Pubcast 53: Better Off Dead

The podcast. You know, let's make the podcast. There it's a winning. That's what James was in.

Welcome to the podcast. Sit down and enjoy your point. Okay, welcome back to the podcast. This episode we look at the quirky John QSAC classic, Better Off Dead.

We took a poll of the fans and we had heady hitters up there like Pulp Fiction, Austin Powers, Ace Ventura, Big Lebowski, and Better Off Dead. And to my surprise, Better Off Dead won in a landslide. I did not see that coming. So here we go.

Eric and Allison joined me to break down Better Off Dead. Does it ever feel like everyone's got more going than you do? Yeah, everyone be smart. So you're all wired again?

Yes, I am. It's good for you stupid to me. Thank you. You say the best ski in town just ran off with your girlfriend?

Even your younger brother does better than you do? And that nobody even cares? That's broke up with me. Oh, that's nice.

Well, you might be right. But remember, one thing. I didn't even mean to New York City. Nobody was ever.

Better off dead. The truth is I got out of ski any day of the week. Oh, really? Yeah, you want to rest?

I'll take you on any day, sucker. Go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way.

Turn. All you need is guts. All right. I'm going to race.

I'm going to lose. I'm going to die in that order. Go. And you'll never doubt yourself again.

He's skiing on one ski. Better off dead. That's a real shame when folks be throwing away a perfectly good white boy like that. And add normal look at a normal teenager.

All right. Better off dead. I've got two plots and options. We're always recording.

Because neither one is very interesting. I'll read the short of the two. I'm D.B. This just gets to the heart.

Gets to the bare bones of what this is. A teenager has to deal with his girlfriend dumping him among family crises, homicidal, pitervoys, and rival skier. Kind of what it is. Sure.

If you read that and didn't know anything about it and saw this movie, you would be lost. It's ridiculous. Okay. Overall reaction to the movie.

Where you saw it, what you thought of it, how you saw it, what was your impression when you first came across better off dead. So remind me what year did this come out? 85. 85.

Okay. So Eric didn't see the theater because he was as I go. Eight years old. Yeah.

I have a feeling I didn't see this until college. I'm trying to think of a sod in high school. I definitely saw it in high school, but it was probably on cable. I don't think I saw it at all.

Yeah. I think I was in college when I saw it. I will I will back you up on that because when I first heard of it was you coming home from college and you've got to see this movie. Really?

Yes. That's hilarious. Which feels I feel like we're in the theme on a lot of these movies. Check out this movie.

Yes. I saw it on cable for sure. Then somebody had it on VHS and we watched it a bunch. And I feel like when we watched it on VHS, it was recorded on like a blank VHS.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. TV channel.

It wasn't a store-bought copy of it. No. So let's I'm trying to think which one to do first. Let's do the rotten tomato score.

What do you think the audience gave this movie? What's the audience score for the run tomatoes? I will for audience I will say 75. Okay.

I'm going to say 71. The audience score was 87. I loved it. Critics were the critics.

Oh, 65. I'm going to say 75. Wow. It was equal.

Well, didn't you say it was 80 something? Yeah, but you would have said 75 for the other one. I know. I guess really low.

So I was something that maybe. Critics said 77. Yeah. 87 and 77.

I can't believe the critics were there's high on this movie. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've just seen it. It's ridiculous. This movie is insane even for the 80s.

I'm trying to think of like if I'm I don't I have not done the reflection on what the patterns of a sisqueline ebert were on movies like this to know the how they would evaluate this as a thumbs up thumbs down, you know, whoever on how many stars or whatever, because I'm assuming that this is an aggregate now of people that are now critics that are nostalgic about the movie. Right. Yeah. I think the way this works is that it's an amalgamation of critics scores, then translating them into a percentage.

And I guess some who have seen it now recently. I don't know. That's the case exactly. But this movie was one in a string of teen comedies at the time.

There was a green lighting, everything because fast times at Ridgman High did so well. Right. So a bunch of stuff was coming out. But if you line up all the teen comedies at this time, this one is clearly the most insane.

Like it's all over the place. It's really wackadoo. It's for sure. Wackadoo has things in it that have no time to the plot or the characters.

It's just like random claymation burgers out of nowhere. And a kid building a space shuttle takes off at the end. But I like the fact that somebody in that writer's room or whatever was like, I don't care how we fit it in. We're just going to put it in.

I know. Because I think it's funny. There's moments in this. You're like, oh, this isn't, someone just added this later and you said, let's just shoe on it in.

And it all works. So what do you think this movie made at the box office in 85? 85 dollars? I mean, I did 85 money.

Yeah. 32 million dollars. That's a number. I'll say 40.

It made a little over 10 million dollars. Oh, really? I did not make any money. I mean, I'm sure it cost three to make whatever the number was.

Didn't make a bunch of money in the theaters, but made everything in cable release and video stores. Apparently the director would go to the video stores and like blockbuster, whatever. And it would never be on the shelf ever because people would rent it and never bring it back. I did.

I think that is kind of indicative of this movie in general. Like I feel like it was a slow burn for people. Like it was probably in and out or it's like this sleeper movie when you think about your favorite movies or movies that you watch because it's not on a lot in terms of cable or anything like that. But it's not streaming.

