With Amazon, you can deliver joy to everyone on your list. Like your Uncle Ricky, who made your wedding photos unforgettable because his fly was open. Get him some new underpants he'll love. And save big with Amazon Black Friday Week starting November 19th. Hello and welcome to another episode of Movie Mastery, the podcast where we watch the movies that you tell us to. I am in a hotel room with two idiots, and we are doing the show now. I'm John. With me, in this hotel room, lying down in his bed, comfortable as can be, is Jeff. Hello, I'm some idiot.
That's true. Yeah. Hey, it's right there in the web. Some idiot. I hope you can tell I'm lying down from my voice. Yeah. I hope it conveys. It's more relaxed. Yeah. More sexual. More sensual. More powerful.
And hello, heroes. I'm the guy who tells them to as I picked a movie for this week. Did you pick Carpool? Out of a limited list of two different things. As people who have listened to any episode where I explain the actual premise of this, we do have a list of movies and I take listener suggestions and put them on our big list of movies and use a random number generator to decide what we watch. I always roll up two, mostly just in case one of them isn't available, but also just in case we're not feeling one of them. We'll have two options. So this time around, I presented James with two options and he chose...
1996's Tom Arnold vehicle, Carpool. Which is efficient, if you think about it. It's Tom Arnold's vehicle that he's sharing with other people. That's true. It's an efficient vehicle. Good for the planet. This movie is green and eco-conscious. So for our section here with the spoiler-free review, this movie is bad. It's very bad. It's extremely bad. It's hard to watch and not pleasant. The process of watching Carpool is...
interesting insofar as you are seeing someone who understands the idea of jokes, but does not understand how to deliver them. And so you're constantly like, you've created a scenario that the scenario in your head is what is funny, but you forgot to put anything funny happening in it. So you're just like, oh, haha, they're driving through a mall. And I'm like, yeah, I've seen Blues Brothers. I get it. What happens in that? You know, they drive around. You're like, okay.
Nothing bad. Nothing bad happens to them. I don't really want to blame either of the main character actors in this or even the kids that are in it. It's not Pamer and Arnold's fault that there's no jokes in this. They didn't write it. No. I'm going to go after Arnold a little bit because this movie is heavily balanced on his charisma as an actor. That's the thing. In this era, this little mid-90s era where people were like, let's push Tom Arnold as a leading man in comedy things. The Stupids was such a big hit, I have to assume. It's weird because the second I saw, oh, it's a 1996 Tom Arnold movie, I went, I know what this is going to be. I was completely right. And Tom Arnold isn't...
uncharismatic is the thing. Like he is a fine presence to be like, oh, you're jovial. Like you're not unpleasant to have on screen, but you also are not able to carry anything. It's the perfect level of like pleasant to unpleasant where he sucks to watch. It's not fun. You don't like his character, but you're also, if you come across this on TV and the remote is like just out of reach, you're not changing the channel either. Yeah. Part of it to me is like, I'm used to, I remember in the nineties thinking Tom Arnold was like the worst and remembering the
constant going around jokes about how he was like Roseanne's ex-wife or ex-husband, right? Yeah. But nowadays, I would hang out with 50 Tom Arnolds before I'd stay in the same room as Roseanne for like a second. Oh, sure. Like, he has come up in the world via estimation just by how far other people have chosen to climb down. I mean, the thing for me is Tom Arnold has...
the same level of, I don't mind you being on screen, but there's an amount that I want you to be on screen that someone like Chris Elliott has. Sure, sure. Where I'm like, hey, that's fine. You can come in and do a bit and maybe with a good writer, it'll be a funny bit and then you can leave and it'll be fine and I'll enjoy that. But when you have a full movie, you get Cabin Boy and you're like, hey man, what's going on? Yeah, that's very fair. I still feel to this day that Chris Elliott is just a joke that David Letterman played on everybody. Yeah.
Yeah, I think the interesting thing about this movie, and we will definitely get into it, is you could have taken the same situation that this movie has and shifted characters a couple steps to the side and probably ended up with a more enjoyable movie. Oh, the base idea of... you know, a business dad doesn't want to drive a carpool and then gets essentially carjacked and is part of a weird heist thing. You're like, Oh, okay. That's going to be the point of that is going to be the weird juxtaposition where you've got sort of that odd couple like tension between like whoever your main bad guy is. And then your dad who has to like learn a lesson about bravery, except they made it Tom Arnold. He's like, Oh, I'm an affable little guy. And there's no problems here. And there's no tension and nothing is wrong. And you're like, okay. And how do you bounce off each other? I'm basically one of the kids in the car. Yeah.
Yeah. I will say it did define my expectations a tiny bit. When it first started up, I was like, okay, I kind of understand immediately just from the opening credit music and the level of animation being used there, what we're in for. A wacky kid comedy thing. Because it's got like...
That fucking Home Alone-y, Pee-wee's Big Adventure-y, Tim Burton-esque, Danny Elfman-style score where you can tell- You got that bouncy collage. Yeah, it's bouncy as fuck. Right away, and you're like, oh God, that is going to be the funniest thing in this. It's going to be like trying to sell me on this movie being funny via circus music. Just letting you know that this movie is supposed to be funny. It's wacky. We couldn't put any jokes in it, but know that that's what we wanted when we started making the movie. Especially since right away when you're watching the crappy little animations of the word carpool fly by, whether it's zooming around or being wheels or whatever, of just 80-yard in lines of people going like, are we there yet? Are we there yet? This is the most insane part of this movie, and it's what lets you know that this is-
satan's work that this is like some sort of diabolical trap for you as it's trying to create a feeling of suffering in the audience from junk yes well it's trying to create that nostalgic sense of do you remember what it was like in a carpool so from for what i was guessing just based on that opening bit i was like oh this is gonna be a shitty a christmas story or something like that that's trying to play on your heartstrings about remembering what oh carpools were always so wacky and there was always that one weird kid we're gonna do kind of a a coming-of-age kids in the day thing and no it's like a wacky crime caper instead yeah so uh yeah the the spoiler free review is this is just bad and not funny and just eminently missable like there's it's not bad enough that you're like oh i need to tell people about how bad this was like you get out of it like fuck this ruined my life and i need people to know about it but it's you know obviously not good in any way so if you put this on the list what's wrong with you what's going on with you hey look People put things on the list for a wide variety of reasons. There is that for a lot of the movies that are on the list where I'm like, hey man, who hurt you? Yeah. I mean, for me, this is a perfect example for something on the list because none of the other major podcasts about movies are going to bother with this one. No, sure. This is not going to turn up on We Hate Movies or something because it doesn't have one of their beloved favorite character actors that they can all do a bad impression of. So, we'll go ahead and play a little music and then we are going to come right back with the full in-depth spoiler review. Bring us that bouncy Danny Elf. 1996's Carpool.
And we're back and it is time to talk about carpool and all of the many things that happen within it. All of our beloved bits, jokes, and all of those favorite memorable moments that we all definitely remember from having watched this movie. I need you to know I paid three 99 for this. We all had to pay three 99 for this movie. I guess you remember that one part when, um, that, and then also it was funny because they, So it starts with David Pamer, a character actor who kind of looks like if there was a little extra John Lovitz left at the bottom of the tube after John Lovitz came pouring out. I mean, David Pamer is the idealistic idea of a Weasley accountant that is a character actor. And he's basically playing that. His character Daniel Miller in this is an ad agency guy who's got that big Christmas business dad thing going on. He's like, I'm too busy to care about my kids. I need money, money, money, and I need to make business happen. And you're like...
