Finding Dory with Zach Cherry

Summary

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Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: Finding Dory with Zach Cherry

Release Date: July 12, 2026

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims
Guest: Zach Cherry
Producer: Ben Hosley

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Episode Overview

This episode of Blank Check dives deep into Finding Dory (2016) as Griffin, David, and special guest Zach Cherry dissect Pixar’s megahit sequel, explore its context within Pixar’s shift toward more sequels, assess its creative merits, and reflect on Ellen DeGeneres’s defining voice performance. The conversation weaves in discussion of franchise fatigue, the inside politics of Disney and Pixar, sequel culture, and the sometimes-fraught legacy of animated voice performances. As always, the episode is laced with humor, tangents about movie trivia, and the panel’s signature irreverence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sequels, Franchise Fatigue, & The State of Pixar

• Pixar’s Sequel Shift: The hosts contextualize Finding Dory around Pixar’s evolving strategy—going from nearly a decade of all-original films to increased sequel output under Disney pressure post-acquisition.
  • "Toy Story 95, Toy Story 2 99, then 11 years with no sequels...then 2010 is Toy Story 3...2016 is Finding Dory, 2018 is Incredibles 2."
    (Griffin, 04:07–04:32)
• Disney's Business Logic: There’s a frank acknowledgment that the sequelization was always about maximizing returns on beloved characters.
  • "If we just put out a poster with a picture of Dory and any of those three jokes...it will make $1 billion."
    (Griffin, 00:59)
• Fatigue Starts Here: While Finding Dory was a massive hit, many panelists felt it marked the beginning of legitimate Pixar fatigue.
  • "I do think this was the start of the kind of Pixar fatigue...Is this really what we're doing now?"
    (Griffin, 05:17)

2. The Long Wait and the Surprise of Finding Dory

• Most panelists forgot or underestimated the 13-year gap between Finding Nemo and Finding Dory.
  • "In my memory of the timeline of Pixar, it was Finding Nemo. And then Finding Dory came out, like, two years later...I had no recollection that it was a full 13."
    (Zach, 02:38–02:47)
• Zach points out that generational turnover—kids raised on the original—supercharged sequel interest.

3. Ellen DeGeneres, Voice Acting, and Awards Discourse

• Ellen's Performance: There is unanimous praise for Ellen's voice performance, both in Finding Nemo and Finding Dory.
  • "She's so funny...There was a time when I was like, she's the funniest person on the planet."
    (Zach, 11:09)
  • "We were making the case in the Nemo episode that she should have been nominated for best supporting actress...it's almost absurd she didn't get in."
    (Griffin, 14:57)
• Voice Acting Crossover: Conversation shifts to the Oscar/awards system and its reluctance to recognize voice work. Notable exceptions cited include Eddie Murphy’s BAFTA nom for Shrek.
  • "The BAFTA awards had nominated Eddie Murphy for Shrek. Incredible...the only [major group] to ever nominate a voiceover performance."
    (Griffin, 15:17–16:16)

4. Sequel Development and Disney/Pixar Politics

• Detailed recounting of the Disney/Pixar business relationship, sequels embargo, and the odd post-John Carter "get-out-of-jail-free-card" effect for director Andrew Stanton.
  • Circle 7 Studio Anecdotes: Insight into Disney’s abortive "Circle 7" sequels—with absurd pitches like "Finding Marlin"—is delivered with glee.
    • "They started a company called Circle 7, and it's like...Finding Marlin. Basically, Nemo's got to find Marlin. Dory gets her memory back by hitting her head. Nemo is given a long lost brother..."
      (Griffin/David, 43:40–44:57)

5. Creative/Structural Challenges in Finding Dory

• Structural Problems: The opening act is flagged for feeling forced, laden with callbacks and fan service, likened to "key jangling."
  • "First 20 minutes, like, white knuckling the armrests and being like, this is bad...you feel the movie just kind of like swerve, pull out a victory and stay good."
    (Griffin, 34:32)
• Iterative Process & Deleted Scenes: Insights from the Blu-ray extras: multiple alternate openings, struggle to give Dory agency despite her memory condition, and the challenge of flashback storytelling.
  • "There are multiple stabs at...the reason she got lost is because her parents also have short term memory..."
    (Griffin, 57:03–57:33)

6. Disability & Neurodivergence Themes

• The film’s metaphor for neurodivergence and caregiving is praised as the essential creative justification for the sequel.
  • "It's like basically a movie about being a caretaker for a special needs adult...but it's also specifically about Dory, like, learning to be confident in herself."
    (Griffin, 81:47; Zach, 82:24)

7. Character Praise & Voice Casting

• New Characters Shine: The panel commends Finding Dory for successfully introducing excellent supporting characters—especially Ed O’Neill’s Hank the Octopus, Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), and Bailey (Ty Burrell/Bluegaw).
  • "Every new character introduced in this film is excellent...well designed, funny, well developed, well cast"
    (Griffin, 19:03–19:14)
• Casting Stories: Fun, inside-Pixar anecdotes about casting process—playing with actors’ actual dialogue to test fit; Ed O’Neill and Ty Burrell’s modern family connection.
  • "It's funny in John Carter, you're like, oh, nine. You can tell which TV show Stanton was watching when he cast that..."
    (Griffin, 62:46)

8. Cultural & Industry Shifts

• Changing Audience Tastes: Moana’s (2016) modest box office but growing legacy, driven by music, is contrasted with Dory's instant but more fleeting success.
  • "Moana, which was...slightly an underperformer at the time, has...outgained it in legacy ... Songs help your legacy."
    (David/Zach, 28:43/29:02)
• Oscars "Sequel Snubbing": The panel lists how the Academy became increasingly resistant to Pixar sequels, with rare exceptions.

9. Visual Design & Technical Feats

• Marine Institute & Animation: Discussion of the jump in tech between Nemo and Dory, and the iterative, challenge-driven approach of Stanton, especially Hank’s complex animation.
  • "They have said it was the most difficult character they ever had to animate..."
    (Griffin, 68:17)

10. Comic Tangents & Movie Fan Culture

• Recurrent asides: live-action Finding Dory by James Cameron, Jurassic Park/King Kong/Donkey Kong riffs, Zelda-style "woke" jokes, and gentle mockery of modern franchise trends.
• Oscar for Voice Performance Hypotheticals: The hosts riff on who would win Oscars for recent animated performances (Jack Black? Holly Hunter? Jake Johnson?).

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Notable Quotes

• "Every time they do the joke of someone invoking Sigourney Weaver by her full name, it gets me."
  – Griffin, 66:10
• "My favorite part of the movie...It starts with Nemo and Marlin when they're stuck in the fountain...They start saying, 'What would Dory do?'...and then Dory starts saying, 'What would I do?'...making yourself a...heroic figure to look up to, I thought was really kind of beautiful."
  – Zach, 133:35–134:29
• "There's an octopus driving a truck. What the hell else do you want?"
  – JJ (via Griffin), 137:33
• "It's another smart, kind of, Pixar logic thing...how does that tag...He wants to go to Cleveland so he can live in peace..."
  – Griffin, 103:02–103:19
• "They're not doing buzzwordy representation matters...This movie gets there very honestly and doesn't try to weaponize it in any manipulative way."
  – Griffin, 84:00–85:03

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:59–02:29 | Pixar Sequelization, Box Office Logic | | 02:38–03:07 | The 13-Year Gap Between Films | | 04:07–04:32 | Sequel Timeline | | 14:57–16:16 | Ellen’s Voice Oscar Snub & Voice Acting at Awards | | 19:03–19:14 | Praise for New Characters in Dory | | 34:32–36:18 | Panel’s Mixed Reaction to Film’s Opening Act | | 57:03–58:33 | Story Structure, Memory Limits, Deleted Openings | | 62:46–64:01 | Pixar’s Casting Process; Ed O’Neill Story | | 81:47–83:53 | Neurodivergence, Caregiving, Thematic Depth | | 103:02–103:19 | Hank Using Dory’s Condition, Clever Pixar Logic | | 133:35–134:29| “What Would Dory Do?” & Self-Empowerment Theme | | 137:33 | “Octopus Driving a Truck”—Ultimate Pixar Escalation | | 141:11–142:37 | Pixar Tech Evolution; “Movie Magic” Debate |

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Memorable Moments

• “Old Marlin” Pitch: Zach Cherry repeatedly jokes about wanting to pitch a "Logan"-style, elderly Marlin sequel/spinoff, leading to recurring comedic beats.
• Tangents on Live-Action Remakes: The hosts and Zach riff on James Cameron directing a “real” Finding Dory, King Kong with a glove and a helmet, and a Donkey Kong movie.
• Oscar & Awards Tangents: Extended bits about whom they'd hand imaginary “Best Voice Performance” Oscars to from recent animation.
• Irreverent Takedowns: Brief, humorous eviscerations of Cars 2, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Good Dinosaur, and various other "gentleman six" movies.
• Podcast Meta-Jokes: Griffin and David poke fun at Blank Check’s own tropes (scheduling bits, frequent movie theater references, “key jangling”).
• Gerald the Sea Lion Discourse: Zach questions how the film slightly undermines its “accept your differences” message by depicting Gerald as a perpetual butt of the joke.

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Structure of the Conversation

1. Episode Cold Open & Tagline Bit (00:01–02:29): The hosts riff on Finding Dory’s taglines as a way to start in the film’s marketing mentality.
2. Sequel Culture & Pixar’s Corporate Trajectory (04:07–06:44): Contextualization within Hollywood business trends.
3. Ellen, Voice Performance, and Representation (11:09–16:16): Appreciation for comedy and acting, plus the limits of Hollywood’s recognition for voice actors.
4. The Sequelization Battle—Inside Baseball (19:03–24:55): Disney/Pixar dealmaking history and insider stories.
5. Mixed Reaction to the Film’s Structure (34:32–36:13): Panel critique of the film’s bumpy first act and greater affection for its creative midsection.
6. Theme Deep-Dive: Disability Caregiving & Neurodivergence (81:47–85:03): The real emotional argument for the film’s existence.
7. Praised Visuals and Technical Challenges (68:17): Hank the Octopus’s “animation nightmare.”
8. Fast-Paced Tangents and Industry Parody (Throughout, incl. 103:02, 133:35, etc.): Ongoing comedic asides, parodies, and future-blank check musings.
9. Closing Reflections & “Old Marlin” Spinoff Pitch (166:07–167:13): Ending on a joke about a potential, unlikely future spinoff.

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Final Thoughts

• Finding Dory is recognized as both a successful, emotionally honest sequel and an emblem of the trade-offs in Pixar’s “sequel era”—less freewheeling artistry, but high craftsmanship and moments of deep resonance.
• Ellen DeGeneres’s performance is lauded as a high point for voice acting in major animation.
• The hosts and Zach Cherry give a nuanced, affectionate, and slightly bittersweet assessment: the film justifies its existence, especially through its themes of neurodivergence and empowerment, but it also marks a transition point for Pixar toward safer, more business-oriented choices.
• The episode is a lively mix of industry analysis, movie trivia, behind-the-scenes insight, and rowdy, affectionate critique—living up to Blank Check’s reputation as both an irreverent and deeply informed film podcast.

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Listen If You’re Interested In…

• The politics and artistry of animation, especially as it intersects with Hollywood business.
• The intricacies of sequelization (its creative and commercial impacts).
• The ongoing push for voice acting to get its due as a serious craft.
• Hearing comedians and critics riff on movie culture, the Oscars, Ellen’s arc, and the oddities of family film legacy.

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For more detailed summaries, check out Blank Check’s archives and their upcoming miniseries on Martin Scorsese’s career.

Transcript

[Griffin]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack. An Unforgettable podcast. She Probably Won't remember. So that was one of three taglines for this film. An Unforgettable Journey. She Probably Won't Remember. That one's kind of clever. I don't know if you caught this, it's a subtle thread, but the character of Dory and Finding Dory has memory issues.

[David]

That's so true.

[Griffin]

Short term memory loss. Second tagline. Have you seen her?

[David]

Yeah, that one I liked. I remember those are the teasers. Because she'd be hiding in the.

[Griffin]

She'd be really small and it would be like the. The manta Ray migration or whatever you'd see sort of. Or the Stingrays. Is that right? And then the third one was she Just Kept Swimming.

[David]

She just Kept swimming.

[Griffin]

Now, I like this movie, but those three taglines show why this movie needed to happen, which was basically the Walt Disney Company being like, if we just put out a poster with a picture of Dory and any of those three jokes that are just right there for the taking, it will make $1 billion. All you need to do is be like, here's Dory again. And she's still Dory.

[David]

That is exactly what happened.

[Griffin]

Have you seen her? Great. She's gone missing. She just kept swimming. That's the thing she does. Sure. Unforgettable journey. She probably won't remember. Love it. I'm laughing and my heart is warm.

[David]

She's a fucking fish. Come, come now. The theater. Theater has seats. You can sit down in any of them as long as you, you know, paid for your ticket. And we'll show you the fish and then our business is done.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

That's how Pixar should.

[Griffin]

We fulfilled our end of the bargain.

[David]

That's how Sequel should. She's just. Can you come? I'm really. I got other stuff to do. She's a Fish.

[Griffin]

It was one of those movies where there was a lot of marketing, but it didn't feel like there was like audible hyper excitement.

[David]

No, because like, Monsters University had to be like, remember the Monsters did they went to school? I'm like, I guess they did. They're like, well, they did. Okay, listen to me, okay? And they did. And it was called this Monsters Universe

[Griffin]

was selling you a weirder take. So it had to be more of a conversation.

[David]

Finding Dory was like, we got the

[Griffin]

Nemo fish and Everyone was like, got it. I'll circle it on my calendar. I won't talk about it until then. I'll show up. I'll give my money. I'll see you.

[Zach Cherry]

How far apart were monsters? 1 and 212 years. Okay, so about the same amount. About the same.

[Griffin]

And Mori is 14.

[Zach Cherry]

13.

[Griffin]

13.

[Zach Cherry]

I was shocked. I was shocked. In my memory of the timeline of Pixar, it was Finding Nemo. And then finding Dory came out, like, two years later.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

Like, I had no recollection that it was a full 13.

[David]

Like, you're sitting down to finding Dory being like, I just found Nemo.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes.

[David]

I gotta find her too.

[Zach Cherry]

In my memory. That's how it took place. So then when I, like, you know, when I plugged in to do. To do my part of the podcast, I was shocked to learn that there was, like, a huge gap. I had. I had no memory of that.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I mean, first we lost Nemo under the Bush administration. Yeah. W. And Dory was found under the Obama administration.

[Zach Cherry]

Was it, like, what was happening right at the time?

[Griffin]

Trump has not had to deal with Marlon yet. He is the first. Well, I guess Biden didn't either.

[Zach Cherry]

Where's Dory?

[David]

Yeah, but I was going to say Biden did have kind of a bit of a Dory brain.

[Griffin]

Biden kept asking for Dory and Nemo. Which one?

[David]

Slot.

[Zach Cherry]

Well, maybe this inspired him.

[Griffin]

What were you going to ask?

[Zach Cherry]

What was happening with Pixar at the time? Like, great question.

[Griffin]

I was already. Dan, was it like, like, I mean, we will.

[Zach Cherry]

We need a big win.

[David]

Yeah, for sure.

[Zach Cherry]

That. That was. I do remember it feeling like, oh, shit, they're actually doing a.

[Griffin]

They're like, I'm gonna correct Sims here.

[Zach Cherry]

Coming back to Nemo, it wasn't.

[Griffin]

You need a big win. It was, guys, it's time to play ball.

[David]

You're right. The internal politics. You're right. Totally.

[Griffin]

It was. We respect the artistic purity thing, but

[David]

once in a while, we're gonna do something. Right.

[Zach Cherry]

Because we gotta cash a check.

[Griffin]

Yes. Toy Story 95, Toy Story 299. They don't make another sequel for 11 years. From 99 to 2009, it's all original films.

[David]

Right. And then 2010 is Toy Story 3.

[Griffin]

2011 is Cars 2.

[David]

That's true.

[Griffin]

2013, 13 is Monsters University. 2016 is Finding Dory. 2018 is Incredibles 2.

[David]

You're forgetting in 2006, 17 is Cars 3 3.

[Griffin]

And then 2019 is Toy Story 4.

[David]

That's right. That's right.

[Griffin]

And suddenly.

[David]

Suddenly a lot of sequels.

[Griffin]

Yes. And it. It was just kind of the backlog of. We respect what you've done. But come on, guys.

[David]

Right?

[Zach Cherry]

Like Dory's right in the middle of this.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Right. Which is boom. I remember when it came out, my reaction being like, fine, I guess so

[Griffin]

I did see it. This movie was a ginormous hit success. I very excited memory hold just how huge it was. But I do think this was the start of the kind of Pixar fatigue of. Is this really what we're doing now? You know, Toy Story 3 was beloved. Monsters University less so. But it had novelty to it. We haven't been sequelizing. All of these cars had already kind of been written off as cars.

[David]

Was always.

[Griffin]

That's the junk.

[David]

Yeah. Sure.

[Griffin]

This is for babies.

[Zach Cherry]

Consider that almost a different totally thing.

[Griffin]

But then the accumulation of it by the time you get to Finding Dory is really already just.

[David]

This is so much better than Monsters University.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Huge.

[David]

Monsters University. I don't like. I know you do.

[Griffin]

I like it a lot. I defend it.

[Zach Cherry]

How did the originals compare? Like, was Nemo a much bigger hit than.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Zach Cherry]

Monsters.

[Griffin]

Finding Nemo, when it came out, was the highest grossing animated film in history. It was the sixth highest grossing movie period. I believe something like that. It was in the top 10 of all time.

[David]

It was a big hit.

[Zach Cherry]

All for that little fish. Yeah.

[David]

So it doesn't even have two whole fins.

[Griffin]

But that was there. It was like Toy Story A Bug's Life does about the same. Maybe a little less than the first Toy Story. Then Toy Story 2. Huge jump up. Monsters Inc. Huge jump up. Finding Nemo, ginormous jump up. And then they sort of hit a plateau. Incredibles is down a little bit. It's like Ratatouille up and Wall E are all in the like 200 to 300 million dollar range. And then when they pull the band aid off the sequel thing, the numbers go through the roof. It's humongous because there had been so much built up. You have successfully built these characters that have endured and are beloved and have now been like activated across multiple generations. Kids are being raised on these who weren't even born when the first one came out.

[Zach Cherry]

I will say I'm ready. I am ready for a whole lot more in the finding universe.

[Griffin]

Zach. They announced this week that Ellen DeGeneres, who of course has retired from public life and told us all a year ago that we were never going to see her again, has signed on to reprise the role of Dory. In some sort of undefined short film.

[Zach Cherry]

Interesting.

[Griffin]

They are doing something new with Dory.

[Zach Cherry]

What's the film? I'm not.

[Griffin]

I'm not either, but it was just interesting. The announcement in and of itself doesn't feel that big, but it feels like it's more of a. Is she coming back and is Dory gonna do more?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

This is her last film role currently.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

This is. This is the last time Ellen was in a film. Who would get lost this time? The teacher should get.

[Griffin]

I mean, everyone's stingray.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

When this came out, the cynical jokes out. Like, do you do Finding Marlin to complete the trilogy? And it's like there's no movie there.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Nothing's being activated by him being lost or found because he also ostensibly is lost in.

[David]

But he's.

[Zach Cherry]

Maybe he's. Maybe he's sunsetting a little bit. He's starting to.

[David]

Oh, he. Biden.

[Zach Cherry]

Yep. It's all good.

[David]

Biden.

[Griffin]

He won't stop talking about that.

[Zach Cherry]

You got some juice there.

[David]

Wait, the little ass turtle spin off about him, isn't it? Well, the big one's crush. Oh. So.

[Griffin]

But it's Squirt.

[David]

It's Squirt. I think.

[Griffin]

Yeah, totally.

[Zach Cherry]

But I was more. I'm in the mood for a Young Marlin prequel series.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[Zach Cherry]

I want to see Nemo. Nemo go on his own epic journey. Sure.

[Griffin]

I sort of want to.

[Zach Cherry]

Like.

[Griffin]

You want to. Here's what you want. You want young Marlon before he's this boring henpecked family man.

[Zach Cherry]

Before he's trauma.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

He's trauma.

[Griffin]

Just so. In his wild oats in the ocean. Yeah. And then. So that's prequel. And then on a separate track, you want Nemo. Flash forward to his 20s. So this is Godfather to sewing his wild oats in the ocean for me. Two separate stories about those young fish fucking around.

[Zach Cherry]

Marlon is Bilbo.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Okay.

[Zach Cherry]

And Finding Nemo is. Finding Nemo and finding Dory are sort of Hobbit esque. And then we need Nemo's Lord of the Rings. That's coming down the pipe.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

He's Frodo. And then young Marlon, you know, is more sort of the lore and silmarillion and that type of stuff. That's what I'm looking for.

[Griffin]

So then what's the hunt for Gollum of the finding universe if we do Peter Jackson?

[David]

Do you want to do a Hobbit movie?

[Zach Cherry]

I love all of Hobbit.

[David]

This is the intro.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm deep.

[David]

This is the answer I was looking for.

[Zach Cherry]

Hobbit was like one of the first, like, real books I ever read.

[David]

I mean, for me too. But. But the movies.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, I love the movies.

[David]

Right. You exited satisfied.

[Griffin]

We get excited anytime we can identify a cherry pick on this podcast.

[David]

Exactly.

[Griffin]

If there is a.

[David]

A just where I was kind of like, h. Because like, if you go to chat GPT and you were like, predict a Zach Cherry blank check episode.

[Griffin]

You can't always do it where it's

[David]

like, he's been on yesterday. The Rollerball remake. Now finding Dory.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

DVDs, like, I don't know, man. I need more information.

[Griffin]

And you'll swing in Zach sometimes with a cold like, hey, if you ever did this director, I would want this.

[Zach Cherry]

1517 to Paris.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Zach Cherry]

Is my ultimate desire.

[Griffin]

You. You called your shot before March Madness on Man on Fire. Love, Man. Tony Scott came close, came closer.

[David]

We'll do him someday, but he'll make it.

