Transcript of ‘Animal House’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan New

The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find The Watch with Chris Ryan. What are you watching these days, CR?

Widow's Bay.

Oh, I can't— I couldn't— just hasn't taken for me.

One of the best shows of the year. And really? Oh yeah. And then I'm, I'm riding Euphoria out to the finish.

Me too.

Yeah.

Have I done my Rue impression for you yet?

No, better than I thought it was going to be. Nice job.

Craig's here as well, and we're joined by special guest Murph. It's a 3-man pod. Hey Murph, uh, been waiting for this one for a long time. Yeah, one of the most influential comedies ever. The last one we're doing for Netflix Is a Joke Month. It is still on Netflix. Animal House is next. See, uh, hard to explain what this movie meant in the '80s. We just didn't have a lot of comedies. It's the only comedy about college, um, probably had 6, 7, 8 you would just rewatch over and over again. The lines, it reached the point, the famous lines from this movie. And then there's like a whole separate subsection of lines from this movie that you could just do shorthand with people. And I think this comedy had as big of an influence as any comedy that has come out in the last 50 years.

Animal House, almost like it's got like a crater where it landed and it starts all these different microgenres. It kickstarts these careers. Basically launches like 3 different filmmakers into the world with Reitman, Ramis, and Landis had already worked, obviously. But like, it's, it's importance almost dwarfs its like entertainment sometimes. But I, I still really like enjoy having it on a lot.

What was the movie you said is like putting on an old sweatshirt?

Uh, Ghostbusters.

Yeah. I, I feel that way about Animal House.

Yeah.

I've just seen it so many times. I know every section of it. It's got Belushi, who's Who's right here, actually. One of my favorites of all time.

You know what I wanted to ask you about was what kind of relationship you had to National Lampoon as, like, an institution outside of just the Hughes movies and this.

Only knew it from Animal House, from all the people that kind of went on, and then from reading the books about it. You know, once you started reading the— like, even the Bob Woodward book about Belushi, the Saturday Night Live book that came out in '84, '85. Just in general, I had no idea until I started reading how impactful it was. I didn't know as a kid.

It's just kind of fascinating because, you know, it's not dissimilar from a lot of, um, upstart media stories that you read about from the last 20 years. Like, it's not that much different than Vice in some ways or something, where it starts out as this, like, small-time production house or, you know, like, magazine based out of Harvard and then branches out into all these different things and takes advantage of corporations looking for, basically, for lack of a better term, content at the time.

It's like Grantland, just these little underdogs. Yeah. Oh no, we work for ESPN. It's a before-after for comedy movies. Just felt like Blazing Saddles was what, '74, '75 range. This movie comes out and it leads to two different eras because you have the rambunctious comedy era. Right? That's Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Blues Brothers, Airplane, Stripes. Like, big stars, big set pieces. Just felt like it was for everybody who was 20 and older in the '70s. And then people like us who were growing up after jumping in. But it also ushered in the raunchy comedy era.

Sex comedy. Yeah.

Which then Porky's really capitalized on. But we've talked about that in the past.

Revenge of the Nerds.

Yeah. Zapped. Class losing it. This was like a whole cottage industry. So it spawned two separate industries of comedy.

It also pretty much invents the modern college comedy.

Yeah.

Which maybe doesn't even really, like, take flight until the '90s. Like, I grew up with Kicking and Screaming.

Yeah.

Everybody Wants Some is later, but PCU was a big one for me. Like, that is a really reliable subgenre of comedy.

I feel like it was the first college movie. I'm sure there were others, but this is the first one I can really think of that I saw where it was like, is this what it's like to go to college?

Yeah. Did you think that?

Kind of, yeah. I was, I was on a text thread last night with, uh, two of my best friends from high school went to Colgate.

Okay.

And they were in a frat in Colgate with two of my other friends who became good friends. And we were just texting about this movie and how much, like, they had seen Animal House for years, and when they went into college in the late '80s, it was like, I want to be in a frat. You're just making the Animal House jokes as you're in the frat.

Yeah.

And that's just kind of how the '80s went. I have some takes on this later, but this movie was like, someday I'll go to college and I'll be like the Animal House guys. It's hard to explain.

That's how I felt about high school with Ferris Bueller, where where I was just like, I'm going to go to high school, I'm going to have my own room, which I did. I was only a child, but I'm going to have this universe within my room, and these are going to be my friends. But one day, I'm just going to have the coolest day ever in high school when I'm cutting class.

Craig, you're later than us. There's a million college movies that are out by then, right?

Less than you'd think, though.

It's mostly high school more than college. Yeah, like old school. And it's usually like, that's like Neighbors, but those are more like plays on adults interacting with college less than college kids themselves.

Yeah.

So when you watch this movie, first of all, the movie takes place in 1962.

Yes.

Well, this now feels like a kajillion years ago.

Crucial kind of thing that they did, which was made a movie about when I think honestly the writers were like, this is when America had its innocence, is like before Kennedy, uh, Kennedy assassination, but before Vietnam, before Watergate, before everything. Very, very, very, very like aggressive modern sensibility of, like, raunch, you know?

Yeah.

And so they, like, they infuse it basically with, like, late '70s debauchery, but it's about, like, when everything was still innocent.

So they catch lightning in the bottle when this movie comes out. They film it in late '77, comes out summer of '78. SNL is on at that— SNL is the biggest it's ever going to be because this movie comes out, makes Belushi an even bigger star. You have all this National Lampoon stuff happening where all these people— it was like this comedy factory. Now they're all going out and getting hired by Hollywood. You have the '70s comedy movement in general, which is happening on two separate coasts, right? And this is like the Letterman, Seinfeld, Jay Leno. All these people are in LA too. And then you have young people pushing against old people, which is a thing that's happening all through the '70s. And finally trickles into comedy with Saturday Night Live and some other stuff. And just kind of people lampooning people older than them, pushing the envelope, trying to be raunchy, trying to offend people.

There's one more thing.

Let's go.

You're starting to get late '50s and early '60s nostalgia because of American Graffiti and Happy Days. So it's people who are probably in their late 30s or early 40s thinking about when they were kids and the music that was on and the way people dressed and the different archetypes of people that were around.

Why can't that come back?

Well, it does. I mean, we just do it for the '90s now, or we do it for the early 2000s.

Are we doing it correctly for the late '90s? It feels like we should be nostalgic for pre-social media and what life was like.

Yeah, I think that's due soon. Like, we're kind of like— there is like a kind of early 2000s, like, you know, like that era, like nostalgia going on. And we'll probably have a—

There you go, Craig. You're coming back.

I mean, people are wearing corded headphones again because it's cool and nostalgic.

And I never stopped.

You never stopped.

But you also knew people would circle back around.

Ben said that everybody likes the Strokes now and stuff like that, that are his age. Like, that's, that's another sign of that kind of thing.

People are dressing like the '90s again.

It runs into cycles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You could see it a little bit with the, with the JFK Carolyn Bassett too, with the early '90s. Sure. People going backwards. But it seems like music, there's a huge nostalgia movement now for that early 2000s stuff that we loved.

Yep.

And then the comedies is the other one, mainly because we're not making comedies the same way we have, which we've talked about a million times. But that whole, that whole Apatow generation run and then the late '90s stuff, I feel like is as big as ever. So many running lines from this movie. And I think there's like levels of this, right? These are lines that just have become part of like the lexicon. We're in like in my everyday life from college on. Like, um, when, when, uh, Flounder comes in, he's like, you guys playing cards? That was something we would just say. And you, you knew somebody was doing a Flounder. Um, Major League Yabos. We called boobs yabos in college because this movie.

I had that. What's, what's aged the best?

And that foot is me. That was another one. You would just do it. Um, Thank you, sir. May I have another? The toga, toga. Like, anytime, like, should we have a party Friday night and just be like, even though you weren't having a toga party. Yeah. Like, toga.

My parents used to make double secret probation jokes.

That was, that was, this movie probably created that.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. But there were stealth ones too. Like, wait till, wait till Otis sees us. He loves us. You just throw that one out. Otis, my man. When we had Otis Nixon on the Red Sox, there was like a whole bunch of Otis, my man jokes, because everyone knew Animal House.

There's one that I actually— from that, the Dexter scene that I really like is when Peter Riker, I think, says, you girls come here often.

He's great in this movie, by the way. Um, you mind if we dance with your dates? Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, sir, is— was the one that became the biggest one, along with, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Yeah, he's on a roll. Keep him going. Um, Niedermayer dead became another famous one. And then, um, then the remain calm, all is well. But I mean, I just listed— that's 12 lines from this, and they really did become part of the way people talked. It's hard to explain.

There's also, um, I think I was watching the, uh, Chandler Levack movie Roommates a couple weeks ago, the Netflix thing.

20-year-old.

It's basically this. It's basically Animal House, you know what I mean? Like the idea of like taking a really good formative setting in someone's life and doing it more in like a vignette style and having a lot of gags within gags within gags. And I think that there's a way that this is like, this movie feels like magazine articles in a way, or it feels like paging through a magazine. It doesn't feel like disconnected sketches. One scene influences the next scene necessarily. And that is like kind of like Kentucky Fried Movie. It's kind of like SNL and Lemmings and the other things that they were doing around. It's like Monty Python. It's very much like out of sketch and out of magazine writing.

Yeah. And it's funny that all these people kind of indirectly or directly knew each other from the '70s, these comedy people. And it didn't matter, like they know each other from Second City, Groundlings, Lemmings, SNL. Um, they went to college together at Harvard. Um, and they were all kind of interconnected. Like, in this movie, Landis didn't know any of these guys. John Landis, this is his first big movie. Harold Ramis, it's his first big credit. And he knew— I think he was the one that knew Belushi from Second City. So he was like, we gotta have Belushi as Bluto. Ivan Reitman's first big movie ever. Another one. He might be taking the producer lead for us.

