Dragnet (1987) - Because You Watched Starcrash

R.I.P. The Emperor, aka Christopher Plummer. We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this bonus episode where Dr. Allen Berres, Michael Clink, and Mike Vanderpool discussed the 1987 masterpiece - Dragnet! “We believe bad sex and good drugs are the cornerstones of a great democracy.” In honor of our fallen spiritual spacebrother Christopher Plummer, we decided to veer away from our scheduled programming and watch 1987’s Dragnet! Topics covered include the legendary Onion AV Club interview with Plummer, actors who love to work, Vanderpool’s assertion that this is a perfect movie (the anti-Supergirl), turning a serious work into a loving parody, parallels with Austin Powers and Brady Bunchremake, changes to modern James Bond films, shoutout to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast, buddy comedy/ buddy cop film conventions, the role of the car chases in building characters and jokes, Dan Ackroyd’s delivery as Friday, origins of the word “pagan,” tightness of the plot, Dabney Coleman’s crazy southern lisp, pimp names and callbacks to Black Scorpion, Jack O’Halloran as the Clarence Boddicker of this movie, lifeguards don’t dive in head first, the horror of Tom Hanks rapping, Shirley’s disappointment that we’re discussing a good movie, Plummer’s underutilized villain, the role of televangelists as villains in 1980s movies, hilarious police torture doesn’t quite hold up, speculation if Bill Murray could have played Streebek, Mazes and Monsters as the low point of Hanks’s career, Clink’s desire to see Hanks cast as a serial killer, our ongoing love of BosomBuddies, The Dead Pool and Jim Carey’s forgotten early turn towards drama, the perfection of Harry Morgan as Gannon, why you can’t give a message to an unconscious man, Gannon’s weird willingness to believe that Friday was high enough to hallucinate the PAGAN rally, and Streebek’s TV watch.