yeah, I think it was like on the production of Rollerball, and then there was also an invasion of privacy civil suit filing against him.

I remember reading all about this.

Yeah, it was like

a whole thing about a dispute on money or something.

There's about

Rollerball, and someone was trying to like mess.

Yeah, he was trying to get someone on tape talking badly about the production company.

Yeah, wow.

Illegal wiretapping.

Sounds like great research for a wiretapping movie.

Yeah, Chris probably found out about that because you had a hidden camera show at one point at Rooster Teeth.

No, no, I think it was just that late night, you know, watch Wikipedia.

Then you like, it sounds like I do the same thing that John does,

which is just like read up on the movies and like the production aspects of them.

Not all of them, but a lot of times I do.

And I like watching a lot of

breakdowns of video diagrams.

Like 3D extras and stuff like that.

Speaking of which, I have three other fun things I learned about this movie that I think helps people enjoy the movie more.

One was,

we were talking about how

I was telling you guys about how Bruce Willis was not able to be on production during the day for a while until he got off Moonlighting.

That actually forced or inspired them to write more supporting character stuff.

So Reginald Val Johnson, his character was actually fleshed out more.

I shot a key.

It's such a good line.

It's such a good line.

And the whole scene of McLean's wife meeting Gruber and taking charge of the situation and telling him, you need to feed these people, that kind of thing.

Oh, that's great.

That was written in.

She's a great character.

Audio Medalia.

Yeah.

So basically, every time you watch the movie, and it's not a Bruce Willis moment, that's actually them going, we need to film some other stuff.

So we're going to, even the scheme reporter, that was a whole thing that they fleshed out and went and shot with the nanny and the kids at the house.

It's such a a good well-written movie though despite the yeah despite the fact that it was like made on the fly a little bit um it really is a tight script yeah and there's very few like flaws but like one of the big ones is the ambulance at the very end being in the

truck well don't spoil stuff oh that it's not there sorry it's not there and then it is there There's a huge continuity issue, but like the movie's so good.

It's kind of like Jurassic Park where there's also a huge continuity issue in that.

There's actually a reason.

No one cares because the movie's so good and you're just along for the ride.

What are you saying?

There's actually a reason behind that continuity error.

They didn't plan that until they were doing this supporting character stuff.

And so that whole, the guy in the limo, they fleshed him out more and came up with a reason for him to stay around and to do that thing.

And so they wrote it in.

Yeah, he's got some fun shots of like him living it up in that limo and then like just insanity happening behind him.

The other thing I was like, knowing, knowing that they like used like, you know, everything, like, no, like they used this building that was like in construction, like they fit scenes.

I like to imagine that there's like someone got injured on set and they called an ambulance in.

They're like, we gotta film this.

We gotta get this into the movie.

We should use this while we have it.

The other thing I was reading about was the

action visual effects stunts that they were doing.

And how I was, I'd say the one, there's one really silly shot.

in this movie.

There's probably more than one, but there's one that really stood out in this viewing, which is when the FBI is throwing, is like sending in the

squad and ruining the whole thing.

And they send in that truck, you know, and the truck like storms the building.

And like the whole time, you know, oh, and he's, and he's seen, he's literally saying all through the, you know, he's saying a Christmas poem during that scene.

Like he incorporates, it's incorporated into the.

Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I love that they build it all up.

The German terrorists are like putting together that like the rocket launcher and it's like this whole thing.

And then they cut to the shot of the rocket hitting.

Like it seems like they're going to shoot this thing as it comes up.

This car drives forever by the way it like the whole time that they're putting together the whole rocket launcher i'm like how far away was this car this special car anyways they finally cut to the shot that they're shooting the car and they like the rocket launcher is like in the second story window just right above the car just like shooting down at it as though it's like just pot shooting and they talked about how like that was one of those moments where they like yeah there's like a uh a string between the rocket launcher and the car and the rocket travels with it and then the the car like explodes, like

all the windows blow out at the same time, and everything like that.

Again, like practical effects, it's believable, it's fun, yeah, and it ages well, yes.

I would agree, yeah, and you mentioned like the side characters, and it's not just like the good side characters you fall in love with, like the FBI cops, Johnson and John.

They're so silly, they're so silly.

