‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Best in Show" Episode of The Rewatchables

Episode Information:

• Title: Best in Show
• Hosts: Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson
• Release Date: March 11, 2025
• Podcast: The Rewatchables by The Ringer

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Introduction

In this episode of The Rewatchables, hosts Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson delve into the beloved mockumentary film "Best in Show." Originally released in 2000, the film has become a staple in the rewatchable movie canon, celebrated for its sharp humor and endearing characters. The trio explores various facets of the movie, sharing personal anecdotes, favorite scenes, and insights into its enduring appeal.

Exploring "Best in Show"

Overview of the Movie

"Best in Show" is a mockumentary directed by Christopher Guest that satirizes the world of competitive dog shows. The film follows several dog owners and their canines as they prepare for the prestigious Mayflower Dog Show. The ensemble cast, including notable performances by Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, and Fred Willard, brings to life a comedic portrayal of the eccentricities within the dog show community.

Favorite Scenes and Characters

• Congress of the Cow ([29:05]): A standout moment where a woman engages in a peculiar pose, sparking laughter and confusion among the hosts.

  John Michael Higgins [29:25]: "I put myself in a position that wasn't very easy for me emotionally. It's called the Congress of the Cow."

• Busy Bee Moment ([45:01]): The heartbreaking yet hilarious scene where a prized dog named Busy Bee goes missing, leading to frantic searching and comedic tension.

  Bill Simmons [45:25]: "We have to pick the spirit of most rewatchable scenes. I don't think I'm constitutionally capable of looking away if I know we're about to see Cookie."

• Final Showdown ([44:50]): The tension builds as competitors vie for the top spot, culminating in a suspenseful and humorous finale.

  Parker Posey [44:52]: "This was like Rocky, not three peing Craig."

Character Highlights

• Harlan Pepper ([90:47]): Fred Willard's portrayal is lauded for its depth and comedic timing, embodying the passionate dog handler.

  Fred Willard [70:35]: "Best in Show. It's hall of Fame."

• Cookie Fleck ([30:13]): The charismatic and somewhat roguish owner whose interactions add layers of humor and pathos to the narrative.

  Amy Poehler [30:10]: "She had dozens of boyfriends. Hundreds."

Behind-the-Scenes Insights

Christopher Guest's Creative Process

The hosts discuss Guest's meticulous approach to creating mockumentaries, emphasizing his reliance on improvisation and character-driven humor.

Amy Poehler [16:28]: "It's the opposite of our strategy where we just have long podcasts and we don't edit anything."

Parker Posey [16:54]: "I feel like this comedy's for adults, not because of necessarily the subject matter, but I don't know the 15-year-old."

Improvisation vs. Scripted Comedy

The conversation highlights the challenges and triumphs of improvisational filmmaking, with Guest's work upholding high standards through extensive editing and character development.

Fred Willard [50:14]: "Most improv sucks."

John Michael Higgins [54:30]: "It is the perfect game."

Personal Anecdotes and Pet Stories

Dog Ownership and Experiences

The hosts share their own experiences with pets, drawing parallels to the film's depiction of dog owners' quirks.

Amy Poehler [08:12]: "We just got a new puppy. It had to have an ie human name because that's what the other seven golden retrievers they've had over 40 years have."

John Michael Higgins [09:19]: "I have nothing left for anyone else in my life, including my husband. It all goes to Halo."

Rewatchable Moments and Their Enduring Appeal

The episode underscores why "Best in Show" remains a favorite for repeated viewings. Its blend of heartfelt moments and relentless humor makes it a quintessential rewatchable film.

Parker Posey [87:31]: "It's a fair case that normal people."

Amy Poehler [87:55]: "You do occasionally have golden retriever energy. Look how happy you were when I just said that."

Concluding Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the film's impact and speculate on potential sequels or spin-offs, highlighting the film's rich character dynamics and timeless humor.

Fred Willard [100:05]: "What a great idea. Did you have any Rocky thoughts while you're here?"

Amy Poehler [101:53]: "This movie is all that guys and that girl. That is because, like, Larry Miller, the one whose son goes on the shed, he's kind of Larry Miller."

Notable Quotes

• Amy Poehler [16:28]: "It's the opposite of our strategy where we just have long podcasts and we don't edit anything."

• Fred Willard [50:14]: "Most improv sucks."

• John Michael Higgins [54:30]: "It is the perfect game."

• Parker Posey [87:31]: "It's a fair case that normal people."

• Fred Willard [100:05]: "What a great idea. Did you have any Rocky thoughts while you're here?"

Conclusion

"Best in Show" exemplifies the essence of The Rewatchables—a film that not only entertains but invites repeated viewings to uncover its layered humor and endearing characters. Through engaging discussion and personal insights, the hosts celebrate the film's enduring legacy in the realm of rewatchable movies.

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For more episodes and in-depth discussions on your favorite rewatchable films, visit The Ringer's Rewatchables page or watch on the Ringer Movies YouTube Channel.

Transcript

[Amy Poehler]

Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some.

[John Michael Higgins]

Of my friends to send in some.

[Amy Poehler]

Videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing.

[John Michael Higgins]

I love true crime and cooking podcasts.

[Parker Posey]

Is there any way you could combine the two?

[John Michael Higgins]

Well, everyone has an opinion and a.

[Amy Poehler]

Podcast, so join me for Good Hang.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's rough out there, we're just trying to lighten it up a little.

[Amy Poehler]

This episode is brought to you by Lincoln. There's something buzzy in the air. Spring is coming, the mood is shifting and new journeys are beginning. Say goodbye to the winter blues and experience the revitalizing qualities of driving a Lincoln. Everything about a Lincoln is designed to invigorate our senses. And the Lincoln Spring sales event, it's happening right now. Step outside and visit your local lincoln retailer or lincoln.com to find some seriously mood enhancing offers on current and past Lincoln models.

[John Michael Higgins]

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[Amy Poehler]

The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find a house of R with Mallory and Joanna. You can also find us all together on the Prestige TV podcast doing White Lotus.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, that's right.

[Amy Poehler]

Every week. It's probably my most fun hour of the week. Oh, we talked about had a whole stunt penis conversation last time. That was just a delight.

[John Michael Higgins]

I'm having the time of my life.

[Parker Posey]

I dreamt of the hand gestures that Mallory made during the last podcast.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, Joanna's here. She's in LA for a few weeks which means we can still for the rewatchables everyone who had the over under.

[John Michael Higgins]

At 45 second mark for Bill mentioning that Joe is in LA.

[Amy Poehler]

I just mentioned she's here and I sent her a lit. I sent her make a list of rewatchables movies and she mentioned a few of them. One of them which is best of show Best in show, a movie that we all dearly dearly love.

[Parker Posey]

Well, because we're doing White Lotus together, we might as well do best in show which has a Couple white white.

[John Michael Higgins]

Lotus stars in it and 25 year anniversary. Right.

[Amy Poehler]

Is that this year?

[John Michael Higgins]

The movie came out in 2000. Look at that.

[Amy Poehler]

Great point.

[John Michael Higgins]

Wonderful.

[Amy Poehler]

Coming up next, that goal is that best in show ribbon.

[John Michael Higgins]

Actually, poodle means puddle in German.

[Amy Poehler]

You want your busy bee?

[Parker Posey]

Come get your busy beside in here. You left it at the hotel.

[Amy Poehler]

Go to the hotel and get busy bee.

[Fred Willard]

That's my favorite, the miniature nower. You'd think they'd want to breed them bigger.

[Amy Poehler]

Wouldn't you like grapefruits or watermelons? Don't look at the fat losers or freaks. You look at me.

[Fred Willard]

He went after her like she's made out of ham.

[Amy Poehler]

All right, so I don't know what it says that we've done two rewatchables with Joanna and they've been crash and best in show.

[Parker Posey]

That sounds. That's my brain, I think. Yes, sounds right to me.

[Amy Poehler]

Okay, now we've got to go like some sort of sci fi or marvel or something.

[John Michael Higgins]

Then you would have to watch a sci fi or marvel movie.

[Amy Poehler]

I really liked Iron Man.

[John Michael Higgins]

You already did that one.

[Amy Poehler]

You did the mockumentary. The three best mockumentary movies of all time.

[Parker Posey]

No, we need species.

[John Michael Higgins]

Sheesh.

[Amy Poehler]

What do you mean? Oh, oh, Species. Species, the mockumentary Spinal Tap, bested show and Borat are. Have to be in the Mount Rushmore if you're doing it. I think those three have to be in. And then the fourth one is kind of open. Depending.

[John Michael Higgins]

Well, are you keeping it to movies only? Because otherwise obviously it would be the office.

[Amy Poehler]

No, movies only.

[John Michael Higgins]

Movies only.

[Amy Poehler]

I think those three I'll have to be in.

[Parker Posey]

I think I really like waiting for Guffman and am.

[Amy Poehler]

I'd have Guffman as my fourth.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think so too.

[Parker Posey]

I would put Guffman in there.

[Amy Poehler]

Some people would throw pop star in there. Some people would do a little Bruno. But I would have Guffman as the fourth but best in show.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Which came out in 2000. Right around the time when things would come out and then immediately go on DVD and you could watch them over and over again. And this movie you just jump into and it's great. And mal. Dogs. I love an animal on top of the comedy. Dogs. Lots of different dogs.

[John Michael Higgins]

Here's some things I love. I love to laugh, I love cinema and I love an animal. It's just absolutely has it all. Wonderful.

[Amy Poehler]

I was gonna do this later, but. What. What's. What's your favorite dog out of all the dogs? I'm ready to do this now. And Just completely blow up the structure of the pod.

[John Michael Higgins]

Great. Let's. Let's go rogue. I really am fond of Winky. It's hard not to be fond of Winky. I love a Terror, but I feel the pull of Hubert.

[Amy Poehler]

Winky was a Norwich Terror carrier. Just for the.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. You're gonna go.

[Amy Poehler]

Which I guess. Short legs. Short legs. It looks kind of like a hedgehog.

[Parker Posey]

Honestly, this is like, of the, like, star dogs in this.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

It's really between Hubert and Winky. Right.

[Amy Poehler]

That's how it is.

[Parker Posey]

You don't want to Shih Tzu. You don't want Rhapsody.

[John Michael Higgins]

Rhapsody is, frankly the villain of the movie.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. And you don't want Beatrice.

[Amy Poehler]

No.

[John Michael Higgins]

I feel tenderly toward Beatrice, and I think that none of this is Beatrice's fault. It's all, obviously the swans, the two best characters in the history of film.

[Parker Posey]

But do you think Beatrice landed at a. Like, a better home?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, that was one of my. My unanswerable questions later. I. I'm like, what is the rest of Beatrice's life?

[Amy Poehler]

You don't think they. Beatrice took her to ride on a farm?

[John Michael Higgins]

No.

[Amy Poehler]

One Way Drive.

[Parker Posey]

No.

[Amy Poehler]

That's what my parents did when I was 6. Did they got a dog named Barney that was just the meanest, angriest puppy?

[John Michael Higgins]

No.

[Amy Poehler]

Then one day they're like, we have to bring Barney to see his parents in the farm. Never came back.

[John Michael Higgins]

Barney found a good one.

[Parker Posey]

I can't believe he actually used the.

[Amy Poehler]

I was like, oh, man.

[Parker Posey]

When did you find out?

[Amy Poehler]

Is he happier on the farm? They told me when I was, like, 16.

[Parker Posey]

And you're like, wow.

[Amy Poehler]

We took Barney back and they probably put him down because he was an absolute sociopath.

[John Michael Higgins]

I thought we were here to laugh today.

[Parker Posey]

This is horrible.

[Amy Poehler]

Sorry. My answer is Hubert the bloodhound.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, he's great.

[Amy Poehler]

Every time I watch this movie, it makes me want to have a bloodhound. And I guess they drool.

[John Michael Higgins]

A lot of drool. Slobber puss, as they call them in the film.

[Amy Poehler]

And they're kind of put on earth to do certain things, and they're not. To live in LA and just be in somebody's house would be a waste of a bloodhound.

[John Michael Higgins]

You would have to move to Pine Nut, North Carolina. That's true.

[Amy Poehler]

My wife is a big play with the dog's ears person and the bloodhound. It's like, that's the number one set of ears you would get to play with.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes, absolutely.

[Parker Posey]

Since I am more of a cat person than I am A dog person. I like a small dog that sort of acts kind of cat like. But there is something to be said for a huge dog that, like, instead of petting them, you, like, pat them.

[Amy Poehler]

Right.

[Parker Posey]

And that's. That's what they do for. For Hubert in this. It's a lot of, like, heavy padding on the dog, and the dog seems to love it.

[Amy Poehler]

Good personality. He's just mellow. His face squishes.

[John Michael Higgins]

I love how Garland's mo face around. That could be good shot, Gordo. His little face wrinkles.

[Parker Posey]

He can say macadamia nut. Exactly.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like he can communicate telepathically. That is the most scene I've ever felt in a film when Harlan Pepper is just like, yeah, my dog can talk.

[Amy Poehler]

Right?

[John Michael Higgins]

Like, we have conversations. Of course we have conversations.

[Amy Poehler]

He understands.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, he understands. He can communicate. He's trying to convey a deep, meaningful truth. That's how I feel about my cat, Halo. That's how you feel about your cat, Bug.

[Parker Posey]

It's true. What do you feel about all your dogs? Do you talk to your dogs?

[John Michael Higgins]

You talk to Murph?

[Amy Poehler]

Deep relationships with my dogs. One of the things I like about this movie was it was pretty early on. Pet people are great and weird. The Internet was in the early stages. It was one of those things, like I especially saw with my dad and my stepmother. My stepmother, they were getting golden retrievers since the mid-80s. They gave them human names. They treated them like kids. They had birthday parties for them. All the stuff Mallory does. Yeah, they just got a new puppy. It had to have an ie human name because that's what the other seven golden retrievers they've had over 40 years have. And my stepmother's just super weird. Like, she's.

[John Michael Higgins]

None of that's weird.

[Amy Poehler]

Talks to the dogs, makes out with the dogs. You know, not make out, but like, the dog's just licking your face.

[Parker Posey]

What about clothing for the dog?

[Amy Poehler]

Now, that's. That's the only thing they don't do.

[John Michael Higgins]

They don't do that even for, like.

[Amy Poehler]

Talks to the dogs out in the winter, kind of. They morph into the dogs. And I was always like, man, my stepmother, I love her, but she's really weird with the dogs.

[John Michael Higgins]

But now you do that.

[Amy Poehler]

You see a movie like this, you're like.

[John Michael Higgins]

You maintain an Instagram in the voice of your dog Murph.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, he's become more threatening. Like, well, he's hilarious.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I agree.

[Amy Poehler]

He's got a lot of comedy in that dog.

[Parker Posey]

What about. What about people who have, like, one breed of dog that they love and all the decor in their house. I knew a Scotty dog person. I mean, this is sort of everything was. Was Scotty dog. They do have the winky mailbox.

[John Michael Higgins]

They've got all the tails. Got winky on his hat, which, like, that's a great hat.