Reitman.

Yeah, yeah, this is like at least his 6th or 7th.

I would bet Bruckheimer's number 1.

Bruckheimer. Yeah, you're right, Bruckheimer's probably one. Um, Belushi's first mainstream movie. We'll talk about him a second. Kevin Bacon and Karen Allen. Karen Allen about to go on a—

just a— she must have been Raiders.

Yeah, yeah, meteoric rise for her. Uh, Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, Tom Hulce.

Yep.

Bruce McGill like just became a different human being like 20 years later.

Yeah, he became like, like the legendary middle-aged character actor. Wipe that smirk off your face.

You wouldn't, you would have no idea he was D-Day in this. I have a lot of Tim Matheson thoughts later. And then Stephen Furst is Flounder. And then Maggie from Caddyshack, who I can't wait to talk about later.

Is that the 13-year-old? Yeah. Yeah.

And then randomly just 3 Donald Sutherland scenes for no real reason.

Yeah. And it sounds like they basically needed him to like get the movie made. He kind of had to, uh, it's like imagine a world where Donald Sutherland is like, I'll do it. That's what gets it over the hump.

I was trying to think of the equivalent now to that, which would be like if, I don't know, you just got like Ryan Reynolds or somebody. Probably need to make this.

I don't know if they're there.

No, but it's somebody at that level. He was famous enough that it was a big deal he was in the movie. All right, so Belushi only received $35,000, paid a bonus after it became a hit. Created the character as a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster. I don't know the Harpo, but I don't remember Harpo Marx's work.

You never did Marx Brothers?

No. Was he like the crazy one?

I always associated a lot of this comedy stuff with Stooges. Like a lot of the, like, that kind of stuff.

Big exaggerated, because he was doing comedy on stage forever and you had to do a lot of dramatic. Did you ever see anybody who ended up becoming famous in a Groundlings or a Lemmings or anything like that? Second City?

Um, in New York, like, back in the day, I saw Human Giant, which is Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer's group. Yeah.

So I saw— I was dating a girl who moved to Chicago, and we went to Second City, and Horatio Sanz really was on the cast. And I don't— he, I don't— he hadn't made SNL yet, but was just clearly really funny, right? And was like— and then when he went to SNL, I was like, that was the guy we saw in Chicago. Um, And then the other one, a little different. But when the first year I was working for Jimmy's show, he used to have Zach Galifianakis on all the time. He had like this fake character. He— we all loved him. We thought he was like a genius. And he, he would come on. I think he used to play his brother Seth. He had this fake brother.

Yeah.

And, uh, but we would always like pitch stuff like, we got to get this and Zach. And but no, you know, he wasn't famous at all. And then he became Zach Galifianakis.

You know, one of my favorite bits reading about Animal House was, was reading about Landis going on Carson, I think. Was it Landis who went on Carson? And he did, like, a movie called Schlock. But Carson liked it and, like, just was like, I'm going to have this guy on the— and he does, like, a great performance on Carson.

Really?

Yeah. But, like, the idea that you could go on Letterman or go on Carson and nobody knew who you were, but if he liked you and he had you on 3 times, people were like, that's a guy now, you know?

Like, That's what I try to do with my podcast, Craig. Yeah. Yeah. When somebody comes on, it's like a papal blessing.

Papal blessing. I feel like the modern version of seeing Horatio Sands do improv or something like that is now it's like being a fan of somebody's comedy YouTube channel, and then, like, 3 years later, they're in a movie or on SNL.

I remember Veronica, who's on SNL.

Yeah, Veronica. Slowaska.

I remember Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney. We used to love their YouTube channel, Good Neighbor Stuff. And then, like, 4 years later, they were on SNL. We're like, holy shit.

Yeah, that is the equivalent. So, '78, our guy Belushi. Yeah. He pulls off— we talked about this during the Blues Brothers pod— he pulls off one of the great trifectas ever in the history of Hollywood. He's on SNL, which is the most important comedy show and probably the most influential TV show. He's in this movie, which finishes third for the year and is the biggest comedy movie ever, and then releases the Blues Brothers album. and that goes to number 1. And he has all of that going at the same time in the winter of 1978. And now Murph's—

what happens when this happens?

I don't know what's going on here. Murph, you want to get down? You didn't like something?

This is what happens when you work with him. It's not professional.

Let him out.

No, he'll lie over there. So Belushi, he flew too close to the sun, Sierra, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, this was it.

I think he already had flying close to the sun. People think it's Icarus.

It's actually Belushi. He had already was prone to maybe having some issues.

Yeah.

And then this happens and he becomes as white-hot famous as anyone we've ever had. This is it. This is like he becomes too famous to be on SNL. He gets every single comedy you could possibly be offered to you, and he's touring with a band in front of sold-out crowds. Yeah, too much.

One of my favorite things is the— he has to do, like, he does 3 days a week on Animal House. He's flying to Oregon to tell all of them, like, all these, like, bits and jokes he's thinking of. And then they would watch SNL on Saturday night, and those things that he was joking about on, like, Tuesday would be on the show on Saturday.

Well, that was another— he was allegedly clean when he was doing this movie, and he moved there with his wife, and he's living in some house. He's not living with the cast, trying to stay clean.

They hosted Thanksgiving.

Yeah. And then I think he went off the rails right after, and that was that. There's been a lot of stuff written about this, but nobody really— Farley is the only one like Belushi that I can think of. Um, like, that you could just— physical presence, the pratfalls, the facial expressions, the comedy. Like, the moment you see him, you're just like, I'm just laughing already. He hasn't done anything yet.

And the, the same kind of thing that Farley— everybody always has to say about Farley was that they would just do anything for a laugh.

Yeah. I wonder who else is— would you say Danny McBride, even though he wasn't physically like that, is a little like that, or no? Like, where you just see him and you're like, I'm ready to laugh.

He can say anything and you'll laugh. The physical side is maybe not as much there with him. I don't know. Robin Williams, I feel like, had a little bit of that.

Yeah, but that was as much like, I'm just going to do 15-minute bits off of one thing that you say. This was like, I'll jump through a plate glass window and didn't care.

The Farley story about Chippendale— Sandler didn't want him to do it because he's like, people are just going to laugh at you. Farley was like, I don't care.

There's something— it's such a small group of people that have had this, and it happens with athletes too. If you just go to a game or a comedy event or whatever, and you sit down and somebody comes on the stage or the court, wherever, and your eyes just go to them. That's what Blue— everyone said that's what Blue Sheet had. Like, when he's— the years before SNL, every time he came on stage, he just owned the stage.

And it's also like, it has an almost Beatles-like concentration of, like, it was just a few years.

Yeah.

You know, it was not like this 20-year career. It was like, it was basically 6 years, right?

Pretty much. I mean, SNL is '75. He's dead in '82.

Yeah.

It had an interesting effect on SNL because Animal House made the show bigger. The fourth season of SNL, which starts in '78, the '78-'79 season, The audience increased to the point that Lorne Michaels and the writers kind of resented it.

Mm-hmm.

Lorne called it the undeserved audience. It was like, we were doing this, where were you guys before? Now you're just here because Animal House.

Well, it's also like they thought that they were like hipsters essentially, and that now all of a sudden, like, all the squares were like, I watch this, you know?

Yeah. And there's a lot, a lot of the research from this was once Animal House happens, all these guys now can get jobs. Everyone's looking for the next Belushi Animal House. Everyone's looking for the next person to write that. So PJ O'Rourke had this whole thing about it, killed National Lampoon immediately because everyone who wrote for it was now being approached to write a script going— yeah. And it just demolished basically this counterculture thing. They became the culture.

Yeah. Although by the time PJ O'Rourke is running National Lampoon, probably like its sensibility is more conservative than you would be. You'd be surprised to find out like how conservative like their, their worldview was.

I think I was never a big National Lampoon guy. I always probably like Mad Magazine more, as weird as that is. But Spy was the first one where I was like, finally a magazine for me.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, have either of you read that National Lampoon like yearbook parody?

I looked at like some of the pages just online for this, but it's kind of ingenious. I'm sure other people had done it beforehand, but it's basically Boone's yearbook with, like, notes scrawled. And then there's some of the characters, some of the characters from the movie are in it. Yeah.

There's a really good National Lampoon documentary that was made kind of in the early days of when we were good at documentaries. I'm going to say it's like late 2000s, early 2010s. I thought they did a good job. They interviewed a lot of people.

Is it called Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead? 2015.

Yeah, yeah, that documentary is good. Um, so this was based on Ramis's experience, Ramis's experience at Washington University, Miller, uh, Chris Miller's experience at Dartmouth, and then Ivan Reitman at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Not on my radar.

That was in one of your, uh, safety schools.

And then Doug Kenny, who was, uh, You know, one of the writers, pretty legendary Lampoon guy, died in Hawaii with Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase and him were on vacation, fell off a cliff. Unclear what happened. Big mystery. You know, you're not— the Doug Henney thing's a really interesting one. I didn't know about this. Yeah, big rabbit hole. He was involved in Caddyshack, right? A lot of cocaine.

Yes.

Back then, obviously, in all kinds of ways. And a death that they still don't know what happened. And some people wonder if he killed himself or he didn't.

Right.

Um, but anyway, he graduated from Harvard. He was— his frat experience was closer to the Omega side. And the 3 characters from the yearbook you mentioned were Larry Kroeger, uh, Mandy Pepperidge, Vernon Wormer.

