Look Who's Talking with Hillary Busis

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David - Episode: "Look Who's Talking with Hillary Busis" (May 18, 2025)

Introduction

In this episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims, along with guest Hillary Busis, delve into the iconic 1989 film "Look Who's Talking." Produced by Ben Hosley, the podcast explores Amy Heckerling's directorial efforts, focusing on how the success of "Look Who's Talking" provided her with the creative freedom, or "blank check," to pursue passion projects within Hollywood.

Plot Overview

"Look Who's Talking" revolves around Molly Jensen (played by Kirsty Alley), a single working mother navigating the complexities of parenthood in New York City. The film introduces a unique twist: the inner monologue of Molly's baby, Mikey, voiced by Bruce Willis, providing comedic and heartfelt insights into the challenges of raising a child.

Notable Quote:

Griffin Newman [20:22]: "But hey, 96 minutes of baby's talking. How bad could this be?"

Director's Background: Amy Heckerling

Amy Heckerling, renowned for directing "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Clueless," took a significant creative leap with "Look Who's Talking." Coming off mixed successes, Heckerling aimed to create a story that balanced commercial appeal with personal resonance.

Notable Quote:

David Sims [23:12]: "This is a great comeback movie in the lineage of what we talk about, where she was basically coming off two things that didn't help her career and was like, I need a movie that's a can't miss hit."

Cast and Characters

• John Travolta as John Travolta's character, a charming yet somewhat erratic cab driver who becomes entwined in Molly's life.
• Kirsty Alley as Molly Jensen, a professional woman striving to balance her career and newfound motherhood.
• Bruce Willis as Mikey's voice, providing the baby's internal thoughts.
• Olympia Dukakis as Molly's Mother, adding depth and humor to the family dynamics.
• Mel Brooks as Mr. Toilet, a memorable and quirky character that adds to the film's unique charm.

Notable Quote:

David Sims [76:31]: "George Seagull makes a joke where I think he says 10 bucks an hour. Where he's like, what is she paying you? I'll double it."

Production Details

With a modest budget of $8 million, Heckerling strategically allocated funds, dedicating a significant portion to securing star power from Travolta and Alley. The film's marketing hinged on the intriguing poster featuring a giant baby head, effectively conveying the movie's central conceit.

Notable Quote:

Griffin Newman [46:45]: "It's an $8 million movie that made $300 million worldwide."

The production employed innovative techniques for the time, utilizing puppeteers and early visual effects to bring Mikey's character to life. The decision to have multiple babies portray Mikey ensured a seamless portrayal of the character's growth throughout the film.

Cultural Impact and Legacy

"Look Who's Talking" emerged as a box office sensation, topping charts for five consecutive weeks and grossing $300 million worldwide. Its success not only revitalized John Travolta's career but also solidified Amy Heckerling's reputation as a versatile director capable of blending humor with heartfelt storytelling.

The film spawned two sequels, "Look Who's Talking Too" and "Look Who's Talking Now," though they did not achieve the same level of acclaim. Nevertheless, the original remains a beloved classic, remembered for its unique premise and charismatic performances.

Notable Quote:

David Sims [43:22]: "This is what I found so fascinating is this is still an era of movie marketing where you can trick people into going to see a movie, giving them an incomplete picture."

Behind the Scenes and Personal Insights

Throughout the episode, Griffin and David share anecdotes about their personal experiences with the film, reflecting on its nostalgic value and the performances that stood out. Guest Hillary Busis contributes by recounting moments from her pregnancy and how certain scenes resonated with her own experiences as a mother.

Notable Quote:

Hillary Busis [81:24]: "I've been present for the delivery of three babies. But two. Two deliveries. Can you just get Demerol injected into an IV when you're in labor? I don't think so."

Conclusion

In "Look Who's Talking," Amy Heckerling masterfully crafted a film that balanced commercial appeal with personal storytelling, leveraging star power and innovative concepts to create a lasting cinematic impact. Griffin, David, and Hillary's discussion not only highlights the film's successes but also offers a critical examination of its narrative choices and legacy within Hollywood.

Notable Quote:

Griffin Newman [156:16]: "But that's what I'm saying, it's about a woman having a baby and all her issues. Nobody's gonna be mad after they watch this. It's fine."

Final Thoughts

"Look Who's Talking" serves as a testament to the power of creative storytelling backed by strategic production and marketing. Amy Heckerling's ability to turn a simple premise into a beloved classic underscores the essence of the Blank Check series: exploring how early successes allow auteurs to craft unique and memorable films.

---

Notable Quotes Summary

1. Griffin Newman [20:22]: "But hey, 96 minutes of baby's talking. How bad could this be?"
2. David Sims [23:12]: "This is a great comeback movie in the lineage of what we talk about, where she was basically coming off two things that didn't help her career and was like, I need a movie that's a can't miss hit."
3. Griffin Newman [46:45]: "It's an $8 million movie that made $300 million worldwide."
4. David Sims [43:22]: "This is what I found so fascinating is this is still an era of movie marketing where you can trick people into going to see a movie, giving them an incomplete picture."
5. Hillary Busis [81:24]: "I've been present for the delivery of three babies. But two. Two deliveries. Can you just get Demerol injected into an IV when you're in labor? I don't think so."
6. Griffin Newman [156:16]: "But that's what I'm saying, it's about a woman having a baby and all her issues. Nobody's gonna be mad after they watch this. It's fine."

Listeners are encouraged to watch "Look Who's Talking" to experience the charm and charisma that made it a standout hit in 1989. For more insights into filmographies and the stories behind the movies, tune in to future episodes of Blank Check with Griffin & David.

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David.

[David Sims]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[Griffin Newman]

All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Blackjack.

[David Sims]

He's hip, he's slick, and he's only three months old. He's got David Sims smile, Ben Hosley's eyes, and the voice of Griffin Newman. And now all he has to do is find himself the perfect podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

So a bunch of notes. Not. Not for what you did. You did. Good thing.

[David Sims]

That is one of the more insane taglines we have ever covered on no.

[Hillary Busis]

Part of this movie is he three months old.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. They pretty much leap from newborn to.

[David Sims]

Like, oh, my God. Incredible point right off the bat.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, even bigger point.

[Hillary Busis]

Now you have child development issues with this movie.

[David Sims]

Many points.

[Griffin Newman]

We're going to. I mean, you said on letterbox last.

[David Sims]

Night, this is truly one of the richest texts we have ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Just dumb movie that, like, has. Was a huge hit and it's been a little memory watching this.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, no. If you mentioned this to a 25 year old, they have no idea.

[David Sims]

Yeah, they're like, huh, My brain is firing on all synapses and I'm just like, I will never run out of things to talk about in this episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, you replaced names in the poster, right? So instead of John Travolta smile, you said David Sims smile. But yes, the poster says, yes, John Travolta's smile. I don't know where he got that since John Travolta ain't his daddy, which this poster is misrepresenting.

[David Sims]

Right? And then it says he needs to find himself the perfect daddy, which is kind of the central conflict.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? But, like, if you watch reading the poster, you're like, whoa, what's wrong with Travolta? Jesus, the guy's had a few bombs. But do we need to be dragging him on his own movie poster?

[David Sims]

It's also a wild choice that obviously the poster is just big old Mikey head, right? Chewing on the title, chewing on the Tuttle.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why the movie was a hit.

[David Sims]

Oh, it definitely is.

[Griffin Newman]

Is the poster.

[David Sims]

We're going to talk about. We're going to talk about it.

[Hillary Busis]

I should bring up the poster.

[Griffin Newman]

I am not this image. Just look, everyone was like, he's talking. Yeah, I'm seeing.

[David Sims]

It was.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, I'm buying. People went. Probably went to the window and were like, can I have one? To the baby movie. And they're like, it's not out for three months. And they were like, well, I'll be here. Money down now.

[David Sims]

Highest grossing films in North America of 1989 were in order. Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Lethal Weapon 2. Back to the Future Part 2 in 1989.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah. Well, maybe that's.

[David Sims]

Did it come out.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, 1989. Now back to the future part two.

[David Sims]

And then. Look who's talking.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, lethal up into sixth.

[Hillary Busis]

Look who's talking made three.

[David Sims]

Wikipedia gave me false information, which this is the first time this has ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Happened once, as usual. Maybe I'm looking at worldwide versus, I mean worldwide.

[David Sims]

This movie was.

[Hillary Busis]

I saw on Wikipedia, $300 million.

[David Sims]

That's the biggest thing is like, it was huge in United States at the time of its release. I believe it was the single highest grossing film worldwide in the history of Columbia Pictures.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, wow.

[Hillary Busis]

And it was Travolta's biggest since Greece.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean, everything about you cannot overstate how big this movie was. It really was just the poster. But also, like, I understand Travolta's star is dinged at this moment. Kirsty Alley at the time of this release is on the biggest sitcom in the world.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but that doesn't.

[David Sims]

The poster giant baby head. The actor's names are not above the title. They're just in the tagline. They're just mentioning he's got John Travolta smile. Well, he doesn't.

[Hillary Busis]

Which means that they could be in the movie or maybe not worldwide. Naming the attributes that the baby has.

[David Sims]

The movie goes out of its way, actually. In fact, to say that he has George Siegel's eyes, not Kirsty, that make.

[Griffin Newman]

That clear, that that's the one thing he got from Siegel. Right.

[David Sims]

He's got Seagull's eyes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

He does have Kirsty Alley's voice. He does, in fact have Bruce Willis's voice, you could argue, as Kir smile.

[Griffin Newman]

I suppose so. But like, it is also. That's the other thing that's busted about the poster, where you're like, kir's voice is kind of what she's famous for, where they're like, oh, she. He's got Kir's eyes. I'm like, okay, yeah, but we know.

[David Sims]

He has Bruce Willis's voice. Anyway, the only thing that maybe could have made this movie gross more is if the poster was just Bruce Willis voices this and there was an arrow pointing down to the baby with the sunglasses eating the title.

[Griffin Newman]

John Travolta's highest grossing worldwide film of all time is Greece. Now, obviously, that's one of Those sort of box office worlds has been bolstered by years re releases.

[David Sims]

But that's still humongous.

[Griffin Newman]

Look who's talking. Is three. What is his number two highest grossing film worldwide in his entire career?

[David Sims]

Wildhawks.

[Griffin Newman]

No, that is a low sixth, I'm guessing because it's, it's international.

[David Sims]

It didn't. Right. That's a very American film. So it's not Bolt and it's Battlefield.

[Griffin Newman]

It is Both Disney's Bolt and I made $328 million worldwide.

[Ben Hosley]

What the fuck is that?

[David Sims]

Was viewed as a disappointment at the time.

[Griffin Newman]

As something of a disappointment. It's a movie. It's kind of like the dog. Yeah. It's like Toy Story. But if like the actor, the dog who's in a movie was Bud Light. You know, it's like a dog, like a laugh.

[David Sims]

And what if John Travolta was the dog? No. What happened?

[Griffin Newman]

He's like a famous dog in movies.

[Hillary Busis]

So he thinks Galaxy Quest magic.

[David Sims]

Chris Sanders.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's a little like galaxy.

[Hillary Busis]

He's a Galaxy Quest dog.

[David Sims]

Chris Saunders, director of Lilo and Stitch, which is a huge hit for Disney, develops his like Blank Check follow up project which was called, I want to say American Dog. That was a very odd, interesting sounding film starring John Travolta and Thomas Hayden Church.

[Hillary Busis]

It's an adaptation of American Beauty, but about dogs.

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Hayden Church is playing Mina Safari.

[David Sims]

It was a weird road trip movie with anthropomorphic animals riding the rails. That sound, it sounded really cool. And Lassiter takes over Disney and immediately is like, this is too weird. Fires him and basically demands rewrites to make Bolt into. What if Buzz Lightyear was a dog?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like the dog is so good in the movie. He thinks he's that good.

[David Sims]

Star of a like dog act.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw it on a plane. I remember it being serviceable.

[David Sims]

One of the most wildly okay movies ever made.

[Hillary Busis]

And the kid is like Miley Cyrus.

[David Sims]

Correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Susie Asman plays a snarky cat.

[David Sims]

She's good. And the cat is exactly the same as Jesse from Toy Story 2. So she's angry because she was abandoned by her owner.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I, I said the Wild Hogs was his sixth highest. I'm really, it's gonna, I'm gonna say it's his fifth highest because they're putting Austin Powers in Gold member here. Obviously he's very funny.

[Hillary Busis]

That's a John Travolta movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Gold member.

[David Sims]

Where is hairspray? Is hairspray 4?

[Griffin Newman]

Hairspray is. So he goes a grease Bolt look who's talking. Saturday night Fever is fourth. Wild Hogs is fifth. Face off is sixth. Pope Fiction is seventh. And his eighth movie to gross more than 200 worldwide is Hairspray.

[David Sims]

Did Hairspray fucking collapse overseas?

[Griffin Newman]

It didn't do great overseas. Again, that's wild. It's not wild. That's a very American movie.

[Hillary Busis]

American race.

[Griffin Newman]

Europeans do not know what's going on.

[David Sims]

Good fucking songs.

[Griffin Newman]

Good Morning, Baltimore.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm like, although the hairspray was.

[Hillary Busis]

Sing that song.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. I'm just singing it.

[Hillary Busis]

Nikki Blonsky from the movie Hairspray sings.

[David Sims]

Apocalyptically bad in that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Tralta is the only problem in that movie.

[David Sims]

I agree.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a disaster.

[David Sims]

I think that movie is like a 9.8 out of 10. And then it has one radioactive performance.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really bad.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Michelle Feifer's really good in that movie, too.

[David Sims]

You know who's good in that movie?

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone.

[David Sims]

Everyone else.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone in that movie is.

[David Sims]

Rules in it. Latifa Rules. Fighter Rules. Walking Rules. Maren Rules.

[Griffin Newman]

Nikki Blonsky rules. You know, it's just. You look at the man's career. He's got hits. He's got hits in four different decades. This is.

[David Sims]

Look, this is a big movie to talk about Travolta's career. This is. I'm gonna say it again, one of the richest texts we've ever covered on this show. Everything is, like, colliding in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

How many Travoltas have we talked before? I'm not counting Austin Power. So we've covered Michael, the Nora Ephron film, Lucky Numbers. Lucky Numbers, The Nora Ephron film.

[David Sims]

Basic.

[Griffin Newman]

Basic. Wow. We've really done some bad Travoltas.

[David Sims]

We've not done good Travolta. That's a really good question. Maybe not.

[Griffin Newman]

Not seeing anything that is good that we have covered. I've seen plenty of movies that are good that we have not covered.

[David Sims]

We have knowledge. We have acknowledged several times. My mother's description of he's so bovine.

[Griffin Newman]

I said that to. To my wife and she could not stop laughing out of embarrassment.

[David Sims]

By the way, people have misread that as a sort of size shaming joke. Assuming it was applied to late period. My mom would say that when I was watching welcome Back Cotter reruns when it was the most felt hunky version of Travolta. And I'd say, what do you mean? She goes, I think his face looks like the face of a cow. I want to specify that her argument was he has a cow's face.

[Griffin Newman]

We also covered old dogs at a live show, of course.

[David Sims]

So once again we've covered Travolta's four best films.

[Griffin Newman]

Like the good films of Travoltas we may cover someday. I suppose we could do John Woo. I doubt it. Tarantino. I don't know. We'll do Tony Scott. He did the taking Apellum 1, 2, 3. One of his very, very normal, sane performances. Grounded.

[David Sims]

Get Shorty. We will almost definitely do Get Shorty.

[Griffin Newman]

Will do.

[David Sims]

In some capacity. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Do we have a Dominic Cena miniseries lineup? So we can do Swordfish?

[David Sims]

They just announced the 4K. Did you see that?

[Griffin Newman]

I'll be buying it. Yeah, I will be buying it.

[David Sims]

You will have to hack onto the Internet in order to buy your getting a blow job.

[Griffin Newman]

The scene in Swordfish where it's like, can you do this while getting a blowjob? I'm like, how's he? He's not getting hard while with a gun to his head.

[David Sims]

More K than you've ever seen.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess we could do Sylvester Stallone.

[David Sims]

Staying Alive, who directed St. He's been on a bracket.

[Griffin Newman]

Hillary, that we're really going off tangent here. Yes, well. And you know what else we'll do? We'll do Terence Malik one day, gosh darn it. And he's in the Thin Red Line for like two minutes because cuz he was supposed to be in Days of Heaven.

[David Sims]

Correct. Listen, this is Blank Sh with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who.

[Griffin Newman]

Just the kind of movie that really gets me excited.

[David Sims]

The tangents on this episode I'm going to call it. I'm going to point at the stands at the. At the edge of the stadium. This might be a hall of fame tangent episode just because of everything else this movie spins off into conversationally. But this is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers or given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they talk babies. Hey, hey, hey. It's the main series on the films of Amy Heckerling. It is not called look who's podcasting Now. It is called Pod Times at Richmond Cast. But I'm going to say look who's podcasting. It's us on this episode talking about look who's talking.

[Griffin Newman]

Tag yourself.

[Hillary Busis]

Nailed it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I'm Joan Rivers.

[David Sims]

Right. I'm John Travolta. Smile.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Do you know Joan Rivers plays The girl baby in this movie, you have.

[Hillary Busis]

To stick around for the end credits scene in order to see.

[Ben Hosley]

I did not know that.

[David Sims]

Did you watch this film? Yeah. And you. Did you see that bit, but you didn't recognize it was Joan or had you already turned off your TV and left your home?

[Hillary Busis]

She does say her most street.

[Ben Hosley]

It was that he was actually.

[Griffin Newman]

It was raining. His hands were in his pockets. We are here to talk about Amy Heckerling's, I would assume, most successful financially film. Yeah, look who's talking. A 1989 film about child rearing and infidelity. What else is this movie about? Cab driving.

[Hillary Busis]

It's about a bunch of New Yorkers being like, hey, I'm so busy.

[David Sims]

Get out of my way. It's about how being a flight instructor is not a sustainable career.

[Griffin Newman]

How you can only. How you can only give a vigor. One bar of candy a day. One bar. It's about toupees. Yeah, there's a little toupee sprinkled in there.

[David Sims]

We were saying this right before we started recording for a movie that is only 35 years old.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure, 36 years old. It's the same age as my brother.

[David Sims]

This is one of the deadest modern casts we've ever covered in a way where I was just like. The opening crawl starts.

[Hillary Busis]

Look, I mean, it is like an in memoriam real.

[Griffin Newman]

No one can expect Abe Vigotis to still be alive. The man made it a long time. He made it to like 95. He did. As did Olympia Dukakis. Same thing.

[David Sims]

Ed Seagull, in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

Olympia made it to 89. George Seagull made it to 87.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Hillary Busis]

Kirsty Alley, not so much.

[Griffin Newman]

When she died, you were like, oh, man. And she was 71 years old. You're like, wow. Like, time has marched on.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna say too soon.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course it was too soon. I don't want people to die. Everyone should be alive.

[David Sims]

I'm glad you got that your. Your stance out.

[Griffin Newman]

And of course, Bruce Willis has, you know, retired from public life due to illness. Now Twink Kaplan still going.

[David Sims]

Twin Caplan's still going.

[Hillary Busis]

But Joan Rivers, also.

[David Sims]

Joan Rivers has, Has.

[Griffin Newman]

Has died.

[David Sims]

Twin Kaplan doesn't get solo card billing, I think moves up to it in the sequels.

[Griffin Newman]

So you're saying that Twink Kaplan shouldn't be part of this conversation because she's on a split card.

[David Sims]

Just saying. In fact, she's a no card in the opening credits, my friend. I was just watching the film and seeing these great star names appear on solo cards over incredible special effects footage of sperm. And I just kept being like, dead, dead, dead, dead.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just saying they all lived. Most of the cast did at least live rich lives, which included making the film look who's Talking as part of the rich tapestry of their life.

[Hillary Busis]

And the film look who's talking too. And indeed the film look who's Talking Now.