Why do they have the same name?

Who cares?

And then they're just like

talking to the other one.

They're talking about like one of them is a Vietnam vet, and he's like, I was in third grade, you know, or something like that.

Little like real moments.

Yeah.

Like just good dialogue.

It's very funny.

It feels like on set, you can tell that the director was like, okay, we need this shot.

You go take cover behind that, you know, bar.

You're preparing your gun because someone's about to come in.

And then they like, he grabs the candy bar.

Like, it's just such a weird little detail, but like, it just makes it so much more human.

Character, even to all the even the bad the little goonies, you know?

Yeah.

Like the little bad guys.

The very tall, blonde, uh, like

Hans.

They all should just be named Hans.

I know there's one named Hans and then the rest are, but they're all just Hans to me.

Um, I do want to talk about the infamous falling shot.

Um,

uh, which everyone, this is a spoiler, but I think everyone's seen this.

The shot of Gruber falling at the end.

It's, it is like, it's one of those things that's shown in like every, you know, film montage that's ever made.

Every parody, it's like, I've been parodying like Family Guy, like every animated series out there that wants to make a joke.

They used a technology that previously had only been developed and used for military purposes to focus on Rickman as he fell because it was a rack focus that would have been impossible to nail manually because he's falling 70 feet and it's in slow-mo.

So if the focus was out of focus, it would have been out of focus for forever.

Yeah.

and so they actually had to use this like they used like uh it's like basically like computer technology that was like calculating the speed of his descent and racking the focus with him so that it would go down with him which i also love that alan rickman did the stunt and had to fall you know several takes um and it is true they they don't tell they didn't tell him when they were going to drop him it was like we're going to drop you on three and they drop him on two but they did it multiple times um and so it but uh

they wanted to get it.

They wanted to get it.

They did it multiple times because they wanted to get the surprise.

But you can't just have a surprise.

They wanted to give, they needed him to also be able to show emotion of like his

realization he's dying.

Like, that's what they also wanted to give that thing.

But I love that that shot

took so much work and endeavor.

And

it's just an iconic film shot.

I like Ellis as my favorite side character.

Ellis is.

He's the guy that is clearly trying to get

John's wife.

Oh, the one who's like caught doing like blow at the beginning of it.

He like negotiates deals for breakfast.

You're knowing that guy won't be.

I'm your white knight.

You know, like it's so the entire scene, you're like, I can't wait till they shoot this guy.

They're going to shoot him.

I cannot wait.

But even like John McLean is like a good character is like, Ellis, don't mess with these guys.

Like, you don't know what you're doing.

And then he's like trying to stop him, even though this guy's a terrible dude.

I negotiate multi-million dollar deals for breakfast.

I think I can handle some Euro trash.

Yeah, yeah.

The stunt that kills me every time that I watch it, I guess, now is

John McClain falling through the elevator shaft, missing the first ledge he was going for.

It was an accident.

And going for the next one.

That was a

distinction, though, right?

That wasn't like he was actually in an elevator I'm sure that, right?

Yeah, but like he did that stunt.

The stuntman was supposed to catch the ledge and missed, and they just used it.

It's perfect.

It's perfect.

So cool.

I didn't know that.

That's awesome.

I have to rewatch that.

I've heard that before.

He hits it like hard.

Like,

it is not a like, oh, he just kind of bounced off.

No, that dude bangs off a metal wall and then somehow grabs the ledge underneath it.

The stuff where action heroes mess up is so good to me.

They do that really well.

It's never good on set.

You never want it to happen.

But use it if you got it.

What is the one wherever it's like Ghost?

Is it Ghost Protocol where they're in Dubai on the super high building and he's supposed to swing and grab hold of the ledge and said just bangs his head.

And so it's just like whenever it's like, oh, yeah.

It's not always...

It's so much more interesting when they're not perfect.

Well, it feels like in character, too, for John McClain, right?

Yeah, because

he's not used to that.

He's just a New York cop.

Well, and that's why Die Hard, like, I know that two gets a lot of hate, but Die Hard 1, 2, and 3 are like, I think, a really solid trilogy.

It's not till four and five, like Live Free Die Hard and then A Good Day to Die Hard, that he becomes Superman.

