I'm gonna be out the way that you got me. King me, right in. Diamond right in. Welcome to King me.
I'm Dan Gagliardi. I'm Rob Avon. And this week we're talking about Kujo. Now, before we do that, this is a very special episode.
This is the first episode we've released since, recorded rather since we released the first episode. So what had happened? Yeah. The first episode, Kerry, which just came out, I think last week, the time we were recording this, it came out last week.
We probably recorded that five, six months ago. It feels like it was back in August or September. And I think we said we had the same experience listening back to it, which was that we didn't remember saying anything we said on the show. Everything that we said was totally new.
We are significantly different people now than we were when we recorded that. I am on anti-depressant stuff. Things are just different in our lives, I think. We're in different places.
Is there anything you took away that you want to bring back that maybe we forgot about? I mean, the whole Snell thing. The Snell rating system, the Snell rating system. Hilarious.
We are delightful boys. And we have a lot to be proud of. I was driving around listening to our podcast. Just cruises.
Just fucking windows down there. Tearing up pavement, burning a quarter mile at a time. Yeah, I was Vin Diesel in it all over the place. I just realized I've mashed up grease and Vin Diesel.
Burning up a quarter mile. I live my life by burning up a, no, Vin Greasal. No, no, no, no. All right.
So we're talking about Koojo. Koojo. It came out in 1983, running time one after 33 minutes. And it's not worth mentioning.
Starring. Oh, Dee Wallace. Dee. You killed it babe.
Denny Patero. Oh, no, introducing Danny Patero. It is introducing. Little tad.
Addy. Oh, man. He loves it. He loves tagging on ease to the end of children.
Yeah. The end of children. Look out for the new Stephen King novel, The End of Children. Starts Daniel Hugh Kelly, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter, who I'd never seen that young before.
Yeah. It was a character actor and a really a career-making turn for Mills Watson, his Gary Perbier. Is that the friend? That was the trashy, towny guy.
The first guy who gets killed. Right. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right.
So, okay, wait, going into this movie. Well, what did you know about it? Well, I'm a dog lover. As I think I might have mentioned.
Yes. I knew what it was about. Scary dog. Scary scary dog.
I knew it. Do you know? Did you know about the rabies thing? Yes.
I did. I didn't know how the dog contracted rabies, which I felt was unnecessarily contrived. A dog could just get rabies. He doesn't have to stick his head into a hollow tree.
Yeah. A hollow tree and get bitten on the nose by a vampire bat. It seemed like a bit much. And also, to have it in the context of a 10-minute chase sequence where he's following a rabbit.
Yeah. And then, he's like, oh, I thought he got that rabbit end up seeing. He probably did. Right.
I'm sure if we went back, I'm sure there are like three frames of him with the rabbit. Yeah. And then, so he chases the rabbit into a rabbit hole or hollowed out log. Yeah.
And he starts a bar. Oh, yeah, he does shove it in there. Like a looney tune. Yeah.
He's got his head stuck in one end of a very long log filled with bats. It's just lousy with bats. No, the log is filled with bats. That's the log that's running across the stream that the rabbit runs through and then KuJuk gets his head stuck.
That's just a fun diversion. That's a visual gag performed by a dog. Where the bats go from? Where the bats go from?
And for some reason, he's sharing, he's rooming with a bunch of bats. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Post log. But yeah, it's very silly. It seemed like he chases the rabbit around in the field in circles for, I don't know, how many improvised tuxedo sequences. That's over measuring time.
Yeah. Less than one, to be sure. Most things happen in this. I'm sorry.
Is it sped up? Yes, in part. For the point of view shots. Okay.
Which like, I was like, when they did have the point of view shot following the rabbit, I was like, oh, that's a really cool shot. No. It seemed to be happening in real time, but it was happening very quickly. Yeah.
It was a good shot. And they must have felt the same way because they were like, let's use it three times. It was a bit much. So yeah.
So he gets a bit on his little puppy nose. He's the same for an hard. Yeah. Let's paint a picture here.