All right, I get where this is going. He's like a more severe looking Sam Lloyd. That's fine. Yeah. but he is being told his wife is super sick. She's feeling under the weather and she cannot drive the carpool today, so he will need to do it. And he is doing everything he can to try and get out of it because he has an important presentation that day, but it's at like two. He has so much time. That's the weird thing. There's a lot of time that he has. He's so resistant to it. And I get that, you know, while the presentation is at like two or whatever, that is his actual job and he does need to go to work and collect. I understand that he's like, I can't be late. That is again, one of his...
I guess he's super punctual. They really tried to make it a thing for him. The whole movie is about how he's late. You can't show him being on time for anything. It's weird because that deal where it's like, oh, Daniel's whole thing is he's like, he's on time. And that's his trait. And that's a thing you might think will come up.
is exactly like every other character in here where it's like, oh, they have to pick up a little girl for the carpool. Her thing is she's slow. You're going to get that business for like five seconds and then it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, the kids all get one little bit of business that they get to do again later in the movie, but it's not a resolution. It's not like she learns to be fast or anything. It's just when you meet her, she's slow. And then later in the movie, much, much later, she'll have a line where she's like, I'd get out of the car and then get back in, but I'm slow. So I'm just going to sit here. I just needed to remind everybody about that one trait they gave me. And it would be...
more interesting if they did actually give business to the other kids because you're like oh you got the one slow kid the weird and the kid that's weird and then the other one is his two sons Bucky and Andrew are just sort of kids generic 90s yeah the young one is truly nothing no he is a full just blank slate of I am a child and not even like I'm precocious I mean he's just like hey dad I need to go get breakfast. Are we going to school? I am upset that you are not at my ball game. You need to be better at dad. Which is weird because you'd expect the dad, you never come to my, you know, my karate finals or whatever type things that you always get in these kinds of movies. And there is a line where he basically offers to take them to a, they're in Seattle, so he offers to take them to a Seahawks game and they're like, that's just like how you offered to take us to the Mariners game and then you didn't. And that's as much as it gets. We don't really get the like, dad, you forgot to pick me up from Little League thing. Yeah, that's the problem is they don't have like a, oh, I'm in whatever sport and I'm good and you aren't going to my thing, which is the normal Christmas shorthand of you are bad at being a father. You miss my.
sports game. And otherwise, this really does fit that exact bill of the Christmas dad, of the arc for the main character, which feels, other than the fact that he's fastidious and good at his job, we're not really given to understand that he has been neglectful of his children or anything either. There's a little bit of it in the moment his wife is informing him that he has to drive the carpool today, where he's just like, this is your problem. This is not my problem. This is you.
I get, but it does not go as hard as a Christmas dad. A Christmas dad would truly be doing anything he could to emotionally distance himself from his wife and kids. This guy is just like, it's not his priority. Especially because this is apparently a big day for him that months of lead up has happened. The Christmas dad aspect of this movie is largely wrapped up in the ending, which has all the vibe of, we did not know how to end this movie. Normally in the Christmas dad thing, you have to have the point where the business father has chosen business.
over his family when he doesn't need to. Because it's usually like, oh, you're going in on Christmas because you need to help finalize a thing that's already finalized. Like, shit like that. Where the whole idea is, oh, what, like, someone at the office has to even say, like, why are you even here? And with this, it's just, no, this is the one day. This is the one day that he really does need to be there. Yeah, it's not like it's a special day or anything. So it's not like you could have planned around this. It's wild. It doesn't, like, it's funny because normally I'm of the opinion that those Christmas dad movies are almost always, they don't do a good enough job of making this an understandable thing. Yeah. Like...
You know, you look at something like Jack Frost, the one that's got Michael Keaton and he gets turned into a snowman. Tim Allen. No. Is it Michael Keaton? Yes. Yes. Wow. He was such a good Christmas dad that I... And he is actually a decent Christmas dad in that one. Yeah. What I was going to point out is that the inciting incident by which his son accuses him of being a betrayer and hating Christmas and, like, not part of the family is that he will have to help... He's a jazz musician, like, recording artist. He does work jazz, yeah. And he has to record a jazz session that will end at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve. And he will then go and be with them on Christmas Eve. Right. And Christmas Day. And Christmas Day. So he's there for Christmas.
Just across the board, but also doing a job that he has. Yes. But then he dies on the way to the cabin on Christmas Eve. Yeah. Like normally the Christmas dad archetype is the amount of blood spilled required from the dad is you have to quit your job. Yes. It's not enough to readjust your job. Yeah, we do get that here. It's not enough to readjust your priorities. You need to straight up quit your job. And thankfully you already have a movie amount of money. So it doesn't matter that you quit your job. Yeah. So the problem here is it's an understandable thing. He doesn't want to have to do this because this is the one day where it would be the most inconvenient for him to do this. And we've covered one son who is nothing. His eldest son's only trait is being horny. Yes.
And horny for someone in particular. And, like, not even that horny. No. Yeah, because that takes us to the other character, which is the very slow-moving girl's older sister, and that's Kayla, and that's sort of the love interest for Bucky, but... I wouldn't call it a love interest. A love interest would imply that something ever happens. Oh, I know, that's an infatuation. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where when she comes out, we get the slow-motion, hey, let's sexualize a 16-year-old girl thing. Ridgely Cook. And, you know, this is three years before she's all that. Yeah. You know, I will say, this movie sexualized her.
the appropriate amount. Yes, an amount that looks silly in practice, but yes. Well, because it is, like, literally it feels like this is from a teenage boy's perspective of, like, here's a girl, and I'm into a girl. Yeah. It's not, like, going over the top or leering at her. It has, like, one dramatic slow motion moment where she's otherwise dressed kind of like a normal teen. Yeah. She's in that standard, like, schoolgirl outfit, basically. Yeah, exactly. Bunded up blouse and a skirt. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. This is, like, it gave us the slow motion shot to go, oh, this one character is horny about her. I get it. Yeah. So...
So Daniel's whole presentation thing is for Hammerman's, a upscale gourmet grocery store. And that will be important later. We then meet Tom Arnold. And Tom Arnold runs a carnival and does so very poorly. Oh man, I said there was a weird kid. Okay, we're fine. Yeah, they also picked up a weird kid. Maybe we didn't talk about the other kids. He's weird and it doesn't matter. Well, I do want to point out, when they address him being weird, before we pick him up, he's like foreshadowed. And they say that he was tested.
For weirdness. For weirdness. It was the closest thing in the movie to a good joke, was the mom who can't do the carpool saying like, oh, and you also have to pick up the kid, they all call him Travis, but they all call him the frog. And he's like, oh, but that kid's weird. And she's like, no, they had him tested. He's not. He's not weird. The thing is...
you can tell that they had him tested, it's fine. Because if the joke had actually been, they had him tested and he is not weird, was the joke, I would have been like, that's funny. But instead, it's just like, oh, no, they had him tested and he's okay. And you're like, oh, you just, you don't feel appropriate saying they had him tested for something. Yeah, but I prefer that the leftover parts that are at that is, he's weird. No, they've tested him, he isn't. Comes out as, no, he isn't weird. I like that. Yeah, that is the closest, they didn't close the loop on that, but like, yeah, they tested him for weird and he's not that. Yeah. So...
Tom Arnold is Franklin Laszlo. He runs Laszlo Brothers Carnival, which is absolutely failing because he sucks at running a carnival. And he is, God, the joke for him is his mother is large and mean. Wonderful. Yeah. She's voiced by Edie McClurd a lot of the times. There's three people voicing this character who only appears on screen as like a hulking shadow. It's always ADR. You do see a lot of feet. But that's sort of the one joke with him is, oh, my mother is basically a giant monster. Yeah. And she wants to go to Sizzler, but she is banned.