[Amy Poehler]

I. You've never. You've never dogged it up, though.

[John Michael Higgins]

We had a dog briefly when I was like, very young. But yeah, I love all animals. I'm not like a dog versus cat, but I am a. I am a cat lover. I've had two cats in my life.

[Amy Poehler]

But you're a one relationship with a pet. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I give you could never have two cats. As you guys know, I have nothing left for anyone else in my life, including my husband. It all goes to Halo. Yeah, that's it. You guys get a little bit. Adam's got nothing.

[Amy Poehler]

We've actually had ringer high level conversations without Mal and them. Strategy, planning for if anything ever happened to Halo, what would happen to Mal? Like, just what would happen? And we honestly don't know. And she doesn't know either.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't.

[Amy Poehler]

That's how.

[Parker Posey]

I don't ever want to know.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't want to know either.

[Parker Posey]

I don't ever want to know.

[Amy Poehler]

How old's halo now? 16.

[John Michael Higgins]

He's 15 and a half.

[Parker Posey]

We were a cat family growing up, but when I went to college, my parents bought a dog to, like, replace me. Right. And it was a show dog. A Portuguese water dog. Show dog.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, my God.

[Parker Posey]

My mom became like a show dog person.

[John Michael Higgins]

Whoa. Like a handler.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Really?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I did not know that you were.

[Parker Posey]

Gonna have this level of perspective, not as a career, but, like, she handled the family's dog. Yeah. The Portuguese water dog. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't know what a Portuguese water dog is, do you?

[Parker Posey]

They're like a heartier.

[Amy Poehler]

Look at them. Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

They're Barack Obama.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. They're kind of.

[John Michael Higgins]

How wonderful.

[Amy Poehler]

The one.

[John Michael Higgins]

Well, I mean, not the replacing part.

[Parker Posey]

Not the like, bye. We got a dog.

[Amy Poehler]

You know, the one I've always been fascinated by that's always in the dog shows is the border collie, who. Which I'm really surprised they didn't have one in best of show. Best in sh. Keep calling it best of show for some reason. Best in show too. Best in show because.

[Parker Posey]

Because of all the commands.

[Amy Poehler]

They're super smart and they're pretty hyper. And we looked into getting one once, and it's just cute. It's a lot like they. They're ready to go they're ready to like, yo, let's go outside. You gotta throw me a ball for like an hour. Let's do this. So that's why I think a lot of them go in.

[John Michael Higgins]

But anyway, you know what a cat does? It's like you're reading a book. Let me sit in your lap.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. Oh, no. The cat goes, I might sit in your lap. No, no, I might.

[John Michael Higgins]

You will earn that love. And it will.

[Amy Poehler]

No, but that's just Halo, though.

[Parker Posey]

Some cats don't want to sit in your lap.

[John Michael Higgins]

Sure. They're discerning.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

It makes it feel all the better.

[Amy Poehler]

Dogs are. You establish dogs have low self esteem and they just want to know what you're doing at all times. They're just available.

[Parker Posey]

They're like, can we do it with you?

[Amy Poehler]

Cats are like, you're on my terms and I'll decide when. How this relationship's gonna go. Yeah. Anyway, the mockumentary.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Christopher Guest said we did an oral history about Best in the show.

[Parker Posey]

I know, I read it.

[Amy Poehler]

2020, which I don't remember because as you know, the vaccine. I remember anything from 2020.

[John Michael Higgins]

I know that this is the thing you started saying.

[Amy Poehler]

Don't remember it. Yeah. Don't remember anything that happened that year. But Christopher Guest said his mockumentary is about people who don't see themselves very clearly. The audience can see something happen that they don't see. They obviously take what they do very seriously, whether it's folk music, dog show, whatever the world is. Right. But at the core of all this, when you see characters, Eugene and Catherine play the.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Cookie and Jerry Fleck icons.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's pretty sad. You know, most of it's sad, actually, if you look at it. So he's fascinated. And these people are kind of losers, but they're lovable. And there's a lot of comedy that could come out of this. And he did this for four movies.

[John Michael Higgins]

They're caricatures, they're heightened versions of a thing that is true. Right. Do you think Christopher Guest should make a movie about podcasters?

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

That would be if you said great.

[Amy Poehler]

Too many of them. I think there's too many podcasters. The thing with the dog. The dog show world is it is such a limited, weird world. And that in the last 25 years, though, Westminster, I think, became a bigger cable.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

But you watch and you're like, man, these people seem weird.

[Parker Posey]

But there's like specific strains of podcaster that would be really fun to sort of explore.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

On a deeper level.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, you could have like a guy, for example, like.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, the true crime podcast.

[John Michael Higgins]

There's Sports Sky.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. Should we make. Should we do a documentary?

[Amy Poehler]

He also said he talks about the connection he makes with music and improvising because he was a big musician. I look at this as a band with great musicians. I mean, everyone has to be able to hold up their part. You cannot have a weak link in that the whole thing falls apart. So he's really careful about who's in these movies. The sad thing for me is that there aren't more of them and some of them have worked better than others. But I almost don't know why it ended.

[Parker Posey]

Something that, like Eugene Levy said in an interview is because he co wrote this. And the best stuff Eugene Levy also worked on, and he said sort of it felt rote to him after a while, like they had sort of done it and he didn't want to wear it out, so he didn't want to do it anymore. But I feel like I would have a bottomless appetite for this. At the same time, I didn't think mascots was great, you know, and for your consideration was okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, wasn't. Maybe. So maybe it petered out, you know.

[Parker Posey]

So I hope that they do feel.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like the moment arrives when they're ready to return. It's one of those things where you crave more, you want more, because you love the things so much. But the logical part of your brain kind of acknowledges that there's. There's value in discretion.

[Amy Poehler]

Can I give you another theory?

[John Michael Higgins]

Let's do it.

[Amy Poehler]

I think Larry David and Christopher Guest for more on each other's corner than people realized. And Curb kind of became the TV outlet of this kind of stuff. And it was more built around Larry's universe, but all the characters and the way they structured that show. The outline was a little deeper, but it was a lot of improv and it was a lot of people. Like, you're in this situation, this happens. And a lot of the recurring characters, like Richard Lewis was basically the Eugene Levy. Right. Jeff Garland is whoever. And so he would have his 8 to 10 people year after year. And then JB Smooth entered the cast. And I just feel like that was kind of the cousin of this movie.

[Parker Posey]

Kirby's good point. But as Mal mentioned, there's the Office, both the UK version, the American version, and then like Parks and Recreation, like the whole, like sure verse, Greg Daniels, like all that sort of stuff bites off of this a bit as well.

[John Michael Higgins]

And the British Office was just a year after.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Best in show. Right. So then it became like the way that people were making the things that became the monoculture when they did the.

[Amy Poehler]

Office, like they had a 16 page outline for this movie and then they just kind of went nuts with it. Like they didn't. They don't do TV shows like that.

[Parker Posey]

My favorite thing that I learned from that, the great ringer oral history that came out in 2020, a year that I do remember despite having the vaccine. I don't remember.

[Amy Poehler]

Was I in LA that year. I don't remember what happened.

[Parker Posey]

The. That this was like two things I want to say. One is that this was probably Fred Willard's last interview he ever gave before he died. And so there's like a lot of tribute to Fred Willard inside of that oral history. That's really because he had like just passed away when it was published. But also the process that you learn about how Christopher Guest does this, that they shoot it, shot it in 25 days and then he edits it for a year.

[John Michael Higgins]

60 hours. Right.

[Parker Posey]

That's another 60 hours of footage. That's incredible.

[Amy Poehler]

Even beyond how he. They write down every single scene in every single bit and they put it all structurally. And then they just start chipping away at it like it's a jigsaw puzzle.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's really interesting.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And they. They know they're going to have to lose a lot of good stuff.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's the opposite of our strategy where we just have long podcasts and we don't edit anything.

[Parker Posey]

Is that a shot at House of Art?

[Amy Poehler]

It's a shot at all of our pods, including this one. We don't do any editing. Christopher slaving away for a year to get a 90 minute movie. And it probably could have been like there's this whole. There's a whole Parker Posey just get stoned.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

That. They kind of want that cut, honestly. And then you have.

[Parker Posey]

You have it on dvd. Are there like a lot of good outtakes that are.

[Amy Poehler]

There's not.

[John Michael Higgins]

No. I feel like he. And I don't know this to be true, but what I've deduced is that he's maybe a. Like we do it all.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

We get the 60 hours, the however long we spend the eight months.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

And then we have whittled the marble into its perfect form and you don't.

[Parker Posey]

Get to see the dust, the marble dust.

[Amy Poehler]

There's a lot of. There's a lot of movie makers who have this philosophy that they. They're like look, this is the finished product. If I offer you stuff we didn't decide should be in the movie, it's going to taint how you see the movie. There's a reason it's not the movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

So just watch this.

[John Michael Higgins]

What do you think of that compared to, like, the Ridley Scott, here's my director's cut.

[Amy Poehler]

As you know, my theory is 99% of the time, scenes are deleted for a reason.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Very rarely do you get, like, the Boogie Night situation where there's like six or seven, like, awesome, awesome deleted scenes. We're like, oh, yeah, that would have been awesome if that was in the movie. I think the better the filmmaker is probably, the better the content is. Stuff like this. I'm sure they have another three hours. There was an alternate Anchorman movie, I think Anchorman 2. There was a whole entire alternate movie of all the takes they had that. You can buy that when you get the dvd. There's a second version of it. So do you have.

[Parker Posey]

Is there a, like, a director's cut that you do swear by?

[Amy Poehler]

There's a couple. Blade Runner, Boogie Nights is. Is probably the. The standard for me.

[Parker Posey]

Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, there's some good. Like, there was some interesting Pulp Fiction stuff that they cut. Wasn't mastered the same way, but, you know. But for the most part, it's deleted for a reason. Comedies, you'll see, like, the outtakes are really funny. Like, they'll have those, like, Tommy Boy is really good outtakes. They're movies. They're not necessarily deleted scenes, but they're.

[Parker Posey]

Hilarious when they're cracking each other up. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And I think this had a lot of that, too.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, I'm sure. Oh, my God.

[John Michael Higgins]

Can only imagine.

[Amy Poehler]

Guest said he got the idea because he was walking his dog near his house and it was a rescue dog. And he said a woman with a pure breed of some sort came up to me and said, in a fashion, what is that? And he said, it's my dog. He's a mix of this and that. And her expression was one of not even. That's not acceptable, basically. That's an awful thing to have happened in the world. I was struck by how bizarre it was. And there we go. It's like the kind of superiority the pure breed people.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, of course.

[Amy Poehler]

And then he just became fascinated by the dog show world. And we were off.

[John Michael Higgins]

I love to adopt. I believe in adopting. We adopted Halo. We rescued him. What I do always think, though, that, like, it can stray into blaming the animal for a thing that is not the animal's.

[Parker Posey]

Fault.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

But the people. It's obviously a very rich satirical text here to mine.

[Amy Poehler]

We. We had two rescues in a row and then Murph was. Yeah, we got from somebody.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Because I was tired of the body language.

[John Michael Higgins]

And he's. He's definitely the best behaved of all.

[Amy Poehler]

He turned out to be worse behaved than both rescue dogs.

[Parker Posey]

My parents also bred the dog and they had like.

[John Michael Higgins]

To replace you.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, the dog that replaced me also. They, like, did puppies and sold them and stuff like that.

[Amy Poehler]

So Levy said much wider appeal for this movie than the other ones they did because, quote, people just love dogs. Which makes me wonder because we were always talking about should we have a dog month on the Rewatchables? There's just not enough dog movies. You'd have to go into the Marley and Me, like, kind of area muscle of dogs. But it feels like there should be one that comes out every year.

[Parker Posey]

The airbud, you know, complete work.

[Amy Poehler]

Dog's purpose is big. Simmons family has a lot of fans.

[John Michael Higgins]

When you made me watch the Art of Racing in the Rain, Another good one.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

You have to watch this tonight because it's going to come up on Rewatchables tomorrow. I believe it was when we were doing Draft Day and then it did not come up.

[Parker Posey]

But I did watch Home Rebound. Incredible Journey.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, I used to watch Home Rebound like every.

[Amy Poehler]

The one with Paul Walker is good. Snow. Is it Snow Dogs.

[Parker Posey]

Snow Dogs.

[Amy Poehler]

One of the.

[Parker Posey]

That one.

[John Michael Higgins]

I've not seen that. Is it worth checking out?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's weird that Netflix's algorithm hasn't discovered this yet. That people just like dogs, man. They're going to go on a huge dog.

[Parker Posey]

Somebody is being served a dog's homework.

[Fred Willard]

Eight below is the. Is the Paul Walker.

[Amy Poehler]

Eight below.

[John Michael Higgins]

But.

[Fred Willard]

But Snow Dogs is Cuba Gooding.

[Amy Poehler]

That one's good, too. See a lot of good dog movies.

[John Michael Higgins]

Well, you can definitely do a month on the rewatchables, even though you're doing Best in Show right now. Look at that. Great news.

[Amy Poehler]

This is your favorite one of all the Chris guests.

[John Michael Higgins]

Not even close. This is my favorite comedy, period.

[Amy Poehler]

What's your.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is one of my five favorite movies of all time.

[Amy Poehler]

What is your single favorite thing about it?

[John Michael Higgins]

Like a moment.

[Amy Poehler]

Everything. Like your single favorite thing about Best in Show.

[John Michael Higgins]

My favorite thing about it is the absurdity, like that heightened quality of capturing something that seems simultaneously impossible and yet really true to a certain type of life. And that is Christopher Guest genius. Obviously, if you made me drill down beyond that, I would say So I. My dad loves Christopher Guest. Like, Christopher Guest bought Dylan. Dylan impression is probably my dad's, like, platonic ideal of comedy. We saw this together. We watched all of the Christopher Guest movies together. I don't know that the Reuben household has laughed in a heartier and more fervent fashion than watching cookie Fleck.

[Parker Posey]

Try to walk.

[Amy Poehler]

Try to walk the limp.

[John Michael Higgins]

It might be the hardest I have ever.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't know how she done it. It's one of the great athletics.

[Parker Posey]

She's done something her, like, dad used to do. It's like a funny walker d. Dad used to do. And they all learned how to do it as kids. Yeah. And it's.

[John Michael Higgins]

I mean, Busy bee is a close second. Like, Busy Bee is just a recurring bit of comedy in our house. After the movie. I. I just. I love it.

[Amy Poehler]

What would be your number one favorite thing about this movie?

[Parker Posey]

This is not my favorite Christopher Guest movies. I. Spinal Tap. Waiting for Guffman is my favorite just because I did a lot.

[Amy Poehler]

I really like Guffman, too. Plus, it was first so original.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Yeah. My favorite thing about this is I like that it's as much a relationship movie as it is, because we're checking in. All these people are like, are they gonna be okay after all this? After everything that happens here? Is everything gonna be okay? And it is surprising. What about you? What's your favorite thing?