Oh, so it's probably Larry's yearbook then, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but you mentioned this earlier, they, they picked '62 because they thought that was the year before JFK. The year before Vietnam gets going, kind of the last innocent year in America.

It's like, but it's like almost like right around then, because I remember my earliest memories of like the car radio are my parents listening to like Big Chill style oldies. So for them, this is like kind of almost like that they're freezing that time in amber and they're starting to make money off of it with Happy Days and stuff.

So the original script, and there was a lot more vomiting, there was a lot of crazy shit. They did like 9 drafts and then finally got greenlit at $3 million. And the National Lampoon guy, Matty Simmons, no relation, said, screw it, silly little movie, we'll make a couple bucks. Landa said he thought it was the funniest script he'd ever read. Really offensive. He said there was a great deal of projectile vomiting and rape and all of these things.

Yeah.

I don't even know what that meant for a comedy, but They get Belushi and they're off. $3 million budget, made $141.5 million. Feels like probably more since then. This is just—

well, also, $140 million off $3 million is an insane profit, Craig.

They did— it made $120. Yeah, they did the re-release a year later in '79, made another $21 million just because Belushi was more famous.

Let me ask you this. Did you watch this? What Did you watch this after you'd seen Caddyshack?

I don't remember when I first saw this. I saw Caddyshack in the theater. I don't think my parents let me see this in the theater, so I probably saw it after Caddyshack. But I love Belushi, so I probably figured out a way to see this at some point. This is one of those where it's like, this movie's been in my life for 50 years. I don't remember when I saw it because other ones I do remember.

It's interesting to think about this kicking it all off, but a lot of people, most people, listening to this podcast probably saw it in and around, maybe even after they saw Revenge of the Nerds, or maybe even after they saw Porky's, or maybe even after they saw like PCU in Dazed and Confused. I mean, you, you might have an experience where it's always sitting there on the shelf. Like, I remember really being drawn to the, um, the cartoon poster.

Yeah.

And like that style of like kind of caricature that I was just like, what is this?

You know? Well, the part I don't remember from the '80s is how we saw the unedited version. Because we didn't really have the VHS stuff until like '83, '84 range. So it was probably edited for a couple of years there on the different channels and then became unedited again.

Well, this is definitely a sleepover movie.

No question. I feel like everybody had a copy of it.

Yeah. But I remember when I was like, I must have been like 8 or 9 maybe or something. And it was just like, we're going to watch Animal House tonight. My older brother got it.

Yeah. Top 11 movies in 1978, Craig. Grease, Superman, Animal House. It's our top 3. Wow. Every Which Way But Loose.

Is that a rewatchable?

It is for me. Say the word. Clint Eastwood in an orangutan in a truck. Heaven Can Wait. Hooper.

If we do August One for Us Month, it should be Every Which Way But Loose. Lincoln. Um, what else?

I mean, there's so many One for Us's. Uh, Jaws 2 was 7th. Revenge of the Pink Panther, The Deer Hunter, Halloween, and Foul Play. Deer Hunter, top 11.

Bring up the—

Deer Hunter, crank it, crank it almost rewatchable.

Come on.

Oh, that's definitely— that's not even a One for Us month. No, no, that just came out.

That's Russian Roulette month.

That came out on steelbook. Yeah, yeah. Ebert, 4 stars.

Fucking loved this movie.

It's anarchic, messy, filled with energy. It assaults us. Part of the movie's impact comes from its sheer level of manic energy. It's better made than we might at first realize. It takes skill to create this sort of comic pitch. Probably caught Ebert at the right time of his life, too. I wonder if 1998 Roger Ebert loves it as much.

He's coming— he still has a little bit of like Russ Meyer vapors coming, coming out of there.

No question.

But I do imagine if you saw this in '78, it would feel like punk rock. It would feel like he describes it as anarchic, you know?

Well, we'll talk about it when we do rewatchable scenes, but there's 7 minutes in the middle of this movie where Belushi just goes to another planet.

Yes.

It's like an all-time takeover, but we'll talk about it in one second. We'll take a break. The playoffs are here, and you can predict all the action all the way to the finals with FanDuel Predicts. All you have to do is sign up, Get your $25 bonus. Predict the spread, the total points, even the game-winning moments that make the playoffs from opening tip to the final buzzer. Stay locked in with every pass, every play, every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion. Sign up now for your $25 bonus on FanDuel Predicts, offered by FanDuel Production Markets LLC, a registered futures Commission merchant. 18+ bonus is non-withdrawable, expires 7 days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com/predict/bonus-offer-terms. So Murph's gone.

We brought up Belushi.

Yeah, he just said he did not— a Belushi guy. Most rewatchable scene. Really good entrances for Bluto, Otter, and D-Day in the beginning. Yeah, I like a good entrance. See Bluto, he's just drinking a beer, beating up people.

Eric Stratton, Rush chairman, damn glad to meet you.

I can't wait to talk about Matheson. I really like him in this movie. Uh, the pledge recruit sequence when they're naming everybody. Yeah, you're Weasel, you're Mothball, you're gonna be Pinto. Why Pinto? Louie Louie. I like— Belushi just probably looks— I don't know if he was really drunk for that scene during the Louie Louie. That looked hammered. Yeah. And then we go to the other frat for the thank you, sir, may I have another? All right, so those are two. Flounder kills a horse followed by the dean meeting.

Holy shit.

The cafeteria scene.

Yeah, the food fight.

The food. Belushi in the food line. First he's eating out of the garbage, basically.

Yeah.

And then he goes through the food line.

That's just like also a 6-minute Buster Keaton scene. Like, it's silent for the most part until he goes— everybody goes and sits down with the preppy kids. But like, all of that stuff with him—

I like when the donut falls off the tray. He just keeps going, just grabbing stuff, putting things on top, eats the Jell-O. And then he makes the horse sound at that guy.

Yep.

And then does the amazit, which I think for me at age 10 or 11 was the height of comedy for me. Yeah, it's the funniest thing of all time. Entirely improvised in the cafeteria. And then they just kind of went— the amazit thing was apparently improvised too. They didn't know that was coming. Yeah, just a home run. It's up there for me. It might be my most rewatchable. We do have the ladder scene. I guess it's probably a little problematic these days. Yeah, but it's a little bit of a voyeur thing.

I mean, but that basically is— it invents Revenge of the Nerds and Porky's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The turn to the camera eyebrow raise.

Yeah.

All-timer. The ladder falling backwards is just fucking funny. He just goes back. Yeah, I had— so this 7 minutes of Belushi just taking over the movie. I almost wonder, is this a new category? The Victor Wembenyama Award for when somebody just completely annihilates 4 minutes of a movie.

There is no defense for this.

Yeah, it's like, what's happening? He just scored 12 points in 2 minutes, blocked 5 shots. But that was just a total wimby. Does that Belushi thing— it's still funny for your generation, right?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

What, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Just everything Belushi did, but especially the cafeteria. I just feel like that's— it's got to be timeless comedy for whoever old you are.

Yeah, I think, I think some people might find it like a little— it's juvenile humor that like hasn't aged in like a clever way, but I still think it's really funny.

Okay, good. The grocery store scene is underrated.

I really like the grocery store scene.

Flanders is catching 15 things.

Also, my cucumber is bigger.

The flirting. There's something about those mid-'70s horny housewives that they would have in these movies, like in Slapshot or this movie. They really did it for me.

Yeah.

Toga party. I like when Otter takes their coats and just throws them on the ground.

There's so many good little, like, just blink and you miss it visual sight gags in this movie like that.

Guitar guy gets demolished. We get shout. This is the Kid Cudi pursuit of happiness word for needle drop. I think this is my most rewatchable scene because I really love the shout performance. I love how it cuts back and forth with the audience. I like, a little bit louder now, like, a little bit louder.

Oh my God. Yeah, it's so good that Wedding Crashers was like, let's just do that again.

Yeah, they did the homage. Um, the road trip to the bar to see Otis Day. Yep.

Dexter's—

Wait, Otis sees us! He loves us! Uh, Wormer reading the grades. Yeah, 0.2. Fat, drunk, and stupid. Um, that guy has an amazing voice, and he had like almost like it seemed like a glass eye or something. Vernon?

John Vernon?

But I know he didn't, but he had a way of like, he just always seemed like he was about to say something evil.

Just like the way he says double secret probation, it's so good.

Yeah, if you're a character actor in the '70s You just are like, what I do is wear a suit and I do the same part in every movie.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I just show up, I just nail it.

The Big Bluto speech, which I think is the most famous scene for this movie because it lived on in sports.

Yes.

And jumbotrons for 20 years after.

It's kind of the first hold on, let him cook.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

He's like, they're like Germans. And he's like, hold on, let him. He's cooking.

Groggy and Dougie and some of the other Hitler Youth. Underrated line. Um, every, every part of that bullshit thing is great. The, uh, the parade scene's fun.

The parade scene is like a precursor.

It's a mess.

Blues Brothers, where it's like, we don't really know what to do here, so let's have a giant set piece.

Belushi just climbs on top of a building for no reason.

I could have, I could have fixed it though, but that's in a category coming up.

Okay, great. Um, and then the closing credits, which I think this movie probably invented.

Well, it's certainly apex mountain for Z1 and Neo title cards.

Yeah. Nobody did this before this movie.

I have no idea.

And I feel like everybody's ripped it off since. There's so many good ones. The Marmalade became a rude Nixon White House aide and was raped in prison in 1974. Otter became a gynecologist in Beverly Hills. Senator and Mrs. John Butarski.

Yeah.

Just like fucking home runs all over. I like that D-Day's whereabouts were unknown too.

Yeah.

What do you have for most rewatchable?

The most rewatchable scene for me is the toga party with Shout.

