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Doubtfire is next. Housekeeper. I'm your free tonight at Doubtfire. Like, please.
Must be good with kids. Can't imagine what it was like being married to Daniel. Please don't forget to stand here now. Robin Williams.
How far has he worked? He's never done. Mrs. Doubtfire.
The first season one is getting hot fired. Ready, E.G. 13. It starts with 24 to 24 to three years everywhere.
All right. Chase Serrano is here. I made it down since this year. We're going to talk about one of the stealth divorce movies of the last 50 years.
The second most successful movie of 1993 at $441 million. That's wild. I'm going to start here. Shea, is this the Robin Williams movie that has endured for all audiences?
Because he's made some good ones. I'm going to give my Mount Rushmore in a second. But it seems like this one has had the most legs. There's this stuff.
I was doing some research on it in 2013. Variety reported that this was the most shown movie on cable television, that it was on cable 66 times in 2013. This is 20 years after the movie came out for people under 35. I feel like this is the number one Robin Williams movie because this is the one they grew up with.
What do you think? You have three kids. I know at my house, it's one hour photo. That's the one hour photo and then insomnia and then the makeup.
That's the that's the that's really no. This one is it feels like a big, like a big family movie. I think I would go with Aladdin over this one. That's got to be where the Serrano House lands in the situation.
But this is certainly up there way, way up there. And it's the movie that I would say this in good morning Vietnam were the two movies that people just kind of unleashed Robin Williams in a movie. Hey, am I leaving anything else out of me? Those were the two where they were just like, we're just going to keep the cameras rolling through your stuff.
Yeah, in terms of the range of what you get to see him do, I think this is like maybe the most complete Robin Williams experience because you get to see all the voice work and the impersonations and the, you know, kind of manic childlike energy that animates Aladdin, which was a core childhood text for me as well. I really relate to that. But you do also get like the emotion and like the energy and the very last scene of Mrs. Doubtfire, which I don't want to I don't know why I don't want to spoil it.
We've also watched it was when he's when he's giving the speech on the TV as Mrs. Doubtfire to all the kids about like you're going to be OK, like that energy is not that different from good, well hunting and it's, you know, it's not your fault. And so that it spans everything and it's kind of a bridge from the family movies to good, well hunting, which is my other touchstone performance. To me makes it like kind of the quintessential Robin Williams performance.
Yeah, it's funny. For me, the Mount Rushmore for him, it's good, well hunting, dead poets, world, according to Garp, a movie that I really love and was kind of the first time I'd ever seen him not as more because when I was growing up as a kid, he was more he was guy who starts on Happy Days, gets his own show, becomes a phenomenon. And then I would say tied for fourth would be good morning Vietnam and Mrs. Doubtfire, but I think Mrs.
Doubtfire aged completely differently than they could be in Vietnam. Good morning, both of them were really successful and good morning Vietnam. He's nominated for best actor, you know, but I think as the years have passed, because of the family element of this, it just kind of kept going and going. But she listened to this run for Robin Lambs, 1987 and 1993.
He has four top 10 grossing movies for the year. He has three Oscar nominations. He's in three best picture movies. He made five of the top 10 grossing movies, which were good morning Vietnam was fourth, dead poets was 10th, hook was six, not a great movie, but it was still six for the year.
Aladdin was first and Mrs. Doubtfire was second. The three Oscar movies were Dead Poets, Society, Fisher, Kings and Awakenings. And he also during that stretch had Cadillac man dead again in toys.
This is a crazy, crazy, crazy run. And I don't feel like people talk about him as like this might have been the biggest movie star in the world for six years here. Yeah, we don't we you and I have had multiple conversations about like Tom Hanks versus Denzel, like who had the better, but Robin's name has never come up ever. I did a similar thing when you said we can do this movie.
I went and looked and I'm like, why do I remember so many Robin movies? What was going on during this time period? I was a baby during the stretch. But yeah, each of those movies is fucking gigantic, like some of the biggest movies we ever got.
And there was just something about Robin William. I don't know what it is that made him feel less like a movie star and more just like a guy you wanted to hang out with a bunch. You know, it's a guy you cared about. Yeah, you there was something human about him.
And this movie taps into it, right? Because he's doing all the voices. He's doing all the popular stuff. But you also like really feel for this guy that his family is being taken away, which is the same kind of like dead poets he taps into that.
And some other ones, Amanda, he's actually, I would say completely underrated as an actor at this point in time because he was nominated for multiple Oscars. And he was a really good actor. One thousand percent. I think it's a little bit because not all of the movies that you named work kids movies, but some of them are family movies.
He is kind of making emotions and acting and situations and movies legible to children or younger people. I definitely am biased in saying that because I was like eight when his stuff I came out and consumed all of the Robin Williams movies as a child. But I do think that there's something about he plays like kind of an overgrown kid in many movies. There is that sort of stuff between kid and adult quality to like his comedy and like his place in the world and he like is trying to make sense of things and seems confused all the time, which is like definitely what it's like to be a kid.
And also, frankly, what it's like to be an adult some of the time. But I don't I guess we don't take that quote seriously in the same way that we take like Tom Hanks being an astronaut and then and Forrest Gump and you know, all of the quote adult roles that Tom Hanks plays, but it's a real skill. That's a good call to two things there. Number one, he literally did play an overgrown kid in the Jack.