But his whole deal is, oh, because he, you know, we're supposed to, again, find out right away, oh, he's got all these people that he's trying to take care of. He wants to help out that. He's a sympathetic character. And he decides, I'm going to go rob a bank. And that's how he's going to pay all of his debts off, is to rob a bank. And the carpool with these kids and Daniel will collide with Franklin at a Hammerman's that he stops at in order to get breakfast for the children.
and it is weird to me that he stops at a Hammerman's, because I was like, oh, he was like, oh, we'll get you donuts. And then he stops at the Hammerman's, and I'm like, I get that you're doing a presentation for them. Sure. But you don't need to go to one. You're not getting anything out of that. And it's one of those things where it was like, oh, we need donuts for kids. I'm not going to stop at fucking Whole Foods. This actually, I feel, is a good character-building moment, because he does explicitly promise donuts. Then he mentions to his children that they're going to Hammerman's, and they're like, they don't have donuts. And he's like, I care so much about my fucking job that...
I kind of want to go to Hammerman's to pay homage to the people that I'm doing a presentation for. Yeah, it's just him being an obsequious toad is basically the gimmick. But it doesn't work because he'd already said to the kids, whatever, we don't have time for breakfast, I'll stop for donuts. I'm like, you can't promise kids donuts and then stop at Whole Foods. Well, he's such an uninvolved father that he doesn't know that. Yeah, it's...
It's just weird because I'm also like, if you're so concerned with time, going to an upscale gourmet grocery store, it's going to take longer to get donuts than just stopping at a fucking donut place. Yeah, yeah. But he's trying to be obsequious about the company that he's trying to pitch a thing to. Which I'm like, that's performative for no one. It's hilarious because the whole scene is a bunch of people being performative for no one when he goes in there because he's got one of those employees who's like, no, we don't carry donuts here. This is an upscale. Hey, whoa.
Loved this extra. It was so funny. It's like they gave snooty guy behind the counter business. Right. And it's like, why? Like, have you ever actually been to an upscale grocery store? The people who work there are not upscale because it's still a fucking grocery store at heart. Yeah. No one. They're not hiring people who are like, well, we need to get rich people to work at the grocery store for rich people. Fellas, this was the 90s. This was back when you could mortgage a house based on working at an upscale grocery store. It's just this is not the disaffected 20 somethings working at Whole Foods and Starbucks. This is somebody who's got a career being a snooty guy behind the counter at a grocery store. That's fair.
Anyway, we're not really to that. First, we have to get through Tom Arnold having to deal with his circus checks bouncing because we get a whole train of extras. No, I mean, like I said, he decides he's going to rub a bank so he can pay all of them all. But they did have a lot of offensive circus extras there. Yes. And I don't need to get into that. It's fine. He's got a freak show for his carnival. And that's, again, one of those things where you're like, you think that the concept of that is funny, but you refuse to put a joke in about it. Yeah.
So, and he, I'm glad you didn't. It would have been horrible. And that's the thing is between that and then the like, oh, we don't want to say what the weird kid was tested for. They're like, oh, we have an idea of like jokes we want to make. And then they went, wait a minute, it's the mid nineties. And we're starting to get to the point where we can't just say whatever the fuck we want. Yeah. But, uh, Franklin goes to the bank. It is not open yet. So he goes to the Hammermans nearby and he is looking for donuts as well. Uh, that is when two robbers show up to rob the Hammermans. Now note that.
The whole thing was about like, oh, this carpool is going to get taken by a robber. And yet they just put extra robbers in there so they could have actual bad guys and not have Tom Arnold be a bad guy. We can have America think ill of Tom Arnold. He's America's sweetheart. Yeah.
So there's two robbers who are actually going to rob the place. Well, he has a gun, but he's not going to rob the place. But also when the robbers try to rob the place, an old lady who complimented David Pamer's character on having a lot of kids in his van and is now shopping in there also has a gun. So there's a lot of guns. This was also pretty close to a joke for me. When she pulls the gun, I'm like, okay, this could be pretty funny. We've introduced a new gun to the situation. I know about one other gun. And yet this old woman has a gun. And then it just goes nowhere. Because like everything in this movie, they're like, hey, we presented you with a funny situation. And then that's it. That's what we had. We had...
This movie feels like the outline of the movie got shot. Yes. Like, they just had the base structure of it and then didn't write anything else. Right. Like, you'd expect there to be some old lady with gun jokes. Like, it's a mid-90s hack movie. You'd expect her to do some, like, you know, call them all turkeys and tell them get on the floor.
Kiss some marble, you jive turkeys. Did you ever do some incongruous dialogue? Instead, she pulls a gun, and she's like, I also have a gun, and then someone immediately gets a gun pointed at her. Because there's two robbers, so the other robber pulls the gun that he has on her, and she just immediately puts the gun down. You're like, alright, well that was pointless. That was nothing. And then, in the middle of the robbery, Tom Arnold pulls out his gun, which will turn out to be fake. Hey, spoilers. That's what this whole fucking section is. But he then goes back there and tries to help the guy, but then he has the bag of money in his hands when a police detective shows up. And...
pulls his gun out, and then he thinks, oh, it's this guy. He's the one who's robbing the place. And then guns start getting kicked all over the place for a long time. And it's annoying. And at the end of the day, Tom Arnold loses his wallet on the floor, which the two robbers find. But he escapes. By taking Daniel hostage. Taking Daniel hostage and loading him into his van, where all the kids are hiding. For some reason. It's weird, because when they got into the van, and it shows nobody in there, I was like, oh, good. Fucking great, because these kids were just nothing. Yeah. That's fine. You can get rid of them. It'll just be the two of them, and he can learn how to be a good dad or whatever from this guy. Sure, fine. But then they're like, oh, no, we're just...
fucking ninjas. We're hiding so well that you cannot see us. For some reason. And we don't know why. There's no reason for the kids to be hiding. They do not know what happened inside. They would have had to make that decision before they got to the car. Oh yeah. They would have to have made that decision like as they were walking to the car. I guess they may have seen Tom Arnold have the gun out. Well these fucking kids would have loved that though. Oh these kids suck shit is the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So uh we get
Erdman is the detective, by the way, who shows up. Kim Coates. Kim Coates. And soon to be in Battlefield Earth, Kim Coates. Right before his lifetime achievement role, one might say. Alright, so Franklin and Daniel take off in the van, pursued by Erdman, who...
takes the old lady's car because one of the actual robbers took the cash register and threw it through the window because Tom Arnold had used a broom to close the door that opens to the store. And the register hit the windshield of his car. So he just commandeers this old lady's car and takes off after them. But it has bad brakes, which you think is going to be a setup for something. And it's not. Here's the thing. It's just a couple of times he goes, oh, and doesn't stop and then just turns the car around and the brakes work fine when he's turning the car around because he'll do a fucking three point turn and then he'll take off again. Yeah. And you're like that.
She'll be like, no, you can't take my car. He's like, I'm an officer of law. I can absolutely take your car. And he can't hear her. And then as he's driving into this, and she's like, look, because the brakes are really bad. They barely work. And then you see him on the radio. In the next shot, you see him. It's him like, I need more officers in pursuit. I'm in a 56-whatever. The brakes don't work especially well.
It's just, it's so fucking bad. And if they had leaned harder into how bad it is, it probably could have looped back around. But it's just nothing. It's just nothing happens. Every time they do a setup, they wait until one scene later, and then they have another character run into the scene and be like, and the setup doesn't matter. Yeah, like, they immediately, after sort of dodging the police for a little while...