Yeah, I agree.

That's just the most fun to watch.

What's the most 1978/1963 thing about this movie? I think we have to go with 1978.

Well, I just had the prominence of National Lampoon as a comedy brand, as like an umbrella that was doing all this different stuff and was launching all these careers.

I have, uh, smoking pot in a dark room as a secret clandestine event.

And that you are afraid you might get schizophrenia from it.

It's like, oh, try that. Um, I had that. And then Pinto's girl revealing that she's 13 is just insane. Yes, it was insane in 1978.

It's out of control.

Like, when that's fucking crazy, Bill, go 16 or 17. Yeah, maybe it's still Borderline insane.

But 13, she's like, I'm 13, and he still goes for it. He's just like, I guess he doesn't do anything, but he's—

he has to—

he has to get— oh, because he has to get married to her first, right?

And she's like, hey, Mom and Dad, this is the guy that molested me.

Yeah, I think doing— in 1978, obviously nobody in the room or no notes or edits were like, hey, make her older, 13's crazy.

Yes, the When Would I Have Died Award. I would have killed myself after that girl said I was 13.

Yes, 13.

Also, she— I mean, the real actress is probably like 20. I just—

let's hope. I don't know.

I don't know if they thought 13 was funny or like, it would be funny if she says she's 30.

It's insane to imagine. Yeah, it is the craziest thing in this movie because Old School basically does—

Old School, which ripped off multiple parts of this movie.

Yes.

But they do—

the school is almost a remake.

Yeah.

But they do the same thing with Luke Wilson. When he's with Alicia Cuthbert, and it turns out she's in high school.

It's crazy. I mean, this girl is lying topless in this movie, and then an hour later she's 13.

It's just, it's just nuts. I don't understand it.

Yeah.

Um, uh, she was 20, the actress.

It's just weird that you nailed that.

Well, she looked like she was at least in college, but I think they thought he's like got great outside. Hey, you know, I sized her up. I think they thought 13 would get a big laugh.

Yeah, look, John Landis, 1978, Landis takes some big swings, man.

Yeah, in terms of big swings, probably not as big as The Twilight Zone. No, um, no. The Floyd Gondoli Butter in My Ass and Lollipops in My Mouth Award for something I just enjoy, man.

I just like Louie Louie and Shout. Those songs are undefeated. They still go really hard at weddings.

They still play Shout at weddings.

Oh yeah, I think that was going to make my— my category would have just been what's aged the best. I have not been to a wedding where Shout is not played.

Okay, so you may think you're better than Shout, but every time you go to a wedding and Shout plays, you're like, this is the thing that really set the wedding off.

It is the single best moment of every wedding is Shout. It still plays. Live band, DJ, doesn't matter. Everybody loves Shout. Getting on the floor, like, it is—

it's the time when everybody's like, let's get fucked up.

The question I was going to ask though is Did the wedding thing happen after Wedding Crashers, or were people doing that in the '80s after Animal House?

After Animal House.

Really?

Every wedding I went to from the early '90s on, there was Shout.

Yeah.

And I assume that was the case in the '80s too.

Uh, I mean, we've— the weddings that I have been to have all had Shout, but pre-Wedding Crashers.

Yeah. Oh, fuck yeah.

Yeah.

Oh no, every single fucking wedding staple.

Yeah, I just didn't know if like everybody liked the song watching Animal House, but that has nothing to do with a wedding. I didn't know if Wedding Crashers made it popular at weddings.

No, Shout was—

you would—

no, no, no, no, no.

It was a thing before.

No, you would go to a wedding even in the early '90s, and it was like, can't wait for Shout. You just knew it was coming, and you knew the band was going to play it. The thing is, like, it's the undisputed champ. Yeah, it's like, who's the best quarterback of all time? It's Tom Brady. Like, there's no argument.

It's chocolate ice cream. There's just, like, very few people who are like, I don't like Shout. I don't want to do that. Like, then why'd you come to the wedding?

It's just, like, the most— it's a complete communal experience. Everybody knows the moves. It's the best.

Yeah. Because the fact that you have to, like, go down to the ground and then come back up and get happy again is the key to shout.

Now, the question is, have you ever done Gator where you jump on the floor and shake it?

I don't remember doing that one. Yeah, it's like shout's Michael Jordan, and every once in a while a new song comes in and tries to be LeBron, and then we have an argument about it. It's like, no, no, it's still shout. My Floyd Gondoli. I like when a movie gets made because it wasn't going to get made until some random star from the time period agreed to be in it for 2 scenes, and then they're like, now we can make it.

Sutherland's here.

Sutherland, he worked for 2 days. He was offered $25,000 for the 2 days or 2% of the film's gross. He took the $25K, and he took the $25K because he thought the movie was going to bomb. It's amazing. We've done 437 rewatchables at this point. 438, something like that. It's amazing how many times the movies were, like, right on the fringe of not being made and then they got somebody to do it.

Yeah.

And Donald Sutherland, it's not like he was famous, but even I said Ryan Reynolds before, he wasn't even as famous as Ryan Reynolds.

I just think it's a different kind of fame. I mean, he's also, like, doing— it was a credibility thing, still doing, like, 3 movies a year pretty much around then. I'd have to look at, like, his actual filmography, but those people, like, worked a lot, you know?

And I love in the opening credits, I love when it says at the end, and so-and-so as Jennings. Yeah, as Jennings.

It's great.

Well, I have him in What's Aged the Best too, because I'm convinced he's wearing just his same clothes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It's the same outfit.

He's wearing the same outfit that he wears for an hour of the movie.

And he was probably filming the other movie, showed up in a corduroy suit, and they were like, you know what, honestly, that's perfect.

And he looks the same. He's got the same hair, the same mustache. It's like he just got pulled out. So what does he do?

Does John Milton speech. He does the my novel is a piece of shit scene, and then he's in the last scene.

We see his ass. He's in 2 and a half scenes, basically. The biggest— what's aged the best for this movie is Bluto's speech became an incredibly impactful home game sports movie. Let's get the crowd going during this era that I think is basically over now, but from late '90s I'm gonna say like '98, '99 range through the 2000s, there was like 5 or 6 different movies where they would play the scenes. They would do Rudy, they would do Hoosiers, and this one always brought the house down.

I feel like 300.

300's a good one.

Uh, Gladiator. And like, what's another one that's kind of replaced this as like a staple?

But I don't feel like they do this anymore.

Because people, during the time, I think the Lakers used to do 300, like to have 300 playing when they would do the starting lineups.

The Celtics would— they got to the point where they just wouldn't run the clip.

They would just play the speech.

They would do the speech, but they would intersperse it with Celtics shit, and they would do the next level recut of it. But Animal House was a major one, and you would just see Baloo. It was like, nothing is over.

Have you ever heard this at a game?

I don't think so.

Yeah, they don't do it anymore. This was like a 10-year run. I have more, but what do you have for what's the best?

The way that they depict the, what is essentially like Smith College, like the, the Seven Sisters schools.

Yeah.

The girl who dies in a kiln explosion.

Fawn?

And Otter's like, she was going to make me a pot.

We were engaged to be engaged.

Um, but just the whole, that whole segment, it's not necessarily like a rewatchable scene, but it's so nailed on like that whole like women's college thing.

Yeah, there's somebody working at the front desk.

I have the same thing. Belushi destroying the acoustic guitar. I feel like I've seen like a billion times and like, is still like, I think of it every time I'd ever go to a party and somebody would be like, there's a guy in the corner playing Dave Matthews. And you're just like, how funny would it be to just smash this thing against the fucking wall and be like, sorry.

I have a, I think Matheson is tremendous as Otto.

Unbelievable.

This time around. I think he's so good in this movie and it's like, Kind of looks like Craig, by the way.

That's really a compliment.

I don't understand why Tim Matheson didn't become a bigger star.

I had him coming up, but we could talk about it now. Like, he is actually the could have been Harrison Ford because he was another guy up for Raiders.

Right.

And like, he's a little like, I think he is like a Hollywood native, like whole life, like on Western TV shows when he's a little kid and stuff.

Yeah. But I wonder, did he get— it's in Cast and What Ifs. I'll do one now where they tried to get Chevy Chase for Otter and he ends up doing foul play. I wonder if he just got market corrected by Chevy Chase.

Well, he's in Fletch with Chevy Chase.

Hilarious. Because in Fletch, he plays the guy who hires Chevy Chase because they look like each other.

But it's funny to watch him be Chevy Chase's straight man in Fletch, but he's just doing Chevy Chase in—

I think Otter is so fucking funny in this movie, man.

His speech at the trial. Yeah, where he's like, if the fraternity system is on trial, then the entire system is on trial. I won't have you besmirch the United States of America. And they walk out singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

I love how horny he is too. Like, he meets Flanders' girlfriend.

Yeah.

And he's like, here, come over here. And he's just like clearly gonna try to get Flanders' girlfriend to go up to his room. He's always trying to have sex with whoever he's in the room with. But he's like, there's something charming about him. I don't know. That's why the gynecologist thing's so funny at the end.

Yeah, it's like, of course, hysterical.

Um, I thought Matheson just killed it. Um, crazy college rotzy kids. Yeah, Niedermeyer, when they're all in the thing, like, that's also an underrated scene. Uh, Rieger and Matheson playing golf and just, oh yeah, just trying to hit this.

Don't think about it as work, think about it as something you enjoy.

This is a small one, but at the beginning when Flander and Pinto go to the thing to meet all the people, like, basically the first scene in the movie, and he lets Pinto in and then slams the door on Flander. And it's like a great— like, it actually seems like he hits him with the thing, but it's just like, just immediately sets the tone.