[Griffin Newman]

Are they all in now? Like, did Voda make it to now?

[Hillary Busis]

I think Travolta and Alli are the only ones that made it.

[David Sims]

I think Kaplan's in all three.

[Griffin Newman]

I could see twin Kaplan being like, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll do it.

[David Sims]

Well, yeah, I want.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, look, I'm looking at look who's Talking Now. George Seagull's in it.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

And here's someone else who's in look who's Talking about, which we will be covering on our Patreon Noda. Charles Barkley.

[David Sims]

I did know that as himself.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh is because Bark like a dog.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, get out of here. These people took five minutes making that movie, if that's what they were thinking.

[David Sims]

I just want to say, like, this is a film that spawned a franchise. A trilogy of films, but a two.

[Griffin Newman]

Season sitcom, but a rapid franchise where the entire thing is contained within 4, 4 years 89 to 93. It's the George H.W. bush era.

[Hillary Busis]

No, the second movie came out a year after this one.

[Griffin Newman]

They were just like, go, go, go, go, go.

[Hillary Busis]

Like these babies aren't getting any younger.

[David Sims]

14 months releases. Right, right. The sitcom has already ended by the time that now is bombing in theaters. Is that right?

[Griffin Newman]

What's bombing in theaters now? Really? Oh, look. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. We'll get to now. Now shall be covered behind the paywall.

[David Sims]

Now behind the paywall.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course, Amy Heckling did direct too. But we're here to direct, to discuss. I'm here to direct you all. In the discussion of look who's Talking.

[David Sims]

I just wanted to. It was a. It was a. An interesting stat that jumped on my head. Amy Heckerling has created three films that spawn TV shows.

[Griffin Newman]

So Clueless, of course had its spin off show.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

With Rachel very successful.

[David Sims]

There was a Fast Time show for.

[Griffin Newman]

Once very ill fated.

[David Sims]

But JJ pulled up in the dossier. I did not know this. Out of seven episodes, Heckerling wrote and directed three. Now I'm like, I need to watch the fast.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll go watch it.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna do it.

[Griffin Newman]

There's probably and I never could be your woman, whatever that movie's called, like pitch at Stars right now. Right? Someone's like, yeah, we could do that.

[David Sims]

But I'm just like, this woman did quietly spawn franchises. You know? Talk about spawning in a quiet way.

[Hillary Busis]

What a segue.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie begins with spawning. Hey, but who's our guest? Have we introduced our guest today? Okay, Jesus.

[David Sims]

The Hollywood editor at Vanity Fair.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a senior editor now, apparently. Senior editor. The Hollywood editor.

[David Sims]

You got that lodged in my head.

[Hillary Busis]

I can't believe that you guys are fucking this up. I'm so upset.

[David Sims]

But a more important credit that you said out loud, Hillary. While David was checking my notes here. Late.

[Griffin Newman]

I was late. Yes. Because of a screening.

[David Sims]

A Woman who can do it all.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Hillary buses now.

[Hillary Busis]

That is what it says on my card.

[David Sims]

I just want to call it Hillary.

[Griffin Newman]

Hillary Busis doing it all.

[David Sims]

Ben early, right? Hillary early or exactly on time?

[Griffin Newman]

You seemed like you were right on time.

[Hillary Busis]

I'm punctual.

[David Sims]

Okay. I got here at 12:05 for a noon record. Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Are you seeing this?

[Griffin Newman]

Are you watching this? I have absolutely no patience for this. You want me to do this in front of every episode, Griff, I know. I welcome the debate.

[David Sims]

I just. I'm building to something very specific here. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep, I get her.

[David Sims]

Toll fight. You had done a coffee order. I had placed a croissant. I go, oh, where's the croissant? You go, I'm sorry, I forgot it. You're like, well, David isn't here yet. And he just texts us. The train is running slowly. I was like, you know what? I'll go out. Go back out, Pick up the croissant. I arrived two times before David arrives one time. Then David arrives and immediately says, sorry, I'm late. Although it's your fault, Hillary, this is what I'm building up to. Well, you immediately blame your lateness.

[Griffin Newman]

We have so much to talk about. But to explain what I meant by that, Hillary. I told Hillary I'm seeing together. I was seeing a screening of the film together, which premiered at south by Southwest and was snapped up by neon, I think. Right. They bought it, so it's not coming out for a while, but they are. You know, I make taste, so I guess they wanted me to taste. Make. No. I don't know why they're showing it to me. I told Hillary this, and Hillary was like, oh, I didn't go. I was going to go, but I didn't go because I didn't want to be late for your podcast. And I was like, number one, being late for our podcast is. Is a. Okay, yeah.

[David Sims]

It's kind of a segment.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Number two, you know, we could have. Right. We could have had the whole day together. And then they. They made my screening 10 minutes or 15 minutes late because they were waiting for someone to show up who never showed Godot, who I guess now works at the New Yorker or something.

[David Sims]

You just immediately jumped Hillary.

[Griffin Newman]

But Hillary actually had not.

[David Sims]

Had not. Rcp. I just.

[Hillary Busis]

It was not me.

[David Sims]

I just want to say Hillary innocent.

[Griffin Newman]

Hillary innocent. MTA as it always is, you know, mildly guilty, but they do their best.

[Ben Hosley]

And may I just add to some context, the room does smell of toasted ass croissants.

[David Sims]

Now, I'm glad you brought this up, and we're not moving on from this because I. I'm not. I'm not disagreeing with the charge, but I think your wording.

[Hillary Busis]

Guilty.

[David Sims]

No, I think the wording's a little wrong, your honor.

[Griffin Newman]

What. What's the word? What's wrong with you?

[David Sims]

I intentionally smoked a croissant.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah, of course. Cajun style, you said. Did you hit the Cajun style button on your toaster?

[David Sims]

Hillary? Do you know that I'm a pitmaster?

[Hillary Busis]

It was a Creole croissant.

[David Sims]

Correct.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, let's get into it.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's my question for the room.

[David Sims]

I like the fruit woods. That's what I tend to go towards rather than the nuttier ones.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it indisputable? And then we can talk about. Look who's talking. That John Travolta's last sort of meaningful role was Robert Shapiro in American Crime Story. Because obviously, like, after that, there is Gotti. But we're not counting Gotti, are we?

[David Sims]

We're not counting the finale.

[Hillary Busis]

I was going to say that his last significant role was mispronouncing Idina Menzel's name, but that was before. Was that before American Crime Story? Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, because President 2012.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that was certainly. Whatever.

[David Sims]

Yeah. That was his biggest cultural moment of the last 10 years. But I agree. And you know what? I thought he was so good in the People versus OJ he's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone is locked in. In that. And it's a cast of lunatics.

[David Sims]

And I was a weird casting choice, but he's taking big swings and supporting role and whatever. And I was just like, this is going to open up new corridors if he doesn't feel the need to be like.

[Hillary Busis]

And now 10 years has passed.

[David Sims]

He's not done. Interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he's just like been a bald guy in a red box action movie of that. Did you.

[Hillary Busis]

Did you read the logline for that's Amore, which is the movie that we're all excited for.

[Griffin Newman]

The Green Book. Guys, that's.

[David Sims]

But a movie that has been shut down. Down that is like only half filmed and is the like center.

[Hillary Busis]

Isn't his last name in it Amore. Yes, that's Amore.

[David Sims]

And it's a musical.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sorry, it's Patty. Amore. He falls in love with.

[David Sims]

Played by Katherine.

[Griffin Newman]

Played by Katherine.

[David Sims]

Written, directed by the son of the man that green book was based on.

[Griffin Newman]

Nick Valonga, Academy Award two time Academy Award winner, Nick Valonga.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Who loves to write movies like that's Amore and tweet like, you know, whatever Bush did 911 or whatever.

[David Sims]

Different controversies around. That's more. And it might never be finished.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Like Rust got finished. But that's a more. It's not finished.

[David Sims]

They stopped filming two years ago and have never resumed. It's just we're gonna do a lot of Travolta career context here.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm just gonna talk for a sec. And I'm sure you guys had the same experience I did. Maybe not, but I, you know, I, look, I fire up this movie last night. I have to watch it. It's been a long week for me. But hey, 96 minutes of baby's talking. How bad could this be?

[David Sims]

Sure, America fell for it. Why won't you?

[Griffin Newman]

One second into the movie, I'm like, well, this isn't what I thought the movie was. Because the movie begins well, I guess the sperm. I was like, sure.

[Hillary Busis]

Sperm is the thing that I remembered.

[Griffin Newman]

That I sort of knew about. But no, but Kirsty Alley having an affair with George Siegel. I was just like, well, I didn't know about this. I didn't know that. I thought the movie was she and Travolta have a baby. I thought it was that simple.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Now I did, I think know that. Yes. This was not going to be a baby genius's style mouth replacement. The baby actually talks movie, which I.

[Hillary Busis]

Accept that there's a lot of scenes in the end of the movie where the baby's mouth is moving his mouth.

[Griffin Newman]

It is a little disconcerting. Yes.

[David Sims]

There's some interesting techniques.

[Griffin Newman]

But then it's sort of a Garfield style.

[David Sims]

That's how I describe.

[Griffin Newman]

Which, of course, he does have a Garfield in his crib. And Hillary, you and I are going to discuss his crib.

[Hillary Busis]

The baby safety in this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, you would be sent to jail.

[David Sims]

It's an interior monologue that only the audience can hear.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And it's mostly him going like, hey, who's this lady over here? She's got a bottle. Hey, let me add it. You know, it's basically just that.

[David Sims]

I didn't know those came in jumbo size re. A pair of breasts. That's what Mikey said.

[Hillary Busis]

And he doesn't even breastfeed. Why? Does he lunch when he looks at the boobs?

[David Sims]

No, we know, in fact, that she puts breast milk in a bottle.

[Hillary Busis]

She's pumping. She openly pumps.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a pump. She's a working mom.

[Hillary Busis]

She's a bumper.

[Griffin Newman]

Jerry. I'm glad that Seinfeld didn't do a breast milk episode.

[David Sims]

She's a bumper.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a bumper. And as the movie goes on, I. Right. I'm like, wait, didn't Amy Ackerling. There's a whole thing with her where her kid found out that, you know, the. The dad she thought was her dad is actually not her dad, and her dad was.

[David Sims]

Can we just zoom out and say the thing really quickly?

[Griffin Newman]

Right? And then I Google it and I'm like, oh, that's what this movie is about. I forgot. You know, like, I put it all together, And America in 1989 was just like, one ticket, please to all of that.

[Hillary Busis]

What's so absurd about that? And the part that really leaps out to me is that Kir's character is named Molly. Amy Heckerling and Harold Ramus's illegitimate daughter is named Molly.

[David Sims]

Can I just zoom out on this for a second and just lay this out very cleanly? Right. Amy Heckerling marries Neil Israel, who then becomes. Or. Or at this point, already has created the Police Academy franchise.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. So he'd already done America a solid.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And. And he wrote look who's Talking to. With Amy Heckerling.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And not look who's Talking one, though.

[David Sims]

I think has a producer credit on this. Possibly.

[Griffin Newman]

Nope.

[David Sims]

No. Okay. But they are divorced by the time the second look who's talking comes out.

[Griffin Newman]

They divorced in 1990.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which. And this film came out in 89.

[David Sims]

Their divorce happens in between these two films being released 14 months apart. Okay. They are married. They have a child. I'm doing a very quick synopsis here just so we can later unpack this more.

[Griffin Newman]

She married Israel in Not the country the guy in 1984. She had her daughter Molly in 1985.

[David Sims]

This is a great comeback movie in the lineage of what we talk about, where she was basically coming off two things that didn't help her career and was like, I need a movie that's a can't miss hit.

[Griffin Newman]

To be clear.

[David Sims]

It makes me undeniable for Hillary.

[Griffin Newman]

Johnny Dangerously which was basically it's sort of like a mild flop passion project. And then European Vacation, which I think monetarily did okay. But nobody was happy with it.

[David Sims]

Is this kind of. It was almost a it ends with us situation where it was like this movie was a hit enough to justify a sequel. And yet everyone hated this one. The prerogative on Vacation three is fix it. Her and Chevy like fight incessantly. Like everything about it's a problem. She has a miserable experience. People don't like the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's.

[David Sims]

It's a success almost in spite of her. And she's like I need something to get my agency back. Her and Neil Israel have a bit of looking at their daughter and doing voices of what they think. Her interior monologue is very relatable. Right. Doing this bit together. Her and her comedy writer husband.

[Griffin Newman]

To be clear though when Amy Heckling says that I'm like, no, every parent does that.

[David Sims]

Amy.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not original. But she thinks about it.

[David Sims]

What is original movie is just being the first person to go like that's a fucking movie poster.

[Griffin Newman]

But that's not what she did secretly. What she did was I'm gonna fucking get one over on Ramis.

[David Sims]

This is what's crazy about this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Hillary Busis]

Because character based on him. Do you know anything disgusting? Man.

[David Sims]

This is the subtext of everything that I just said. The child that Neil Israel thought was his own was actually the byproduct of a years long affair that she had had with Harold Ramis.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that. Is that true like that he thought it was his kid? I believe so. Okay.

[David Sims]

I didn't know that perhaps that ultimately.

[Griffin Newman]

She certainly was raised by him and was like that's my dad. I know that. You know.

[David Sims]

She certainly doesn't know that hero Ramos.

[Griffin Newman]

Is her father until she's a grown up.

[David Sims]

Right? Perhaps it's the cause of their divorce. I don't know. We'll dig into the dossier. But they are raising the child that is secretly Harold Ramis's child while she's pregnant. He's like, I'm going to leave my wife.

[Griffin Newman]

The plot of this movie is what Harold Ramis did. He was like, I'm gonna leave my wife. I know I've knocked you up. I'm gonna do it. And then he ended up with a.

[David Sims]

The only difference is that she wasn't a single mother at that moment moment that she was married to another man and they were like, we're both going to leave our spouses. And then Ramis instead falls for someone else. And Ramus is her secret father, which she doesn't know for, like, 20 years. So there's this incredible, like, synthesis of Amy Heckerling being like, this is a blockbuster movie idea. Just, what a simple hook. The baby talks. And also was like, my. My stature is kind of dinged. I could maybe get a huge movie star to do two days of voiceover and sell the movie on that. In a way, I'm not going to get a huge movie star to agree to be the star on set every day. So that's part of the calculation. But really, this movie is her grinding her axe about the Ramis thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, what a W for her that she gets to do that and have a giant smash hit that, like, you know, rebounds her career.

[Hillary Busis]

Like, it's like a Taylor Swift song.

[David Sims]

Husband co writes the sequel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Well, he's going to get some residuals. But yeah, beyond that, my main man John Travis, to being like, can I hitch a ride to this weird train? And he also revives his career. Sort of.

[Hillary Busis]

He revives his career in 1994.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, but it's the weird thing which Travolta had so many comebacks.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And this is a comeback, but it's right. It doesn't make him cool.

[Hillary Busis]

He's financially successful. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

It makes him famous again.

[David Sims]

This has always been my contention is that, like, people like to say Travolta was saved from the wilderness by Tarantino. Like, no one had thought of Travolta in 15 years. And I'm like, I think it is closer to Pre McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Where it's like, he's still in the mix. He makes fun family movies, series of.

[David Sims]

Rom coms that were big hits that were not respected. And I think more than anything, the industry was like, we thought this guy was going to be a serious movie star. And now he's kind of a lightweight. He is bankable. And then there's even the arc of, like, look who's Talking is huge. The movie. Like, he doesn't do anything with it. He makes two more look who's Talking and, like, three other bad movies.

[Griffin Newman]

He really only makes one other bad.

[David Sims]

Movie, which is called Shout White Man's Burden is shot before Pulp Fiction, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Comes out after very normal movie.

[David Sims]

But look who's Talking now is one year before Pulp Fiction. Like, he has this arc of, like, is Travolta back as bankable? Even if not Legitimate that within four years.

[Griffin Newman]

What's talking now is the kind of movie that you make where you're like, fine, I'll. I'll be the heroin addict in that weird guy's script, I guess.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Yeah. Like, I. Where is, like, you know, whoever Tarantino was thinking of, apart from Travolta, who's like, I'm not touching this thing. It's too violent.

[David Sims]

Like, rotted so quickly.

[Griffin Newman]

Travolta's like, I'm talking to a dog. I'm fine. Yeah, like, sure.

[Hillary Busis]

I don't think that he talks to the dog, but the dog talks near him.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll find out what happens.

[Hillary Busis]

That was, like, the first movie I.

[Griffin Newman]

Saw in movie theaters is look who's Talking Now.

[Hillary Busis]

I. I was born in 1988, so I am at the same age. Mikey. Mikey. Bruce Willis. David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

We all know about Monarch and their legacy of monsters.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, those.

[David Sims]

That Verse of Monsters, that infamous government agency that oversees the Verse of monsters. These monsters. King Kong, the Scar, King Godzilla, Muto Tiamat. Right. These giant monsters, big things that have so much power over our lives, sometimes they just disappear and then pop up again a couple years later. Right. It's a little like money.

[Griffin Newman]

Tell me more.

[David Sims]

Well, it's hard to keep track of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Messy and confusing.

[David Sims]

It's messy and confusing. And it has the power to take down entire buildings.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you know about Monarch Money?

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, they act like your personal cfo. They give you full visibility and control so you can stop earning and start growing.

[David Sims]

That's.

[Griffin Newman]

So that's me stopping and starting.

[David Sims]

No, no. Really good sound effects. Thank you. And good object work, by the way. There was a really solid handle in David's hand. You could feel the lever. It's so funny that I didn't know about Monarch Money and just happened to bring up Monarch and their legacy of monsters at the beginning of this ad read.

[Griffin Newman]

So, look, the thing about Monarch is it's not just like an average budgeting app. It's a complete financial command center for your accounts, investments, and goals.

[David Sims]

Right. Much like Monarch has command centers, if.

[Griffin Newman]

You use it, you know, it's going to maybe show you where you overspend on shopping. Things like that identify where you're not saving as much as you mean to. It could help you maybe learn how to manage your 401k better. You can max it out or something.

[David Sims]

In the same way that Monarch tries to keep tabs on what's going on inside the Hollow Earth.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, there's like, a podcast in that, right?

[David Sims]

Several I think Brian Tyree Henry is a professional podcaster across the movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Monarch was named Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. The top recommended personal finance app by users and experts with over 30,000 five star reviews. So you can get control of your overall finances with Monarch Money if you use code [e-mail] in your browser for half off your free first year. That's 50% off your first year@monimal money.com with code check check.

[David Sims]

Hillary, let's, let's do a little look who's talking history cataloging here.

[Hillary Busis]

I would love that.

[David Sims]

Okay, so now is the first movie you see in theaters.

[Hillary Busis]

It's one of the first. The first movie I saw in theaters was the re release of 101 Dalmatians, which was like that same year.

[David Sims]

Mine was Jungle Book. This is a thing we've talked about that culturally is gone any. For many generations, the first movie a kid would see in theaters was a re release of an old movie.

[Griffin Newman]

100%. I went to that Jungle Book. I think I went to that 101. It was the course. It was like, what else are you going to do? Right?

[David Sims]

And if you were a parent, you were like, there's going to be like three of them this year. Yeah, well, there will be three wide release Disney like reissues. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Mine was famously John Huston's Annie. It's the first film I saw in theaters. A re release of that.

[David Sims]

I was gonna say weird movie. When you saw now in theaters, am I correct in assuming that you had not seen the first two? That this was just your parents being like a talking dog movie for Hillary?

[Hillary Busis]

I mean, I think it's like, yeah, there are, there are three children and we have to do something with them. We will take them.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

The dog talks because Milo and Otis were hanging around some Homeward Bound.

[Hillary Busis]

Homeward Bound was a big, big touchdown.

[Griffin Newman]

If an animal talks, a child is there in the early 90s, which is.

[Hillary Busis]

Funny because this is not a children's movie. Look who's talking.