Yeah. And number two, I think you're I think that's I'm going to change my answer. I'm going to deal with what Amanda said here because you make some kids movies. That's why we don't talk about it.
Good call Amanda. Well, there was another thing. There was a weird Rob Williams backlash because after that run, I mentioned, it starts getting spotty for him, right? He his misses felt like big misses, right?
He was in being human. He does jumanji in the bird cage, which are both big movies. Then he does Jack, which was widely mocked. People just didn't like it.
People are like fuck this. Now, Rob Williams, you don't get to do this. And there was this weird Rob Williams backlash. Then he comes back with good will hunting.
But then these are the movies that really hurt him from an IMDB slash career backlash standpoint. 1998, he makes what dreams may come and patch atoms pretty close to each other. And there was this real tangible fuck this thing with Rob Williams that starts and then he does Jacob the liar and he's in bicentennial man and people like him out. And from that point on, he starts making really weird movies.
He does one hour photo death to smoochie and insomnia in 2002. It's almost like he's trying to rebel against this Rob Williams thing. But I think it starts with those two 1998 movies. They're bad.
Patch Adams is a bad movie. He's not great in it. She's like, he's like, you might like shake. Listen, listen, listen, here's the thing.
I was not old enough during the like gigantic movie star stretch for Rob and Williams. I came to all of his movies late and I didn't watch Mindy or whatever, like I was not around for this, but I came to him late. And I just loved him. He looks, let me admit that he looks a little bit like my dad.
They're like a very same face. They have the same eyes. Those like Robin Williams eyes that when he squints him up, that just are like he's telling you you're safe. You're with me and I love you exactly how you are.
Like he has that about him and my dad has the same sort of thing. So when he started making those movies, when he did, I thought what dreams may come. I'd never seen a movie like this before. It was like one of the first serious movies I went to go see and I was doing my whole like I'm smart because I like this movie.
Let me tell you what's great about it. He did Patch Adams and he has a scene where he where he hugs the casket after the woman gets murdered. He's the architect of some of the most heartbreaking moments of like my movie life from 17 years old down. You know what I'm saying?
I greatly enjoyed both of those movies. Wow. They're probably like them, but I liked them. This is basically your Tim Duncan for movies.
You like every single Tim Duncan season in every rival games movie. I saw in the theater one hour for our death to smoochie and insomnia. Like if it's Robin Williams is in it, I'm going to go. I'm going to I would never forget Bill.
I mean, I would never forget being in a theater. This is before insomnia came out. This is before this is like there's no internet. I wouldn't have access to the internet.
You didn't see trailers ahead of time. I'm sitting in the movie theater with Laramie. We're up on it. We're watching whatever trailers are coming up for the movie before the movie comes on.
And they're doing the insomnia trailer trailer and it's Robin Williams. And you hear him talking, but they're showing Al Pacino and you're like, who's his voice? What's going on here? And they're doing they're setting up that this is a killer that they're about the show.
And then they get to the part when they show him and he's on the boat. And he like they should finally show his face and I lost my fuck. I was like, oh my God, he's playing like it was it was an unbelievable moment. And I love Robin Williams so much.
You know, one of the other reasons there's a backlash to him. Talk shows were way more important in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And he would go on these talk shows and he would do the manic rap and Williams thing. And it was really funny for a couple of years.
And then there was this sense like he's trying to heart like settle down. Like you're really you don't have to go for it every time. And I just think he was in our lives a lot and people took it for granted. And you know, St.
had backlash for a different way for a different reason because people just felt like he was making these movies are officially cash grabs going for a younger audience. But the reason I point this out is because when Robin Williams dies, there's this huge outpouring and it seemed like a lot of guilt that people didn't properly appreciate him when he was here. And I thought it was really interesting that happens sometimes when somebody's in your life for a long time, you pick them apart and then all of a sudden they're gone and you have this huge reevaluation and you're like, oh shit, I should have I should have appreciated that more. I should have handled it better.
Did you feel that Amanda? Of course. And I think one thing that's really specific to the to Robin Williams arc and maybe kind of the changing audience perception of him is that a lot of people kind of grew up. And that's what happened to me.
I loved Good Will Hunting and Good Will Hunting is one of those movies that I'm like, oh, I'm an adult movie watcher now. I only go to our rated movies like, don't show me your animated film. And I remember seeing what dreams may come in theaters and I have to say, I had a different experience and let's just leave it at that. I don't know what that movie is about.
They're like in an underworld or something and it kind of. After life, Amanda, they're going to hell to save his life who killed herself. Oh, my God. I mean, that's OK.
Anyway, didn't stay with me and I kind of moved on. And I was like, well, now I go watch grown up movies and I'm like kind of too big for Robin Williams or something. He died. I think a lot of people had that moment of like what a talent he was, how much he shaped my childhood and a lot of people's childhoods.
And just that he took his talent for granted. Yeah, I grew up with him. So I'm older than you guys, but when when Morgan Mindy hit that movie, that TV show was I think like a top three or four show in 1979, 1980 range when when you were a top three or four show that meant 22 million people were watching every week, like basically the same audience that the Super Bowl gets now. So he was such a big star that it became all right.
He's going to be an incredible movie star. I wonder what's going to happen. He made Popeye with Robert Altman. And it's this legendary as they're making it.