[Amy Poehler]

I have two.

[John Michael Higgins]

Scott.

[Amy Poehler]

I think Higgins and McKean are the. I can't believe how much joy I get from every moment.

[Parker Posey]

So good.

[Amy Poehler]

If you only saw this movie and you knew nothing, you would think Higgins went on to be one of the biggest stars in the entire world. Like, he's like, oh, this guy was on SNL for nine years, right? It's like, no, not really. He was. Played David Letterman in a movie, did some other stuff, and was a character actor. He's so. Every single split second he's in, he's just, like, alive. And those guys are so good together. McCain had some quote. Like, they figured out, like, he was the string and Higgins was the balloon, and that's how they kind of did it.

[Parker Posey]

And it was like, that's.

[Amy Poehler]

Fred Willard is just so fucking funny. Like, you can watch this movie 20 times, and he. Like, I can't.

[John Michael Higgins]

He might be my favorite thing, actually. It's hard to pick.

[Amy Poehler]

When Cookie's out there, he's like, she looks familiar. Like, he's just got. He's just sliding stuff.

[John Michael Higgins]

Single best recurring through line of the movie.

[Parker Posey]

That was the.

[Amy Poehler]

That's the other Thing that kills me.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's so good.

[Parker Posey]

That was the other thing that I thought was so impressive when I read that ringer post was that they were looking at nothing when they were doing all of that commentary, that they recorded all the commentary stuff in one day, and that the whole arena was empty and it was just Christopher guests describing what they would be looking at at any given moment.

[Amy Poehler]

And then. So we should talk about that. Because the English guy was like the straight man that they told him, I love study as much travel stuff as possible.

[Parker Posey]

Jim, as the straight man who was.

[Amy Poehler]

Only there for one day for the shoot, he had to, like, film everything.

[Parker Posey]

Fred William is amazing.

[Amy Poehler]

But, yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Re watching it, I was just like, I was watching Jim the whole time because it was just like his just micro escalation of frustration and annoyance masked in like, British politeness. And like, the camera's on, so I have to behave sort of thing I thought was incredible.

[Amy Poehler]

It's. It's the highlight of Fred's career, and he had a really fun career, but I think this would be the first.

[John Michael Higgins]

So good. I mean, he was parodying this parody on the Bachelor.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

You know, until months before his death. Like, this is just such an iconic. I. I don't know if this is true, but I feel like if you asked 100 people what's your favorite part of best in, the majority of them would say Fred Willard.

[Parker Posey]

Probably.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like, that's like the right. That emerged and transcended the movie in a way.

[Amy Poehler]

But, yeah, I agree.

[Parker Posey]

And it's also. When did. When did dodgeball come out? Just like a couple years. So just like thinking about the. The color commentary comedy bit in both of those movies, I think really had a lot of mileage.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Also it made more sense than 2000 because there really were announcers, like, at least in the vicinity of this guy, like, doing baseball games and no question football games, where you're just like, man, is this gu drunk. What's happening to this guy?

[John Michael Higgins]

Good way to judge a woman. Have her run away.

[Parker Posey]

He's like, I'm used. I'm more used to them running away.

[Amy Poehler]

The. Oh, God, the Chris guest collection.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Which is all these movies. But I went back with him. I didn't really know him until I. I didn't see Spinal Tap till high school, but the first time I saw him was he was on SNL for a year with Martin Short and Billy Crystal. And he was in when they loaded the cast like the Yankees, Murderers Row. And he did his two best things was he was on Jackie Rogers Jr $100,000 jackpot watt. He played Raheeb, which was like just this crazy character that was hilarious. But then they did the one, the Synchronized Swimmers with him and Martin Short. Yeah, that was basically a short version of one of these movies where it was like these two male synchronized swimmers, but Martin Short wasn't a strong swimmer and he had to wear life vests. And they were doing the routines and it was just like. I'd never seen anything like that. So then Spinal Tap was a big 80s high school movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I love that.

[Amy Poehler]

And it was one of those that. Nobody saw that in the theater. It was like a belated. On cable. It's like, what's this? And it just all of a sudden became a classic.

[Parker Posey]

That's a movie that I was quoting for years before I saw it. You know what I mean? Like, it was just in the water. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes. Yeah, same.

[Parker Posey]

And. And then, of course, Princess Bride. He kills in Princess Bride.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. But then McKeon ended up on SNL for replacing Phil Hartman. And. And it did. It wasn't. Just wasn't good. I don't know what it was.

[Parker Posey]

It wasn't the right fit.

[Amy Poehler]

Just wasn't the right thing for him. Yeah. So then this is a big comeback for him. Movie was written by guest and Levy is be as Levy. As we mentioned. 10.8 million budget made 20 million. Roger Ebert, three and a half stars.

[John Michael Higgins]

Come on.

[Amy Poehler]

Roger the Man, a wickedly funny mockumentary. He did say that. Built around the character, built around the impression.

[Parker Posey]

Well, not every movie can be Crash. Robert, Roger's favorite movie.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, he did.

[Parker Posey]

It was his favorite movie of that year, is what he said.

[Amy Poehler]

He did say the movie is consistently just plain funny and sometimes ascends to a kind of crazed genius.

[John Michael Higgins]

Agreed. I would say the whole entire thing. All 90 minutes. Crazed genius.

[Amy Poehler]

To me, this is a four star. This is a four star. Like, the first time I saw it, I was like, this movie's in my life now.

[John Michael Higgins]

No question.

[Amy Poehler]

It was an immediate DVD purchase.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Amy Poehler]

I hadn't seen it for a couple years and I just. I watched it twice in the last week and I was just fucking laughing. And I was laughing at different things during the two viewings. That was what was surprising.

[John Michael Higgins]

Anyway, it's a tough one for rewatchables because every single scene is rewatchable.

[Amy Poehler]

I know, let's. We'll take a break and then we're do rewatchable scenes. This is tough.

[John Michael Higgins]

Really hard.

[Amy Poehler]

I think I structured this correctly, but I also have too Many already.

[Parker Posey]

This is actually. This is the only thing that's easy for me, actually. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The rewatchable scenes.

[John Michael Higgins]

You didn't write every down? Every single scene. I started to be more disciplined as I got further into the film.

[Amy Poehler]

The opening meet and greet, because we get Hamilton and Megan therapy, but then we go right to Jerry and Cookie Fleck. So I'm going to combine those two.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay.

[Parker Posey]

And got myself in a position that wasn't very easy for me emotionally. It's called the Congress of a Cow, where the woman is bent over, the.

[Amy Poehler]

Hands are on the floor and the man is behind. What did she do when she saw you? She just said, they're staring at us. She didn't say anything. Didn't say a word. She was doing the Congress of the Cow.

[John Michael Higgins]

Congress of the Cow. I put myself in a position that wasn't very easy for me emotionally. It's called the Congress of the Cow.

[Amy Poehler]

Did you look up the Congress of the Cow?

[John Michael Higgins]

Not on my work computer.

[Amy Poehler]

Okay. But you did make it up. I figured you would.

[John Michael Higgins]

She described it where the woman is bent over, the hands are on the.

[Parker Posey]

Floor, and the man is behind.

[John Michael Higgins]

I will just say right now, I don't know if I'm picking it for most rewatchable scene. I think this is in the running for best opening scene of a movie ever.

[Amy Poehler]

It's pretty well, the belated shots of the dog.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

You think they're talking even though you know the movie's about dogs. You think they are talking about a human child who has seen and been scarred by watching them have sex. And then they pan to their sad dog on her. Cheese.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. At therapy.

[Amy Poehler]

Super comfortable. Wine murmur.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't know how to pronounce that. Even though they say it multiple times in the movie.

[Amy Poehler]

That was never.

[John Michael Higgins]

Poor Beatrice.

[Amy Poehler]

But then we go right to Jerry and Cookie Fleck.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is iconic.

[Amy Poehler]

Who was very popular back then? Dozens of boyfriends.

[John Michael Higgins]

Hundreds.

[Amy Poehler]

No, hundreds. Yeah, she was very popular back then. She had dozens of boyfriends. Hundreds. Hundreds.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Hundreds. I did not know that. Hundreds. Well, not that. Not that. Not that I didn't have a reputation myself because, you know, I was considered, you know, by some to. To be quite the Casanova myself back at Pon Junior.

[John Michael Higgins]

Hundreds.

[Parker Posey]

It's the pan down to the two left feet.

[Amy Poehler]

No, but you wait. I was considered to be quite the Casanova myself. When they cut to, like, the ugliest.

[Parker Posey]

Picture possible with him, like, with the eyes crossed.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Parker Posey]

It's great.

[John Michael Higgins]

He looks like Austin Powers in that picture.

[Amy Poehler]

They used to call him Loopy. I don't know how you come up with two left feet. I don't know how much. How stoned you need to be. Like, what?

[John Michael Higgins]

How do you get there? That is actually a great one to drill down on in terms of their creative process, how much is structured and known in advance and how much is improv, because no one has to believe they know that because they're working toward. Jared's gonna have to be the handler. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Ye.

[Parker Posey]

And he's gonna have to.

[John Michael Higgins]

He's gonna have to do that little loop to turn Winky around at the end.

[Parker Posey]

They said that, but still, they said that they wrote complex backstories for all of them. So even though they're improving this movie, they have, like, the full backstory.

[John Michael Higgins]

They knew exactly what it was like when Cookie and Bulge fucked on the roller coaster. They knew all of that bulge was the roller coaster.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, girl.

[John Michael Higgins]

Cookie Googleman.

[Parker Posey]

I love working with you, Cookie Googleman.

[Amy Poehler]

I have meeting Scott and St. And Stephan, and then right to Leslie and Sherry, where we get there in the. They're in the grocery store, the meat market. Every one of those pepperoni sticks out. I just want to hold it. He's just coming out of the gates on fire.

[Parker Posey]

You can dig the membranes off.

[Amy Poehler]

He was a wild man on campus on a Friday night. I'd have three Saturday nights and go home.

[John Michael Higgins]

And then the photo.

[Parker Posey]

Another. Another flash to a great photo. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Sensational.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't think there's a single second where they're not hilarious in this movie. Even when they're, like, decorating their hotel room with the thing. He's, like, quietly hammering a quilt, and.

[Parker Posey]

He'S got his little bleach tips and, like, a little ponytail like his. Yeah, yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Amy Poehler]

But then we go right to Leslie Ward Cabot doing a Joe Biden impersonation next to Jennifer Coolidge.

[Parker Posey]

Wow.

[Amy Poehler]

We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about.

[John Michael Higgins]

We both love soup.

[Amy Poehler]

He eventually became Blue and Old school three years later.

[Parker Posey]

This was a.

[Amy Poehler]

What a run for him.

[Parker Posey]

This is a huge moment for Jennifer Coolidge, comedian, right, because she had American Pie. But, like, this was a completely different mode and level for her. She's incredible in this.

[Amy Poehler]

And everyone always says she was, like, during the SNL50 stuff. I think she was one of the people that auditioned and didn't get it where they were like, ah, maybe, you know, she was close. We couldn't get there. She was definitely something. Everybody knew. She was something. She knew everybody. She was Friends with everybody. And then it just happened.

[Parker Posey]

I also love the, like, web of. You know, Christopher Guest has a stable of actors, but I like that he recruits from, like, she does American Pie with Eugene Levy. And Eugene Levy's like, you gotta meet Jennifer Coolidge. You know what I mean?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes. The degrees of separation collapse onto themselves at some point. And then we get to hear Sherri Ann say, we love snow peas. What a fun fucking gift.

[Amy Poehler]

Will you have me stop podcasting when I get to my Leslie Ward Cabot stage?

[Parker Posey]

No, no, no. I think.

[John Michael Higgins]

Honestly, I think by then you have to, like, put your mouth. I think by then you'll just be able to beam a podcast into someone's mind.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. And not talk about things for hours.

[Amy Poehler]

That'd be cool.

[John Michael Higgins]

Exactly.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amy Poehler]

I have. We meet Christy Cummings. She's just a handler.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

This is one of my favorite moments of the movie when she lays out the whole family dynamic. How she. She's the taskmaster. Like, taskmaster like her father.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Amy Poehler]

Her mom's the heart and soul. And she was there with unconditional love until my mom committed suicide in 81.

[John Michael Higgins]

Worked for my family.

[Amy Poehler]

Just an unbelievable next scene. Unbelievable. And the two of them together. Oh, just great.

[John Michael Higgins]

Perfect.

[Amy Poehler]

It almost could have been its own show.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, yeah, that, like.

[Amy Poehler]

That could have been an NBC sitcom in, like, 2000.

[John Michael Higgins]

No question. The American spin off.

[Amy Poehler]

Right?

[John Michael Higgins]

I mean, running a publication together with Christy and Sherrianne.

[Amy Poehler]

That's where we hired Mal from. It was.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Sports Illustrated.

[Parker Posey]

It wasn't horses.

[Amy Poehler]

Her first job.

[Parker Posey]

Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Intern in America one day.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's still the dream.

[Parker Posey]

Okay.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's still true. It is amazing now to, like, go back because. Because Jane lynch is such a indispensable part of our comedic fabric. And like I said earlier in the.

[Amy Poehler]

Jane lynch experience, I never saw her before this.

[Parker Posey]

No, me neither.

[Amy Poehler]

She did stuff. I don't remember it, but then anytime I saw her after, I was like, Jane Lynch.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, of course.

[Amy Poehler]

Best in show.

[Parker Posey]

Best and show.

[Amy Poehler]

And then when Glee met, it was not surprising.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, Jerry and Cookie have dinner with her old boyfriend. I just gotta tell you guys, this is my pick for most rewatchable scene. Is it? It is.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think this is a really good pick.

[Amy Poehler]

And here's.

[Parker Posey]

But I. I don't like this sequence. I know.

[Amy Poehler]

Can I make the case?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, do it.

[Amy Poehler]

Zach the son absolutely kills me.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, Zach's great.

[Amy Poehler]

Playing with his parachuter. The. The guy openly flirting with her at the table while also talking about how he's a chief hostage Negotiator.

[John Michael Higgins]

The head got stuck in the gargoyle.

[Amy Poehler]

And then Eugene Levy getting mad and complimenting the wife on her beautiful, luscious breast.

[John Michael Higgins]

Compliment you on your luscious melon bre. Rest tonight.

[Parker Posey]

How does this sound?

[John Michael Higgins]

My favorite part is that when she's like, she's.

[Amy Poehler]

But when they end up when they go outside the kids on the shed, it just kills me. And he starts doing his hostage negotiator. Please, honey, this is what I do.

[Parker Posey]

Don't be mad at him, please.

[Amy Poehler]

I'll gouge your left eye out with my thumb. I you. Not you freak. I'm you. Get down here right now till it turns to jelly.

[Parker Posey]

Down.

[Amy Poehler]

Get down here. Stab you with forks until you bleed.

[Parker Posey]

How about that? It doesn't surprise me, Mallory, that this is one of your favorite, but I do.

[John Michael Higgins]

I do.