So he's a big boy. He is a big boy. And a good boy. And a good boy.
He looks like he's a big teddy bear. Yeah. He just wants a snuggle. Would you, okay.
Would you say that that's not going to be that same for an hard? Yes. I would. I don't sleep in my bed.
I don't care what streams he's been running through. Would you say that he's my old bitch dog? He's my bitch, but it feels. Yeah.
If you've never seen Koojo, basically, it's the story of one good boys fall from grace. It is. This movie made me so sad. I cannot tell a lot.
Yeah. Never for the people. No. No, no, no.
I don't give a shit about the people really. I felt terrible about that dog. I felt as soon as that dog gets bit on the nose by that bat, I'm like, oh no. He doesn't know.
He doesn't know. He doesn't know. And there's one part where I was like, I almost cried. Is it where he's almost mean and then isn't?
Yeah. I know. He felt himself slipping. Yeah.
Not this good boy. Yeah. Not a fellow good boy. Can we jump ahead and talk about that scene because I was very confused.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, is one of the symptoms of rabies that a thick fog overtakes your property? Well, interesting fact about that fog.
It was created by military grade smoke bombs. Why? For the movies, baby. We have to make it real.
Why was that real? And the local fire department actually showed up because they thought that the force was on fire. And it wasn't. And it wasn't worth doing.
It really wasn't. It was just scary. Good call. What else has he done?
I'm going to check. Yeah. Go ahead. So Kuzhou, his owner, is a mechanic.
Mr. Chamber. He keeps saying camber. I feel like it's chambers.
Who's that? That's Ed Lauter. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Wait, hold on. He's the dad who finds the friend, right? He's the mechanic. The mechanic on the hill.
Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. Yeah. I thought their last name, I wrote this down actually because I was so confused as to whether their name could possibly be.
Okay. It's like, it's not chamber. Oh, it is. It's a chamber.
The first time they mentioned that character, he says chambers. He does, right? And then it changes to either chamber or camber or something. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, I don't know. It was fine. It's probably fine. I was going to make a connection there between another Stephen King movie, which is stand by me.
River Phoenix plays a character called Chris Chambers. And I thought there was some sort of relation there. Oh. Could it be?
I mean, this, hang on. It probably is, right? Stephen King's no stranger to, like, the universe. Melding his universes.
Yeah. Oh, so Lewis Teague also directed Cat's Eye. So we'll be hearing from him again. And I think he might be dead.
Because his last thing was in 2010. This is the first film to take place in fictional town Castle Rock, which goes on to be featured in the Dead Zone, which we'll be doing next. Stand by me. Okay.
The Dark Half and Neeful Thing. Man, this is the same family. Makes sense too, because they're kind of like the avaries of, yeah. Yes.
Just like the dirt bag family. Yeah. And I feel like Chris Burns women alive in their fire pits. Chris Chambers isn't, probably, isn't the, isn't related to that family?
Is it like the sun? No, it's like a nephew. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like that. I like that story. We've come up with there. It's such a sucker for when there's that kind of interconnectivity.
I think it's the best for no real reason. Yeah. My first note here is I feel bad for the dog. Yeah, the whole time.
I, hold on. I got to look at my notes, but I think I have something in here that just says like, I still think he's a good boy. It's like halfway through my notes too. So it was after he'd gone full bad.
Yeah. So the, the boy that takes care of Coojo, he's like, you know, it's a boy and his dog. The one who says he's a Saint Bernard. He's nice.
Yeah. Yeah. So not tad. I think it's like Brett or something Brandon Brandon.
Brandon. Brandon. It is Brett. Yeah.
Yeah. He goes out walking into the woods. He's looking for Coojo in the smokey fog for no reason, right? There was no reason.
Well, they were, they were packing up. They were smoking ham hocks. And then Coojo finds him and he's like, growling and he's going to, and you're like, oh no, is he going to rip this little boy apart? And just like, and he like regains like composure.
I think I'm apart like roasting. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to danger field him.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rover danger.