You know, as we were even thinking about this podcast, this was the sleeper on the survey. And I think that was a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of this podcast. This was the sleeper on the survey of, you know, a bunch of my other choices and other five stars, five star movies on the survey that we took. And this movie, which is a two star?

I don't know. rams do. I don't know where we are in 5 star. I could hear about talk about this movie more than anything else.

It was more than that. I think that was Skill One at least for me. I only talked aboutANS. Twelve to five I think was the closest one.

OK. Here is a lot of my facts and stuff are about the director of this movie. I don't know how any of this happened. of this happened.

I mean this is like this can never none of this stuff could happen today because it's too I think it's too buttoned up and people are vetted more people are more careful with stuff but this guy was ridiculous. Savage Steve Holland and you'll see when we saw it on the credits he goes by Savage Steve Holland not Steve Holland but Savage. He's just a knucklehead surfer guy from California I think. So he remember that show that game show Press Your Luck.

Yeah. He was the guy who did the animation of the whammies on Press Your Luck. That's how he that's how he was known or how he made money in Hollywood was he was the whammy guy for Press Your Luck. So the animation at the beginning that's his animation that's his style of drawing.

And even like during the film. During film that's him. That makes some sense why that's in the movie. Right.

Of course. So he also did after this he did One Crazy Summer and How I Got Into College which is a nice little sleeper movie that we've watched every day. And I believe Curtis Armstrong appears in both those movies too. And he also he had a cartoon show.

I'd eat the cat. Yeah. Which I might be aware of that but I remember that being on in the app like I remember being aware of it like in high school it was on in the afternoons. So I was a teenager that show was on.

So a lot of better off dead is based on closely or extensions of sort of broadly based on autobiographical stuff from Savage Steve's life. Like his girlfriend broke up with him and he and she did leave him for attacking the other ski team apparently. I don't understand the skiing part of that. Well I mean how many high schools have skiing team?

I don't know. And in this movie as far as we know it's what's the town it's a Greendale, Northern California. Yeah it looks like it looks like LA basically or around LA. But how far are they traveling to these mountains to have a ski team?

Is it the Sierra? Yeah. So whatever. But anyway.

Just put my geography out there for everybody here. Yeah. Yeah. Where's the fascians?

Let's not get sucked into geography because I don't know any about it. So that was one simple element from his life that was in this movie. But some other stuff was like when Wayne goes into the garage and puts an extension cord around the pipe to commit suicide. He did that.

He went in the garage because he was so broken up from this breakup. Got an extension cord put it around his neck put it around the pipe and was standing on a garbage can ready to kill himself. And he stood up and the garbage can couldn't support his weight and he fell down into the pipe into the can. The cord pulled on the pipe and broke the pipe and then the water was rushing and he was being drowned in the garbage can trying to kill himself by hanging.

Wow. And his mom found him and got pissed at the like what are you doing? Clean this up. Oh my god.

Not the suicide part. Clean up for the garage part. It's like a seven-year name. Yeah.

This guy's story is just insane. His mother was like the mom in the movie. That made crazy food. So she would look in like McCalls or Red Book or whatever magazine that had a recipe and she would try to cook it and it wouldn't work and she would just didn't have the right ingredients and she would just grab whatever was close and she would just put it in there and it was terrible and she did actually give him tv dinners not for Christmas but for his birthday.

Can you imagine that? Well I actually can because I got a can of sartines one for my birthday. I got a box of fruit snacks one for my birthday. I'm talking to the right people.

Your parents gave me a sleeve of golf balls and I don't play golf. Right. What do you want to hank your chips? They're big on hank your chips.

I got hank your chips. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh my god.

Okay. See there's apparently Q-Sack hated the movie and he told the director that it was like the worst thing he's ever seen and he felt he was tricking to doing it. He hated it and was like badmouthing the director constantly for years. Has he come back around?

So until recently he's come back around. He said I just didn't get it at the time and I didn't hate it but I just didn't connect with me. I think he's kind of soft selling it a little bit now to get along but he hated it. What do you think was the favorite scene of Test Audiences when we were testing this movie to try rework it?

I'm really hoping it's not the hamburger scene. Everybody wants some. Eric what do you think? I actually don't answer that question already.

It's the hamburger scene. The claymation. It's terrible. It is the worst part of that whole movie.

If you cut that whole scene out the whole thing about working in the burger place doesn't affect anything. There's nothing going on there. So when we were watching the movie again today in preparation for this I was thinking that because of course he's crashing into the truck of the owner of this place that he was working there to pay off his for damaging the truck. That's why I was thinking that I'm like is that what it is but they never they don't connect those dots at all.

The guy appears to know his dad in some way. So I would think that's probably what happened but that's not a screen. He got his dad down on the job which is what they explained and then yeah it's just a nightmare situation for him because he had been in those accidents with that guy. I feel like they could have done something different with that two minutes but I guess they're trying to say that Lane Meyer is like this kind of creative kind of daydreamer kind of kid and whatever but it just could have done what I was doing.

