This week's episode of King Me is brought to you by Breakaway paramilitary uniforms, Ordo Pure Procreation Pill and cadre cola. It hits the spot, promotional considerations paid for by Kelton Flame Throwers, Wainwright Electrical Launchers, and Hammond Engaged Chainsaws. On your mark, let's start the running man. King Me.
King Me. King Me Baby. Baby. Hey.
Hi Rob. Oh hi Dan. Welcome to King Me. This week we're talking about the running man.
I'm Rob Avon. What's wrong? You know, you know goddamn. Well, it's wrong.
We're a little at this point over here. King HQ? Yeah. By the way, we operate out of a headquarters.
This is a fully bonafide recording fortress. Yeah. We have a warehouse. Yeah.
That's why those sound bounces around so much here that I go. Right. It's an airplane hangar. Yeah.
So this episode was supposed to be a real doozy. We, it was a real doozy. We hustled and hustled and we exchanged so many emails. We had, we worked very hard to get a cool guest.
Yep. A Schwarzenegger, a fishing an auto, I would argue. Yeah. John Gabris, comedian, improviser, very funny guy.
Yeah. Close personal friend. We as a result of sending so many emails. No.
We actually, we recorded with him. The whole episode. The entire thing. Yeah.
It went really well. It was a great episode. And then the file got corrupted. Yes.
And into anyone who would consider using the open source recording software audacity, I would say don't do it. Because this could be you anytime, anytime of day. So it's a real sting in the butt to me. It really chaps my ass.
Oh man. So the wind's a little out of my sails. Yeah. King me, baby.
Yeah. It was just it took a long time to lock that episode down. And then we finally did it. It went well.
And we were rewarded by the universe by having our dicks stuffed into our own mouths. The universe was like, hey buddy. Eat your own dick. Go pound sand.
Yeah. So this week on King me, we're talking about The Running Man from 1987 directed by Paul Michael Glaser, AKA, Starsky, and Hush. Starsky and Hush. The Glaze.
This was written by Steven DeSouza. The story is by Richard Bachmann. Wait, what? Yeah, you're probably wondering.
Who the fuck is Richard Bachmann? That's right. It's Steven King's pseudonym for some reason. Apparently, at some point, Steven King was like, I'm getting too successful and I can't.
I can't right. I can't expand. It's like, I think you even said it. It's like Chris Gaines.
Oh, did I say it when we recorded with John Gabers? That's how I said it. Probably. Yeah, no, it is.
It's like his sorry. I'm going to say, as the last time I'm going to do that, I promise. I promise I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. Fine. How are you?
I'm fine. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, Richard Bachmann, it is.
It's like his Chris Gaines. It's like, it's not that different. At no point listening to Chris Gaines are you like, this isn't Garth Brooks. You're fully aware it's Garth Brooks.
Yeah, I don't know if I've ever listened to Chris Gaines. I can't remember. To keep it in the, it's his Bruno. Oh, yeah.
Now I'm speaking in your leg. Now I get it. Yeah, yeah. So for all you Bruno fans out there.
And if you're listening to this show, I'm sure you are. I think we've done more for Bruce Willis's music career than Bruce Willis has. We posted a link to an AV Club article that they just did like last week or week before. So don't ever tell us we're not influencers.
It's weird that they would post that, but not include us on their podcast weekly roundup. I think it's pretty shitty on their part. But you'd think, it's 6 1-1-1-2. It doesn't really.
What do I know? What do I know? But enough about Bruno. For now, we'll get back into it as the discussion evolves.
But yeah, so the running man. Dan, before this, had you seen this movie? No, I hadn't actually. And I was pleasantly surprised.
It's fucking crazy. It's such a crazy movie. It's just allowed. It's like a kid playing with action figures.
That's exactly what it is. It's beautiful. Really, really stunning stuff. This is definitely a Schwarzenegger movie.
It's late 80s Schwarzenegger, which is like, he's the fucking man. He is the king of action movies. And we said this on the game for some reason. This came out the same year as Commando.
No, it came out the same year as Predator. That's right. That's right. You know, if you're going to reference the episode of King of the Lost episode that we did with Gables, please.
In that case, I feel well, I'll quote Gables and say, what a fucking great year for movies. That was, he did say it. But yeah, no. So point being Schwarzenegger is like, on top of the world at this point.
Yeah. And it's so weird because Predator holds up. Yeah, it's squizantly. It's just, Predator is just testosterone cranked up.