[Amy Poehler]

This is my pick. I love the kid on this.

[John Michael Higgins]

I love Max and Cookie. I think my. Again, like, there's just the through line of Cookie's exes being so brazen with Jerry standing right there. Like, obviously, Max.

[Amy Poehler]

I mean, she must have been.

[Parker Posey]

No, but the other I like.

[John Michael Higgins]

Very memorable.

[Parker Posey]

I think I prefer the other ones who just, like, randomly come across them in the wild.

[John Michael Higgins]

Showing up at the. At the party is just like.

[Parker Posey]

Or in the recording studio at the end. All of that stuff is really good.

[John Michael Higgins]

Great stuff.

[Amy Poehler]

I will stab you with forks until you bleed. How about that? Do you have any other rewatchables before we get to the pre show party?

[Parker Posey]

Yes, my number one is.

[Amy Poehler]

No, I have. I have a bunch more just in the sequencing.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes, couple more. Couple more that we've passed in the chronology of the film already.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, we can go back after the pre show party.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

There's a butch ice sculpture.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. The party's over when it melts.

[Amy Poehler]

Someone recognized his cookie.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, that's our problem.

[Parker Posey]

Should we do a ringer? A ringer party? Yeah, and do a nice sculpture. And when it melts, the parties over.

[Amy Poehler]

We had an ice luge at the 2016 Ringer Christmas party. Did you? Yeah, back when we used to have parties.

[John Michael Higgins]

Boy. Yeah. What a night.

[Amy Poehler]

That was the mint julep. You were working as a waitress there. You're the best.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. You know, I banged a lot of waitresses.

[Parker Posey]

That is so good.

[Amy Poehler]

You were the best.

[Parker Posey]

I banged a lot of.

[Amy Poehler]

But she's kind of like, you don't forget the best.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, you don't forget the best.

[John Michael Higgins]

Absolutely incredible. But I love how she always keeps apologizing to Jerry. You know, like earlier when they went to The Birmingham. She's like, I'm with my future. It was my future.

[Amy Poehler]

I'm with him now.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

So good. Oh, man.

[Amy Poehler]

I. I wrote down. They can't find Busy be.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is my.

[Amy Poehler]

Which Parker Posey performs like she's in a Scorsese cocaine film.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think this is Shakespeare. The Busy Beat. Busy Bee is missing.

[Amy Poehler]

Has this been you ever with. With anything missing with Halo?

[John Michael Higgins]

You know, it's interesting because, like, Adam and I were rewatching this and we were the. The two that we've skipped so far that I would nominate are Megan Hamilton Swan sharing their two Starbucks.

[Parker Posey]

That's my number one.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's just an. I think.

[Parker Posey]

And the catalog.

[John Michael Higgins]

The catalogs. The catalog conversation.

[Parker Posey]

We're so, like, raised amongst catalogs.

[John Michael Higgins]

Absolutely remarkable line in the movie. You know, I was such a huge J. Crew person then, too.

[Parker Posey]

Still am.

[John Michael Higgins]

Incredible.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

And then when they arrive at the airport and they're screaming at each other like, Adam and I were watching this, and it's like this. He's like, who are you?

[Parker Posey]

More scenes from a Marriage.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. Are you Meg or are you Hamilton? But he was just like, this is the experience of living with you. And then I think he walked it back a little bit as he was safe. But that idea of just like, blaming each other for forgetting the pet toy. Something going wrong. Building toward the Busy Bee is missing stretch where, like, Hamilton is completely inside the crate.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like he's in a cave into the carrier looking for the toy. Just unbelievable stuff. Unbelievable stuff.

[Amy Poehler]

It's not in here. It's not in here.

[John Michael Higgins]

It should be in the crate.

[Amy Poehler]

It's not in the crate. I just told you that.

[Parker Posey]

God, Hamilton.

[John Michael Higgins]

If she doesn't get a door, she's going to flip out.

[Amy Poehler]

Damn.

[Parker Posey]

It's not in here. You left it at the hotel.

[Amy Poehler]

You go back and you get her busy. Me go to the hotel and get busy. Me Run. Run.

[Parker Posey]

Go.

[John Michael Higgins]

Mommy's getting your toy.

[Parker Posey]

You go.

[John Michael Higgins]

You go back and you get her pissy Beef. Go to the hotel and get busy.

[Parker Posey]

Beef. Run.

[Amy Poehler]

Run.

[Parker Posey]

Is it that or is it her with Ed Begley Jr. And the poor woman who's playing is where I think.

[John Michael Higgins]

Adam was like, just kidding. I'm like, thank you.

[Parker Posey]

It's like a little.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, boy.

[Amy Poehler]

The pre show party also has Harlan murdering the swans when he's just telling some long, boring Harlan story.

[John Michael Higgins]

And they're like.

[Amy Poehler]

And the only drink's like.

[John Michael Higgins]

And then Hamilton asks about his jacket.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

But it was great. Like, Parker Posey, preview for White Lotus I thought that's the same thing.

[Amy Poehler]

And then you must be very proud. Mary joke. Then we get to the show. Fred Willard wants to know why they don't dress up the dog. Like Sherlock Holmes sees that whole thing. Not quite a rewatchable, but a little bitty thing. Incredible. All right. This is hard to do the end part, but there's a whole Jane lynch part where she won't wear makeup. And they talk about that.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And then she tries to psych out Harlan. She's like, oh, look at this dog. She's just like kind of.

[John Michael Higgins]

She's intimidating. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Trying to, like, psych him out. And then it goes right into Fred talking about the shih Tzu. And Steward is gonna take a shih tzu on my carry on. And that's when Trevor's starting to get. Get frustrated.

[Parker Posey]

I think that also on. On the Christy Cummings, James lynch front. Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins. Their reaction watching it on TV not even before the kiss.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Just sort of like mocking her out. Oil rig.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

She looks like a cocktail witch.

[John Michael Higgins]

Incredible stuff.

[Amy Poehler]

Some of Fred's stuff. He trained to be a priest being. Shouldn't find out what went wrong there. But that's a whole other show. He's just like ad libbing all this stuff. He went on that run with terriers.

[John Michael Higgins]

About how the terriers. His terrier count is untouched.

[Amy Poehler]

Unconscious. Those dogs might be eaten.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

How do they make. How do they make him miniature?

[Parker Posey]

That's the best part.

[Amy Poehler]

I said that was a really good question.

[John Michael Higgins]

Is there some way, some process used to make them physically smaller?

[Amy Poehler]

He has a book idea for women bathing your dogs, doing a doggy style.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. You come up with the title. I'm not the literary guy, but that's what Trevor's like.

[Parker Posey]

They breed them that way.

[Amy Poehler]

Would you put Meg buying a bumblebee at the incredible store?

[Parker Posey]

Oh, yeah. Sourcey is incredible.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's like historic.

[Amy Poehler]

It's not a bee. It's a bear and a bee costume.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's a fish. The way that she. Her. The. The quiet rage.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Is actually terrifying to witness. And then I love when she selects the multicolored, like, rainbow.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

He's like.

[Amy Poehler]

Like, she's just. She's broke. She's broken at that point.

[John Michael Higgins]

Just like a few of the ones that we have here. Her response to that is one of my favorite moments in the movie. I didn't ask for your opinion. I asked for a toy that you don't have.

[Parker Posey]

Like, so good.

[Amy Poehler]

It is one of those where you Think, like, she should have at least had an Aubrey Plaza type of career. Like she should have led movies and done.

[Parker Posey]

Parker's done pretty well for herself and.

[Amy Poehler]

She'S been like a character. Yeah. But this in White Lotus makes me think, like, yeah, there's probably a couple more great roles in there.

[John Michael Higgins]

Capturing that, like, abusive rudeness of a truly hysterical person is like a just.

[Amy Poehler]

She has a maniac as well as anyone ever.

[Parker Posey]

She got actual braces for this movie.

[Amy Poehler]

I know.

[John Michael Higgins]

Incredible commitment. Or, like, you could argue, just a perk. It's like I have to have the braces on.

[Amy Poehler]

True.

[John Michael Higgins]

To do the movie. And then you come out and you got beautiful teeth.

[Amy Poehler]

She's a key role in one of my favorite movies that we've ever done in rewatchables that nobody's seen. Kicking and screaming.

[Parker Posey]

I love kicking.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. She was the girlfriend.

[Parker Posey]

Day trippers just screaming really good in Day trippers screaming at Skippy.

[Amy Poehler]

Couple more.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The. The dog attacks the judge and Fred says he went after her like she's made out of ham. It's a shame to see that happen. But he's still a champion, even if he set off in disgrace like Shoeless Joe Jackson.

[John Michael Higgins]

Remarkable.

[Amy Poehler]

Rhapsody has two mommies. We gotta mention that one.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. Great stuff.

[Amy Poehler]

More great. Higgins, he's.

[John Michael Higgins]

He doesn't have a single miss in the entire.

[Amy Poehler]

He really doesn't. It's a. It's not even a no hitter. It's a perfect game.

[John Michael Higgins]

Nobody gets on base.

[Parker Posey]

The makeup is impeccable.

[Amy Poehler]

How about when he walks out and he's got that, like.

[Parker Posey]

He's got the perfect station. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

They said he was training to be in this movie and actually was in a dog show and handing somebody.

[John Michael Higgins]

You can tell he had actually mastered.

[Parker Posey]

The technique that he won. He had to, like, sub in for someone and then he just won the competition.

[Amy Poehler]

I would say that my wife would have been good at this. My wife's a good athlete. But they're like. Jane lynch had that run.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

You have to have this controlled run where you don't break stride.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

The prance.

[Amy Poehler]

Like, there's a certain athleticism that some of them seem to have. Jay lynch was, like, great at it, but Higgins was good at too. All right. The final seven, which I guess we can lump together.

[Parker Posey]

Most rewatchable scene the whole movie.

[Amy Poehler]

I mean.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

We get. We get the injury and the limp.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is it. That's my winner.

[Parker Posey]

That's my winner.

[John Michael Higgins]

You're gonna show Winky. You have a concussion.

[Parker Posey]

You're not making any sense you think.

[Amy Poehler]

They know the championship's on the line here? Actual question from Fred.

[John Michael Higgins]

Really good. Trevor's face in response.

[Amy Poehler]

Am I nuts or something wrong with his feet?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The proctologist joke. Yeah, yeah. I remember you said that last year. Do all the dogs bark the same? Jerry wins.

[Parker Posey]

But that's. That's. That's what I love about. About the Trevor character is like, that's his breaking point. That's the joke repeated.

[John Michael Higgins]

You. You had the gall to repeat your shitty joke.

[Amy Poehler]

If you live by neighborhood and we wear an outfit like that, you better be a hotel doorman. Fred's on just absolute fire. And then Jerry wins. It's an emotion. It's like a real sports movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

It is.

[Amy Poehler]

Does this count as a sports movie?

[John Michael Higgins]

No question.

[Amy Poehler]

It's a.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's a literal underdog story here.

[Parker Posey]

And they had. They had win. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

This was like the Chiefs, not three peing Craig.

[Amy Poehler]

We. This is like quietly sports movie month.

[Fred Willard]

I guess it is. Yeah. Wow.

[Amy Poehler]

We've. We're two out of four. Jeez. Gotta come up with two more now.

[Fred Willard]

Snow Dogs left. That's a dog movie. And a sports movie.

[Amy Poehler]

Snow Rocky. The best and best six Months later is our last one.

[John Michael Higgins]

Every single part of six Months later is perfect.

[Amy Poehler]

It's perfect. Perfect.

[John Michael Higgins]

Every single part of it.

[Parker Posey]

The therapy bookend.

[John Michael Higgins]

Unbelievable.

[Amy Poehler]

Is the captain in the cookies? Beg for it. Would that be in your memorabilia things you've.

[Parker Posey]

That is.

[John Michael Higgins]

That is my second pick in the memorabilia. Behind Busy Busy Bee is the no brainer memorabilia pick. But the. The fact that it's. It's not just Jerry and his little captain's costume. And Winky looks so cute. And the hilarious name they've landed on. It's the fact that it's a cassette tape. Like, it definitely could have been a CD by this point, but it's a cassette tape, which is just a perfect touch. But I. I would to pick the.

[Parker Posey]

Way that all the musical. I mean, I know they started with Spinal Tap, but the way that all the musical stuff in here feels like an audition for a Mighty Wind, which is another perfect film.

[Amy Poehler]

The song's like Bow Wow.

[Parker Posey]

Me's like, I've got the lyrics.

[John Michael Higgins]

Some dish.

[Parker Posey]

Bow wow. Delish.

[John Michael Higgins]

Fantastic.

[Amy Poehler]

And then of course, the studio engineer knows Cookie.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I'm not wearing underwear.

[John Michael Higgins]

So good. His. His name being bulge.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, you've grown. I'm growing right now.

[John Michael Higgins]

And then Jerry's just like, that's it.

[Amy Poehler]

That's it for me.

[Parker Posey]

I'm growing right now, girls.

[Amy Poehler]

And it's like, we can't do any better than this. It's like, now. We're actually going to launch American Bitch magazine now. Oh, my God, here we go. Focusing on the issues of the lesbian dog breeder.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And then Higgins and McKean are like, no, we're gonna top that one. We're doing photo shoots of dogs and old famous movies.

[Parker Posey]

Maybe that's Gone with the Wind spent a lot of.

[John Michael Higgins]

The Casablanca one is my favorite.

[Parker Posey]

That's really good.

[Amy Poehler]

And then we end back in the therapist's office with Kipper doing some leg humping.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yep.

[Parker Posey]

And now they're wearing colorful. They're wearing a lot of monochromatic, a.

[John Michael Higgins]

Lot of bright ringer green in their outfits. I have an observation from your run through of most rewatchable seasons.

[Amy Poehler]

I mean, I just basically did the entire movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

You did very light on Harlan Pepper.

[Amy Poehler]

I sure did.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. That stands out.

[Amy Poehler]

Tell me tough and we can get to that later.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, my God.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay. Okay. Sheesh.

[Parker Posey]

Is it because you have a ventriloquism issue?

[Amy Poehler]

No. Get to it later. So your most rewatchable was.

[John Michael Higgins]

I am busy be. I'm so torn between busy bee and cookies injury. I think I have to pick the spirit of most rewatchable scenes. I don't think I'm constitutionally capable of looking away if I know we're about to see Cookie.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I just. I think that has to be the case.

[Amy Poehler]

Why doesn't. Why didn't Cookie's injury become, like, one of the best Twitter memes to use anytime somebody, like, had, like, a dumb injury in sports?

[John Michael Higgins]

Great question.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't know what we're doing.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's not too late.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, it's not too late. I don't know what we're doing. Joe, what do you have?

[Parker Posey]

It's the Starbucks. It's. It's fantastic. And the catalogs.

[Amy Poehler]

So ironically, that's what I had for my most 2000 thing about this movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

That entire scene. People catalogs being excited about how they met in a Starbucks over the course of a couple weeks.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Being Big L. Being catalog guys and feeling lucky to be raised along catalogs amongst catalogs. And now we do we have catalogs?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes. Didn't you see a little bit of a comeback?