And he's literally fighting 1v1 like

a fighter jet.

He gets

fast and furious treatment.

Yes.

But the first three, it's like...

I'm going to watch Section 2 now.

It's a Christmas movie.

It's another one that takes place during the holidays.

I had no interest

to visit him.

Go for it.

I have a direct connection with the actors from both of the movies we talked about.

Yeah.

Did you stop?

Oh, yeah.

Did you drop it?

On Day Five, I worked Gary Busey's son.

That's right.

And then also.

Jake Busey.

Yeah.

And

you're looking it up now.

Who's the other person you have connection to?

You cleaned Bruce Willis's head once.

No,

sorry, sorry, sorry.

William Sadler in day.

I also worked with him.

He is in day five, season two.

So I directed him

in that.

So it's like.

And Sadler is who in Williams.

William Sadler's in Die Heart 2.

He's the villain.

Oh, in Die Heart 2.

Yeah.

He's the main bad guy.

He has this amazing scene where he's doing Tai Chi and the nude.

And he's shredded.

I mean, he's like an absolute unit.

And then you're supposed to be like, oh, this guy's not right in the brain.

Like, he's like he he's like unhinged a little bit

they didn't tell him about that scene they told him about that scene after he was like on the first like after he's already signed up for the movie he's like can we shoot it last because i need to get in shape treaded yeah

like what did he what did he end up doing he just worked out the entire movie so that whenever they actually got to filming it he was ready for it i mean it shows

i don't want to spoil it too much but it is like it's this just hulking guy and then he does this thing with this final move where he turns the tv off the remote but it looks like a gun and you're like oh that guy's insane that's our villain for the movie okay die hard i'm one over i like it i'm gonna it's gonna add it into the rotation to my christmas movies uh thank you for making me watch it again um

and thank you ben for picking your movie i was gonna say i'm so happy it is one of my favorite christmas movies ever and i'm so happy anybody else i'm so happy when anybody else brings it up what movie did you pick ben I picked Jingle All the Way.

I'm so happy that we have a lot of people.

Action stars all around.

Action stars all around.

Oh, mathematics episode.

We've got some crazy action heroes in our.

Yeah.

This is such a, such a

bro Christmas special.

Oh, yeah.

Gather your family around

between Jingle All the Way and Die Hard.

You want to know what the connection is?

Yeah.

Schwarzenegger turned down the role of John McClain to do comedies,

which he went on to do twins with Danny DeVito.

He wanted to branch out into other films.

And so we almost had Schwarzenegger do this role,

which is why we have Schwarzenegger in Zing All the Way, because he became infamous for doing comedies and family movies and that kind of stuff in his later years.

Can you, for people who aren't as familiar, what's the premise of this movie?

Oh, man.

I'm so glad you asked, Chris.

It is about Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is playing this like hardworking, kind of a workaholic dad who is trying to get,

he misses and he's chronically late for like all of his son's like big events, like karate classes and whatnot.

His, like, you know, the mom, the wife's starting to get on to him about it.

And for Christmas, the kid just wants one single thing.

It's a toy.

It's, it's Turbo Man.

And he

basically, last minute Christmas Day has to go out to get this toy that he has told his wife that he definitely already has just left it at the office, and the adventure that happens from that.

And man, him trying to acquire a hot toy and four chris.

It's basically a Furby or like buzzly, you know, like tickle.

They keep calling it a doll.

And at one point, he gets corrected to like action figure.

But throughout the movie, everyone calls it a doll.

It's just such a 90s movie.

It has like the 90s, like push-ins.

Like you have like a long hallway scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he realizes it's going to be like hard to get this toy or something.

And he does that like shocked face, eyes wide, and

punches in.

It's got old Jake Lloyd in it before.

I forget this movie has Jake Lloyd until I watched the movie.

Jake Lloyd was a huge child actor and then Star Wars completely ruined his career because people started to hate him.

It ruined his career

and then he has suffered severely from mental illness since then.

He is highly schizophrenic.

The way I like to describe this movie poorly to friends is what movie can you watch The Terminator disappoint and redeem himself to baby Anakin while fighting the brother of a blues brother brother in his army of Maul Santas?

Oh, whoa, whoa, that's a great way of phrasing it.