It is, but I feel like it's also. It's also, he is dripping with testosterone. It is, but it's still like a benchmark of the genre. In a way that I feel like this is not.
It's just 100%. Yeah, that movie, right. It's pure action, nonstop. It's just like body oil, sweat and dirt and just.
Lubed up biceps. And that's like, this movie is just like one anal pounding, shy of an anal pounding. It's the only way I can describe it. And this is just like bright flashing colors and Richard Dawson.
Yeah. So the movie takes place in the future. 2019 ish. Ish.
Yeah, yeah, it's unclear exactly what you're doing. After 2017, which is when the world government has collapsed or something, the economy collapses and then a new world order has risen or something. There are some pictures. There's a crawl at the beginning where this is all laid out, but it's so stupid.
And they have a Schwarzenegger. He works for the government. He's like one of the police foot soldiers basically. He's a helicopter pilot.
Yeah. Yeah, he's a helicopter pilot. And Ben Richards. Ben Richards.
Ben Richards. And extremely Austrian. And so rich. And so rich.
And there's a food ride in progress. We all know what a food ride is. There's no further explanation, warranted. And the guy on his walkie-talkie is like, you got to kill him all.
Open fire. Yeah. Open fire on this group of innocent people. And then he won't do it.
Yeah, they open this movie with a dramatic moment for Schwarzenegger, which is a bold choice because he is not a strong dramatic actor. At this point in his career, at this point, he'll go on to do your jingle all the ways, which has some tender moments. Your kindergarten cops. Your kindergartens cops.
Excuse me. My grammar's atrocious. But yeah, he, but they are unarmed for God's sakes. The women and children for God's sake.
That's right. That's it. Yeah. It's really.
All they want is some goddamn food. And then we got a good 30 seconds of him dangling out of the helicopter with some ADR grunting. Yeah. Sick.
Yeah. Like a Frank Caliendo impression of him grunting. It's like when Leia chokes Jada. And as tongue as hanging out, like, and they're trying to talk to him as his head's hanging out of a helicopter.
He's not getting a word about your saying to him. But then so they arrest him and they put him into a work camp, which is like a rock quarry or something, right? Or like a rock and roll quarry. Yeah.
Yeah. The Remorns movie. Yeah, the sequel to rock and roll high school. When your dreams have been shattered after rock and roll high school and you're forced to work at a rock and roll quarry.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You're a big man on campus in high school in rock and roll high school. And you're emotionally withholding to your three rock and roll children. They all look like the Remones. They're all dressed like sunglasses along here.
But they're eight. No, good. Yeah. So they put in the work in a factory, whatever.
Yeah. Which just looks like a like a like a it reminded me of that Pat and Oswald bit. We're just talking about how gay hair metal videos are. Yeah.
Just like sparks flying everywhere. It's that kind of vibe. Yeah. He works in a spark.
Yeah. Exactly. That's what they manufacture. Chief export just sparks.
Sparks. And that's where we meet Yafet Koto. Also we get Yafet Koto. And that's the incredibly regularly built Yafet Koto.
Yeah. He's just yeah. He works at anger is jacked in this like totally pumped up. Yeah.
And then there's Yafet Koto. Yafet Koto. Yafet. I'll have a hamburger and a hot dog at the Fourth of July Coke out Koto.
He's like he is just a man surrounded by pro wrestlers and literal professional football players. Yes. Yeah. Yafet Koto was in.
He's in homicide. I think he was in the long order. Right. Yeah.
And Alien, the first Alien movie. And they show at a certain point in this movie. He's in the same skin-tighted Dita's jumpsuit as Arnold Schwarzenegger standing next to him. So it is.
It's drastic. Yeah. It's unfair. It is not fair.
And we also get to meet his nerdy friend Weiss, who you described to me as the Shane Black of this movie. Yeah. In Predator, Shane Black plays like it's like a communications. I think that's like his thing.
He's also making pussy jokes nonstop. Jesus Christ. It's exhausting. But he wears glasses.
He's the glasses guy, really. That's his role. He's the biggest nerd out of all of them. But he's still totally jacked.
Yeah. But maybe he reads a book sometimes. This guy's a dweeb, though, in Running Man. Yeah.
He has a full-on dweeb. He has all uplink satellites. Oh my god. He's hacking in the mainframes and cracking five digit jokes just in the nick of time.
So they plan this elaborate prison escape where they fake a fight and then it all goes to hell. And then a ride ensues. A fight? No, no, we're done with that now.