When Flander goes over to Greg and starts talking at him, and then Greg's like, kind of guides him back to the Four Rejects, and he's like, I've already met these guys. And he's like, great, you'll have plenty to talk about.

Handjobs with latex gloves.

You think that's aged the best?

Yeah, it's hilarious. Um, Flounder and Silent Rage, 4 years later. Silent— that is a one for us, man.

Silent Rage.

Yeah, yeah, we're finally gonna end up doing that. But Flounder is Chuck Norris's sidekick in Silent Rage.

That would be an amazing collection of films.

It's just if we did If we did Lincoln's Silent Rage, which we tried to time with Netflix, it was like, hey, so I'm not sure how you're going to promote this in the carousel, but it's One for Us Month. Toga parties did become a thing in the '80s. I was at the tail end of it when I was in college. I don't think I ever went to one.

You weren't in a frat?

No.

Courthouse? Were you?

I was in a fraternity for 2 years, and we did throw a toga party in college.

Did you? Like, you were a junior and senior or freshman?

Freshman, sophomore.

Why'd you stop?

Uh, I just, like, honestly didn't like it.

Okay.

I don't know.

Wow. Sounds like he got hazed.

Uh, I did go through that, but just not for me.

Yeah.

Um, we threw the toga party at a house senior year, actually, not in the frat.

Was it fun?

It's great.

It's the best. Yeah, the toga thing became a big thing for about, I would say, 10 years.

Never, never got it.

It's also, like, the easiest dress-up party you can go to. Like, it's everyone just wears a bedsheet. It's the easiest thing in the world.

You got to wear, like, shorts underneath the bedsheet, though, right?

Not me. Not Otter.

And then this is my high school buddy Jim Grady, who went to Colgate and I think was president of his frat. He texted this yesterday. Little known secret. I wanted to be rush chair at Sigma Chi just so I could say, hi, Jim Grady, rush chairman. Damn glad to meet you. Not joking. Apparently really did that.

Oh my God.

Yeah. This is a great— what's aged the best? So they had this bit in the original script, but they didn't film it with the JFK float. And they had the 4 people dressed like Jackie Onassis on the day he got assassinated. But they had this— they were going to have a car go through his head, and it was going to be in the exit wound spot of when he got assassinated. And then Landis is like, fucking, we got to cut this. It's too offensive.

So that's when he was like, we can't do that. But what if she was 13?

Right. Somehow the 13 was fine. If they had had the car zoom through his head in the exit wound, I think that would have aged pretty funnily, in my opinion. Yeah, it's just like, holy shit, they were really going for it in 1978, but they decided not to do it. And then you mentioned the other what's aged the best. Louie Louie, Shama Lama, Ding Dong, Shout.

The music's great.

I had one last aged the best. It's Sarah Holcomb's IMDb.

Okay. Sarah Holcomb is Colette, the young girl.

Sarah Holcomb is the— yeah, who ends up being Maggie in Caddyshack. Oh, thanks for nothing. She's in 4 movies and then apparently sadly had some issues and was out of the industry. Her first movie ever is Animal House and her last movie is Caddyshack. Her second to last movie is some movie called Happy Birthday, Gemini.

Okay.

And then she makes one other movie, and she's the star of Walk Proud. Do you know what Walk Proud is? I'll just read you what it's about. Robbie Benson plays Emilio Mendez, a young Chicano gang member in Los Angeles who begins to question his gang life when he meets and starts to fall for a white girl who encourages him to try and leave. Robbie sang the theme song Adios yesterday.

No.

He was a blue-eyed Caucasian in real life, but made up in darkface and wore black contact lenses so he would look like a Latino for the movie. And then all the research is— this movie was reviled. This is considered one of the most offensive movies.

This seems like a Robby Benson passion project, though.

Walk Proud. Yeah, Robby Benson as Emilio Mendez.

But if you're like, I'm also doing the song, like, you got to be believing in the material.

Do we do this for Politically Incorrect Month with Soul Man and a couple others?

What if we did? Walk Proud with Van, but just like made no comment about how weird it was.

And I love this movie.

Walk Proud. Benson is just— is in his bag in this movie.

So, but this ties back to them thinking it was a good idea to have a 13-year-old. This is 1978, the start of the cocaine era.

Their radar is off.

Yeah, people are just— it's like, oh, we got Robbie Benson, he's going to play Emilio Mendez.

That movie was released by Universal.

Yeah, by the way, Robbie Benson was like a star because he was coming off One on One. This was like his next big project. So yeah, that did not go well. Anyway, those were her 4 movies. Great Shaq Quarter Award. What'd you have?

I had the freeze frame of when the horse has the heart attack. There's fucking nothing better. I would say this goes into what stage the best— putting animals indoors, like large farm animals indoors. When you see the four legs just up and the guy brings in the chainsaw, Carmine's like, I'm gonna break your legs if you ever try to like say— oh, he's measuring the doorway.

Oh, it's good.

Kahuna Burger for, uh, best use of food and drink. It's got to be Amazit.

Yeah, yeah.

Chess Rockwell Brocklanders Award for best character name. I could give you John Blutarski. What about Mandy Pepperidge?

It's pretty good. I have Gregory Marmalard.

Gregory Marmalard raped in prison. What do you have for a flex?

Oh shit. I had the Dennis Peck relationship test for Otter.

Otter as Dennis Peck?

Yeah.

With Flounder's girl.

Just coming in and being like, Dennis Peck, Los Angeles PD. Damn glad to meet you.

Uh, uh, Butch's girlfriend award. Weak link of the film other than the 13-year-old.

Um, um, I have— mine is, uh, the Greg, Mandy, Babs love triangle is just— the, the handjobs are funny. I don't know if there's like 5 scenes about this that I'm just kind of like, all right guys, like, this is not germane to why I'm watching Animal House.

The handjob scenes kill me.

Yeah.

Why is it soft?

And he's like, sorry, just this Delta thing's on my mind.

Kid's 19. All you want to do is get laid and be 19. My weak link was 1962 is now 64 years ago. It feels like a fucking lifetime.

Yeah. I mean, did Ben watch this?

Zoe Simmons, my daughter who's home right now, I— it was on. She was on her phone the whole time and thought it was too slow, but did enjoy Belushi.

Okay.

That was her review.

Had she seen it before?

No.

Okay.

No. But yeah, if you're remaking this, I guess we did remake it as Old School, basically. The Steven Seagal Shitting on Himself Award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. Yeah, I'm going with, uh, so they filmed this at University of Oregon, and, uh, They weren't supposed to interact with the students, but then one day these girls at a fraternity invite them to a fraternity party. All the Delta actors go. They're greeted with hostility from the Oregon students. Guy Widows, who played Hoover, throws a cup of beer at drunk football players and end up having a brawl, and McGill gets a black eye. Widow's got beat up, had some loose teeth, and then Belushi was filming SNL, came back, found out about the fight, and they had to, like, physically restrain him from going to find the football players and fighting them.

He's a fucking real one. Yeah. I love the detail in the New York Times oral history. I think Widow says he was basically, like, hooking up with a girl whose dad was a dentist.

Yeah.

So he got in at 8 in the morning the next morning to get his teeth fixed.

The Ed Norton Reverse Dunk Award for did this movie need a random sports scene? So can I, can I get rid of like one of the two handjob scenes and just have like an intramural football scene or something? Rugby.

This is exactly what I was going to say, which is this movie needed to end with a flag football game or a football game, intramural football game to decide whether or not they could stay in college. And I went as far as to just break down Oh, let's go. 1962.

I didn't know you did this.

1962 football positions. So you got quarterback, halfback, fullback, center, guard, and ends.

So Otter's QB.

Otter, definitely QB.

He's probably a good QB.

Incredible pocket presence.

Yeah, maybe like a little Brady-ish, you know?

Yeah, sure. Kind of Jimmy G a little bit.

Yeah.

But like would excel in the McVay system. Unfortunately, back then it was like 90% runs. But yeah, halfback, you go Boone. Um, I like Rygert.

Yeah, I think he's crafty.

Speed going between the tackles. Fullback, obviously Bluto. Center, I go D-Day, kind of calling it all out Kelsey style, sees all the coverage.

Interesting. I could see him as a tight end too.

Yeah. And then guard, Flounder. You gotta put him somewhere. And then my wide receivers are Hoover and Stork.

Stork.

What does, what does Widow say? Oh no, Otter. When he's like, Stork, when you came here, everybody thought you were, thought you were brain damaged.

He's like, That's Doug Kenny, by the way.

Yeah. Now, I don't know what the other team—

so this is basically Revenge of the Nerds decided, oh, we should actually— this will be our ending.

If they just remade the end of The Longest Yard, I would have been like, that's great.

Yeah. So you could have gone football. Basketball would have been weird. Softball? Yeah.

No, because it feels like it's fall there.

It feels like it's— it's— so rugby would have been the other one, I think.

Or you could have done track at Hayward Field at Oregon.

That's true, but they're supposed to be at Dartmouth, right? Like, this is supposed to be the Northeast, isn't it?

Yeah, but there's a shot, the ROTC thing, you see Hayward Field behind them, the big track.

Dude, what— among the things that has aged the best is Eugene as a college town. Oh yeah, I've been there a few times recently. So 7v7, 1962 intramural football something, and it's like, we'll let you stay in school if you win this.

Belushi definitely scores.

Oh, you know what would have also been great?

An old school does a big gymnastics thing.

Basically do a decathlon or like Olympics. Yeah.

This movie is still huge at Oregon. I mean, they play Shout at in between every third and fourth quarter.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wood Sage the Worst. I'm sure the Belushi Boyer stuff wouldn't go over awesome these days. We mentioned the 13-year-old girl and then the angel devil scene.