So,

the funny thing about this movie is that it was originally written by Randy Kornfield, who this is derived from him watching his in-laws desperately on Black Friday try to get this Power Ranger doll, which you can tell Turbo Man's very Power Ranger-y.

Gotta be Green Ranger.

No, gotta be Red Ranger.

Uh, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that.

Uh, which, by the way, I was gonna say, this is, I didn't say this about Ben, your choice of this.

I I would say this is one of the most anime Christmas movies ever.

Absolutely.

And this feels very much in your foray of like your interests.

And so I actually, every single person, this was like a weird personality test.

Everyone picked stuff that spoke volumes about their personality.

And

no one missed the mark.

No one missed the mark.

It's just one of those, like, I didn't really get into like pop culture and movies until I was like.

Yeah, this is one of the latest movies that was picked of the Christmas movies.

movies 1996 is and so most of my my like movies or Christmas holiday movies are like spent with my family like watching like more like family oriented movies so this is a movie my dad was like this is a movie

dragon

yes this is a movie it's safe for stinky dragon but adults will still love like

love it

there's stuff in this movie as I was like re-watching through last week that I was like oh there's several things in here you you one probably can't do in today's movies but also two

like you can't, uh, you watch through it as a kid, you're like, I remember this scene being like so much longer, feeling so bad for like Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, but then as an adult, you're like, this idiot.

Oh, my God.

Like, I can't believe this scenario he's ended up in, but also it's like so funny that just like flew over like kids' heads, right?

It was a like what?

Can you elaborate?

Well, I think the whole premise of it

doesn't really,

it's something that had to happen in the 90s because this

fervent rush for the in-person brick-and-mortar store items is a thing of the past.

Like, even the shots of the store employees getting stepped on and

parents pushing people into shelves and that kind of thing.

Like, it's funny,

Blaine, you were about to say Buzz Lightyear.

It was actually rewritten by Chris Columbus, who had the same situation trying to get a Buzz Lightyear one year.

Interesting.

And so,

it's all based around that kind of a thing of a bygone past.

Like fervent Black Friday fever when parents, people would get together and line up at like 5, 4 in the morning to get into stores first.

I was going to say, I would argue that

holiday rush still exists because PlayStation 5s were very difficult to acquire.

But I guess the internet is not going to be a good thing.

But not as much as it used to be.

When you think about Black Friday,

the original toy of this was Cabbage Patch Kids.

That was the original toy that was the.

Yeah.

That's, I think, I don't remember that.

This movie has like the stampede in the mall where like a group of people are like literally stepping over employees.

Like, yeah, there's the ball scenario where for whatever reason, the owner of the shop is like for a megaphone is using some toy with a microphone to like

talk to the audience that's there.

And then they just throw all the balls up.

It's like an Elotto system to raffle this thing.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger has to like crawl through a mall playground full of kids.

Yeah.

And like he gets accused of being some like creep toward these kids and beaten by a bunch of moms.

I think people could argue for themselves what their favorite thing that Arnold Schwarzenegger says in his accent is.

There's always lines that everyone loves.

You know, get to the choppa, that kind of thing.

Do it.

Do it now.

I would actually argue my favorite line is in this movie.

It's after.

it down.

No, it's, and that's a great movie as well.

Put it down.

That's a, that's a great line from this movie.

Put the cookie down.

That's what it is.

No, it's after he is caught trying to wrestle the ball from a little girl and all the moms are banging on him and yelling at things.

It's, and he's like, he retorts back.

He goes, I'm not the pervert.

It's so good.

It's such a good Arnold line.

He's like in the ball pit and he's like, hello, little boy.

And he like picks up this red ball.

he's like do you want to trade this red ball for me

it's very much a thing that if a parent saw that you'd be like that's a pervert there's a pervert in the ball pit get that another

and i feel like if you're watching a movie today you'd be like oh this feels this feels a little like too real or like creepy yeah but there's also like um

The two other things that stood out to me that I was like, oh, I don't know.

Like, there's a literal like bomb package scene

with Sinbad and it was Martin Moll, who's like the principal from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

He plays a DJ in the scene and Sinbad pulls a package out and he starts shaking it and being like, this is a bomb.