OK. All right. And the nerdy guy, he has the code to take down the electric fence. Right.
Because it's important to mention that everyone's wearing explosive dog collars, basically. Yes. And there's like a perimeter fence. Yeah.
So he's got the code. He's going to take down the electric fence. So we could all escape. And then there's like a group of, I don't know, what did you say, six, 10 guys?
Yeah. What a weird two numbers to ball part with, on Dan. You know, three, six, 11, and six. 11 guys, I don't know.
An autistic person pretending to ball part. I'll tell you about that. I don't feel great about it. No.
But that we got, there's like a huge amount of gunfire going off. Schwarzenegger grabs a guy by the balls and throws them over. Yeah. One hand on the shirt collar, one hand on the balls.
I love that. Is that like needle lift? Yeah. I think it's either needle lift or going out.
It's probably like, yeah. He grabs him. And then there's like a realistic amount of time before. Like, OK.
So he grabs him. Then there's maybe three or four seconds before he says needle lift. As if like there's a real time elapsed beat like of him thinking of what he should say to this guy. Yeah.
It's really great. Yeah. We get that. And then we also, there are people to die, there are guards and prisoners that die in this.
But I think for our first kill. Yeah. Should we, real quick, for the future, moving forward, does the first kill have to be a named a character? Is that a good rule for us?
I don't think it has to be a named character. But this is like, this is the most notable kill, I think, of the first kills. It's hard to pinpoint like who actually dies first in this right scene. But Chico's the one who.
Chico. Hey boss. Yeah, Chico marks from Return to Sounds Lot. The use car's out there.
The use car's out there. Return to Sounds Lot. So yeah. We get that.
That's it. Everyone is screaming because Chico gets impatient. He freaks out and starts running before the perimeter is taken down. It's still armed.
So if he crosses a certain threshold, his head will pop, which it does. And what is truly, I think we agree on this, like a great special effect. Yeah, his head blows and the body keeps running. Yeah.
Looks great. Yeah. So good. How do you do it?
That guy is always in. He's a, I think he's a stuntman. He's always like a headless guy. Yeah.
But he's always in movies. Like he's in a lot of 80s action movies as just like. Well, he's in Horse Feathers. A night at the Opera.
The Coconuts. Right. A day at the races. What's another queen album?
A lot of overlap there, you know? Yeah, it's a weird queen album Horse Feathers. The least like theatrical over the top movies. Yeah.
So Chico's head explodes. Yeah. But they're cool. But they get the fence down and they all escape.
Yeah. And then the next thing we see is Schwarzenegger with a beard. Yeah. He is well, he had the beard in prison.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah.
But then the next thing we see is Schwarzenegger, Yoffe Kodo, and their third wheel nerd. Who cares? Nerd wheel, in my opinion. They run into Dweasel Zappa.
Yeah. And McFleewood. Yeah. Yeah.
He's there, right? Right. Yeah. And McFleewood is playing a guy named Mick.
He's playing that to him himself, right? In the future. Yeah. Because he says like, what's the line?
He says like, his McFleewood's whole deal is he's removing the collars. And he leads leading some sort of a resistance, an underground sort of thing. And like, Schwarzenegger sits down in the seat. He wants his collar taken off.
And McFleewood's like, you're one of those cops that arrested all my friends and burned all my songs. And he's getting a shit like that. And like, let's just McFleewood be in McFleewood. Right.
Yeah. Which is weird because then they also make him the guy who knows how to deprogram. Like disarm and explosive. Well, to be fair, he doesn't know how to disarm it.
He only knows how to like snap it off. And then they have to throw it in that little box. That contains the explosion when it goes off. Yeah.
So he plays Mick. His character is Mick. Yeah. And then Dweasel's character is Stevie.
Yeah. Which is IMDB it says that it's a reference to Stevie Nix. But I like to think that they want to get Stevie Nix. I picture Stevie Nix in that role.
Just leading a rebellion of some sort. She'd certainly look better in that beret. Yeah. Yeah.
And then fucking Dweasel. It's so weird. Although he seems at home. He wears the beret at that point.
Oh, can I take his home? Oh boy. And then they split up. Our guys split up.
And we get this like little like parting words of wisdom. Oh, the worst. The best. The worst.
Do you have a clip of that? I do. All right. It's the fucking worst.
It's like, ugh. I hate it. Just play it. Yeah.