[Griffin]

Like a year ago, maybe we threw to you and we're like, this is what we're thinking. And you were like, I like the Coen brothers, but, like, respectfully, none of these feel like they have to be my episode. You've always been very kind of like, I'm not going to do it unless I feel the pull.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Well, except for this one. That's what's weird is somehow we just all landed on. That sounds funny.

[Zach Cherry]

Well, do you know. Do you know how I found out I was doing the Finding Dory episode?

[Griffin]

How?

[Zach Cherry]

Our mutual friend Allison Wilmore was here recording an episode.

[David]

She goes, I saw you on the

[Zach Cherry]

calendar for Finding Dory Ignorance.

[David]

I went, oh, okay.

[Zach Cherry]

I guess that bit was real.

[Griffin]

We had sent you, like, the year's schedule, and you said, hm, Finding Dory. I have been eager to defend my Good friend Ellen DeGeneres on Mike.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[Griffin]

Which was a joke.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes.

[Griffin]

But then David and I looked at each other, stroked our chins and went, does sound like a good episode. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna hold him to this.

[Zach Cherry]

And I will defend her to this day over her sitcom. Great.

[Griffin]

Sick.

[Zach Cherry]

I thought that was good.

[David]

Yeah, we were.

[Griffin]

We were talking about this in. In the Nemo episode of Just like, Ellen was so fucking funny.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, she's so funny. She genuinely. There was a time when I was like, she's the funniest person on the planet. Like, I, you know, I sort of cycle through my. Who's like, doing it for me at the moment. And there was a time when I was like, I would watch her talk show and just everything she said would make me laugh.

[Griffin]

It was impressive that she was still funny on the talk show.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, she's hilarious.

[Griffin]

That there was, you know, she still was able to be kind of dry and cutting and then off camera.

[David]

Off camera, occasionally. She had a bit of a sharp edge. Possibly. Have we discussed the. The second Ellen sitcom, Yellen show.

[Griffin]

We talked about it in the Nemo episode, which. She owns the bookstore.

[David]

No, that's the first Ellen show. Ellen. She owns a bookstore.

[Griffin]

Oh, the second one.

[David]

Second radio show. It's set in the wake. I don't see that. No, it's set in the wake of the dot com bubble bursting. This was a 2001 sitcom. You know, it's like, really? Really. And her Internet company goes bankrupt. She moves to her hometown. She's got a crazy mom played by Clarice Leachman. Scatterbrained sister played by Emily Rutherford. I love that actress. Great actress. Meets an old prom date who thinks they can pick up where they left off, but she's gay, so he doesn't get that. Played by Jim Gaffig was the gay show.

[Griffin]

This was the. Yes.

[David]

Martin Mole plays a befuddled teacher. Oh, yeah. That's really hard for Martin Mull.

[Griffin]

The great car. Kenny on it as well. From the state.

[David]

And then she becomes a guidance counselor at high school.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

So it's like a very kind of like, starladen thing.

[Griffin]

Co created by Mitch Hurwitz.

[David]

Mitch Herwitz of Arrest Development.

[Griffin]

And Carol Lifer, legendary comic. Yeah.

[David]

But like one of those things where I feel like they were like, we got a list talent.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Ellen is now a fully realized, like, you know, society's on board with, like, gay Ellen. Like, there's no shock here anymore. And it aired and everyone was like, no, thank you. And it got canceled immediately.

[Zach Cherry]

This is, I think, the dot com boom of it all, man.

[David]

That is.

[Zach Cherry]

May have doomed it.

[David]

Who cares?

[Griffin]

Not to psychoanalyze too much, but it was interesting when she was doing her episode of the Letterman Netflix show was before the toxic workplace stuff came out. But was the first time where I saw the mask kind of fall of she's really angry. And maybe she did a Marin. And I felt this as well. She has so much lingering anger of how much the industry threw her out while celebrating her bravery for coming out. And then all of the stuff she did after coming out was rejected. And then she has this incredible, like, Nemo comes out. May 2003. The Ellen show premieres like that September or October, like within the year 2003.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, totally.

[David]

Totally.

[Griffin]

She has completely rebounded to the height of American pop culture. And yet it feels like the longer that success extends and the bigger it gets, the more her resentment brews of what happened in that five year wilderness period. And it just like metastasized into this pit of like, wait till you see this short film. It's called Dory. Settles some grudges.

[David]

Yeah, right. Dory's like, it's fine that I'm rich.

[Griffin]

Actually.

[Zach Cherry]

It's good. Yeah.

[David]

She's just swimming back and forth really angrily.

[Griffin]

But I like, I get the. The angle of she was sort of pressured into coming out. There was this feeling of good for you.

[David]

Sure. And then everyone was like, but by the way, we're done with you work anymore.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Come on. Like you're a gimmick now. I think Ellen's good. I'm pro Ellen.

[Zach Cherry]

I think she's brilliant. I think her performance in Finding Nemo.

[David]

I don't think she should.

[Zach Cherry]

Finding Dory is so good. I think she's.

[Griffin]

We were making the case in the Nemo episode that she should have been nominated for best supporting actress. And when you look at the lineup of who got in that year, it's. It's almost absurd that she didn't get in.

[Zach Cherry]

Does. Has anyone ever been nominated for a voice performance?

[David]

Never haven't. She was bandied around at the time because I do feel like it was such a breakout thing what she was doing.

[Griffin]

And the BAFTA awards had nominated Eddie Murphy for Shrek. Incredible. Because.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, he's so good in that.

[David]

He is.

[Griffin]

The BAFTA words have historically had such a bad track record with black actors manifesting in some weird things that happened. At this point.

[David]

There have been no recent incidents. What are you talking about?

[Griffin]

But like, the BAFTAs have never nominated Denzel Washington one time.

[David]

Is that really true? Of course they often snub him. But I was like, really? They never got him in there after

[Griffin]

the I swear thing, I was like, let me do like a full cataloging of this. They literally never nominated Denzel. But then also you look through, like, who are the black actors who get the Oscar noms and how often do they miss the baft nominees?

[David]

It's.

[Griffin]

And it's crazy. And then it's wild that it's like the only one of the major groups. If you, you know, if you go, oh, no. But is bafta Academy the only one of them to ever nominate a voiceover performance is bafta, Eddie Murphy, Shrek.

[David]

It's a great performance. It is so like, I salute them doing it.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

But at the same time, is it insulting where they're like, we loved you as donkey a little bit.

[Griffin]

There's a little bit of a. Like, is this backhanded?

[Zach Cherry]

It's a makeup nomination for Mushu.

[David]

This is so true.

[Zach Cherry]

They didn't get him for Mushu.

[David]

Disney definitely would do the exact same thing. Next time we're gonna do a big Chinese epic. He's the dragon in Mulan.

[Zach Cherry]

In Mulan. Oh, sure.

[David]

Because in the 90s, post genie, it was basically like, there better be a little guy and he better be voice.

[Zach Cherry]

And it is genuinely another incredible performance.

[David]

It is. He's good as Mushu. The live action remake had no Mushu. Right. Like, no.

[Griffin]

Correct. I think there's, like, a statue at one point.

[David]

Cool.

[Griffin]

That they point at. It's like an exclusively Mushu moment. But there is no actual living representation of Mushu. But yes, you're right. It is funny that they were just like.

[David]

Might have been a mistake.

[Griffin]

We want to explore, like, Chinese folklore. Also, there is a dragon who just sounds like 80s Eddie Murphy.

[David]

And he's called Moose.

[Griffin]

He's called Moose.

[Zach Cherry]

Come on.

[Griffin]

And the bit is that he's got, like, a kind of inferiority complex.

[David]

He's right.

[Griffin]

He's like a little dryer.

[David]

Right, right.

[Griffin]

But he also kind of finesses everyone in conversation. We're not talking about Mulan, but we might talk about Mushu some more.

[Zach Cherry]

Nobody from Mario was nominated for an Oscar.

[David]

You mean the recent Super Mario movie? Yeah. Now who are you going for? Who's getting the trophy in your eyes? I've seen that movie. I would say 15 to 20 times at this point.

[Griffin]

We're talking the first one. These Super Mario brothers.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of Galaxy.

[Griffin]

Okay. Galaxy.

[Zach Cherry]

It's not eligible yet.

[Griffin]

Yet.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay.

[David]

Right, right, right. Never know who's getting the. The win for Galaxy.

[Zach Cherry]

I. I actually haven't seen it now.

[David]

I've seen it. I've seen it with my daughter. She loved it. She would give everyone an Oscar if she knew what an Oscar was.

[Griffin]

We, in our. In our blankies, we always try to do a best voiceover category.

[David]

Yeah, sure.

[Griffin]

If that existed at the Oscars, they would have nominated Jack Black for the first.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, yeah. He's great.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And not Chris Brown.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That would have been the lone nomination.

[Zach Cherry]

Who have been some of your nominees in the. In the recent years in that category?

[David]

You know, like, Ben Wish on Paddington is a good example.

[Griffin]

Really outstanding voice performance.

[David]

What are some good ones? I'm trying to think.

[Griffin]

I feel like Jake Johnson in Spiderverse was one we called out. Yeah. Now I want to look through the. The history.

[David]

You know, I love Holly Hunter in the Incredibles movie.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Right. Like, that's a really.

[Zach Cherry]

And I mean, honestly, there would be quite a few from both Finding Nemo and Finding Nemo.

[David]

Finding Nemo and Finding Nemo got great voice acting. And we're going to talk about Finding Dory. It does kind of the same thing as Nemo that I appreciate of. Like, we're not getting the Super Mario route of just, like, who's famous right now. Like, we're going to get character actors, sitcom actors.

[Zach Cherry]

You know, Ty Burrell is great in Finding Dory.

[Griffin]

She was the ultimate triumph of this movie for me. And I feel like this is rarely the case in a sequel. Every new character introduced in this film is excellent.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

There is no.

[David]

Like, they're all good.

[Griffin]

You're trying to make this happen.

[Zach Cherry]

Hank.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Or is he Frank?

[Griffin]

Hank.

[David]

He's Hank. You got it. You got it. He's Hank. He's good.

[Griffin]

But I think all the new characters are great. Well designed, funny, well developed, well cast. Don't feel like there's also not that many. No.

[David]

Like, it's not bad. Overwhelming you with a bunch of new. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Which often is the thing. They're like, can we throw 20 new darts at the board and see which one of these sells merchandise?

[Zach Cherry]

Well, I have some issues with Gerald, but we'll get to him.

[Griffin]

Gerald and not Becky. You're fine with Becky, but not Gerald.

[Zach Cherry]

Becky I have less issues with. But Gerald.

[Griffin]

There was touchiness at the Gerald and Becky.

[Zach Cherry]

I have minor quibbles.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Who's Becky?

[Zach Cherry]

Becky's the bird with the bucket.

[Griffin]

Oh, right.

[Zach Cherry]

And Gerald is the source. Gerald's the dumbstop. Massive eyebrow.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

This is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David]

I'm David.

[Griffin]

It's a podcast about filmographies. David's giving me a thumbs up. Directors who have massive success early on in their career, such as making Finding Nemo, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, such as Wally or John Carter. Sometimes those checks clear. See Wally. Sometimes they bounce.

[David]

See John Carter.

[Zach Cherry]

I did like John Carter. Yeah.

[David]

You would have been good on that.

[Zach Cherry]

And it was a good app.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Sometimes a filmmaker is holding such an incredible get out of movie jail free card.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

That they can immediately recover from the most notorious flop of right. The decade. The century Disney calls him is like,

[David]

hey, by the way, John Carr's gonna lose, like, $200 million. And he's like, I think I just found door. We'll see you tomorrow, baby.

[Griffin]

You can do anything you want.

[Zach Cherry]

I can cover that. I'm good for it.

[David]

I. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Griffin]

Fascinating.

[David]

I think the best voice performance in Super Mario Galaxy is Benny safdie as Bowser Jr. That's the one where I was kind of like, well, he's doing something. And this is interesting. Like most everyone else, I was kind of like, you're kind of doing what you're supposed to do.

[Griffin]

Charlie Day has more to do in the second one, and I do find him effective.

[Zach Cherry]

I think he's good.

[Griffin]

But, yeah, the first one, he spends 90% of the movie in a cage.

[David]

He is in the cage. Who's charging Day?

[Griffin]

Finding Luigi. The first movie is finding Luigi. He goes missing.

[David]

All I'll tell you is, I told you. I think before, my daughter was very locked into Luigi both times because she really likes it. He's scared. Like, she. She identifies. Exactly.

[Griffin]

Is your daughter easily scared? I mean, like, I'm not saying this judgment.

[David]

Like, I just feel like there's not a lot in life, right?

[Griffin]

Children are maybe children.

[David]

I mean, she's scared of dogs, but that's such a classic little kid thing. I'm trying to think, like, when else she gets scared. I mean, I'm going to say yes, but because, like, the Halloween cat in the Disney show, Super Kitty, scared her. And I've seen the Halloween cat, and he ain't scared. He's mischievous at best. And she's, like, in bed at night being like, the Halloween cat's gonna get me. And I'm like, the Halloween cat steals candy. Like, it doesn't even scare anyone.

[Zach Cherry]

But mischief, that's pretty scary. Mischief can be the scariest thing of all.

[David]

I think to a kid, it's a little disrupting order. And they're, like, sneaking around like you're not supposed to. Dude, I don't know. And that's my kid.

[Griffin]

The rule of law, don't take Ben's candy.

[Zach Cherry]

Premised on a lack of mischief.

[Griffin]

This is true.

[David]

Really, she does not like that Halloween.

[Griffin]

I just always, especially with talking about, like, children's media or things that are designed to play for children, right?

[David]

I saw some scary when I was a kid, like, because no one was really watching the store. It's a cartoon, like, won't scare you.

[Griffin]

People can be algorithmic about these things and design these things in a lab, right? And the Mario movies are perfect example of that. But sometimes you just hit on something where you're like, this speaks to kids.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

You have developed this character correctly. Cast the right person, the right design, and kids see this and they just go like, that's me. I get it. I'm going to ride with this forever.

[Zach Cherry]

Dory.

[Griffin]

Yeah. You have said, David, that you have watched this movie many, many more times than Finding Nemo at this point because your daughter is hyper fixated on baby Dory.

[David]

Yeah. And I just feel like, also, just generally, it's like this movie has more Dory.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Dory is the best.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

So thus, it's better.

[Griffin]

And makes Dory the vulnerable character in a way that. Yes. Fascinatingly, I think kids ended up relating to harder than Nemo, the literal child in the first one.

[David]

Nemo is fine because Nemo's. Nemo's very confident. Like, you know, it's like, Nemo's gonna be all right. And like Marlin, like, I mean, I like Marlin. We all like Marlin. You know, good job, Marlon. But like my daughter, I don't know if I like Marlin. Yeah, right. Running around being like, what's up with Marlin?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

You're like, maybe that's why you don't like it.

[Zach Cherry]

This was the first time, because I

[David]

was holding up a mirror, I watched

[Zach Cherry]

Finding Nemo to prepare. And it was the first time that I identified with Marlon straight down the mirror and had had some hard talks with myself.

[Griffin]

It's tough.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

And I did also. I. I did also watch Finding Forrester to complete the trilogy.

[Griffin]

Oh, perfect.

[David]

Thank you. Thank you. You're the man.

[Zach Cherry]

And I'm. I am not joking. I did do that.

[Griffin]

Our guest today is Zach Sherry. It's a cherry pick. Finding Dory. The 2016. It doesn't win Best Animated Film.

[David]

No.

[Zach Cherry]

What did.

[Griffin]

I'll find out in 2016. It would have. This is the Zootopia year, I believe.

[David]

My question was, does it even get nominated for an Oscar?

[Griffin]

It does.

[David]

Does it? Let me find out.

[Zach Cherry]

Well, on the freaking Eminem's commercial.

[Griffin]

Hey.

[David]

Well, actually, that sounds pretty. Pretty hot. No, no. Oscar nom.

[Zach Cherry]

That's

[David]

sequels. They don't like sequels. Yeah, I can tell you. Let's find out what the best animated film nominees were in. What? This is 2016.

[Zach Cherry]

Let me guess. Beavis and Butthead.

[Griffin]

Hey. Okay. 2016.

[David]

Okay. I will say it's a pretty strong field. There's a reason this did not make it.

[Griffin]

Okay, so Zootopia wins.

[David]

Yes. Correct.

[Griffin]

Tell me the distributors of the other

[David]

four, One of them is Leica.

[Griffin]

So that would be Kubo. Which Is an excellent film. Should have won.

[Zach Cherry]

Good movie.

[Griffin]

But Zootopia won.

[David]

Z is good. Yeah. I mean, these are all. These are good movies.

[Griffin]

Still kind of a cram that Leica has not won.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Never has an Oscar yet. Yeah.

[David]

It should have won. Right.

[Griffin]

Cuz Coraline is the up year.

[David]

Yeah. Coraline is the one. It's. It should have been handed that one.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then par. ParaNorman would have been a fine winner over.

[Griffin]

That's what's embarrassing.

[David]

I was really hoping Ralph's in there too.

[Griffin]

Obviously Going in was the presumed winner. And it was sort of sh.

[Zach Cherry]

Was the same year as Finding Dory.

[David]

No, same year's Brave. We're jumping all over here. We got it. It was shocking, but it was also an indication back then that they were like, I don't know. Isn't the Pixar thing the best one?

[Griffin]

Which is why it's interesting that so quickly they switch to we're willing to snub Pixar if they're going to do this sequel.

[David]

Zach, you with Ralph?

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, I love Regular.

[David]

He's such a great guy.

[Zach Cherry]

The first one is awesome. Yeah.

[David]

He's like the only.

[Griffin]

You were angry that he broke the Internet because you were trying to use it that day. Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

I had to submit my taxes.

[David]

The only.

[Zach Cherry]

And it's like, what am I gonna do?

[David]

What the.

[Griffin]

Ralph, Come on.

[Zach Cherry]

Ralph.

[Griffin]

Could you have checked in with me before?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

The only Pixar sequel that is nominated in between the two Toy Story sequels. You know, three and four, which they, you know.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Gave the trophy.

[David]

Incredibles 2 is incredibles too.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Everything else, they were like, no, thank you.

[Griffin]

And that loses the spider verse, right? Yeah, yeah. Which is fine.

[David]

I mean.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay, so Zootopia Kubo, another giant Disney animated film.

[Griffin]

It's a second.

[David]

Which is. This is also why Finding Dory didn't get in. It's like there's already two big.

[Griffin]

Disney was Big Hero the same year.

[David]

No. Come on. 2016. I saw this movie right after Trump was elected.

[Griffin]

You saw this movie right after Trump? Oh, it's Moana.

[David]

Moana.

[Griffin]

Moana.

[David]

And then there's two indie movies. Like two.

[Griffin]

Are they both kids?

[David]

One is G kids. I think one is sort of Ghibli esque, but wasn't. I don't think actually was Jeebly. H. Right. It was. No, it was. It was a product co production with Jeebly and some French guys. It's watery too. It's.

[Griffin]

It's a. It's a watery. He says it's a French.

[David]

It's kind of not gly, but it's still, you know, it's kind of like half gly. It's called the Red Turtle.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah.

[David]

It's very pretty. Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Never even heard of that.

[Griffin]

Maca. Mac and Rita. That was my guess.

[David]

Oh, oh, the other. Oh, no, no, it's not that. The other one is a. A French stop motion film. That is really great.

[Griffin]

Oh, my Life is a Zucchini, which

[David]

rules one of the great titles. And My Life is a Zucchini and

[Griffin]

written by Mac and Reed is the Netflix show. What's the thing I'm thinking of? Or no, that was. It was a Diane Keaton.

[David]

He's spiraling here.

[Griffin]

There was that.

[David]

Well, there's Ernest and Celestine.

[Griffin]

Yes, that's French. Lovely.

[Zach Cherry]

Frankie and Grace is the Netflix.

[Griffin]

That's the Netflix show. But then there is something called Mac and Rita with Diane Keaton. I'm thinking of the one that was kind of sexy.

[David]

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

[Griffin]

Let me find where I want to

[David]

say it was Chico and Rita.

[Griffin]

Chico and Rita. It was like this tune. Spanish now make your hands tighten.

[Zach Cherry]

That was the tagline.

[Griffin]

They dance pretty close.

[David]

I do think that in a. Maybe a slightly less packed year, it might have gotten the nom. But that's a big, you know, big. There's already these two giant things in Moana and Zootopia. So they're kind of like, yeah, we don't need Dory. I might nominate Dory. Did I nominate Dory? I like this movie.

[Griffin]

I like this film a lot.

[David]

But I've grown to like it. When I saw it in theaters when it came out, it's not like I hate it or anything, but I was just sort of like, that's exactly what I thought it was going to be. It was totally fine. I don't remember it walking out the theater.

[Griffin]

And also, your daughter's experience, I've I found, is not unique. A lot of our friends your age with children your daughter's age are like, yeah, my kid watches Dory way more than Nemo.

[David]

Yeah, Dory rocks. And it was now the second highest

[Griffin]

grossing film of its year domestically. It was beaten only by Rogue One. It made $486 million domestic.

[David]

It made $1 billion worldwide. It was.

[Griffin]

It made a full billion. A giant hit. Yeah.

[David]

Big hit. And like, that's great. But Moana, which was sort of like slightly an underperformer at the time.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Has like, has out gained it in legacy.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

By law.

[Griffin]

Right. That's a fascinating one. Where it only seemed like an underperformer because Frozen had been so humongous and zootopia.

[Zach Cherry]

And songs help your legacy.

[David]

They do. They do.

[Zach Cherry]

Because they exist outside of actually watching.

[David]

You can put them in the parks, you can put them on ice, you can put them in whatever. Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Clip really good looking live action versions of these films.

[Griffin]

You can.

[David]

That just looks the. The same.

[Griffin]

David, let me rephrase what you're trying to get at. The idea you could perfect them. You could finally get them, right?

[David]

Like, what if Disney just was like. Just tomorrow. The guy just was like, hey, by the way, we know that looks bad. We're not gonna release it. Sorry it is.

[Zach Cherry]

Or flip side, what if they said James Cameron is doing a live action Finding Dory?

[David]

Oh, that'd be great.