Oh, it's not a thing. It's a real movie with Rodney Dangerfield as the voice of Saint Bernard. Wow. As I was saying, I love that interconnectivity.
Same character, right? Same dog, prequel. But the dog like regains composure. He's like, no, no, I can't do this.
I got to go walk this off. And that's when he goes and makes his first kill and somebody else else. And it is disgusting towny. Stephen King loves to kill townies.
Oh, wait. Okay. Real quick. The, you know, in the beginning, the little boy, Tad, he's in his room and he keeps freaking out about a monster.
Yeah. And the door opens by itself. Yeah. What the fuck was that for?
Well, I will tell you. Oh, this is, it, since this is all part of the Stephen King over, right? This is actually supposed to be set after, like in the timeline, it's supposed to be set after the dead zone. Okay.
And there's a murderer character in the dead zone that dies. And that's the, is it the ghost of the murder? It's supposed to be the ghost of that murderer. And that's really fucking cool.
And it, in the book, this is, I don't know, the dog is actually possessed by that boy. Yeah. There's no rabies in the book. I don't, I don't know about the rabies, but that is definitely an aspect of the book.
That is so fucking stupid. They couldn't do that because the, the dead zone and koo-joo came out two months apart and different studios, different studios. Great. There was going to be a connection.
The, the sheriff, the one that dies in this. Yeah. Is actually in the, in the movie? Yeah.
In the movie. Not the, it's not played by the same actor, but it's the same character. That, that would have been so cool. I know.
Honestly. There's, there's actually, I know we give Stephen King a lot of shit for being a hokey motherfucker, but that would have been so cool. A hokey motherfucker. A hokey motherfucker.
Yeah. But that's, I, I'm sorry. I, I resort to my Canadian roots when I get super angry. Um, so yeah.
So the kid opens, he's like opening the doors and stuff. And I just, this, the setting there in the scenes and stuff. He was just like, I was waiting for all of Stephen King's nightmares to just pour out of that closet. And I, I, I thought there was going to be some dumb supernatural element.
Right. And there should have been. Right. And I would have liked it.
Yeah. I would have liked how dumb that was. Yeah. But yeah, I'm glad the dog wasn't possessed by the spirit of a killer.
Yep. That is basically the movie child's play. Yes. I don't need that.
Yeah. With the dog instead of a dog. Yeah. And the dog can't even do quips because it's a dog.
Right. Um, I also have down in my notes here. Uh, St. Bernard's should all be called Beethoven's.
We should just officially change those names. Two Beethoven's. Yeah. The breed.
Um, I'm fine with that. I think it's a Celery. Like a Greyhound. Oh, no.
Like, yeah. Like a Celery. Yeah. Um, we're like, um, what's like a, like a German Shepherd would be a Celery because it's still pretty big and pretty lovable.
Yeah. And like really great in its own. Right. But there's something so iconic about a Beethoven.
I love those boys. Um, oh, by the way, my note was, uh, I refused to believe that Kujo is a bad boy. Flat out. Yeah.
Okay. So, so we meet Kujo in the first scene. He's chasing and wrap it around and then he gets bit on the nose. Yes.
Then we meet the family, like our main family, uh, the Trenton's. Um, and we meet, uh, Donna and Tad and Vic and Vic. Oh, what a, what a weird, be story line. That was like, so strange, right?
So you got the main family, right? And then like a guy comes over played by Christopher Stone, uh, Steve Kemp, Steve Kemp. The, I believe he's referred to as the local hunk at one point or like the local hottie. Yeah.
Which I feel like is just, it's generous because he's got to be like 42. If you put him in like a slightly torn t-shirt, everybody'd be like, what's his homeless man doing? Yes. Yeah.
He's, um, he looks like Chuck Norris just to like, he's got it. He's not the town hunk. No. There's some like fucking 19 year old, keep her Sutherland is running around in this town.
That's true. Bird dog and chicks. Even his crew, just bro, just finger in girls. Yeah.
I mean, not if it's that Connie Palermo chick. Shouldn't even let me feel her tits. Ah, bro. Um, so yeah, basically.