There's all these stories about this is going to be a boss. Sometimes those movies turn out to be well, do well. That one didn't and kind of set off this kind of choppy early 80s that he had where he's in he's in World of Cards, which I love, but didn't do that well. He's in the survivors.
He's in Moscow in the Hudson, which is actually a really good movie. He plays a Russian, but didn't do that great best at times club paradise. And it's kind of like us. It's going to happen in a good morning Vietnam, then we have the seven year run.
But to me, he's kind of a unicorn. I don't feel like anybody's been on his corner before since. Whatever he did was just different, his ability to be this manic comedian, but then also be able to have the monologues that he had in dead poets and in Goodwill Hunting, where when he's at the park with Will and he seems like the most sage damaged person that you would ever want to get advice from in a movie. And the way he straddled that stuff went and went wrong, I'm really wrong.
But I feel like it went right a lot of times. And I always get bummed out when somebody dies and then people belatedly say all the stuff they should have said when the guy was alive or the girl was alive, right? You're just like, oh, man, it would've been nice if he heard some of the stuff. If he read some of these tributes, you know, yeah.
And it would've been nice also that if kind of comedy could have evolved with him to kind of keep giving him things to do for the last 15 years, because the movie is to me after Goodwill Hunting just aren't as good and like don't serve his strengths and don't give him a chance to kind of innovate. And so if he's kind of stuck doing the same stuff while the world moves past him, it's not the best showcase, but he was so singularly talented just in terms of like the impressions and the voice work and being able to be so many different people. But also, as you said, Bill, kind of like that underlying humanity. There just aren't that many vehicles for that.
Well, it would've helped if he works less too. I think it's a classic when you're making three movies a year, you're burning your audience out to some degree. And I think some of the other people that have come along since have been probably smarter with that, where it feels a little more special when they come out. But it's an amazing career.
We should talk about the stealth divorce thing. So, yeah, it's not stealth, but I don't feel like people you said when we were texting about it, this is this is a divorce movie. I don't think people see that Shea is happily married with three kids. I'm happily married, but my parents were divorced and Amanda, your parents were divorced, right?
Yes, I should also say I'm happily married because I don't get it. You're happily married. Yeah, she mentioned that part, but this apparently in the research, and by the way, the real reason we're doing this is because a couple of weeks ago, Chris Columbus had this interview where he said how there was an NC 17 code of Mrs. Delfire and everybody lost their shit.
It became like one of the biggest stories of the week, whether this was true. And he was saying it was true because they filmed so many takes with Robin Williams that there was a lot of improv stuff that he jokingly said could have been NC 17. And then he clarified, he was like, no, but we definitely could have gone for rated R and there was such an outpouring of interest just in this interview that I was like, oh my God, I feel like we have to do this movie. But as we're doing the research and all this stuff, the movie was supposed to be a lot darker.
I mean, this was supposed to be a real divorce movie where at the end, it's there's really unhappy shit going on and they kind of settled on a little more uplifting family movie. Amanda, would you have liked the stealth unhappy divorce movie or are you happy where we landed? I would argue that this is unhappy enough. I think what I said to you is that this is the millennial's Kramer versus Kramer.
And as a child, whose parents did get a divorce a few years later and I should just say like my parents have been great to me and everything worked out fine. But like this movie was the touchstone. This was how like I understood what divorce was and works through a lot of it, which is alarming on a number of levels. But this movie does feature a lot of parent fighting.
It features a lot of things you're not supposed to do if you're a family divorcing. It definitely, I mean, and that's aside from the actual like central premise of the movie, but just in terms of the parents fighting in front of the kids and saying root things about each other, it's not like to quote my favorite Gwyneth Paltrow, conscious on coupling, right? It's like not a modern version of how to support kids through divorce. So I think it's pretty real.
I don't need it to be any realer and it still makes me very emotional at the end every time when I told that it's just going to be okay. It's still eight year old Amanda hearing. It's just going to be fine. Shay, you're romantic.
Did you want them to get back together at the end? I did. I did. I thought it was going to happen.
I even when I rewatched it yesterday for this, I was like, do they get back together? I think they're going to get back together. I was like invested again. Doesn't happen, which I kind of like that it doesn't happen.
But apparently when I say the film was supposed to be much darker after she finds out that he's also Mrs. Doubtfire, they have another ugly fight downstairs. But the camera doesn't show it and this is apparently on YouTube. The camera pans upstairs and they show the three kids listening to it.
And crying and then they come downstairs and Lydia and Christopher tell the parents they hate them and they decided to cut that one out. Probably a good idea. But they still show the kids like at the banister listening to the fight, which built. I mean, that one just that hits me every time.
That's a really familiar scenario. The kids are going through a lot. I had that in picking knits is divorce parents arguing like that. Yeah, knowing the kids could over here is you have to be pretty blind to my kids are in the house like I just don't I feel like they're going to go outside or go in the car or something like that.
They're not just like, hey, let's do this in the kitchen where everyone can hear. I mean, I have a lot of questions about the parenting in this movie for the two parents on this podcast once we get to nitpicking, but yeah. Yeah, that will be coming up. But yeah, I'm trying to think divorce in general had this nice run.