It was too long except for the hamburger scene and then the doodling scene in the lunchroom except for those two things. You don't ever get the sense that he's any sort of a dreamer and any sort of a creative type at all. Take those out and you could mostly take him out and have no problem. He just said dope right?

I think he's just I don't want to say he's a dope I just think he's a teenager like I think he's just kind of you know trying to figure out himself and his place and relationships and all of that stuff and really it's kind of single single focused on certain things that may or may not be important. But I would say the first time I saw that movie I hated the cleanation part from the I hated it then I hated it now we just saw it. I knew the other thing. I know the Ben Hill one saw this well sure so I don't have a question here or a fact but we need to talk about the Ricky character.

Yep I don't know what's going on with that character. I don't know if he's the most popular kid in school I think that is possible. What? When he's dancing people are like yeah Ricky they're giving him a room to dance at the New Jersey dancer whatever no one seems to like no one pays attention to him so there's that is he the biggest nerd is he just weird is he just like Lane or just like a dopey kid is he is he like a pedophile who is who what is this Ricky kid I don't know what that character he's a super creeper sheltered mama's boy I think yeah I do that kind of an introvert and that dancing was him trying to in my opinion trying to impress it was of course Monique and like it wasn't like he was interrupting the dance and like people like who's this guy knock it off people are like cheering for him but haven't you also seen something completely insane and be kind of like yeah keep going like total cheer it on of course I know this I knew the answer to my question yeah I know so we're saying Ricky is Ed Kajro sorry Ed because he would do the dance and I'd be cheering on and definitely saw that dance multiple times yeah okay the Asian sports brother yeah so that the actor's name is U.G.