Andrew, the youngest kid, needs to use the bathroom. So they go to a hair salon. You're like, oh, here's our thing. We're going to have this guy and all the kids go into a hair salon. That's our setup for a funny thing to happen. Except nothing happens. No, nothing related to the plot. Like, you get some of Daniel trying to be like, you know, use code to say I'm being held hostage. Yeah, he calls his work when he tells Franklin he's going to call his wife and tell her everything's okay, but he just calls work because he's, you know, he's a bad dad. He's a little bad business dad. And at this point, they're still thinking that they are the hostages, but it's very chummy.
Like, right away. Like, the kids all like Tom Arnold, even though he's holding them hostage. Oh, he's so polite. And I'm like, dude, what the fuck are you talking about? He lets them listen to the same Ramones song over and over again, where Daniel doesn't want to listen to... Well, they paid for it once. Yeah, they paid for I Want to Be Sedated by the Ramones, and that was the only song they licensed, so that's the song they will listen to several times. That song plays four times in this movie.
Wow. And so they're like him because he's willing to sing along with this song. Yeah, he's nice. Yeah, to the point where one of the joke setups in this is, you know, he's like, oh, you wouldn't let them listen to their song? Why wouldn't you let them listen to their song? And Daniel's like, oh, please, I love this kind of music. My favorite band is the Screaming Idiots. Well, no, I love everything by the Screaming Idiots because he doesn't know that. He's calling the Ramones the Screaming Idiots. Oh, I thought he was just making up a fake band to pretend it's bad. But he's just calling them Screaming Idiots. And then Arnold's like, they're not the Screaming Idiots. I've never heard of the Screaming Idiots. They sound great. You should turn me on to them. Yeah. That was an attempt at a joke that the movie had. Yep.
Yeah, so they're at the salon and we do get some bad dad business in this fake hostage call, which goes way too long and also fucking nowhere. It doesn't advance the plot a little bit. They do get another line to say like, oh, this guy's on time all the time. The weird thing to me is, Franklin for some reason is like, I can't have you saying that you've been kidnapped. When I'm like, what does it matter? If he had just gone, hey, I need to call my work and tell them I've been kidnapped and that's why I'm not coming in, he would have been like, okay.
Fine. Exactly. Yeah. It's already public knowledge. Yeah. It's on the news. And in fact, in this salon, they will eventually be seen on the news. So they have to run away. Their entire plot of how not to be caught because the van is recognizable is he gets some purple hair spray paint and they...
all spray the car. Spray the van to change its color so it doesn't match the description of the police report. There's also a gay panic joke while they're in the salon in case you needed one of those. Because it's 1996, you have to have one. Because Tom Arnold is worried that David Pamer might run away, but he has to go to the bathroom. So he holds his hand while he goes to the bathroom so he doesn't run away. And then another guy walks in and is like, ooh, a conga line. Room for one more. I mean, there's also, when they get stopped at a traffic stop looking for them, and he's like, oh, I'm going to pretend to be gay and that you're my lover. And that's how we'll get out of this. Yeah.
And for those in the audience who are heterosexual and wondering, yes, gays hold hands when they pee. Yes, they go to the bathroom in pairs and pee, and obviously, because all gay men are so promiscuous, an additional gay man is always welcome to join. Always excited to join. I really need to tear into this scene, because it overestimates the charisma of Tom Arnold so fucking much, because there are bits that they do. He tours around the salon and asks these people who are in the middle of doing their jobs, what are you doing? What's your situation? Oh, he's doing crowd work in the salon.
Yeah, he's like hanging out with one lady whose hair is getting... Some lady is yelling at him that her hair is done. I'm ready now. And it's like, I don't feel like that's up to the person who's sitting under one of those curling things. Oh, yeah. And the fact that she's like, I'm ready now. He's like, I don't work here. And she's like, I'm ready now. Okay. Okay. Cool. I'm just going to leave. But no, he like has a little crowd work bit that he does with like three different people. And none of them lead anywhere. I suppose one does link into the plot because he eventually gets the hairspray. But like...
What is... Hey, what are you doing with that guy? We have different hairspray colors that we can use. Oh, wow. What do you have? And I'm like, dude, you are digging. You are not a good crowd-working comic. This is the sweatiest scene. This is the sweatiest scene. It's why it feels like they just had the outline and that's all they shot. It's because I'm like, this feels like it was improv and you are bad at improv. The closest I came to laughing at this film was during this because he does call his mother during this scene and gives...
a very emotional, like, one-sided conversation of you can't go to the Sizzler. Oh, yeah, because she went and violated some policy related to their all-you-can-eat rules. Oh, yeah, they were, she was there since noon and they were shutting down. She's like, I wasn't done yet! But his, like, there's a moment where he says, you can't go to the Sizzler, which is, like, it's so close to being...
Pretty funny. And, you know, a better actor probably could have sold that to be funny. An actor with an ounce of, no, not an ounce, two ounces of charisma. Yeah, Tom Holland has an ounce of charisma. You know what, you need a full 8.5 ounces of charisma to pull that off. You need 12 fluid ounces of charisma. With Amazon, you can deliver joy to everyone on your list. Like your Uncle Ricky, who made your wedding photos unforgettable because his fly was open. Get him some new underpants he'll love. And save big with Amazon Black Friday Week starting November 19th. Going on vacation? We're here for it.
With kids who turn the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the 100th time is a human right, yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that. Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2%, and your dinner is whatever is open, yep, here for that, too. Enterprise, we're here for it. Unfortunately, shrinkflation in the 90s was rampant, so we had 11.6. Again, if this was Kurt Russell, this is my thing with this movie, if this was Kurt Russell instead of Tom Arnold, this movie could have gone fucking places. Yeah, I can see that.
And that would be mid-90s comedy. Yeah. Instead, we have a mid-90s comedy. While they are parked at the hair salon, Rhea Perlman shows up as a meter maid and... I assumed that this was just going to be a Ray Berlman cameo where it was like, oh, I'm angry that I'm doing the standard meter maid thing where I'm angry that you haven't paid a quarter or whatever. And we get some business with her and then they leave. And then when one of the people runs out from the salon going like, oh, that's the robber. Sorry, that's the wabba. Because she has a thing on her lips because she's getting her lip wax. It's been torn off already. Tom Arnold tears it off of her. And she's like, ah, that really hurt. No, she has to tear it off to say that's the robber so she can actually say it.
Yeah, they tear it off Tom Arnold's arm after he does enough comedy. Yeah, he does enough comedy. Yeah, all right. But yeah, so that actually makes me a Perlman. Yeah, she just decides to be part of the movie now. Now she's like, well, I don't let criminals get away from me, the meter maid. And also I have a souped up super meter maid car with the turbo buttons. Batman meter maid vehicle where she like hits a button and fire comes out the back and it just zooms off. Yeah, this is, when I was trying to describe what this movie is doing with the side plots, it's a little bit diehard in that they keep introducing new side plots and new characters that...
are going to reconvene, but, like, it approaches the point where it's just like, oh, this is too many things. And I feel like Raya Perlman really, like, cements home that's like, we introduced too many things and we have no idea what we want to do with any of them. Oh, yeah. I think it is worthy of note that she has more of an arc than most characters in the movie, though. Sure. The other thing we get, while they are now evading Erdman and whoever the meter mate is, Martha, while they're evading both of them and driving around, we then learn Franklin's backstory of not just the carnival, but, oh, he has...
kid, and he needs this money to not only keep the carnival open, but he needs to get a birthday present for his 12-year-old son, and oh, when they hang out, they have such times. They have burping contests, and they sneak into ball games, and he's so fun with his kid. We never see this fucking kid. And we never see the child. We never see the ex-wife. We never see anything. There's no payoff. This is the kind of plot where you would think this would be part of his arc would be seeing him connect with his son. Yeah, but he doesn't have an arc. He's a weird carnival guy in the beginning, and he's a weird carnival guy at the end. No, it's the same sort of thing where, like, when you have...
that Hulk Hogan issue where he needs to be great to start and not learn anything and everyone else needs to learn that he is great. Tom Arnold is like, oh, I'm great. And as the movie goes on, everyone just comes around to the point where they're like, actually, no, Tom Arnold is amazing. And that's the point of this. And somehow he has even less charisma than Hulk Hogan. Which is hard. It is so annoying watching this movie constantly try to tell you that this guy's great and he needs rewards. Because all the kids in the car, their only business, literally the only reason the kids are there are so that they can go, no, dad, I like this robber way more than you. He's fun. Yeah.