But now when people make divorce movies, they go like no bomb back style and it has to be the most like a mostly scarring movie I've ever seen. Well, so that's like the adult divorce movie. And there is a real difference between divorce movies for kids or featuring kids and how's it going to affect a kid and like here kid here's how you can get through it versus the I went through a divorce as an adult person and now my life is over and I have to learn how to love again, et cetera. I guess both types of movies are learning how to love again, but the kid one is much gentler and this to me is kind of the apex of the kid divorce movie because I mean, it's very 90s and we have a lot of notes, but in terms of being like, hey, kids, divorce happens, but you're going to be OK.
It's it's it's pretty good. I mean, what are the other examples you've got? Like, I mean, do you want it's Kramer versus Kramer is I guess also like it's going to be OK, but that's pretty dark. Yeah, that's pretty intense.
I guess like there's the no bomb back marriage story, which is the adult divorce version, but then Noah, also has squid in the whale, which is brutal. That one is so hard. There is Chris Columbus directed another movie, Stepmom, a tough point for me, but really tough. So Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts and that is like a heartbreaking and things are not going to be OK, even though they're going to be OK.
And there's like the new parent trap is pretty good in that sense, but they get together back together at the end. So I think Mrs. Doubtfire is like the best 90s example of divorce happens, but you'll survive. I would go a reconcilable differences for the 80s, but there's no sign of that movie.
It's not anywhere, but it would happen to it's so brutal. No, it's super dark, but it's told through the eyes of the kid. But the kid is suing her parents. It's amazing.
It's very more being like, I'd like to be between. And then that happens in real life. I mean, a reconcilable differences is a wild text. That movie is amazing.
There has to be some reason no copies of it exist anywhere. I mean, I think it's also because that was made by Nancy Myers and Charles Shire and then their marriage and working relationship. It's not totally dissimilar, IRL. And then Nancy Myers makes like 400 divorce movies, which are all great.
Heartburn was another one of your favorites. That's a divorce movie, but that's a pure divorce movie. They don't really consider the kids. Yeah, I mean, there's like first wives club.
It's complicated. I mean, there are a bunch of like women learning to like find themselves after divorce that I really love, but it's a totally different genre. Shire, you know what the darkest divorce movie ever is? I mean, go on this all day.
Godfather too. Yeah, that's pretty tough. It takes it as far as the divorce movie is going to go. It's really dark.
Nobody thinks it is a divorce movie, but it really is. Stepmom was an interesting one because it hits the combination step parent theme completely completely underutilized movies. We never have we never have realistic step parent movies. We have divorce and we have cancer.
They went for the Triple Crown and the younger women, older women dynamic thing too. And it's not a good movie. I tried, it's watchable, but it's really not a movie that probably should have been made would be my take away on that one. Shea.
Yep. Robin Williams did between 15 or 22 takes. Chris Columbus said for every scene in this movie. Chris Columbus would use two or three cameras at a time just to make sure he caught stuff.
And I think that's one of the reasons people don't consider this a divorce movie because of all the improv. This is Robin Williams cooking. This is him. This is like you on Twitter when there's eight NBA games going on.
Okay. That's very nice thing. And he was ever said to compare me to Robin Williams. Quick Pierce Brosnan conversation.
Love to have to be quick. He's Remington Steele from 1980. Actually, let's take a break and we'll do a quick verse for us in conversation. All right.
Coming back, Pierce Brosnan, he's Remington Steele from 82 to 87. And at some point people decide, wow, this is everything we've ever wanted from James Bond. Let's make this happen. NBC is like, no, we're actually not going to make this happen.
He's Remington Steele. We have another contract that James Bond thing will not be happening. So he ends up getting passed over as James Bond, which is a really good movie. What if because I think he would have been, you know, he was good.
And when he finally got to do 95, but there are a couple other ones that I think he would have been better than they picked. And basically goes into a career drought. Remington Steele gets canceled in 87 and you look through his movies from 87 to 92. And it's pretty grim.
And then we have a Brosnan sense in Mrs. Dowfire, Amanda, and you're here for it. Unessential Pierce Brosnan text, because it sets up. I mean, Remington Steele obviously set up James Bond, even though Remington Steele is something that I know everything about and have never seen a frame of.
I just like, I know what it is. I live in the consequences and I'm grateful for it. I'm just like, I don't know. I guess he was a spy.
But so then Mrs. Dowfire brings him back as kind of like the charming, stylish Lothario that sets up both James Bond and the Thomas crowd affair, my most underrated movie of the 90s, the remake, please, not the original. Yes, thank you, Shay, would love to have as much time as you guys want for that. And then also in a way, sets up Mamma Mia and Mamma Mia, too, where he is reclaiming the absent dad, it's like role to great effect and also singing and being very handsome in tropical or sunshine locations, which is a core up your Brosnan role for me.
It's interesting, usually this part, it's the handsome guy, but he's a huge asshole. And they have the scene when he's at the bar and he's talking to the guy and the guy's like, whoa, man, you're settling down, she is kids. And in any other movie, Pierce Brosnan's like, yeah, I'll get rid of those little rugrats later, I'm just here for the sex, and they're like, oh, you're a bad guy, but they don't do that with this. They actually make him a likable guy throughout the movie, which Shay is, they kind of swerve us on it.