Automoto I'm assuming it's pronounced U.G. we know him in karate kid too right chosen he just a recognizable face and whatever you see him like oh karate kid too of course that's right so he was trying out trying out auditioning for this part as the brother who only learned how to speak English by watching wide world of sports and so speaks like how it goes out the information I have is in the auditions he figured they were looking for an Asian character he thought it would be funny if he did Howard because he worked on this and worked on this did Howard Co-cell with an Asian accent and the people in the room loved it that's not the part right did the whole thing did the movie like that I think and then before it came out the producers like it no one can understand what they say we have to do this over and so the information I have having listened to this this might not be accurate though is that they dubbed him over obviously with a Howard personator but what I saw is that it was rich little who did the Howard Co-cell in personation that's what I saw too it didn't sound like rich little though 85s or who the hell knows but I think that's rich little's high point in his career but I would love to hear that I want to sell with the Asian accent right I want the unadulterated version of his character I thought you were gonna say that he that was him and I was like wow because that would not and what I was expecting from that actor because you can tell that things aren't sinking out so I was hoping it was them dubbing in his own voice in a different way it's yeah it's definitely somebody else and he did it he did an Asian accent at Howard Co-cell and for him that's awesome that's a layered approach that's yeah I should have a friend like that is and he fought Daniel Saad and corrected it too I mean like he wants to the death the only other movie I remember him in he was he was in launch control in contact oh my god oh he was oh my god I saw him somewhere more recently than that so he's he's already age or whatever uh real lean like the real thinned out I don't know what you're doing no I don't know what you're doing really good yeah there's no story there but that guy's awesome he should be in every really pretty much okay I don't have any other any other facts unless anyone else has something to add to this one so this is where we get to the casting how people were cast and then we can get into our casting stuff I didn't find anything about how people were cast early a friend or friend or friend or somebody or somebody's audition was weird except for them when we just talked about uh I think this movie was just under the radar except the director wanted John Cusack that was basically it's like he wanted him from the get-go it seems that way nobody else wanted him he wanted him uh the studio or the producers didn't want Cusack because they had just seen him playing a nerd in 16 candles and they're like oh we can't have nerdy guy is our he's not gonna be a man and then the director said oh yeah he's the guy we should definitely have him he's gonna be really good right you might get in on the uh early in on the curve of uh Cusack's career okay great didn't know he didn't know he did whatever I have no information no other casting stuff anybody else no nothing I feel like this it was probably again kind of on the early side yeah of when stuff like that would have been one because no one woman the director wasn't known uh the whole cast is basically unknowns at the right that time it's just like a throwaway movie uh okay so I don't have any casting issues but I do have some interesting casting uh information okay this one surprised me okay I didn't get this one I didn't think it's coming the kid the guy who plays Ricky yes Dan Schneider did you mean anything about anything about him no the only I remember him from head of the class and that's okay I've seen him anything else he appeared he was also Dennis Blunden on the tv show head of the class so he was in those two things that's all I've seen him in but he was recognizable in both of them a good character actor I think at that point uh at the moment he well at the moment of the writing of this information he is or maybe was like a major major player at Nickelodeon he created the shows iCarly oh my god Zoe 101 Drake and Josh uh in Game Shakers whatever that is he also co-created the Amanda Bynes Jenny Garth WB show what I like about you and wrote for Keenan and Kel the other uh Keenan Thompson show that was on Nick Wow he's like all their best shows like he was behind him wow that's amazing i know he was a writer or a producer he was a writer and a couple of them and then he was the creator of iCarly the big one i'm joking Josh right right we watched lots of like i know well done Curtis Armstrong who we know as booger from a friend of the nerds and Charles Demar in this movie was cast based on his appearance in risky business oh yes uh he also starred in Hollins other movies one crazy summer and how he got into college we got to watch how i got into college it's a good one it's been ages 20 years since i've seen that one i don't know that i've ever seen it oh really that's good i love one crazy summer every time i always think about one crazy summer after watching better off dead and yeah better off dead's a better movie but i still yeah one pretty summer's good yeah okay so we have we don't have anything for who's almost cast and you know whatever got two big blocks here which do you want to go first we cast or we recast them the modern actors or memorable scenes in quotes either one's fine but which do you want to do let's do recasting first okay all right let's start from the top recasting Wayne Meyer today John Cusack as Wayne Meyer so i have i had a couple of people that i thought would work one might be a little bit too old for pretty much all my people are too apart and then another one is like it's like John Cusack's replacement almost oh whoa okay so old statement um Logan Lerman is Percy Jackson all right i think he might be a little bit on the old side but i think he could do kind of the kind of athletic kind of geeky kind of pretty much anyone under 30 can do this i think right so the guy that i picked you're not going to recognize his name but he's been in a lot of teen movies his name is Nat Wolf he was in the fault in our stars he played the kid who had eye cancer and lost his eyes he was if you look up his name like he is the perfect that he's probably about i think 24 years old right now or whatever whatever he's like a teenager yeah um and i had another one that i think is could potentially work um and that is Tony uh i can't read my own handwriting zero from grand Budapest i like him somewhere in this movie i don't know i i do have him somewhere in this movie okay so i think Nat Wolf is my number one because i think he's the right age he's the right again kind of temperament i think that that works for that character but if Percy Jackson was like five years younger i think yeah like when he first did he think that's the right thing because he's gonna play a senior in high school yeah someone who's 25 ish yeah i think he's like 28 or 29 so he's kind of on the outer edge so i've got one i like and one who is definitely too old but i'm throwing him in there maybe we can de-age him and uh some sort of like Irishman Daniel or something yeah he's not he's not super old but yeah yeah so i had this guy in two different places but i put him in lane mire just because i had another guy who built another place so uh lane mire i think isra miller i think i'm putting isra miller okay yeah i didn't have him