Oh, it's throughout this movie. It's like the bad dad is objectively right through the whole thing. Yeah. It's so bad at doing the whole, oh, you need to loosen up and not worry about business. And we're going to give you someone who's a little rough around the edges to help you learn how to let loose. And you're like, hey, that is a standard fucking plot of a million goddamn things. But it's so poorly done here because you're like, yeah, but this guy is very clearly wrong. And your dad is very clearly right.
Yeah, it's very annoying. And, you know, the kids might as well be done at this point. One of them will need to be rescued at the end of the movie. But other than that, there's no more kid business other than them just constantly yelling. We get some more business with the robbers who picked up Franklin's wallet. They go to his house and get accosted by his mom, which, of course, we don't see because we're not really allowed to see his mom do anything until the very end of the movie. But basically, any scene with her is people will go anywhere near her inside of a house. We'll stay outside the house. Then we'll hear, get out of here! And then they'll fly out the window. Yeah, they get DJ Jazzy Jeffed. So...
Then they're like, oh, well, if we can't get our money back from him by going to his house because his mom is scary, we'll eventually go to the carnival. Now, these two robbers have almost no business in this. They have the one scene where they're at the Hammermans, they have this one scene where they try to go to his place, and then they will show up at the end of the movie to be a threat at the end of the movie, and otherwise they're like, oh, we're apparently the main bad guys, but also we're in like three minutes of this. Yeah. Yeah, so eventually a bunch of bullshit happens. There is a point, at one point, where Arnold isn't really aware of what he's even accomplishing here. He's like, I didn't mean to rob that place, and now that I have, I'm not really sure what to do, but I guess, I'll tell you what, I don't really, you guys are hostages at the moment, but all I really need you to do is go with me to one location, at which point you can drop me off, and you'll be done. I am not going to keep you. That's our deal. Yeah, and so we get a huge, like, the thing with this is his kids going, you know, Dad, you always say a deal is a deal, and as soon as, like, he gets the opportunity to drive away without Franklin,
They're like, how dare you? Hey, get this man with a gun back in our car, dad. Hey, we just found out that that gun was fake. And so he's like, great, fuck you. Get out of my car and you're not allowed to do anything. I might still be able to make my presentation. And all of the kids are like, no, you're in the wrong. A deal is a deal. You need to take this kid now to where he wants to go. You really want this guy to be like, no, I meant a deal is a deal provided you are not making that deal under threat of death. Yeah, a deal is a deal when both parties come to an agreement, not when I am under duress.
But no, the kids like Tom Arnold, so we are going to go with him anyway. Well, you know, several of them get out of the van when he kicks Franklin out and they're like, no, if you go, you can just leave me and I'll walk with Franklin to where he needs to go. And you're like, dude, you have known this kidnapper for like an hour. And he's a kidnapper! oh god it's fucking awful it's so dumb but eventually they do get him well first they get him to the mall they get him back into the car and he's like fine a deal is a deal I'll drive you to where you want to go and that's when they get chased by the cops again and here's the thing there's a stunt sequence here there's a couple stunt sequences here why are these stunts in this film they're not funny versions of these stunts. And they're almost entirely revolving around the meter maid character doing stunts, which is weird because she's a minor character who feels like she doesn't need to be in the movie anyway. And the car doing things. Yes. But they end up inside of them all doing a Blues Brothers routine where they get confronted by the meter maid again and Kim Coates' cop, Erdman, again. And that's when we establish the extra bit of business that Raya Perlman's Martha the meter maid was Erdman's drill sergeant in the army and they got married. Well, they were going to be married at the altar. Yes.
because she's like too extreme or something. But there's still some love between them. But now she's mad at him for jilting her at the altar. And you're like, what is all this? It's so fucking weird because you're like, all right, all of them are in this van. They're stuck in a mall. They've got Ray Perlman with a fucking harpoon gun pointed at them. And then in the middle of this whole thing, they're just like, and now for an entire character development between these two cops that are just going to talk to each other for a while. Because she starts by monologuing at the family. Like, what do you think you would be like if you were a drill sergeant in the army and you fell in love with one of your soldiers and you were going to get married to him and then he left you at the altar because that's what happened to me.
Oh, Martha, don't you know that I still love you? I was just, I wasn't ready. I was scared. And you're like, hey, what the fuck is happening? None of this, there's no jokes here. You're just being like, yeah, I left you because I was scared. Oh, how dare you? You embarrassed me in front of all of my friends. And the goal thing is it's so fucking close to jokes. There are jokes there. You can do jokes with that. Every single time they set up a scene and you're like, okay, I can see where jokes might show up. And they're like, yeah, I'm sure they'll probably be there. If we invited them, yeah, they'd be here. If someone wrote some jokes, then they'd show up. But we just wrote a scene. So yeah, if you're wondering what the actual comedy of this scenario is, it's that she shoots a harpoon gun at them after they start trying to drive away, hits the back of the car, and then kind of winds her, or...
water skis behind them for a second. They do hit surf music for that. They play a surf version of the Ramones I Want to Be Sedated. And then she gets flown up in the air, lands on top of their car, runs into a hanging mall banner, and ends up teaming up with Erdman. And now the two of them are riding around in her souped-up meter-made mobile. Yeah. Now, they take the van. At this point, Franklin had gotten out, and Daniel got in the car and was driving and had that point where he was like, I could just fucking leave and leave this guy. But, oh, I've been admonished by my children already about a deal is a deal. So he instead, you know, saves Franklin. He gets back in the car. They go out, and he drives, and he...
loves driving through a mall so much and drives out a second story mall window into a greenhouse and thinks it's so cool, does Daniel now. He's like, now I get it. This is the moment where I understand how to let loose and have fun because I drove through a mall and out of a window endangering the lives of me and every child in here. And that's when I learned a valuable lesson. And this is a pretty big stunt sequence. I really want to drive home, but they spent money on this. Oh yeah, this movie cost like $17 million to make. And it made three. So good for them. Good for them.