[Griffin]

And he's doing it all for real.

[David]

Yeah, right. It's all real.

[Griffin]

He put the computers down.

[David]

He taught a fish how to act.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

We don't know how he did it.

[Griffin]

Y. Yeah, right.

[David]

He just. He just keeps yelling at this fish. Now she's. Now she's good.

[Griffin]

Don't you know who I am?

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

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[David]

Finding Dory so, did you see this film in theaters? Zach?

[Zach Cherry]

I. I have no specific memory of it, but I'm positive I did because I was all in on Dory. I. I love Dory.

[Griffin]

Dory rules.

[David]

June 2016. I assume you're living in New York. I saw this at the now dead Cineopolis Chelsea.

[Griffin]

Mm.

[David]

Or whatever it was called back then. The Bow Tie Chelsea. The Clearview Chelsea. You know that theater which was the ucb?

[Griffin]

It was the movie to go there all the time.

[David]

It was great. You could live there. That was One of those places where you're like, no one's kicking me out if I never leave this place.

[Griffin]

What was also incredible about it was like one employee. It felt like a ghost town. It was like five floors. There was only one employee. There were never many people there. And then they did a really expensive restoration. And it was so nice. And still no one was there. But it stayed open for another four years.

[Zach Cherry]

There was a nice little burger shop on underneath it.

[David]

Yes, there was. Yeah, I like that place.

[Zach Cherry]

And there was the last remaining Boston Market in the United States, directly across the street. Right.

[Griffin]

Everything was happening on 23rd between 7th and 8th. I'm just also looking at the domestic box Office. The top 10 rogue one comes out in December. Finding Dory. June. Captain America. Civil War was notably a spring release. Secret Life of Pets, I think July, Jungle Book, spring release Deadpool. February, Zootopia, March or April. Batman versus Superman, March.

[Zach Cherry]

I can't believe Deadpool didn't make an appearance in Finding Dory.

[Griffin]

Suicide Squad, August, Sing, I think November, December. Like, Dory was so far and away the highest grossing film of the summer. Because every other film in the top 10, basically, save for Secret Life of Pets, came out spring or fall.

[David]

So what was the summer of 2016?

[Griffin]

Dory. Dory. I'm like, Dory.

[David]

There was nothing else.

[Griffin]

Dory ran the table so fucking hard. I mean, let me see. It was. Suicide Squad ended it. And I mean ended it. X Men Apocalypse, neighbors to the Angry Birds movie. I'm sorry. Captain America. Civil War was the first week of May.

[David]

Okay, so it was summer.

[Griffin]

Alice through the Looking Glass, Ninja Turtles, out of the Shadows.

[David]

Oh, man.

[Griffin]

Pops Star, which rules. But bombed. Conjuring 2. Now you see me To Warcraft. Central Intelligence. Independence Day Resurgence.

[David]

That one's so bad.

[Griffin]

Like, this is a rough line. The Legend of Tarzan, the bfg. Like these are kind of historic non starter franchise movies. Lady Ghostbusters, Star Trek beyond, which is great, but bombed, are underperformed. The final Ice Age, the only one that didn't make 100 million domestic. I believe Jason Bourne.

[David]

That one's bad too.

[Griffin]

And then the summer ends with Suicide Squad and Ben Hur.

[David]

Those are also bad, right?

[Griffin]

So Dory was like so far and away, the Queen of the Summer.

[David]

So where'd you see it, big man?

[Griffin]

That's a good question. I'm pretty sure I saw it at AMC Lincoln Square. I saw with my friend Scott Craterman, who's one of my oldest friends and a regular movie buddy of mine. And I have a very distinct Memory of sitting there the first 20 minutes, like, white knuckling the armrests and being like, this is bad. And I have this experience every time I rewatch it.

[David]

More invested in the Pixar movies being good. Like, I feel like I was kind of at this age where I was kind of like, I don't really care anymore if they're bad, which I sort of assume. It's like, whatever I was really. I wanted Incredibles 2 to be good because I like Brad Bird. But, like, generally I would be kind

[Griffin]

of like, yeah, I felt invested in the insidification of Pixar. And I was trying to think of an analogy because it wasn't like it went from being, like, great to being terrible, but it was kind of like the expansion of Shake Shack, where you're like, this thing felt really special and how are they maintaining this quality? And how does it feel different? And then it grew and you're like, it's still better than basically everything else, but what are we losing? And I'm worried about it falling further. And I. I think, like, the first 20 minutes of this movie are pretty aggressively bad and feel a little checklisty. Like, what do we need to do to, like, calm you down, I assume.

[David]

Do you mean, like, post Baby Dory? Because Baby Dory's just right at the top. And do you mean the kind of like, let's reset with, like, where do Marlin and Nemo live?

[Griffin]

We're gonna bring Mr. Ray back and we're gonna bring the turtles back. Like, it feels like speed running the greatest hits from the first movie. Right? And it's jokingly feel like alts from the first movie is every character forgetting or pretending this didn't already happen.

[David]

And this conflict of, like, Marlin's like, story, she's like. She's kind of a pain. She's kind of like, tough to have around. Whatever.

[Zach Cherry]

Now, when you saw it, had you recently watched Finding, like, was Finding Nemo in your regular rotation? Yes, because I don't think it was for me. And so this time when I watched

[Griffin]

them back to back, you're like, that stuff did put me off crazy how much kind of like, yeah, I was

[Zach Cherry]

like, oh, we're just. We're just kind of like running through, like, hey, there's the turtles and there's this guy, and there's this guy.

[Griffin]

It felt like the worst version of what I was fearing this movie would be, which is just like key jangling. Can we just do it again? And will you guys be happy?

[Zach Cherry]

But I think When I saw it, I had probably not seen Finding Nemo since it came out. Like, I was. I wasn't rewatching it, so I think I was just like, hey, my friends are back.

[Griffin]

I think everything from when it gets to the Marine X Institute is basically uniformly very good. Like, I.

[David]

You like.

[Griffin]

It gets there, it works, plot kicks. But I have rarely had that experience of sitting there and for like 15 to 20 consecutive minutes being like, bad, bad, bad, bad. Fuck, I'm spiraling. And then feel the movie just kind of like, swerve, pull out a victory and stay good. But then I. I remember defending it at the time. It did feel like, even though it

[David]

was a big hit, you're there to

[Griffin]

defend it was immediately greeted with this sort of like, what are they doing here? Kind of thing. Can we zoom out? Because I know you were asking these questions, Zach, but some of the things going on here.

[David]

Okay, sure.

[Griffin]

We'll get into the doors specific.

[David]

You go right ahead. This is all you, baby.

[Griffin]

So a thing we're restating in all of these episodes. There is a one movie contract for Pixar to produce Toy Story, which Disney will distribute and retain the rights of the characters forever. That movie is such a hit that Disney swings back around and says, we want to make a five picture deal. You are an autonomous studio. You are producing films for us. We will own those characters in perpetuity. They agree to five original films. They also demand, can you please do Toy Story 2? They said, We're a small company. We only have the energy to do one movie. We're trying to scale up to two at a time. So they establish a B team of younger guys to take on Toy Story 2, which is meant to be direct to video, because that's the return Jafar model. You didn't put animated sequels in theaters. They devalued the brand. There was this real belief in the sanctity of that theatrical. Disney movies need to mean something. And the sequels being on video help kind of keep them feeling clean of the legacy of the originals. Toy Story 2 is not working. Lassiter Stanton, the A team, when they're done with A Bug's Life, come on and say, will you let us take this over and fix it? We don't think this is up to our standards. We don't want it being released. And if you let us take it on and push it back, we will make it good enough to put in theaters. They do that. It's a massive hit. It wins best picture, musical or comedy at the Golden Globes. An institution whose awards mean a lot. And they go, great, that was our third film on the contract. And Eisner goes, nuh, nuh, na, na na. That was not the deal. The deal was five original movies. Toy Story 2 didn't count. You still owe me three more. This starts the bad blood between Pixar and Disney. They do Monsters, Inc. Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Cars. And by the time Cars is coming out, relationships are beyond freight. And they are self producing. Ratatouille, Wally and Up. Completely self financed. And they will just sell them to the highest bidder of whoever they go to. Every studio in town is bidding on them. All of this stuff super relevant to how this movie comes about. Katzenberg gets pushed out, Iger comes in. Iger's first move is, whatever it takes. Get Pixar. He gets them, they commit to releasing those three films. But then he also cracks his knuckles and goes, but, guys, can we start talking about sequels? So Disney has now spent like $6 billion to buy Pixar. Stanton has been placed as the VP of creative. He doesn't want to have to be a businessman or an administrative guy, but they're basically like, you're the king of story here. You oversee all of this. Lots of hugging. John Lasseter, the founder of Pixar Animation, at least, is suddenly placed into three positions simultaneously. He is the head of Pixar, he is the head of Disney Feature Animation, and he is the head of Imagineering. So now Lasseter is wearing three hats, three offices, three times as many opportunities to hug people, two more hats than I've ever worn. It's impressive. His priority starts to become Disney Animation's really bad. I have to fix this.

[Zach Cherry]

And what were they putting out at the time?

[Griffin]

So they had been putting out like Chicken Little.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay?

[Griffin]

He comes on halfway through production on Meet the Robinsons and tries to sort of course correct that. Tries to course correct Bolt, the first one that's sort of like this worked. He was able to kind of help oversee rebuilding it from the beginning was Tangled.

[Zach Cherry]

Bolt made me cry.

[Griffin]

Tangled's a big hit. And then it starts the run of, like, Tangled, Frozen, Moana, Zootopia, Wreck It Ralph, all these things we're saying where suddenly it's like, is Disney the rising studio?

[David]

Right? Is Disney better than Pixar these days?

[Griffin]

He's putting more of his energy and attention there because they had been the problem place. And Pixar seemed to have it all figured out. But the other part of it is they're saying to Pixar, guys, we Just spent a lot of fucking money. And we know that the sequels were a non starter conversation because of the bad blood over the Toy Story 2 thing for so long. But now there's so much fucking money on the table. If we bring any of these characters back and there's always this kind of polite, like, we leave it to you, the storytellers, we won't do it and we won't force it until you tell us you have an idea. But we'd really like you to try to come up with an idea. And so that energy is behind them. Toy Story 3, they were ready to do, they had wanted to do, and it was being held up by the bad blood. But with that in motion, then they're sort of like, can we revisit the monsters conversation? Can we revisit the Incredibles conversation? Can we revisit the Dory conversation? I feel like this is where you get to the sort of creative incubation of the idea.

[Zach Cherry]

Sure.

[Griffin]

When it came out, Stanton was like, no, right. We. We're not a sequel studio. That's not what we believe.

[David]

They're always going on about that. But they're liars.

[Griffin]

They weren't for a while.

[David]

Well, their third movie was the sequel.

[Griffin]

But I just explained this whole thing. I mean, this is all the.

[David]

I understand, but you know, they've always had a little bit of sequel.

[Zach Cherry]

The Toy Stories feel different to me as well. They feel like a whole separate thing.

[David]

They do. And that's because. Right. Because the third Pixar movie was Toy Story 2. Like, it does kind of set it apart. Yeah. So Stanton said he was always. No sequel, like basically always, and puts it that he says he had to get on board from a VP standpoint, not a director standpoint.

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

It's sort of like, isn't this good for the company?

[David]

Right. Don't we want to keep Pixar afloat?

[Griffin]

I mean, this is the classic kind of insurification thing of you're the most successful movie studio in history. You get bought for like a tremendous amount of money. And immediately they're like, but don't you have to think about what's good for business? And you're like, what they've been doing has been good for business. But they start getting in their ear with this logic of, well, if you make the sequels, that helps pay for the originals.

[David]

Now the script for Finding Nemo 2, which was written back when Disney was like, yes, fuck you, we'll just make what is. It's a.

[Griffin]

They started a company called Circle 7 Circle 7.

[David]

And it's like, we will make Toy Story 3. Monsters, Inc. 2. Lost in Scaradise.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Love to Know More. And finding Nemo 2. We're going to make them cheaper than Pixar makes.

[Griffin]

This was a Katzenberg negotiation move. He said, they're so protective of their legacy that I will develop my own animation studio to the ones we're allowed to sequel and make them. And the only way they can stop me is if they decide to make them themselves. And this created so much bad blood. But obviously, the second Iger takes over, he says, shut them down.

[David]

But. But I want to tell you about this script, which was written by Lori Craig, the writer of Ella Enchanted.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Now, is. Is everyone sitting down?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay. Marlin's lost.

[Zach Cherry]

How old is he?

[Griffin]

The hackery of them not even landing on Dory should get lost first.

[David]

Truly. I mean, it is so funny that, like, it's just like, okay, Nemo and Marlin are living together. They're feeling everything's good, huh? Why don't we switch it up? Marlin's lost. It's called Finding Marlin. Basically, Nemo's got to find Marlin. Dory gets her memory back by hitting her head. Nemo is given a long lost brother.

[Zach Cherry]

Great.

[David]

I guess. So there can be some sort of tension of like, oh, you're my brother.

[Griffin]

All of these Circle seven movies sounded horrendous.

[David]

There's some dolphins, some polar bears.

[Zach Cherry]

Sounds good,

[David]

Zach.

[Zach Cherry]

My guess is they'd be voiced by, you know, somebody with quite a. Quite an accent.

[Griffin]

Oh, oh, sure, sure.

[David]

You know, absolutely. It is funny how this time they're like the fucking nature preserves in California. We're not doing Australia again, like the. There's a magical tunnel that whips you all the way down to California.

[Griffin]

It's just different sitcom actors.

[David]

Yeah, right. So, yes, as you say, Iger comes aboard and immediately is like, none. No more of this Circle seven nonsense. Like, I'm shutting all of that down.

[Griffin]

And this is part of Iger's great strategy, is he comes in, shuts them down, says to Steve Jobs, you name your price. I'm not negotiating here with you. I want to make you guys feel so protected that I'm doing everything I can to respect the sanctity of your characters. I'm not going to push you to do these things. I'm going to shut down any crass exploitation. I'm going to overpay you. But can you please try to organically come up with sequel ideas that you like?

[David]

And the way Andrew Stanton puts it, and I think we mentioned this on a prior episode, is when The Finding Nemo 3D rerelease comes out in 2010, which you have obviously works on to Eddie. He's watching it. And yes, he is kind of like. I mean, Dory basically is lost when the movie begins and they do find her. Being like, where are.

[Griffin]

I was looking for my family. At least I think I was. He's like, I did put it in there.

[David]

So he's like, I do stop. You know, I couldn't stop thinking about it, I will admit. Now, could he also not stop thinking about big bucks? I don't know. Like, yeah, but the other signs.

[Griffin]

The other thing is he's now sort of got a foot outside of Pixar, focusing on John Carter and wanting to make this John Carter sized leap to live action. So what he says is, hey, I got a good idea.

[Zach Cherry]

Because he jumps big.

[David]

He jumps.

[Griffin]

He jumps so big, so far so high.

[Zach Cherry]

That guy can really hop.

[Griffin]

On Mars, this guy hops.

[David]

That's what they should call that movie.

[Griffin]

Hoppers.

[David]

Exactly. Like, did you see Hoppers?

[Zach Cherry]

I did. I liked how Hopper's very.

[David]

Enjoy.

[Griffin]

Moynihan. Moynihan. Moynihan right now, kind of pole position. Best voice performance of the year.

[David]

Moynihan.

[Griffin]

Very good. He's the Dory of King George. King George having a big year at the box office.

[David]

Oh, yeah, that.

[Griffin]

But that's his biggest hit he's had so far.

[David]

So far?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Plenty of months left.

[Zach Cherry]

King George Hamilton.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[David]

That's that.

[Griffin]

If they do that still on Broadway. Still bringing in baffle. Box office.

[David]

Yeah. Who's playing King George right now on Broadway?

[Griffin]

Interesting. I'm seeing. It's King George from Hoppers. They got the Beaver. They render him in real time. Originally. Stanton's like, well, I'm too busy on the John Carter thing. And John Carter is obviously going to be a trilogy that I have mapped out. And each of these movies is going to take two to three years. But here's an idea I like for Finding Dory and I bless the development of this as a script.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[Griffin]

It doesn't originate with him. It's a hired writer first also, of course.

[David]

Then John Carter bombs.

[Griffin]

It does.

[David]

And he says he went into kind of a lost weekend to purge himself.

[Zach Cherry]

Only one weekend?

[David]

Yeah. He might need a fucking. He's pretty good.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

It takes me about a week and a half to recover from a bad improv show. And this guy had a historic bomb and he was like, just give me 48. That's impressive.

[David]

It is, yeah. I mean, it is, yeah. To make a movie like John Carter where people are like, can we, can you get that Guinness Book of World Records off the shelf? And like, is this the biggest one yet? Like, are we going like, you know,

[Griffin]

he also, he did an interview that just came out at the time we're recording. Or it was part of a larger Entertainment Weekly piece about Toy Story 5.

[Zach Cherry]

Sure.

[Griffin]

And he, he had, you know, he's a very self deprecating guy.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

But he had a joke about, like, if you know me by name, I'm concerned.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh yeah, I saw that.

[Griffin]

Like, I understand, like Pixar as a name brand is a known thing, but like only, you know, dang ass freaks. No, Andrew Stan by name is this podcast may be fucking up that effort possibly. But I think there must be something kind of weird to having a failure that big that's also kind of anonymized. Like there's not even the personal sort of like, look at how hard fucking Francis Ford Coppola fell on his face with Megalopolis. And it's reckoned with within the, like, the story of a man's career. It's just everyone kind of being like, the fuck is this shit?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. John Carter was the failure, not him. Right. At least in terms of the public. Like, I didn't know who. I had no idea he directed that.

[David]

No, you knew simply that, you know, Tim Riggins went to Mars and it didn't work out for him.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[David]

And he hop.

[Zach Cherry]

And again, I did like that movie.

[David]

It's, it's, it's got stuff, it's got its terms. So Bob Geiger calls Stanton on the phone, apparently gives him a quote about, from Teddy Roosevelt about being the lonely man in the ring that has the guts to actually do it versus talking about doing it. I don't know. He kind of peps him up. Stanton works on Zootopia. His college roommate is Rich Moore, who's the director of Zootopia. So he like helps out with that.

[Griffin]

He's got a creative consultant. Because that's the other thing was at this time they were like, Pixar's got it figured out so much that should the Pixar brain trust, they're kind of like weigh in on everything. Can they give notes on Tron Legacy and. Yeah, right.

[David]

And then he goes to lots of hugging Lassiter and he says, like, I think I have a story for Finding Nemo too. Pitches that they write up a treatment. And then he's like, all right, I'm gonna call Ellen because I guess it's a different thing to call Ellen now. Yeah, she's busy now.

[Griffin]

Ellen had for years maintained this running bit of why aren't they calling me to make a sequel? She would publicly do this. You know, Hanks would be on to promote Toy Story 3 and she'd be like, must be nice, right?

[David]

Must be nice. I don't have any money at all.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I'm only selling hundreds of millions of dollars of throw pillows a year.

[David]

JJ found a very 2013 sentence too, if you want to hear it. Dory is Disney's most liked character on Facebook. Had 24 million likes. People just were like, I want to like, thumbs up. Give a thumbs up to the character Dory.

[Griffin]

Right. And that's like, lord knows what that accomplishes as where I went to college.

[Zach Cherry]

How can you not.

[Griffin]

It has to be one of the five things people see about me immediately.

[David]

Ellen's statement on the announcement. I have waited for this day for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. I'm not mad it took this long. I know the people at Pixar are busy creating Toy Story 16, but the time they took was worth it. The script's fantastic.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. You also just know. And I don't know if it's ever been reported, but I imagine she got much moolah from this.

[David]

Are you kid. What Ellen? I thought that she kind of just did everything for love of the game. I gotta stop bragging on Ellen.

[Griffin]

Ellen has become an incredibly savvy business person at this point in time. And. And Pixar and Disney notoriously, you know, pay an exposure the first time.

[David]

Right, right. And then the second time.

[Griffin]

And the residuals, that's the big thing.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I think I've shared this anecdote before, but I. I met or I've met her a couple times, but Kristen Shaw said she did toy story 3. They pay you. What is scale?

[David]

The lowest 17th character correct. Movie. Yes.

[Griffin]

And it's like there is a scale numbered. Despite you being in a Pixar movie, it's the lowest amount they could pay you to be in an animated feature film. And she was like, I bought a house with the first year of residuals, theme park, video games, whatever, you know,

[Zach Cherry]

hold on, I need to talk to some people.

[Griffin]

But then if. If you're. If there's a sequel and you're the central character.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Or you're the breakout character, suddenly you're holding a lot of leverage.

[Zach Cherry]

Except maybe not so much anymore. Right. With because Inside out too. Didn't they not.

[Griffin]

It was a weird thing, I mean, but also they paid. I, I think amy Poehler got $10 million and then they were like, Bill Hader, here's a sandwich.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, yeah, interesting.

[David]

So the film is co written by Victoria Strauss. Really had no credits. She'd worked on an ABC TV show called October Road. But they wanted a female screenwriter.

[Griffin]

It is a fascinating.

[David]

She had a spec script.

[Griffin]

They liked Pixar thing I was going to say, where a lot of the writers once, you know, they ramp up production. Right. And this was also a big part of, I think them conceding to the sequel push was it's been a big effort to get to a steadiness to be able to put out one film every year. Wouldn't it be great if we could do two a year? And they were like, if it's two a year and the staff is doubling and all of this, then maybe if it helps if every other film is a sequel or a safer bet. But it also means they have to start reaching outside of their core brain trust and building a bigger talent pool. And so often these writers you see who end up being the co writers with whoever the director is or the Pixar person is on these movies, you're like, how'd they get this job? And it's like they were obsessively reading spec scripts. They were like checking the blacklist. They were going to plays, they were seeing independent films. At Sundance, it's this fascinating thing. And I think Stanton was kind of important in sort of spearheading this of let's not look at animation writers. Let's just look and see good writing and find young people. Because also it's a multi year process. It's like if you sign onto a Pixar movie, you're moving to like Emeryville for three or four years to keep doing iterative work on it. So it's better to get someone who's ready to like be an employee rather than just take on a project. Ben Dori on Facebook Currently.