Yeah, I had that one. Tough one. Angel devil scene, statutory rape, prominent Confederate flag on the wall, attitudes about animal cruelty.

The, uh, the angel-devil scene really hits the jackpot of things that just would never happen again, especially when we find out that how young the girl is. But I gotta say, the devil's like, fuck her, fuck her.

Um, I have one more what's aged the worst, which is a personal preference thing because obviously he was relatively successful around this. I just would love to have seen the Reitman or Ramis version of this movie directed. I think Landis is like— this one and Blues Brothers feels so flat to me. Yeah. And he loves to do like a big master shot where there's like lots of sight gags and like recurring bits or whatever, but I just wish it had a little bit more pizzazz with the direction. And I like what he did with Trading Places, so it's not like I don't like any John Landis movies. And I mean, Kentucky Fried Movie was still like the hardest I ever actually laughed in my life up until that point. But these two, like Blues Brothers and Animal House, are like kind of like a little too static for my tastes.

Yeah, Landis, I'm trying to think of like, there's coaches over the years that get too much credit for the teams they had, right? Like Casey Jones was like this, like what a coach. It was like he had Bird Parish, Bill Walton. And you know, we've seen football coaches like this too, where Mike McCarthy, Right.

We're about to find out.

How dare you?

Well, Mike McCarthy, that one year, and it's like, Mike McCarthy would have coached. And then, you know, he's available and starts bouncing around. And I wonder with Landis, the people he had on Animal House. Now, I'm sure he gets credit for some stuff, and he's been really good in the different books of spinning stuff his way and making it seem like he was the hero.

I think even in the oral history for Animal House, uh, Raymond's like, he immediately started calling it his movie. Yeah. And everybody was like, what the fuck, man? Like, we, like, this is all of our life stories.

He's pretty famous for revisionist history stuff. And it seems like a lot of the people that have worked with him aren't that flattering about him after the fact. Yeah. Like Eddie Murphy was another one that really turned on him.

Eddie worked with him a bunch though.

I know, but the last one, Coming to America, he turned on him.

And then, uh, didn't Landis do like the Beverly Hills Cop that's set at like Disney World, basically?

The bad one.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so I don't know what— obviously he was talented, but I also feel like if, if Reitman or Ramis had directed this, I'm sure— I'm pretty sure it still would have been funny. There's some, some racism stuff that may probably make sense because it's set in 1962, but that when you watch that, you're like, oh, what's your major? Primitive cultures. And then it just cuts right to Otis.

It's like, ah, yeah. Well, and like the, the mayor has the lawn jockey statue, the Confederate flag. Yeah.

Um, The Only Other Woods Age of Worst. This inspired a lot of copycat stuff, including they made an ABC sitcom called Delta House.

You ever seen it?

No. Dean Wormer was in it. So was Flounder. McGill was in it as D-Day. Widows was in it as Hoover. Michelle Pfeiffer made her acting debut. And then Bluto's brother Blotto, played by Josh Mastell.

Zero mastells.

Yeah. Yikes. Uh, Then CBS decided to do Coed Fever about all female Baxter College, one episode. And then Brothers and Sisters on NBC, a frat and sorority sitcom, 3 months. I never watched any of these. Okay. And in the late '70s, I watched everything. I was the only child. I did not watch this. The Hans Gruber scale villain ranking. Niedermeyer or Dean Wormer in The Finals?

I think Niedermeyer is pretty iconic.

Can I make the case for Dean Wormer, please? He hates these guys so much that he fails them out of college and then says, and I notified the local draft boards that you are now eligible. That is like as evil as it gets. He's like, I'm actually going to send you guys off to be murdered. Yeah, so I'd vote for him.

Uh, that's Peter Meyer.

There's— try to shoot somebody during the parade chaos. I will give—

so then if you say that, I'll do the Ruffalo Hannah Rubinek Award. I'll give it to Mark Metcalf for Oh yeah, Niedermeyer's Spittle Champion, like spitting in Flounder's face during Roxy.

Well, he— they— Twisted Sister had the, uh, We're Not Gonna Take It video, and they bring Niedermeyer back to basically play Niedermeyer again, yelling at Dee Snider. And that, that actor, Mark Metcalf, basically became— he became Niedermeyer'd. Yeah, it was like— we've talked about— I think that's a rewatchables category actually in the Flexes. Did you— can you escape this?

Yes.

Yeah, this character. Um, all right, we'll take a break and then we'll do, uh, Hottest Take. All right, the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford Hottest Take Award. What do you got, CR?

Can we just talk this out for a second?

Yeah.

Is this movie— or is Belushi's career different if he plays Flounder? If Belushi doesn't do like a Belushi like mega performance.

He saves Bluto for the next one.

Yeah. Or maybe like in, you do Animal House 2 and Flounder becomes Bluto or something like that. I know he's probably a little old to play a freshman.

Yeah.

But I would have loved to have seen Belushi like try one different, like sort of speech.

He does that in Neighbors, which I saw in the theater where he plays the straight man basically.

Yeah.

And you're just sitting there the whole time waiting for Belushi.

The other, the only other one was like literally the Tim Matheson Jason thing where I was just like, this guy does this movie. He's got like, like literally like the platonic ideal movie star looks, goes up for Raiders. It's him, Tom Selleck, Jeff Bridges, and Harrison Ford.

Just got market corrected a couple times. Ended up like by the time we got to the '90s, he's in a lot of those Lifetime type of movies. Yeah. I think dad who's attracted to the nanny.

He is like later period, probably highlight would be when he's the VP on West Wing.

Right. My hottest take. I think this movie caused more copycat damage than any other movie ever made.

Damage?

Yeah. I think it completely wrecked two generations of college kids trying to— basically, this was the blueprint for, like, let's go fucking crazy tonight. They would have done it anyway, but this movie gave them a map to be like, well, we could have a frat. All this stuff was kind of happening anyway, but I think this movie was was the gasoline and the fucking match for an entire generation.

I think you can also make the argument that even outside of Animal House, like outside of the Greek system, there's some influence of Animal House on interior design in houses lived in by like 3 or more men, 3 or more guys. Like where you have, we just put an air hockey table that we found on the sidewalk and hung it on the wall. You know what I mean? Or like the TV is on a milk crate. And we have 3 movies and we watch them on a loop.

I think this movie killed more brain cells than any other movie ever in terms of the impact it had on kids going to college in the future. Yeah, I think just kids being like, someday I'm going to college, I'm going to be like the Animal House guys, and just going fucking nuts. Casting what-ifs. The initial cast wish list: Chevy Chase as Otter, Bill Murray as Boone, Brian Doyle-Murray as Hoover, Dan Aykroyd as D-Day, and Belushi as Bluto.

Um, and Lorne wouldn't let—

that Lorne thing's not true.

Okay.

I don't think he ever would have not let somebody do a movie. It— like, Aykroyd has said, because they based D-Day on Aykroyd because he rode a motorcycle, and he feels like he should be in this movie, but they're filming it during season 3 of SNL, and Aykroyd was like a huge part of the show, and he felt like if both him and Belushi were flying back and forth doing a movie, it would hurt the show. And that's why he said he didn't do it. I believe that story more than— I just don't think Lorne would be like, you're not doing this.

I would love to try and see how I did now. I mean, I'm a little too old probably, but like, I would love to try and do like bicoastal potting and just see like if I could do OCRs in New York Monday through Wednesday. Yeah. And then I'm back here to do Rewatchables Thursday, Friday.

I'd be dead.

Yeah.

Like the Rewatchables have been canceled this week because Bill died from flying back and forth. Chase turned down the film for Foul Play. And there's, of course, Landis and Chase disagree on what happened.

Like, just absolutely busting each other's balls in the press.

Yeah. Landis, who I think does spin stuff toward his version of things, he's like, I didn't want Chase to be in it. I told him it was going to be an ensemble.

And then you do Foul Play.

Yeah. I was like, you're not going to be the star of this movie. And I Jedi mind tricked him into saying no. And Chase was like, I was offered Foul Play with Goldie Hawn. Like, of course.

And I think he was like, as usual, John Landis is full of shit or something like that.

John Landis as full of shit as he usually is. Um, Ramis wrote the part for Boone for himself, but they decided he looked too old, which is funny because half the people in this movie look too old.

And, uh, I think that was another Landis call, and Ramis was pissed off about it.

Still mad about it. Yeah, Landis wanted Jack Webb from Dragnet and Kim Novak to play the Warmers, and Jack Webb thought this movie was not funny. Bigger question is, does Craig know who Jack Webb is?

I don't.

Did you ever see Dragnet?

Tom Hanks did Dan Aykroyd Dragnet. No.

Yeah, two generations removed from not knowing who he is. Reitman wanted to direct but had no directing skills, and they said no thanks. Best That Guy Award.

Really tough because this movie came out 48 years ago, but I went with John Vernon.

I think Flounder is that guy. I think people know what his real name is.

Yeah, I guess I— but he's not in a ton of stuff.

Yeah. Um, Niedermeyer would be the other one.

Yeah.

Dion Waiters. I could offer you Donald Sutherland for 2 and a half scenes. I could offer you Dean Wormer's wife. I could offer you Otis Day, or I could offer you Shelley, the, uh, the, the girl who was Fawn's roommate who really wanted Otter to feel better about the girl.

Fawn's roommate cracks me up.

Great. She's really good.

She's really good. But I'm going to go with Sutherland just because it is like a classic Dion Waiters of like, I'm in two scenes, everybody's like, that's Donald fucking Sutherland, he's in M*A*S*H. And then, yeah, I have Dean Wormer's wife.