Don't mess with me.

Oh, baby, that's pre-9-11.

Let's talk about Sinbad for a second.

Because

I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole because I was like, where has Sinbad been?

Because he was huge in movies, these kinds of movies, for a while.

Shazam.

Nope.

I'm just kidding.

I know.

I know.

But he kind of went away.

for a while.

And it turns out he did a lot of TV work, a lot of voice acting work.

In fact, he's Mr.

Smiley in Steven Universe.

Oh, really?

The arcade.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Yeah, that was a fun little thing.

He did have a comedy special in 2010 that did pretty well, apparently.

But he also had a stroke in 2020 and is still recovering from it.

I did not know that.

I love him being cast in this

because,

one,

he is enormous next to Arnold, which they actually did that on purpose.

They wanted to get somebody who would not look small next to Arnold Arnold so that they could like kind of be a

foil to each other.

But there's a moment where they're standing next to you.

It's when they meet in the line for the first store.

And Sinbad's standing over Arnold.

I didn't realize Sinbad was that big of a guy.

They really do.

So Gurgaon.

Go, you go.

They do their best to minimize Arnold's bodybuilder physique.

They put him up against Big Show, who's

the giant Santa, a professional wrestler.

Anything they can do to make Arnold look like an everyman, which is impossible.

I know, I know.

It's still silly.

And I like, this is not surprising, and this happens a lot with comedians, but if you re-watch the movie, I think it makes it even better.

Most of Sinbad's lines with him and other co-stars and like Arnold were improvised.

It's just Sinbad, you know, yelling like, you know, like when he gets tackled during the whole balls, like being thrown around the raffle thing, and like he's like, Rodney King, Rodney King.

Like, it's just so good.

The one line from him that's always stuck out to me in this movie is like after the bomb package scene, and he like stops and he goes, Oh man, that was a bomb.

This world's messed up, man.

This world's messed up.

This world.

He is so ruminous.

I love Phil Hartman's character.

Phil Hartman plays a really

good, obnoxious neighbor.

He did a similar character in Small Soldiers.

Yes.

Where he's just got this charm and he just smiles and you just want to punch you in the face.

He is

everyone.

I actually, I texted

the one person I know that loves this movie more than anybody else, former Roosteth employee Tony Simonetta, head of our merchandising.

Tony adores this movie, has a ton of apparel that has this movie all over it and that kind of thing.

And I'm watching this movie, and it is like, it's poorly reviewed on the internet.

It's kind of a, it's still like, I know a lot of people love it, but it's also like a lot of people think it's stupid.

And I asked him, I was like, why do you think this movie works?

Where, in my opinion, a lot of movies that try the same kind of like quote-unquote dumb humor, it just feels cringy and unfunny.

And I loved his take on it, and I agree with it.

A lot of it boils down to Arnold's likability performance.

And throughout this whole movie, yes, he is

a bad dad.

You know, he's that trope.

But he's still likable throughout the whole thing.

And

it's actually everyone's performance is what I actually came, I kind of took that a a step further because like Sinbad is firing on all cylinders with comedy this entire movie.

Phil Hartman is being one of the best, you want to punch him in the face, villains.

The mom even feels like genuine and like she's not.

Rita Wilson.

Yeah, Rita Wilson's not like a one-dimensional, like just ragging on him the whole time.

Like she really wants Arnold to win.

Like even when he accidentally yells at his son, you know, over the phone, like her response is like, dang it.

Like she's like, this was your opportunity to like succeed.

I want you to win.

Like they're all doing great.

In fact, i don't want to speak ill of him the one person i actually think that does poorly is that i think jake lloyd actually gives a pretty bad performance to this movie it's very forced and uh robotic uh where i think if like a more natural sounding kid could have like felt a little bit better um it felt a little like over the top like christmas movie to me yeah you know like a little cheesy for like the kid to be that ups like a kid would be upset with all the things he was going through but it was a little like pushing it to be like, I need this Turbo Man dad.

I got to get this Turbo Man.

He's pushing lines the whole time.

Yeah.

I was looking at the movie is set in basically the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, and what's the city next to it?

I can't remember.

And the parade at the end, which I love, is it's like all practical, except for

they expand it with some matte painting stuff, but it was like 1,500 extras, that kind of a thing.