[David]

Currently 20 mil.

[Griffin]

Huge.

[David]

She's lost.

[Zach Cherry]

Wait, it went down.

[David]

Went down.

[Zach Cherry]

Well, I deleted my account.

[David]

So that's one that is maybe a sign of Facebook. So yeah, kind of.

[Griffin]

It was, you know, was it 40

[David]

or 50 before 24.

[Griffin]

Wait, what is it now?

[David]

2020. Lower.

[Griffin]

Oh. Oh. But she only lost four.

[David]

Losing seems bad to me.

[Griffin]

I just think with the general Facebook.

[David]

I guess you're right. Also, some weird follows. Oh yeah, Dory.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh yeah.

[David]

Dory's been liking Some kind of interesting pictures on the Internet.

[Zach Cherry]

He's a huge huberman gal.

[David]

So the big issue Strauss found is it's tough to write a main character who can't remember things and has short term memory loss. She pretty quickly comes up with Hank because she's like, she needs a foil and she needs someone who can move her places. Hence Octopus.

[Griffin]

The smartest thing this movie does is like how without cheating do we have

[David]

someone who's her memory and her mobile kind of.

[Griffin]

Can we give these characters a little more latitude so it's not just a complete retread of the first movie of their. The ocean and they got to swim really far.

[David]

And like Hank has a little marlin DNA in that he's like gruff and not warm, but like it's a different enough I would say because he's not anxious, he's just kind of like cynical or over it.

[Griffin]

It's an interesting kind of combination of Gil and Marlin from the first one, but it feels like he's a little more stir crazy. Wait, who is Gil? Gil is the defo.

[David]

Oh in the first one.

[Griffin]

Cuz he's got a little bit of the like, you know, I guess he's also a little kind of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Like. Sure, I just gotta get out of here.

[David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

He just wants to go live in peace.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

I got. We see him briefly in this movie, right? Like they're all credited.

[Griffin]

Oh, they're. They're the end credits credits. Yeah. They're still in the bags.

[David]

Right. They initially did want the parents to also have short term memory loss to complete. The joke of it runs in my family. At least I think it does.

[Griffin]

When you were watching, when you walked into the studio today, I was.

[David]

I had the Blu ray you're watching deleted quote, unquote, deleted scenes.

[Griffin]

It has 50 minutes of deleted scenes, which is quite a lot. And even when movies cut that much material, they rarely make it public. And I would say of the 50, 20 minutes were four different strikes at the opening. And they all have Stanton intros where he's explaining the iterative process of what kept changing. And you do realize like they backed themselves into a couple corners here. They're like, first of all, we want to make the Dory movie. But how do you give Dory the character agency to go out on her own journey and grow and change and learn if she can't fucking remember anything, how does she do things of her own volition? So there's all this shit that you see them try where they're like, there's a muscle memory thing where her fins start. Like, she's. She's sleep swimming in her sleep. She starts swimming directions and then they lose her. But she doesn't know what's driving her there. It's the muscle memory, not a short term memory. And then he's like. But then the first 30 minutes of the movie, she's not making any choices. It's like she's like fucking. You know, we can at Bernie's too.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And then there are multiple stabs at. Well, the reason she got lost is because her parents also have short term memory. So that helps why they haven't found her. But then also like every scene and they have like, scenes. Some of these are animated. Some of them are roughly animated. Some of them are just storyboarded. Most of them have the real voice actors. And you're hearing Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton do the short term thing, which is incredibly funny.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

But then you're also just like, all of these scenes get caught in a cul de sac.

[David]

Yes. Stanton said, essentially, like, they just, they realized it would make everyone crazy.

[Griffin]

You cannot have any emotional catharsis.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

When I watched the. When I watched Finding Nemo, I was operating under the assumption that her entire species had this. I thought it was like a goldfish thing.

[Griffin]

That was. That was their starting point.

[Zach Cherry]

Right. Yeah. And so then I was. I had forgotten that. Oh, no, this is just Dory. Like, Dory just has this. This issue.

[David]

So they're all. They also ran into some complaints over the fact that it is set at a, you know, marine park.

[Griffin]

Like a fish blackfish.

[David]

Right. And so they consciously were like, all of the fish characters will be allowed to leave if they want in our story because we don't want to suggest that, like, they belong there or have to be there or anything like that.

[Griffin]

Pixar's usually, like, pretty secretive about their movies until the last possible moment. They have to volunteer information because their brand is so strong.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And that was a case where in my memory, like, they, they kind of came out. You're. Before release were like, we are making changes to our story. They, like, preempted a potential controversy.

[Zach Cherry]

They added that third R of release.

[David]

Yeah, right, right, exactly. So, you know, like, I, I think those are the big things. They kind of.

[Griffin]

I think that was a story present because if it had been to it could have run the risk of just being a bigger version of the fish tank in the dentist's office. It helps that the problem isn't they're being kept here as much as it is. Like, this is just an entirely different kind of space. And. And I think what they do smartly. And it gets back to. I was saying in the Nemo episode that Nemo is weirdly feels very Indiana Jones coded in the way he constructs the sequences of what is the challenge and how do they get out of this? It does feel like the biggest gift they gave themselves in this film is just to be like, what if there is environment that is hospitable to fish, but also is largely above ground surrounded by people? Tanks are separated. And how do you cross these physical divides? Nemo and Marlin don't have to be on the opposite side of the ocean from Dory, but if they're in a gift shop and she's in a tank, it's actually a harder puzzle to solve. Yeah. Which keeps it from feeling like just a copy of the first movie.

[David]

There was a lot more Destiny and Bailey. They say both those characters are great. The whale shark and the bluegaw. And essentially my favorite character. They just kind of, like, had to cut stuff, but, like, that. They all had, like, you know, tons of material because they were fun to write. There's an entire storyline where Marlon. Marlon and Nemo gets separated from Dory early when the squid chases them. And then they go into the tank gang and they meet, you know, like, Gil and all those guys. And it was funny, but they just sort of, like, kept being like, it is a Dory movie. This is just distracting from that. So they don't use that.

[Griffin]

It is the thing. Especially after watching all these, like, failed alternate openings and everything, you're saying, I've come to peace with the first 20 minutes. That also just feel like they never totally cracked it, but they were like, you know what? We just have to get there. The movie doesn't really start until she's at the Marine Institute.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

They should be there with her, you know, at the start. Right. And can we just kind of, like, jangle some keys for the first 15 or 20 minutes?

[David]

Are we gonna have to ban that phrase? We're using it too much.

[Griffin]

We're using it too much.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It's become a totemic phrase.

[Zach Cherry]

You're jangling keys with it sort of.

[Griffin]

I kind of am.

[David]

For casting, though, they would be like, what about Ty burrell? Google Ellen DeGeneres. Ty Burrell. She's interviewed him, like, five times. They could just listen to them talking, for sure. Eugene Levy.

[Griffin]

Oh, they could listen to that.

[David]

Diane Keaton. They can listen to that.

[Griffin]

Right. Because Pixar will famously now, I feel like they do more of a traditional casting process, but they would locate an actor and then do a test animation to their dialogue from something else and be like, how does it look? Right. Yeah.

[David]

Dankin had never done animation before, ever.

[Zach Cherry]

When was Modern Family did that? Had that already started?

[David]

Eight or. Oh, no. Right. When is that? Or maybe 2010.

[Griffin]

We talked about this, and it's funny in John Carter that you're like, oh, nine. You can tell which TV show Stanton was watching when he cast that.

[David]

Do you like Modern? Were you ever on modern film? For 11 years.

[Zach Cherry]

And I, you know, I honestly never watched it, but I. What? You know, when Ty Burrell popped up and Ed o', Neill, I was like, oh, this is very much okay. This was dominating this tv.

[Griffin]

You know, he was watching Always Sunny.

[David]

And they were reliable.

[Griffin]

They were.

[David]

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Well. And honestly, Dory Marlin and Nemo are a bit of a modern family themselves.

[David]

That they're a found family.

[Zach Cherry]

Sort of a nice.

[David]

This.

[Zach Cherry]

This.

[David]

Wink at that.

[Griffin]

You got two people from the Wire.

[David]

You got Idris Elba, Dominic West.

[Griffin]

Pretty funny.

[David]

Did you ever watch Modern Family?

[Griffin]

I never did.

[David]

Like. You've never seen Modern Family?

[Zach Cherry]

I've seen a few episodes here and there, but I never, like, committed to it.

[Griffin]

Yes, same.

[David]

But I watched that for, like, two seasons before I was kind of like, I think I get it.

[Griffin]

It is funny that in my memory, like, you thinking this movie came out like, a year after Finding Nemo. I'm like, oh, right. This was, like, right after Modern Family popped. And this is one of the first kind of like postmodern family glow sort of jobs for the cast reaching out. And I'm like, oh, this is closer to the end of that show than it was the beginning. It had been on the air for seven years. It would be off the air.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Four years later.

[David]

Alexander Gould, the voice of Nemo and Finding Nemo, was a grown up. Was a grown up. He remembers the moment because he would do the voice for the toys. Yeah, like the moment, like a couple years later where they were like, you can't do it. Your voice is getting too deep.

[Griffin]

That must.

[David]

Which he said was devastating. He was replaced by that.

[Griffin]

That Kristen Shaw.

[Zach Cherry]

I know I heard a story House

[Griffin]

recently, but to just be told like, there's a ticking clock.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Sorry, buddy. You don't sound like Nemo no more.

[Griffin]

We will always need someone to voice Nemo. It is not gonna be you.

[Zach Cherry]

Once they catch on to my pitch. For old Marlin. He'll be back in business.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[David]

Is that kind of like a. Like a sort of Logan esque? Yeah, sort of like a sequel. Right. Okay.

[Zach Cherry]

Marlon. Honestly, that would be perfect. Because Marlon, if he. He. He is so brutal at times in these movies, if he starts to lose it. So even his amount of politeness is gone. You could have some real savage Marlin moments.

[David]

I'll say this Marlin just cutting loose. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Brooks also sounds a lot older in this one.

[David]

He does.

[Griffin]

And you're like, he has age. He's still funny in this. But he does feel harder edged in this, just from the nature of him sounding more like a grumpy old man than a nebbishy guy.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, but they're. They really like when he tells Dory, go sit over there and forget. That's the best. That's what you're best at. That's like one of the most brutal.

[Griffin]

That's what I'm saying.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And this is also post drive.

[David]

Brooks, Sigourney Weaver. They just thought that was funny. And it is the voice of the blue planet in America. The American, like, version of blue planet.

[Griffin]

And she's also the voice of the ship. And Wally, obviously, she's the voice that.

[David]

That he actually doesn't mention that. But yeah, that's true.

[Griffin]

I'm gonna mention. Yeah.

[David]

She's the voice of the planetarium at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

[Griffin]

Totally one of those people.

[David]

So she can just play herself. We now know they didn't ask her until near the end.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

They just had a scratch voice and they were like, I hope she says yes. And she did.

[Griffin]

I also just think every time they

[Zach Cherry]

do the one at a house, she

[David]

was actually, weirdly, without one. She had never found one.

[Griffin]

She was living in a box.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Every time they do the joke of someone invoking Sigourney Weaver by her full name, it gets me.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, it was fun.

[David]

Ed o'. Neill. There's an incredibly long quote that JJ put in. He realizes this quote is too long. So I'm going to try and just. He was like, this is newsletter fodder. But I'm just going to try and tell you that I'm going to boil this down. He gets a call, he wanted to do finding. You know, he gets his agents, like, finding you. He's like, I've never seen animation. They're just cartoons. It's not my thing, but my kids like it. Whatever. He is in Wreck it Ralph. He's Mr. Litwack.

[Griffin]

He is. He's the owner of the arcade.

[David]

And so he assumes they're like, look, you're playing an octopus called Hank. You're being paid by the session. And he assumes, like, great. Is it like Mr. Litwack, like, I did that in like one day, right? He shows up and he's like. It was like, really intense. Like, the work is grueling. The character is going through a lot of like, you know, motion and stuff. So it's like a lot of like, watch out and, you know, yelling and stuff. And after three hours he was like, all right. And they were like, you're gonna have to come back. You know, like, we're not.

[Griffin]

Like, you're gonna keep coming back.

[David]

And then after a while he's like, like, is this like, not a cameo? And they're like, no, this is like one of the lead roles.

[Zach Cherry]

That's so funny.

[Griffin]

He is so good in this. They have said.

[David]

And he didn't know Tybral was in it. Like, like, it's like he's cast, right? Like, they never talk about it. And then they watch a pre. A preview and he's like, what's the octopus doing? And they're like, oh, he's a mimic octopus. He can, like, you know, blend with things. He's like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know that either, you know, so that I feel like, can be the experience of being in one of these movies if you are not plugged into the Pixar world but are famous.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And you get the call of like, hey, Offer, you know, we don't have to audition you. You want to be this octopus and you're just like, sure. You don't know what you're in for. It's just fun.

[Griffin]

It's also because it is such an iterative, evolving story process, you, like, do choose your own adventure versions of the movie. You know, you go in and you do like 15 pages and then a year later they call you and show you something new. And you're like, how does that track? And they're like, well, that previous thing is gone. We made him this and we took this out. They've said it was the most difficult character they ever had to animate that.

[David]

It was. I mean, that makes sense.

[Griffin]

A nightmare.

[David]

So crazy.

[Griffin]

It feels like. You know, we've talked about how Stanton likes these kind of self imposed animation challenges. A big thing he said for the first movie, Zach, is that he was like, I don't want to anthropomorphize the fish. I don't Want to give them movements that are like a human. Let's just push 10% beyond what a fish could do, but try to get everything we can out of just fins and face and whatever. And it feels like, well, now you have a character who's hyper mobile. And instead of there being a limitation, it's the challenge of do as much with him as possible. And the choice to make him just, like, constantly in Mission Impossible mode is really good. Also, he has no mouth, which is such. That's like a Stanton thing of like, oh, their mouth is at the bottom. Anyone else would be like, well, you can't have a character without a mouth. We gotta cheat. And you can tell that he's like, I kind of like the idea of just the eyes. And it's like the eyes and then sort of like a nose bump. But it's basically, it's. It's like Gromit love Grommet, too.

[David]

We all love Gromit.

[Griffin]

He's a great movie star.

[David]

Angus McClane, who goes on to direct Wally.

[Griffin]

I mean, sorry, Lightyear, unfortunately. Yeah.

[David]

Is the co director. So, you know, he's doing a lot of work. The film does. Yeah, the film does have a lesbian couple, as we know.

[Griffin]

This was the original disgusting light years.

[David]

We see two women pushing a stroller together for two seconds, truly. And even Trump was elected months later. Obviously, all that was sort of.

[Griffin]

Fox News did genuinely get very upset about this. It was the most annoying in the world.

[Zach Cherry]

But they were kind of a conservative couple because they were horrified by the octopus.

[David]

That is true. They can't accept that someone might have an octopus for a baby.

[Zach Cherry]

They're sort of like.

[Griffin]

It's funny, though.

[David]

They're right. You know what? Actually, we've all got our, you know, our kind of boundaries, and we have to confront them sometimes.

[Griffin]

Yeah, it is funny how much that was blown up. It also is funny to rewatch it and be like, I mean, I read it as two moms, but also one

[David]

of them's got, like, a short haircut or whatever. I get what they're going.

[Griffin]

Like, a lot of context clues. You could be like, these are two moms who brought their kids. I mean, out separately.

[David]

Obviously, it is no big deal. Yeah. It would only have been annoying if they had done the Beauty and the Beast thing of like, we promise you gay representation is in this movie. And then that Avengers thing. Or the Avengers thing. What do you. What do you mean? The guy says something and Captain America nods.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

He's like, yeah.

[Griffin]

I'm so sad that my Dead gay boyfriend is dead, but still gay. And I'm still gay even though he's dead. One of the funniest things in the world is for a movie like that to pat itself on the back for finally presenting a gay character and the director to cast himself as the gay character, a straight man, and be like. Pretty impressive, huh, David?

[David]

Yes.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, God.

[Griffin]

This is life throwing another thing at me.

[David]

Oh, no. Did you catch it?

[Griffin]

No, I got hit with it. I got pelted pretty hard. It's gonna leave a bruise.

[David]

How's that to do list?

[Griffin]

It's tough. It's tough. And life keeps throwing more things at me.

[David]

Okay, well, is there maybe something that we could take off your plate? Have someone else help you out with Perhaps a trusted tasker from TaskRabbit.

[Griffin]

David, I would love nothing more. My ideal life is to do as little as possible. As much as can be off my plate. The happier I am I have your children.

[David]

I have logistical responsibilities often of like I need to build a piece of furniture. I need to whatever.

[Griffin]

You know, hearing about this for the first time. But sure, I'll buy into the premise.

[David]

The bit of this app and I've used TaskRabbit multiple times for it is literally always like that is the best money I ever spent in my life. We here at Blank Check Productions also recently hired a tasker to help us build. We purchased some new Ikea.

[Griffin]

Yes. Shelving now why did we do that?

[David]

Ben, the collectible collection that Griffin has been amassing over many years has sort of gotten out of hand.

[Griffin]

Broken containment. More shelves were needed. Yes, more shelves need to be constructed.

[David]

We needed more places to store the various cool things that Griffin has brought into this space.

[Griffin]

Important.

[David]

And we were able to easily bring some someone over. They did a great job and it's

[Griffin]

free to so easy to record dang episodes. That's what we're meant to do. We're not going to make you listen to a Patreon building the shelves with JD Amato.

[David]

Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture completed 700,000 home repairs have handled 1.5 million moves and counting. That's quite impressive. Obviously you know, you guys probably know already but you can search on task driver for tasker based on cost, skill set availability, past client reviews, you know exactly who's showing up. You can have confidence that they know what they're doing. So when life happens, your to do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first [e-mail] or on the TaskRabbit app using promo code check taskers book up fast, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That's $15 off your first task. Using promo code check with the tax rabbit app [e-mail].

[Griffin]

David?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

I'm just speaking for myself here.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

I cannot speak for anyone else. Good. Me personally, in my lived experience. Yeah, Summer does change the way I get dressed.

[David]

Oh, yeah, right. You do it backwards all other times of year.

[Griffin]

I wear fewer parkas in the summer.

[David]

That's true.

[Griffin]

Just long underwear stays in the closet.

[David]

Just. Just some puffer jackets.

[Griffin]

Do I wear the snow boots three days out of the week? Not all seven.

[David]

Ah, you know, it's summertime. You want the pieces that feel lighter, more breathable.

[Griffin]

I'm joking, of course. I sweat so much. I need light, breathable things. And I love a weather that is conducive to that.

[David]

Maybe some linen.

[Griffin]

Well, soft, organic, hot, like the sound of them.

[David]

Well, Quince focuses on high quality essentials like that. They're going to feel, they're going to look amazing. Maybe you want Quint's European linen pants and shirts. Okay. Starting at just $34, everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And they go way beyond clothing. They've got sofas, they got cookware, they got bedding. You're gonna recommend this brand for everything. Truly, as someone with a quince comforter, can I share a product that I really love from Quinn?

[Griffin]

Please, I beg of you.

[David]

An organic Turkish waffle robe. That's right, fellas. I get out of the shower. Maybe I need. Instead of just toweling off, I'm throwing

[Zach Cherry]

a robe over my eyes.

[Griffin]

Your wife must love that.

[Zach Cherry]

Yep.

[David]

And I got it in the color.

[Zach Cherry]

Color.

[David]

It's a green color.

[Griffin]

Moss.

[David]

Moss.

[Griffin]

I like these names for the colors.

[David]

Well, elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I N C E dot com. Check for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com check. The film begins with this. This feels like something designed in a lab to make money and make people cry.

[Griffin]

This is another fascinating thing. One of those things about the alternate openings, right where they're like her eyes

[David]

are the same size and everything else is tiny. The.

[Griffin]

The Alternate openings. Some of them, I thought worked better than the actual opening of the movie. But the first half of them are sort of. There's one I really like where you feel like, are we just watching Finding Nemo again? It's Marlin running into Dory in their first conversation. And then they run into the sharks. And it's a little bit abridged, but they're literally reusing the same animation. And then Marlin starts beating the shit out of the sharks. And you realize it is. This is how Marlin tells the story to everyone.

[David]

Now, that is kind of funny.

[Griffin]

And it's a sort of like Visiting Parent Day at the school.

[Zach Cherry]

And we get a little whiff of that. He makes it four sharks instead of three.

[Griffin]

So he's telling the story. You get to see it acted out. It's really funny. And then Dory's there, and the kids are like, what about you, Dory? So you're like, Nemo's mom? And she's like, no. And they're like, are you her aunt? They start asking questions about the family structure in a way that makes sense that kids would do.

[Zach Cherry]

But I honestly do like that. We don't ever get into that.

[Griffin]

No, but I like that.

[Zach Cherry]

It's just like, they're just a family we don't need.

[Griffin]

I love that. It's just a found family thing.

[Zach Cherry]

What it is.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

They're not hitting right. We don't think.

[Griffin]

I don't think.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't think yet.

[Griffin]

I also think this movie.

[Zach Cherry]

Old Marlin, this movie.

[David]

Okay, I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it.

[Griffin]

This movie suggests to me that Dory is much younger than Ellen DeGeneres is.

[David]

Well, I mean, fish age less than humans. Yeah. So.

[Griffin]

But in the first movie, I'm like, oh, this is like 240something fish.

[Zach Cherry]

No, I think she's probably in her late 20s in Finding Dory.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

Okay. Yeah. How long do you think a blue tank can live?

[Griffin]

Like, is it really depressing?

[Zach Cherry]

Well, years.

[David]

Yeah. They can live more than 30 years in the wild. So they can live for a long time. It says 8 to 30, which is kind of a big range, but. But commonly they live between 15 and 30 years. So she could be, you know, like 10 fish years, making her sort of like early middle age or whatever. Because what I think about is also sort of like, how long? Because they say it's been years. They do say when she finally makes it to the fish who, like, know her parents. That was years ago.

[Zach Cherry]

And we get three voice iterations.

[David]

You do we do?

[Griffin]

There's a child story, which I do

[Zach Cherry]

think they nailed the casting on.