You got yourself a, uh, a Jewish girl. I think that's the next line. I hope so. Catholics are good too.
That's what he says. Uh, that is such, yeah. I really don't think Stephen King has ever had sex. Like I feel like there's an everything, every movie, every like description of sex in his movies points in the opposite direction of sex.
Yeah. The least sexual descriptions of sex. Not even like, and then he feels her tits. And then he, then he comes.
And then he said, I want to lick your hootenannies. It's always like, it's always weird made up slang. Yeah, it's weird. That's what Tommy knockers are, right?
Yeah. They're, maybe a menorah. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, the movie, the four hour movie, the Tommy knockers. It's all about an exploration. It's all about a woman exploring her body. I'm so excited to talk about, uh, D Wallace.
D Wallace because like, I want to talk about her in comparison to, uh, what's her name from the shining. Yeah. I felt the same thing because I feel like what I had to say last, last time was very insightful. Yeah.
And I'm happy I went to bat for her because I really do, I stand by what I said. Right. And I feel like, uh, Donna Trenton, D Wallace is the exact same character. Yeah.
It is a three way horror dynamic just like the shining. It's true. And it's the same. I mean, it's Jack Nicholson's real dog himself.
Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. So the family.
The camp comes over and everybody's like, Oh, okay. He's dropping off something. He's like doing handy work or some bullshit. I think that's the like initially when we meet him.
Yeah. Like he's fixing a table or something. She's like, yeah. And then like the next scene is like him, him with the blown the trombone and waking her up so weird.
Yeah. So profoundly confusing. And then she like, she gets about a bed and, um, like, and puts on her panties. Bro.
But it was like, like everything is pretty much spelled out in that scene, but I had to rewind it. I was like, wait, I don't know if they established enough here for me to understand what's happening. So wait. So then obviously D.
Wallace is cheating on her husband, Vic, with the town hunk who is a 45 year old semi-homeless trombone player. Right. He's a, he's what we call a triple threat. Chris Stone, who at the time was also D.
Wallace's husband. Is that true? Boom. Wow.
So they could like really get into it. Oh my God. It must have been just their chemistry. You know what?
Their chemistry of him being an insane abusive. Yeah. It was a real dick. Yeah.
What the fuck? Um, he, yeah. So basically you find that out. Then there's that weird serial sub plot also.
The serial thing is so strange. And it was so dumb because like, I, once I realized why it was there, I was furious. Well, okay. So this is before we find out D.
Wallace is talking to this other guy. Everybody's sitting around the breakfast table and the kid's like, Hey, look dad. It's your commercial or something. Right.
And let's, I wish I had the audio because it is the, the blandest older man. Yeah. It's just, it's a old, old man, a 60 year old man in a sweater vest, I think. And like a bow tie probably.
Right. Yes. He is the professor. He's a character called the professor and he shills for children's sugar cereals.
Right. Like this is what they're peddling like a, like a, like a, like, like, Count Chocula or a lucky charm or something along those lines and Victor and the father. He created this character. Let's call it because it's not a character.
It's a man who's never acted before in his life, barely memorizing his lines. And he's seriously, I do anything written down that he actually says, well, I have the tagline for the, the serial, which is the worst fucking tagline for anything. And it is. So he's sitting there and he takes a big, big spoonful of cereal and he gobbles it all up and he says, nothing wrong here.
That is the death protest too much. That is some real shit. Yeah. And the name of the cereal is Sharp cereal.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Like it's so, there's no actual tie between that whole element of this movie and the dog, but there are like these weird little verbal nods to it.
Like the Sharp cereal, the fact that everyone thought that they were bleeding. Like everything was red. Well, that's right. Right.
So they, right. The big problem with this is like it's a, it's a fruity redberry cereal. There was a red dye that everyone mistook for internal hemorrhaging when they shit out red. Yeah.
They were, everybody was pissing red. Yeah. I don't know everybody's bleeding, but it's just the dye. And somehow this is entirely the Trenton's fault for coming up with this character who just by rotten luck happens to say nothing wrong here.