[Griffin Newman]

This is not. My guess is that now has a more PG flavor. Like, right. Like they probably like.

[David Sims]

If I can sidebar here quickly. I, to my great surprise last night realized that I have never seen this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I knew I had never seen this.

[David Sims]

The reason I find that surprising is in my like parents very overprotective media control. As a child we had the Disney Channel and this was an era before Disney Channel had much original programming. Certainly didn't have original movies.

[Griffin Newman]

All reruns.

[David Sims]

Of shit. And they were just like, Nickelodeon's too cynical and too dark. Like, there were all these things that they banned that were for kids and they were like, anything that's on the Disney Channel, we assume is safe. And Disney Channel had this weird rotation of like left handed, less like sequels and flops that, that they would air all the time that I would see so often where, like, I have seen, I think both look who's talking now and look who's talking to 15 times. But have not seen them in 30 years.

[Griffin Newman]

And. But you have never seen this one, because this one probably I just.

[David Sims]

I had also seen.

[Griffin Newman]

But also the Disney Channel couldn't afford to record this one.

[David Sims]

But look who's talking to. I remember on like my 11th or 12th viewing, my mom walking in and being like, this is not appropriate for you. Like clocking. Like, this one's weird.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Sounds like your mom's head was really on a swivel. Yeah, the 12. 3 watch. She's like, wait a second.

[David Sims]

By now it is like I. In my memory, absolute kitty.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like, yes. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And two is the midpoint. But two has.

[Griffin Newman]

But two has a lot of like, poop jokes, right? Like, two is a little more juvenile.

[David Sims]

I think two, I remember has crack pipe, which we'll get.

[Griffin Newman]

It was 1990.

[David Sims]

It was in the news, right? But yes, it's more is more.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like when my mom watched me, walked in on me playing Goldeneye 007 on my Nintendo 64 and was like, are you looking through the eyes of a man holding a gun who's shooting people? And I was like, I'm James Bond.

[David Sims]

I was. I was at a Gamestop and there was a mother with two children. Like a teen girl and a younger boy, probably like eight or nine, right? And the girl wanted to buy something and the boy was like on his absolute best behavior, being a little polite gentleman, being like, mother, could I perhaps bother you? It would mean so much to me if you bought me one game. I'd love to play a game. And he hands the game to her and she's like, it's used. How much is it? Only $20. Sure, fine. And then the teen daughter walks up and is like, are you really gonna let him play a game that's all sex and drug dealing and guns? And the mom turns around and is like, timothy, you get right over here. It goes ballistic. And then calls over the GameStop employee, and it was Grand Theft Auto 5.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah, well, that girl must have felt so proud of herself.

[David Sims]

And she Was.

[Griffin Newman]

How old was the kid?

[David Sims]

The kid was like 8 or 9. Mother. It's a driving game.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I will be following the rules. Yes. Some break the rules within Grand Theft Auto. David.

[David Sims]

This kid made that exact argument and wanted to do it over.

[Griffin Newman]

Good for.

[David Sims]

It was incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Good job, kid.

[David Sims]

He was a twist. I would never even go to the sex stuff. And she's like, in that case, I will buy you the game. But if I walk in and there's sex stuff happening. Yes. That's. That's what it felt like. Okay, so you. Do you remember when you saw the first two? Or did you ever.

[Hillary Busis]

I mean, that's the question. I remember having seen this movie. Most of what I remember again is the opening in. In my.

[David Sims]

Which two opens the same way? So when it started, maybe that's like.

[Hillary Busis]

Maybe.

[David Sims]

Oh, I didn't.

[Hillary Busis]

That's what I'm thinking of. Maybe I've seen two and I assumed it was one.

[Griffin Newman]

I also. I'm mentally linked to my sperm. So whenever I put it anywhere, I can see it swimming. So it's very normal image for me.

[Hillary Busis]

I was under the impression that the beginning that that sequence was like real footage of the inside.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, like as a kid you're like.

[Hillary Busis]

Like no.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a medical camera. Right.

[David Sims]

Pretty good effect.

[Hillary Busis]

And realizing that it was like a puppet was a big disillusioning.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the effects are amazing. Except sometimes the puppet is no good. You know, like sometimes it's fine and they're kind of obscuring him.

[David Sims]

But I like how weird the puppet.

[Griffin Newman]

Me too. I like all of that.

[Hillary Busis]

True that an actual human fetus does look insane.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's right.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, exactly. Don't worry about real. They look weird.

[David Sims]

And my memory too has even more puppet that cool. Like rewind the clock and is like. We're not going to start with the daughter being born.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Right.

[David Sims]

We're going to slow this back.

[Hillary Busis]

We're going to show conception because that's what you came here to see it.

[David Sims]

Look. Let's say it is a good ending gag to have them kiss and then cut to the sperm again.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a great ending guy.

[Hillary Busis]

John Travolta is that virile.

[David Sims]

Immediately. Hey, it's a great callback. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Travolta's oozing tea in this movie.

[David Sims]

I wrote Very hot and cold on Travolta.

[Griffin Newman]

I run. I'm realizing, hot, hot, hot.

[David Sims]

I think this is both such a good movie star performance from him and such a great example of what I would call a Movie star movie where you're like, it is so much the two of them and their charisma and their chemistry in a way that sells a ton of shit that makes zero fucking sense. And in so many ways, I'm like, that is the ultimate power of a movie star. Not like you do a good job in Killers of the Flower Moon because you have a well developed relationship with Martin Scorsese. Like, that's good acting from a movie star. Movie star shit is just like, nonsense that you will through charm and energy into like.

[Hillary Busis]

Like when he abducts the baby and takes it to the airplane hangar, she should have him know.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, took a baby out to hang her.

[Hillary Busis]

We wanted to check out some tits.

[David Sims]

Beyond the fact that she doesn't have him arrested, there are 20 moments in this movie where the actions of the John Travolta character should cause the entire audience to stand up and demand a citizen's arrest. And yet. And you're like, I get. I get what you'd want. This guy hanging around this film. Pretty fun.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm gonna open the dossier, actually. Okay. So Amy Heckerling's two films are very, as we said before, this were very difficult experiences for her. European vacation especially was such a train wreck. And working with Chevy Chase, who in every other project I've heard is a really stand up, normal gentleman. But apparently in that one, there was tension. Right? You know, it had broken her dang brain.

[David Sims]

I, like some of the quotes that JJ included were like, I'm not gonna get into it, but I had difficulties with certain cast members. And I'm like, oh, yes, Beverly d' Angelo, notoriously difficult. Whereas everyone who's ever worked with Chevy Chase immediately walks off set and into inpatient treatment and debates whether they want to work ever again.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, my God, is there one story in history. We'll talk about this on that episode where it's like someone's like, I really had a. I really. He's a stand up guy, you know, and he always called me, like, when my, you know, kids got married or like, you know, it's like some nice story about Jeffy.

[David Sims]

I genuinely never heard anything like that. I think there are people who, like, tolerated him well. And I think, like, even Dan Harmon would be like. There were moments where he could be so kind and generous that were confusing. Like, the people who complain about him the most will sometimes give him. And yet two times I saw him do something weirdly nice. No one has ever been like, yeah, we get on like a dream.

[Griffin Newman]

Paramount offers her a Film called the Woofy Boys, which was going to team the writers of Revenge of the Nerds with the comedy duo of Michael o' Keefe, Academy Award nominee, and Paul Rodriguez.

[David Sims]

Not Academy Award nomination.

[Griffin Newman]

No, she doesn't make that film. It doesn't work out. It did come out, I think, and it was a flop.

[David Sims]

But it's a dark night of the soul moment where she's like, these are the things I'm getting offered. And she has made this real, like, career choice of post Fast Times. I don't want to get pigeonholed into the female coming of age teen sex comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

And nonetheless, of course, she does develop the Fast Times television show for cbs and that is the first time that she writes since her student film days. So I guess it does get those juices flown a little bit.

[David Sims]

She said she liked working on the show despite the show not being a success. But I do have to imagine there's some degree with her of like, she makes this Johnny Dangerously choice. I'm gonna zag. I'm gonna do something to branch out and like, avoid the type casting. She has a baby from the industry.

[Griffin Newman]

She starts doing the bit with, with what's his pants.

[David Sims]

I was just gonna say, though, while Giant Dangerously bombs and European Vacation is disliked, she's watching the entire, like, teen sex comedy explosion, which she's opted out of. Like, I'm sure a bunch of these scripts that she rejected are now huge hits.

[Griffin Newman]

There's nothing that's as huge though. Like, what's a movie from the 80s that she would be like, ah, I wish I made that. Like, they all suck.

[David Sims]

I, I, I do.

[Griffin Newman]

They suck.

[David Sims]

I disagree with them all sucking.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, which one's good?

[David Sims]

I think more so I got like.

[Hillary Busis]

All the John Hughes, as you say.

[David Sims]

David dislikes John Hughes.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I actually, no, I actually wasn't thinking of those as sex comedies. So those aren't sex then let's remove sex. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, right. I mean, sure. But John Hughes is an otur, obviously in his own right.

[David Sims]

I think that's the bigger thing is that like, she's probably looking at what happened with John Hughes and directed a.

[Griffin Newman]

John Hughes script, European Vacation, which she didn't enjoy. Right.

[David Sims]

But it's like, should I have been doing something like this and crafting my brand in a way that is consistent? I don't think so.

[Griffin Newman]

Because what she says is she starts doing baby voice with her husband and her new baby and she's like, this is a movie. But she has the thought of like, I can see how this would be a hit. But I kind of want to do like Mean Streets. I don't want to do a cute family movie. It's one of those things where she's like, I'm a new mother. This is the idea I had. I think I should pursue it. But there's a side of her that's like, that's not cool. Like that's not, you know, it's probably like I don't want to do the whoopee Boys and I don't want to do talking baby. But talking baby it is.

[David Sims]

Look, it is a big thing and I think it was more so in this era still than it is now. But there is a sometimes under discussed distance between things that are successful and things that are respected by the people who greenlight movies where as much as people are crass and like we want to make hits. There is that kind of thing of like there's the kind of hit that everyone in the industry looks down on which she has to know like even the best case scenario of the talking baby movie, I will be the person who made the talking baby movie.

[Griffin Newman]

The critics awards will not be flowing in for talking baby and they're probably.

[David Sims]

Going to offer me like other talking blank movies if this is is successful.

[Hillary Busis]

Although what is so wild about that too is you kind of the talking baby part lifts right out. You really don't need it.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't need.

[David Sims]

What is really fascinating is that it's maybe like 10 of what this movie is doing.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. Like you said, maybe like I feel like it could have been like a couple hours. It was very little.

[Griffin Newman]

They actually just miked a dinner that he had. It was actually. He didn't even have a script.

[David Sims]

They were just waitress walked over. It was like, oh, those coming jumbos size.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, no, it's because lunch.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it was how they, it was how they did the, the kid in monsters thing. They just followed him around with like.

[David Sims]

A boom mic into the toilet. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The film was originally called Daddy's Home.

[David Sims]

Now that would not have been successful.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no. Especially not if it's the same post.

[David Sims]

I truly, as we were saying before, like 50% of the box office is just the big baby head and look who's talking as the title in a very Honey I shrunk the kids way where you're like you've told me everything I need to know in one image.

[Griffin Newman]

To speak to what Hillary just said. Heckerling thinks no studio is going to really be that interested in a movie about a woman having A baby and all her issues, nobody's going to care. But if you make it about a boy baby who's voiced by Bruce Willis and even if that's not that crucial. Yes, that is kind of what she.

[David Sims]

This is what I love about this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

She's Trojan horsing in a little shiv to old Ramis as well.

[David Sims]

You know, like such a weirdly personal movie. But beyond that, you're also just like. There aren't even impersonal versions of this movie being made at this point. Like, who's making a movie like a broad studio comedy that is like trying to deal with, in some degree of emotional realism, the struggles of a single working mother in a big city.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, with Ramis, the only thing that's a little different is, is that it's not like he had a fling with a third woman. The third woman he ends up with is Erica Mann, who is then his wife for the rest of his life. So who knows what happened there. Like, in terms of like, who was the most in love with who during this, like, messy 80s.

[David Sims]

It's not a love competition.

[Griffin Newman]

So the parentage of Molly was a secret until 1999. Ramis told his daughter Violet that she had a half sister when.

[David Sims]

When Molly was born, Ramis took Violet to the delivery.

[Hillary Busis]

She wrote about this in her memoir. There's an excerpt.

[David Sims]

Her book is very good, right? Yes. And then there's a big excerpt from it. But so it basically doesn't go public until the memoir, is that correct?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Molly does not learn this herself until years later. A meeting is arranged between when she's 18 years old with her and Ramis. But Violet, however, if you've seen look who's Talking, yes. There are subtle allusions to this situation in the text of the film.

[Hillary Busis]

If you squint, you can find him.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Martin Breast. This is the great quote. Who is Amy Heckerling's ex boyfriend? XXX boyfriend. You know, they dated back in the film stool days. Calls her up and says it's the most profitable private joke ever.

[David Sims]

I mean, that, that is what is like incredible about this film.

[Griffin Newman]

Apparently Amy Heckling would handwrite her scripts.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

What a psycho serial killer behavior.

[David Sims]

There was a really good New York Times piece about her like 10 years ago, I want to say, as sort of like the forgotten queen of the comedy who still lives in New York City in the Upper west side with her mother and stays up until 5 o' clock in the morning drinking coffee and handwriting scripts. And it was sort of framed as like, why is no one green lighting Amy hackling things anymore.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, did they say vamps or.

[David Sims]

I think it was post vamps.

[Griffin Newman]

Warner Brothers, Disney and Orion all passed. But TriStar is, is interested. They think the script needs some work. They work on the script. I don't know, who cares?

[David Sims]

Who cares?

[Griffin Newman]

It doesn't seem like anything. It's not like fucking, you know.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, I'm just surprised. See like the final version and be like, the baby doesn't even talk that much.

[David Sims]

But this, this is what I think is so fascinating is this is still an era of movie marketing where you can trick people into going to see a movie, giving them an incomplete picture. And if they still end up liking what they see, they won't take to the Internet and like burn the world down because the Internet also doesn't fucking exist. Like the trick is get them in the theater with the talking baby thing. Hope that the grown up drama works enough that they're not angry.

[Griffin Newman]

Jonathan D. Crane, a producer of many Blake Edwards films, but also John Travolta's agent, gets to be the producer of this movie because he, whatever, he's interested and I guess he has some comic talent. The budget is just $8 million, 4 million of which went to Travolta and Ally and stuff. So this is a pretty cheap movie.

[David Sims]

This is an $8 million movie that made 300 million worldwide.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. But basically Crane is like, I can give you Travolta great. And I can keep the budget low.

[David Sims]

Does he rep Ally as well?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think so.

[David Sims]

But both of them are scientologists pin in that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he does move the production to Vancouver. I'm sure you noticed, guys, that this film, despite being set in New York, does not have that New Yorky, you know, vibe.

[Hillary Busis]

But there are a lot of people yelling in like outer borough Hong Kong, beep, beep.

[Griffin Newman]

But like, you know, I kept trying like squinting me like what street is this? And I realized like, oh, this just wasn't.

[Hillary Busis]

It's Vancouver Street.

[David Sims]

Yes, right. Anytime New York is specifically non specific, I'm like, this smells like Vancouver to me.

[Griffin Newman]

Heckerling, when she realizes that Travolta is interested, kind of rewrites it a little bit. My guess is kind of gives it a little more of a Vinnie Barbarino spin. I mean she does, right?

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And she throws in a couple dancing things because she likes him dancing. Who doesn't? Kiersti Alley had broken out pretty recently in Cheers because she joins cheers in 87. So like it's only a couple years into her Cheers Run.

[David Sims]

And what year is Search for Spock or. No, she's in Wrath of.

[Griffin Newman]

She's in Wrath of Khan, which is 82.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

And obviously she rocks in that. Now, in a 2012 interview, Ally described Travolta as the greatest love of her life. Okay. She was married when she made this movie to Parker Stevenson. But she, quote, said, believe me, it took everything I had inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John and be with John for the rest of my life.

[Hillary Busis]

It would have been very. Look who's talking. It would have been very. Look who's talking about.

[Griffin Newman]

It would have been very. A lot of things happened.

[David Sims]

Is he already married to Kelly Preston?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know. But I'm just going to offer this quote and the audience can make of it what they wish. One of the ways Travolta charmed Ally during their first on screen kiss, Travolta kept breaking out into a Barbra Streisand impression, singing, papa, can you hear me from Yentel, Mikey. The baby was played by four different babies. Great. Who?

[David Sims]

John Travolta marries Kelly Preston, 1991.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Hillary Busis]

So he was available.

[David Sims]

So he was on the market.

[Griffin Newman]

Bruce Willis got a percentage of the box office for his role. He probably made estimated about $10 million for this movie.

[Hillary Busis]

Incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

We showed him this footage of babies and he said, okay, I get it. Yeah, I'm sure he did.

[David Sims]

You know what else he got $10 million.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think he improv some stuff. You know, he had fun.

[David Sims]

It definitely feels like a guy who thinks he's funny but isn't a comedian being like. Let me just riff.

[Griffin Newman]

Olympia Dukakis had just won an Oscar for Moonstruck and is in this role.

[Hillary Busis]

As the lady playing the same role.

[Griffin Newman]

She's good at that.

[David Sims]

When are you gonna find the man?

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. Kirsty Alo's sister Cher does not show up, but we could. We wouldn't be surprised to see him.

[Griffin Newman]

And the visual effects are done by Todd Masters, who works event. Later on, Tales from the Crypt and Addams Family Values. And the sperm was vinyl sperm and little fishing weights. And they dumped it in a tank and they had an underwater cameraman. It's fascinating. Heckerling was concerned that the film would come off a little pro life. Right. You know, a little too. There's always a problem with any pregnancy movies. A problem with Knocked Up. It's a problem with Juno where it's like, in this movie, can't have an abortion.

[Hillary Busis]

Because then the movie, which felt pretty progressive for 1989.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Although it's mostly Steagall being like, oh, I wouldn't want you to do that. I also look at my marble desk. How the did that thing get moved in there?

[David Sims]

I think there are absolute logic gaps in this movie that you could pick apart for.

[Griffin Newman]

It makes sense that she wants to have a baby.

[David Sims]

I was gonna say, I think by the end of the film, you completely get her decision because there is this part of her that thinks, like, Siegel will eventually come back around. Like, that she thinks having the baby will ultimately win him over. That she clearly never wants to extinguish her flame for him.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, nobody had written. He's just not that into you yet. It wouldn't come for 20 years.

[David Sims]

Yes. It took Greg Barent to solve that.

[Griffin Newman]

One film was shot while tristar was being purchased by Sony. Sony was afraid to even release this movie. They considered Travolta Box Office Poison. Heckerling also thinks that, like, whatever they, you know, were sexist. I'm, you know, like, just kind of like. But the film tested so well that it got a wide release. There was also a plagiarism lawsuit brought by a baby. It's just something of like, hey, you had a meeting with me about my movie, which was called Special Delivery. Settled amicably. I don't know. Like, it's just one of those things where I feel like the studio, you.

[Hillary Busis]

Can only write one from one movie about a woman. There's only one story that a woman can tell and.

[David Sims]

But I want to just do this quickly, okay? John Travolta, basically, like small supporting part in horror film Devil's Reign, then Carrie, then Saturday Night Fever. He's one of the youngest people ever nominated for best actor. Then Grease. Then it's like immediately, moment by moment, okay? Then he has like urban cowboy Blowout Staying Alive, which is.

[Griffin Newman]

Blowout's a flop. But he's Blow.

[David Sims]

It's a flop, but he's great in it, right? Staying Alive. Yes. And is sort of like a point of mockery. And then immediately the run after that is so fucking bad. Like, you've gone from like, obviously all of this welcome back cotter is happening, right? He has his, like, sort of TV idol, Dumb, but then stops doing welcome.

[Griffin Newman]

Back in the 70s. Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

So welcome Back Cotter, that movie Run. And then it's like Two of a Kind. His other movie with Olivia Newton John.