[Griffin]

They did.

[David]

The child is really good.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes. But the teen is the perfect bridge between the child and Ellen, I think.

[David]

Yeah. I only seen like one scene.

[Zach Cherry]

Like two scenes. Yeah.

[Griffin]

It's just interesting to watch all these openings that are all like, we haven't quite find it. How do you reset the board so quickly and also start to drive out why Dory is suddenly activated by the lack of parents and all this sort of stuff. And he was like, you know, the classic Stan thing of like, I want it to be a series of flashbacks that reveal themselves gradually. Or is it one flashback that comes later? Does the movie open with the flashback and that's a dream and it all comes later? And there was one that I thought was really stylistically interesting that was like, well, what would your memory be like as a child? And then on top of that, she's got short term memory loss, so she's getting glimpses, but they're abstracted and it's not a literal scene playing out. And then it just feels like in the evolution, at some point, someone drew up a storyboard where the opening shot is Baby Dory. And everyone was like, well, you've lost the argument. Unfortunately, you have just found gold. And the movie now starts with that, no matter what. He's not saying this, but it definitely felt like suddenly they're all, well, as long as that's the first shot, you can do whatever you want after that.

[David]

Look, I saw this film in theaters. It did nothing for me. I rewatched it with my daughter and I liked it. And then just. I remember after my twins were born, when I was a very fragile person, I watched this with my daughter. My daughter put this on. My wife and I watch it. We were like sobbing and holding each other at the end of the movie. My daughter, to be clear, was just like. But like, my wife and I were like, jesus Christ. Like, you're just so, like, traumatized by the idea of, like, a child losing their parents by the idea of, like, the parents waiting for years. Is it manipulative? I might accuse it of being a smidge manipulative.

[Griffin]

I'm going to rip the band aid

[David]

with a little, little baby Dory with her big old eyes.

[Griffin]

I think this movie is obviously not as strong as the first one. It's not as tight as the first one. I feel some of it's sort of like searching construction. And I think this is part of the Pixar sequel. Shift thing is Once they get them to agree to do sequels, these things get dates. Those dates are announced years in advance. Shareholders are promised we will have a movie that will make a billion dollars in this quarter. And, like, stickers are put on bananas with the characters and bathing suits are made and those movies become immovable.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[Griffin]

Basically. Maybe if something's really going poorly, you can push it back six months. But also if an original film is struggling, they'd rather push that back and go, sorry, bad news. Dory needs to come out four months later. And I think this is the kind of like, shake shackification of Pixar a little bit, is the movie starts sometimes feeling a little bit good enough in spots, versus the classic Pixar thing being like, we will beat this like a drum until we get it as tight as it could possibly be. And I don't think everything in this movie works, but a thing I think it does incredibly well. Which is the greatest justification for making this movie and making it distinct from the first one is it's like basically a movie about being a caretaker for a special needs adult.

[David]

Right?

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

That it is a special needs child who is lost and a found family and this notion of, like, the responsibility of having to care for someone and the fear of them not being able to care for themselves and it not being the Finding Nemo thing of, well, he's little, he's still young, he's not ready yet. Versus Dory being like, will she ever be able to do any of this stuff on her own?

[Zach Cherry]

I do also think it's about finding. It's about, like, figuring out how to care for yourself as. As someone who, you know. My. My reading of the film is that Dory's a bit neurodivergent.

[David]

She is.

[Zach Cherry]

And it's something I watched. I watched Finding Nemo with my wife and we were talking about the Dory character. My wife has adhd and she related so hard to Dory in terms of just like this experience of kind of not always knowing, like, what you were just doing and like, blah, blah, blah. So I think it's. It's a lot of that too, where it is about the family, but it's also specifically about Dory, like, learning to be confident in herself.

[Griffin]

It's doing all three sides of it really well. The parents with the concern of a child.

[David]

Can we also. Can we just shout out the design of the Eugene Levy fish with the sort of male pattern, as you put

[Griffin]

it, receding hairline fish.

[David]

Funny. Yes.

[Griffin]

And the casting also, when they announced, like, it's Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton playing Dory's parents. You're like, yeah, that math works out. That makes sense. But I, I think their perspective of being parents, looking at a young child and feeling the concern of, will she ever be able to do this on their own? Then the chosen family going, like, we know what we've inherited. Right. This is part of the burden of our life. We love her, we want her here, but this is now an added thing on our plate. We always have to concerned about her and Dory figuring out how to do things on her own. I think all three are dramatically really well done and are tricky kind of landmindy things. And I also commend this movie for as much as it was pushing its politics down our throat with that lesbian couple.

[David]

Disgusting.

[Griffin]

It. It wasn't really doing buzzwordy. Representation matters.

[David]

Well, no, I mean, they are all fish.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but.

[David]

But this is not like we're gonna have like a. To fish in a wheelchair or something. Maybe we could. I mean, look, I. Yeah, I guess it could be a little more where

[Griffin]

everything starts to just break in society. Right?

[David]

Well, because you're talking about Ghostbusters. Like, I feel like that's the most prime example of like, they're like, we're doing a girl Ghostbusters. And it became like a fight or like a, you know, an Internet kind of touch point in a way that I think a lot of people like me were just kind of like, why? Who cares if there's a girl? What does it matter if there's a girl ghost? Why are you all activated by this? Why are you angry? What's happening?

[Griffin]

The beginning of the culture war as you defined.

[David]

And then in retrospect, I'm like, not, you know, not that I'm like, there shouldn't be girl Ghostbusters, but I am like, I guess some of this stuff started to feel a little try hard of like, you know, you've all waited for girl Ghostbusters. And I'm. I. I have the same indifference where I'm like, I haven't. Honestly.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I'm not against it. I'm fine with it.

[Griffin]

But I also.

[David]

But you also. You don't need to go, like, take a victory lap about this, like, per se.

[Griffin]

That's the thing. And I think especially as it's like, Trump is elected, everything becomes more divisive. Donald J. Trump was actually in 2016, elected president of the United States of America.

[David]

I remember that

[Griffin]

Disney starts to do the preemptive back padding, you know, little bit Like, Joe Russo starts to be like, I'm so gay in this Avengers movie.

[David]

In Avengers Endgame, it's crazy.

[Griffin]

Gaston's gonna have an exclusively gay moment,

[David]

which means he dances with a boy.

[Griffin]

Right. And then becomes this feedback loop of, these movies are annoying. They're. They're shoving it down their throat. They're doing it disingenuously or whatever. I just feel like this movie gets there very honestly and doesn't try to weaponize it in any manipulative way. As you're saying. It's more manipulative in the. Just basic. It's just that losing a child.

[David]

Yeah. The kind of family perils.

[Zach Cherry]

But I. They just took the character of Dory seriously.

[Griffin]

They did a smart. Kind of like, let's do the math on this. Here's the character we built. What actually makes sense if you kind of like, spread the pieces out. And I know you've complained a little bit about how much this movie does the. We're going to explain every single random bit of Dory from the first movie.

[Zach Cherry]

It was a bit Slumdog Millionaire, like, catchy.

[David]

Speak whale.

[Griffin]

That is a good comparison.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It's like every one of these things, which in the first movie just felt like a miracle. Where did this come from?

[David]

It just felt like Ellen had a good idea every time.

[Griffin]

I think most of them were that.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Or a lot of them, certainly.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. And then they're like, no, no, you don't understand. She does speak whale. She had whale friend. Where's. In the pipe. Okay.

[Griffin]

You know, she can read because she's surrounded by plaques, but also audio narrating the plaques. Right.

[David]

Yeah. Which is fine.

[Griffin]

It's fine.

[David]

It's fine. But I do like the movie because I think it's very visually inventive within the, you know, zoo aquarium.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. There's some awesome.

[David]

Yeah. All of the kind of Pixar thinking of, like.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[David]

How do we get X to Y? How do we, you know, move characters through rooms and situations like, you know, the coffee pots, the octopus, you know, the floppy. I love the Nemo and Marlin using the fountain to travel, like, all that stuff. I'm like, you guys are just kind of, if nothing else, at the top of that game right now. Yes. You know, even if things are getting a little lazy with your sequels or whatever, like, you're so visually adept.

[Griffin]

A thing I think Stan is also particularly good at is the. And. And is credited for this within even the larger Pixar films that he's not ostensibly the main writer. Main Director on that. He was sort of the guy who could lock in on the like. Like, okay, if you're Mr. Potato Head, how do you feel? You know, if you're Mr. Potato Head, that means your pieces are falling out all the time, which means you're probably angry. Is it Don Rickles? And I feel like Bug's life, which he's very involved in, has that same sort of logic of, like, what would the inner emotional struggles and psychological hang ups of each bug be based on?

[David]

The ladybug's got a chip on his shoulder.

[Griffin]

What could it be?

[David]

Dennis Leary.

[Griffin]

But this movie does similarly. After doing so much of that in the first one where you're like, what is there left to do in the sort of like, inferiority complex of fishes?

[David]

Do you like my impression? I really did.

[Zach Cherry]

I really did.

[David]

Hey, it just. I just want coffee.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay.

[David]

Just plain black coffee. Why? Is it gonna have to crunch in it or whatever? Remember that? He was so good at that. That was from. It's from, like, Leary. So, like, Leary's first special, you know, no cure for cancer. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

You know, which is all his stuff. That he's not famous yet and he's.

[Griffin]

You know, I tried watching that recently. It was tough. You know, I grew up a ly.

[David]

It's of its time.

[Griffin]

It's tough to watch that.

[David]

It's of its time.

[Griffin]

Not. Not even like, oh, this hasn't aged well. Like, culturally, offensively, just not.

[David]

Not that offensive were we going through. It's more just that. Exactly. But then Lock and Load, his second special, is the one where he's now kind of famous and has kids and like. And so it's more him being like, like, I go to Dunkin Donuts, they got maple coffee. What's going on? You know, that kind of thing.

[Zach Cherry]

Wait, did he. Did he ever do commercials with that as the premise?

[David]

A hundred percent of like, whatever happened. Do commercials. Yes, yes. But I feel like.

[Zach Cherry]

I feel like there was a commercial one. No, there was like, whatever happened to this?

[David]

That was his whole thing. He's pretty good at it. I mean, the best thing in Lock and Load is when he rants about the Catholic Church because you're like, oh, huge. Really hates the Catholic Church, you know, and like, that's a little more motivated by, like, childhood and family.

[Griffin]

It was still a pretty touchy thing to do at that point in time.

[David]

It was right. It's a little more hot low, you know. Right. But the. Right. The stuff I loved when I was a kid. I was like, coffee? Yeah. Dennis Tell him.

[Griffin]

Give it to me.

[David]

The like 12 year old person who's never had coffee in his life. Like, yeah, you used to just get a black coffee at the diner or whatever. And then he just stopped doing comedy and just voiced ladybugs and saber tooth tigers and I guess did acclaimless TV shows.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Which were good. I mean, I love Rescue Me in a lot of ways. But that's another show where you watch it now and you're like, oh, they'd go to jail. Oh, right. To jail. All this jail.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm gonna have to watch that.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It started.

[Zach Cherry]

Now it's got some good stuff.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. He's not in this movie.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

Although if they made it in the 90s, he probably would be the fucking octopus. I mean, right.

[Griffin]

Like you open with the sort of core trauma. They end up, you know, after him trying to outthink himself, doing a version of what he ended up having to do in the first movie of just like show the thing. Here's Dory. She can't remember. Her parents are worried all the time. They're trying to teach her things. Just keep swimming. And the shells that she can trace as like a Hansel and Gretel bread crumb trail back to them. But she gets caught in the. The overtide. The undertide. Under, Under.

[David]

Under. Current. No, Undertow is a different thing. It's the undercurrent, I think they say. But she's in the display.

[Zach Cherry]

That's. I was confused.

[Griffin]

That's what you find out later.

[David]

Why would it have a current that

[Zach Cherry]

pushes the fish into the vent?

[Griffin]

Right, it's the vent. That's what it is.

[Zach Cherry]

I think ultimately it's the vent.

[Griffin]

It's like filtering.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

There's. They're sort of misdirecting you at the beginning to not think that they're not in a natural environment, which maybe they.

[Zach Cherry]

Because the fish all seem to know that they will get released. So they may. Maybe they're just training her for her eventual. Sure life in the true ocean. Right. When she's little like that. I buy that.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But then you basically run to. Right. The section of the movie that feels like a Beatles cover band or something to me. Where it's like waking up for school going, Mr. Ray, yes, now, sure.

[Zach Cherry]

It's not like the most original stuff. It still has bits that work. You know, it's like when you have Ellen doing Dory, I'm happy.

[Griffin]

Do you know what I'm saying though? About how the bits all just feel like alts from the first movie. Because they're not doing.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes.

[Griffin]

The sequel thing of, oh, we flipped this character's dynamic. Or they're in a slightly different way. I'm like, every line that the turtles say feels like something that could have been cut from the first.

[Zach Cherry]

Well, yeah, for like 22 seconds. It's there. So, yeah, they're. They're barely part of it. But. Yes, but. But for me, I was still having fun with Dory. Like, Dory rolls her. Ellen's line readings in this movie. Almost every line. I'm just like, yep, that's the good stuff.

[David]

I agree. I would agree. I will agree that when Ellen stuff. That is the good stuff. Yeah. And like, there, I guess there is a world where you could say, like, you know what? Ellen has been not doing movies. She's been doing a chat show for 10 plus years at this point, this movie.

[Zach Cherry]

She.

[Griffin]

You.

[David]

She could phone this in. I do not feel that she phones this.

[Griffin]

No, no, not at all. Yes.

[David]

Like, I feel like she gets this character very well still.

[Zach Cherry]

Like, even in that early sequence that, you know, is kind of playing the hits, that just that bit where where he's like, don't go too close to the edge. And then she pushes them so far away from the edge and then she's like, no, no, that's too far. And brings him back. Like, just. I could watch Ellen do that endlessly.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And. And you know, the first movie, that character is clearly meant to be more of like a dilemma and just comic relief. And the whole surprise was that she brought as much emotional grounding and, well, roundedness to it that you're like, you could make her the center of the movie. This will work. Work. Putting the story weight on her won't stop her from being funny. There's a universe in which there's a concern of a Dr. Ian Malcolm problem.

[David]

Huh.

[Griffin]

If he's not the guy to the side and he's the guy who has to share the story, does he not? It's very interesting.

[David]

Goldblum is the best because it's not just Malcolm even. It's also Dr. Ian Malcolm in Independence Day. I forget what is David, Dr. Scientist. Mr. I just rewatched Independence Day and forgot that he says, must go faster in it. It literally that they're just like. Can you, can you just say it again? Yeah, say the thing you said in dress work. What if you just said it again?

[Griffin]

But can't we just make the whole movie out of this guy?

[Zach Cherry]

Right?

[David]

And then right when he's. Goldblum is kind of the lead of Resurgence. You're like, man, you know, he needs to be in the mix. Like, yeah, right. Obviously, Jurassic Park Dominion fixed it. Oh, fixed it. He was so good in that. I don't even remember what he did in that, honestly.

[Griffin]

It's the live action Moana of Jurassic movies.

[David]

Which. Wait, what does he do in that one? Because is he on Locust patrol in that one?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Is he? Yeah, because I remember Neil and all of them are, but he's in there too.

[Griffin]

She brings them together to get Locust. Get the Locusts. And Sam Neill spends like a 70 year old Samuel, spends the entire movie being like, I don't know how to tell her that I have a crush on her. And I'm like, weren't you in the first movie? The whole thing is that, like, in three, they established that she married some other guy and had kids.

[David]

Right. That they broke up. Up or whatever.

[Griffin]

And in this one, Goldblum's like, you know, she's divorced now. And Sam, Neil's like, oh, boy. I wouldn't even know how to tell her how I feel.

[Zach Cherry]

This is. We're gonna. We're gonna get to this in Old Marlin as well.

[Griffin]

Were you a.

[David]

Were you a Jurassic Park Dominion fan?

[Zach Cherry]

I don't remember that one. I've seen every Jurassic park movie.

[Griffin]

That's the one about the Locust that barely has dinosaurs in it, which is a really good formula at all. So they basically realized that the company that Wayne Knight, they smuggled the shaving cream can too, in the first movie had been the one we never. We never followed up on that. So they're a rival company that's been doing their own genetic.

[Zach Cherry]

Is this the second world?

[Griffin]

This is the third.

[David]

Third world. Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's Second World is the one that has like a haunted house movie inside.

[Griffin]

Right. It becomes an auction at a manor in the countryside.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't remember any of this, but

[Griffin]

I will say dinosaurs are in the house.

[Zach Cherry]

All of them. In theater, you put dinos on a big screen. I'm. I'm there.

[Griffin]

So that movie has Goldblum in it, but he just has a cameo speaking in front of Congress, being like, we should stop the dinosaurs. And then at the end, he says, welcome to Jurassic World.

[Zach Cherry]

Ooh.

[Griffin]

And. And the premise is that the little clone girl has freed all the dinosaurs.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, right.

[Griffin]

That are now on mainland America.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And so we have to live amongst the dinosaurs.

[Zach Cherry]

Then at the beginning of the next movie, they're all dying. Correct.

[Griffin]

Right. And they're like, they Mostly just like hang out in the woods. They don't bother us. So what's this movie about? The rival genetics company use the shaving cream DNA.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

To do other. But never try to do dinosaur.

[David]

They did.

[Griffin]

And one of their things was that they also do like Monsanto style food. Like artificially grown food, whatever. And they were trying to defeat one of their competitors by creating super locusts that would attack their competitors crops.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

But the locust got too big and now they're eating all the food. And we will all starve interstellar style to death. Unless.

[Zach Cherry]

Good.

[Griffin]

Unless all of our main characters from both trilogy to stop the locusts. I think the reason. Sometimes the dinosaur shows up for a minute.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't. I don't remember the details of this one because I think I. I've been confusing it with the new.

[Griffin]

I'm giving you profundity snaps.

[David]

You know, there's this moment in one of those. I think it's the one you said where he says, welcome to Jurassic World. Did you notice this moment where like the character is handed like this kind of rectangular piece of paper, then he

[Griffin]

goes has a president face on it, right?

[David]

No, no, it's like. And he goes to like a Bank of America and he like has a little conversation with someone and they like, they like put it into a slot and then he goes, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That was the.

[Griffin]

Uncredited, right? Yeah.

[David]

I didn't know what that was going on in that scene. I don't know what that is.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Dominion ends with Laura Dern and she's got the Chase banking app open and she keeps scrolling it down to refresh and then she sees the 5 million go up.

[Zach Cherry]

It was a great after credit.

[David]

You had a legacy. Cool. Chris Pratt's like, we need your help. And just has like an envelope of money. He's like, this is for you, by the way. I will say, actually, please take this.

[Griffin]

I will be disappointed if the Spaceball sequel doesn't do that. That feels like perfect movie.

[Zach Cherry]

I mean that. To have everything a little bit in the newest Jurassic in the.

[David]

The Scar joke. Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

They kind of have to be like, all right, everyone, we're gonna pay you a lot, right?

[David]

Like if you want to see dinosaurs. I'm like, no. Like, Scar is like, no, I've seen them.

[Griffin]

They're. What do you mean?

[David]

There's so many of these movies. Like, I'll give you $20 million. All right, fine, whatever. You got a gun.

[Griffin]

Openly cynical. That movie is about like the only reason you would ever do this again is if they were paying you you money. No one's heart is in it. Except for Jonathan Bailey, who they all mock.

[David]

Yeah, he's like, I kind of like dinosaurs. Like, whatever.

[Zach Cherry]

Call me Jonathan Bailey because I'm. I'm still like a dinosaur.

[David]

Well, I'm excited for the. What's the house on the end of the street with the dinosaur? Whatever.

[Griffin]

That trailer, Zach. It's from the director of. It follows. And under the Silver Lake. And it's Suburban Family. Anne Hathaway.

[David]

It has a kind of annoying title.

[Griffin]

At the end of Oak Street.

[David]

The End of Oak Street.

[Griffin]

Anne Hathaway. Ewan McGregor and their kids and their house.

[David]

Oh, it's just called the End of Oak Street. Okay, There we go.

[Griffin]

There's like some sort of time dilation.

[David]

Transported to dinosaurs. Don't really know anything more.

[Griffin]

This one suburban street gets transported to prehistoric town times. It looks awesome. I'm really into it.

[David]

Me into it. Me into it, too.

[Griffin]

I'm also really just into the idea of can someone please break the Jurassic franchise's monopoly on dinosaur movies?

[David]

Can others do dinosaurs?

[Zach Cherry]

Well, we have the Kong verse.

[Griffin]

Yeah, that's true.

[David]

And they do have dinosaurs.

[Zach Cherry]

They're dinosaurish.

[Griffin]

I feel like as they've gone on, they've swung further away from dinosaurs and more to can we create our own creatures? And I straight up, they're dinosaur.

[Zach Cherry]

They are adjacent.

[Griffin]

But I always like King Kong just fucking punching a T. Rex.

[David]

What if you beast?

[Zach Cherry]

If he had a glove, it would be.

[David]

He gets a glove, it would be

[Zach Cherry]

as good as it was when he had a glove.

[David]

Did he get glove first, then ax or other way around?

[Griffin]

Other way around.

[David]

Ax first, then glove.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

He.

[Griffin]

Right, because he built the ax is

[David]

made out of like a Godzilla spine or something.

[Griffin]

1. One scale that he puts inside a big log. And then the second one, he's got the beast glove. And I'm hoping that in the next one he gets shoes.

[Zach Cherry]

I think he needs a hat, a

[Griffin]

little fedora, a little jaunty.

[David]

Kong gets a little pretentious like Bushwick or something. But I mean, I was thinking more

[Zach Cherry]

of a helmet, but I'd like him in a little fedora.

[Griffin]

Sure. Helmet makes me think of like, can we put him in like a cannon? Can we start shooting him out?

[Zach Cherry]

Kong cannon.

[David]

That's fun. Like, Godzilla shows up and it's like one second and then like, rolls out a big cannon and it's like, get in.

[Griffin]

Right. There's a big wick. He has to light it.

[David]

Oh, that sounds with his atomic press.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then he puts his fingers in his ears.