there first but then the more i thought of it i think he yeah he could pull it off yeah real different but i kept i kept seeing him he kept coming up as i was kind of thinking about this but um i had used him in a different movie and i did you know you know overuse him i also am a handicap by i try to put people on my list that i actually know who they are so i can't i don't know what he actors that are younger than his or so that's yeah i was like just like you do the other guy who is a maybe but i think he's too old i think the younger version works perfectly would be just in long okay yeah i think he would be great i think he'd be really good too you know ten years old ten years ago i think he's he's spot on uh right now i don't know yeah okay um i it took me a while to come with this one i went through a lot of the like the names that we joked about of before like tom holland or um yeah uh ansel algort you've got random name that's my guy somebody from that age but what i ended up settling on um is skylared jesando he is the actor that played jared the rich kid in book smart oh yes that is a good choice yeah that's a good choice all right that's a good one you haven't watched that movie oh my god it's a good yeah put it on your list let me see uh all right well back to you okay uh charles demar played by kurtis armstrong originally all right so this one so i'll put kind of a couple of serious um ones on here how many do you have for this guy first of all i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna only say three three is the max for anyone first yeah i'm gonna only say three serious considerations are p davidson oh that's good i thought about that the other one i is eric andre uh i don't think he's in his 20s unless that we're confusing but this is a young kid he was in the internship oh i'm thinking of the comedian yeah i know i think it's when i wrote down his name i'm like i feel like this is a different guy but um african-american guy that um wears his hair pretty big yeah um that's the guy i think you know yeah so the one that is not a serious contender but i think the appearance was just made me laugh when i thought of it no no because it's not a real one but it would be very funny is post-mollum i considered going that route i don't know if he can act i don't i mean there's there's some extreme there for high school right but i like the look of him in a modern version of this who's the guy is the guy yeah the yeah the yeah but it's for seven years so he's so he's 21 22 years old so that works right absolutely so when i when i was scrolling through this i well eric saw me just start laughing as i'm looking at this i wrote down his name my lane mire can be played by someone who's 25 then my uh charles demar would be played by somebody who's 32 right sure right but post-mollones like 24 25 yeah all right uh so my charles demar this is the other place where i had as remillar of a half-person miller as charles demar but i like him better as game mire so again age is gonna be an issue but i'm going with josh gad oh yeah having just seen the uh frozen documentary yes right uh he was a top my list let it go man it so i've got a super sleeper here that i think it's mildly interesting i don't know that it's really good but i like it uh hilly joe osmond kid the kid from uh oh i know you're not you know you're not gonna know like no explanation he like i like him as he's 87 years old i don't know how old he is i have no idea i think he's got to be in his 30s i don't even know he's got to be in his 30 he's got to be 30 he's the sixth centen kid to me yeah he's 10 he was like four in four scum i was so confident in that i didn't even look him up wow wow no i don't think he's gonna be very good i like that i want him on my list so for me my charles demar was like my was my weak link up until five minutes before the started and who i had was uh will polter who was he was the uh the shy kid and we're the millers oh i thought maybe he was he was the best i come up with but then five minutes before we started i my choice was elson's choice which was p davis and yeah yeah i considered him for a couple different spots but yeah that's the one though yeah i got one better because yeah that whole role is is about pretending to do drugs so you can totally see p davis and up on a mountain and again being the older guy kind of scruffy and it works like the covered in the covered in tattoos and everything and makes this takes it to another level yeah it's fantastic uh okay um we're at monique um i really have i have three names written now but i think one i keep coming back to her i have one that you will like this you know okay millie james i know her name but she's the um love interest in baby driver oh yeah oh that's good she's not oh how old is she she's senator 20s yeah i think she is she's pretty close to three yeah okay um the other ones that i had on my list were mazie williams who is again the roams i considered her i kind of like that one and then the other i had is elfanny that's what i have oh do you uh i i go down is elie fanny uh yeah that's that was my only person i had down for monique was elle fanny got it she's an em that show you yeah the great the great which is great yeah great which is great yeah those people are saying great i had i had a couple of names i got a couple of names i don't know i don't know they are um i thought maybe is andaya um oh i do kind of like that one um i thought about um so fia lillis she was the the girl from it i don't know you know that one and then i know the last one i thought of um maybe mia hawk huh um a thermon and you can talk about it yeah oh back that that might work yeah can she do an accent it's a question well and it might not have to be french right an accent whatever yeah yeah Brooklyn whatever yeah fine uh okay we are at my Achilles heel in this game uh ricky okay i got no ricky so you have to and so i went kind of a different slightly different route with my ricky um so the i i too and they're kind of same type of character different actor um alex lothar who was the younger um allen turing in the imitation game oh i don't know i can't think of his face but sure and then the other is i'm not sure how to pronounce his first name if it's kyir keir gilchrist who is here yeah i think so um who is in um that netflix special um i went winking on the name at the moment where he's an individual with autism and um yeah i should have written it down i thought that was a show that i would remember i know okay i don't know so they're both kind of lanky kind of awkward um individuals but i thought could play the introvert kind of silent character well so i don't have an answer here but i want to throw two out that are way too old but i'm gonna say the young version of these people uh i would say a young uh what's his name uh bobby moynihan from s&l oh yeah if he was 20 who's this guy let's see oh wow all right uh it's about one hand the other one would be uh i want to see a young Andy Richter played his part i think he could do it but after that i don't know i have two names um the first one is julian denison he played fire fist and deadpool two oh there's the kid oh okay yeah oh and then my other one is jacob battle on he's the guy he's the kid who played ned uh tom holland's friend in this in spider-man oh okay the man in the chair yeah the man in the chair yeah that's interesting got it all right uh okay let's go to lain's dad all right let's do oh me you don't have one you're the first oh was i the first all right so i had three choices i'm gonna go with number three i will work to my top choice number