And you end up really liking Pierce Brosnan and hoping it kind of works out with him in Sally Field, which is not where I expected to go as I was rewatching this. Yeah, I feel the same way. I wish that they would have gotten together, we'd been a great couple. Pierce Brosnan, though, in this movie is just smoking hot.
Yeah, just looks super handsome. Yeah, if you're trying to get back with your ex-wife and Pierce Brosnan shows up, you just got to write that off like you're done. You don't stand a chance. He's in the pool with the kid on the shoulders, they're playing basketball together.
He's getting drinks. He looks great in a suit. You can't compete with Pierce Brosnan. 1993 Pierce Brosnan, forget about it.
It's a great scene. Sally Field, who I grew up with as knowing her as the Smoky and the Bandit, girlfriend with Bert Reynolds, not understanding there was a whole TV start. And then she became a huge, huge A-Lister, thanks to Norma Ray. And she's kind of kept, she could carry movies, but at a time when they didn't have a lot of great parts for women to carry movies and then kind of settles into this 90s Sally Field Renaissance where she does this, she's Forrest Gump's mom, she's great in that movie and then kind of keeps going.
And she's still around all these years later. It's like a 55 year career at this point. I don't feel like people consider her like one of the icons. So I don't know where she lands historically, but she's been in a lot of good stuff.
She's one of the actors who when you say this person's name, a scene immediately pops up in your head. And I think for most people, you say Sally Field, you think of the funeral scene from Still Magnolias where she just lets loose. I think that's the class that she belongs in, the actors where you say the name and then everybody thinks of one big scene where you're like, oh, this person is a monster talent. Two Oscars, three nominations.
That makes sense. Goes all the way to Lincoln in 2012. She's Lincoln's wife, but her first one's Norma Ray in 1979. I thought she should have been nominated for Forrest Gump.
I thought she was amazing at that part. It's so funny when she seduces the headmaster or whatever that guy was. But I don't know. She kind of brought, it was like her Sissy Spacek.
There were some other ones from that generation. I thought she brought the most of the table. She's one of those Hollywood actresses who kind of gets stuck in the mom roles in the 40s. And so for my generation, I know her as a mom from the Sapphire.
I know her as a mom from where it's from. That is like a disturbance for her and her career. But especially in the 90s, I mean, come on, it still happens today, that you kind of get funneled into like, oh, the mom role. And people don't take that as seriously.
She she's in a classic that became a lifetime movie, even though it was a movie that released in the theater, The Not Without My Daughter. They go, she did that action, action side of it. I think her daughter got kidnapped and brought to the Middle East or somewhere. She had to get the daughter back.
I can't remember, but I can't remember the plot. Just remember her trying to find what happened with her daughter. All right, so $25 million budget made $441 million when the Academy Award for Best Makeup did not know this was an Oscar movie, Golden Globes for Robin Williams for Best Actor and also one Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. And based on the 1987 novel, alias Madame Doutfire by Anne Fine, which I did not know, directed by Chris Columbus, who's coming off home alone one and two in this movie and never really gets better from him.
Roger Eber, two and a half stars said the film is not as amusing as the premise. There were long stretches when I'd had quite enough of Mrs. Doutfire. Come on, Roger.
He said, Tootsie grew out of real wit and insight, and Mrs. Doutfire has the values and depth of a sitcom. And we should talk about this before we get to the categories. This is kind of the end of a generation of, you know, like Tootsie comes out in 82, the cross-dressing thing, which kind of starts in the 60s and 70s with, I'd probably back to some like a hot in the 50s and kind of starts morphing in the 90s to the Eddie Murphy, 90 Professor playing seven characters type.
This is the last one of just like a man who's also playing a woman that I can remember being big. And now 2021, I wonder, do they make this movie and what is it like in what's the 2021 version of this? How is it different? I have been thinking about this and I just I don't think that you can make it because the drag premise as something to laugh at just it's not what we think of as comedy anymore.
I mean, drag has a kind of increasingly visible place and pop culture. And I think a positive way, like largely to repulse drag race. But like, ha ha, isn't that funny? It's just not what we think of as funny anymore.
And that is like as rewatching it as an adult in 2021 was asking myself a lot of questions about kind of this premise and what we're laughing at and why. And it is a very of its time movie in a lot of ways, not all of them great. And specifically, some of the comedy is just outdated. But I think Bill, you're right.
That central premise that started with some like it hot and like honestly, like with Shakespeare, just kind of it's not how we conceive of comedy today. It's a it's a completely different viewing experience today. Like as an adult who is trying to be a little more aware of the world than it is than it was in the early 90s as a kid, like this is a movie that I remembered in my chest before we watch it as being like very sweet and very wholesome. And then you watch it now and their parts were like, like, Oh, a lot of this stuff is not OK, very clearly openly transphobic, even if that's not the intention of the writers or the directors, as I was prepping for the podcast, same as I always do.
I'm reading a bunch of articles about the movie and there was one that I came across and it was called the pain of revisiting Mrs. Doubar and it was written in I think last year by a writer named Alex Mel Taylor was really smart, really insightful and they laid out several real world connections to moments in the movie. For example, you have the part where Robin Williams Sun sees him in the restroom and before the kids know that Mrs. Doubar is a dad, their initial reaction is to is to threaten to call the police into a soldier.