So Schwarzenegger is leaving the guys. He's about to hop on a truck and get out. And this is just some great world building. Right.
I guess this is it. Now you wise, stay out of the national database, OK? And you'll offer and stop trying to teach the Constitution of the street punks. I hate that.
I hate it so much. Stay out of the national database. Yeah. That's good advice for anyone.
Yeah. Stop trying to teach the Constitution of the street punks. They don't get it. And I have nothing to say.
Yeah. I'm sorry. I wish I had a cool quip. I know that's what this show is all about.
It's supposed to be in stinkers all the time. But frankly, I'm going to let it speak for itself. That's bad attitude, right? For a show.
Moving on. Oh, I want to mention, Schwarzenegger's wearing a world's gym. Oh, yeah. It's so weird.
Yeah, it's not a gold gym. But it's got the same logo with the barbell bending. Yeah. And this is world's gym.
Because I guess this is the globalized society. Yeah. And now I don't know. And also, he probably put that in there.
And it was just like, no, my people will fucking love this. All my gym rat buddies. Everyone's just like, all right. Oh, you work out?
Yeah. You know what Jim Radslov? Sci-fi. Huge sci-fi guys.
And Richard Dawson. Oh, my God. We're not the Dawson just yet. We get intimate.
You're making me keep the lid on Dawson. My appreciation for Richard Dawson. All right, fine. Great.
Schwarzenegger says he's got a brother who we never see. No. But he's like, I'm going to meet up with my brother. He could probably hook me up with a job somewhere, whatever.
And he goes to his brother's apartment. And he showers up with him, whatever. And his brother's not there. But who walks in?
But Maria can cheat on her own soul. Hey, your accent. What's flawless? What happened?
No, it was great. What happened? Forget it. I forget it.
So she lives there. And who's this? Maria can cheat on her own soul. He kind of fell off a little bit there.
Maria can cheat on her own soul. Oh, wow. This is going to be explicit rating. And she was in the she's in Predator 2 with Danny Glover in the Schwarzenegger role.
And Bill Paxton. The better of the two. He's the better one. Although Bill Paxton is good in like Casper, the friendly coach.
I was going to say, David Lynch has lost highway. And he's good as the president in Independence Day. We'll see what happens in this new one, though. Do you think he'll still be the president?
Yeah. 20 years later. You don't think he'd be allowed to serve five terms after he stopped in Alien? Yeah.
I don't know. President of the world, buddy. Yeah. Any FluidJet.
Did he? I've never seen that movie. Yeah. He delivers an amazing speech.
And then he hops in his fighter jet and leads the group to bring down these ships. Oh my god. It's crazy. Wow.
It's real crazy. Wow. That shit would not really fly now. No pun intended.
Yeah. I don't know. I don't think we have that kind of faith in our leaders anymore. No.
Although, yeah. I mean, they tried it, right? That White House Down movie. And then there's the other one.
There were like two of the. Olympus has fallen. Olympus has fallen. Isn't there one of those movies where like someone's the president is working side by side with the head of the Secret Service to get out of the White House?
I think that is White House. I think it's White House. Isn't it like Terence Howard or someone? White House Down is with Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum.
Yes. And apparently that one's good. That is the one kind of scene. It's kind of like die hard is one of here.
Yeah. It's in the same vein. Yeah. They're like stuck in the White House and it's full of terrorists.
Yeah. And that sounds like a good time. Yeah. It's the other one is I could be wrong.
I haven't seen either one of these, but it's Gerard Butler. And I don't know who the president is. Jerry Butler. Jerry Butler.
That is a little bit. I don't know. What was it talking about? It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. Buddy, I can chew on on some? See. See.
See. See. See. She lives there.
And she gets home, strips down to her pantyhose and lingerie. Yeah. And it starts working out. Her husband's birthday outfit.
Yeah. And she's working out to Captain Freedom's workout, which I have a clip of. Yeah. Hold on.
We should probably set up that. Oh, Captain Freedom? Yeah. It's Jesse the body Ventura.
Oh, the bod. Yeah. And he is magnificent. Play the clip.
If the answer is yes, Captain Freedom's workout. He's great. Yeah. He's doing all kinds of physical stuff that he's doing.
He's chewing scenery in this movie when like, there are a lot of people chewing scenery in this movie. But I think he does. There's a few marks on everything by the end of this movie. Yeah.
He's a little bit more like a chef. He turned. No, he, for as little as he's in this movie, he's truly memorable. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do want to talk about him more because I feel like he gets, he gets shafted. He gets shafted. His character gets shafted.