three or three Edward Norton first dad wow okay number two Ed helms yeah that's a good one and number one is Jason sedakus i thought of sedakus as well i thought he was two he's two i don't know the two sedakus he's two sedakus he's almost two two comedic yeah i think that was it yeah the thing about the daddy is that he's he's playing at these the straight man through the whole right yeah yeah so now i'm saying sedakus is too comedic wait to hear i so okay as i criticize yours right now you can't criticize mine that's not well i definitely will criticize mine i think my first i did mine in pairs like you often do uh so i'll just do the first i'll just do that i think my my preferred dad is frettarmisen oh hmm different than right the character type on screen right now my second choice is a little barrel wait i know i'm sorry did you say Jason sedakus was too sedakusy uh will farrow is a trained fescian clearly he can play the straight man wow i i know my choices i got two choices one comedic one playing it straight no my comedic choice is paul rud yeah he was i kind of considered him for a while and then my straight man is mark ruffalo that's actually kind of interesting because he has kind of he has kind of that could comedic kind of yeah i think you can do it yeah it is warm so i having paul rud as the dad i think he looks the same age as lemme yeah he's playing my other thing yeah oh my god okay laine's mom all right this one i had a ton of options i had a ton of options i'm gonna save my again my best for last and i'm gonna try to go with my top three so starting with number three rachel dratch that's a good one oh yes too low she's keeping him at three um i had alison hannigan who was oh yeah how much a mother yeah my top one though and i was watching the movie thinking about her doing it being that character and then even with my top dad pick it worked is lee kimper from oh that's a very good one really good i like that one yeah that's your best one yeah i do like rachel dratch though okay so mine paired to the dad i think honestly i mean oh it doesn't matter uh mine my backup mom would be my rudolf oh i had her written out she would go with rudolf at all in my world when i got to six choices for the mom i had to start crossing names off so you can almost just do a roster of s&l women over the past ten years 20 years um my number one speaking out would be katie mckinnon i want her age her up if you have to fine uh she can play that disconnected didsy crazy just weird perfectly i think she'd be great i also had just went straight s&l on the line um one of my head was christened wig but whatever but then uh my other one is that my first choice my rudolf oh yeah so we had christen wig my rudolf kate mckinnon rachel dratch i had fed armisen and will feryl like we're just my runner up by the way was anapharis which i also thought was kind of a funny choice yeah sure she's 40 something right i think i think so late 30s for sure uh okay here we're going with roy stallin roy and bad guy i guess yeah but yeah this was my hardest one to cast for whatever reason yeah it was mine too and i think and i think in part it was because i was so focused on the errors i was thinking this one would be easy and then i was trying to find the right age and the right type of character one that i have i think he's too old but if i could find a person that's just like him that's who i would want and that was uh taylor loner from twiliner you want him from twilight basically i want him from twilight yeah um the other one and this is i've already selected him in a different way castor vade um is joe kiri from stranger things he's the older teenage kid he was in molly's game he was the one who was the chips oh yeah right that's a good one i had trouble with this one too um my backup again just because i know who he is it's really just a throwaway is tom holland his my backup yeah fine whatever the first one i think i like i don't know i know his face so uh josh hudgerson from the hundred games and stuff yeah i think he's considered him for a bunch of different ones yeah because my although i also think i want to step on yours i have another one that i didn't right it doesn't count but it would have been uh zero from oh damn mine that was mine all right i was gonna draw it that's eric sorry yeah that was that was that was actually my only name that i knew i was my uh sort of channeling his first time right right right right right different uh different than the roise colin for the movie but yeah yeah i think that's yeah that's where i that's where i had him i mentally checked myself five times before i said that and i went ahead anyway i know if you have others go ahead i have one other and only one other is the asian sports castor guy oh so there's on my list i have a bef and i have a ricki's mom okay so my bef i didn't put a bath i knew it can sit back back i had shayleen would would leave yeah that's a good one um and the other again was i i've used her before but i think she works in this is cloe grace moritz i have her for bef also oh do you really oh my gosh that's good um i also did bef i have coley grace moritz i have um zoey doech she was in i remember her from um thing at the uh oh zombieland two oh right she was she the daughter she she was the um or she was the yes yes they had all the good you bag and yeah um and then i also have uh aerial winter alex for monor oh that's a good one that's a good one let's see i um i guess i went deeper than the rest of you guys i did i did a miss smith i did work his mom yeah i have a ricki's mom do ricki's mom yeah um Melissa McCarthy i had her and i crossed her off i have three others but if go ahead if that's the only one okay so i had um i'm gonna go in reverse order of course i have jennifer coolage stiffler's mom i think Rachel grads can do it too i have missy pyl who is oh yeah i know she is she was the mom of uh voruca salt in the new charlie in the chocolate factory she was in mars attack she was in she's in like a ton of movies my number one that i thought would be really funny is mega malawi oh yeah that's a good one um i did a mr it's mr kirber the the math teacher oh you you had told me that you were doing it i needed to look it up but i i forgot yeah who do you have um i got a couple names i got um i just asked him again age 65 or whatever it is uh he's got to be older than i know he's been dead for a long time oh he's dead oh for a long time um ken jon oh oh that'd be hilarious um i do i have i thought of josh gad right and then going in a completely different direction uh till the swin well that's actually really good really good yeah you say do i zag right there yeah we go that's a good one and um just because i wanted to put them in there somewhere i do have i have a johnny and a badger yeah um my johnny is roman griffin who was jojo joe joe rabbit oh yeah i have i have somebody down for a johnny i've never seen him act but when i looked at his picture i'm like he could play a and that was the kid his name is uh uh ean armatage he plays the young sheldon character in the song of big bang theory for both of those characters i'm casting any kid off the street the only reason i had a name is because i was looking at an actress's under a certain age and he kept popping up i'm like all right well put it down and again he kind of looks like a zoey doech is the daughter of lea tomsen really really when you said i'm like oh i know that name somehow there you go uh asian sportscaster does anybody have no i'm not going through his character name i'm just calling him as sportscaster it's funny right i went as technically asian