Wow.

And it's actually based off of a parade that they had in Minneapolis.

The parade is no longer there.

It's like a marketplace now, like changed in like 2002 or something like that.

But it's called like the

holidazzle parade.

And it was like one of those things that happened like every night in Minneapolis.

Like it was a whole thing that like drew commerce and people there.

But they did it during the day for the movie.

And one of my favorite things about this movie is the level of advanced technology that is in the Turbo Man suit at the very end.

Yeah, I was watching and I was wondering like drones weren't really a thing when they filmed this.

Like, how would they have filmed those scenes where he's like flying around?

The filming is clearly green screens.

I meant.

I agree with you, Ben.

It's the technology in his suit, like the literal flying hand control.

Ironman suit.

Correct.

Right.

For a holiday parade.

It is.

It is high-production value parade costume.

It's the combination of all of those things that I was just like,

how did this come together?

I started analyzing the film brain right of like, okay, wait, hold on.

How did they do this scene?

Like, what would be practical way to to do this in like 95, I think, 96 when this movie came out, like to execute on this?

Yeah.

And I agree with you, Blaine.

They do their best to downplay the Arnold of him, but it gets the most comedically silly at the end when he is in the Turbo Man suit and it's just his eyes are obscured by an orange visor.

Yep.

And he's got a voice modulator that barely modulates his voice, and his child and wife don't know him

while they are a foot from his face.

It's

the parade is also the other like things you can't do today moment for me.

It was the last one of like they pull up to the parade and the mom's like, all right, kids, get out.

We'll find you later.

And they just throw their two kids into this like

parade of 1,600 people.

Yeah.

The 90s.

Yeah, man.

I have one gripe about this movie.

Go for it.

And I've had this gripe about a lot of movies actually now that I've gone back and rewatched movies like this.

This is one of those movies that sets expectations of parents in practically high.

It's very from the kids' perspective of how parents are supposed to be.

But now, as someone who has raised children for the last 14 years of my life, I watch and I'm like, Arnold's trying his best, guys.

Okay.

He is like trying to be a bread earner in a one-income family.

He is trying to make it to all of his, like, he even has the conversation with the kid at the one point where he's like, I was at your green belt.

And he's like, but you missed my yellow belt.

And it's like, the dad came to what he could come to, okay?

He can't come to everyone.

He's not the black belt.

Yeah.

John, I swear to God, if I don't see you in some kind of Power Ranger outfit Christmas Day flying through the downtown streets of Austin, I'm questioning your parental abilities.

You're a bad parent.

In my opinion on this rewatching, Sinbad's the hero in this movie to me because he is the low-income public servant who is desperately trying to be a hero to his kid.

The system is not in his favor.

He's actually the nice guy who's trying to befriend somebody in line and that kind of thing.

And I was rooting for Sinbad the whole time.

Have you guys ever experienced this situation where you're on the hunt for something that's like really sought after and there's not many left and you have to like track it down?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What was what was the last when was the last time you had to do that?

Sorry, this is this is related to the movie, but like it's something that I think at the time people were able to relate to.

And I had a like a turbo man hunt pre-pandemic i was trying to get a nintendo switch and i like went all over the offset

shortage yeah and it was it was like everyone knew we were about to go into lockdown and i and it was like online ordering and like the the online um

system for like you know how many they had in stock and stuff like that was totally garbage but i ended up finding one like three cities over and i remember the rush to get it and stuff yeah similarly for me it was the like wii like the original nintendo wi i was working in high school at a game stop and i couldn't get one like my manager was like we just they're already booked people have already like reserved them all and then i remember coming to work one day and she came up to me and she was like i just got word walmart's gonna have a release tonight at midnight for the wii if you get in line early or not early enough like you can get one and i like got off of my shift walked next door to the walmart and like got in line and i was the like last person who was able to get a ticket to go oh that's it was like

never felt more like validated of like i feel like i had insider information to like get where I needed to go just in time.

It's really good managed for a movie.

Oh, yeah, totally.

That's a good thing.

Oh, she ruled.

She would like, you know, like GameStop Corporate, you know, would be very strict with a lot of like rules and everything, but she would like put the rock band set behind the camera.