[Parker Posey]

I. I don't know.

[Amy Poehler]

I only get card collecting catalogs. That's it.

[Parker Posey]

Me. But like, sometimes if I order something online, then all of a sudden you gotta get the catalog for the thing.

[Amy Poehler]

I only get, like, ones for, like, sports auctions. It'd be like new Lou Gehrig Jersey collection.

[John Michael Higgins]

Have you ever ordered something from a catalog?

[Amy Poehler]

No.

[John Michael Higgins]

No. Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Not recently.

[Parker Posey]

Have you ordered something from a catalog?

[John Michael Higgins]

Not recently. Back in the day. Back in the day, my mom, like the swans used to have a catalog.

[Parker Posey]

And you give the like the number of the item you want.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amy Poehler]

What stage the best mockumentary movies.

[John Michael Higgins]

No question. Just as an art.

[Parker Posey]

Why aren't there more genre? Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Craig, what the hell is wrong with your generation? Why aren't there more mockumentary movies?

[Fred Willard]

Well, I, you know, the Apatow era was very improv heavy. It's not a mockumentary, but I think they like evolved from probably the Christopher Christopher guest stuff a little bit also. It's honestly really hard. I think there's not more of them because it's genuinely hard to pull off like a 90 minute improv movie. Most improv sucks.

[Amy Poehler]

Can I summarize that? Craig just said my generation is cowards.

[John Michael Higgins]

When do you think that Craig, a married man who is a manager at this company and is in his 30s, will stop having to speak on behalf of all young people? He's 30.

[Amy Poehler]

He's not in his 30s. He just turned 30.

[Parker Posey]

Right.

[Fred Willard]

I'm basically 29.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay, you're holding on. I have one foot in the grave personally.

[Amy Poehler]

So actually you guys do some what stage is best and I'll do mine at the end. What do you got, Joe?

[Parker Posey]

Honestly, just everything.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Yes.

[Parker Posey]

I mean, I know that's like a answer, but I just couldn't single anything out because the whole movie's perfect.

[Amy Poehler]

It doesn't feel dated at all.

[Parker Posey]

No, no.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is the second rewatch was in a row for me where what's aged the best was basically everything and what's aged the worst and picking knits, two categories I normally love and have a lot of fun with, were nearly impossible. I didn't have any before sunset. And this, it's just like, I don't know. And these are perfect movies that if we watch them 2,000 years from now, we would say are perfect movies. Mockumentary is a forum was my top one as well. I think you already said this, but parodying crazy pet people like we're in the era of.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, social media is taking it to.

[Parker Posey]

A whole other level.

[Amy Poehler]

You can't even parry it anymore. Like, social media is pet people.

[Parker Posey]

I think it also just like launched people's interest in dog shows in general.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

You know what I mean? The way that like spelling bee documentaries launched that, you know, and like rounders and poker. Yeah. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy as a com. A comedic duo. I think that's a real. What stage the best. Obviously everybody in the movie. Their comedic brilliance holds up. But I'm wearing my Shit's Creek sweatshirt today. And like, we have been. Been so fortunate to spend so many years in so many different properties with.

[Amy Poehler]

Them going back to sctv.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

And it is just this, like, really rare thing where it's. You can act. Trust is hard to build and maintain, but you can trust in the two of them together in something. And like, revisiting that is just like such a gift. And I think that the roses from Schitt's Creek have. They're modern icons. But it's tough to top the flex. It really is tough to top the flex. I think also the Swans really aged well, as, you know, the cruelest caricature. Maybe in the film.

[Parker Posey]

A yuppie examination.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, exactly. Scott aged well. The Odd Couple broadcast booth. That's a real. What's age the best?

[Amy Poehler]

It feels like it's been ripped off in other movies.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

You know, I have a couple.

[John Michael Higgins]

The Best by Rhapsody losing.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

True, right?

[Amy Poehler]

It's like The Patriots in 07. The giant favorites.

[John Michael Higgins]

You said it, man.

[Amy Poehler]

I have. What's Age the best. Just busy be. Being this toy that dominates everybody's life is hilarious.

[John Michael Higgins]

So good.

[Amy Poehler]

A dog on a treadmill, I think is now a real thing. I think that's the best. Just in general. Eugene Levy's weird teeth commitment.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Amy Poehler]

Just, like, how far he'll go. He'll go like, cross side for.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's just 10 minutes.

[John Michael Higgins]

So uncomfortable.

[Amy Poehler]

Like crazy things in his teeth. I have. For what stage the best. The Spinal Tap callback. Junior yes. About the rock band Trash in their room and rusting.

[John Michael Higgins]

They didn't know there was a toilet in the room.

[Parker Posey]

And Begley Junior's so good on this. He's really great. So good on this.

[John Michael Higgins]

He's trying to sell the utility closet as, like, a comfortable place to stay for.

[Parker Posey]

Well, the kitchen's right next door, so don't worry about it. It's fine.

[Amy Poehler]

The AM Philadelphia guy when they're about to go live. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Energy.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I thought that was good. Brockwurst and chiles. Paging Dr. Freud. I don't know why that's so funny, Scott. Annoying coffee orders, which this movie ties into. But now literally everyone has an annoying coffee order. But they're. The Swans are talking about.

[John Michael Higgins]

I thought that was soy in her face. When he's because of lactose.

[Parker Posey]

And she's like, yeah, you are. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And then Posy said this neural history about Willard seeing him and waiting for Guffman, just smoking a cigar in a folding chair, looking out in the empty street and just coming up with brilliant, funny stuff. I'm in awe. We would all just sit and watch him just double over. He had pages of legal pad of just bits. I have another thing. I have another thing. I think he's one of those rare guys that people. He was just like a comedy fountain.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

You're around him and this.

[Parker Posey]

And this is what he does best.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Parker Posey]

Like, does better than most people. And it is the thing that he does. Does the best.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes.

[Amy Poehler]

I didn't have a great shot Gordo award. Unless you guys have one.

[Parker Posey]

It's not a cinematic.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

But I will say the. Like, zoom in on. On Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's my pick too.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

That's a great mock.

[John Michael Higgins]

Watching it through TV with Scott and.

[Parker Posey]

The camera catching it.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's my pick as well. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

What do you have for Big Kahuna Burger or Bessie's food and Drink? Because I have her complimenting the food as being like cafeteria food.

[John Michael Higgins]

That is also my pick.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I know it tastes better, but it looks like cafeteria hot plate food.

[Amy Poehler]

It's either definitely an insult.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's either that or the popcorn.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Or I would say the like, whatever frozen yogurt thing that Jennifer Coolidge is eating at the end when they're talking about American. That she's just sort of like they're in an interview and she's just like going to town on this froyo. Yeah. Or the meat counter scene. I know you guys already talked about it, but that, you know, wonderful stuff.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, that's a good one.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

That's probably the answer.

[John Michael Higgins]

Poor Randy the butcher.

[Parker Posey]

My God, Randy was not enjoying. No, he was not.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think the thing about the. The extra large bucket of popcorn is just the specificity of half butter, half salt is really amusing.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Kid Cuddy Pursuit of happiness award. Best needle drop. It's one of the two songs. Would you go Terrier song or the other song?

[Parker Posey]

I love God loves the Terror. Small, sturdy, bright and true.

[Amy Poehler]

One lady's tearing up. She's really getting emotional.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. They're so moving.

[Amy Poehler]

Chess. Rockwell Brocklanders award for best character name. Stefan Vanderhoof.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's Harlan Pepper.

[Parker Posey]

It's Bolt.

[John Michael Higgins]

Bolt is my runner up, but you.

[Amy Poehler]

Want to go Stefan Vanderhoof.

[John Michael Higgins]

Also Harlan Pepper is.

[Parker Posey]

We haven't mentioned Bob Balaban. And I would say Theodore W. Milbank III is pretty good.

[John Michael Higgins]

And we have to do a human and a dog. We have to pick both because of the nature of the movie.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, it's Rhapsody.

[John Michael Higgins]

Rhapsody and White raps Butch.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, it's Rhapsody and White, obviously.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. Harlan Pepper kills me.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. Dog with two different names is great. All right, Joanna, you have a flex category.

[Parker Posey]

Okay. Mine is. It's a book about medals of war. Belatedly, best quote or exchange. This is just like slid in the backstory when we're first meeting Michael McKean's character. And he says, I was a hairdresser about 14 years and I went to a show and I saw his nibs here having his way with a borzoi. And I asked my ex wife, who's that? And she said that, that's Scott was hairdressed for 14 years. I asked my ex wife, who is that? That's Scott.

[Amy Poehler]

It's rich. Lot of context.

[Parker Posey]

A lot in one line.

[John Michael Higgins]

Great pick. Great pick.

[Amy Poehler]

Butch's girlfriend award for the weak link of the film. You don't have to pick. You don't have to pick a weak link.

[Parker Posey]

Okay, great.

[John Michael Higgins]

Do you have one?

[Parker Posey]

Do you think it's Christopher Guest as Har and Pepper?

[Amy Poehler]

I don't. You don't want to make me laugh?

[John Michael Higgins]

I, I, Yeah, it's.

[Amy Poehler]

It's not quite fast forward over him, but I, I kind of get the joke immediately.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And it's a lot of work.

[Parker Posey]

I think the nut monologue is really good when he's just naming nuts.

[Amy Poehler]

I would have scaled him back and just put more of Higgins and McCain in it.

[John Michael Higgins]

The ventriloquist stuff is, is my least favorite of any of, like, the prominent correct cast members.

[Amy Poehler]

Because it's funny. Because in Guffman, he's the funniest guy in Guffman.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And then in this, I almost think he was trying to zag really super hard the other way. And, and I just remember, even the first time I saw this movie, I remember being like, huh?

[Parker Posey]

But I just love so much that he's like matching the bloodhound energy that he's just like a human.

[Amy Poehler]

I like this too. Buddies.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

What do we, what do we think? Like, the rat lives. Think of his accent, you know? Have the rat lifts ever made their way to the fishing Hole, North Carolina. I have a lot of affection for Harlan Pepper for a couple reasons. One, the, again, like, we're watching the. The swans scream and scare their dog. And like, Harlan Pepper has such Love in his heart for Hubert. When we get to see the photo album full of the little baby puppy photos of Hubert. That's so cute. And he calls him. He doesn't just call him loyal, he calls him noble. I just love that.

[Parker Posey]

Do you think he comes back and wins a couple years later? Definitely predicted, yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think. No question. And that's kind of, I think a necessary.

[Amy Poehler]

So that cat Rufus is still my screensaver. He just dropped dead one night. I don't have any. What stage the worst.

[John Michael Higgins]

I had to try.

[Amy Poehler]

I really like every part of this movie and I, I, I, I don't know. I don't know where you go.

[John Michael Higgins]

I got one.

[Amy Poehler]

Okay, let's hear.

[John Michael Higgins]

Well, actually, two. I had the Harlan's ventriloquist act as one. This is so minor. I was really grasping for something here. But we have a couple interstitials with the Mayflower brass, the aforementioned Mr. Milbank III, Graham Chisholm. I. Even though it's only a few total scenes, I don't want any time going to those characters.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, that's fair.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like, I think more time with the fi.

[Parker Posey]

The curtain raising, all that.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's kind of it, though. Like, I would rather the, the Taft Hotel stuff is all great. So I think there is value. You know, all of our time with, with, with hotel manager Schaer is wonderful. I think there's value in being with somebody other than the dog handlers and owners. But like, maybe give us the judge. Give us a judge as a character. You know, what does Everett Beanbridge actually think? That's kind of it, though. It was really hard to think of too many other things here. Did you have.

[Amy Poehler]

I could have spent more time at the, at the party with the melting ice thing.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Party was great.

[Amy Poehler]

They could have been two more minutes.

[Parker Posey]

I'm sure there. Whatever. At Bainbridge, who you mentioned, is played by the legend Don Davis. And I'm sure there's stuff with him that they cut because why else do you cast him to just be in the distance for part of the movie?

[Amy Poehler]

Ruffalo, Hannah Rubenick Partridge overacting award. I think Hamilton cruises to the win here for. I think he dials it up the most. You go get busy. Me?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Hitchcock is not my favorite in this.

[Amy Poehler]

I have some other thoughts for that later.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay. That's my pick as well. But I think again, not as a demerit because dialing it up, you know, to 99 on a word, normally operating on a 1 to 10 scale is sort of the point of the Swans.

[Parker Posey]

He's also navigating. So Parker Posey got actual braces. He got like special retainers made. And so he's talked about how he was like trying to not lisp around the retainers he had for his adult braces. So I feel like I've seen Hitchcock be better in other things.

[Amy Poehler]

We're gonna take a break and then do Mallory's flex choice. I'm ready for my life to change. ABC Sundays. American Idol is all new.

[John Michael Higgins]

Give it your all. Good luck. Come out with a golden ticket.

[Amy Poehler]

Let's hear it. This is immense world.

[John Michael Higgins]

I've never seen anything like it.

[Amy Poehler]

And a new chapter begins. You're going to Hollywood. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol News Sundays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Parker Posey]

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[Amy Poehler]

All right, Mallory, your flex choice is.

[John Michael Higgins]

I hope you're doing. Did this movie have a porn parody?

[Amy Poehler]

Did it?

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't know, but I'd like it to. And it should be called Best in Blow and not American American. Also a great. Maybe it can be an entire franchise.

[Parker Posey]

Not Breaston Show.

[John Michael Higgins]

Breaston show. Also a great one. I think this is just proof that we need the porn parody. Best in Blow is of course a Philadelphia convention for oral sex. And of course I didn't know that sex technique. And the great news is, much like the Mayflower Dog show, both of these can be in part about grooming, grooming technique.

[Parker Posey]

And also Cookie wins both.

[John Michael Higgins]

Cookie definitely wins both. No question.

[Fred Willard]

Best in peep show.

[John Michael Higgins]

Also strong.

[Fred Willard]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Also strong press.

[Amy Poehler]

Don't go on your work. You just made me think that avn, when they have that porn weekend, it's like the convention. I went to it because we shot a segment for it for Jimmy Kimmel show when I was a writer. And that could have easily been a Christopher Guess world.

[Parker Posey]

Why isn't it?

[John Michael Higgins]

Or like there is still time.

[Parker Posey]

I mean, I know he made mascots, but why is the furry convention not been made into a Christmas movie?

[Amy Poehler]

You know, I don't have an answer for him. Yeah, I didn't have in the rundown the Mallory Rubin award for. Did this movie need a better sex scene? Because there is no sex scene. No, I mean, it's also a PG movie. I don't. A sex scene would have been.

[Parker Posey]

You don't want to see the swans.

[John Michael Higgins]

That.

[Parker Posey]

That the pick is more athletic.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Movie where she's smoking pot and we get a sex scene with them that I don't.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's how we meet Kipper at the end is like they're actually workshopping a new page in the Kama Sutra. And then we pan to Kipper who's like, you're crushing it. Mom and dad. The other thing.