uh asan manage he was on a daily show and now has like a patriot act or whatever it's called on Netflix he's my uh asian continent uh sportscaster i know eric has a badger but i want to come back to back to the sportscaster so let's talk about badger first it's i just love the kids so much i wanted to put it somewhere um archie yates uh yorky from joker rabbit even though he doesn't talk oh i love it that kid is so great like it is so great even though he doesn't get the talk i just want him to yeah yeah oh that's so good the other guy i was i wanted to cast uh but it really could be anyone is the mailman oh yeah yeah and we're watching it today i'm like oh yeah that probably should have been cast i was thinking an age doesn't matter i would go like a dave shabelle that guy charlie day yeah oh charlie dave yeah that'd be great too i think we should make it a point to put a charlie day calleity every single time that needs to be i think i'm okay with that yeah oh my gosh so going back to the sportscaster i was thinking about this today so we're redoing the movie in more present day who is he imitating it's not how rcosal how rcosal in the y-world of sports as well as a distinctive voice is it marv Albert is it is it who's the guy that does the boxing let's get ready to rumble like a buffering right but can you imagine that but even all those guys pulled up yes all those guys you just said would be from like the 90s though like even early 2000s i think if it's a candy Joe bonk or something maybe Joe bonk that's funny romo no predicting plays no uh who is it distinctive announcing style because co-sell is just like character of a broadcaster i know would they go with um like a your john maddin from the from the the maddin football game oh my god all the boom pow stuff or who's the uh the uh the NBA announcer bing yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway that was it's it's a not a character but i thought it was something that would have to be redone it would be the uh Univision uh soccer announcer that's what i thought that's good all right that's good now i'm not even sure why i wrote these down we can all recite them but the memorable quotes or scenes uh the first one i thought of was i want my two dollars right two dollars instinctively that's what anybody says when you mention better off dad it's an easy one um i'll go through a few i think we probably have more of these off top of our head um do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is charles oh hold on wait a minute wait one second i think i'm on to something here this is pure snow it's everywhere have you any idea what the street value of this mountain is charles wait a minute hold it there are endless charles do you are i tried to limit it because it is all him everything he says alone you make a fine little helper what's your name i've been going to this for seven and a half years i know dummy yeah i know high school girls gee i'm really sorry your mom blue uppercut that's a good one from one player chilis speaks french roin she doesn't think it was all go that way really fast if something gets in your way turn uh he's skiing on one ski i thought that was um france fries france dressing peru france bread it's a drink i will say that if i see like french dressing or i will say france or at least think france someone in your family has said it at every single Thanksgiving i should do right now in honor of our special guests i've created dinner mondu first we have french fries and french dressing french bread and a drink tada peru everyone's going to be wearing one of these this year it's real hard work for sure is zip warm get out of this car oh my god i'm gonna have to read your dental plan that's the guy from porkeys right wouldn't he and porkeys i think so whatever whatever that's all that time he pulls out his dentures and he's soaking in his car we got a pride in class and this is uh man it's a real shame when folks be thrown away a pretty perfectly good white boy like that you should treat you on a guy i said it earlier it's got raisins in it you like raisins and then monique i thought we had nothing to say to each other he would if we had nothing to say to each other he'd get bored and go away but still he used it and he used to put his testicles all over me tat sorry what? in t big difference all right anything else or um scene that always makes me laugh um the it's one of the first scenes in the movie when uh the dad's like i'm telling you that boy's obsessed and his mom's like really obsessed and then they cut to his closet and best pictures on her is all his hangers so it looks like she's wearing all of his clothes yeah yeah funny scene is obviously the equimation burger right now it's the worst it is absolutely the worst the funniest scene is ricki's mom blowing up when she clicks on that big lighter and the windows blow off this the editing of that is really great yeah this liqueur click god bless them so eric you referenced this when we were watching it today the nuns crossing the street yes that one was carrying a giant boom box on her shoulder like never noticed that before never note i mean why this movie is filled with the questions of why right why this why that is and that's a joke that mom would have loved right none's in any situation but they're just like us yeah like you can argue this isn't even a movie it's just a collection of scenes it's got a tiny little through line here but it's just a bunch of funny scenes a lot of bits yeah uh so would this movie work today yes uh savage whatever savage savage steve holland uh says he didn't think it would work well he didn't think it'd be made today because uh we talked about best times was why he got made for team stuff he said he'd be in uh he'd be in comedy jail if he put this out today uh by the pc police and all that sort of stuff um that aside why would it work today and how would it work today because it's so ridiculous it's so off-ball it's so ridiculous but i think the storyline works i think the humor is going to have to change a little bit in terms of some of the jokes and kind of the non sequitors but i think the plot line still works which is the guy who got gets dumped yeah i mean i think for the super popular guy and he's trying to get her back but you know this other person falls for him and is trying to get him it's i mean it's a classic scene yeah yeah i think that basic part of the story works that you have a the average guy gets dumped for the super popular guy but it's an easy one right yeah but it gets at the same time it's so the humor is so dark like he's literally trying to kill himself and in this day and age i don't think they let and let us all the suicide stuff he tried to climb up the same way by hanging by uh in a car uh exhaust jumping off a bridge and setting himself on fire setting himself on fire so yeah they're they're not taking they're not letting him go that far no they get that dark yeah we should have we should break this category up into would the plot work today and could this movie be made today because those are two very different questions all right but i think it can be remade it could be remade i think it's going to just have to be updated right why so why hasn't this movie a movie like this been made recently because they're remaking every other movie right now oh but we'll get to it how many teen comedies have been out in the last ten years three i don't know what's the number it's got to be small right books are Netflix is probably opening things up a little bit but this type of movie is not being made just through this financially it's not making