[Griffin Newman]

Very bad.

[David Sims]

Perfect. The Jazzer sized movie with Jamie Lee Curtis, the Experts.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know that one.

[David Sims]

I mean, just look at the poster with A mullet.

[Griffin Newman]

He's going. It's him and air. Gross. The big two.

[David Sims]

Two NYC guys get jobs. Starting a nightclub in small town usa. They don't know it's a spy training model town. And that's in the USS Are.

[Griffin Newman]

That film has Kelly Preston in it.

[David Sims]

So my guess is where they met.

[Griffin Newman]

That's where they met. That's right. Right.

[David Sims]

Chain of Gold. Chains of Gold, which I've never heard of. Like you just like.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a TV movie.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry. Okay. Experts is the last thing right before look who's Talking. So he's coming off like a horrendous run. Then Chains of Gold. TV movie in between look who's Talking and look who's Talking to. Then something called Eyes of an Angel.

[Griffin Newman]

Eyes of an angel was not released in theaters until after Pulp Fiction came out wild.

[David Sims]

But that was made in between look who's Talking to and look who's Talking Now Shout, which is his like, inspirational music teacher movie. And then Pulp Fiction, like the look who's Talking things were the only things keeping him relevant for 10 years, even if they didn't make him cool. David?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes?

[David Sims]

Ever lift a little too hard?

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. You mean. Yeah, lift something too heavy. Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, I mean, like you're. You're lifting. You know, you're at the gym, you're getting your reps, and you lift too hard. Then you start. You start stinking up the place. You forget to apply your daily deodorant. You get hit by a truckload of B.O. from all directions.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I can't say that I have, but.

[David Sims]

Okay, so I guess this is more kind of my personal experience. I can speak to this from a perspective. Having this problem every day. So I'm doing my reps, I got my boys spotting me, and then ding dong. Oh, Ben, can you just get the door quick?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, hold on.

[Griffin Newman]

Creek. Hello?

[Ben Hosley]

Hey, what's up? How could we help you?

[David Sims]

This is the way.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you the Mandalorian?

[David Sims]

No, I'm the Mandaloderant.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

You.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, I gotta tell you right away.

[David Sims]

It'S the way to start smelling better.

[Ben Hosley]

You smell fantastic.

[David Sims]

Thank you very much. And it's hard when you're wearing this much armor. Escar Steel at all times now. And lifting.

[Griffin Newman]

I've heard that Mando Whole Body deodorant is from the founders of Lumi.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

And it helps men conquer their odor in a new way.

[David Sims]

That reminds me. Have I introduced you to my child? Baby odor.

[Griffin Newman]

You can look. I. I know that that's a nickname.

[David Sims]

His real Name?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Grogu. Grogergu Grogu.

[Griffin Newman]

Formulated with mandelic acid, Mando has long lasting 72 hours hour odor control that actually stops odor before it starts. And he can put it everywhere.

[David Sims]

That's the way.

[Griffin Newman]

Feet.

[David Sims]

Yes. Back under helmets.

[Griffin Newman]

Knees. Yes.

[David Sims]

Under shoulder pads. Under knee pads.

[Griffin Newman]

Try their bestselling scent, Bourbon leather. Are you wearing that right now?

[David Sims]

Of course I am. I'm also wearing Beskar steel.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course you are. Yeah, we got a big Mando package. And sometimes you get a package in the mail and you're like, oh, sure, this was a big package deodorant. I'm like, this is actually pretty useful. I'm gonna. I'm gonna dig into this. Have you been enjoying your Mando Griffin? Me?

[David Sims]

Griffin? Yes, of course. This is what I like about this package. They sent us a lot of different form factors. Mando has a whole range of products in terms of finding what you like best in terms of applying the best scents where you need them. You got roll ons, you got creams, you got sprays, you got body washes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. So look. It was created by doctors who saw firsthand how normal was being misdiagnosed and mistreated. Blocks that are all days controls it for up to 72 hours. It's baking soda free. It's paraben free. You can find in Walmart, Target other retailers around the country or go to shopmando.com if you want to get it for the get the best deals. Okay, so mind starter pack is perfect for new customers. Comes with a solid stick. Deodorant cream tube deodorant. Two free products of your choice like mini body wash, deodorant wipe, something like that. And free shipping as a special offer for listeners. New customers get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack. Use code [e-mail] s h o p M A N D O. Please support our show and tell them we sent you Smell fresher, stay dryer and boost your confidence from head to toe.

[Ben Hosley]

With Mando, I was thinking maybe it could be crow. Ooh, smells so good.

[David Sims]

Well, it's my son. That's not his name. I can't rename it.

[Ben Hosley]

Say the name again.

[David Sims]

Grogerg.

[Ben Hosley]

Griffin. David.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[Ben Hosley]

I have news.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I'm buckled in my beloved cat, Pig. Pig.

[Ben Hosley]

It's come up many times on the.

[David Sims]

We love pig deep lore. She deserves the world, of course, and you try your hardest to give it to her. I know that about you.

[Ben Hosley]

I do everything I can to keep pig healthy. I give her the best treats, the best food, the best toys.

[David Sims]

Okay, but then when it comes to litter hugs, you just, you disregard. You drop the ball there, right?

[Ben Hosley]

Griffin.

[David Sims]

What?

[Ben Hosley]

That's actually, actually incorrect.

[David Sims]

Oh, no.

[Ben Hosley]

Because I started using Pretty Litter and it's the best litter and a total game changer.

[David Sims]

It's a game change. The game has been changed. Ben, I've heard tell that Pretty Litter helps monitor your cat's health, detecting abnormalities in your cat's urine by testing acidity and alkalinity levels and showing the visible presence of blood. Can you confirm or deny? True.

[Ben Hosley]

It's true. What I also love about Pretty Litter is it helps to monitor pig's health. And it just gives me real peace of mind to make sure that we're tracking any kind of issues that may come up.

[David Sims]

Maybe I should use this stuff.

[Ben Hosley]

Pretty Litter ships free right to your door. It's non toxic, it's pet safe, it's household friendly. Plus it's low dust, controls odors and lasts for up to one month. I truly, as soon as I made the change to pre litter, it is just really improved our life. Our household. It just is. Is the premium option on the market right now.

[Griffin Newman]

You can save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at PrettyLitter.com check. That's PrettyLitter.com check to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. Prettylitter.com check. Pretty litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. C site for details. Do you like John Travalto? I'm pointing at Hillary P. I mean who, who doesn't?

[Hillary Busis]

He's.

[Griffin Newman]

I think some people don't like John Travolto.

[David Sims]

When I dislike him, I don't know, he drives me insane.

[Hillary Busis]

You think some suppressive persons don't like?

[David Sims]

You're right. Those people aren't in touch. They're overloaded with.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm watching this movie and I really have the realization of like, I love John Trava. He is working his terms on me.

[Hillary Busis]

So really great to see this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It really is.

[David Sims]

When he is good, I find him undeniable. When he is bad, few people annoy me.

[Griffin Newman]

When's he bad? I mean like, I believe you but like, what's an example?

[Hillary Busis]

Give like 50 examples.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, he's not bad. Those movies are bad. I would say he's fine.

[David Sims]

Most of the movies we have covered him on in the show. I do not like him in Basic. I do not like him in Lucky Numbers.

[Griffin Newman]

Basic is. I don't really out of pocket performance.

[David Sims]

Like him and Michael. Those are all him trying weird things and I think really not working.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't mind him and Michael. I forget where I sort of settled.

[David Sims]

On him, but I don't think he totally works. I obviously love old dogs, but must acknowledge this performance and that is demented. I think his Hairspray performance is like.

[Hillary Busis]

A war crime that is all time low.

[Griffin Newman]

Hairspray is just a mistake, I think, on everyone's part. Like, he shouldn't have been. I get why they thought of him. I get why he wanted to do it, but it doesn't make any sense.

[David Sims]

Jean Hackman's recent passing at the time of this recording. I watch Get Shorty. I. I do think that is my single favorite Travolta movie star performance sense.

[Griffin Newman]

Get Shorty. Well, he's so phenomenal. Yes.

[David Sims]

And it is such, like quiet, controlled work that is just charisma and presence. When. When he works, I'm just like, you can't argue with this. But he sometimes just has the absolute weirdest instincts.

[Hillary Busis]

I mean, and sometimes those work for it. Like Robert Shapiro in. In the People vs. O.J. simpson is a crazy. That's a crazy performance that he's giving.

[Griffin Newman]

But it.

[Hillary Busis]

And like his like very frozen, like Easter island face, like, but it works.

[David Sims]

And he's making like very big expressions and like playing the eyebrows. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

You know what freaking stinks. Phenomenon.

[Griffin Newman]

He's Phenomenon.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a bad movie and he's kind of bad in it.

[Hillary Busis]

I confuse Phenomenon with Michael.

[Ben Hosley]

They're kind of.

[Hillary Busis]

They're the same move.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, no, no. Michael is sort of a. Well, Michael's a comedy version. Phenomenon is like flowers for Algernon.

[David Sims]

Very serious saccharine. He has a brain disorder. He's got brain illness but is killing him.

[Griffin Newman]

And then he gets. He gets like hit by lightning or whatever.

[Hillary Busis]

And he then becomes a genius.

[Griffin Newman]

Becomes a super genius. He gets like all kinds of magic powers and it slowly kills him.

[David Sims]

My parents. Very dull movie to see that movie in theaters. And I thought the title was Manomena.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's what the title is. The title is Phenomena.

[David Sims]

That's what I thought. And then when they were like, no, it's Phenomenon. And I was like, oh, so on the Muppet show they're saying Phenomenon. So then when I would watch the.

[Hillary Busis]

Manamana sketch, it's just misunderstanding. Turtles all the way down 100.

[David Sims]

But yeah, no, I just. I think he's a very strange movie star. And it's also, like. It is interesting that, like, once Pulp Fiction happens, he has, like, a pretty, like, bulletproof run for a number of years there. Even, like, phenomenon getting to $100 million.

[Griffin Newman]

What? Of what? It's called Monominal.

[David Sims]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I would not say that he has a bulletproof run. Griffin. That is not true. But I would say that Get Shorty was a hit. White Man's Bird Burden was not. I would say that was before.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, my.

[Griffin Newman]

This guy is obsessed with how White Man's Burden was shot before Pulp.

[Hillary Busis]

That is his burden. Remind you of that fact?

[Griffin Newman]

New Man's Burden, Michael and Phenomenon, I feel like, are both movies where it's like they. They make money but aren't popular.

[David Sims]

Broken Arrow, they both make, like, 9,700, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Like, somewhere in there, it doesn't, like.

[Hillary Busis]

Totally hit the bottom until battles.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm saying, like, Broken Arrow is similar where it's like, it's a hit, but you kind of wish it was bigger. Face off, everyone's happy again. But let's not get Mad City. She's so lovely. Right? You know, Face off is a hit. Civil Action doesn't do well. Sort of mildly respected. I like that movie.

[David Sims]

General's Daughter is a weird hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Primary Colors also doesn't do well, but he's good in it. Yeah, but you know what I mean. Where.

[David Sims]

But you're right. No, and then.

[Griffin Newman]

But then General's Daughter, which is a sick movie. That sucks. Right? Right. Kind of cruised to 100.

[David Sims]

Makes like a boilerplate in the middle.

[Griffin Newman]

And then, of course, what happens here in 2000, 2000, I'm seeing he made some very normal movies. Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers.

[David Sims]

Right. And then wheels completely off the wagon.

[Griffin Newman]

And yet he keeps being a star. You like, that should be so hobbling to make Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers, where it's like, all sides of you are despised. Right? But then it's like, all right, domestic disturbance is bad. Swordfish kind of made money. Yeah, Basic. I mean, he's a big deal.

[Hillary Busis]

Like, he's still going to be a movie star.

[Griffin Newman]

Ladder 49 did okay. You know, like, kind of Hobb Long all the way to Wild Hogs, where people are like, he's back.

[David Sims]

Right. He enters a period of being a. A B list movie star with a list recognition. Like, he's consistently getting a movie to, like, 50 or 60 million dollars.

[Griffin Newman]

Someone who plays well, overseas, so you can always get some money on your international. Right.

[David Sims]

I've heard that crews love him, that the studios love him, that he's very amenable, you know, the opposite of Chevy Chase. Yeah, that's cool. But yeah, 2007, when he has Wild Hogs and hairstyles makers love him. There was that reader.

[Griffin Newman]

Meter operators love him.

[Ben Hosley]

What are you talking about?

[Griffin Newman]

He wears a wig. The guy's hair is au natural every single time.

[David Sims]

The only reason he chose to shave his head is because he was inspired by his good friend Pitbull. End of story. How many times does he need to say this? We all know how much hair he had. He just thinks it would be cooler to look.

[Hillary Busis]

We're talking about hair. We should really talk more about Kirsty Alley.

[David Sims]

So Kirsty Alley's hair deserves above the title. Bill.

[Hillary Busis]

Gorgeous in this movie.

[David Sims]

It is a special effect.

[Griffin Newman]

So large and yet not in that 80s way of like, oh, she's got this big done up here. No, it's.

[Hillary Busis]

No, I feel like you would touch it and it would be like, feel like real hair.

[David Sims]

It feels like my favorite down and.

[Griffin Newman]

It'S fighting my Seinfeld, like, to invoke George again, where he's like, how's big sir hair? And he's like, big. And he's like, if I stuck my hand in it, would I be able to get it out?

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah, it's big, but not in a Jewish way.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's my. I'm going to call you out, Griffin, but not in a, like, accusatory way. But I feel like you don't like Kjersti Alley because you're such a Shelley Longhead. Because when we did our Wrath of Khan commentary, I remember you kind of kept being like, yeah, but she was no Shelley Long. Sam and Diane was better than Salmon.

[Hillary Busis]

Didn't tell Shelly Long to leave the show.

[David Sims]

I feel like I had. I, for years didn't watch the Rebecca era because I felt such solidarity. And I. Shelly Long being what, Rich Being the greatest romance of our time.

[Ben Hosley]

We're talking about Cheers.

[David Sims]

Just our time being 35 years ago. I. When we did the track commentaries, I want to say I had maybe only recently finally gotten through the Rebecca years. And I just feel like the show, like, is kind of a shadow of itself at that point.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, she's coming in in like season.

[David Sims]

Six, but also her run is longer. Like, that's the wild thing is the show runs so long where I'm just like, the show's kind of running on fumes. I think she's good on the show. I don't totally like the way they write that character.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, they didn't know what to do with her.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

It was like, she's like a boring straight man for, like, a while.

[David Sims]

But they also do the weird, like, look who's talking thing where they're like, she's obsessed with a rich man who will never, never leave his wife for her.

[Hillary Busis]

And it's just the vibe that you're seeing.

[David Sims]

That was her thing. So I. I think at the time of the track commentaries, I was holding it against her a little more while trying not to feel like I was explicitly holding against her. Watching her in this, I was just like, kirsty Alley's good.

[Hillary Busis]

She rocks in this movie. She's so charming.

[Griffin Newman]

I enjoyed her in this movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm trying to think, like, so what? Obviously, I guess I like her the most as Savic in the great film Star Trek to the Wrath of Karl Con. I really enjoy her on Cheers.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I was a very good performer.

[Griffin Newman]

I was a Veronica's Closet watcher as a kid. I think that's probably how I first knew of her.

[David Sims]

Maybe the single least surprising thing I've ever heard about you.

[Griffin Newman]

Did I open the closet? I took a peek. I took a peek.

[David Sims]

He checked out the rack.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it's just like I watched any sitcom.

[David Sims]

The rack on the closet. I'm saying, like the coat.

[Griffin Newman]

Like the. No, I watched any sitcom.

[Hillary Busis]

You just keep the TV going.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. So I watched. Just Shoot Me. I watched. What was the one with Suddenly Susan? I watched this, right?

[David Sims]

Caroline in the City, and they all.

[Griffin Newman]

Had the same kind of vibe where it's like, it's Manhattan. We're yelling at each other, you know, Grace under Fire. Grace under fire, at least. Well, Spin City's good.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Is it?

[Hillary Busis]

All right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I love. Any theme song where it's just that saxophone goes jackhammers your ear for 30 seconds.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Also any sitcom where, like, once a scene, Richard Kyne could run in and be like, what's wrong with the fax machine?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, truly, Sin City is all flamethrowers and then the Sheen Locklear era. It's not like it's bad, but it really does feel wrong that they're there. Yes. Boatman Kind o Ruck.

[David Sims]

Or no O was on our.

[Griffin Newman]

No O was on our list, you freak.

[David Sims]

But wasn't. Oh, no. Carla Gugina was on at the beginning.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but she gets written out fast. They don't have a. They don't have any room for her really. But it's.

[David Sims]

I was confused because of course Karen O. Shares scenes with Michael Boatman on our list. One of the few actors of that era to be on two shows simultaneously.

[Griffin Newman]

Boatman was riding the boat between shows.

[Hillary Busis]

That's why they call it.

[Griffin Newman]

You're forgetting Connie Britton, of course.

[David Sims]

Connie Britton.

[Griffin Newman]

The great Barry Bostwick of the great Barry Boston and such. And Alexander Chaplin, who is very funny on that show. And Bradley Cooper's ex wife Jennifer as well. Esposito. Speaking of people like, cut that out. So. But here's the alley. Did you like Veronica's Closet? Before we talk about the film, I just really. We need to get you on the record about Veronica's Closet.

[Hillary Busis]

I never. I never watched Veronica. I never watched Veronica's Closet. I. I was still like pretty exclusively watching Nickelodeon. I feel like at.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. It was like 97. So.

[Hillary Busis]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You're not maybe ready for the.

[Hillary Busis]

Yes, I'm. I'm very, very young, but. No, but I loved.

[Griffin Newman]

I loved you. She owned like a Victoria's Secret style. Right. Like it was like a lingerie brand. Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

Okay. So that makes. Oh, that's why they call Veronica's Closet. I see.

[David Sims]

What.

[Hillary Busis]

What clever word play. I knew Kirsty Alley mostly from It Takes Two, the Olsen twins movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes. We discussed this. You were in It Takes Two girl. I was a Two of us.

[Hillary Busis]

You say this like you can't be both. They were not.

[Griffin Newman]

They were not similar. I know. And yet.

[David Sims]

Because guess what?

[Hillary Busis]

I was a big old twins person.

[David Sims]

I was both.

[Griffin Newman]

You like Two of a Kind.

[David Sims]

Get you a Griff who can do both. I like Two of a Kind. And later.

[Hillary Busis]

They're completely different.

[Griffin Newman]

I like both.

[David Sims]

It's not a competition.

[Hillary Busis]

Two of a Kind is also the.

[Griffin Newman]

Name of a John Travolta, but a perfectly serviceable sitcom.

[David Sims]

Wonderful.

[Hillary Busis]

Christopher Zeber.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing I was watching. And they'd be like, what are the twins up to? And I'm like, let's get off the twins. What's going on with Zebra and Sally Wheeler?

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah, they're. I love to let him sing.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, let's figure Christopher Sieber is. I want this on the record. And I hope against hope that Christopher Slieber listens to my podcast, which I'm sure he does not. One of the greatest American comic actors alive.

[Hillary Busis]

I love theater actor too.

[David Sims]

Agree with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Lord Farquaad himself.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, if they're like, we are doing a Broadway musical with like an insane sort of villain Role. He's ideal for it. He was just in Death Becomes Her.

[Hillary Busis]

It was very fun in the prom.

[David Sims]

The Bruce Willis part.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. I didn't see. So he was.

[Hillary Busis]

He was good. He gets like a showcase second act. Like 11 o' clock.

[Griffin Newman]

Sounds like the kind of thing he would mash into the upper deck. No, I think it's still. I think he's still on it.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Hillary Busis]

I would think that he would stick around until at least Tony season.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He's in the show. They might have now called you a ticket. I think so. I saw him do into the Woods.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is he in into the Woods? He was one of the princes. Right.