[Amy Poehler]

Congress.

[John Michael Higgins]

Congress, all that. Now the other thing would of course be like flashbacks to all of Cookie. Sexual.

[Parker Posey]

Actually, I think that would have been great.

[John Michael Higgins]

That was. You don't even have to make it on the roller coaster.

[Parker Posey]

You don't even have to make it explicit. Just sort of like. Yeah, that would have been wonderful. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take award.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is hard.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't. You don't have one. You don't have one.

[Parker Posey]

Okay. We feel of two minds about this, but like, what if this had been a TV show instead? What if this had been a miniseries?

[Amy Poehler]

I went further. Did Chris guest leave like $200 million on the table? Yeah, he had this.

[Parker Posey]

He had the footage.

[Amy Poehler]

Curb, the Office, all this stuff. What if he had just gone dog show TV?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Sitcom or HBO. Because HBO around in 2000.

[Parker Posey]

I mean, because you like every year there could be new contestants in. That's right, the Dog show. Now, would it have worn out as welcome? Possibly. And is it good that we have this like 90 minute perfect jewel?

[Amy Poehler]

So my only thing with that is I think Cookie and Jerry have to be in it every year. And I think.

[John Michael Higgins]

Agreed.

[Amy Poehler]

I think Stefan and who's. Who did Higgins play Scott? I think they have to be in it every year. Maybe everyone else changes.

[John Michael Higgins]

Scott and his kimonos.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, I guess Coolidge and Jane lynch have to be in it too.

[Parker Posey]

That's the thing. Oh, everyone but Harlan Pepper.

[Amy Poehler]

Harlan Pepper is just somebody else. The next year.

[Parker Posey]

Just hold the pepper and maybe hold the pepper. Okay.

[John Michael Higgins]

Harlan Pepper.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. It does feel like there was. I mean, I'm sure these movies that are. Right. This movie made 20 million, so it made some money back. But there was some giant TV idea with this world.

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[Amy Poehler]

All these people he had access to, no question. Casting what ifs. Couldn't find anybody.

[John Michael Higgins]

Neither could we.

[Parker Posey]

Nope.

[Amy Poehler]

So best that guy Award. There's a bunch of them in here.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The guy who plays Leslie Ward Cabot, who's also blue and old school. I did not know his name. I had to look it up. And he's. He's an all time. That guy. His name is Patrick Cranshaw. And I don't know how you top it.

[John Michael Higgins]

I was gonna throw out Malcolm Stewart, who plays Malcolm, One of Cookie's many flings.

[Parker Posey]

What about Rachel Harris, who's like, been in like the Hangover and a bunch of stuff and like a tiny role in this is like.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's a good one.

[Parker Posey]

As their friend at the backyard barbecue.

[Amy Poehler]

I didn't even notice her.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, that's a good one.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I like that one.

[Amy Poehler]

And bob bow bands. Bob bow band. It's like, he's not that.

[Parker Posey]

Don't. Don Davis, who we mentioned, who was like one of the judges, is like famous from Twin Peaks. He plays Scully's dad on X Files. Like, he's. He's been around.

[Amy Poehler]

This movie is all that guys and that girl. That is because, like, Larry Miller, the one whose son goes on the shed, he's kind of Larry Miller, but he's also a really good. That guy.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Dan Waiter's award. Larry Miller's one of them. That's.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's the pick. Max Berman.

[Amy Poehler]

I'd like to also offer you Leslie Ward cabin it. Even though he doesn't have a line.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Harland's two buddies in Pine Nuts was.

[John Michael Higgins]

Kind of into it.

[Parker Posey]

That was my favorite harass.

[John Michael Higgins]

Dale, don't forget that funny tape I told you about.

[Parker Posey]

He's like, if you get tired, pull over. If you get hungry, eat something. I want to shout out the. The pet shop owner because, like.

[Amy Poehler]

Yes.

[Parker Posey]

To be able to hold that together opposite what Parker Posey's doing.

[John Michael Higgins]

And actually an incredible achievement. Yeah, yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Remarkable.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Recasting couch. Director City. What do you got, Mel?

[John Michael Higgins]

Does this need to be Philadelphia? With apologies to cr. Like, is there any Philly specificity in the movie?

[Parker Posey]

Where would you put instead Baltimore?

[John Michael Higgins]

Sure, why not? Yeah, yeah, let's go to Baltimore.

[Parker Posey]

I think it needs to be some place like high toned. So like a Boston or.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, Philadelphia.

[Parker Posey]

The like old money.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't know. There's no.

[Amy Poehler]

I'm gonna win this category.

[John Michael Higgins]

All right. It.

[Amy Poehler]

Parker Posey's husband in this movie we've already mentioned. Yeah, Hitchcock. He's. He's fine.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Wonderful.

[Amy Poehler]

Will Ferrell is right there.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Amy Poehler]

Will Ferrell and Parker Posey together as the Swans.

[Parker Posey]

I can see him screaming. But I'm not sure I can see him in, like, the uptight.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, he can definitely do that. Yeah, he did that. I think he can do it. He did in a bunch of the sketches where he. He had an uptight character used to play.

[Parker Posey]

I just feel like he always has a twinkle in his eye, which like. Like is not right.

[Amy Poehler]

But maybe that needed it, though.

[John Michael Higgins]

Hamilton's like a real drip.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, Hamilton sucks.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

You know, and I don't think that Will Ferrell ever sucks. Would have been better.

[Amy Poehler]

Thoughts.

[Fred Willard]

I love Farrell. I thought Hitchcock was really good for what the role called for. I think Feral could have done it. It's just a slightly different character.

[John Michael Higgins]

It would have been very, like a little moment like Hamilton talking about whether to change, you know, but he likes the mock turtle. Should he go to the mock turtle? But, oh, this like, burgundy really matches with the slacks. Like wolf. Wolf. Ferrell would have made it hard because.

[Fred Willard]

We'Re using what we think of feral now. In 2000, feral was not Feral yet, so maybe it would have worked.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I love the swans.

[Amy Poehler]

I already did my flex category, so we got to keep going half ass in our research. Filming took place in Vancouver, in la. They had to stage their own dog show because the dog show would let them do a dog show that was interesting. I think that's where some of the budget went.

[Parker Posey]

But, like, some of the judges had to be. Have been like real dog judges. You know what I mean?

[John Michael Higgins]

So, like, yeah, I guess the, like.

[Parker Posey]

Westminster did not want them there.

[John Michael Higgins]

I guess they're like. Because you're mocking us, but they're celebrating. But they are.

[Parker Posey]

Christopher Guest doesn't even like the phrase mockumentary.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's right. That's right.

[Amy Poehler]

He is. Gets a little precious sometimes. Fred's character, Buck Laughlin, was based on Joe Garagiola, who was an old baseball announcer from 80s 90s. Done the Westminster show show.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

He shot his whole part in a day and a half. Was specifically instructed by Christopher Guest not to research dogs in any way and just go completely blind.

[John Michael Higgins]

You can tell.

[Parker Posey]

Whereas Jim Pic had to learn everything about dogs so that he could, like, respond with actual information.

[Amy Poehler]

So funny. The first poodle, First Rhapsody and got fired.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yep.

[Parker Posey]

Wild because embarrassing because the First Rhapsody's handler was. Was a piece of work.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I know the Brandy Booth award is not one of our categories today, but who would you have given it to? I mean, best performance by a pet.

[Amy Poehler]

I mean, Hubert's amazing.

[John Michael Higgins]

I. I will make the case here that it's Beatrice I love. Because that's the most range is required. That's true Play Beatrice. Not my favorite.

[Amy Poehler]

Interesting. I should have put Brandy Booth in there. Why didn't I do that?

[Parker Posey]

I love that you love Hubert and you're not into Harlan Pepper.

[Amy Poehler]

I love Harlan Pepper. It was just a lot of the same joke. Joke.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Guest said in the research, Fred Willard makes a joke when the person handles the dog's testicles.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Uhhuh.

[Amy Poehler]

But they found out why they do that. Did you know why they do that?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Because they want to make sure you put fake.

[Parker Posey]

They didn't put fake testicles in there.

[Amy Poehler]

Apparently some dogs will have one testicle and they get disqualified. So it's got to be double balls. Who knew?

[Parker Posey]

But then sometimes they would put a fake testicle in there to sort of like. So I just wanted to speak to the people who crafted fake testicles.

[Amy Poehler]

Fake dog testicles. Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Dog shows. What's the application process?

[Amy Poehler]

That's your been in the sequel also.

[Fred Willard]

Why are we shaming dogs with one ball?

[John Michael Higgins]

That's what I was gonna say, Craig. All of these elitist assholes. That's what dog.

[Parker Posey]

Dogs. Yeah. That's what dogs.

[John Michael Higgins]

Let your one elitism bald dog be proud and free. Good Lord.

[Amy Poehler]

Hagen said he's like a big voice guy and he formed. He forms vocal groups on any movie or TV show he does. And he got a good one going on this with. He said Jane was the soprano. Katherine was the alto. I sang tenor. Jean did the bass. You get really bored in the set. Higgins just sounds like an mvp. I thought he was great as Letterman. I love the Late Ship. My favorite TV movie. He's awesome in that.

[Parker Posey]

He did really good. Legend of K. Did incredible voice work for that. He's done like. He's had a really good voice work career, but he should have been in everything.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. He should have talked to Daddy.

[Amy Poehler]

Apex Mountain, the best.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is hard. This is hard.

[Amy Poehler]

I think for Guest it probably is.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think so. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I feel like he had the most juice after this. This movie. Even though it only made 20 million. Fred Butler's tough. Cuz he was in a Show in the 70s with Martin Mole that was like a pretty massive.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Comedy hit. Fernwood something.

[Parker Posey]

What about John Michael Higgins then?

[Amy Poehler]

I think it is.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I think if. If pro. Probably at this point, if somebody mentions a movie to him, it's probably this one, I guess. O'Hara. No, but I don't even know what. I mean. She's.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's almost impossible.

[Amy Poehler]

It's probably home alone.

[Parker Posey]

Beetlejuice.

[Amy Poehler]

I mean, she's the mom. Home alone.

[Parker Posey]

Shit's Creek. Emmys for.

[John Michael Higgins]

I mean, Moira.

[Amy Poehler]

She's the mom at home alone. Like $700 million.

[Parker Posey]

She's the mom.

[John Michael Higgins]

I was thinking about this because Schitt's Creek is one of my favorite. Yeah. She just is.

[Parker Posey]

How many people can compete after hours?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Gez Never on SNL showed up. They hired a new head writer. The guy was acting like crazy person and just went back to Toronto. She was like the second year of Eddie Murphy. John Michael Higgins. Yes. McKen.

[Parker Posey]

No, no, it's not. It's probably Better Call Saul.

[John Michael Higgins]

Saul. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Still haven't watched it.

[Parker Posey]

Which also starred at Bakley junior.

[Amy Poehler]

Jennifer Coolidge.

[John Michael Higgins]

White Lotus.

[Amy Poehler]

I think White Lotus.

[Parker Posey]

It's White Lotus.

[Amy Poehler]

She's doing commercial. She's doing commercials now.

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

White Lotus. I think it's called her to a level of like rediscovered fame and relevance that I. I think is.

[Parker Posey]

But Legally Blonde people imitating her scenes from Legally Blonde is sort of like what made her this sort of figure.

[John Michael Higgins]

You do this sometimes, but she. Coolidge is a rare. Like maybe there is more than one Apex Mountain. Cuz the time gap is so big between them.

[Amy Poehler]

Stiffer's mom was one of the iconic characters. Very important and let. And there was even a song about her, an alternative song that I forget who did that one. But it became.

[Parker Posey]

Not Stacy's Mom.

[Amy Poehler]

No, somebody had Stifler's Mom. I thought that was a Stiffer song. Or was that Stacy's mom?

[Parker Posey]

I think Stacy's mom has got that about Stifler. No, no, I'm mixing up.

[John Michael Higgins]

But maybe there's a Stifler's mom parody set Tuesday.

[Amy Poehler]

I thought Stiffer's mom was in something. Fred Willard. We said no dog shows.

[John Michael Higgins]

Sure, maybe. I mean, I think so. Or the actual Westminster Dog Show.

[Amy Poehler]

Roasting a goat. Definitely. Am Philadelphia. 100% terror songs. Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

Pet People Movies.

[Amy Poehler]

America magazine. Yes. Pet People Movies. Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I think so.

[Amy Poehler]

Jane Lynch. Gotta be Glee, right?

[John Michael Higgins]

It has to be Glee. No question.

[Parker Posey]

Kimonos. Just kidding.

[Amy Poehler]

How about Posey?

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, man.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, that's tough.

[John Michael Higgins]

Hard.

[Amy Poehler]

I feel like part of the frustrating thing about her career is that kind of. There was never an Apex Mountain.

[Parker Posey]

It was always like somewhere in.

[Amy Poehler]

Probably in the mid-90s she was a girl.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

She's unbelievable in this though. Yeah, unbelievable in this.

[Amy Poehler]

She's pretty great at Days of Confused.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, she is.

[Parker Posey]

She's so good at these confused. Guffman. She's great in Guffman.

[Amy Poehler]

It's probably somewhere mid-90s Cruiser. Hanks.

[John Michael Higgins]

Wait, what?

[Parker Posey]

What about Eugene Levy?

[John Michael Higgins]

No, it's Schitt's Creek.

[Amy Poehler]

It's Schitt's Creek. Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Because you also have your. Your kid in the same thing.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

You must get credit for that as.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. I wanted to ask you this.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Because you were a comedy expert.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. Thank you.

[John Michael Higgins]

You're welcome. Comedy ensemble cast.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh. For a movie.

[Parker Posey]

Oh.

[John Michael Higgins]

What do you think? It's at least in the comments, it's.

[Parker Posey]

In the top 10.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

So who. Who's the competition for this Anchorman.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Bridesmaids.

[Amy Poehler]

Bridesmaids. Yeah. It's a bunch of Apatow movies probably.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Trying to think 80s. Oh, shit. You should have texted that one to me. I would have wanted more time on that.

[John Michael Higgins]

80S are tough because I like when Amanda asked you how many fictional movie houses.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, ye.

[John Michael Higgins]

You were enraged.

[Amy Poehler]

I still don't have an answer to that. Such a great question.

[Parker Posey]

Cuz like 80s high school party comedies like have a bunch of heavy.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't feel that I have the expert.

[Amy Poehler]

You got one, Craig.

[Fred Willard]

Honestly, I think Anchorman's a really good one.

[Amy Poehler]

I think it might be Anchorman.

[Fred Willard]

I mean almost every.

[Amy Poehler]

It's like an entire decade of. Of people who either were stars or became stars. It's up there though. Cruiser Hanks. What do you got?

[John Michael Higgins]

Hanks.

[Parker Posey]

Tom Hanks.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Also from Pinet.

[Amy Poehler]

But who does Hanks play?

[John Michael Higgins]

He'd be a great Harlan Pepper and I do think he could do Hamilton Swan on.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think he could have done.