You can get your finger out of my ass.

You love a drunk witchy.

I love drunk and witchy. Great stuff. Um, can I—

just for casting what-ifs, I mean, I guess this is also casting couch director city.

The—

it's pretty legitimate research that this movie was offered to a bunch of major directors.

Yeah.

So John Schlesinger, who did Midnight Cowboy.

Yeah. Did you believe this?

It's in the New York Times oral history, so I was kind of like, maybe this is true. But it went out at least to Schlesinger, Alan Pakula, Mike Nichols and George Roy Hill and Bob Rafelson.

I didn't understand that at all.

That's amazing.

George Roy Hill directed this?

Well, I mean, he's probably— I mean, directed Slap Shot. It wouldn't have been completely out of the question.

I just can't imagine why any of those people would have done this.

Which of those directors do you think would have been like, so the 13-year-old, what are we doing?

Yeah, do I hear 15?

I forgot to mention Shelley. 2 IMDb credits.

What's the other one?

An episode of Charlie's Angels.

Oh, okay.

That was it. I thought she was good. I would have liked to have seen her more stuff.

She was Robbie Benson's Chicana girlfriend in Walk Proud.

She dated Emilio Mendez before somebody else.

Uh, recasting Couch Director City, would you have, uh, I would like to see Reitman do this one.

Yeah, I'd have Reitman as director. Craig, flex.

Jamie Lee Curtis, unnecessary nudity. But I think all of the nudity, nudity in this movie is defensible because it's all at the service of these like loser horny college kids.

Yeah, sure.

I actually think all of it's fine for 1978, and I— and it's totally fine. There's one scene where I'm like, Karen Allen's just bare ass in that one scene. Just, I don't know why that's in the movie.

And that's why Sutherland's ass is out, is apparently he was like, I if she was gonna have to take her pants off, I was gonna take my pants out.

Like, like, in solidarity. Southern.

Yeah, that's solidarity.

Because the rest is like, sure, Belushi's a creep, he's looking in it, all of it actually kind of works. And then there's just the beginning of a scene, Karen Allen's just putting on a dress.

We didn't— we haven't really talked about her and Rygar.

In what sense?

Just as like, they're like in kicking and screaming in this movie. Like, they're in the most like relatable normal relationship.

Could use like one more scene with them.

Yeah.

One last hand job scene.

Karen Allen.

She looks great in this movie.

Looks great.

Great. Really one of a kind.

Yeah.

Something really just like fetching and approachable.

Did you have a girlfriend in college when you were like, I love the Boston Red Sox and drinking beer and hanging out with my friends, who was just like, when are you going to grow up?

Yeah. Yeah.

Her like pouring beers at the beginning of the movie behind the bar at Delta. You're like, fuck.

But it's all, yeah, like, like that was also, she's also like the coolest thing ever. Yeah.

That's what I like about the character, is I'm not positive she exists in real life.

Sure.

Trying to think of any friend girlfriend I had who—

no, she's like the platonic ideal of a woman in that movie.

Half-assed in her research. We mentioned University of Oregon allowed them to use the campus for 20K, but they were like, don't mention us. And then all these years later, they have like a tour when you go, yeah, here's all the filming locations that you shout between the third and fourth quarters of every football game.

Just don't watch the movie, but know that we were in it.

Black extras had to be bussed in from Portland due to the scarcity around the college campus.

Christ. Wow. In '78?

Yeah. Landis brought, uh, the Deltas 5 days early so they could all bond, and they all bond, and then Bruce McGill's room became party central, and then the Omegas were another part, and they all didn't really like each other.

Like, it's weird that on a movie like Animal House they're doing like method acting rules because I think I read that like Greg Greg wanted to party with them, but it was like, you know, I couldn't really. So like, it just put me more into character and I was like, come on, man.

Do you think they took movies more seriously in the 1970s? Because we made less of them, right? So if you're in this, it's like, this is a big deal. We have to— now I just feel like, like, yeah, I'm in Animal House, then I'm gonna do a thing on Friends and Neighbors, and then you're just kind of bouncing around.

I don't know, I think there's also something about like, you know, that this— these movies back then like also excelled at like finding unknowns. And so people were probably like, this is my big break. I'm going to take it seriously, even if it's Animal House. True.

Belushi went to local nightclubs during filming, checked out bands, became fascinated by a musician named Curtis Salgado, who wore sunglasses and loved the blues. And it became the Blues Brothers. They almost did a sequel, Craig. It was going to take place during the 1967 Summer of Love. A reunion at Otter's wedding.

Yeah.

Which is funny in itself. Otter was going to get married. Um, but then when More American Graffiti bombed the box office, I saw that movie in the theater. Universal stalls the project, Belushi dies, and they're done.

Yeah, this would have been— it was going to be set at Haight-Ashbury. I don't know if it necessarily was kind of into the idea. I mean, yeah, but I— it's like, it's a different sensibility than the one that was in this one. This kind of like Ivy League prick sensibility.

Dewayne Jesse played Otis Day.

This is my favorite piece of research.

Purchased the rights to the character name. They made it up and became Otis Day and the Knights.

He doesn't do the music in the movie.

He's lip-syncing. Yeah.

And Landis finds out like 25 years later that this guy has been just touring the country doing Otis Day. He's like, good for him, I guess.

Yeah. Uh, Stephen Bishop, no relation to my buddy Bish, who is also named Steve Bishop. This is a running joke for us that there are two Steve Bishops. Yeah, he was the guy with the guitar.

Oh, okay.

He's had a career. He had a career on his own. Started dating Karen Allen after they met on the set, dated for years, wrote the song Separate Lives based on their breakup that became a hit song for Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin and was in the movie White Nights. I remember. Yeah. Emotional. Not a great karaoke song.

No.

Bruce McGill and Tim Matheson started Black Sheep. They're the only actors to star with Chris Farley and John Belushi.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And then Universal's film president Ned Tanen wanted them to cut the entire black bar scene. Thought there would be riots across America. Big argument back and forth. They sent the movie to Richard Pryor. and he sent, um, Ned a note saying, Animal House is fucking funny. White people are crazy. And that ended up staying. This movie really, really hit the gamut of weird things to touch. Apex Mountain, Belushi. Yes.

Yeah.

Tim Matheson, I'm gonna say yes. Felt like it, like the world was his oyster after this movie.

Yes.

Cafeteria scenes.

Is he also in 1941 with Belushi? Is Matheson in that?

Cafeteria scenes. It's been some great cafeteria scenes.

Uh, yeah, dining hall scenes, but this is probably up there. This is the best food fight I've ever seen.

Yeah, I think it narrowly edges Just One of the Guys. They make Greg Tolan— Greg didn't like that.

It just beats it out. Yeah, barely.

John Landis.

I think Trading Places, personally.

Yep, I agree. Handjobs. Why is it soft?

I kind of want to Google greatest movie handjobs, but I'm a little worried this is going to work on Peter.

Stephen First.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And goes on to play Dorfman again multiple times, right? Yeah.

Peter Rygaard.

No. But I can't off the top of my head think of what it is.

Maybe I think it was Animal House for years, but now I think it's Sopranos.

Okay.

He dates the Russian hooker and then Tony beats the shit out of her.

Cross Atalantia and Local Hero were the two that I remember. Yeah.

College movies, I'm going to say yes. Toga parties, yes.

Do you have a second favorite college movie?

Old School.

Do you have a third favorite?

Road Trip. I think Road Trip's excellent. I really like that movie.

I think Everybody Wants Some is, like, way up there for me now.

It's getting there. It's aging really nicely.

Were you ever a PCU fan?

Never really. I never really loved Piven.

Okay.

Yeah.

You've only watched his television series 9 times. Lloyd.

Lloyd. Cruise or Hanks?

Hanks.

I think Hanks.

I think Hanks could do Otter.

Scorsese or Spielberg?

This is really tough. Neither of them, obviously. It's two different, entirely different films.

I think it's definitely Spielberg. He basically tries to do this in 1941 to some degree, right? Scorsese would be like, there's cocaine, there's all kinds of shit going on.

It's like when Belushi's on the ladder, he's just like staring. Yeah.

Picking nits. I have a few.

Um, does Dean Wormer really need to go digging into the school's constitution to find a reason to expel these guys? They're clearly like, like, they don't go to class, they're all good at 0.0. We gotta put them on probation. We have to look for all these reasons.

Just fucking kick them out. A few of the actors too old for college, no question, but I think that's part of the joke. Wouldn't Mandy hear Bluto on the ladder or see him? Yes, he's moving the ladder over. And could you actually even do that? Uh, it's like a 12-foot ladder. Could you jump it up and move it like that?

Uh, if, um, Flounder's brother was also had been in the frat, wouldn't he kind of understand if his car got destroyed on like a frat road trip weekend?

Yeah, true.

And also, like, I'm not sure I totally understand why Boone's being such an idiot with Katie. Like, guy, Karen Allen, man. Like, what are you doing? I gotta go on a date with a bunch of, like, Smith College girls for a weekend.

Mrs. Wormer goes to the Delta party.

Yeah, it's insane.

There's no way that happens.

She's like, get me a drink.

Uh, Fawn dies in a kiln explosion. Awesome. What? I just need more information.

Yeah, so you do your— you do— you shape the clay and everything. You Put like a lacquer on it and it just exploded. But it's like a fucking super oven. Yeah. And then they used to have those in my like arts and crafts class.

I just wanted more information.

And they would always be like, it was really weird now that I think back about like shop and arts and crafts class when I was a kid, because we were around like table saws and kilns and all these chemicals for black rooms, for, for dark rooms, for photos.

Yeah.