[David Sims]

But my memory. He was the wolf. Am I wrong about this?

[Griffin Newman]

He was.

[Hillary Busis]

That's the brilliance of the casting. It's like how Captain Hook is also Peter Pan or also Wendy's dad.

[David Sims]

Yes, Same thing. So that's what. I saw him crush that. In a production with Vanessa Williams.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. 2002. Into the wolf.

[David Sims]

And I want to say John Cullum was the narrator. Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Laura Benanti with Cinderella.

[David Sims]

We might have been at the same time. It's possible. He, of course, was Lord Farquaad and Trespass. Why are they doing the whole crispr?

[Griffin Newman]

Because he. He rules in a. He's not in this movie. And he's never.

[David Sims]

Actually.

[Hillary Busis]

Is so tenuous.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it is pretty tenuous. I love Christopher.

[Hillary Busis]

Kirsty Alley, going back to her, she made an Olsen twins movie with Steve Gutenberg. That's why this began. And also Drop Dead Gorgeous. It's a big touchstone for a millennial woman.

[Griffin Newman]

And she's great in that. She's an incredibly funny actor who, unsurprisingly, Hollywood. Right. Didn't have too many parts for. I think she was a little weird.

[Hillary Busis]

Her. Her later in life activities would suggest she was right.

[Griffin Newman]

One of those people where her celebrity became about more than her.

[David Sims]

Well, she was.

[Hillary Busis]

She was a tabloid punching bag for like, the last 20 years of her life.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

In a way that seems to have really, like, warped her brain. She made several shows about being fat and being in Hollywood at the same time.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, they would have really. No, they would have subtle titles like Fat Actress, though.

[Hillary Busis]

Like Kirsty Alley's Big Life.

[Griffin Newman]

At least that one's trying to put some sugar on.

[David Sims]

Look at this. Like, look who's Talking is a massive success in 1989. Right. And she is also two years into a run on America's favorite sitcom. Then she does Madhouse, which I feel like is a movie that came somewhat recently. For reasons I forget, with her and John Larroquette and Sibling Rivalry, a Carl Reiner flop. Then look who's Talking to look who's Talking Now. And then Village of the Damned, which is a pretty thankless role in a bad movie we've covered. And then the next year, it's like It Takes Two. Like, I'm a little fascinated by. For all the spilled ink of like how hard it was for TV stars to make the jump to movie star in the 80s, the 90s and the early 2000s. There are these cases like her and Ted Danson, where like, they do it, they have a big hit and then they cannot sustain it in any way.

[Hillary Busis]

Just have to keep making look who's Talkings until you fade back to.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

You make Three Men and a Little lady and then they're just like, now go back to tv, you piece of.

[Griffin Newman]

Kirsty Alley's good in this film I.

[David Sims]

Filmed against kind of her best performance.

[Griffin Newman]

She's good in the movie. Yeah. She's Savic. She'll always be sovereign.

[David Sims]

But I, I think this is like the best showcase of what I think she's good at.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. Because she, you know, it's not like it's requiring great range.

[David Sims]

Yes, yes.

[Hillary Busis]

But she's really good.

[David Sims]

I also think it's like a role. It's obviously not like, this is one to one with Heckerling. Right. In like the circumstances of this woman's life.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. She's an accountant. She doesn't write movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[Hillary Busis]

Totally different.

[David Sims]

Right. She's not married to some cuckoos.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

In Police Academy sequels. But. But I'm like, I, I think it's part of what was underlined for me in watching this is like her Cheers character feels like it is very much written by men who are like, you know, it's some like career obsessed woman who's like going gaga over rich guys and is like a neurotic mess. And then this feels like the same character, but written like, intelligently and compassionately.

[Hillary Busis]

Yes, yes. Just to some degree. I mean, it's got, it's got 80s politics.

[David Sims]

There's insane.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a couple. Right. There's a couple moments that there's so.

[Hillary Busis]

There are so many times where she talks about how disgusting she looks because of, you know, like, her weight and just also like the difficulties of being a single mother. But it does feel like that, that like Roger Ebert quote about Ali McGraw in Love Story where she has the disease that just makes you more beautiful, like single motherhood. Just like she's like Radiating like health and good humor and talking about how Dolly Parton.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

She.

[Hillary Busis]

She lost that baby weight very quickly.

[Griffin Newman]

If she ever had it. I mean, she lost it in the. She went. I'm throwing a pillow across this. The room. She plays Molly Jensen.

[David Sims]

This movie CPA opens with sperm.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie opens with the jizz.

[Hillary Busis]

Emphasize that enough.

[Griffin Newman]

She has an affair with one of her clients, Albert, played very well by George Siegel, who's a great slime ball.

[Hillary Busis]

I gotta like wipe the screen every time he shows up. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he is the CEO of the Chubby Charlie's franchise. This is like a thread I was trying to make.

[Griffin Newman]

They briefly mention it. It's not very explained, but it sort.

[David Sims]

Of seems like he is the owner of a Chuck E. Cheese esque chain.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He's a lunatic because he's. His office has a marble desk and like he's getting in like, I don't know, like Navajo paintings or something. Aesthetic is crazy. He's insane. It's like a joke. Joke. Like rich guy with no taste.

[David Sims]

I think the characterization in his office and the arc of his office evolving is really good. That like this guy, he wanted more.

[Hillary Busis]

Of the interior decorator.

[David Sims]

The guy has money but no taste and just keeps on buying big things. And he has like a 50s diner jukebox corner of his office. But then he's also like. But I appreciate ancient art and like local crafts people. It made me like, like long for a time where this was like charmingly insane. Rich people.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, like this is the kind of rich person we have where I'm like.

[David Sims]

Oh, this grossly rich man who has $5 million and buys nice desks rather than like buys countries.

[Hillary Busis]

A daughter named Astrid.

[David Sims]

Spaceships. Yeah. Expensive desks, I should say. A daughter named Astrid.

[Griffin Newman]

He knocks her up, promises to leave his wife for her, but then she catches him with another woman, his interior decorator, of all people, in a dressing room.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

While vintage shopping with Twin Kaplan, he.

[Griffin Newman]

Hits her with a line that is so brutal and well written by Amy Hackerling that I have to wonder if Harold Ramis said it to her, which is like, I'm in my selfish era, essentially. Right.

[Hillary Busis]

Like, you know, that feels transcribed.

[Griffin Newman]

It really does. And it really does feel like the kind of thing a bananas, 40 something divorced guy would say. Where it's just like, I know I like knocked you up, but like, I want to have fun right now. Like, I'm allowed to be single, you know, like, that's his brain and he's rich, obviously.

[Hillary Busis]

Which is, I wondered, also if the stuff about like, his. His wife being into like, past lives, is that like a Ghostbusters like dig, or am I.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the question.

[Hillary Busis]

Am I taking an extra.

[Griffin Newman]

His first. His first wife, who we never see. Right. Is a kook. We sort of, you know, she's like.

[Hillary Busis]

A new age type like that very 80s way.

[David Sims]

Yes. But I. Not to jump all the way to the end, but I love the, like, the final stage. George Siegel, after that relationship falls apart, where he's just like, I've never gotten to be alone. I need to know what it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That's his new form.

[David Sims]

And then his additional, like, the. The being a father stage of my life is over. I need to move on to something else. 9 and 11.

[Hillary Busis]

That's a really good line too.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. So I'm watching this movie and I. And of course, we're occasionally cutting to her uterus and. And baby is in there going, hey, what's going on? I'm in like a uterus or something.

[David Sims]

Am I wrong? Right. In thinking that the first line of dialogue comes from a spermazo being like.

[Griffin Newman]

I got in there.

[David Sims]

Yes, I made it. Right, right. And then you have like, fetus puppetry.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes. Which I. I will say, I think basically every line. I'm not proud to say this. I'm gonna say this every line. Puppet, fetus. Bruce Willis says, I found fun me at that stage. I'm like, I get the gimmick of here is her outer life drama and here's the baby inside being like, I gotta move into a bigger place. Like all of that, albeit hacky. And a lot of it's just the charisma. Bruce Willis, who I love, was working for me.

[Griffin Newman]

So, Hillary, you've been pregnant. I have not to dox you on air.

[David Sims]

Forgot to mention that in your credits in the introduction.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, it is the most defining quality.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, of course. Right. Yes. That's. That was you doing it all. No, you've been. You've had a baby.

[Hillary Busis]

I thought I've in fact had two babies.

[Griffin Newman]

You've had two babies.

[David Sims]

David, please don't cut shorter accomplishments.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah, I get from this administration. I get a stipend for each additional white child I have.

[David Sims]

Do you guys know the world's really bad?

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, but they're Jewish.

[Griffin Newman]

They're not going to be leading our of great white future.

[Hillary Busis]

That are Nick Valonga. That Italians don't count anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I'm watching this movie and I was kind of like, oh, is this going to be a Pregnancy movie. Like, is it going to be? Because now I'm realizing one, I didn't know what this movie was like. I thought this movie was something completely different.

[David Sims]

That's the moment when I realized I've never seen this before.

[Griffin Newman]

What am I in for?

[David Sims]

Because it jumps basically from her being, like, three months pregnant to the baby is born. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. It's. It's not a pregnancy movie. I was a little let down. I was kind of hoping for some good gags about, like, the. The. The pains of being pregnant, but there's.

[Hillary Busis]

Not much apart from, like, stuff. Pregnancy jokes. I feel like all of those tropes are so well worn that I actually appreciated how the movie is about.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Maybe she was like, there's nothing here for me.

[Hillary Busis]

Like, it has her throwing up. Like, it has her, like, eating.

[Griffin Newman]

She can't fit into her clothes.

[Hillary Busis]

No, she's so bad now. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Here's just a real Griffin opinion, though. I was just so into that puppet baby and all his creepiness.

[Griffin Newman]

You want more of him?

[David Sims]

That I'm just like. And I like the game of, like, cutting inside.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait. Some music is building and a chair is being panned over. Puppet baby is going to be an Avengers doom day. Doom day. He's on the puppet baby. Look who's talking. What I'm seeing here that the puppet has aged weird. It's been 38 years.

[David Sims]

The chair thing was such a. A bungle, in my opinion, and yet has gifted us one of the most incredible meme structures that I think will never get old. They've made it so easy for us to put anything on the back of a chair and laugh and laugh and laugh.

[Griffin Newman]

So I'm watching this movie and I'm like, the hell is Travolta? Like. And I'm not even like, I need to see him. I'm just like, I thought he was in this movie.

[David Sims]

You thought he was the father. You thought the movie was the father.

[Hillary Busis]

Misled terribly.

[Griffin Newman]

And then, of course, she goes into labor right as Siegel is breaking up with her for good. And she gets in a New York City yellow taxi cab, as we all.

[Hillary Busis]

Know, also, labor begins immediately, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like, whoa, I'm in labor.

[David Sims]

And you have some New York tough guy jokes of, like, her trying to get a cab and the guy being like, I'm late for a meeting.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Yes, the guy, hey, I was here first lady. So she gets in the cab and Travolta. I'm locked in right away. Because he does play perfectly. The Ah. Of pregnant ladies in my cab. But also the heroic kind of like, I will hell or high water, get her to the hospital.

[Hillary Busis]

I feel like the way that he drives is not entirely necessary. What he's gonna get through all this stuff? He drives like he dances through the construction site. Yeah. There's no other way.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right. He's dancing through the raindrops that like only John Travolta.

[David Sims]

It is kind of crazy that look who's Talking ostensibly has two car chase sequences.

[Griffin Newman]

It does. Well, because it has that structure.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Where every half hour they're kind of like, we need something kind of extended.

[David Sims]

Bigger has to happen.

[Hillary Busis]

So every half hour. But the movie is 90 minutes long.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it's 90 minutes long. Hill, three times you had two babies. I have been pregnant for two. I've been present. I've been present for the delivery of three babies. But two. Two deliveries. Can you just get Demerol injected into an IV when you're in labor? I don't think so.

[Hillary Busis]

You know, in 1989, possibly.

[Griffin Newman]

I can't. Point of the epidural was like, that's so we don't pump drugs into your veins. It is so I'm just. This was a specific point. You guys probably have no ground. He's like, hey, you want some Demerol? She's like, ah, yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

And that's obviously gonna affect the baby so much more than an epidural, which doesn't make you high. It just nums. This is like. This is in there. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Well.

[Hillary Busis]

And then that leads to the joke where the baby is high.

[David Sims]

The greatest joke in the history of movies. Obviously, baby is waving gravy.

[Griffin Newman]

Obviously looking at his hand.

[David Sims]

It's blurring.

[Griffin Newman]

As. As comic screenwriting. I'm all the way on. I was just wondering, like, I think if my wife had been like, hey, for this whole labor thing is a real. Like, I don't feel so good.

[Hillary Busis]

Do you have any demeritol right in my eyeball?

[David Sims]

I just imagine you putting your arms around your wife in labor and going, honey, just imagine how funny it would be if the baby started acting stoned inside of you. Do it for that.

[Griffin Newman]

Do it for the business. There are things about the pregnancy that I do feel like are very specifically 80s. Like the Lamaze jokes. Many, many jokes about Lamaze.

[Hillary Busis]

It comes up. John Travolta brings it up. He doesn't have anything to do with his pregnancy.

[Griffin Newman]

Everyone's learning to breathe.

[David Sims]

George Siegel keeps complaining that she isn't keeping her body. Body tighter while Being pregnant.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Oh, my wife only gained 22 pounds.

[Hillary Busis]

Her reliance on Dr. Spock, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

Who was a hero to them all. And her correct calling out of his left wing progressive politics. Which is part of why my mom's generation loved Dr. Spock. No offense to Dr. Spock.

[Hillary Busis]

Fun, fun fact about me as a child I thought that Dr. Spock the baby guy and Spock from Star Trek. I guess this is not unusual.

[Griffin Newman]

Why wouldn't you one in the same.

[Hillary Busis]

I believed it maybe for too long.

[David Sims]

Especially when a fellow Vulcan is on screen as he's mentioned.

[Hillary Busis]

Anyway. I've never seen a Star Trek. But we can.

[Griffin Newman]

But we were probably both raised with Spocky and technique. Right. But we don't even write. Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Where it's like put the baby directly on their stomach to sleep. Fill their crib with the choking hazards and suffocation.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben. Do you guys know that you can't put anything in a crib right now?

[Hillary Busis]

It has to be empty until they're a year old.

[David Sims]

I did not know this.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, this is what I was wondering.

[Hillary Busis]

This is uncommon. Unless you've had one. There's no reason for you to know that.

[Griffin Newman]

We all as parents. When did the show in the early 90s. Because of.

[Hillary Busis]

And there's. And it has had a very immediate like. Yes. And yeah. Positive impact. Like so many fewer kids die now.

[David Sims]

Wild. But I'm. I'm glad I got through. Right before that I was born in Griffin with a busy crib.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the thing before.

[David Sims]

Before crib culture went all woke.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. If you. And we're probably the last generation this will happen to. Because now you know people who are older, their parents will have also done face up to wake up. But our parents are like I put you in your crib. Right. With an Encyclopedia Britannica. Like you know my entire cast of Sesame Street. Yes, exactly.

[Hillary Busis]

Like open claims. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like. So like when you're great. You know when your parents are babysitting your kid, you're like just put them on their back in an empty crib, please. And they're like not one pillow on their face. Please let me. I. I did it with you. Nothing was wrong. You can't put a goddamn thing in there.

[David Sims]

Wild.

[Griffin Newman]

So when he puts her baby right in his crib that has a Garfield toy in it and stuff. I was laughing.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, there's also scenes where she's just holding him in the ca.

[Griffin Newman]

Cab.

[Hillary Busis]

She's not even using a car.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. She just pops into that cab. I don't even does she put a seat belt on. Who even knows? She's a busy lady in the city.

[Hillary Busis]

It's the go go 80s. There's no time for.

[David Sims]

Taxes to do.

[Hillary Busis]

Chubby Checkers is very. I just lucrative business.

[David Sims]

Never explain what Chubby Checkers is.

[Griffin Newman]

But you can go. You can put it together.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

I assumed that it was like a Johnny rock. It's like 50s style, like theme wrestle.

[Griffin Newman]

That could be true. It could be something like that.

[David Sims]

There's definitely a mascot character.

[Griffin Newman]

You see, only you would clock the mascot. She breaks it, sure. Right.

[David Sims]

It's like a big mascot.

[Griffin Newman]

I remember her. Smashing.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I also. I'm sorry, it's Chubby Charles, which I only correct because I kept being like, is this a dig at Chevy Chase? That the more they say it, the more it.

[Hillary Busis]

We know about Amy Heckerland, the more they say it's.

[David Sims]

There's the scene where her boss is chewing around. She's like, I don't want the Chubby Charles. And she keeps saying it, and it starts to sound like Chevy Chase.

[Hillary Busis]

That's a conspiracy theory I can get behind.

[Griffin Newman]

I also want to note that her doctor, her OBGYN. Well, the two OBGYNs are from the X Files and also Twin Peaks. Don Davis plays the obgyn who's like your doc. Your clock is ticking, Major Briggs.

[David Sims]

And Cigarettes Smoking.

[Griffin Newman]

And Cigarette Smoking man is. Is the actual guy who gives her the Demerol, which. Maybe it's Cigarette Smoking Man. Exactly. Maybe he's being nefarious. Trying to create a breed of stoned babies.

[David Sims]

Yeah, talk. Stone Talking.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. As super weapons to combat alien invasion.

[David Sims]

Babies who can sell you wine coolers.

[Griffin Newman]

She has the baby and Travolta is there.

[Hillary Busis]

They mistake him for the father, much as you did before you saw them.

[David Sims]

He's merely the cab driver. But then they tell him to.

[Hillary Busis]

I don't know what comes inside the hospital.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what I'm saying. The next next act of the movie is. It's like three things. It's like she is here, right? She's embarking on single motherhood and the baby has an internal monologue. She's kind of dating around and trying to find, like, someone, you know, who can be in her life. Also, Travolta is just kind of hanging out, right?

[David Sims]

This is the part of the movie that even more than the baby talks is a complete creation.

[Hillary Busis]

And we're also supposed to find it charming when he uses her address to commit fraud. So that can be in the nursing.

[David Sims]

Step backwards and explain the arc of John Travolta's character in Quick, he's a.

[Griffin Newman]

Cab driver slash flight instructor.

[David Sims]

Right, right. He's a cab driver whose real dream is to teach people how to fly. He's from New Jersey, but that doesn't pay the bills.

[Griffin Newman]

He's from Englewood, New Jersey.

[David Sims]

His close relative is his grandfather who he wants to get played by a Vagoda.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but by an aged Abe Vagoda.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

Not as aged as he would become.

[David Sims]

I was going to say he's got like 30 years left on the clock at the time they're filming this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's going to know it's a gum heavy performance.

[Hillary Busis]

Fromoda. I, I think you watch, you watch this movie and you understand why his death was misreported so many times.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

He looks like he's not long for this war.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm shaking him awake every morning. He's still in there. Okay, okay, okay. You're still going. Good job, babe.

[David Sims]

You watch this movie and you're like, oh, so it was a postamus release, right? You're like, this guy hasn't even made one appearance on Conan yet.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true.

[David Sims]

This guy's not even a war.

[Griffin Newman]

Conan is but a twinkle in the eye of lord Michael in 1989.

[David Sims]

He's talking inside Lord Michael's belly.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Please, Griffin, his balls.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry.

[Hillary Busis]

It's so dark in here.

[David Sims]

I like the idea of Lauren Michaels pulling a junior with baby. Conan o' Brien, a creepy puppet with.

[Griffin Newman]

The hair I think I'll grow.

[David Sims]

I can't do the string dance. John Travolta drops Kirsty off at the hospital. They assume he's the father goes into. She's so drugged out, she does not remember her that he's there. Then like a week later, seemingly he shows up at her place. She's like, what are you doing here? Lets him in. Is like, how did you find my address? I can't find my purse. Someone stole it at the hospital. Only in New York. Minutes later he reveals, I have your purse. That's why I'm here. That's why I know your address. I'm bringing it back to you. I'm sorry. Right?