And of course, there's this entire history of trans people being attacked or beaten or worse, or you have the thing about how the year that Mrs. Doubar came out is the same year that the Brandon Tina murder happened, which would later famously be the basis for the movie, Boys Don't Don't Cry. There are a bunch of things like that in the article and Alex does a really great job of presenting all of this information and then tying it all together. Ultimately, they in the piece by saying Mrs.
Doubar confronted or excuse me, Mrs. Doubar conformed to some norms while flaunting others and both that good and that bad deserves to be highlighted. Rather than lament this fact, we should celebrate the film's data. We are no longer in the 90s anymore with all the hatred and hurt that came with it.
And I couldn't be happier. Shout out, Alex. That was a really, it's a really great piece to like read that one. I really like that.
Yeah, we've we've dealt with this on the rewatchables a few times. I mean, we did Taxi Driver. That's a movie that would never happen now. 48 hours, which is the movie I've seen the most probably of any movie in my life.
And Jack Gates is just a racist. And you for years and years, I always thought that, you know, that movie was hilarious. And now you watch it in, you know, in the corner, like, all right, maybe maybe maybe there's some stuff I miss. But yeah, I think look, I think it would get made.
I think they would be a lot more careful because ultimately the premise is this guy wants to be closer to his kids and he's going to pretend he's somebody else. I think they would be they probably take great pains to be like, all right, how can we pull this premise off while not offending anybody? And that's where we would land it. Now there was a musical, but Amanda found something there was a musical where they were trying to make it, but then the pandemic basically stopped the musical, but they were trying to be more conscious of the stuff.
Yeah, I believe it opened. I want to say in Portland, but it was scheduled for a Broadway run. And I don't know what's up with Broadway right now, but it may still be in the works. And I was reading about the work that they did with GLAD in order to try to update some of these things and to steer this source material where they can away from the harmful tropes and stereotypes as the piece that Shay read, so wonderfully describes.
So I don't know whether it's going to open. I'm curious about it. I do think there are a lot of bad jokes in this movie, which is the case in a lot of rewatchables from the 80s and 90s, like the comedy, Thankfully Changes and These Things Don't Age. This movie has a lot of other political issues, including the Sally Field character, which we will definitely talk about that.
We will talk about the idea of what it means to be like a quote mom or like a parent. So, you know, there are a lot of things that could use updating. This central premise is a tricky one. So, you know, maybe the musical will open and we can see how they updated it.
My take on all this stuff is these movies are snapshots of whatever people cared about and thought was OK and thought was funny in the moment, right? So in 1993, this was a movie that made $41 million and nobody was having any of these conversations. That does mean it's a good thing. But probably some people were probably some people.
In 93, I'm sure. I'm sure. But I'm sure a trans person watched the movie and was like, Hey, you know what I'm saying? Tootsie to me feels like more overt with some of the issues with some of this stuff, which I don't know if you guys have watched Tootsie in a while.
But there's a couple of scenes that Tootsie were like, wow, that would never happen. No, this is that far. The bathroom scene is probably the one that you watch now and you go, eh, there's no way that they're doing it that way in 2021. It's not happening.
Yeah, that was like recently a whole conversation. But this is the thing that's going to happen. You know what I'm saying, like, idiotically, let's let's go to the categories. We'll pick up the pace there, most rewatchable scene.
So the job interview where he does all those voices and it's so clearly, we turn the cameras on and we let Robin Williams go and he does that. I do a great impression of a hot dog and he does all those things. I just I just enjoy that. I wonder how many hours they probably film for that.
It had to have been at least two where he's just like, Hey, Robin, go through your thing. I enjoy when they do that in movies with them. Oh, by the way, do you have any special skills? Yes, I do.
I do voices. What do you mean you do voices? Ben, I do voices. Yeah, they come to this planet looking for intelligent life.
Oops, we made a mistake. We're happy to be in America. That's for the green camp. I want you in the worst way.
Oh, it's a suddenly a rough meeting. It's not going very well for me. I'll tell you that. Hey, boss, give it a change.
She's going to listen up any moment. Look at me right now, Monday, Monday. I want to do that. Oh, and get to know you with you.
Nancy and I are still looking for the other half of my head. Daniel makes fake calls for the for the made job, trying to undermine his way from hiring anybody else but him. I enjoyed that scene too, because he's not different voices. Hello, back in your sale.
Don't make me get the hose. Hello. I am job. Do you speak English?
I am job. I'm sorry. The position has been filled. I think he's probably the best.
I can use any voice in a movie comedian we've had in the last 40 years. Because even the Mrs. Doubtfire voice he creates is so it's so distinct. It's like the best version ever of some SNL sketch.
He's got this these little mannerism, says deer all the time. He's got the English accent, but he just nails it. He's just this gives you the full the full Robin Williams boat. Harvey Fierstein creating Mrs.
Doubtfire's look, are we close any closer? You'd be mom. Yeah, he's great. He's great.
Harvey Fierstein had a nice run here for, I don't know, six, seven years, right? He's in depth of smoochy too. They reunited for depth of smoochy. Yeah, it depends on the end of the day as well.
Another quartile that texted mine. The icon Harvey. He got a SNL impression. John Lovitz used to do Harvey impression on SNL.