[John Michael Higgins]

Would be. I don't even know.

[Parker Posey]

I take Hanks in the black Jeopardy sketch from SNL and you put him in best in show. You have a great time.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Scorsese or Spielberg?

[Parker Posey]

Spielberg.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, Spielberg. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? I thought this was easy.

[John Michael Higgins]

I did too, actually.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, what do you have?

[John Michael Higgins]

I had Stefan.

[Amy Poehler]

Interesting.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. What did you have?

[Amy Poehler]

I had. I had Parker Posey's husband, Hamilton Swan.

[Parker Posey]

You just want to recap.

[Amy Poehler]

I think he would have been good with her.

[Parker Posey]

I think maybe as much as I loved and Pittick. Trevor Beckwith with an English accent. Yeah. Yeah. That really like that increasing exasperation.

[John Michael Higgins]

That would be really.

[Amy Poehler]

You know, Craig, you get a flex category.

[Fred Willard]

I'm going to go with the Dan Campbell scale for. Holy shit. Are they really going for this right now? And it's when Larry Miller, the guy who plays Max.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Fred Willard]

When he makes cookie hand the Dog off to Gary and then just kisses her right on the mouth in front of everybody. I was like, oh, damn.

[John Michael Higgins]

The cookie storyline, like, dips her.

[Fred Willard]

That's like 4th and 10 in the first. You're like, wow.

[Amy Poehler]

Cookie flick. Cookie picking. Knits.

[John Michael Higgins]

I've again, very hard.

[Amy Poehler]

The utility closet's a reach. That one always jumps out of me. I know they had to do it, but it's kind of.

[Parker Posey]

They also. They drove up in a Winnebago, and it's like, sleep in the winter.

[Amy Poehler]

Can we get room services in here?

[John Michael Higgins]

Great question.

[Parker Posey]

Could you not just sleep in the winter?

[Amy Poehler]

Can we get room service in here? It's like, you have $34. You're not getting room service. What are you getting?

[Parker Posey]

I would say so we get. We get the busy bee in the hotel search.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes.

[Parker Posey]

We get the pet shop scene.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

And she comes back and he's like, you've been gone for 30 minutes and you couldn't find it. I'm like, that she has to have been gone. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

That's good.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. That's a great one. I will posit that Harlan Pepper of nut naming fame does not name that many nuts.

[Amy Poehler]

Sure. You wanted, like, 60 nuts.

[Parker Posey]

Well, that's the thing. Does he say hazelnut? No, no, no.

[John Michael Higgins]

He does. He says peanut, hazelnut, cashew nut, macadamia nut, pine nut, pistachio nut, repastachio nut. Natural, all natural. White pistachio nut. Now, getting three pistachio nuts is impressive, but he leaves walnut on the table. No. Almond? No. Pecan?

[Parker Posey]

No.

[John Michael Higgins]

Brazil nut? No. Chestnut. We're supposed to be impressed with this.

[Parker Posey]

Aren't also technically seeds? I think pine nuts are seeds.

[John Michael Higgins]

This is why you're using.

[Amy Poehler]

I just want to go on the record with Harlem. Harlem Pop. Harlem Pepper.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I didn't. I like the character.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's clear. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

High usage rate was my only point. He's the only solo character.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, you're like, Christopher Guest didn't do a heavy enough edit on himself.

[John Michael Higgins]

Interesting.

[Amy Poehler]

I didn't want to say it, but I'll say it.

[Parker Posey]

Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

You're the point a little bit. Everyone else is playing off somebody else, and he's always just kind of.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, I like a single. A single pet owner there because that relationship is very special. But you're right that he's. Then there's no other high usage rate.

[Amy Poehler]

A couple shots off.

[Parker Posey]

Find out that Christopher Guest is a baron while doing research for this.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes, I did.

[Parker Posey]

Not that he had a seat in the House of Lords.

[John Michael Higgins]

He has a. An official title and so does Jamie Lee Curtis.

[Parker Posey]

She's. He's Baron Hayden Guest, and she's Lady Hayden Guest.

[John Michael Higgins]

Is this not a stat?

[Amy Poehler]

What does that even mean?

[Parker Posey]

His father was, like, the British diplomat to America and had a seat in the House of Lords. And so Christopher Guest. But Christopher Guest is like, I refuse to take the seat until they reform. And then they sort of did a bunch of stuff, and now he doesn't really have a seat anymore. But he's still a baron. He's a baron. I would marry Jimmy Lee Curtis. So he's winning. Stays winning.

[John Michael Higgins]

Christopher, take the seat. Baron Zemo.

[Parker Posey]

You know so many other things.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's a marvel joke for you, Bill.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah, Right over my head. One more picket knit. Are you sure the terrier should have won?

[John Michael Higgins]

All right, so this is a. This is a big talking point.

[Amy Poehler]

Can we really get into this? Was that the best dog? Short legs? It's like, whatever.

[John Michael Higgins]

No, Winky's a great dog. I won't have you just smirch Winky. I'm thinking from, like, the story perspective. What are we. What do we think? We're building. Building toward Hubert. We think we're building toward Hubert now. I think the reason I like the Winky choice, ultimately is because the movie does such a good job of making clear that Hubert is the dog of the future.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like, he will come back and he will make best in show without question. Five star prospect.

[Amy Poehler]

Kind of like Lamar Jackson Craig.

[John Michael Higgins]

We almost made it through a whole podcast without Bill being mean to me about the Ravens for no reason.

[Amy Poehler]

Hubert won three MVPs but never pulled off the dog show.

[Parker Posey]

Doesn't Jerry. Doesn't Jerry need a win after having been cuckolded the entire movie?

[John Michael Higgins]

That's why I think Winky is ultimately the choice. It's because it's just as much a Cookie Jerry family victory as it is a Winky victory. And they're so happy. They really need it. They were staying in the utility closet.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. That's fair. I just didn't. I didn't like that.

[John Michael Higgins]

Now they're celebrities because they got to do three radio interviews.

[Parker Posey]

Hubert winner.

[Amy Poehler]

I think it's a solid point. He was a year away.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

He's only two, too. Not great dog shows ahead of them. Sequel. Prequel. Prestige tv. All Black Caster. Untouchable. The Cookie Fleck prequel.

[John Michael Higgins]

No, my.

[Amy Poehler]

Sounds amazing.

[Parker Posey]

Oh, yeah. The sex. The. The sex. Cookie.

[John Michael Higgins]

Holy cookie.

[Amy Poehler]

In, like, 1982. Just running AM. Hey, girl. It's like fast times the Ridgeb high multiplied by 80.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God. The roller coaster episode.

[Parker Posey]

The wait.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, man.

[Amy Poehler]

And a lot of friends. Is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson. No. Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview long legs.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, man.

[Amy Poehler]

Or Wilford Brimley in the Firm. He's got two left features.

[John Michael Higgins]

I'm sad that Chris is not here to do Romo as one of the commentators. That's like.

[Amy Poehler]

I actually have a better option than that, though. But you guys go.

[Parker Posey]

I genuinely think Danny Trejo could kill in this film.

[Amy Poehler]

Interesting. Because he hasn't done that much comedy.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah. But, like, when he does, he kind of crushes. And I think he could just, like, take it really seriously, which is what Christopher Guest asked them to do.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

And I think he could actually kill in this.

[Amy Poehler]

I was thinking Sam Jackson. Maybe not in this, but in the sequel. But there's a Sam Jackson character that I think would be pretty great.

[Parker Posey]

What kind of dog?

[Amy Poehler]

I don't know.

[Parker Posey]

Okay.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't know. We could go. Because one thing. With the dogs in this movie, there weren't enough bigger dogs.

[Parker Posey]

It was like, a whole category.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. I just wish we had.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Because sometimes they'll have, like, freaking Great Danes and, like, giant ones. Like, I wonder.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

I don't know. I thought Sam could have done good, though.

[John Michael Higgins]

I would really enjoy the version of this movie.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, Wayne Jenkins, Philadelphia.

[John Michael Higgins]

Where Wayne Jenkins just takes the Amtrak up from Baltimore and he's there with his rottweiler. And he would get into the most memorable fight with Hamilton Swan.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Backstage. Can you imagine Wayne Jenkins having to escort Hamilton Swan out of the arena? I just think that would be an absolute thrill after the ealing with super handler.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah. You better go find Bisbee right now. You'll be long for a long time. Just one Oscar. Who gets it?

[Parker Posey]

Christopher Guest. Are we just talking performance? Are we talking about, like, be anything you want?

[John Michael Higgins]

So would you do it for directing?

[Parker Posey]

He wrote and directed this movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

I think screenplay has to be, like, ineligible, though, because of what we know about the. The improv.

[Fred Willard]

Best editing.

[Parker Posey]

Best editing. Editing. Christopher Guest. Craig, great call.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's a good one, man. You're riding that Sean Baker high right now. I know you are.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

I. I want to make the case for Katherine O'Hara. I think that. What. Because there are so many extreme performances in the movie, I think she is actually doing something. It's all relative, of course, but kind of understated compared to a lot of the other really heightened caricatures. And it is you're saying that with a perfect.

[Parker Posey]

You're saying that as a. With a straight face after watching her wobble her knees.

[John Michael Higgins]

That would be the clip they'd play at the Oscars.

[Parker Posey]

Do.

[Amy Poehler]

I'm going to give you the best actress in a supporting role for that year.

[John Michael Higgins]

Please.

[Amy Poehler]

Our winner was Marcia Gay Harden and Pollock, which is.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, okay.

[Amy Poehler]

Travesty. Judy Den. Judy Dench and Chuck A lot.

[Parker Posey]

That was a Weinstein special.

[Amy Poehler]

Kate Hudson, Almost Famous.

[Parker Posey]

It was Kate's year.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Julie Walters, Billy Elliot and the person I think should have won1. Francis McDormand and Almost Famous.

[Parker Posey]

Frances McDormand has so many Oscars. That was unbelievable.

[Amy Poehler]

And Almost Famous.

[Parker Posey]

She is. Of course she is. Rockstar said Kidnapped My son.

[John Michael Higgins]

Have you two talked about Almost Famous together?

[Parker Posey]

We've. A little bit. He knows that.

[Amy Poehler]

You'd go with Kate over Francis McDormand in that film.

[Parker Posey]

Penny Lane. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Kate Edson's great.

[John Michael Higgins]

You can't do that. Rewatchables without Juliet. She will never forgive you. Just get them both together.

[Parker Posey]

The first time I ever talked to Bill about anything, you were at home and you had Almost Famous, like, ephemera behind you. You had, like, still water stuff behind you.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

And I was talking about Almost Famous and you said to me, you could never do Almost Famous on rewatchables because it would be the end of the feed. Be the end of your team because people would quit if they weren't on that.

[Amy Poehler]

We might have to just do two or three different pods just released all at the same time.

[John Michael Higgins]

Like the heat reading.

[Amy Poehler]

Like an alternate broadcast cast when they have, like, different announcing teams.

[Parker Posey]

France and Almost Famous is incredible. But I have this thing where, like, if someone already has an Oscar but she hadn't won.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, she's won one at that.

[John Michael Higgins]

So example, for example, Timothy Shalam should have won instead of Adrien Brody.

[Parker Posey]

Absolutely correct. But, like, that was a pivot point in Kate's career. If she had won the Oscar that year.

[Amy Poehler]

A pivot point to do romcoms.

[Parker Posey]

No, but I'm saying she wouldn't have had to do romcoms. She could have continued to do. She could have continued to do incredible things.

[Amy Poehler]

Like the Four Feathers enjoyed a lot of Kate's work. I just thought the mom's amazing in that movie. I mean, she's like, every moment she's in that movie, she's.

[John Michael Higgins]

What a film. Great one. Who are you picking for your Oscar?

[Amy Poehler]

Russell Hammond. I'm thinking Fred Willard.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

For best supporting actor. But I really like the. The I like your. Your. Your. That O'Hara takes really good. I almost want to switch my pick.

[Parker Posey]

I'm with Craig.

[Amy Poehler]

Best actor, supporting role that year was Del Toro, one for Traffic. Jeff Bridges for the Contender. Who's great. Who is, like, the perfect president? Willem Defoe, Shadow the Vampire. Albert Finney. Aaron Brockovich. He's really good in that. And then Phoenix and Gladiator. Which tougher. Tougher category to cr.

[John Michael Higgins]

Boy, that's a crowded field right there.

[Amy Poehler]

I like. I like your. I think Miles. Right, right.

[Parker Posey]

I think that's the Catherine O'Hara.

[John Michael Higgins]

I did the. The math I did with myself was Catherine O'Hara for Oscar, and not to spoil it, but Willard for who won the movie. So instead of the Oscar, the case for. I do think you could argue Catherine O'Hara again for that and Parker Posey for that, honestly.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, you also have to do the who else could have played these people? Right game.

[John Michael Higgins]

Right.

[Amy Poehler]

And I think those are the two that I think are like. I don't think anyone else could do what they do in the movie.

[Parker Posey]

I think Levy, too. Eugene Levy.

[Amy Poehler]

Like, that's true.

[Parker Posey]

And Parker Posey. Parker Posy, and Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's true.

[Parker Posey]

Like, it's just really hard to.

[John Michael Higgins]

Their wars are all so hot.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

It's a great movie.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's one of your favorite baseball stats.

[Parker Posey]

Yep.

[Amy Poehler]

Probably unanswerable questions.

[John Michael Higgins]

Boy, this is a fun one.

[Amy Poehler]

What was Fred Willard's character's name? Buck Laughlin.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Was he one of the first. Me toos, you think? First. First win.

[Parker Posey]

I mean, Fred Willard himself had his own.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, did he? I forgot that part.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, man.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God.

[Amy Poehler]

Posey. So Posey posits this in the oral history about how she wore all these capes and cloaks and beiges and all the colors that felt and looked like Beatrice as the movie went on. That's what's so fun about the movie, is how people are like their dogs and they look like their dogs. And she goes. I mean, Coolidge is like a poodle. Do you believe people start to look like their dogs? Unanswerable question.

[Parker Posey]

I do. But more importantly, I think people tend to gravitate towards dogs that match. I think it's that vibe and energy.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. They pick the dog that reminds them of them in the first place. Because people are inherently narcissistic.

[Parker Posey]

Correct.

[Amy Poehler]

You think that's what it is?

[John Michael Higgins]

Definitely, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Because that really.

[Parker Posey]

I mean, your energy.

[Amy Poehler]

No, but I'm just used to golden retrievers because that's what My dad always had, but I don't know that that's really no other reason.

[Parker Posey]

You do occasionally have golden retriever energy. Look how happy you were when I just said that. And you were like, I do.

[Amy Poehler]

They're great dogs.

[John Michael Higgins]

Beloved by all.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

What would be a bad energy dog?

[John Michael Higgins]

Great mane. Bad energy dog. I think scholars are great.

[Amy Poehler]

Wow.

[John Michael Higgins]

Joanna was ready to just send a stray towards the schnauz schnauzer community.