So eventually, after all of this, they go to the carnival, which is where he wanted to be dropped off. And then, you know, the kids are like, oh, we want to see the carnival. And he's like, yeah, come inside. Let me show you something. And at this point, Daniel has been so beaten down by everything that has happened. He's just like, all right, he'll just do whatever. Yeah, he has just been fully cucked and is willing to do whatever. So he drives him.
at this point, to the final destination that they'd had in mind all the way along. They're at the carnival, which is apparently just inside a warehouse, or I guess that's just where they store up between events. I think it's, yeah, just the storage of where they keep all the rides and whatnot. And they're going to just leave him there. They've made the deal, but then one of the kids needs to go to the bathroom. And he's like, oh, I have bathrooms. Come on inside. It's nice and warm, too. Please don't leave me. I'm basically John Candy from planes, trains, and automobiles, but worse. With no charisma. Yeah. The unlikable version of John Candy. Yeah. So they all go in, and then they all, you know, go to ride around in some rides. They're messing around with...
backstage carnival equipment when all of a sudden they're accosted by those other two robbers because they've had his address the whole time because he left his wallet at the scene. And it's not the address they have. They're like, oh, we saw the advertisement for the carnival at the truck that you left behind. Yeah, so they get him at the carnival and they're holding them up and then it's just a bunch of comedy of stunt errors. Yeah, they...
The big thing is, you know, they managed to like hit one of them with the like test your strength hammer and whatnot. But one of them goes flying into the controls for the Ferris wheel where Daniel's youngest son was riding the Ferris wheel. And so this breaks the controls for it. So it is now spinning out of control. And he saves the day by using his presentation, his like giant leather, like put the presentation board portfolio thing into the gears. I was like, oh, this will stop it long enough.
that someone can go up and save him, and he stops Tom Arnold from doing it. He's like, no, it's my son, and I have to save him. I love it when he crams that portfolio into the gears, because there's a whole part where, you know, he's like, we gotta stop it. We gotta wedge something into the gears. A kid brings up a giant fucking piece of wood. Yeah, they're like, I have a piece of wood. We're in a big room full of all kinds of crap. We could put that hammer from the tester strength thing in there. We could just put any random chunk of metal. There's all kinds of shit. And Arnold keeps going, no, it needs to be a big, flat, leather thing. When he brings up basically like a two-by-four, he goes, no, that's too big. And I go, no, but that's what you want. That's what you want. You want it to be too large for the gears so that it stops. He's like,
Probably holding paper. Marketing ideas, I guess. So yeah, Daniel goes and climbs up this Ferris wheel to go save his son, and indeed he does. He has to throw him to Tom Arnold so that there's a trust exercise between the father and the man who... I'll catch him, I swear! I swear to you, you can let him... I promise I'll catch him!
And he does, because this movie has nothing to say about anything. And then they catch the crooks and chain them into the cargo ride known as the zipper, and send them up. And then I assume they're going to call the cops. They can't call the cops. He's wanted for kidnapping. So I guess they're just going to torture these two crooks for a long time. Oh, they just left them, and it's still going to this day. Yeah, they'll die eventually. Yeah, it's fine. Well, no matter what it is that kills them with dehydration, who knows? They'll die eventually. I forget who eventually it is in this movie that says they're going to drop the charges. Oh, it's Hammerman, because they have to go over to, now they go to the agency, because he's like, oh, I need to go over to the agency. I've got to do my presentation. Yes.
Daniel takes everyone with him, including the kidnapper. For some reason, yeah. And like, these other kids aren't like theirs or anything. You can leave them at any time. You can take them to their school or police station or back to their houses. But no, they're just along for the ride. There's three kids here who's not, they're not even like the sole legal responsibility of Daniel. They're just random kids. They don't even go here. Yeah. So they show up at this ad agency and Mr. Hammerman is there. He's done. And he's already like, look.
You've got your shittiest guy trying to give a presentation that he doesn't know, and I'm done. This guy was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago. It's like 4 o'clock, and he's like, oh, this guy hasn't been here, and he was supposed to be here at 4. And you're like, dude, what? You can't wait 15 minutes? Yeah. Presumably you've paid a lot of money for this presentation. Oh, no. If we've watched anything, we've watched so many movies with ad agency presentations, and if you've watched, like, Mad Men and so on, you know how these work. The person comes in, they're like, you better sell me in the next five minutes, or I will never work with you for any reason. Oh, it's been four minutes. Fuck this. I need to get back on my airplane to Japan where I'm from. And you're like, isn't it worth it to you to, like...
sit down and see the president. You're not going to wait the five? You've spent thousands of dollars to be here, maybe chill, for like, I don't know, an extra ten minutes. Yeah. But Mr. Hammerman is about to leave when Daniel shows up and gives the presentation that is essentially kids don't like your grocery store that isn't for kids. So you need to make your grocery store that isn't aimed at children to be for children. And what gets him is donuts. Because they're like, you don't even have donuts. Kids like donuts. And he's like, I like donuts. The guy who owns the ad agency that is supposed to be giving this pitch who's also in the room, like the guy who's basically Daniel's boss. He's ostensibly on Daniel's side. Would be on his side, but it's just like, oh, please now. That store's not even for grown-ups. Grown-ups aren't going to want that kind of thing.
And the old man, Hanerman himself, is like, I like donuts. And then they have a long discussion about what kind of donuts they like. Yeah, it's just weird that... Basically, Hammerman in this is the picture of the standard stuffy businessman, but has a fucking trigger word of donuts that causes him to lose his shit for some reason. Yes, because otherwise the only thing he's really selling is, you know, Hammerman, your kids will like it here. That's the whole pitch. It's Hammerman's a place for the whole family. Yeah. Because you love your kids. What I literally thought, because he says at the beginning of the presentation, kids don't like Hammerman's. And I was like, oh, that's a great tagline. Kids don't like this. Yeah. We're an adult grocery store. You won't find kids here. I thought that was the pitch.
No. No. That is what's wrong, because I've just been kidnapped and I've needed to learn that what you need to do is revolve your life around what children like, which is kidnappers. And that's it. They love fucking kidnappers. Oh, and trying to look down shirts that you couldn't possibly look down. Oh yeah, we didn't get into it, but fucking Bucky and Kayla are in the back and they have...
Like two bits of business. He's trying so hard to look down her shirt. And folks, it is a button down. You can't look down your shirt. It's a button down shirt that's buttoned up. It's buttoned all the way up. Yeah. It's not loose. There's a part where she asks him, are you trying to look down my shirt? And he goes, no, I have a weird medical condition. I have to turn my head. And she just kind of goes, ew, gross. And that's it. As opposed to, you couldn't look down this shirt, which would constitute a joke. That would be a joke. It would be a joke. She was like, are you trying to look down my shirt? He was like, no. And she's like, good, because it's buttoned all the way up. There's nothing to look down. You couldn't. So they eventually...
Daniel basically Jerry Maguire's at this point where he's like, fuck this place, I'm going to leave and Mr. Hammerman, you're going to be my new client in my own ad agency that I'm going to have. And Hammerman's like, cool, yeah, I'm on board. He quits his job for no reason. Yeah, there's no reason for him to quit the job. He just landed the big account. So these people aren't going to fire him, they're going to remove him. No, the guy in charge was like, you have to start, you know, working whatever hours because he's like, I can't work weekends and I have to leave by six and I need all these things because I need to spend time with my family. He goes, well, you're going to have to be here more because you just made partner, buddy. And he's like, no, fuck you, I quit.