The frosting scene, which might be might be my pick when the apartment lady comes to check on Robin Williams, whether he's still living here. Oh, I'm sorry to frighten you. I must look like a yeti in this getter. This is my 90 morning mask part of my beauty regimen.
What it is, it's basically egg whites, creme fresh part of chocolate vanilla and a little touch of Adam. There you go. There you go. You've got your cream and your sugar now.
It's a little cappuccino, one drop or two. Would you like another one? Oh, where you go? I think it starts melting off, which apparently was not intentional.
The heat from the movie set was melting the frosting and making it trip off. That seems really good. That's that has ties to those like the threes company episodes where I grew up with where it's like, there's a misunderstanding and this person's trying to navigate these two these two worlds at the same time and he's pretending he's two people or he's in another room using different voices and then they run it back in the restaurant at the end, but that was like basically sitcoms of the 70s. It was always this happened.
Uh-oh, I have to. But I told this person this was happening and now I'm going to try to pull it off and then at the end, everything gets blown up, but that was going out for years and years. The Sally opens up to Mrs. Doubtfire.
I say Sally Sally feels character. The truth is I didn't like who I was when I was with him. I would turn into this horrible person. I didn't want my kids growing up with him like that.
When I'm not with Daniel, I'm better. And I'm sure he's better when he's not with me. She does the I'm a better person without him. I used to think Daniel could do anything except be serious.
It's such an intense scene. You have this divorced wife basically telling the husband everything that was wrong with their marriage, not realizing it's her husband. I thought that was really well written. We had Pierce Bros.
at the pool and that whole thing. And then Daniel thrown the fruit at him and then my pick would be the double duty at the dinner, which is just an absurd scene that really works where he's going back and forth. He keeps changing the bathroom. His teeth falls in the wine glass, which apparently was added by him.
But it was a classic. That's a classic 1970s TV sitcom thing. It goes on longer than I remembered. It's long.
It's like 12, 13 minutes. It's ridiculous. I don't know who pays for the dinner. They all just leave.
Nobody puts a credit card down or money. And then the last the last one I had was the family rewatches or the family watches the first Mrs. Del Fire show, which is undeniably poignant. So Amanda, did I leave anything out?
Which one would you go with? Well, the making dinner, but specifically the catering food, ordering the catering food and then presenting it as like home cooked meal has really stayed with me. Like the peak of luxury as a child when he's like spooning the, you know, I don't even know what the weird smoke salmon looking thing is on the plate. Number one, the idea that like a five year old child would be that is hilarious, but they look it looks so elegant.
And I was like, Oh my gosh, catering. And this is such a good idea how like fancy. And then the final speech, which to me, you know, like I think it's like wherever there's love, it'll be OK as is I get very emotional. So I would add those too.
And do we do run by fruiting? Yeah. Yeah, that's the posting. Yeah.
OK, so what's your pick? Well, it was a run by fruiting, probably. I think the posting is the single best scene in the movie. No kidding you, a guy who's never had a kid.
When I have anything to do with kids, you won't even date a woman who's got kids. People change, Ron. I'm pushing 40. I always spend the best of my life on myself.
She's got an awful lot of baggage, though, three kids. It's a terrific case. I'm crazy about it, especially a little madly. Look at that.
You need a sweet bite. God knows, I need some kind of stable father figure in their life right now. Thanks, son. Oh, what about their real father?
What can I say, Ron? The guy's a loser. I'll see you. Loser.
Oh, sir. I saw it. Some angry member of the kitchen staff. Did you not tip them?
Oh, the terrorist around that way was a run by fruiting. I'll get them, sir. Don't worry. It swerves you with the browsing character while also making like a more, which sets up a lot of stuff, but just everything about that scene, hiding behind the plant.
It's just really well done. What do you have? You know what I really like that you didn't mention? I really like the opening him in the book, doing the sounds for the cartoons.
And he's going the movie starts and he's already at Max, Max Robin Williams, just singing in a different language and bouncing back and forth. We see immediately that like he's supposed to be a caring dad who has morals when he starts ad-libbing the script and he quits his job because he doesn't want to do a thing with a bird or whatever, smokes a cigarette. I really like that scene. And also I like the party, especially when you're a kid, you just I just love a good party scene at the house and everything is kind of wild.
And there's a like a pony inside or a horse. The pony inside the house was aggressive. They're listening to House of Pain. Yeah, 11, 12-year-old Shay was super into that.
Two three-year-olds just like jumping on the couch, like nearly in a sugar comment. It's great. They just like look so out of it, but just keep jumping anyway. I had two of those in what's age of best.
The party scene I enjoy how over the top it is. It's just great early 90s over the top and the opening credits, same thing. I had also for what's age of best, jump around being used non-ironically in a movie. I think this might have been the last time every time after this it became ironic.
Another what's age of best, no sequel. I actually like that they didn't do, they didn't make a sequel for this. Now, there's a lot of research about how they tried to make it basically from 2000 to 2014. And Robin Williams, which is weird considering some of the movies he picked, was really fanatical about not doing it unless the script made sense.
And they just kept trying. They kept doing different rewrites and just he always said no, and then he passed away. So I think Mrs. Daufire too probably would have been bad.
I don't even know how they would have done it. What's the plan? Well, I think it would have been about maybe Mrs. The Real Mrs.