[Hillary Busis]

You gotta went right under the wire right before Giuliani would clean this up. Take Travoltas and the people like them off the streets.

[David Sims]

It is a weird series of information being revealed. Like the order is strange, but you're like, oh, this is like why he has a reason to see her again. It's a bit of A meet cute. And then she, like, kicks him out, and you're like, okay, so where does the movie go from here? And then a couple days later, she's in her lobby and he's, like, pulling mail out of her mailbox.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he's sort of right. That's. I don't know how he's fishing it out, really, but I guess he sort of gets something in through the little.

[Hillary Busis]

Mail at flight instructor. How to commit mail Fraud.

[David Sims]

Jimmying it out through the vent so.

[Griffin Newman]

He can pretend his father has Manhattan residency to qualify him for some kind of home. He's using her address to do this. He doesn't know one other fucking guy, right?

[David Sims]

He's like, I need to get.

[Hillary Busis]

Not in Manhattan.

[David Sims]

In the good home in the New York York. In New York City, but I'm outside city limits, so I have to fake your address. And she was like, why would I let you commit mail fraud? And he's like, I brought you to the hospital and brought you your purse back. And she's like, not enough. He offers babysitting in exchange. And she says, yes, absolutely, I will let you watch my child.

[Hillary Busis]

This man I've met twice, many times.

[David Sims]

A man I just met fishing mail out of my mailbox.

[Griffin Newman]

The fact that she has a mother played by Olympia Dukakis. Academy Award winner winner, Academy Award winner, and a wonderful actress who I once shared an elevator with at the old UCB building that we used to record this podcast in, which also had a lot of audition.

[David Sims]

Studios.

[Griffin Newman]

And I. I took a very silent and respectful elevator ride with her and was like, in the presence of a legend. She'd come over all the time. She loves the baby, and yet she's like, nah, Cab driver. Hey, ring, ring, ring. Where are you? I gotta go on another day.

[Hillary Busis]

It seems like they just live in, like, Queens or something. They could be there really easily.

[Griffin Newman]

He lives in Jersey. Like, how? I mean, like, this is what I'm saying.

[David Sims]

He's not even close in. Same elevator ride. Didn't she throw water in John Mahoney's face? You were respectful, but she stoically threw water in his face. Right? Go on.

[Griffin Newman]

That's wonderful.

[Ben Hosley]

I like her. And the husband.

[Griffin Newman]

The husband is so cool.

[Hillary Busis]

Amy Heckerling's father?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, wait, really?

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. Cooling's family is all over this movie.

[David Sims]

He's just deeply personal.

[Griffin Newman]

The gag with him is so funny. They're all like, it's a family of accountants, right? They've all got adding machines at all times and all. He seems to want to do is use his adding machine or read accounting magazine.

[Hillary Busis]

Laughing at the accounting trade magazine. I loved that. I ate that up, too. That's a good gag.

[Griffin Newman]

I think all of that is funny. I think because Dukakis is such a pro. Like, she elevate that material is very hacky, you know, in the wrong hands. Right. Oh, yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Where Kirsty Alley is like, how could it get any worse? And then she's like, honey, I'm coming over.

[Griffin Newman]

Lou Heckerling is. Is the dad.

[Ben Hosley]

He looks like a Lou.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got two film credits. Look who's talking about.

[Hillary Busis]

Look, he's talking to. There you go.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

So did he get backhand also?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he better have.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, speaking of 80, this is him.

[Griffin Newman]

Adding up his back ending machines.

[Ben Hosley]

The her misleading that it was the sperm donor.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure. She has this cover story of. Right. I. I didn't get knocked up by a married.

[David Sims]

I'm just a woman who can do it all.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, what?

[Ben Hosley]

You must be a lesbian or something.

[Hillary Busis]

She's like, this is. This is something that you would only do if you were very ugly or perhaps a lesbian.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? And Travolta also hits her with the. Are you a lesbo?

[Hillary Busis]

It comes up a few times.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Let's also remember, like, 15 years earlier, the Mary Tyler Moore show starts in which a woman is single and lives in an apartment. And people were like, well, this is a snuff film.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? What is this sick pornography?

[Hillary Busis]

The idea that she would want to pay for herself on a date is, like, so ludicrous.

[David Sims]

Yes, right.

[Griffin Newman]

He has to say to her, like, hey, she likes to get pissed on during sex. You know what I mean? Like with a guy. Let me. Let me. Me take you aside for a second and tell you, this lady won't pick up the check. Note that we're talking about all this stuff in the movie and that we're not remarking on the fact that there is a baby in the movie who. Bruce Willis's voice comes out of his brain every few minutes is ostensibly the thing.

[David Sims]

The whole movie.

[Griffin Newman]

What Hillary said, you don't need it.

[David Sims]

No, it's what the movie was sold on, both in terms of selling it to the studio and selling it to the audience, both to great success. And yet it sounds like in heckling telling of it, they were just like, look, you're not gonna get controlled performances out of babies. We bring babies on set. We let them do what we want. We don't have video playback. We look at the footage. We find the Footage that we think is interesting. We cut it in, we show it to Bruce Willis and we're like, bruce, you got anything to say here? Like I, I assume they had lines written for the babies.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

She was also like, we can't impose lines on them and expect them to hit the marks or get the facial expression.

[Hillary Busis]

We want maybe the slightly, I mean, by the time the movie is over, he' two years old. Which in the movie, in the world of the, the world of the movie has no idea what a baby does. Different ages.

[Griffin Newman]

How old is he?

[Hillary Busis]

Cuz his, he doesn't work yet.

[Griffin Newman]

He's, I know, you know that a.

[Hillary Busis]

Baby, you know this. A baby can't jump until they're like two and a half.

[Griffin Newman]

I, yeah, I mean I, I, I remember. That's the kind of like I remember one doctor's visit where they were like, does your daughter like kick a ball if you give her like a soccer ball? And we were like, we're not that kind of family. That situation just hasn't arisen. But you know, like the obscure check mark.

[Hillary Busis]

But no, the conceit of the movie doesn't work if the baby can actually talk in its own baby voice.

[David Sims]

Right. Which I remember. And we'll talk about look who's talking to next week. Being a little confused by that as a child where he is like toddler aged and is still dubbed by Bruce Willis.

[Griffin Newman]

That happens. And so in the second movie he's still, it's still internal monologue.

[Hillary Busis]

Yes, but he's seven age where he.

[David Sims]

Should be able to talk right by look who's talking now. They are just played by child actors. They speak in their own voices. Only the dogs talk. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's of course DeVito and Keaton. Right, Diane?

[David Sims]

Yes. But there's a bit of a like Rugratsy thing where you're like, is it like Angelica being the one who speaks both languages that like at this point might be there's an internal monologue and an external monologue.

[Griffin Newman]

You are getting at the, the weirdness of Rugrats, right? Where Angelica has crossed the liminal barrier.

[David Sims]

Right. Where you're like, is Angelica.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Or is she like in some Ghost Rider state where she can walk both worlds?

[Griffin Newman]

Rugrats is so funny because it's like Chucky kind of seems older than Tommy.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, he is, he's, he's canonically too.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. And Tommy's one is one. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Tommy's also bold as fuck. This guy hasn't grown anything.

[Griffin Newman]

Guy is Travolta level ball.

[David Sims]

Right. And Tommy's just like, T shirt, diaper. Chucky dresses like a little gentleman. He has a T shirt and short.

[Hillary Busis]

He has a very fastidious single dad who takes a lot of time to pick those outfits.

[David Sims]

Shoes with lace. Is Tommy barefoot?

[Hillary Busis]

Tommy doesn't even wear pants.

[Griffin Newman]

But that's my question. It's like, does Chucky talk a little bit.

[David Sims]

It's only Angelica and Susie.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And Phil and Lil.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

How old are they?

[Hillary Busis]

They're like 18 months.

[David Sims]

I feel like they're right. They're the midpoint.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah. Tommy's the youngest. Well, then Tommy has a little brother.

[Griffin Newman]

The little one.

[David Sims]

Okay. Dill is born, and Dill can't even speak in a way that the baby's here. The babies here. Dill go like.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay. It is coming true. Your tangent call out.

[Griffin Newman]

This is really.

[David Sims]

Do you know what happens?

[Griffin Newman]

It's so similar to when Linus got rerun in Peanuts where it's like, Linus was the baby in Peanuts. Linus is introduced as a baby. By the time the rerun shows up, Linus has aged up to the same age as the other characters of Charlie Brown. But they have an age.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Hillary Busis]

But that Linus wasn't the same age as them.

[David Sims]

But that's why Lus was so obsessed with the blank. But then I think ultimately this is like, a. A nice discovery that makes the character richer, that him being an older child, still reliant on the blankie gives him more of an internal conflict.

[Griffin Newman]

Iconic Lus is that he has the blankie and. Right. He can't get over it. And I guess, like, he's still supposed to maybe be a little younger than, like, Charlie and Lucy and Schroeder and Daddy.

[Hillary Busis]

They're not torture.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is what I'm saying. But Charlie and Lucy at all don't age.

[David Sims]

I must. I must just call out. I must just connect these dots.

[Griffin Newman]

Shermy. We have all love.

[David Sims]

We all love Shermy.

[Griffin Newman]

Violet.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Woodstock is the bird.

[David Sims]

Frida. I must.

[Hillary Busis]

Are you naming actual Peanuts?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Or just like children in Park Slope schools.

[Griffin Newman]

Both.

[David Sims]

I must connect these dots in the third and final film of theatrical Rugrats trilogy, Rugrats Go Wild.

[Griffin Newman]

They went wild.

[David Sims]

The new.

[Hillary Busis]

It's a crossover with the wild Thornberries.

[David Sims]

Thank you. The new hook, much like look who's talking now. Is for the first time, we can.

[Hillary Busis]

Hear the dog talk because Eliza Thornberry famously can talk to animals.

[David Sims]

And who plays the voice of the dog?

[Hillary Busis]

Bruce Willis.

[David Sims]

Correct.

[Griffin Newman]

The episode's over.

[David Sims]

It's all connected.

[Hillary Busis]

It's all incredible stuff.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Is a Wendy's. No, you're right. You're right. It's all connected.

[David Sims]

I mean, Willis and that movie was check notes. Gigantic financial flop.

[Griffin Newman]

Willis, you know, it's funny with him that. Right. That he has multiple, like, voice performances. Because he's also in Beavis and Butthead. Right. And like, over the Hedge.

[David Sims]

Who can forget where he replaced Jim Carrey? Because Jim Carrey said, I'm a method actor. I can't do this process of one animation record session every four months. What am I supposed to do in between the sessions? I swear to you, that is what he said to Jeffrey Katzenberg.

[Hillary Busis]

What has he been doing to prepare for Sonic then?

[David Sims]

Well, he's just, like, looking at his.

[Griffin Newman]

Bank account and being like, little love, maybe.

[Hillary Busis]

Never mind. Yeah.

[David Sims]

His argument was basically like, once I start prepping a character, I cannot let go of it until production wraps. Whereas animation, you work on it for, like, three years, and every six months, they're like, we got a couple new lines.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? And Willis was just like, over the hedge. Great. What's about a hedge or something? Let me hit that microphone. It's just when he hasn't put a.

[David Sims]

Microphone in my bathtub, I got.

[Griffin Newman]

I love Bruce Willis's voice. It's just funny that, right. That he had the little side gig.

[David Sims]

Well, it's always felt like that is like, the one vestige of his sort of, like, past history of being first and foremost a comedy star that the more he became an action star and, like, audiences rejected him doing comedy. It's like, if it's just my voice, they'll let me be funny, Bruno. But this was a big thing. When Jim Carrey finally agreed to do Horton, Here's a who they promised him.

[Hillary Busis]

Like, he was like, you must airlift me to the jungle of Newell.

[David Sims]

Well, first off, they got him agree to do the movie because he was already filming yes man and he was so deep in character, right?

[Griffin Newman]

That's how I got him to give me 50 grand and make me a turkey sandwich.

[David Sims]

You could send him any script during the production of yes man and he had had to sign on.

[Griffin Newman]

Just like when you. He was doing Liar, Liar. The man couldn't lie. He could get anything out of him.

[David Sims]

He couldn't lie. No, they, like, promised him on Horton Hears a Coup that they wouldn't do any pickups, that they were like, we will do one week of recordings with you, and you say whatever you want, and then you can shed the character of Horton that has been weighing on you. So Heavily.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, he is an elephant.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, heavy.

[David Sims]

Think about it, 100%.

[Hillary Busis]

He was the elephant in the room.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I've never seen the animated Horton Hears a who. Is it any good?

[David Sims]

No, it sucks in his fruit. Looser.

[Griffin Newman]

So noted.

[Hillary Busis]

There's like no good Dr. Seuss adaptation.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, apart from I guess the original gratrical.

[David Sims]

Yes. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

How's the short movie?

[David Sims]

I've never seen it. I've heard. Quite stinky. Yeah, I think all the theatricals are.

[Griffin Newman]

Bad because my daughter loves the Lorax book.

[David Sims]

Yeah. There's an animated shorter that.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, is she a narc and a skull?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she's a big Onceler fan.

[David Sims]

All the like Chuck Jones half hour Seuss adaptations are good.

[Griffin Newman]

Good.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sure.

[Hillary Busis]

You can't make a Dr. Seuss adaptation that's longer than 25.

[Griffin Newman]

No, his books kind of are a.

[David Sims]

Little short and hand drawn animation is the best style because you just. It's a one to one with.

[Griffin Newman]

Isn't there a new Cat in the Hat movie coming though?

[Hillary Busis]

There is. You know, Bill Hader's in it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What's up with Hater? Come on the pod hater. Let's it out.

[Hillary Busis]

Hey there travelers.

[Griffin Newman]

Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music.

[Hillary Busis]

Great artist btw.

[Griffin Newman]

But wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live?

[Hillary Busis]

With Priceline, you can get out of.

[Griffin Newman]

Your dreams and into your dream concert.

[Hillary Busis]

They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave.

[Griffin Newman]

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[Hillary Busis]

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[Griffin Newman]

Priceline.

[Hillary Busis]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more.

[David Sims]

Look who's talking.

[Griffin Newman]

I.

[David Sims]

There are like three phases of Mikey as a character, right? There is fetus in utero Mikey, which for me, 10 out of 10 comedy gold.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, and then there is right Infant Mikey.

[David Sims]

There's baby section where I feel like all of the jokes are bad. Like I. I'm sitting there the first 30 minutes and I'm like, God, I. I was feeling the Way you were feeling about Travolta, where I don't deny Travolta's performance this at all, but the way you had the total reassessment of like, God, do I love Travolta. Does Travolta just make me so happy? The first like 30 minutes of the baby sounding like Bruce Willis, I was just like, God, I miss Bruce. I love Bruce. Bruce means so much to me. What a charmer. And then there's like a midsection of. It just feels like the absolute laziest first pass jokes of him going like, hey, where we going? And it's like, to be fair.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, the thing about it when you're.

[Griffin Newman]

An infant, I guess that probably is mostly like be picked up again.

[Hillary Busis]

I think that you can probably also write, relate to this experience of you have a kid, you spend, you know, a year wondering like what's going on in that head of yours? And then they start talking and it's like, banana, banana, banana. Like that's what they've been thinking this whole time.

[Griffin Newman]

That, that. It's just that I see that, I see that. What is that? That, that, that, that, that, that's all they're thinking.

[David Sims]

This is what I found.

[Griffin Newman]

They're not like a mother.

[David Sims]

This is what I found funny and frustrating is like, okay, in utero. We understand the comedic potential there, right? When he's out as a baby, they just have like no take on him comedically considering that's the genesis of this project is like, let's narrate what we think our daughter is is thinking right now. Right? When he gets into like his weird non speaking toddler age, I think it gets good again and feels like this is where the gimmick kind of makes sense. Where it's him interacting with Travolta and more emotion to it on their connection.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, because now you are all in on that, right?

[David Sims]

And you're like, there's a little tension to the idea that the baby is just like, mom, Mom. I want this guy to be my dad.

[Griffin Newman]

And she, right?

[David Sims]

And I'm like, now it's good again. Now I'm in.

[Griffin Newman]

She.

[David Sims]

And I think he has good jokes again. I also think the few times they let babies interact with each other, I.

[Hillary Busis]

Think those are funny.

[David Sims]

That works anytime it's like, because it's like, oh, baby. Just doing commentary on adults. I'm like, it's starting to get a little like, well, this. There's an interesting interpersonal drama going on. And then the baby just makes like a one liner. Anytime it's the bit of babies being like, hey, how's it going?

[Hillary Busis]

Funny. It's like, how do you do you like my new haircut? I felt that whole back and forth.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Don't make me wear the lambs. I look like such a loser in the lamb shirt.

[David Sims]

And I think like Heckerling was smart about like getting this footage of babies and then being like, you know what? Be funny is if with the footage we have, they were saying this when you were saying like there's weird lap flip stuff of sometimes towards the end his mouth is moving. It feels like they. She just let them talk and say whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. They're talking to a toddler.

[Hillary Busis]

And then she was looking at who was talking.

[David Sims]

Totally. And then d over with whatever. There are moments at the end where it feels like the dubbing is almost syncing up where you're like, did the kid actually say a proper sentence? Similar.

[Griffin Newman]

I looked for who was talking.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But then I sat my ass down and listened.

[Hillary Busis]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

But yes, the middle section of the movie is what we described. And then it starts to barrel towards. You're like, right, so she's got to get with Travolta.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And who by the way has just been like a hanging now. But absolutely no cuz the early negotiations.

[Hillary Busis]

Like she's paying him.

[Griffin Newman]

Great question. 1989 Manhattan account.

[David Sims]

George Seagull makes a joke where I think he says 10 bucks an hour. Where he's like, what is she paying you? I'll double it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sounds about right. Yeah, yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

He's making an assumption. I don't know if he actually knows.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And he makes an ass out of frequently in the film.

[Hillary Busis]

You're so. You're so enlightened.

[David Sims]

David is being wise as hell in this episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry.

[David Sims]

The. The early negotiation, which feels like a classic movie setup is like, here's the handshake deal. Ten letters get sent to me in exchange for five babysitting appointments. And I'm like, okay, so this movie is going to.

[Hillary Busis]

I'm going to pretend to be your boyfriend until the spring dance.

[David Sims]

Totally. It's going to track five babysitting appointments and by the end of it they fall in love. And instead the movie does this crazy time jump jump of what feels like it is at least a year.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie kicks into a montage and I'm like, yeah, sure, we're in a montage. I get it. Time has passed a little bit. And then hard cuts to. Yes. Like a toe headed kid looks like.

[David Sims]

Macaulay Culkin and Travolta has seemingly been there every single day because it seems.

[Hillary Busis]

Like she never stopped working. Right. So he's essentially this kid's nanny. Like, he's.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

He's spending nine hours a day.

[Griffin Newman]

He throws the kid in the trunk. Doesn't, you know, 12 hours on.

[David Sims]

Barely teach anyone how to fly.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Once. Or while he sprinkles in some flight lessons.

[David Sims]

Is this the movie that made Travolta get into flying planes? Or did he.

[Griffin Newman]

Or is it just that he's like, hey, you know what I love?

[Hillary Busis]

I think it's a chicken and egg thing. I would be surprised if she didn't write it in because he was already into flying, quite possibly.

[David Sims]

I'm gonna try to carbon date this, but go on.

[Griffin Newman]

John Travolta earned his private pilot's license at the age of 22.

[Hillary Busis]

Around the same time as he entered the Church of Scientology.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And possibly he was entering other things. We don't know.

[David Sims]

And we have no comment on what he was entering. We couldn't be more fake about that.

[Griffin Newman]

If he was 22, that's like 74. So it's like, early in, like, welcome back, hotter time or whatever. You know, it's not. He's not even.