[David]

His fingies have to go in his ears.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

I mean, now it sounds like we're just workshopping a Donkey Kong movie. Like, I feel like we're moving away from King Kong and towards Donkey.

[Griffin]

Good.

[David]

I did.

[Griffin]

I did like that Super Mario Galaxy did put in the weirdly realistic T. Rex from Odyssey.

[David]

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

The.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

The.

[David]

The little baby Mario.

[Griffin]

The babies with a hyper realistic. Yeah, hyper realistic T. Rex.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I just think maybe the greatest moment in the history of movies is in the Peter Jackson King Kong when he fights the T. Rex and he, like, breaks his jaw from the inside. And then before he throws him off a cliff, he just plays with it a little bit like a puppet. But we got to get that back into movies. That's what woke took from Kong.

[Zach Cherry]

Rips some. Some. Whatever the Skull island guys are. He does that to them a little bit.

[Griffin]

Skull crawlers.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, he rips skull crawlers over.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I just like when he does.

[Zach Cherry]

He didn't play with it as much,

[Griffin]

the playing with it.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. Sort of like an animal. Right. Which he is an animal. What do we want to say about

[Griffin]

20 minutes, yada, yada, yada.

[David]

They're like jewel of Morrow Bay.

[Griffin]

Right. She's like, I gotta get to California. The whole first movie is how hard it is to get anywhere. And they're just like, let's just use the turtles. It feels like such a. Like, guys, come on. I'm sorry. They insisted we put the turtles in for merge reasons. We're gonna use the turtles as a shortcut. They basically make them, like, hyperspeed. And then the second they get off the turtle current, I'm like, the movie's good and stays good.

[David]

Yeah, It. It does stay good. It moves along in the right way. And it. Yes, yes.

[Zach Cherry]

I think are sort of the writers of Rohan in my. In the. With where they're sort of.

[Griffin]

I thought the same thing. I was like, this is as kind of like what an eagle can just show up and take them there.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. But that works for me.

[Griffin]

But I think Hank immediately hits. I do like how sneaky he is.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes. It's. I think. Is he the first person we've seen try to sort of use Dory's condition against her? Yeah. I feel like everyone else is kind of just like, oh, hey, yeah, right. It's kind of like he tries to memento her a little.

[David]

There's a memento thing of like, can I get you rent twice? Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

And it's another smart, kind of like, Pixar logic thing of like, oh, does that tag. Is there a power in that kind of tag? He wants to get back out or he wants to stay in.

[Zach Cherry]

He wants to go to Cleveland so he can live in peace.

[Griffin]

Yes. Right. He wants to stop being.

[Zach Cherry]

Which I can deeply relate to, but.

[Griffin]

Yes. Right. You're.

[Zach Cherry]

Throw me in a box.

[Griffin]

He's untrustworthy.

[Zach Cherry]

Cleveland.

[Griffin]

Fresh water. I love the way he moves.

[David]

Yes. The way he moves is really fun to watch.

[Griffin]

And I love how frazzled he is.

[David]

Sure. He's kind of me.

[Griffin]

He is kind of.

[David]

Where he's just like, Jesus Christ.

[Griffin]

Yeah. The big.

[David]

He's like, I need to do all this stuff. And he's like, okay.

[Griffin]

His character is 90% under eye bags.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Which is in terms of facial animation. Yeah.

[David]

He's a Septimus. Of course.

[Griffin]

I like how touchy he is about that.

[David]

Right. And he helps her find Bailey. And Destiny is the moment where she jumps in with the dead fish. How she gets to them. Right. Because I like that, too, because that is. It's just dark enough. That's the amount of Pixar dark I want. Where she's like, just play dead. I get it. Where you're like, let's. Yeah, we can acknowledge this.

[Zach Cherry]

She sees bucket with destiny written on it. She jumps in.

[Griffin]

It's also this good line they maintain of, like, dory can't be too dumb. Right. Like, Dory misunderstanding things is funny, but especially in a movie. Thank you. Where I think. I think I appreciate your apology because

[David]

I was thinking that Undertow is a beach thing.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I think it's a. But there is a real thing that they address where it's like, all the fish moving around does create, like, a kind of bottom of the sea current that humans don't think about.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

That, like, moves around.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But that's what they're.

[David]

The ocean is scary.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Very scary.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

I love it, though. Get me in there. Yeah. Give me.

[Zach Cherry]

I. I don't like to go down there.

[Griffin]

Do you ever do any sort of, like, scuba? Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Almost. No, that. Never. And I like snorkeling. I barely go in a pool.

[David]

I love to go.

[Griffin]

See. I feel like you're like me. Where we like traveling, it's like the greatest luxury of, like, work. When our careers are going well, you can go places.

[Zach Cherry]

It is nice to get to do it by accident, essentially.

[Griffin]

Right. But I feel like you and I are the same where what we like doing is being a city explorer. Like, I don't want to necessarily go to the tour. And I don't want to, like, swim in some thing.

[David]

Wait, in the severance episode where you guys went upstate, I mean, you went to.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

You know, the.

[Zach Cherry]

To the parking.

[David]

The kier park or whatever. Did you swim? Because there was a lot of water stuff.

[Zach Cherry]

No.

[David]

You didn't get drowned.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm just in the snow.

[David]

You're just in this.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

No, I can handle.

[David]

Sure.

[Zach Cherry]

I know it's. I know it's water, but it's less scary.

[David]

Yeah. So come on. Yeah. You can walk on it. It's easy. It's no big deal.

[Zach Cherry]

You can eat it. Avalanche.

[David]

Though. That's a lot of snow.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Too much of one thing is always bad.

[Griffin]

Interesting. I mean, finding Dory would argue otherwise.

[David]

I. I suppose so. I mean. Okay, so just that it gives you

[Griffin]

way more Dory than the first time and it still works.

[David]

So Destiny's deal is that she's near sighted and is always bonking into this.

[Griffin]

Right. Which is another good reverse logic characterization thing. Yeah.

[David]

Bailey is embarrassed about his not nose noggin. Beluga.

[Griffin]

I love everything about how strange. I like his weird design. I like that they almost always keep him in profile where it feels like he's a 2D character, weirdly in a 3D movie. And I. I really like Ty Burrell's performance. But the. The logic of. He now thinks he's lost his echo sonar because he bumped his head. And that's why his head looks like that. And he's self conscious about it. Even though that's just the species he is. Is really funny to me.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. And it's. It is fun that because they're at this sort of like rehab facility.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Everyone is a bit of a misfit.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes. So it's like. It is really nice the way they all support each other and. And basically like hype each other up and be like, like, you can do this.

[Griffin]

It's the other thing that post blackfish stops it from feeling like a. They are stuck here. They're being held prisoners. Is the unifying thing is that all of these creatures are kind of like, I don't want to be out there.

[David]

Right. They're misfit toys. Right.

[Griffin]

That's scary. Struggle in the wild and I'm not ready.

[David]

Right. I like snot fish. That's a funny bit.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Fish sneezes. Yeah. Do they sneeze? You know what? I'm gonna go to google.com and find out.

[Griffin]

Do fish my. My favorite, like.

[David]

No, they don't have lungs, so they don't. And they don't really have noses. I know. Obviously, Nemo.

[Griffin]

They have these one sneezes.

[David]

Right. But yeah. So they don't really have the ability to do that.

[Zach Cherry]

Fair enough.

[David]

Yep. Sorry.

[Griffin]

My. My favorite little one scene guy is the overly personable clamp.

[David]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin]

I think he's so good.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh. When. Right. When Marlon and Nemo get. They get stuck with him, Right?

[Griffin]

Yes. He was originally supposed to be their next door neighbor in the opening in one of these fake openings or unused openings. I like that he's like a Muppet.

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

That he doesn't have eyes or anything else. That he's just a clam that opens up and is just like, this guy's not. It's not a bad guy. But I just really don't want to be stuck talking to him.

[Zach Cherry]

I gotta move on.

[Griffin]

He's like a guy at the table next to you at a restaurant who won't stop being like, that looks good.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. And you try to use your sort of body language cues to slowly, you know, rotate to, like, decrease the interaction slowly over time. But he's not really picking up on it.

[Griffin]

And it's so funny to do that with a character that doesn't have a face.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, it was. That is a great little.

[Griffin]

Do you know what the science. But yes. They. They wrote this bid in with him, and then even when they cut that opening, they were like, this guy's too good. We have to figure out another way they get stuck with him.

[David]

Them. Do you know the scientific term for the bulbous part of a toothed whale's head that contains a tycholicis? You know, the sort of big thing, what they call melon.

[Griffin]

A melon.

[David]

Literally, just call it a melon.

[Griffin]

That's fun.

[David]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Griffin]

David.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Quick question, and be honest.

[David]

I solemnly swear I will tell the truth and nothing but it.

[Griffin]

Thank you. When did you last actually think about how much fiber you're eating?

[David]

Can't say. I can't say I think about it enough.

[Griffin]

Actually think about it.

[David]

I don't know.

[Zach Cherry]

I.

[David]

Not. Not recently enough.

[Griffin]

Talking protein. I'm not talking calories. Fiber.

[David]

Fiber. It's important.

[Griffin]

Fiber. In the US fewer than 1 in 10 adults hit their daily recommended intake. And fiber isn't a bonus nutrient. It's foundational fullness, gut health, some man, certainly. Energy, blood sugar. It touches all of it. And as someone who struggles with.

[David]

I say I do too.

[Griffin]

Digestion issues. Sometimes I try to be mindful of fiber. And that's where Huel comes in. Sponsor of the podcast H U E L Huel is nutritionally complete food. One bottle or one scoop gives you everything a real meal is supposed to give you. You protein, fiber, carbs, 27 essential vitamins and minerals. This is like the cast of Oceans 11 in terms of how star studded it is. It's designed by nutritionists to be a full meal, not a protein shake. You have fuel instead of food when you don't have time for a healthy meal. As someone who's not good at scheduling and structuring his life, I will admit they sent over a big box the chocolate peanut butter flavor and I have a couple times realized, oh, I forgot to eat a meal. But you can also use powder when you want something more built thicker, blended, more filling. It helps you hit your protein goals without needing to cook. And certainly I love the sound of that. It's a really easy routine for when you're sprinting through your day. You just pour the powder into a bottle of water and shake it. Yes, you can get Huel today with our exclusive offer of 15% off online with the code [e-mail] check. That's H U E L.com C-H-E C K new customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. You got the two seals who are sort of the high status. We know everything.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But are assholes too. Gerald who you want to defend?

[Zach Cherry]

No.

[David]

Well.

[Griffin]

Or you want to interrogate?

[Zach Cherry]

I just. The movie's positioning of Gerald slightly undercuts the message of the film because the film, the film is all about like owning your differences and, and like, you

[David]

know, it's okay to have something up with you essentially.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes. And you can do things and, and you should be sort of accepted and affirmed. And then Gerald shows up and they're like, you fucking freak, get the fuck out of here. What's wrong with your fucking eyebrows? Don't touch our rock.

[Griffin]

Is Gerald a radio? Is the other thing.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't know what's going on with Gerald.

[Griffin]

Yes, but radio.

[David]

You refer to the Cuba Gooding Jr. Movie? Of course not. The device for listening to audio transmission.

[Griffin]

No. I am aware of the fact that he is not an electronic device.

[Zach Cherry]

They don't treat him very well.

[Griffin]

They don't. They don't. And I think you're the characters and

[Zach Cherry]

honestly the film itself. But it's a one, you know, it's whatever.

[David]

I mean it feels like them trying to find a new version of the Seagull. Joke. Right. The seagulls is basically like. Doesn't it kind of sound like seagulls are saying mine? And so, like, with the. The sea lions, the way they barking, it's trying to do that again.

[Griffin]

They need to be an asshole.

[David]

Not as successful. Yes.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

I guess.

[David]

Stuff that feels similar to Nem, you know, it's like. Yeah, we should have, like, these sort of side characters that relay information that are. Yeah. Kind of like a big, big, jokey thing.

[Griffin]

It's a little like. Right. Because you're combining some of the. Nigel. The sort of idea of the creature that can exist in both, but is the observer and the know it all and the go between for information. Nigel's the Jeffrey Rush pelican.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, right.

[Griffin]

Character.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes.

[Griffin]

So it's like combining that with, like, they sit on the rock and they see everything, with also them being the seagulls. I think the performances are really funny. I like them being two blokes.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

You know?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. I have no issues with them.

[Griffin]

I guess the argument is, couldn't he have been like a Donnie in the Big Lebowski trio? Could they still be an asshole to him while he is a character who can speak and isn't coded as perhaps developmentally disabled?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think probably.

[Griffin]

And then.

[Zach Cherry]

But I think Becky, they do a much better job with. Because Becky. Becky is very much like a microcosm of Dory's story, almost where they learn.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

Marlon is like, you can't do anything. And then they learn, oh, just trust her. And she'll. She'll figure it out.

[David]

Becky is a loon, a bird literally named for being crazy, essentially. So that's interesting.

[Zach Cherry]

We never hear her do the loon call, I guess, kind of.

[David]

They are crazy. It is like, I've, like, vacationed on lakes of loons, and it does sound crazy when they're just doing that at night.

[Griffin]

It's another thing that I think helps with Becky is that the loons are all crazy, are all nonverbal, and Becky's just a little weirder, and she's hot.

[David]

Someone finally says it.

[Griffin]

I mean, we had. We had to get here eventually. I assume Becky would have a really big part in old Marlon.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, I mean, they have chemistry.

[David]

She comes walking through that door again, they have chemistry.

[Zach Cherry]

They have sort of a. Like, Marlon almost enjoys the fact that she doesn't listen. Like. Like, it's almost like they're developing a sub Dom type.

[Griffin]

Is it like a Burton and Taylor? Like, the fighting is the juice.

[David]

Yeah, It's.

[Zach Cherry]

They're they're headed towards Phantom Thread basically of.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

They have this sort of dynamic that, you know, he, he likes being like, Becky, you do this thing and she's kind of like, oh, I'm not gonna do it. Or am I?

[Griffin]

You know, it's also, I think, just like a smart refinement for them of Dory isn't lost. They're close enough to Dory. There are versions of the movie they clearly ran through where Dory swims off. They know where she is. But there's a parallel narrative of Marlin and Nemo needing to get there versus what we're saying of like, it's a very different type of environment. It's harder to traverse, but they're never that far from her. It's more like a maze. Yes.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then I also think it helps create this thing where the tension isn't how do we find Dory? It's what you're saying, the testing of like, you're applying your Marlin logic to this and it's not gonna work. Marlon has to accept her line of thinking. Becky's line of thinking, yeah, sure, totally.

[David]

I mean, and there's this sort of mystery element to the whole narrative of like, she needs to remember, like, why the shells mean something to her. Why the. Right. Like, like. And it's very satisfying to sort of.

[Griffin]

I, I feel like there are too many flashbacks. Like, there's too many filling in. There's maybe a mini. But. And then I remember that like your daughter has seen this movie 20 times. Maybe that this, this narrative is not digestible for a 5 year old. If you don't do that, you, it really shocker.

[David]

It really changes your perspective on children's entertainment when you watch the movie with the, with the children there. Entertainment is intended for. And you're like, right, of course. Like, it's on her wavelength. It's not on my wavelength because I've

[Griffin]

been like a 37 year old man seeing animated films, being alone.

[David]

Do I detect a plot hole?

[Griffin]

Like, you know, just like, excuse me, you don't need to spoon feed this. And I'm like literally sitting next to a baby being spoon fed.

[David]

It's like, you know, I was spoon feeding that girl her food more recently than, you know, whatever. Like, you know, she was eating it.

[Griffin]

That was my experience. Watching goat though, where I saw a goat and I, I was like, okay, some of this is a little overstated. And I looked next to it and there was like a woman feeding a baby mush in the chair next to me. In the theater. I was like, maybe I need to shut the up.

[David]

When goat was available for purchase for 30 whole dollars on itunes, I was like, purchase?

[Griffin]

You didn't wait for the steel?

[David]

No, I. I don't buy children's films on steel. Like, the whole.

[Griffin]

It's all digital quick access.

[David]

It needs to be on the iPad. It needs to be like. Like, she's like, I want goat. And I'm like, got you.

[Zach Cherry]

Go.

[David]

It's ready. Watch. There it is.

[Griffin]

Get that free digital code.

[David]

Are you going to buy the goat steel?

[Griffin]

No, I'm not. I don't like goat.

[David]

Okay.

[Zach Cherry]

Huh?

[David]

Come on, Goat.

[Griffin]

Stop. You before.

[David]

Did you see goat?

[Zach Cherry]

I didn't.

[David]

Goat's good.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm. I'm. Basketball. Yeah.

[David]

I mean, technically, the game is called roar ball.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I was gonna say we might want to take a little dip.

[David]

It's a little different from basketball.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Here's rule one.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Animals can play it.

[Griffin]

Yeah. The ball is very different. It looks exactly like a basketball, except it has a million holes inside of it. So that any type of animal appendage could hold if you have, like, claws or paws or whatever.

[David]

Like, and the way it works, it's like you kind of need, like, a giraffe on your team to, like, you know, protect the rim or whatever.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

Like. Right. Exacter. Yeah, the giraffe's like the center. There's an ostrich character who's kind of a wing.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay. Yeah.

[David]

You know, like, it's all tracks. Yeah. She's good.

[Zach Cherry]

So is your. Has your daughter transferred her love of roarball to basketball at all yet?

[David]

No, because I'm so intently trying to brainwash her into liking baseball.

[Zach Cherry]

So she.

[David]

Mostly.

[Zach Cherry]

You're working on baseball first?

[David]

Yes, but, you know. But I am going to try and get her into the WNBA eventually.

[Griffin]

I was going to say, I don't know if you've ever met Sims's wife, Zach.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't think I have.

[Griffin]

She is similarly very tall.

[David]

She's tall. She played volleyball.

[Griffin]

David's daughter is almost definitely destined to be.

[David]

Oh, she's. My daughter is in the 99% basketball. She's very, very tall. Yes. No, this. This could all happen. I mean, or softball or any athletics. The only issue is she. She's got those David Sims jeans, you know, moving around inside of her, and they may limit her athletic ability. It just might be a hampering. My. My wife did play volleyball through college, so, like, she, you know, she could have. Yeah. But Aurora ball also. Yes. The home team, which might Be say, like. Like a team with like a jungle environment or an ice environment. Right. Is allowed to change the court.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh.

[David]

By like kind of like erupting a volcano.

[Zach Cherry]

Like baseball.

[David]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin]

Like the home game advantage is you're

[David]

allowed to kind of like press a button basically and go like volcano mode.

[Griffin]

Right. Your stadium mirrors your natural habitat. Even though all the teams have multiple different species.

[David]

It's very baseball.

[Griffin]

And. And the environment can be unbelievably that

[Zach Cherry]

right field wall in a little bit.

[David]

That is kind of the. It's.

[Griffin]

There's like an arctic team and their court is made of ice. So if you slam down too hard on it, it shatters. And then it's just like, too bad you can't walk on that part anymore.

[David]

It's good. It's good.

[Zach Cherry]

I'll be watching. I'm gonna get steelbook.

[David]

I think you should get the steel. I think also a very funny Nick Kroll performance is very Dragon. Yep.

[Griffin]

I. I own movies I don't like on SteelBook, but they are out of a specific sense of completeism. They are something like Fast X where it's like, I own all of them. I hate this one.

[Zach Cherry]

So if they make like five more goats, then you'll.

[Griffin]

I would need to. I would need to opt in wholly on goat at some point for them to eventually get me to buy one I didn't like. If that makes sense. This is much.

[David]

Kinda.

[Griffin]

Yes. Me owning several Ghostbusters sequels. I don't like.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay.

[David]

Touch pool. That's fun. We like that sequence. Very funny.

[Zach Cherry]

It is a fun sequence. It. It is the one where Dory's logic made the least sense to me of just keep swimming. And then they. It didn't matter which part of the touch pool they made it to. You know, they sort of just like end up. I have what they call it, like poke. Poke. What is the part they reach at the end? Oh, something or.

[David]

Sure. Poke. And probably.

[Zach Cherry]

But it did. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't matter. But it is a fun sequence.

[Griffin]

And I like the hands thing.

[David]

Y' all ever done a touch pool recently? I've done that a lot. A lot. Because I've been to the aquarium a lot recently.

[Zach Cherry]

No, but in my past, David goes

[Griffin]

to the aquarium like six times a day.

[David]

I do go a lot. I mean, my daughter loves it. I go by myself.

[Zach Cherry]

It's fun to go to an aquarium.

[David]

It's really fun.

[Zach Cherry]

Look at all the fish.

[David]

Yeah. Vibe with the fish. But they do have touch pools and they are Kind of like, you know, they're very specific. It is not like in Finding Dory.

[Zach Cherry]

Sure.

[David]

They're like one animal at a time, and we're being gentle with the animals.

[Zach Cherry]

That's good.

[Griffin]

It is funny.

[Zach Cherry]

Progress.

[Griffin]

I don't think anything nefarious was going on. SeaWorld, obviously a rival of Disney's. It would be in their interest to take SeaWorld down.

[David]

That's true.

[Griffin]

But I. You know, after the first movie, there were all these stories of, like, pet fish sales went way up. But then kids would beg their parents for a fish and then flush it down the toilet because they'd say, like, all drains lead to the ocean. I'm trying to free them. This movie kind of absolves you of the guilt of being a child going to an aquarium.

[David]

Yeah, sure. It's like they need that. They need the help.

[Griffin]

This is good.

[David]

I've never been to sea. Have you guys ever seen.

[Zach Cherry]

But the children are scary monsters.

[David]

That's true.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I wonder if kids grapple with.

[Griffin]

That's a good point.

[Zach Cherry]

I mean, because it made me feel like I can't ever do a touch pool again.

[Griffin]

It is interesting that. Right? It's like this is actually a pretty good setup for them. Save the kids. If the kids weren't here, they'd have it made. They like it here.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The kids are the problem.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. The kids are scary.

[Griffin]

Yeah. So adults should go to aquariums alone and keep their hands to themselves.

[Zach Cherry]

That I can agree with. Good.