So like when it was slow, we could go play rock band on work hours.

She ruled.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

It's good stakes for a movie.

It's like, I'm on the hunt for this Christmas gift.

And

there's a built-in ticking clock and it's a good setup for comedy.

And it's, yeah.

I was worried.

I should listen to the one I watched.

You should.

I was worried like re-watching it because it had been a while and John asked me like what movie do you want?

And I was like, oh, like Jingle always is like one of my favorites.

Let's go with that one.

If Blaine hasn't already picked it, because it has Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.

It might be like one of his favorites.

And I was re-watching the start of it and I was like, oh man.

Like we have the mall scene.

Maybe this is a little slow.

Maybe I missed remembering this.

The movie movie

and gets out.

And then like we get to the mall Santa scene and like where he's fighting all the mall Santas in the warehouse.

And I'm like, never mind.

This movie slaps.

This movie's great.

This is awesome.

It's pretty great.

All culminating in the whole him accidentally being in the parade.

It's just so silly.

Which I realize it's our only time we've gotten to see Arnold dressed up as a comic book superhero, I think.

I don't think he's been

very

action, like a super suit.

Has Arnold ever been in like a super suit kind of situation?

Mr.

Freeze.

Oh, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

I guess he was a villain.

This is him being a hero.

We got to see him as a hero.

There's so much makeup.

The summer man is technically a comic book hero.

It's true.

But I meant like him being in a full-body super suit, you know, the Iron Man costume.

The Spandex.

Yeah.

Something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I don't think so.

Like, Mr.

Freeze even was like so much makeup and costuming, like, it doesn't feel like a superhero type thing, you know?

Running man was kind of a superhero costume.

A little bit.

It was a one-piece, like, a Spandex suit.

Another

connection to Tony Simonetta, he made a Running Man costume.

In fact, I think Blaine didn't, don't you have it?

It's currently in my closet.

Yeah, I was going to say.

Tony is like one of the best little fanboys I've ever met.

He makes costumes and has so much paraphernalia.

He's so fun to talk to about that kind of stuff.

This movie's fantastic.

I think this was a really good choice as well.

I love it.

It's just such a good, like, feel-good movie.

Also, I have like a lot of nostalgia with it, right?

I just think like my dad and

watching this with my brothers.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I could talk about this movie for so long.

But I'm going to end this here

and remind everybody that this isn't the end of the Christmas special.

There's actually part two available right now on the Patreon.

If you go to patreon.com/slash sneaky dragon, you can sign up and watch it there

along with just

a avalanche of other content,

including previous episodes of Stinky Pop, Second Wind, our supplemental episode for Stinky Dragon, our main show, Behind the Screen, our DM-led kind of

behind-the-screen show, stuff like that.

And also, we have a bunch of video game content where we play things like Baldur's Gate and stuff like that.

We would really appreciate your support.

It would bring a Christmas smile to our face.

Wow.

But thank you guys.

I think I loved all you guys' choices.

This was so fun to watch these movies.

I watched like six Christmas movies in the course of like two days.

It was a great like jumpstart to the Christmas season for me.

And I think you guys all picked actually really good choices that were just like really fun to talk about and learn about.

My dad's going to be psyched when Christmas morning comes around.

I say we got to watch Lethal Weapon 1 through 4.

I'm curious.

I really want to know what Gus, Micah, and Barb picked.

I won't say it on mic because I want people to go watch the thing, but I'll tell you once we cut the mics, Chris.

Ooh.

Yeah.

But thank you so much, and thank you to you, our audience, and especially thank you to our supporters.

Have a happy holidays and a wonderful new year.

Woo.

Bye-bye.

Trip Planner by Expedia.

You were made to outdo your holiday,

your hammocking,

and your pooling.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

From Australia to San Francisco, Cullen Jewelry brings timeless craftsmanship and modern lab-grown diamond engagement rings to the U.S.

Explore Solitaire, trilogy, halo, and bezel settings, or design a custom ring that tells your love story.

With expert guidance, a lifetime warranty, and a talented team of in-house jewelers behind every piece, your perfect ring is made with meaning.

Visit our new Union Street showroom or explore the range at cullenjewelry.com.

Your ring, your way.