enough money for people to make it more i don't know that we are the correct demographic answer that we are definitely not at all i feel like there is probably more than what we are yeah you're you're a better player we are aware of but all right uh what would you want to see in a sequel they made better off dead too what would you want to see my answer is i want to see the Asian brothers and what they do in college or what happens after the high school right i was kind of thinking the same thing um i would also like to have more of the ricky and missus smith oh really like understand that whole i think there's more that can be done there i think it's it's a it's a remake of psycho what about getting uh more of trowels demar and beating his brother that makes the monster eggnog with later plays oh yeah oh god his brother is like him squared like it's him at a higher level yeah his brother that's his it's his idol right his brother is booger from eventually there he's yeah he comes home from college for Thanksgiving and yeah right yeah all right uh how much are they worth game all right and now let's play the how much are they worth the game guys this is the game where i always finish first so be prepared to you know do that we're even able to find any of these people i had so the girlfriend i did the girlfriend monique i thought i could find her because she's in um this and uh no protects uh nope she's not even on there i couldn't find her at all so i think i found all of them uh we're gonna start with david augin steers lain's dad he's got that mash money and he's got beauty and peace money he was cotchworth oh david hang on a second here and david augin steers sti he has sirens let's i think he didn't hear this whole yep uh i've got it uh so i've got one i've got a number uh ten ten million meat all right i've got 24 really yeah minus three whoa three cogs worth yeah i'm a three i don't know what else he's done but i'm assuming he's done 20 about that wow just based on i think i think i'm way off though ooh david augins let's go steers uh the the american actor voice actor and musician who had who had the net worth of eight million he may have died right eight so that's brand new i'm sweeping this whole thing okay i said ten it was okay so we couldn't do diane franklin who played monique so we're doing lain's mom kim darby i've only seen her in one other place and it was tennel too she did other stuff i forget there's some some things we know uh maddie ross in the film true grit wow she was she the girl was she like the kid oh like the original yeah the original true maybe i'm going to her later stuff here 1990 x-files love oak riptide becker we're missing something she did something you know who cares forget it uh okay i've got let's go with kim darby um never would he have one point two one point two i'm going two point five i almost had three but two point one easy one one kim darby an actress with a net worth of i think this is our lowest total ever do we have a negative before no we joked about trying to judge you and nickels kage right right uh five hundred thousand dollars so it happened so ericlin kind of reverse prices on that one yeah i did all right dan schnider ricki i told you of his nebulony and glo and get ready for this i have 90 wow one of us is way off we have the two ends of this background and right in the middle dan schnider is an american actor and television producer who is a net worth of 40 million dollars eric eric that's that's two actors from head of the class that are like big tv producers oh really yeah um brian robins the guy who played eric really yeah he he was like really um the one show i know for sure that he produced was small bill oh yeah that's interesting and i've and i know he said other stuff that's the one i know of right all right today we know him as uh what's the character thing charles jarls thank you charles demar her's her's arms are um builder from the revenge and nerds and a billion voice acting positions he's known for his voice um i do not know what those guys make i couldn't even tell you i've got a number even the top ones i've got a number i've got a no all right i'm gonna go 18 okay i had 15 i had 10 i almost went 20 that's what i was kurtis armstrong hmm it's got a net worth of 2.5 wow eric is i can't believe i am not even on the scoreboard yet i need to get it hey are you the first one did you no i was Brendan on the money for a q-sack if i find nala exactly i tie eric otherwise eric wins so everyone listening root for me is you don't want eric to win you need me to win all right uh johnny q-sack you've done a few movies that you probably never heard of so he got a sister did i don't know if it's a acting or something but uh i don't know what he's done other than beyond screen so i that's i'm sure he's done some other stuff and that's gonna screw me up i bet uh q-sack q-sack i have number okay i don't know if he's been married i don't know who have he been divorced i don't know what to do it my number is 49 i had 48 eric nine was 40 oh zero i like it when we're all together what did i say that i could tie you with eric by nailing it exactly john q-sack is an illinois born actor writer who has a net worth of 50 million dollars i was off by one gosh i wasn't on the scoreboard this is not my day eric wins three to two two zero i wish i would like that because i didn't do it it's always a part of it i don't finish last so i think i enjoy it that's when i win all right in uh in danger of hurting my chances in future episodes you guys go you guys do you realize that every time it's always like it's in acrebits of five it's always like 45 or 40 when you say like 18 or 22 you're never gonna get it on the button well 2.5 come on man don't ruin this game for everybody the first one was eight million eight million 2.5 i wish your logic was flawed but i won yeah well i'm just amazed i was in the ballpark and i knew these i'm always i'm always really alone i generally overestimate constantly all of these things i'll say 120 and the answer is three all right any closing thoughts on better off the other than it's a surprisingly good movie and it holds up absolutely it's it's now it's amusing it's fun to quote people love it and it is again when you kind of list off movies that you think of like these are my favorite movies it doesn't often come up but when it's somebody mentions it everybody loves it and they're like oh my gosh this is i love that movie having just watched it now i don't know the last time i've seen it's got to be 20 years at least uh it still holds up it's so funny yeah it's it's weird it's so weird but uh had we gotten our kids in here to watch it they would have liked it well we almost already seen it yeah well okay everyone records definitely yeah that would pass but uh he would like it we liked it i liked it more now than i expected to like it in you know at this age at this with this history i still yeah i still liked it as much watching it today as i did the first time as i was on yeah when i was a dean or what part did you just you absolutely lost it um i think it was freaking mumble enough yeah i think i was lost it i lose it every time leading up to this week when we were i was just thinking of the movie i was laughing out loud to myself even thinking about that scene it's not great it's okay yeah it's the way that it's edited together is absolutely timing is perfect it's like the same thing yes all right that's better off dead next time we will do i don't know what we're doing jaws yeah jaws will be the next one um so for all three of us too you're up on the roof pump up little champer