[David Sims]

So then that definitely must have been a thing to appease him. Probably, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, again, this movie was produced by his agent. Like, I think a lot of things were done to appease him if he.

[Hillary Busis]

Had been into, like, train planes. Amateur train conductor.

[David Sims]

That's my favorite thing about Travolta's plane obsession is unlike Harrison Ford, when Travolta flies planes, he wears a little pilot outfit. Have you seen that?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, because he. Well, because he owns a jet.

[David Sims]

Right. And he's got wings, and he puts on a hat.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Ford flies little. Little planes or whatever.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Hillary Busis]

Only plies. Flies planes that he can crash.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He flies very crashable planes.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Hillary Busis]

And he does it made out of plastic.

[David Sims]

Would dress like the character from shrinking or whatever. I just like that, like, Travolta is like, I. I want to be a pilot.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he does the full, like, catch me if you can.

[David Sims]

Do any kids want to come up and visit? I'll give them peanuts and pretzels, little wing pins.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, obviously, there's the kind of Rom comy, although heckling apparently doesn't like this movie being called a romcom. But it, you know, it sort of is one.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

It's more about their relationship than it is about the baby.

[David Sims]

I also think for the element of the film that is, like the constructed Right. Not referencing her own life. I do think it's kind of an interesting emotional setup for a movie which is like woman who just had a child whose, like, parentage she is obscuring trying to figure out how to date someone as a new single mother. Specifically through the prism of. I'm not just trying to find a boyfriend, I'm trying to find a father. Like, I think that's a good setup and a thing that people weren't making movies about.

[Ben Hosley]

And then goes on some of the worst dates of all time.

[Griffin Newman]

Time.

[Ben Hosley]

Those guys are good, bad days.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's one kind of finicky weirdo and one guy who yells at the waiter and then to pay is the episode.

[Hillary Busis]

Of Sex in the City with the freak show. Does this resonate with you?

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Of course. I feel like the montage of three to four bad dates pretty much always hits. Like, I always like that. Just like, let's bring in some funny actors to do like stupid stuff.

[David Sims]

I like that you have some more expressive, heightened Heckerling cutaways that like really show off off. Kind of more directing style of like there's the control freak guy who gives the notes about the silverware and the glass of water and whatever. And then she cuts to him noting Mikey's organization of socks.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, shows them all older. Like, what if we got together?

[David Sims]

How would they apply as father? Whatever. Their weird quirk.

[Hillary Busis]

The dream, the dream sequence of if she married Travolta and she was just pregnant constantly is great, great.

[David Sims]

That sequence is so much fun. And then what's the one that ends with the scanner esque head explosion?

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, she had explodes seagull.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And they actually, they had to think about because they were like, we don't want that to be too scary.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So they like filled his head with.

[David Sims]

Little balloons and stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Yeah. Like to make it a little more goofy. I like that scene.

[David Sims]

I do too. I think this movie's very well directed.

[Ben Hosley]

Also funny that Travolta feeds his family garbage.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Yeah. The, the, the cut ahead to the future when they're about to bone and she. I don't want my child to be raised by like a grease ball or.

[Hillary Busis]

Whatever by a dumpster diving.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like, if you peel the lettuce, the first layer of the lettuce from the garbage off, it's perfectly good. Hillary. Yeah. I didn't actually ask you this. Did you like this movie?

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, yeah, I enjoyed it. It's a breezy watch. Like I, I so comedies can age very poorly. But I think that this honestly is not. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

No, this is a good.

[Hillary Busis]

Nobody's gonna be mad after they watch this. It's fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm assuming, you know the next two movies are bad. I am pretty.

[David Sims]

Like, six year old Griffin would disagree.

[Griffin Newman]

With you, but I'm pretty satisfied that this is like, I was like, this a really entertaining movie.

[David Sims]

And the Trojan horse aspect of it is so fascinating, where it's like she used this as a disguise to make a movie about other things she found interesting, which is the primary beat of this movie. Ben, we had our art show recently and we had an installation where we built a porch, a replica of your childhood porch. Used to watch movies on.

[Griffin Newman]

On.

[David Sims]

And we do like an artist's present Marina Brownvich thing where you'd sit on the porch watching VHS and people would come up and talk to you. And I saw someone on the Reddit, said that they had walked in and heard you in the middle of having a really good conversation explaining why Michael Mann is better than the Marvel Cinematic Universe sounds. And your line that they walked in on was, when I watch a Michael Mann movie, I can tell this was made by one person. Marvel movies aren't made by one person, which is such a good, concise distillation of, I think, what so much of our podcast is about. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

That, like, movies are made by many people and they're a collaborative process. They're impacted by all these things. And yet basically the single greatest calculus we use for whether or not we think a director is interesting and worth devoting an entire series to on this show is do the majority of the movies feel like they are a reflection of that person, for better or worse, that, like, there is something individual and personal about them? And for this being a movie that has so many weird, like, calculations of like, I need a hit and like talking baby, that just feels like a box office slam dunk. Even if I'd rather be doing something edgy or whatever. Everything about this feels like it was made by one person and it has like some weird like 90s 80s studio note script note bullshit in it, but yet I'm just like, the way everything is like, shot. The cohesion of the tone of performance for a movie that is very strange, even just like the rhythms and like the shot structure, the editing and whatever. I'm just like, this is a weirdly personal movie for her wrapped up in like a big high concept comedy that also feels like she's like getting to make it the way she wants. To. I was so pleasantly surprised by that.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think it's partly because she's a smart director. She's working with a lowish budget. So my guess is whatever she wants to do, as long as you're not costing the studio money, yeah, go for it. Like, we don't give a shit about this movie, like, that much.

[David Sims]

We talk about, like, the. The danger of taking the talking horse move movie right, where it's like this trap that people fall into where it's like, hey, we know there's your personal project you want to make, but that's kind of risky. There's this really hot script about a talking horse. And if you sign onto this, this thing is a can't miss hit. And then you'll have the cachet to make whatever you want. And what happens is they make the talking horse movie dispassionately. The movie bombs, and then your box office poison. No.

[Hillary Busis]

1 secret is make the talking horse as the personal.

[David Sims]

Yes. And obviously part of that, some shit.

[Griffin Newman]

That happened to you is that she started it.

[Hillary Busis]

Make it personally. Implicating Harold Ramos for being an like, no pun intended.

[David Sims]

She was able to incubate it holistically from the beginning. But I'm just like, watching this and my mind is blown by, like, she figured out how to do that. The exact trap that most people don't survive, and she made it into her biggest hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Agree. I. Good. Good job, Amy. And she kind of rescued her entire career. And because of that, we get Clueless, which is thus I'm the person I.

[Hillary Busis]

And so if. If for no other reason. Yeah. You have to appreciate Lucas talking for giving us Clueless.

[Griffin Newman]

There's no way she's getting the money to make an Emma reboot. And, you know, maybe because it was a teen movie, like, like, studios would be a little more interested, but we're, you know, it's like, it's just like, thank God she made this because she gets to make clues. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is this her meeting with Twin Kaplan or was she already friends with Twin camp?

[Griffin Newman]

Great question, because Twink later, a regular.

[David Sims]

In all of her movies and also becomes like, a co producer on her movies. Yeah, they're very, very close.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think creative Ally don't think she had made a movie with Heckerling before. But you're right that she goes on to produce some of her movies. And she's such a funny actor. She's.

[David Sims]

She's Kir's best friend. But we'll end up being one of the teachers in Clueless.

[Hillary Busis]

We can consider this. Yeah. Ms. Geist's origin is that first she was a hard charging accountant in the go 80s and then, you know, she decided to go to Beverly Hills. Yeah. Do something a little more rewarding.

[David Sims]

She decided to come back in, if you know what I'm saying.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, Sean, there's no way that Hillary would know what you were saying because Hillary has not seen A Master Builder, the Jonathan Demy film. Really?

[David Sims]

That's weird. Hillary, I thought you worked entertainment journalism.

[Hillary Busis]

It's a terrible blind spot.

[Griffin Newman]

Hillary, just to tell you this because I do like to tell people sometimes there's a Jonathan Demi film that is a. A Master Builder, the Ibsen play starring Wallace John.

[Hillary Busis]

Okay. I was thinking Master Builder like Legos, but that makes more sense.

[David Sims]

What? What a difference in aim it.

[Griffin Newman]

What? What difference?

[David Sims]

A Master Builder builder rather than the Master Builder.

[Griffin Newman]

And there is a scene in this film. Ben, you never saw it. Right. Because you weren't on that episode where Wallace John is sitting in a hospital bed and someone knocks on the door.

[David Sims]

He's in hospice care at home.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, sure.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's it. Yeah. Someone knocks on the door and he goes, come in. And it is the most, it's like foghorn sound you have ever heard.

[David Sims]

It is the most bizarre line does ever deliver in the history of cinema. And it feels like he accidentally clocks the lens in the middle of saying it and then looks panicked that he did that. Come in.

[Griffin Newman]

Come in. It. It really sounds like you're being right. Told to go to an air raid shelter. Anyway, that's why he said that.

[Hillary Busis]

Thank you so much for that detailed explanation.

[Griffin Newman]

Welcome Decade of dreams.

[David Sims]

Other stuff to talk about Traval to.

[Griffin Newman]

Try standing sex with Kirsty Alley. She's like, I'm so into it and you seem great, but I just don't want, you know, you, you know, loser in my life anymore.

[David Sims]

Is it after the flight? After he takes her in the plane?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And then it's like. And then of course. Right, the right. The rom com misunderstanding. This is something I was trying to say before must happen of like, hey, you told me you were artificially. Turns out it's George Siegel. Hey, how could you lie to me? I'm off to Jersey. I'll see you later. Bye. Going to be out of the movie for 10 minutes.

[David Sims]

Here's the thing. I like that before that the like obstruction from them getting together isn't like, oh, she doesn't realize until the last five minutes that she's been in love with Travolta the whole time.

[Hillary Busis]

I love Josh.

[David Sims]

Right. They make that connection in the halfway point. She has that like nightmare flash ahead sequence. Right. And then is just like wait a second. I can't just be motivated by do I like a guy? I'm on this father quest and starts almost doing this kind of like classist judgment of him combined with him being a lunatic and a weirdo.

[Hillary Busis]

Go with him stalking me.

[David Sims]

Right. And I think also the other unspoken part of it is like her son does have this strong bond with.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

Some umbrage at the scene where John Travolta is listing off all of Mikey's favorites and like a two year old child doesn't have, doesn't care about Michael Jackson.

[David Sims]

I mean once again, how old is.

[Griffin Newman]

This his favorite singer Michael Jackson him on rye. There's a scene, there's two scenes in this movie that if I describe them to you the listener and you the guest and you the host, you'll be like that sounds sweet but that sounds really sappy. And they are the scene in which John Travolta sort of gives some friendly advice, fatherly advice to the kid before he's not going to see him again for a while. And Kirsty Alley listens in on the baby monitor.

[David Sims]

Let's also acknowledge that when he first comes over.

[Griffin Newman]

Let me keep talking, talking. Let me, let me finish my point, Griffin. And then the second thing is the cap rate the movie which is that the kids first words are data. Which we've already.

[David Sims]

Which I think is the slam dunk.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

It's like the reason you write the whole screenplay.

[Griffin Newman]

You see, look who's who's talking. Look who is talking.

[David Sims]

Super effective.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[Hillary Busis]

And if I'm Kirsty Alley and I'm pissed that his first word is a mama. But that's a separate conversation.

[Griffin Newman]

Always says data first because it's easier to say. Right?

[Hillary Busis]

This is actually a true thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Scientifically easier for your mouth to say. But both of those scenes sound so sad. But Travolta makes them not sappy. And the scene where he's talking to the kid on the baby monitor is actually quite funny and light while still being sweet and heartwarming. And of course I'm sure the techerling too master of tone here like you know, calling her a master of tone in a movie that starts with cum.

[David Sims]

But I mean that's sort of the argument for it where you're like the movie should collapse at that moment.

[Griffin Newman]

And those scenes are really sweet. As is the scene where Kirsty Alley of Court tends to Aid Vagoda when he's had too much candy and become a monster sister.

[Hillary Busis]

But there is a reciprocal aspect. It's not just her realizing that he's a good caregiver, it's him realizing that she cares enough about him too. Like, it's not, it's, it's all good.

[Griffin Newman]

Screen. Now, what were you trying to.

[David Sims]

The thing I was gonna say, David, before you so rudely cut me off from rudely cutting you off, huh? A double rude was. I think that's like built very deliberately and well in the movie that like when he comes over to, to bring back her purse, he starts talking to the kid like a grown up and she sort of catches it coming out from the bedroom. It's the bit where he's explained the coffee and puts the breast milk in the coffee. But it's sort of like he like engages with my kid like a real person, which we talk about all the time.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

It is like a big movie star test that, like if people, if movie stars are good with kids, it somehow immediately makes them feel even shinier. I think part of it is like the extreme skill challenge of like how hard it is to act with a child, but also that you kind of like can't fake the charisma. And if you like are nice to a kid and it seems genuine, then everyone likes you more. Like, it's more endearing. I, I think that's like, I, I genuinely think it is a huge part of Dustin Hoffman winning the Kramer versus Kramer Oscar.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

Beyond all the emotional scenes in that movie, it's just that like half of it is him making breakfast with the kid. You're like, he's good with this kid.

[Griffin Newman]

He is.

[David Sims]

And Travolta is bad at breakfast. Travolta is good with.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, he learns.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he learns to fry an egg or whatever. What a feminist hero he is.

[Hillary Busis]

You know, he needs to get an award for being able to feed his kid one time.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And also he was married to one of the greatest villains in Disney herself.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. The most evil lesbians. Yes.

[David Sims]

Travolta is just from second one good with the baby.

[Griffin Newman]

He's great with the baby. All the scenes where he's dancing around with him and stuff, it's so cute.

[David Sims]

It makes the premise work. And I think you're right. It's like so super endearing. Now he also does that is insane. She falls asleep, is like, watch the baby for a little bit while I take a nap. He decides to take the baby out on the town.

[Hillary Busis]

Doesn't say, do anything to indicate where they've been, disappears for hours.

[David Sims]

And then she's like, I'm so angry at you. I called the cops on you. I'm only gonna let you babysit my son 87 more times while I go.

[Hillary Busis]

To my aerobics class.

[David Sims]

Right? And then there's the similar up of like, I get it, it's a complicated. There's a lot going on. Her life at that moment, the moment in this film. This drains credibility for me the most is her leaving Mikey with Abe Vagoda after he's just gone. Rocky Balboa, dude they have been talking.

[Hillary Busis]

About, is also in the room.

[Griffin Newman]

There's another adult there, an animal who escaped the pen and was like brutalizing me. And then she's like, like one candy bar and they're like, mistake we. No big deal. It's fine that he punched a nurse and he can watch the baby for a while. Honestly. Do you want a cup of coffee?

[Hillary Busis]

Well, because the mistake actually was that the orderly doesn't speak English, that he.

[David Sims]

Just says no problem.

[Griffin Newman]

Very odd scene.

[David Sims]

Right. And that also Aboda is so horny, even in the middle of showing family photos, if a hot young 87 year old piece of tail walks down the hallway, he's got to throw his thumpers in and chase after his blood is up.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I don't know, man.

[David Sims]

Which then leads to a surprising set piece. Like a movie where you're like.

[Griffin Newman]

Again, the feeling of like we need one more set piece. Right, right. Is that he gets into the cab.

[David Sims]

The kid escapes from the retirement home.

[Hillary Busis]

I feel like that entire like the entirety of like Baby's Day out is based on that sequence in this movie.

[David Sims]

Yes. Rival studio executives, eyes lit up and.

[Hillary Busis]

Like a baby in a car.

[David Sims]

Look who's driving. Now it is kind of a funny bit that he gets in the back of a car that's being towed and so it appears that he's driving.

[Griffin Newman]

This is so does he can say data. And she's like, hey, you know what? I'm with you. Cut to jizz. Cut to Birth of a Girl. Roll the credit. Like we're truly. It's trying to like. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

[Hillary Busis]

Here's the alley. A liberated 1980s businesswoman who has never heard of the birth control pill. But we're not going to bring that up.

[Griffin Newman]

Ksty. Travolta, pull out. Come on, I know you got it in you.

[David Sims]

I, I like look, they clarify what is actually happening very quickly and that there are some time jumps happening within Edits. But if the movie were to end four minutes earlier, you could read it as the second John Travolta kisses Kirsty Alley. He comes in his hands.

[Griffin Newman]

There is.

[David Sims]

Instead. They then cut to a delivery room and you're like, okay, some leaps have been made.

[Hillary Busis]

Look who's jizzing.

[David Sims]

Now who's talking.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the kind of movie where I'm like, it's great for blank check because we can do a bunch of tangents and still not go that long. Because it's 90 blessed minutes and it's not a lot of action. Really.

[Hillary Busis]

It's not streaming. You gotta buy it. You gotta rent it.

[Griffin Newman]

I bought it on itunes.

[David Sims]

I got an out of print Blu ray.

[Griffin Newman]

Griffin is off mic telling us that he has an out of print Blu Ray of just the first one.

[David Sims]

The 30th anniversary. This was fairly recent. Recent 2019 and still out of print. Yeah. So then I had to buy a DVD trilogy box set for the 2 and 3, which is awesome.

[Hillary Busis]

What are some of the special features we're talking?

[David Sims]

Great question on this one for look who's Talking Now.

[Griffin Newman]

An apology.

[David Sims]

This has a. This has a heckling commentary, which I missed. Maybe we'll give look who's Talking a second watch. I think the DVDs have checking here. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

[Hillary Busis]

There were no deleted scenes because everything hit.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Hillary Busis]

Nothing was left.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I did read some interesting look who's Talking to has one of those, like, weird fabled. The TV cut of the movie has 20 extra minutes in it.

[Hillary Busis]

It's longer.

[David Sims]

Yes. They would do this if movies were like, too short. In order to fill a larger programming block, the studios would offer to cut back in deleted scenes to allow the film to justify more ad break breaks.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Yeah. And Right. Most of the scenes are stupid. Right.

[David Sims]

And look who's talking too. They sound insane. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In 2010, did you know that Neil H. Moritz of Fast and Furious tried to reboot this movie?

[David Sims]

It makes perfect sense.

[Griffin Newman]

I had the thought with Travolta and Ally as the grandparents.

[David Sims]

I had the thought while watching it.

[Hillary Busis]

That bums me out.

[David Sims]

It is crazy. They have not revived this like four years later. They hired Jeremy Garolic, who wrote the breakup and a lot of other studio comedies to write it. And then nothing has happened since then.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, like Baby Geniuses was a pretty big bomb. Like maybe Talk Talking. Our audience for talking babies, I think was stated. Our appetite for it was sated.

[David Sims]

It's been a while.

[Hillary Busis]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I feel like you could reset the table with a Good. Look who's talking. Movie.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, I think I have a pitch.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, give it to me.

[Ben Hosley]

It's like a prequel.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Look who's talked. And it's set like, generations ago. And you can make it old timey.

[Hillary Busis]

Look who hath been talking.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And when you say it, it what?

[David Sims]

I think more needs to be said.

[Griffin Newman]

It can't just be the like, who so. But then what do. What is.

[Ben Hosley]

Who are the central characters going back generations.

[Griffin Newman]

I understand Ben.

[David Sims]

In this family. In this family, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Like, it's the baby, but, you know, or Christy Alle's ancestors.

[Griffin Newman]

And what do they do apart from talk? Baby talk.

[David Sims]

Pick a time period.

[Griffin Newman]

19 century.

[Ben Hosley]

I like the half. So let's set it in the Renaissance.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Ah, the kid's like, ah, that Mona Lisa. Sure looks like you can follow me.

[Hillary Busis]

You can't make this movie too far ago, like in the past because of maternal mortality rates.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it would be a little grim.

[Hillary Busis]

It'd be like infant mortality, to be fair.

[Griffin Newman]

Hope I dodged that. Dysentery or whatever.