Daufire TV show, maybe becoming massively successful and maybe him having issues dealing with stardom, but I just don't know if that's a movie I would have wanted to watch. Nobody wants a show-vis movie. It's about these kids. That's why it didn't happen.
The kids would have been older. That would have been weird. Mary Thomas too was also really bad. And so you only need the one magical saving the family movie.
I have one more what's age of best, but before I do that one, do you two have anything else for what's age of best? The Grimm Dad Department, just like a really classic divorce show. It's just like Bill's nodding. We've all been there.
It's really tough with a mouse trap in the middle of the floor. Just like not even in the corner. It's just I hope that that's something that is state in the 90s, but we were all there and happily the apartment gets remade. My dad had an incredible divorce that apartment where we had ants.
We had to have little entraps on the side. We had a couch that I got a bloody nose after the Bruins lost the too many men in the ice. I was crying after we lost this game in the Canadians and actually bled all over the couch, which we didn't get another couch for six months. But I was just on the couch.
So I always say that if I was in the divorce that apartments, yeah, it's both a trope, but I also think it's really realistic because if the dads moving out after the divorce, they're just kind of trying to grab the cheapest apartment, the grab and the cheapest stuff possible, all that stuff. I mean, I like to think that that's another thing that stayed in the 90s, right? And in the same way that the parents are fighting in front of the kids and a dad doesn't know how to do anything. Maybe we've all evolved, but it did bring really true with me.
Dad out to my dad. I love you and your house is great now. Here's what I had for my pick for what's age the best pre-internet San Francisco. Yeah.
It's just pre-internet anything. Yeah, pre-internet anything is great. But just old school San Francisco, when San Francisco was just this awesome city that my friends had three, four friends lived there. I used to go there every year after college, go hang out with them.
It was just kind of like Boston on the West Coast and how it's changed over the last 20 years for better and worse. But that leads me to a separate category, greatest San Francisco movie TV house of all time. I'm so ready. Here are my six nominees for you.
Mrs. Doubtfire, full house, Pacific Heights. That was a really nice one. I don't know if you remember that one.
I'm trying to remember that one. Three stories. It's really nice. It's on a hill.
The party of five house. Oh, Bill. Yes, which I don't want to give this away, but that's going to be my pick. That house is amazing.
I didn't even know where I didn't know that was in San Francisco. This one's for Shay. That's so Raven. OK, thank you.
I appreciate that. I thought you were going to throw 40 was it 40 days or 40 nights? That Josh Hart in a movie? Is that in San Francisco?
I think so. I feel like it is. My last one was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978 edition Donald Sutherland's house is a classic old school San Francisco house with like, there's like a weird backyard and it's like four stories and it's got a lot of shit going on. I think it's the party of five house, but go ahead.
I got one more for you. Yeah, because I believe the game that David French or movie is set in San Francisco and that house, I'm like, I'm assuming it's in San Francisco, maybe it's slightly outside. I tried to Google it, listen, a top five movie kitchen of all time for me. It's really up there with the Nancy Myers.
It's probably my favorite part of the game, actually, but I would put it on the list. And then I have to echo Full House, which just really taught me about San Francisco. So I did a lot of research on this because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss a house and including the articles about like the 10 most famous houses in San Francisco, and stuff like that, Mrs. Doubtfire is on every list.
They became a tourist attraction. They say the address of the movie and it's the actual address. And when Robin Williams died, a bunch of people went down there. They put flowers outside the house, stuff like that.
So the one I didn't know was on a TV or movie house, but Robin Williams actually owned a house in San Francisco that became an iconic San Francisco house. And that house is on all of these lists for landmarks. He loves San Francisco and abstain there, but he had this really famous San Francisco house. So Robin Williams is in their toy space loop.
Mrs. Doubtfire in that house. So there you go. I have a pick that beats both of us pick.
Yep. And just has to be in San Francisco. I want from the movie The Rock. I want Alcatraz.
I want the whole thing. That's what I want to live. Send me there. Send me there.
Give me that. Let me own that. That's a great choice. I'm really jealous of that choice by you.
What stage of the worst we mentioned since stuff already? A quick zag on this. Another an offshoot of what stage of the worst beyond what we already mentioned was just I feel like the internet ruined movies that had plots where people wore lots of makeup or disguises to deceive whoever, because they're just kind of absurd premises. Like it's absurd that the kids and the wife wouldn't figure out that this was Mrs.
Doubtfire. It's absurd that somebody would spend the amount of time it would take to just put on all this makeup and pretend to be somebody else that day. When I was a kid, Tom Hanks TV show Bus and Buddies where they were renting a house that was in an all female apartment building to save money, but they had to dress up as women every day, which conceivably would cost way more expensive than just renting a better apartment. But there was just not a lot of thought.
But in the stuff and I feel like once the internet started, it was so easy to pick apart these premises, people started shying away from like the dumbest ones possible. But in 1993, you could just make a movie like this and nobody would be like, well, wait a second, why wouldn't he just talk his wife into being watching the kids from three to seven? Why is he going through this whole rigor world? Just like tell her, I'll watch the kids from three to seven and then we don't have a movie when he tries to do that.
And she says, no, that's like how it starts when they're at the park. Why she says, no, because she just doesn't like. She's just going to be improving himself unreliable by this point. Like a history of it.