[David]

Since I have been to Sea World a handful of times because I would visit with my grandparents in Florida. They lived outside of Orlando.

[Griffin]

Gatorland was obviously your preference for.

[David]

Sure. Love Gatorland. Gatorland is this shitty local park near where my grandparents lived that was just so trashy.

[Griffin]

But great location. Also problematic location of the final third act action set piece in Bad Boys. Ride or Die.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

The fourth Bad Boys ends at Gator.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, yeah.

[David]

It's a lot of fun.

[Zach Cherry]

But with the Mega Geater.

[David]

Yeah, fun. I mean, the. The whale show is cool. They splash you, you're in the splash zone. Right.

[Zach Cherry]

Like that.

[Griffin]

It is so funny that in the 90s, one whale just became a major celebrity, like a household name.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And every Sea World location was like, yeah, yeah, this is the one.

[David]

Yeah. We got Shamu, too.

[Griffin]

We got Shamu. This is the guy. This is that guy from the commercials and the movies and everything.

[David]

Is Shamu alive?

[Griffin]

No. Well, which one?

[Zach Cherry]

Shamu might have.

[David]

Yeah, she died in August 1971. Whoa.

[Zach Cherry]

So even before I was like, Shamu

[Griffin]

died 25 years before free Willy.

[Zach Cherry]

But then how did I hear so much about Shamu Moon?

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[David]

It's a very common name in the whale community.

[Griffin]

Can we pitch?

[David]

Wait.

[Griffin]

Should I do my impression of the WH podcast? Oh.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, yes. Oh, I do. I've never seen it.

[Griffin]

You never seen it? See, if I always try to get a picture and I can't get it fast enough.

[David]

Did you get it?

[Zach Cherry]

Come on.

[Griffin]

I think so. My angle's not great.

[David]

Damn it.

[Griffin]

It's the microphone arm bank. He moved the microphone arm before he.

[David]

Oh. Oh.

[Griffin]

David pushed it on himself, but now he's smiling. He's lost it.

[David]

Damn it. I think I got one.

[Zach Cherry]

All right.

[Griffin]

I think I got the effort of moving the arm.

[Zach Cherry]

Took you out of it.

[Griffin]

It did. This is the problem.

[David]

The whole thing with. About it. About me doing my whale impression. My impression of Brendan Frazier. Yeah. The poster for the movie the whale is you. You really have to, like, let your mind go blank.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Because that's what he looks like on the post.

[Griffin]

Zach, you're a tremendous actor.

[Zach Cherry]

Thank you.

[Griffin]

And you just saw David transform in front of you. I did, but he's not classically trained.

[Zach Cherry]

No.

[Griffin]

So it's a precarious process. It's very delicate. The trance can be broken very easily. You see him drop into it so quickly.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Have you seen Brendan Fraser, the whale?

[Zach Cherry]

I have not. I've heard it described in detail on 70 episodes of doughboys.

[David]

70 almost seems low.

[Griffin]

Basically syndicated on Doughboys at the this point.

[Zach Cherry]

But no, I. I have not watched, like, Doughboys.

[David]

You could just sort of, like, piece together the entire movie through all of the various times.

[Zach Cherry]

The movie I was probably never going to watch.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

But when I heard he floats at the end, that was really what. What sold me on. I won't be. I won't be.

[David]

I did out loud. Go get the. Out you. Like. When that happened, I was like, wait a second. I was not like.

[Griffin]

I'm sure I've shared this anecdote before, but that happened. And I went.

[Zach Cherry]

Went.

[David]

Yep.

[Griffin]

And then I heard a sound behind me and I looked and the man sitting directly behind me was, like, sobbing and convulsing.

[David]

I can't.

[Zach Cherry]

I. I am interested in developing a live action version of the whale.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Cartoon.

[Zach Cherry]

No, we'll just do it without prosthetics.

[David]

Oh, sure.

[Zach Cherry]

So we'll just sort of, you know, live action it up. Yeah, but I'm. That's. We're in talks for that.

[Griffin]

Talks.

[David]

Right, right.

[Griffin]

It is funny the way the doughboys Talk about the whale. You could go, well, they're reducing it to, like, five things. The jerking off, the meatball song. Yeah, the essay. That's the thing you'd imagine, like. Well, they're being really kind of mean to it if you watch it. Those things are so like the a

[David]

plots, like the meatball subs.

[Griffin]

The whole thing is this. They read the essay, like, 10 times.

[David]

Keep going back to that damn essay. The movie is called the Whale because the essay is about movie dick. That is why it's called that. Yeah.

[Griffin]

David, the title. Title does not refer to him in his body. It refers to the essay. And if you thought it referred to him, you're the judgmental one. And maybe look in a mirror. Shame on you.

[David]

Zack, what do you make of the fact that when Dory. I'm bringing us back to the end to this movie, to the final act.

[Griffin]

This movie does have whales in it.

[David]

Sort of learns that her parents did, you know, escape to search for her and never came back, leading Dory to think that they are dead. And Dory kind of. It's not like she tries to kill herself. She just kind of, like, throw herself, I guess.

[Griffin]

It's like, despondent.

[David]

She's despondent. It's like, what? Like, it's like the Hank scoops her up and then I guess he drops her. She doesn't. It's not like she throws herself out of the coffee pot or whatever. Right. But there is that kind of quite shocking or not, you know, but, like, exciting moment where you're, like, sort of Dory eye view of, like, crashing out of the pot and, like, rolling down the drain. I don't know. It's effective.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I mean, this is another, like, sort of this movie.

[David]

Like, it has, like, two kind of darkish moments before it's finally like they're alive and everything's fine and they found her and everyone's gonna be okay. I'm re watching it. The octopus scoops of Dory, right? Then gets caught and dropped. Yeah, that's what it is, right? Because he, like. He's like, where are the others? And she's like, I don't know. My parents are dead. And then. Right.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. When they were supposed to be affected with the same level of memory loss, she was gonna find them, like, halfway through. Because finding them wouldn't solve stuff because they all keep forgetting each other. And now it's like, how do we save all three of them?

[Zach Cherry]

Right?

[Griffin]

Really annoying. But then I think they end up in this position where they're like, well fuck then what is the explanation for why they haven't found her? They land on a good thing of they were trusting she would make it back.

[David]

Yeah, I think it makes sense.

[Griffin]

And they're like doing everything to stay in one place.

[David]

Right. And we'll just keep building a map.

[Zach Cherry]

I don't know if that was healthiest choice, but it was.

[David]

I mean it's a little bleak if you think about it too hard because they're years that have been completely isolated.

[Zach Cherry]

They're not near any other living creatures.

[Griffin]

Nope.

[Zach Cherry]

They. It seems to be they're living in the dark.

[Griffin]

You might want to build a support network of other people can spread.

[David]

Well, it's also. It is another fish family with one child.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You know what I mean? After like Finding Nemo goes to pains to be like look, the rest of the eggs got eaten. This is an unusual situation because it is true that like fish generally have like clutches.

[Griffin]

I also think that it works largely because this is where they really get their money worth out of Diane Keaton.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Their SAG scale. But buy a house with the residuals a year later money out of Diane Keaton where she I think really dramatically sells the like. We just trusted you would find us and you did. To make it a moment of triumph of like look at you. You did it. I assume that's where you and your wife start sobbing. It is very effective.

[David]

It's just, you know, like the fundamental thing that I think is very affecting to watch as a parent is when you see Dory as a child suffering from memory loss. It feels much more like profoundly awful. Which is the of course the drama of the.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

The flashbacks and all that.

[Griffin]

But the young Dory is much more self conscious about it and worried about

[David]

and you're an anxious about it and all that. Right, right. And then. Yeah, no, just the catharsis. Yeah, just like dude though like all the, you know, tick tock's always serving to me. Like watch, you know, the child see his soldier dad returning from the airport. And it's just within one second I am just like on the edge of tear.

[Griffin]

You know, like you watch that now. And after two seconds the child like lifts up the dad and throws him through a wall. And you're like, this is AI Wolford Brimley starts like puking oatmeal. Have you seen these? There's some account I keep seeing where I'm just like this is another Wilford Brimley interview from Larry King. I'd love to watch this. And then after Three seconds. He starts like projectile vomiting, Quaker Oats.

[David]

I can't even search for that. I don't want the algorithm. It's like when you watch one of those, you're cook Emma Stefansky, friend of the show, was like, do you know about Hot Hagrid? And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, hot Hagrid? I googled it and it was like there was a whole TikTok subculture. People like, horny for Hagrid. But then of course, immediately my phone was like, oh, you like that? You want as much of that as we can give you.

[Zach Cherry]

This might be the only opportunity I ever have to tell this story. It's related to Hot Hagrid.

[Griffin]

Okay, go on.

[Zach Cherry]

Which is. I don't remember how it came up, but I do remember that during shooting season one of Severance, I did tell John Turturro that people want to fuck Shrek. And it was fairly early in the season. And I remember him sort of being like, okay, it's just like the end of the conversation.

[David]

My impression of making the show, especially the way I guess you would do the COVID for. But it's like you guys are in that set for like forever. Yes, yes. For so long. It's just you're at these consoles. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Next to each other.

[Zach Cherry]

We ultimately did get quite close and I bet if I told him about it now, the conversation.

[David]

I want to know more. But this was.

[Zach Cherry]

It was probably in the first two weeks of shooting.

[David]

I'm amazed he knew about Shrek. I guess Shrek's everywhere.

[Griffin]

All our kind of elder statesman Italians of. Of the screen and stage are learning about Shrek later in life.

[David]

Right. Of course.

[Griffin]

Pacino's got the phone cage that people want to give it to him.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. He knows now.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

How? I mean, how many voices has Turo done?

[Griffin]

Well, of course, he's Franchesco Bernoulli and Cars two.

[David]

Ah.

[Griffin]

I think I like to mention a

[Zach Cherry]

lot he in any of the Hotel Transylvanias.

[Griffin]

He's not. And that's actually a shame, especially considering how close he is in the Happy Madison.

[David]

He was in Del Toro's Pinocchio who do voice Dore.

[Griffin]

I don't know. Okay.

[David]

I saw it one time.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

But yeah, I think he needs to do a little bit more.

[Griffin]

He Cars two sucks and is for losers and babies. And even babies should be embarrassed that they like it. It is one of the most insane movies ever made. I tried to give it another watch, Reese. I did watch it through, but I was like, well, I have any perverse appreciation for just how insane it is now. And it still is more annoying than interesting to me. Even with all of its weirdness. Turo is very good in it.

[David]

He's like a Formula one car or whatever.

[Griffin]

He's a Formula one car who's really like, haughty.

[Zach Cherry]

I gotta watch.

[David]

That's a slam dunk for him.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

I do want to say one more thing about finding Dory.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

My favorite part of the movie, which we maybe briefly touched on or whatever. It's sort of happening at this part of the film is the moment where it starts with Nemo and Marlin when they're stuck in the fountain and. Yes. In the gift shop. And they start saying, what would Dory do? And then they. They reunite with her and they tell her that. And then for the rest of the movie, Dory starts saying, what would I do? And I found that quite affecting and very like. Because I do think it's something. I think people who have a variety of issues. It's really hard to have confidence in yourself when you're like, dealing with that kind of stuff. And so I think this idea of just like, like trusting in yourself and almost like making yourself a. A like heroic figure to. To look up to, I thought was really kind of beautiful, honestly, to.

[Griffin]

I also. I think. No, I think what it expresses very well is that Marlin is willingly bringing Dory into his family and taking on responsibility for her, but is clearly burdening him with a tremendous amount of stress. And more than being like neurotic around Nemo, he's clearly just like, I'm like on the clock at all times making sure Dory doesn't kill herself. And what Nemo like teaches him in that moment of like, oh, right, she

[David]

is self sufficient and she helped you find me.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

My.

[Griffin]

Like, not that he doesn't want to still help her.

[David]

Yeah, no, I know, I know.

[Griffin]

I think because there's that scene where he's like yelling at her that is genuinely effective. Like he's being an. And he's not being an in the way he is in the first movie of. You're being annoying.

[David]

No, it's being.

[Griffin]

Because it feels like his weight.

[David]

Right. Yeah, Right. It's. It's. It's appropriate. Marlin is no fun in this movie. But you know, it all. It all lines up with the characterization. Hey, it's also nice when Dory's parents point out that Dory was able to eventually find.

[Griffin]

That's what I was saying. Yeah, right.

[David]

It's like a really.

[Griffin]

It's a.

[David]

It's an effective moment win for Dory.

[Griffin]

Now. I was texting with jj, our researcher, about this last night. Sure. And status?

[David]

I don't know. He took a long time to tell us that, like, a roof guy was coming to his house, and I was not happy. I really wanted to know that kind of information. Right away.

[Griffin]

We texted him.

[David]

He, like. And then, like, thumbs up the text hours later, like, that I had said.

[Griffin]

And then said, like, sorry, I thought I had thumbs up that earlier, but my roof guy was here to look at the roof. And I said. Said thank you so much for filling us in. JJ was really worried.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

It was like, you know, you really. You got to be keeping me more updated.

[Zach Cherry]

This is the first time hearing of it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

About it.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

Yet to mention it.

[Griffin]

I mean, we might have to fire.

[David]

Because I feel like every time it hails in Wisconsin, JJ's up my ass being like, more hail. And I'm like, all right. And yet I don't even hear what's happened to the roof.

[Griffin]

He sent us a series of texts about going to the local university library to take out a bunch of books on Martin Scorsese to start researching for our next miniseries and was texting us about how difficult it was for him to bike home in the rain with all the books, and we just nicked him so hard. We were like, huh, jj, those books look pretty dry to me.

[David]

Sent a picture of a stack, and I was like, I don't look wet.

[Griffin]

I don't see a single droplet. Now we sound like. What I was gonna say is that jj, while prepping this dossier, texted me and said, are you more pro on Dory than Sims? And I was like, I think we're both pretty pro. And he was saying, like, good. I just want to make sure it's a positive episode. And I said, yeah, I think the first 15, 20 minutes suck. Basically everything from when they get to the Marine Institute on rules. And he said, yeah, that's right. And it, like, rules, rules, imo. And then I think perhaps the most dead on profound point that JJ has ever made in his years of working for this show.

[David]

Better than the roof stuff.

[Griffin]

There's an octopus driving a truck. What the hell else do you want?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, that part Rules.

[Griffin]

It is the moment where I was like, Stanton still got the magic and the chaos in him of just the audacity of being like, you know what I'm gonna try to do? I'm gonna try to construct an actual Proper action sequence that can be driven by the fish that is affecting the human world that is pushing further than like. Like, you know, the. The strain of the first movie is if the fish swim down, I'll turn over the boat, Right?

[David]

Yeah, sure. I mean, it reminds me of Toy Story.

[Griffin]

That's what I.

[David]

It's kind of just like, what if these guys were. What's the craziest thing that they might be able to achieve? You know, like.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Could these toys drive a car? It's a push.

[Griffin]

It's heightened, but it feels similarly affected by a logic of fucking once a year we'll hear some insane stories of a thing like this that happens, if not this crazy.

[Zach Cherry]

You know, I saw a video recently of a dog honking a horn over and over.

[Griffin]

This is the thing. There's always some story of like, it's

[Zach Cherry]

basically the same thing that happened. Right.

[Griffin]

A bear walked into a 711 and worked a shift. And you're like, what? And then you watch the video and you're like, this rules.

[David]

There he goes.

[Griffin]

I feel good about the world for one hour. I just think this sequence is excellent. And it feels like he keeps heightening how far you think it could possibly go in straining credibility. And it's silly, but it. There is a really good worked out internal logic of, like you said, in a Toy Story way, like, how much can they actually affect things?

[Zach Cherry]

And we've already seen them sort of do a dress rehearsal with the stroller. Yes. So it's like you. You kind of are just bought into like this octopus can. Can move. He knows what he's doing. You know.

[Griffin]

And then weaponizing the otters is great. I feel like you want to talk about the otters. Ben.

[David]

Who doesn't love an otter? I mean, I was just trying to move us along, but yeah, who doesn't love an otter?

[Griffin]

They're cute.

[David]

I'm with you, man. Let's wrap up finding Dory. I don't remember what else happens anyway. What's the song? When the truck. It's like slow motion.

[Griffin]

Is it beautiful?

[Zach Cherry]

I can't remember.

[David]

I don't know.

[Griffin]

Yeah. The end credits song in this is unforgettable. Which is clever after the first one has.

[Zach Cherry]

That was nice.

[Griffin]

Beyond the sea.

[Zach Cherry]

Of course there's the closing little moment where. With Marlon and Dory looking out over the. The beautiful.

[David]

Yeah. They're in landscape. Right. Coral neighborhood.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Totally.

[Griffin]

But just.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The serenity of that moment of them all. Sort of the peace and the comfort.

[David]

It's. What a wonderful world. It's Louis Armstrong. Yeah, that's the song.

[Zach Cherry]

On my way over here, I was singing the song can you find me Dory?

[David]

So that, of course, could have used that. That would have been. That is creeds. Can you take me higher?

[Zach Cherry]

That's right.

[David]

Right. Yes. Okay.

[Zach Cherry]

But first just was. I couldn't stop doing it, Ken.

[David]

Now I'm gonna be doing it.

[Griffin]

Now I'm gonna be doing it.

[Zach Cherry]

Beautiful.

[Griffin]

Now can we throw down the gauntlet for the can you find me dory challenge? So you were doing this walking over here.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Listeners send us a video of you walking in public singing, can you find me Dory?

[David]

Can you.

[Griffin]

But you have to do it in public while commuting.

[David]

Do we want a third Dory Nemo? You know, they. They doctor recently kind of said, like, hey, it's a big ocean. Like, he kind of hinted at it of, like, we're thinking of ideas like, blah, blah, blah. And as you say, Ellen went from I've retired from public life to, I guess I. I'm making a short film in which I star as Dory.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

So, like, she's cracking the door open.

[Griffin]

It feels like something is.

[David]

Albert Brooks is old.

[Griffin]

He's old, but he was recently in

[Zach Cherry]

a film perfect World. Marlon. I do. I think it's such a rich world where, like, it doesn't have to be about even these characters. Like, yeah, they do such great world building with each. Like the turtles and the sharks and the stingrays and the like. Like, I just would watch any. Any more ocean life.

[David]

It does it do be looking good if we're under the sea.

[Griffin]

Yes. I will say, and this is just like a personal preference thing. The technology, the leap between the first film and the second film is obviously huge. Not to mention now they basically have unlimited budgets. These movies are so profitable. These characters are so valuable.

[David]

Sequels, right. Can kind of.

[Griffin]

That they're truly like, just send us the bill when it's done. It doesn't matter how much it costs. It helps us. Us as a company to have Dory back out there. I was talking a lot in the episode of the first film about all the cheats in that movie, of how they pull off the depth and the texture and the elements of the ocean and how a lot of it is kind of like the CGI version of old stagecraft, where that movie feels a little bit more like an Archers film in its sort of representational way of capturing that. And this. You're just like. Like, they have all the money and they have all the technology, and they could just render everything perfectly. It does look beautiful. But I miss the sort of, I don't know, the movie magic of the first maybe. This would be very doy.

[Zach Cherry]

A wicked style reclaiming of Gerald.

[Griffin]

Okay, Gerald for good.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. We kind of learned that, in fact, Gerald was right all along.

[Griffin]

He was a genius.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Stan, in that AIM Weekly article had this quote that has. I've seen the Internet immediately run with. With misinterpreting as Toy Story 5 director announces Toy Story 6 and 7.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Everyone's been running this as a headline. What he said basically was he said,

[David]

six, seven, and he did his hands and everyone laughed.

[Griffin]

And Disney started, like doing projections.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

No, he was talking about how they came to him and said, do you have any ideas for five? And he started noodling on it. He wasn't planning to direct it. And then he really liked the idea. Settle started writing it, started directing it, whatever. And he said, you know, it's this whole thing of we had always been so concerned was three the definitive ending. And then when we opened ourselves up to that's Andy's story. There are other things you can do. We keep thinking the series is ending. And he said something to the like sort of effect of you sit down for two hours and start doing the mental exercise about other toys and what their lives would be. And immediately you just come up with ideas for two more movies.

[David]

Right, Right.

[Griffin]

He was basically like, right.

[David]

And everyone just took that as they have an idea for two more movies that will exist.

[Griffin]

Right. And he was just sort of saying, and I think this is his superpower that, you know, Toy Story 4 was notoriously a disaster forever that they couldn't crack. It was the one movie they kept pushing back, even though they had all these big money deals, because they were like, we don't have it. And then they finally went to him post Finding Dory and said, do you have anything? And he was like, what about this? And they were like, fuck, that's good. And then he took over kind of co writing the movie. I think he's the guy who's really smart about locating something that feels kind of organic, that is just sitting there in the world that you've developed and what the human story is there, the emotional story that you can like explode out of that. I dread the notion of them announcing something literally like finding Marlon or Nemo's now grown up and his child goes missing. But I'm like, if they could come up with an idea that's just sit down and think about other Things that could happen in the ocean with fish. Even if it is led by these characters. I just think you can't do. Since this movie is the Flip. Flipping it again.

[Zach Cherry]

I agree. I don't think it needs to be finding anyone. Right.

[David]

You know who does flip? Flipper.

[Griffin]

Flipper. Flip. Bring Flipper in. Flipper hasn't worked in a while.

[David]

Yeah. Well, again, some problematic.

[Griffin]

He was on the shitty men immediate list.

[David]

This film was supposed to come out Thanksgiving 2015. They instead decided to give that to the Good Dinosaur.

[Zach Cherry]

I had a great meal that year.

[David]

2015, Thanksgiving.

[Griffin]

Yeah. That's why nobody beats the Zach.

[David]

Nobody does.

[Zach Cherry]

It would have been good. Good to pair with Dory.

[Griffin]

The only way that meal could be.

[David]

The only thing missing is instead you had to pair it with the Good Dinosaur.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Good Dinosaur obviously didn't do very well.

[Griffin]

That was notably one of the.

[David]

The first was the first Pixar movie to lose money.

[Zach Cherry]

I think that was the best Pixar movie to ever confuse me.

[Griffin]

It sucks.

[David]

It's really confusing.