When everything is wrong. Everything is wrong. Yeah. Like I feel like this movie I guess is set in the present of the time, which I'd want to get into because all the townies live like it's the 50s.
Yeah. To the point where Stephen King, oh my God, the townies and Stephen King movies are some of my favorite characters ever. I loved the mechanic and mailman because they talk that way where they're like, just leaving in the garage. Sure.
I'm the mailman. No, what you want to do is take your car off the road to the cab is place. Yeah. Yeah.
I love, I love them townies. Yeah. I forgot where I was in my, so it's well. Okay.
And then D Wallace cuts it off with the guy. Yeah. She's like, I have a family. I can't be, I can't be boning you all the time.
Yeah. We're done here. I liked the moment with her and her husband in bed and she's like, you're so good with him. Yeah.
I thought that was a nice thing. Yeah. And then I think that's right. That's like her impetus to call it off with him and so like would get her to do it.
So she does. And he waits until the second the door closes to spring out of bed and throw his pants on and chase after her. Right. And just that moment, her husband happens to be driving by in his cool ass convertible.
Yeah. And she sees his jaguar. Did you hear him say jaguar? Yeah.
He sees her and him and he's like, wait, the fuck? And like he doesn't, you turn in heavy traffic. I was very concerned. But a patient to you turn.
Yeah. Like they could have shot that. So he cut someone off. He didn't really.
He didn't. There was like a nice gap, but they still honked as though he'd done something wrong. Which made me almost feel like that was actual traffic that was happening. Yeah.
That wasn't like movie magic traffic. No, no, no, no. I don't think anyone but the driver of that camera or, excuse me, Jaguar Jaguar Jaguar Jaguar. Jaguar.
And then he like when he comes back around, they're gone. Yeah. No one's there. But he's on to it.
You know, I think he he gets it. He knows what's going on. Also having my notes here. The kid, Tad.
Yeah. There's also a little boy from who's the boss. I've never seen who's the boss. Well, I will tell you right now, it's Angela.
Spoilers. There's a there's a whole discussion as to who the boss actually is, right? It's Angela. Okay.
All right. Is that the Tony Danza one? It is. A listen, I know.
I have no idea when anything happens in history. Because as far as I'm concerned, a listen, I know was like, she's a 90s bitch, right? That's a reference to a song. Yeah.
Well, she was on charmed. Yeah. In the 90s. Yep.
In the 80s, she was a child and she was on who's the boss. When I was a kid, I had a big crush on her in on who's boss. I see. And then and then she got too old for you.
And then she got too old. So where were we at? Well, okay. They have like a the pick and Donna de Wallace and her husband, they have a conversation and he's like, what would he have to say?
And she's like, oh, nothing. Don't worry about the kind of thing. I love when she's like, can you get the groceries? That's your job.
He's like, not today. Yeah. Yeah. Go.
Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Go fuck yourself.
Why should I take the groceries if someone else is eating? Yep. I also have here. The kid was at a tad was at like a summer camp.
Like he's playing in the park at one point. Yeah. And his dad just like pulls up and they start talking and he just leave together and like that would never fly. No adults at all.
You can't do that. Yeah. This is exactly why you can't do that anymore. You just filmed it.
Hey man, it was a different time, a better time. I bet no one suspected child enough. You can just kidnap kids Willie Nilly. Oh boy.
All right. Let's see. I have the IMDB Trivia opened here. After filming, Dee Wallace went on record and saying she hoped she never sees another Pinto in her life.
She's driving a Pinto. Yeah. Which is notoriously a very dangerous car. Which I wondered at the time that this came out if that was like common knowledge yet because I don't know.
I don't think it was. It was just another car. Right. Yeah.
Why? Because American craftsman was not too similar. Was he really? Yeah.
Oh man. That makes sense. Yeah. We kind of speaking of the Pinto that we kind of glanced over at the, there's like a lot of weird tangents in this movie to get to a dog hunting a woman and her child.