[Amy Poehler]

See, little dogs will never have another little dog. I don't like the barker, but I don't like the bark.

[Parker Posey]

A yipping yippee bark is like.

[Amy Poehler]

It's like a mouth. Golden Zard. Cool. Although we have one of the only, like, semi unfriendly goldens ever right now. But co dogs.

[Parker Posey]

Goldens have a lot of, like, hair that gets everywhere. How do you manage that?

[Amy Poehler]

That's true. We comb.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

The English. The English goldens are a little better.

[Parker Posey]

Less hairy.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Interesting.

[Parker Posey]

Everyone I know who has a golden, like their. Their furniture or their cars are just like covered in fur all the time.

[Amy Poehler]

You got to stay on it. Any other probably answerables for you?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, a few. Yeah. I'd like to ask you for the Vegas odds. How heavy of a favorite was Rhapsody.

[Amy Poehler]

And White heading into this, like minus 400 on FanDuel. Two time winner, minus Armada behind her Money, behind Christy Cummings, best trainer in the country.

[Parker Posey]

They're. They're heavy fan. They're schmoozing with the judges.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's my next unanswerable question. So Buck says, let me ask you this. Money ever exchange hands? Trevor is of course offended and wounded by this, but we saw Christie try to wine and dine.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Milbank. So did Money. Well, they exchange hands.

[Parker Posey]

No, because Milbank was like holding the line.

[John Michael Higgins]

But ever. Do you think Christy ever.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, they throw the party every year.

[Parker Posey]

Which is all kind of.

[John Michael Higgins]

It is. It is.

[Amy Poehler]

Ice thing.

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

So did someone sabotage cook Cookie with the carpet? Did somebody put something down?

[Amy Poehler]

You know, I rewound that a couple times.

[Parker Posey]

That fall comes out of nowhere.

[Amy Poehler]

It's a borderline nitpick because it's like it's. She doesn't even trip on anything.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay. All right. So you think that was pure, not sabotage. Great. How many tapes did Jerry and Cookie sell? You think they're on anybody? Spotify? Wrapped in the future?

[Amy Poehler]

I don't, no.

[John Michael Higgins]

You don't think it made it big? Do you think Scott and Stefan made it big with the calendar? Business.

[Parker Posey]

Business.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes, I think so. I think that's a home run.

[Parker Posey]

Especially if in the future they did other people's pets. Like you can put your own pet in a calendar. That's the business.

[John Michael Higgins]

What a great idea.

[Parker Posey]

That's the business.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God. So they give you the filter or the shell.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

You can put your pets in the cow. Oh, my God. That's a billion dollar idea right there.

[Parker Posey]

I'm sure it exists.

[John Michael Higgins]

If it doesn't get on it right after this. That's a great one. Did American Bitch last into the digital era?

[Amy Poehler]

I had a Cookie tapes thing, though. I think she was on some tape tapes. They just weren't music tapes.

[Parker Posey]

Yep.

[Amy Poehler]

I think there was some vintage stuff from the 80s that she would be very proud of. It couldn't have been more pleased that there.

[Parker Posey]

She'd be very proud of it.

[Amy Poehler]

Some of her best work.

[Parker Posey]

There's actually a Moira Rose plot.

[John Michael Higgins]

I love that.

[Parker Posey]

That sounds great.

[John Michael Higgins]

Oh, my God. We talked about already. But did Beatrice thrive without the swans? I like to think she did. I like to think that Beatrice went on and lived a full life.

[Parker Posey]

Bill thinks she went to the farm.

[John Michael Higgins]

I don't. I don't like that. What was Cookie's actual number? That's my last one for unanswerable questions.

[Parker Posey]

You know, she said hundreds.

[John Michael Higgins]

Hundreds. Do we think that's like.

[Amy Poehler]

Said hundreds twice?

[John Michael Higgins]

350 people.

[Amy Poehler]

Like, how old was Cookie? Do we think in her 40s? 42, 43?

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And how long do we think she'd been with Jerry?

[Parker Posey]

Oh, it was like 8 or 10.

[John Michael Higgins]

They met at a dance.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

So she early 30s. So that gives her about 15 years. Yeah, possibly 15 years.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Go like 50 a year. So we're in like the 600 range.

[John Michael Higgins]

That sounds low to me.

[Amy Poehler]

50 a year.

[Parker Posey]

So what do you think of this?

[Amy Poehler]

But which. She's in a small town, though. At some point you're gonna run out.

[Parker Posey]

But the fact that she's like, running into people, she's made her way around the country.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't think we're limiting this to state borders.

[Amy Poehler]

All right. If it's.

[Parker Posey]

You think it's a thousand. You think she had.

[Amy Poehler]

It's 75 a year for 15 years. That gets us to a thousand, and I love that.

[John Michael Higgins]

Good for her. She's living a great life and I'm thrilled for her.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, it sounds like she had like a. Like a trick. She had like a calling card. You never forget the legs behind the.

[John Michael Higgins]

She was a memorable. Yeah, a memorable sexual encounter. That's clear. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

But then, you know, Jerry Fleck Locked it down.

[John Michael Higgins]

Locked it down.

[Amy Poehler]

It's kind of a Casanova himself.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

What piece of memorabilia would you want or not not want from this movie? It's clearly busy be. If I brought Busy bean right now and said I bought it from an auction nine years ago, you'd have a stroke.

[John Michael Higgins]

I die.

[Parker Posey]

If it's not Busy Bee, it might be the traveling quilts that they nail up behind their bed in the hotel room. They're only there for two nights, and they brought their quilt from home to hang out behind the bed.

[Amy Poehler]

There's one other thing. The. The giant framed American.

[John Michael Higgins]

I thought you were going to pick that. Yeah. American the dog magazine. Women and their dogs.

[Amy Poehler]

Great title.

[Parker Posey]

So good. Also, anything in. In the swan household. Everything they have there is, like, from the Sharper Image catalog. So any of the vintage Sharper Image items in there, the massage chair, something like that. The kickboxing dummy that you pointed out.

[John Michael Higgins]

Very alarming. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Coach Finstock award for best life lesson. I mean, there's a lesson which is we need more mockumentaries. The life lesson would be, hey, even if you have two left feet, oh, there's hope in sight.

[Parker Posey]

That's really sweet.

[John Michael Higgins]

I like that.

[Amy Poehler]

I was gonna never know when you're needed in a dog show.

[John Michael Higgins]

If you get the chance to cookie Google men, you better do it.

[Parker Posey]

What about always have a backup of your pet or child's favorite toy?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. Don't leave home without.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, that's really especially going to a dog multiple busy.

[John Michael Higgins]

You can never pack too many kimonos.

[Parker Posey]

Correct.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's another life lesson.

[Parker Posey]

Yes, certainly.

[Amy Poehler]

We have this wishbone toy for Murph, and we have like, nine of them. Go.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

And sometimes they'll just triple down on the wishbones.

[John Michael Higgins]

We do that with Halo's minstick, too. Cannot risk running out of a minstick.

[Amy Poehler]

My.

[Parker Posey]

My youngest cousin had this, like, puffy, and there were like, nine different puffies, and they were all bedraggled because it.

[Amy Poehler]

Turns out pets are dumb and they don't know there's multiple versions of.

[John Michael Higgins]

That is not true.

[Amy Poehler]

Best double feature choice.

[Parker Posey]

Why don't make it a. A marathon Do Waiting for Guffman.

[Amy Poehler]

I had gu. I think you go, guys. Here.

[John Michael Higgins]

I like that it's just two. I I. If we're allowed to mix movies and tv, I would like to go from this right into a shit's creek. Rewatch.

[Amy Poehler]

But we're not allowed. Who won the movie?

[John Michael Higgins]

I I can't decide between.

[Parker Posey]

I think it's Higgins.

[John Michael Higgins]

Higgins Posy Oharon. Willard. I just can't decide. They're all incredible.

[Amy Poehler]

It's H. For me, it's Higgins or Willard, but I think it's Willard because he's more known for how good he was in the movie than Hagen's is. Higgins is like the stealth. I've seen this movie so many times. Choice.

[Fred Willard]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

But Willard's like. People kind of know this.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, that's true.

[Amy Poehler]

You know what I mean?

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Like, if you see clips from this movie, it's. It's him.

[Fred Willard]

Or.

[Amy Poehler]

Or it's somebody mentioning him.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

All right. Big moment. Producer Craig. He's missed a couple. He's been traveling. He's busy.

[Parker Posey]

And this is your busy bee. Oh, and this is your first time watching it.

[Fred Willard]

That's right. Yeah. This is one of Liz's favorite movies. And I. I don't know. I can't believe I missed the best in show wave. I don't know why. I've always known about it. I've always been circling it. Very happy I got to watch it. I mean, I thought it was hilarious. Every character is worthy of their own movie. Honestly, you could have a spin off for every single character. One thing I think this comedy does really well that most don't is third acts of comedies are usually the worst part of every comedy movie, and it's the exact opposite in this film. I think it actually builds suspense sense and stays funny, which is incredibly hard, especially with improv. And I think in general with improv, I think it's definitely the purest form of comedy. And watching it work is better than watching something scripted work. It's like I was telling Joe and Mal earlier, it's like sports, where watching professionals play sports is like watching professionals do improv, where the amateur version of it is truly unwatchable. Like, bad improv is terrible, but good improv is better than scripted comedy, in my opinion. So I absolutely love this. I do worry about. As Mal pointed out, I am 30, I'm not 20, so I don't really represent Gen Z. But Bill, I kind of think this comedy's for adults, not because of necessarily the subject matter, but I don't know the 15 year old. I think a 15 year old would like Anchorman. I don't know if a 15 year old would like this movie, and I don't even really know why.

[Amy Poehler]

I think you're right. It's a little bit more mature.

[Fred Willard]

Yeah, but it's not even the subject matter. I mean, it's pg.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Fred Willard]

But for some reason, I don't know if it translates down to, like, teens.

[Amy Poehler]

The only thing I worried about it was whether. Because the dog community is so weird and in so many different places on social media now, it's like, people have a better handle on it.

[Parker Posey]

So this movie seems less weirdness.

[Amy Poehler]

This movie seems less weird if you just are on Instagram reels for an hour.

[Fred Willard]

I just also, this movie made $20 million in America in the year 2000 with no big star in it, which is just like 20 million is more than a Nora or a brutalist made domestically.

[Amy Poehler]

Is that true?

[Fred Willard]

Yeah.

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[Amy Poehler]

Oh, my God.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's wild.

[Fred Willard]

That's unbelievable.

[Amy Poehler]

That's great. Did you have any Rocky thoughts while you're here?

[Fred Willard]

I mean, I love Rocky. I've seen it a million times. I do think it's like Austin Powers one, though, where when you go back and watch it, you're like, wow, this is way slower than I remember it being in my head. And 2, 3, and 4 actually move Bitcoin.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[Fred Willard]

Also, this movie is the greatest that guy movie of all time. I think. Best in Show. It's hall of Fame. Because I think, as you know, I think your guys's bar for who qualifies as a that guy is way too fucking high. Like, Ed Begley is a. That guy. Like, every normal person in the world is. Does not know it's Ed Begley. Come on, you guys. John Michael Higgins. Fred Willard.

[Amy Poehler]

John Michael Higgins. Isn't that kind of.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fred Willard]

I would. Even the average person, I would say, could not just immediately name Catherine Oak O'Hara.

[John Michael Higgins]

That is not true. That's not true.

[Parker Posey]

After she.

[Fred Willard]

We work at the ringer. We work at the ringer after normal people.

[Parker Posey]

That's not true.

[Fred Willard]

Maybe, maybe.

[Amy Poehler]

Well, no, he's making it. He's. It's a fair case that normal people.

[Parker Posey]

No, not after Shit's Creek. No. Eugene Levy.

[John Michael Higgins]

One of the most popular, beloved shows of the last decade.

[Amy Poehler]

But when this movie came out. When this movie came out.

[John Michael Higgins]

Okay, Just that everybody was.

[Parker Posey]

That guy came out. Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Everybody was in that guy in this movie.

[Parker Posey]

Yes.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah. I don't know, but we are recording this podcast in 2025.

[Fred Willard]

I just always love when it's like, is Bob Balaban or that guy? No, he's Bob Balaban. I'm like, there's no normal person who's like, that's Boban.

[Parker Posey]

I love Bob. Oh, man. Severance Star Balaban.

[John Michael Higgins]

It's valuable, too.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[Fred Willard]

All these people are bad guys. Wait, there's one more thing. I saw, like, researching this movie. Did you know that Ariana Grande is a massive fan of this film attracts.

[Amy Poehler]

Really?

[Fred Willard]

She did a YouTube parody with her friend and co star from the TV show she was on. Was it Victorious? I forget the name of it.

[Parker Posey]

Cat and something, right?

[Fred Willard]

Oh, maybe it was that one. But they do a 10 minute remake like a Recreation where she plays Jennifer Coolidge because she can obviously do that impression. And she also plays Jerry and her co star plays Cookie and Max. And it's hilarious. And it made me think that there should be a full remake of this movie with a completely different plot in younger new actors.

[John Michael Higgins]

How dare you.

[Fred Willard]

It wouldn't be about a dog show. It's just like Christopher Guest doing something like this again with a. Like we should be ushering in a new young cast.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yes.

[Parker Posey]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

To try something like this, that would be great.

[Amy Poehler]

But a remake, well, it's a re.

[Fred Willard]

Like in the universe.

[Amy Poehler]

In the universe.

[John Michael Higgins]

I would like that. I would like a. I would like to. To be in the world, but also to check in with the characters. Like, what are the flex up to?

[Parker Posey]

I mean, I would love. Later.

[John Michael Higgins]

Yeah.

[Fred Willard]

Oh, see, I don't want that. I. I hate the rehashing.

[Parker Posey]

No, but what if we did like Cobra Kai style? What if we did best in Show 2, Cookie Flex and mature porn. But like our original cast members could be around.

[Fred Willard]

Maybe Cookie and Jerry run the dog show or something.

[John Michael Higgins]

Exactly.

[Amy Poehler]

Yeah.

[John Michael Higgins]

The Cobra Kai comp is a great last question.

[Fred Willard]

Yeah.

[Amy Poehler]

Did. Who is Liz Kelly's favorite character in this movie?

[Fred Willard]

Who did she laugh at the most? I would say Catherine O'Hara hurting her knee was up there. And then honestly, we both died at Max berating his son on the shed.

[Parker Posey]

Just me alone on this island. That's fine.

[Amy Poehler]

It's just so good.

[Fred Willard]

That guy's the perfect kid cast for that role.

[Amy Poehler]

All right, that's it for the rewatch produced by Craig Horbeck. You can watch as a video on Spotify. You can watch that. The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can see these two in House of R. Yeah. And on Prestige.

[John Michael Higgins]

That's right.

[Amy Poehler]

White Lotus. As we're taping this. So this will run on Mondays. There have been four. Four episodes heading toward a monster fifth episode on our show we like very much. Thanks, guys. See.