Yeah, because he's doing the whole, like, I learned the important lesson of family here, which, again, we don't really have, there's not enough setup at the start of this movie to establish that this character is routinely working through weekends and not coming home at night. Apart from the fact that he doesn't take them to baseball games, like, once, maybe. The entire thing is we have the scene where Franklin is talking about his kid, and he goes, no, your dad is great. He can actually provide for you. I am a deadbeat, and while I can show up in, like...
play with my son, and be fun to be around. I cannot provide anything for him, and I am bad at doing that. And, like, goes out of his way to go, no, your dad is actually doing the right thing here. And then the movie goes, yeah, but that sucks shit. We don't like that. Yeah, it's just wild that the boss essentially shoots himself in the foot here, because he's like, you know, Hammerman's like, how soon can you have a presentation ready about how to family-friendly my stores? And the boss just goes, we'll have it by Monday. You know, it's like Friday afternoon. So Daniel's immediately like, no, I don't work weekends. I need to spend time with my kids. It's crazy. You could have promised it at anything, because at this point the client had already said yes! Yeah, so he's like, no, I don't work weekends, and I'm gonna start leaving at six. And the boss is like,
No. And he quits right away. And it's like, of course you say yes. You're a partner. You're a salary. You don't work weekends now. Fine. We'll bring that up later when we're not in front of clients. So, yeah. And this is the point where Hammerman says he won't press charges. But I'm like, hey, great. So Franklin won't have any charges for robbing your store, I guess. The mall thing. With the kidnapping and the destruction of property. I really needed the other kids to chime in at that point and have that little weird kid, Travis, be like, and I swear my dad also won't press kidnapping charges. Yeah, I wanted Caleb to be like, no, I'm not going to promise that. My parents will definitely press charges. You are going to jail. Yeah.
You have done so many illegal things. Yeah, the amount of evading arrest and destruction of property and running just traffic nonsense that you've done, not to mention all the public endangerment in the mall. Like, yeah, dude, you're going away. Daniel, you are also going away. You're not partner. It doesn't matter if you quit. You're in jail. I'm an important old businessman and I'm not pressing charges and those were the only charges that matter. Yep.
So... An old white guy wanted this, so... Yeah, a rich old white guy was like, I don't want you to go to jail, so we're fine here. Well, it's fine, though, because, you know, ultimately, he's quitting his high-powered sales job, so he can spend more time with his kids, and he'll get a different job. You know, maybe at a failing carnival. Yeah, we cut from this office to the side of Franklin's truck, which now says, like, the Franklin brother, like, Laszlo and whatever his last name is, Daniel Miller. Yeah, Laszlo and Miller. Four heads are better than two. And...
So now he is in charge of his own ad agency that he runs and is also running the carnival. And also Hammerman himself is at the carnival selling gourmet donuts. And the idea this movie has for what a gourmet donut is, a donut with asparagus in it? Yes. Yeah, he's selling an asparagus. Asparagus is very exotic as a vegetable, you know. Yeah, up there in that fanciest part, the heartland of America. They're in Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. So Hammerman's, I guess, sponsors the carnival? But also works there. But also has his own booth there and is personally working the booth. Yes. Because as we established, donut was his trigger word that caused him to lose his mind. It was his rosebud. You said donut to him and he was like, well, now I'm a kindly old man. I used to be a grumpy business person, but you said donut and that immediately melted me into a cuddly old grandpa.
And the other parents are there profusely thanking Tom Arnold for changing Daniel from a curmudgeon time waster to a dude who works at a rundown carnival. His wife is there and is like, I don't know what you did, but thank you. Kidnapped him? What are you talking about? I don't know what you did, but he fucks like a champ now. You're like, what the fuck is going on here? And then we get to see that Travis has a dad who dresses exactly like Travis, which is in camouflage with big goggles and a shower cap. They tested him. Yeah. They tested his dad.
That's not weird. You may think that this is also the scene where the oldest son and Rachel A. Cook get together. And they don't. They're together. They're in a Ferris wheel ride or something. They don't do anything. They're just like, look at you two lovebirds. And then they walk away. Remember the time we were kidnapped by the guy who owns this thing? Yeah, my dad works with him now. That's fucked up. No, we like him. It's fine. That's the movie's end. Except we go to a Sizzler so we can watch Franklin's mom throw a bunch of cops and furniture through windows. So here's the thing about this Sizzler sequence. Like...
She's throwing a bunch of furniture through the sizzlers and then they bring in a SWAT team. Yes. The SWAT team goes in and she throws out the SWAT team too. It's so close to being a joke. It really nearly crosses that line. It certainly does. Never makes it there. No, because it was just like, oh, what do we have for the credits while those are rolling? I don't know. We can just have the mom throwing people around. Okay. Are we going to actually show her throwing anyone around? No, we'll do the DJ Jazzy Jeff thing. We'll just see some like cops or whatever smash the window. We'll just break every window in a sizzler and that'll be that because you've got to ban her for life for eating too much fresh shrimp.
And that is carpool. That's carpool. So let's go ahead and get into our bests and worsts. Jesus Christ. Jeff, we'll start with bests with you. We didn't have nearly enough carps or ools in it. Yeah.
Hey, bests. Oh, right. I'm sorry. I meant to save that for the worsts. Yeah. No, okay. What was the best thing in this movie? Oh, I guess we tested him. He's not weird. Yeah. The joke you made up. The joke that you can interpret. The joke that we're projecting onto this movie. The joke you can interpret is a good joke if you're willing to allow that they made a good joke on accident. It's a pretty good joke. Great. It's like a Christopher Guest level bit of humor to have someone just offhandedly say, oh, they tested him. He's not weird. Yeah. That's like the kind of joke you'd expect in like A Mighty Wind. And so that's fine. It's a fine joke. And even if it's an accident, it's in there. So that's the best thing in the movie. Great. Sure.
What would you say was the best thing in this movie, James? I'm going to say stunt sequences. There are more stunt sequences in this film than you would expect, and they spend a decent amount of money on them. Oh, I have to say, of the $17 million budget, I have to imagine a lot of that went to the car chase nonsense. Yeah, the car chase, like, especially the big jump that the van does, crashing through, like, I don't know, was it a wedding venue? It was some sort of outdoor pavilion. It was a gazebo, like, greenhouse. It was full of flowers. Yeah, like, they spent money on that. Like, some stunt driver did that. It's all practical effects. That would not happen if this movie was made now, you know? Sure.
Yeah, it was kind of neat to see practical effects, I guess. I mean, the problem is, I was going to also say that fucking jump from the second floor was basically the best. I mean, the thing is, it is the best thing in this movie. That one bit of business was like, oh, neat. I'll go ahead and take Rhea Perlman fucking skiing behind the van. Yep.
I thought you meant the graphic love scene between those two actors that's in this movie. No. The part where Railperman and Kim Coates just fucking go at it. Just for a half hour. For a solid half hour. Sweep all the shit off the table. It's so wet. Yeah. It's wild, the noises they make. Yeah. I mean, they sweep all the shit off the table at a corn dog on a stick place. And so, you know, they're using batter. Guys, we didn't mention the Danny DeVito cameo where he comes in during the lovemaking sequence and he gets involved. Yeah. And it's nasty. Yeah, he just throws himself at him. Just sick. Just wants to see what happens. It looks like they covered him in butter. Yeah. I love how he keeps making this movie better by adding things that don't exist into it. But yeah, I'll say...
the meter maid surfing behind the van stunt bit. Again, whoever Ray Perlman's stunt person was, great job at that. Yeah. So good for them. Honestly, good taking advantage of a mall, having linoleum floors, making those drag behind a car sequences safer and easier to do. Fun shit. Yeah, that was just a fun bit of business. Sure. Jeff, pick one thing that was the worst thing in this. Just a very specific moment in this. Yeah, a specific moment in this film. Pick one thing that you remember from this film. Literally anything that you could possibly remember from this film.