And it was like, yeah, you guys just don't drink that and don't put your hand in the oven.

Right. Why didn't we see Flounder puke on Dean Wormer?

I don't know.

Big miss. I think if this movie's made 20 years later, we see the puke. Yeah, he's like just covered in puke. They'll figure it out. Can you really just buy 10,000 marbles? Flounder buys 10,000 marbles. Like, think how many marbles that is.

I love that that scene is literally 1 second long. It like cuts them. He's like, 10,000 marbles, please.

And would a store have 10,000 marbles? Could you go to a store right now and buy 10,000 marbles? How did they see out of the float car? The Eat Me float car?

It's like a tank, basically. I don't know.

Every time they cut to it, it's just completely covered with float stuff. Yeah. And Bruce McGill's just driving it around.

That's insane. That whole sequence is so nuts.

Yeah.

Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast, or untouchable? Uh, I think a sequel could have worked if Belushi hadn't died. Yeah, I think a reunion thing would have been really funny.

I think they could have just like— this could have just been a franchise where they just kept making Animal Houses set throughout the decades. But big mistake, I guess they just let—

I mean, we had 4 American Pies. Yeah. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Evans, or somebody else?

Boone, here you are, man. Higher education, but we find you at an all-time low. Committing statutory rape, binge drinking, not taking his studies seriously. My, my zane is rusty. I'm sorry. Where do we go from here? And where's your 13-year-old child bride gonna go with you?

Were you inspired by Jerry Lee Lewis? I had, uh, I had Dr. Charles Nichols. You'll have to excuse my friend John Butosky. He's not feeling well. It'll be good. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? Belushi?

I guess so. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Probably an answerable question. Did this movie create double secret probation?

Yeah.

Was this a term that existed before this movie? I'm going to say it did not exist.

Maybe it was taken from their college experience, but it is very funny. Yeah.

What'd you have?

Uh, did this movie invent not only the sex comedy but the college comedy? And what were these guys majoring in?

Communications.

Was that a major back then in 1962?

It would have been funny if Bluto was a big political science guy. Well, Middle East, man, stuff's happening there.

He doesn't, uh, he's pre-med, right?

But pre-law, same thing. Yeah.

Did the Omegas create the Illuminati? The frat hazing was pretty—

I think they took this off. It's really real, you know.

Kubrick got Eyes Wide Shut from that scene. This is my big one. Was Greg gay?

I guess so. I don't know where it's possible.

Two of the hottest girls at that—

Mandy and Babs. That's— yeah, those are your hot—

wouldn't have— was against premarital sex and could barely get it up for a handjob in the car and a thing. Just have some suspicions. Seem really, really interested in the— in feuding with the Deltas. I don't know, Craig.

Very repressed.

Yeah, something's going on with him. The, uh, memorabilia you'd want from this movie. So many choices.

This is easy for me. It's, uh, the fishbowl boobs from behind the bar.

I had the, uh, the college sweatshirt Belushi wore.

Yeah, that's a great one.

That's a good one, which you can get on— I mean, everybody ripped that off since. You can buy that. I was actually gonna try to speed rush that to wear that for the pod. Couldn't figure it out. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi, best life lesson. Don't get mad, get even.

You know, I had Your Only Young Ones. Hmm.

Double feature.

Old school.

I have Revenge of the Nerds.

I've never seen Revenge of the Nerds.

I don't know if that would ever be a rewatchable series.

Hard to find.

As soon as it's streaming again, it's going to be a rewatch.

Come on, Ted Sarandos.

Come on, Ted.

Do the right thing.

You love comedy, right?

Uh, yeah, big comedy fan. What do you have for double feature?

Uh, God, I guess it's old school. Yeah, it's really old school.

Another good one would be Project X.

Project X for the debauchery. Yes, you can go Neighbors, I guess.

Great one. But yeah, fucking Ben had a Project X party at our house.

He did?

Yeah.

Was it a— what do you mean though?

Like a theme party, or it was like a Project X?

It was supposed to be 125 people and it Turned out to be 400.

And when did this happen?

2 months ago.

You fucking kept that under the rug.

Really?

Well, I was mad about it, and Ben was not happy about it. And then 6 months later, he's like, it's like when I had my project.

Next part, you motherfucker. I tried to do that. Look, Dad, no one's more disappointed about this than me. He did.

He played all the fucking tricks.

Was it like kids from other schools started showing up?

Yeah, it was people throwing up on the street. It was an amazing disaster. But Ben's a mastermind. I think he did all that.

But did anything go wrong? Did anything burn down?

Did anything go wrong here?

Nothing burned down. The cops did come.

Are you still finding, like, cigarettes in random places and stuff?

It's the maddest I've ever been in him. But I should have known. But now the thing is, he can never have a party here again.

I should have showed up like the Dean's wife.

You probably— I honestly wouldn't have been surprised.

It would have been amazing if we were like, I heard about this party tonight. Weird. It's a bill.

Who won the movie?

Uh, Belushi.

Belushi. Craig, give us your thoughts.

I love this movie. I like it more now than I ever have. When I watched it, whatever, 10 years ago, closer to Zoe's opinion, I was like, okay, it's a little underwhelming maybe. It's— the pacing is just different, the way it's cut. But I don't know why, watching it, I, I had an absolute blast. It's such a great hang. Because it's a hang movie, which is rare now.

It's not really—

there's not like a lot of like hard jokes, punchlines in this film. It's more like Dirty, Dazed and Confused.

It's, you know what it is too, is it's, uh, it's just short stories. So like until the last 30 minutes, there's basically no coherent— it's not really a plot, you know? It's like, here's all these funny things that happen to these guys in college, and then at the end it's like they have to stay in college, so there's going to be a parade.

Yeah, it's just more about the hang. And the movie— this movie, for all of its, you know, that's like it hasn't aged well in certain ways, but it's just like your fun drunk uncle who is hilarious and you just put up with.

Like, when was the last time you'd seen it before you watched it for this?

Every couple years, so I'll jump in. Um, I like the, the interplay between the guys. Like, there's real friendship in this movie, which I think a lot of movies have borrowed since.

I think it's actually just quite well acted. I think it's underratedly well acted across the board for how dumb this movie seems like it is.

Yeah, Matheson, um, Raggard's great. They're all really, really funny.

Yeah.

And I think movies back then compared to comedies now, like, I don't know, even though this movie's about a lot of stupid stuff, like, there are a lot of commentaries on society and what's going on across the country. And now I think comedies are a little bit more siloed in what they're trying to say, and they're more just about like the punchline on the screen.

There's also like, comedies are a little bit more high concept now. So it'll be like, this is a comedy about how like a guy will die in 5 days if he doesn't meet the love of his life.

I just watched a college movie on Hulu, Pizza Movie, which is starring a Stranger Things kid. It's all about like a kid in a dorm who takes drugs, trying to get pizza. And I mean, it is what it— but it's like, it's not saying anything. It's just a fun, crazy comedy about a guy taking drugs in college. But it's not wider than the very narrow scope of the movie, right? And these movies back then were just— were different.

They're actually thinking some Watergate, Vietnam, Nixon stuff in here too. In, in smart ways that's not over the top like what we have now.

Yeah, and I think that the— their sort of umbrella excuse for the way that this movie— and I, you know, the 13-year-old stuff is almost so beyond the pale, but like, they're like, it was an equal opportunity, we made fun of everybody. Yeah, you know, kind of thing.

I also think sometimes when you have to work within parameters, the movie gets better. Like, you know, the script was apparently way, way, way raunchier than it actually was, but Universal kind of putting like, like guardrails on the movie, I actually think ends up— you have to make it work and actually make it funny for it to validate being in the film.

Yeah.

And it can't just be raunchy for raunchy's sake because there's like rape scenes apparently that they cut. Yeah. So I think sometimes when you have kind of the off-the-wall style and you pair it with a studio and you have to kind of land in the middle, sometimes it is the best outcome.

It's a movie magic, baby.

It's a classic. That's it for comedy month. We ended up doing 4 quote unquote politically incorrect movies.

Something About Mary, Tropic Thunder, Borat, Animal House.

Yeah, 4 movies that definitely push the envelope for different ways for you to go back and revisit.

Which is the one that you feel like?

Honestly, Borat.

Yeah, I was just—

you missed that episode. You were at Heifetz's wedding. Borat, just— I was on the treadmill and I almost fell off like 4 times. I don't know why. It just fucking kills me.

It's really—

but all of them, I thought, held up really well. I think there's something about Mary. We've been with that movie now for 28 years, so you know all the bits. But Warren still makes me laugh, especially when Warren came back in the last Survivor episode. Did you see that? Jonathan's brother came back dressed like Warren.

That's right.

Yeah, it was amazing. Comedy month, though. Pretty fun.

What's next?

So we're doing, um, we're gonna do Summer from Hell starting, uh, starting next week. All movies that are dot dot dot from hell. We've talked about this for a long time.

Um, you want to announce the June 1st movie or no?

Yeah, we're— so the first one is going to be 2001: Computer from Hell. Um, and then Netflix, Netflix, uh, licensed a bunch of movies for this, so it's going to be— and I don't know if we're going to do all of them, but Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, Good Son, Pacific Heights, which I don't know if they were able to license.

That's the one I was most excited about.

You're excited about that one. Domestic Disturbance, which is in the running for funniest, unintentionally funniest movie of the 2000s.

Yeah.

And a bunch of others. So they're all on there. So from hell, it might last longer than a month.

Okay.

Might be like a month and a half. What a way to ring in the World Cup. Some mailbags as well. Yeah, in honor of our World Cup people. All right, thanks Craig, thanks Kahao, thanks Chris Ryan. See you next week in the Rewatch.

Later.