[David Sims]

Right. A baby's born and suddenly becomes the fifth oldest person in the town.

[Ben Hosley]

But I like that. Then if it's sent Italy, he still's got that accent.

[David Sims]

Oh, that's true.

[Griffin Newman]

Be like, mama miary.

[David Sims]

God, he's saving the pitch. He's winning us back in the room. It's one of these things that, like, you're like, I can't believe they haven't rebooted it yet. I can't believe they haven't remade it yet in a sort of modern studio thinking where you're just like. If you're just looking through the books, right? And you're like, wait a second. These movies made like $400 million 30 years ago and we haven't done anything since. And the premise is so clean. But as you said, I do feel like these movies are clean, completely forgotten now. I think basically everyone younger than us doesn't know they exist.

[Hillary Busis]

I think you're entirely.

[David Sims]

I think we were the exact generation of kids who were born right as they were coming out and saw them on tv. And anyone five years younger than us is just like, I don't know what the you're talking about.

[Griffin Newman]

I texted so, like, various friends being like, hey, did you know what this movie was about? Like, you know, with what I bet, you know, like the Harold Raymond stuff. And all of them were like, you know, I've never seen it. Like, even the ones who are sort.

[Hillary Busis]

Of aware of the ones who were.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, in their 30s even your Esther Zuckermans who's a little younger than us, Hillary that much.

[David Sims]

She could write an entire book about this movie.

[Hillary Busis]

There's a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Esther was kind of like, yeah, that wasn't actually one of our movies. So it was never in the rotation. And so it's been forgotten. This whole movie feels like it's been memory hold. Obviously Heckerling makes Clueless after it. So that becomes her 90s masterpiece. Yeah, I don't know. Travolta makes Pulp Fiction after it. So that's his. You know, his great era begins later. But yet Kirsty Alley went on to fat actress. This is just crazy.

[Hillary Busis]

Or a couple of stops along the way she.

[Griffin Newman]

She opened the closet.

[David Sims]

But this is far and away Heckerling's biggest hit.

[Hillary Busis]

Maybe that says more about movie going audience than the quality of the movie.

[David Sims]

But this is her only movie to make 100 million domestic. And it flew past that.

[Griffin Newman]

It flew past it to 140 domestic. It made 300 worldwide.

[Hillary Busis]

It does help to make a movie that's ostensibly a family movie. Like I'm sure that a lot of parents were taking their kids to this thinking that it would be a kids despite it being.

[David Sims]

That's the plus is that It's.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, it's PG 13. That makes Sen. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It opens with sperm.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, you don't see them coming from a penis.

[David Sims]

You know what, I'll say.

[Griffin Newman]

Even the third one is pretty active imagination.

[David Sims]

The third one is PG13 for quote off color language.

[Griffin Newman]

The film came out October 13, 1989. Number one at the box office. It opens to $12 million and then it has insane legs.

[David Sims]

It just rides out the whole holiday season.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically it is number one at the box office for five consecutive weeks. Weeks. Making basically the same amount of money every week.

[David Sims]

That's like. It was like the Barbie of its. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Hillary Busis]

The cultural impact was similar.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The tie ins were insane.

[Griffin Newman]

Number two at the box office is also new. It is a horror film.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

A first sequel.

[David Sims]

Well, in one of the big franchises.

[Griffin Newman]

In one of the big three slasher franchises. It is the fifth film.

[David Sims]

Is it the Dream Child?

[Griffin Newman]

That is not what it is. But that film did come out In I believe 89, so you're in the right ballpark.

[David Sims]

You must tip your hat and admit it was a gentleman's guess. That's all I'm asking of you. Okay. Is it. Thank you. Is it the Curse of Michael Myers?

[Griffin Newman]

It is Halloween 5, the revenge of Michael Myers. Of course, the curse is the sixth one. As everyone knows, the Insane one that's like Michael Myers is who he is because a cult worships him.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And or whatever.

[David Sims]

Is that the rudd one?

[Griffin Newman]

The sixth one is the rut.

[David Sims]

That's the ruddies of all.

[Griffin Newman]

The fifth one is the one with Jamie played by Danielle Harris.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Who has her fans in the Scream Cream people Scream queen world.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The sixth one is the one that hilariously ends with Donald Pleasance off Mike being like, oh, you're like killing me or something. Who knows what's going on? Like because they like couldn't figure out what the ending should be be. Get away from me.

[David Sims]

That rules.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, we'll do them someday.

[David Sims]

Maybe movies should get worse again.

[Griffin Newman]

When you're watching Halloween's 4, 5 and 6, you're like, hey man, there's nothing wrong with being a 4 out of 10 movie. You know what I mean?

[David Sims]

Or Alex Frost Perry's opinion. A 15 out of 10.

[Griffin Newman]

Number three at the box office is a thriller that was also a bit of a comeback for a 70s Oscar nominated star. It's a who had taken a bit of a break. We're taking a break, but there are no babies talking in this movie.

[David Sims]

Is it Sea of Love?

[Griffin Newman]

It's Alpacino in Sea of Love.

[David Sims]

This is a. This is a big thing that David and I bond on as we both hold the importance of Sea of Love as a comeback moment for Pacino was back. People don't talk about it, but quietly. That was his big swing back.

[Hillary Busis]

You could say that Sea of Love was the name of the title sequence for look who's Talking.

[David Sims]

Yes, very true, Hillary. 100 comedy points.

[Griffin Newman]

100 come points.

[David Sims]

I said comedy.

[Hillary Busis]

I don't want that. Sorry, I don't accept this.

[Griffin Newman]

Fine. Return them. They're good at all major stores. Excuse me, I have 100 cum points from blank check. Yes, yes, of course. Welcome to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Does that still exist? Bed, Bath and Beyond. Or is it going.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it does.

[Hillary Busis]

I mean not an industry city, but.

[David Sims]

You can buy bath bombs which are, let's admit it, one of the cumier products around.

[Griffin Newman]

Number four.

[David Sims]

How else would you describe what a bath bomb does?

[Griffin Newman]

I know. Not that way.

[Ben Hosley]

Honestly, Use Cummy.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say coming number four at the box office is another thriller, not one that I know. Starring a guy who's more of a TV star. Yeah. He plays an airline mechanic sent to prison when framed by crooked police officers.

[David Sims]

Drama or comedy? TV star?

[Griffin Newman]

Drama.

[David Sims]

Is it a Selleck?

[Griffin Newman]

Tom Selleck?

[David Sims]

It is. How the.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that your. Well, good guess.

[David Sims]

Thank you. This Is the Beautiful Mind in here?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's. It's a. It's a something mind.

[David Sims]

Hey, is it called like Hijack?

[Griffin Newman]

It's called. It's a Peter Yates film. So kind of a real director. Yeah, director of Bullet, obviously. Other, you know, good movies. It's called An Innocent man, not a movie. I know. Looks like Tom Selleck plays an innocent man. And you've got F. Murray Abraham as someone called Virgil Caine. I bet that's a nice guy. Guy. Think that guy's nice, Griffin?

[David Sims]

Virgil Kane was a man, right? Isn't that the name of the guy in the band song?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, there you go. That's. I mean, it's a rich gumbo. Obviously number five at the box office, dropping from number one the week before. So a bit of a steep drop for this film, which is a very chill and normal movie about a cop who's not weird going to a country where he fits in just fine.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, can you restate that one more time?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a. It's a. It's another thriller. I mean, it's October, I guess. Another like R rated thriller. It's about. It's just a country. What if a US cop went to a foreign country to solve a crime and he has to like get used to their underworld and their way of doing business?

[David Sims]

It's not like Black Rain.

[Griffin Newman]

It's Ridley Scott's black reign with Michael Douglas. And also I'm seeing here a little co star called Cocaine is here. Second build number two on the call sheet is coke. Bricks of coke.

[Hillary Busis]

Kind of surprised not one.

[Griffin Newman]

But that is a movie where Andy Garcia gets decapitated on screen with a katana. Spoiler alert. Good movie. You should watch it. It will still rock when that happens.

[Hillary Busis]

Wait, why is it. Why is the rain black?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think it is. It's just one of those movies where they're like, wow, Japan is so crazy. And you're like, relax.

[David Sims]

Then you should google the poster for Black Rain, which looks like if someone did the world's longest line of cocaine and sneezed onto a one, I'm saying.

[Griffin Newman]

Number six at the box office. New this week is my mother's favorite movie of all time.

[David Sims]

Fabulous Baker Boys.

[Griffin Newman]

The Fabulous Baker Boys. A great movie. Do you like the Fabulous Baker Boys? I don't know, Hillary, you would love it.

[Hillary Busis]

Why are they so fabulous?

[Griffin Newman]

Telling me they are. Jeff and Beau Bridges.

[David Sims]

Give her the pitch.

[Griffin Newman]

Jeff and Beau Bridges play slightly washed up lounge act. Double. Double act. Piano bar guy. Guys. Michelle Pfeiffer. Plays like the new lady they hire for her act who sort of gets in the. In between them romantically. She got an Oscar nomination. My mother was charmed and watches it anytime it's on tv. Her two favorite movies are that and I Know where I'm Going.

[David Sims]

Did you.

[Griffin Newman]

The Pal and Pressburger movie.

[David Sims]

Did you folks see Bill Maher's segment?

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[Hillary Busis]

No. Absolutely not.

[Griffin Newman]

No. No.

[David Sims]

Look, I usually don't fall for the trap.

[Griffin Newman]

What did Bill Maher do now?

[David Sims]

He did a segment complaining about since when are they called sex workers? Which is.

[Griffin Newman]

Let me say he's mad about, like, language thoughts that happened 10 years ago. You know what I mean? It's like, that's not even new.

[David Sims]

He got angry watching the Oscars and hearing all the winners from Anora constantly thank the sex worker community.

[Hillary Busis]

So for a month, he's been thinking about this.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct doing.

[David Sims]

I'm also like, a little funny for Bill Maher, someone who perhaps has helped that industry thrive.

[Griffin Newman]

Again, no comment. No, I don't know.

[David Sims]

I mean, I don't know, allegedly. But he, like, calls out the. In his mind, weird history of how many actresses have won Oscars for playing sex workers or been nominated. And he lists a bunch. And one of the ones he included was Michelle Feifer in the Fabulous Baker Boys. And he had like, 20 other inclusions in that where I'm just like, what do you think sex work is?

[Hillary Busis]

You would think he would have a set definition.

[David Sims]

I would think he, of anyone might have the clearest definition. But he.

[Griffin Newman]

I think I. I think maybe she's a former escort in that movie. Maybe there is something to that.

[David Sims]

He just starts getting really fungible with something.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I'll just say that in this.

[Hillary Busis]

Segment, he's like, Olympia Dakis.

[Griffin Newman]

Is him going, new rule. You got to give me more than a week to get used to a new phrase. Like, this is his.

[David Sims]

And everyone's like, bill, it's been a decade.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like, we did this with homeless, and now it's unhappy House. And I'm just like, can you relax?

[David Sims]

I'm like, who gives a.

[Griffin Newman]

You are on television.

[David Sims]

Shut the up. No one is policing you, Bill.

[Griffin Newman]

Mar. So fabulous Baker Boy is number six. Parenthood is number seven. Sort of. Also, if you want a slightly more mature film about parenting, I Slightly more.

[David Sims]

Mature film with the. The world's catchiest diarrhea song that mov.

[Hillary Busis]

There's a lot more pregnancy. There's a lot more pregnancy movies than, like, actual parents parenting movies.

[David Sims]

This is. This is True.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting. Well, there's obviously there's lots of movies where parenting is a plot element, but. Right. But like movies about parenting, it's probably.

[Hillary Busis]

Because working with child actors is not.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true.

[Hillary Busis]

At the top of anybody's list, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's right.

[Hillary Busis]

Pregnancy has a natural arc also.

[Griffin Newman]

It does.

[Hillary Busis]

It has a beginning, it has an end.

[David Sims]

But even like Tully, whatever that was five years ago, is treated as a bit of a novelty.

[Griffin Newman]

Tully was interesting. Right. Because it was. It was about. Right. Early motherhood and how it breaks your brain and it's not an and enough movies and all that. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

That movie just shouldn't have a twist. No, I give that movie a full star. Higher rating.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, wait. Yeah, the camera's moving again. I'm hearing some Tully has been added to the cast of Avengers.

[David Sims]

Which one?

[Griffin Newman]

Who knows?

[Hillary Busis]

It is really unfortunate when like novelists and screenwriters learned about postpartum. Postpartum psychosis because that just really gives you an easy out.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That you can just do a twist. Right. Number eight at the box office. Uncle Buck, Ben Love.

[Ben Hosley]

One of my faves.

[Griffin Newman]

My roommate, my former roommate, Molly's favorite movie. Speaking of my people, in my life's.

[Hillary Busis]

Favorite movies, I, I, Amy Heckerling's daughter Molly.

[David Sims]

I have to unfortunately credit an anonymous poster who I can't remember, but just I. The commenter on some movie website 10 years ago said, why does Uncle Buck have the mise en scent of a 1940s Fritz Lang fox noir? Are and has stuck in my brain forever. That movie is like weirdly moody and darkly lit in a way that I give two thumbs up.

[Griffin Newman]

Number nine at the box office. When Harry Met Sally. Heard of it?

[Hillary Busis]

No, still hanging in there.

[Griffin Newman]

Hanging in there after 14 weeks and new at number 10. Possibly the greatest film ever made by this filmmaker who's made a couple movies and had some other stuff going on with him. Woody Allen's crimes and mysteries demeanors.

[David Sims]

Yeah, definitely one of his best. A couple things I want to call.

[Griffin Newman]

Out here from the new this week in 66 theaters. Kirsty Alley's character probably would have gone to scene at Travolta. I don't think so.

[David Sims]

Yes. A couple things I want to call out.

[Hillary Busis]

Travolta wants things with explosions.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

This was conclusively Columbia's highest grossing film overseas. They had never had a film perform this well outside of America. It usurped Kramer versus Kramer. Kramer.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Hillary Busis]

Well, it must be really easy to dub the baby in other languages.

[David Sims]

This is the other thing I Want to build, too. Travolta gets credit for this idea that he was like, you should stunt cast the baby in every country. So every country, they found some kind of Bruce Willis analog where they're like, who's a beloved sort of rapscallion, cool bad boy, funny star? And you could put their name above the title. And it's a really smart, smart business.

[Hillary Busis]

You're minting money.

[David Sims]

Yes. It was like the key to this movie's success. All of that to say it is very funny that when Heckerling was first pitching the movie to Sony, according to JJ's notes here, her first suggestion for the voice of the baby was Tommy Smothers of the Smothered.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, yeah.

[David Sims]

All right.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, you know, she's still got a little old school in her, right?

[David Sims]

And their note was like, he is funny. Can we get someone that people also, like, care about?

[Griffin Newman]

Come on.

[David Sims]

As she puts it, I was missing that. He needed to be funny and cool.

[Griffin Newman]

In look who's Talking to, of course, Willis is joined by Roseanne Barr.

[David Sims]

Yes. Roseanne Barr replaces Joan Rivers.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Damon Wayans plays like a kid at the school. At nursery school or something.

[David Sims]

He's. He's Mikey's best friend. And then you also have what I remember being the best performance in the film. Mel Brooks as Mr. Toilet.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a topic of pony training stuff. And look who's Talking to.

[David Sims]

And I just want to repeat, I've been in those trenches in my memory from 30 years ago. Look who's Talking To. Might be the funniest movie ever made.

[Hillary Busis]

If Mel Brooks is voicing a toilet, I'm laughing already.

[Griffin Newman]

Pretty good. Yeah. In Toy Story, is he. Is he a chair?

[David Sims]

No, he's Melant Brooks.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, he's the elephant. That's right.

[Hillary Busis]

It's like him and Carl Reiner. There's, like a whole bunch.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm trying to remember who was which.

[David Sims]

Right. She.

[Hillary Busis]

That's Carol or Carl Rhino.

[David Sims]

He's Carl Rhinoceros. Good pull, Hillary.

[Griffin Newman]

They're in the closet.

[Hillary Busis]

I didn't actually remember. I was just thinking puns.

[David Sims]

Betty. Betty White is a teething ring. She's Bitey White.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Hillary Busis]

That one's a little more tortured and it's a little.

[Griffin Newman]

It's interesting just because Betty White didn't really work a lot at that age. So it's sort of interesting that she made the cast list there.

[David Sims]

You know what remains one of the funniest.

[Griffin Newman]

God bless. Salute to Betty White.

[David Sims]

She did it like a hundred million dollars in every bit of, like, Media machinery being devoted to Betty White's 100th birthday, and then her D week before that, when, like, every magazine in the country was like, congrats, Betty, you made it to 100. And then she died.

[Hillary Busis]

Do you think it was pointed?

[David Sims]

Yeah. She was like you. You don't control me.

[Hillary Busis]

I don't need this.

[David Sims]

I won't conform to your narrative.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben has just sent a text. We can buy an autographed laser disc of Lu talking for the low, low price of $911. Never forget.

[David Sims]

Autographed by who?

[Hillary Busis]

Whom.

[Griffin Newman]

Kirsty Alley.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Amy Heckerling. Some other people.

[Ben Hosley]

Twink.

[David Sims]

Twink.

[Griffin Newman]

Twink's on there.

[David Sims]

Twink Kaplan signs her name with an.

[Hillary Busis]

Exclamation point, as she should. What's her actual name?

[David Sims]

That's a really good question.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's probably not Twink.

[Hillary Busis]

It was a different time.

[Ben Hosley]

Maybe it's short for some.

[David Sims]

Her real name was Bear Kaplan.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't get it.

[David Sims]

That's a joke about Twinks versus Bears.

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, yeah, Obviously naming different.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not finding a real name for.

[David Sims]

I'm not either.

[Hillary Busis]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Was born in pen. Interesting. Hillary, thank you so much for being on the show.

[Hillary Busis]

Thanks for having me.

[David Sims]

Long overdue. Anything?

[Hillary Busis]

Well, the listeners don't know who I.

[David Sims]

Am, but, hey, wrong.

[Hillary Busis]

I have it all, including their attention.

[Griffin Newman]

You have it all? She occasionally got a film credit as Theodora Kaplan, so some people think that might be her.

[Hillary Busis]

Some people? The truthers.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Hillary Busis]

There's a community.

[David Sims]

The Kaplan truther. Yeah. Hillary, is there anything specific you want to plug?

[Hillary Busis]

Oh, I mean, come to. Come to vanity fair.com, where I'm editing things every single day.

[David Sims]

Thank God for that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Hillary finally got on the show. It's been. Been far too long. Hillary's been really mad at me.

[Hillary Busis]

You have all the power here.

[David Sims]

I. I distinctly remember meeting you for the first time, Hillary. Even meeting you two too late. Having too many mutual friends and having heard of you and being a fan of your writing for a while. But after you. We were at the same screening of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and you just standing up, say that.

[Griffin Newman]

After you entered the multiverse, after.

[David Sims]

After you entered the multiverse of Bandits, which has the end credit sequence as shocking as Joan Rivers voicing a baby at the end of Lacusting Clea Appears. Right? And I just remember you still standing up and going, am I supposed to know who that is?

[Griffin Newman]

Classic Hillary.

[Hillary Busis]

That does sound like me.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was really good. It was. It was a distinctive moment. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for look who's talking two.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Made at a scream two esque pace. It came out literally 364 days later or whatever. Like, so fast.

[Hillary Busis]

They're Irish twins.

[David Sims]

They're.

[Griffin Newman]

They're Irish twins.

[David Sims]

These are Irish twins. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

14 months later.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yep.

[David Sims]

And I just want to and as always, read an important quote here from the Dossier. Special effects artist masters on the most difficult shot to pull off. Quote. It was my first use of visual effects. We called them electronic effects. We had one shot that took us 115 takes to get. It was little Mikey playing with his placenta. It required 12 puppeteers. People were hanging upside down.

[Griffin Newman]

What an achievement.

[David Sims]

Worth it.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producers, AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy show shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.