Yeah. One of which is like, and this kind of sets the movie up, but why does he have to take his convertible to get fixed before the Pinto? Like, why can't they just know that that guy's there and bring the Pinto? Why is the one who has to set it up like that?
Yeah. It doesn't need to be set up like that. It's a lot. Running time.
See, all of these movies clocked in at like exactly 90 minutes. This one's 133 with credits. Right. So, yeah.
Damn. They probably had to hire more people to flesh out the credits. Special thanks to everyone. Oh, just everyone.
Yeah. Sort of like a filibuster. Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, basically, they, in the course of a few days, they become completely reliant on this family to fix all of their cars. So this other family though, the, the Kamer's, right? It's the father who's the main mechanic guy. And that's a louder.
at louder, his wife and then the little boy. His wife who is a prairie woman. She's a scribe. At one point, I was like, she looks like Alie Shidi's mom.
She does the incredibly old timey thing of offering everyone drinks when they get there. Would you like something to drink? While she's plucking a chicken? Yeah.
Would you plucking a chicken? Yeah. Jesus Christ. So this family, right?
It's very like, they're working class people, right? So it's the parents, the son, and then I'll go. No, well, the other guy? Yeah.
It's just a friend. He's just some schmuck. Yeah, he's just a schmuck. He's the worst.
He has my favorite line in the one of my favorite lines. I have three favorite lines. And he has a, he's talking about his weekend plans of broads, booze, and baseball. What kind of broads you think?
Who's talking to that guy? Yeah. That guy, he's like, he's a dirty, like greasy. He lives in Squalor.
We see his house. Wait a second, there was a scene where he's literally just taking like bags of trash and dumping it onto a pile of trash outside. And I was like, steaming things content for like lower class people. It's incredible.
Especially because he lived in a trailer for so long. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah.
I love when Kuzhou breaks into his house. And he, without hesitating, just flips his table out of the way. Yeah. Like it almost seemed like it's a thing he does if he's just milling about the house.
He seemed way too comfortable just tearing up his whole life. Yeah. But yeah. So we talk about, that's the family dynamic at the hander's house.
Right. That's the mechanics dynamic. And he's kind of like dick though. It's clear like, I think it's made clear that like the wife is a little bit scared of him.
Definitely, yeah. And because there's that thing of, this is not like Stefan, the Bill Hader character. It's that thing of when the mom is, the mom and the son are talking. And he's like, I think something's wrong with Kuzhou.
And she's like, oh, you have to wait to tell your father. Yeah. Why? They weren't really clear on it.
Was he just like in a rage and they didn't she want? Was that when they were leaving? I think so. Well, I think, well, OK, the whole thing with them leaving, right?
Yeah, I kind of miss this. So he comes home or whatever. And there's like, there's some sort of an engine holder thing, like something that you could build an engine on and keeps it suspended up in the air. And it's in his garage.
And he's like, who the fuck about this? We don't have this kind of money. No. And she's like, I bought it.
It was a gift for you. I won the lottery. $5,000. She won $5,000.
And I want you to get from me. Exactly. She was like, I got you this thing. So is it OK if me and Brett go and visit my sister?
That's right. And where? OK. And that's when he goes over to his friend's house and he's like, all broad, blues, and whatever.
Gotcha. Baseball. The three most exciting things in the world. So but at that moment, when she asks to go to her sisters, it's clear that she's scared of him.
Yeah. And she's asking permission to visit her family. Her immediate family. So you're like, oh, this is not good.
And then when they're packing up and all that, she packs up photo albums. She's gone for good. She's taking off. Completely missed that.
Yeah. Good for her. She's like, I'll be back. I'll call you when I get there.
No, I won't. Deuces. I'm out. Well, good.
And I think that's when the kid is like, I think, well, something's wrong with Kuzhou. And the mom's just like, I don't care. We have to leave. Yeah.
She's not hanging out for the fucking dog. Pretty heartless not to take the fucking dog, though. True. Granny's a big boy, and they had to move their whole operation out of that house.