I mean, we've talked a lot about a lot of bad things, but I feel like, and I know this is going to be pretty minor, but that's just because I want to leave lots of space open because I'm going first. I'm going to say the opening sequence. And by opening sequence, I mean the title sequence. Yeah, the credits, that opening credits of a carpool. Grading bullshit, calliope music, a bunch of ADR in, like, voices you'd expect, like, just saying stereotypical carpool shit. None of it's funny. No. It's all just like, oh no, you can't bring that frog in here. Oh, don't splash that. Oh, are we there yet? Stop saying are we there yet. Have we arrived yet? When will we get there? It's so fucking annoying. And it sets the tone. Yeah.
And it does a fucking shitty job of setting the tone. By the end of it, you're just like, I don't want to watch this. Like a poisonous frog, its patterns and colors should have let you know we shouldn't have watched this movie. Do not engage with this movie. Do worse things happen in this film? Yes, but that sequence really does a terrible job of setting the tone for the film, so I'm going to pick it. And James? For me, Tom Arnold's character has more than one moment where he's like, oh, this PC bullshit makes it hard to go to a fucking carnival. And it's just like, I know, just based on the era, that this...
film is trying to speak to boomers. Tom Arnold is this big boomer fucking hero, and he comes in and he's like, yeah, I can't show off freaks anymore. I can't show off freaks because of the PC bullshit that makes it hard for me to run my carnival. Yeah. Fuck off. That is true. That shit happens. I completely forgot. Yep. God. I'm gonna go ahead and say my least favorite thing in here, almost...
has to be the moment where we actually get in what would, what was itself a good scene ish for this movie where Tom Arnold is doing the whole, like, no, you need to listen to your dad. He actually provides for you. And I'm like, yeah, the problem with that scene though, is you are correct. And then you never do anything with it. Like it is, it's a moment in this movie where there are a couple of times where they've set something up and they're like, Hey, and then we're going to have to subvert this. Right. And they're like, no, we're just, we don't care. We're not doing anything with it. And it's the whole problem of here's a scene. And we had an idea for a scene and then nothing inside of it. And so.
Just setting up the like, hey, I want to talk about the good things your dad does. And then you're like, yeah, but he didn't quit his job and doesn't do any of those good things anymore. And now he's just me. Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. And John? That's, that's what I said. And John? Yeah. And John? I'm sorry. I was looking something up. Quit lounging so sexy on that. I'm so sorry. There's no good way. Put that thing away. We all have to pay attention to the podcast that we're making, but we're thinking about your body. I'm sorry. I'm also thinking about my body. Yeah.
So that's going to bring us to our rating. Oh, now, I do want to float that every single time we have a guest on the show, you change how the rating system works. Can we do 1 to 3.3? No. We're doing 1 to 3. That's going to give us a rating out of 9, and then we'll decide whether or not I get the bonus point. You piece of shit. That's fucking Taskmaster. I like this. All right. James, we'll start with you for our rating from 0 to 3. 0 to 3. I've got to give it a .5. It's technically a film. .5 from James. Out of 3, a .5. Jeff?
Well, I feel like I've got less granularity than I'm used to, so I'm going to work with it and say this movie gets a .8. Ooh! Interesting. I'll round you up to a 1. No, the real ones are going to remember. That's up to you what happens on the score of zombie charts. So far, we're at 1.3 out of 9. Tell Jeff's story.
Remember me. I will, out of three, I'll give it a one. Yeah. It deserves a one. There you go. I don't know that it deserves a one. 2.3 out of nine. 2.3 out of nine. And does it get the extra bonus point? It gets half of one. Half of a bonus point. It gets half of a bonus point, taking it up to a three out of nine because we wound you up. A 2.8 out of ten.
I like it. I think that's a great system, boys. Yeah. I think it works wonderfully. It's magic. And we're going to do it going forward never again. Yeah. It's a different system with every guest. I can't wait to guest on this show again. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. We will, of course, be back in another couple weeks with more Movie Mastery. But until then, if you like the show and you want to support us and want us to keep making the show, you can head on over to patreon.com slash system mastery. Supporting us at any level, obviously, lets us keep doing the show. It lets us keep the lights on and keep running and doing what we love to do for you.
Otherwise, we would have to find a job at an ad agency and be business dads. Well, I'd quit it by Christmas, though. I have a kid. Yeah, but you don't care about that kid. You care about business. That's true. I only care about business. Ugh. Business mastery. Welcome to business mastery where we'll tell you how to maximize businesses. Doesn't matter what the business is. My stocks are doing well. Invest in crypto. Don't do that. One of us met Andrew Tate once. You can't prove we didn't.
You can actually prove that I haven't met Andrew Tate. It's very easy. So please, if you want us to not be that, go over to patreon.com slash systemmastery and support us there so we can keep doing this. Please, because I really don't want to be that. I don't want to meet Andrew Tate. I don't want to interact with Andrew Tate. Thank you. And of course, anything that you support us at, all the levels will unlock bonus content. They give you a unified feed for all of our shows that is completely ad-free. So useful. So great. It's amazing how good that is. And of course, right now, if you support us at the $10 a month level, you unlock everything we do, including our TV mastery, where we...
have forced James to watch two random, probably as I was looking at the season and knew James was going to be on here and saw what episodes he was going to be on, probably the two worst episodes of season 10. Of Smallville. And it's great. I just want to point out, in season 10 of Smallville, Booster Gold shows up. Yeah, Booster Gold is in an episode which you are not allowed to watch. No, we can't stop you. I can do that. I just checked. I checked with Andrew Tate and he said I can do it. Yeah, Andrew Tate says we can do it.
So join us over there for that. And of course, if you can't support us financially, you can always rate and review the show. Hell, rate and review our books, the Dungeon Meister series. If you've got them, great. If you don't, buy them and then review them. And if you can't buy them, go to your local library.
take them out, and then leave a review on Amazon because you can still do that. And if you can't buy them and you don't have a library, steal them. Oh, wait, no, I can't. Actually, stealing is the one thing that... If you leave a review... And if you can't do any of those things, then write them yourself exactly the way we would have done. And now you have them, and that's fine. As long as you review. As long as you leave a review for our book that you also wrote. As long as you did a good job and you leave a positive review for the book that you wrote. And James, I believe, as is customary, we will now let you do your plugs. You're allowed to plug. I'm allowed to plug. That's how we do with guests. You know how it is. Interesting power dynamic shift here.
give you a little something, just a little treat for being such a good boy. Just a little taste. I like it. Okay, folks, if you want to hear me, if you like my voice, if you like what I've been doing, bringing to this nothing of a movie on this nothing of a show, you can head over to... Oh, and it turns out you're actually done. Okay, thank you so much. Watch out, my guest.com is where all my stuff is, especially campaign skyjacks. Definitely go listen to that, but also check out the shelves of your local bookstores for the Ultimate RPG Guide series, which I write especially, Oh, Captain, My Captain, a RPG that can be run in...
an hour to one hour. Such an efficient way to introduce somebody to role-playing games. Please, please, please fucking buy this. Please convince Simon and Schuster that it's not a failure. Please, please. Oh, wow. All right. And with that pitiful sad boy begging, we will go ahead and end. Please. Please, Eddie. Please. Go ahead, Sam. I'm not going to say it. I can't feed my family if you don't buy my books. I think John might have something to say.
Folks, please let me come, Eddie. So thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back in two weeks, and you all have a good one. Oh, shut that shit off. The history of role-playing games is weird and wild, and we here at System Mastery are determined to look through it all. Every heartbreaker that drove a man to bankruptcy to see his vision of D&D with really specific armor maintenance rules come to fruition. Every game where you get increasingly certain as you read it that this is all just one person's weird fetish. Every system that painstakingly recreates how medieval life was really like. And then also you can cast fireball. The System Mastery podcast wallows in the filth of RPG history. Come join us in the muck at System Mastery.