[Zach Cherry]

I remember watching. I watched the whole thing as an adult and I was just like, I don't know what is happening.

[Griffin]

It's also. It's. It's the first one where you're like, you guys never cracked this. Yeah.

[David]

You guys have released this film because you had to, but you did not know what it was.

[Griffin]

Sucks. But it is like poorly conceived. And then it is a successfully executed version of their stupid idea. Good Dinosaur. You're like, where did this start? What did you think you were making? Can any of you take pride in what you've released now? I was going to say, though, that was the first year that they released two

[David]

in 2015, I think it was

[Griffin]

Inside out and Good Dinosaur in the same year. So it was sort of like Inside out covered the Good Dinosaurs.

[David]

That did so well. Right? Exactly.

[Griffin]

And I think they flipped finding Dory and Good Dinosaur because they were like, dory is a guaranteed hit. Good Dinosaur is a guaranteed flop. Can we sandwich it with the flop in between successes?

[David]

Right. So Dory comes out June 2016. It opens $135 million at the domestic box office, which is an animated movie record at the time, beating Shrek the third, which had held the record for a decade.

[Griffin]

Zach just gave me a very.

[David]

Zach just gave John Turturro a look.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I'll tell you that much. His Majesty.

[David]

Hey, Sex sells.

[Griffin]

Sex Sells.

[David]

It makes close to $500 million domestic. It makes a billion dollars worldwide. Only the second Pixar movie to do that after Toy Story 3. It was snubbed by the Academy Awards, as I pointed out. And Stanton does not go on to make another animated movie until Toy Story 5. Right, right.

[Griffin]

Yes. We'll talk about it in the next episode. But he very much was like tv. Well, he was like, I. The John Carter thing wasn't a one off. I want to be directing live action. And what follows is, like, eight years of him signing on for a bunch of things, attaching himself to blacklist scripts, movies set up at various points in time that don't happen, and directing a tremendous amount of tv.

[David]

He did a fair amount of tv. He directs two episodes of Stranger Things. Things, an episode of Better Call Saul, an episode of Legion, an episode of Tales from the Loop. Remember that one? Four episodes of the excellent show for all mankind, including one of its best ever episodes, in my opinion.

[Griffin]

Is Better Call Saul episodes also really excellent? I will say.

[David]

Sure. And one episode of the well remembered Netflix show Third Body Problem.

[Griffin]

He's a consulting producer on that.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

And he was a consulting producer.

[Zach Cherry]

There's more of that coming.

[David]

There is. By. By obligation.

[Griffin]

They're gonna find a fourth body.

[David]

I mean, look, those books are. I've. I've read them all. I love them so much. They're the greatest books. They're the greatest books ever. And you read them and you're like, anyone who thinks that they could adapt this is. Is a fool. Like, this is the most unadaptable shit in the world. It has like 400 characters, most of whom are Chinese. Like, and so you just have to immediately start, like, messing with it, which

[Griffin]

is what the show did over.

[Zach Cherry]

Over a massive time scale.

[David]

Millennia.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And like. And like, you read the first book and you're like, wow, that's hard. You read the third book, you're like, that makes the first book look like fucking where spot. Like, that makes the first book look like a cardboard book for children. Anyway, they're so good. I've never watched the show.

[Griffin]

Also a consulting producer and writer on Obi Wan, a show I recently watched and think is quite terrible. Not very good, but felt like a very much. I. I would imagine Obiwan was just

[David]

a swing and miss in the dirt. Like, the ball is nowhere near them. They're like, no, we can get. And it's just not even close.

[Griffin]

I just not even interested. He didn't direct any episodes of it. It's not like he was the main creator. I have to imagine that was a play at that moment when suddenly it was like Star wars production was ramping way up. They're gonna make a bunch of shows.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Is this a way to sort of get my foot.

[David]

Get my foot in there? Maybe I do a different Star wars thing or. Yeah, I know Deborah Chow was the director of that entire season. He did it all.

[Griffin]

But instead, he does not make another live action film until 2026, when of course, he released in the blink of an Eye. Zach, do you know that Andrew Stan released an a live action movie on Hulu months ago?

[Zach Cherry]

No. And months from now, I haven't heard of it.

[David]

Kate McKinnon is the star of it.

[Griffin]

Rashida Jones, David Diggs. And very Soon Toy Story 5 will be released with him as the director.

[Zach Cherry]

That one's gonna do pretty well.

[Griffin]

It's gonna do pretty well. He has once again replicated the same post John Carter thing of you guys forgot. I have another get out of jail free card.

[David]

By the time this is out, Toy Story 5 has come out. Someone assumes unless it tried to like assassinate the president at a dinner or something, it did great. Like, I don't know what, what might happen in the meantime to Derail Toy Story 5. It seems like it's on a good.

[Zach Cherry]

I have a, I have a, A, a Woody email dump that I've been sitting on.

[David]

Woody might have gone to an island.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay.

[David]

He might have flown on a certain

[Griffin]

express Pizza Planet logs.

[David]

Yeah, Pizza Planet actually used to be called Comet Pizza. Let's.

[Griffin]

Let's talk about is. Is there anything that could happen that would prevent that movie from making like a billion dollars?

[David]

I don't know. I mean, I remember everyone felt that way about Toy Story 4.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And then it slightly under delivered box office wise. Although in the end of the day, it made a ton of money.

[Griffin]

I was, I was wrong. When we were trying to talk about the box office and whatever episode it was, it basically ended up at the exact same number as three.

[David]

Right. Just many years later.

[Griffin]

But it was also post the sort of Finding Nemo funny. Dory had such a big Incredibles. Two Incredibles. Two had such a big jump. The Despicable Me movies were like rising on each one that people assumed, well, three was so big, four will be even bigger. And the answer is that like three is about as big as a movie can get. Ditto 4. The ceiling might have been established, but it's also incredibly high now.

[David]

Speaking of box office.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

June 17th. Oh, sure. Okay.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Finding Dory's opening number one. Number two is an action comedy.

[Griffin]

So is this central intelligence?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I it up by looking at the, the Rest of the summer lineup? A little, but I don't know what specific.

[David]

Oh, the Rocky Big.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Kevin Hart. Not so big. Zach. They were in a movie.

[Griffin]

You're smiling. What are your thoughts?

[Zach Cherry]

Of course. I love that movie.

[David]

Now I remember I saw that film at the Pavilion, which is now the Nighthawk, Prospect park, but it was in the dying days of the Pavilion. I had to see it to review it. And I, like, missed whatever screen. They were like, the screening is. You just missed it. You know, like one of those things. And I watched it in, like, you know, probably like a freezing cold theater with like a garbage bag for a blanket or whatever. And I remember when the Rock was young, he was like, he's kind of like a nerd. He was like a chubby nerd.

[Griffin]

And they like very overweight. The cgi, him on cgi.

[David]

His face onto like a CGI body.

[Griffin]

It's terrible looking.

[Zach Cherry]

And I'm gonna do a live action remake of that as well.

[Griffin]

Good.

[David]

I love how you say live action remake of a movie that is largely live action.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, I'm just doing it. But I'm just doing this.

[David]

But does it. Does do this.

[Griffin]

Oh, natural. Right, Right. God, yeah. And there's a lot of it.

[David]

Don't remember much else about that movie.

[Griffin]

I'm just a huge.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm a Kevin Hart mark. Like, anything he makes back then especially, I laugh.

[David]

He could make it funny.

[Griffin]

I think the Rock is funny in that as well.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I don't like that movie. They're both good in it.

[David]

They're locked in plot is whatever. It was just one of those things where they were like, rock, big heart, small. Make a poster. Well, we'll write the script later.

[Griffin]

Do you know what the tagline was for the film?

[David]

Yes, I do. Because it was the.

[Zach Cherry]

The.

[David]

It was what my review was about.

[Griffin]

It's so bizarre because the poster does not have their names above the title.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Instead, the tagline is saving the world takes a little heart and a big johnson. It's rare that there's a tagline that's a joke. Names, actors, names.

[David]

It's not.

[Griffin]

It's not bad.

[David]

It's not bad.

[Griffin]

But that movie sold itself. That's the start of their partnership. That's the first one.

[Zach Cherry]

And what was the one they did right after that?

[Griffin]

Jumanji.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Then they start also, like, they legally cannot make a movie without the other one cameoing.

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

And then they're also doing commercials.

[David]

Intelligence was a hit.

[Griffin]

It was a big hit.

[David]

Made 127 domestic number three. The box office is a horror sequel. You did mention it already, but Conjuring 2.

[Griffin]

Conjuring 2, excellent film. My favorite of the Conjuring.

[David]

I always like the first one best, but I do like it. And I love the scene where Patrick Wilson sings.

[Griffin]

That's him playing Elvis by the campfire scene.

[David]

Conjuring too.

[Zach Cherry]

I've only seen the first Conjuring, which is very good. I will eventually make my way through.

[David]

The devil will make you do it.

[Zach Cherry]

Yes, but I've only seen the first Conjuring.

[David]

Last rites is one of those movies that I already have forgotten. If I watched it, I think I did.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

But like, like I waited. Like no one liked it. So I think I waited for hbo and I. I'm pretty sure I watched it. But it is not in there with you.

[Griffin]

I don't know if I ever saw it or not. I think I did, but I can't.

[David]

I have letterboxd because, you know, I'm 40 years old. Parenting's breaking the old brain.

[Zach Cherry]

I felt sure I hadn't seen. I watched it, but now I can't say.

[David]

One and a half stars. Oh, right. Haunted Mir.

[Zach Cherry]

I might have seen some of the spin offs.

[David]

Well, there's a lot of them.

[Griffin]

Lorna.

[David]

Annabelle La.

[Zach Cherry]

I think I watched Annabelle.

[Griffin]

Well, yeah, you should watch out for her doing a la Uronia sequel like eight years later.

[David]

Sure, why not?

[Griffin]

Apparently that thing has just become like the most watched movie in the history of movies.

[David]

I think that one did have a long like Netflix tale.

[Griffin]

Long tail.

[David]

Number four at the box office is another sequel. It's a two. It's a movie that got a three many years later. More, very much more recently.

[Griffin]

And is it a three that finally landed on the right title? That is correct. This is now you see me, numeral 2, one of the most offensive movie titles of all time. Time, at the very least. It should have been now you see me, comma, too.

[David]

I, I agree, I agree. But it should have been called now you see me, now you don't. Right, which they eventually did do.

[Griffin]

And then they made the bad boys mistake where by not using that title for the second one, they couldn't call the third one now you3 Me, which is what it should have been, I guess. So instead, the third one is now you see me, now you don't.

[David]

I've never seen any of them.

[Griffin]

And the fourth won't be called now you see me, now you revolution, Legacy.

[David]

I've always heard that they are fun. They. They seem like silly, insane movies. Number Five. The box office is a huge flop based on a video game, Warcraft, that did make $400 million in, like, China alone, essentially.

[Griffin]

And like $5, but no money here.

[David]

Yes, that was it true. Also, I, like, went to the Regal Court street just to see it, like opening weekend with like four other people and watched. It was kind of like, this is so good. I'm smoking an imaginary cigarette. That's also not something I do.

[Griffin]

Such a spaghetti. Gonna call it out. A very funny, specific moment where Hollywood was like, huh, maybe we just make movies for China. Like, there was half a second where they were like, it made so much money in China that maybe we make American blockbusters just for them.

[David]

And then China was just like, no, we'll just make our own way. Have you seen Warcraft?

[Zach Cherry]

I don't think so.

[David]

Have you played Warcraft?

[Zach Cherry]

I, I, I, I'm more of a Starcraft guy. I had a D. World of Warcraft era. I never did that in college.

[David]

That's the mmorpg, you know, Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah, I went to see it with Juan Nicolon, the great comedian, former UCB teammate of mine. And he's a big Warcraft fan. And at the end of the movie, I think the Toby Kebbel orc has a baby and he turned to me and went, so like, that baby is kind of the most important character in Warcraft law far. And I'm like, this is what everyone's up. Why is the movie ending?

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, start with the baby.

[Griffin]

What are you talking about? What the have I been watching? Then it's like if Superman was born

[Zach Cherry]

at the end of. Yeah, end of the movie.

[Griffin]

If the movie was called Superman, but the whole movie was about Jor El.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

And you're like, that baby Superman.

[David]

This is true. I'm no Warcraft expert, but I do know that they did that. Number six is X Men Apocalypse, as you mentioned. Terrible movie. Movie.

[Griffin]

The original gentleman 6. Which is embarrassing to admit now.

[David]

It's crazy that. Yeah, you were like, hey, it's a six. And I was like, I don't know.

[Griffin]

And then I called it a gentleman six. And now once a month for the rest of our lives, someone on the Reddit starts a thread. Can I explain to me what a gentleman six means? And it's just people trying to parse my definition.

[David]

Number seven is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles out of the Shadows, which we've covered on our Patreon. That's the one that's good.

[Griffin]

That's the good one. That's the Bebop rocksteady. One.

[David]

Right. The better live action.

[Griffin]

Dave Green, director of Cody versus Acknowledge.

[Zach Cherry]

Right.

[David]

The live action. I mean, like cgi.

[Griffin]

The bay. The Bay. The Platinum Dunes.

[Zach Cherry]

There any fat guys in that movie?

[David]

Bebop and Rock be on Rocksteady.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm gonna be doing a live action

[Griffin]

prime for a liveaction remake. You got two big guys. You could play both. Yeah. You could clump it.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm gonna do a clump.

[Griffin]

Clump. I mean, you should also do a liveaction clumps.

[Zach Cherry]

I would love to do that actually, as well.

[David]

Number eight is Alice through the Looking Glass, which is terrible.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Number nine is me before you. That's the Emilia Clarke.

[Griffin]

Sam Claflin.

[David]

Yeah, sure.

[Zach Cherry]

Oh, yeah. That's, like, based on a book she's in.

[David]

One of them is Tearjerd in a wheelchair. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

[Zach Cherry]

Who wants to do assisted suicide?

[David]

Right, right, right, right, right. Number 10 is Captain America, Civil War, which obviously is a big hit.

[Griffin]

Yes. Thing I love to call out about Alice through the Looking Glass. It's the rare Reverse Spy who Shag Me, where the movie in total made less than the first movie made in its opening weekend.

[Zach Cherry]

Is that like a horror?

[Griffin]

A horror.

[Zach Cherry]

Alice?

[Griffin]

No, it's this. Just the second. Tim Burton, but without Tim Burton and everyone else. It's Dep and on the bottom, Carter and Anne Hathaway and Sasha Baron. Cohen plays time.

[David]

Yes, he does. He pays. The concept of time and a performance.

[Griffin]

It's not that bad that I feel like you've always stumped.

[David]

I'm like, he's actually doing something in that one. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Zach. Zach is, like, looks intrigued. Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

I kind of want to talk.

[David]

The plot of that movie is that the Mad Hatter is bummed out.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

And they have to figure out why he's bummed out. It's sort of like he's lost his mojo thing.

[Griffin]

Yeah, right. It's like, what's the matter?

[David]

He's in a grumpy mood. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Was the tag.

[David]

And so she has to use the time Time guy to go back in time to figure out that, like, the Mad Hatter's dad was made to him or something.

[Zach Cherry]

I think I'm remembering the trailers. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Place the Hatter's dad.

[David]

I don't. Oh, Jesus. Now I gotta look it up like

[Griffin]

Keith Richards or something.

[David]

No, that's pirates. I know, but I'm like, can't do that twice.

[Griffin]

Who would Depp have cast to play dad Hatter?

[David]

I don't know. Reese fans.

[Griffin]

Of course.

[David]

Teresa fans. Does it? Yeah.

[Griffin]

That makes so Much sense anyway.

[David]

But this, this film. Dory Tori is a good time. That's a good time. She's not. She's not changing the world, this movie. But like it's a good time.

[Zach Cherry]

One thing we didn't talk about yet, and this is a good time for it because it was sort of the. The in the credits. I fucking loved the sort of tableaus with Hank where you. You like don't know where he's going to be and then he. He pops up. I could have watched that for a full hour.

[Griffin]

Just like I love when he goes into the fishbowl and makes himself look like a plant.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, it's awesome. That was great. Yeah, they should do. They should do that for the Sphere. Yeah. You put a feature length just Finding Hank slideshow at the Sphere.

[Griffin]

Well, you know the Finding Nemo dvd, which is the best selling physical media release of all time. Still. Still or certainly movie had Aquarium mode was. Its big feature was you could press a button and it would just play an endless loop of like a yule log equivalent of Pixar animation. Your TV screen is an aquarium. So you. You would love just. I would a four hour loop of screensaver, I guess hang in a room. And he's sneaking into different spots.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah. And you just don't know where he's gonna be at first. And then it's like, oh, there he is.

[Griffin]

There he is. And then he hides again. Again.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Hank's a really good guy. Zach, do you have anything you want to plug?

[Zach Cherry]

When does this come out?

[David]

It comes out July 12th.

[Zach Cherry]

Okay. I believe there's one more. Rat Scraps.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah, Rat Scraps is ended.

[Zach Cherry]

I believe there will be one more show.

[Griffin]

New York Improv Show.

[Zach Cherry]

New York Improv show at Caveat Theater. I believe our final show is in August sometime. So check it out.

[Griffin]

Ellen doing monologues.

[Zach Cherry]

Hey. We don't know yet, but I'll certainly reach out. But yeah, it's an improv show I do or have done. We're ending our run after five years, I think. Yeah. So I believe the final show is in August. Caveat.com, google it. You'll figure it out. Come to the last show.

[Griffin]

Come to the last show.

[David]

You are in. I'm just looking at your Wikipedia page now you're in Jane Zumu movie.

[Zach Cherry]

That's right. I'm very excited for that.

[David]

I think in August.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

[Zach Cherry]

There's. We got some. I got a busy year on the.

[Griffin]

You got a good.

[Zach Cherry]

You got a Good slate coming up.

[David]

Right.

[Zach Cherry]

You're in Breadwinner.

[David]

You're in the Breadwinner, which is out at this point.

[Zach Cherry]

The.

[David]

The Nate Bargetzi movie.

[Zach Cherry]

That's right.

[David]

Right. You're in Resident Evil.

[Zach Cherry]

Of course.

[David]

Zach Cracker's Resident Evil.

[Griffin]

Of course. Can confirm. You can. Very excited.

[David]

You're in a Kevin hart movie called 72 Hours.

[Griffin]

Wait, what?

[Zach Cherry]

That's a Netflix orig. I got to work with my guy.

[David]

Stunned to learn that Kevin is making a Netflix original.

[Griffin]

Saving the world's going to take a little heart and a little cherry.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, I tried to push that. They said I'm not really a main character. They said I'm more of sort of minor supporting.

[David]

Interesting. Rude.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah.

[David]

You're in Lauren Miller Rogan Zoom Movie. Although another one when that's coming out. But that's me. That's a great cast.

[Zach Cherry]

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

[David]

Yeah, we got some fun stuff. You got lots of fun stuff. And there's Severance on Apple and Fallout on Prime Video and I don't know. Yeah.

[Griffin]

You start filming Severance in a couple months, which means it will premiere next decade. Right?

[Zach Cherry]

No comment.

[David]

No talking about Severance. Great show. I love it.

[Griffin]

You're the best show on tv.

[David]

And you're the best guest on podcast.

[Zach Cherry]

Good. Always good to be here there.

[David]

It's very nice to have you.

[Zach Cherry]

And whenever that 1517 to Paris comes into the station. Oh, dude.

[David]

I mean, look, I know we're about to do nine months of Marty.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

So like one year of Clint isn't exactly like the best follow up.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

But like, someday, you know, if you want to give me the green light for a year Clint.

[Griffin]

But the Clint won't take that long because we can do each episode in one take.

[David]

That's true. We should actually. Right. Commit with the Clints to being like. Like, we need to be done in 80 minutes and break for lunch or whatever. Right. We have to honor him somehow. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Love that idea.

[David]

That would actually be fun.

[Griffin]

If the clint bit is 10 minute episodes.

[David]

Yeah. I mean, seriously, let's not make a

[Griffin]

big deal out of it.

[David]

That's good.

[Griffin]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe Next week. We are going straight into in the Blink of an Eye.

[David]

Yeah, I think so.

[Griffin]

Just making sure there's no new release stuff with all the summer.

[David]

Oh, wait. It is the Odyssey. It's the Odyssey. Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey. Yes. Yeah.

[Griffin]

So the next two weeks we will be covering the two biggest films of 2026.

[Zach Cherry]

I'm hyped for that.

[Griffin]

The Odyssey. And in the blink of an eye. How do we think Odyssey is going to be?

[David]

I'm so excited for it.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I'm so seated. I'm seated in a horse.

[Zach Cherry]

And I love. I'm excited for Bernthal in the Odyssey.

[Griffin]

I'm really excited for that.

[David]

Hey, can I talk to you?

[Zach Cherry]

I love that guy.

[David]

Just like the idea of like. And Hathway's like, when will my husband come? He's like, hey, I don't know.

[Griffin]

You want to know some sort of Odyssey or something?

[David]

Okay, good cousin, come on.

[Griffin]

A long time cousin.

[David]

You need to open your own restaurant.

[Griffin]

A series of small trials. He can't stop playing, you know? Yes. Anyway, tune in next week for that. And as always, Disney make the call. Zach Cherry is ready and tech avail to develop old Marlin. I'd love a house, a show about marlin. Getting some strength even.

[Zach Cherry]

Just let me do a little voice.

[Griffin]

Do a little voice in old Marlon.

[Zach Cherry]

I could be like, what's a sea creature they haven't done yet?

[Griffin]

Star. No. Starfishes. Tadpole?

[David]

Snail.

[Griffin]

Oh, I'm a little snail.

[David]

That's pretty good. Wait a second.

[Griffin]

What's your. Wait, what's your deal?

[David]

Blank check owns that. Okay. You come through us.

[Zach Cherry]

I have some type of trauma as well.

[Griffin]

Okay, very cool. We could tease this out after a couple seasons. Yeah.

[Zach Cherry]

Dory, I accept and love you.

[Griffin]

Dori's boyfriend.

[David]

Yeah,

[Zach Cherry]

that's my pitch.

[Griffin]

It's a good pitch.