But his storyline gets shafted. Like, I don't know. It seems like they were going somewhere else. Yeah.
And we'll get into it. But they kind of mash him up with another character. Like it seems like, you know, do we have to go and cry? All right.
No, let's go in chronological order because I do want to talk about. Oh. Was that Javier Bardin? Javier Bardin, who just stopped by?
I'm going to kill you. Uh, the injury, then. I'm going to break your little nasty arms because you're so mean to me, mom. Oh, I earned you nicer.
My face is all twisted off. Now here, lean into my little cattle prod, baby. And also that one with the Allen movie, which one? The one about that is Victoria's Game Set Match.
Nope. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
See. Can I do the rest of the episode? Is it hard to work? That's my only word.
That's all right. So what were we saying? Where were we? Uh, who fucking knows?
It's hard to say. Uh, there's a scene where Schwartz and Egger, like, he sees Maria, Chichino, and the department, and he like sneaks up on her basically and scares the shit out of her. It's hard for it. Two hundred and seventy five pound man to sneak up on anyone, I would say.
I myself am a large man. Not more big, big, big grande. Not more, quite big. I'm not done.
It keeps going. Daddy! Oh my God. Are you okay?
I don't know what happened. It was all black. It was all balls. You're laughing, but I can't account for it.
It felt like a week. I was in, I was in Ibiza. Ibiza? It was beautiful.
Oh God. Jesus Christ. Do you feel like we're overcompensating? Yep.
So, yeah, I do want to talk about that scene because it's super fucked up. Start to finish. Yeah. At this point, everybody knows Ben Richards is the guy who murdered a bunch of people.
Yeah. So even if he finds his brother, his brother is going to think he murdered a bunch of people. Right. They ended up shooting everybody in that food riot and they pinned it on Schwartz and Egger.
And that's why he was in the fucking prison camp. It was that Ben Richards is the butcher of Bakersfield. That's his nickname. It's so weird because if there's a food riot in this society, people wouldn't sympathize with the food rioters.
Right? Well, yeah, I guess this is a fundamental problem with this movie because people believe in the government. The government controls the media. That is a tricky one.
Yeah. There's no getting out of it. I should have saved this for the end. But I just thought.
Do you want me to do Bardem again? No, no, no, no. Are you quite certain? It's pretty fun to do.
No, no. We have to keep going. We have to push through. Oh, sorry.
Oh, sorry. Yes. Yeah, but that scene of Schwartz and Egger chasing. I'm going to call her Miss Alonso.
Yeah. MCA. Yeah. Chasing her around where it's like.
That makes me sound like he's like, she's a chicken in a barnyard. I thought like a Benny Hill. Yeah. He's wearing a captain's hat.
It's worth mentioning. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Fuckin' mind as well, though.
She's trying to get away from him because he's like this fucking huge guy in her apartment and the butcher of Bakersfield. And he like, you know, chases her down and ties her to the fucking bed. Or no, I'm sorry. The Bowflex.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ties her to the Bowflex. And he's like... In like an S&M position.
Yeah. The whole thing is, it's so like rape fantasy. It's disgusting. Yeah.
It's... Well, what did you say? Oh, okay. Right.
Yeah. So like the whole tenor of the scene is him, like, you know, he's holding her hostage because she wants to obviously call the police on him. Right. And it's him just being like, I'm innocent.
And like the whole thing is like this weird fucked up male fantasy of like, I'm in a position to hurt you, but I'm a good guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's like, I'm not a good guy, I would say.
But then there's... But he takes her. He kidnaps her basically and he's like, me and you, we're getting out of town. We're going to Hawaii.
Yeah, steal some money and her travel passes or whatever. Right. And in like the perfect plan, takes her to an island so that if they're followed, he cannot escape. Right.
Oh my God. They get to the airport. He's in like this fucking ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. Yeah.
Which one pants at all? Where did he get this outfit? She had it in her apartment. But it fits him.
He's a giant. Yeah. He's a huge man. Oh my God.
Yeah. So fucking enormous. And then she... And the cops, they chase him down and onto the tarmac.
Yeah. And they shoot that fucking neck on the... They net him. They net him.
Yeah. It's awesome. It is pretty cool. He's running in white loafers.
Yep. Pretty good. Looks great. Yeah.
There is... And one of my favorite details in the whole movie is the scrape on his elbow. Yeah, so good. I don't know why.