Episode 39: 1985 Intermission

This week we look back at our 1985 episode and see if it needs any mistakes rectified or omissions told. 

In this episode:

We made some mistakes. We hold ourselves accountable for those mistakes! Even if we have to make fun of each other for making those mistakes.

We owed Tim Thomerson and his knife "Mike" an apology for forgetting his name when discussing the movie Volunteers. We're pretty sure we got everything else correct!

Did the Ballad of Buster Scruggs owe its comedy drama anthology structure to 1985's Rustler's Rhapsody? Maybe. Carlos makes a case, but Cord is not really convinced. Rebecca De Mornay was busy as the queen of 1985! She made three movies in 1985, including Trip to Bountiful. She was a star on the rise and we discuss her trajectory. Horror comedies! Seemingly unmixable, but hit hard when done right. Which movies do horror comedies right and why?

This intermissions' outro music, Do You Want To Party by 45 Grave, used  in the movie/horror comedy Return of the Living Dead.

All this and more, inside a compact thirty minutes! 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:29

All right. Eighteen eighty-five intermission. Thank you. You'd help.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

That's right, the retros, where we look at the choices the Academy made and determine if those choices were right or wrong. We're doing a little something a little bit different. We're not going to focus on one specific year, but actually we're going back to revisit a show we did before. It's an intermission show. And it is for the program we did about the films of 1985. That's right, 1985. If you remember, we did a two-parter. I think the total was about five and a half hours on this program.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Just like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So again, this is the retros. If you want to contact us, if you have any suggestions or anything else you'd like to communicate to us, you can absolutely do that by going to the Retros Podcast on any number of social media. So again, that's the Retros Podcast. And choose your weapon of choice and communicate with us that way. And we'll also give you that information again at the end of the show. But for now, it is me, Cord, along with Carlos, doing an intermission show for 1985. We're going back and revisiting 1985 and talking about some other things that have come up since we've done the show, things that were brought up by the show. And I believe Mr. Carlos has a thing or two that he wants to bring to the microphone.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Bring to the microphone. Well, we usually use these intermission shows to kind of also uh go over some mistakes and omissions that we that usually come up in other shows. Mistakes! Yes, some mistakes! No mistakes! Just omissions. Or, you know, things that uh we didn't get quite correct.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

But not a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

But not a mistake. Just something that wasn't quite correct. Error. Because if you don't, if you there's a di like if you have an error and you don't address the error, it becomes a mistake. I I read that in a Star Wars novel and I thought that was really cool. So thank you. Not here to help. That's my job. Alright, so the first thing we're gonna talk about. Yes. Uh we discussed the movie Volunteers, the Tom Hanks and John Candy uh movie. And one of the characters in the movie was a man named John Reynolds, who was this like psychotic uh uh suitor to Rita Wilson's character. Right, with his best friend. With his best friend Mike. That's right. The knife. And we posited that it was Bo Svensson that was uh that that played this character. Okay. It was not. It was Tim Hopkins. No Bo Diddley. Bo no Bo Shooter? No.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Okay, so it was not Bo Svenson, it was Tim Tomerson. Tim Thomerson, yes. All right, Tim Thomerson, who was I believe, Dollman in the full moon films of Dollman, and I think maybe did a crossover with another full moon franchise, Dollman and like Killer Toys. They had a series of Deadly Toys or something. There was like three or four movies like that, yeah. Yeah, and I think they did a crossover with uh with that, with Dollman and these and these toys. And I think Dollman, I think, as I recall from seeing a video cover, he was in a long overcoat, like a detective's overcoat, like a Columbo overcoat, you might say. Uh-huh. Um, but I think he was also very small, and not very small like he was a jockey of a horse, but very small like he was several inches tall instead of a couple feet tall. So, okay, so Tim Thomerson. Yes. I'm cool with Tim Thomerson.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yep, he was uh he he was most moan known for me for uh Call of Duty, I think that was the name of the the the show. No, no, no, uh Tour of Duty. Tour of duty. It was a Vietnam show in the 80s that I really liked, and he will he played like I think one of the sergeants on there, one of the elder statesmen of the unit. But yes, so Tim Thomerson John Reynolds in Volunteers, not Bo Svensen or any other Boes that we mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Gotcha. So we've clarified that. That's good. Giving credit where it's due. A great film, volunteers, so we should be uh respectful of that film and get the names right.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Absolutely. Everything else we got correct. So that's it, everybody. Thank you very much, and uh, we're ready to hot takes. So we don't do hot takes. Not not not in an intermission show, no? I pushed the wrong button. It was supposed to be something else. I gotta label these buttons, man. Speaking of errors. Told you.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Alright, so what else have you got for us for 1985? For 1985.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

One of the things, one of the other movies we talked about was uh was a movie called Rustler's Rhapsody. And I was kind of struck by how it seemed to compare to 2009, no, 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scrugs. And I think Ballad of Buster Scrugs was an anthology series of uh of like cowboy-themed, like basically post-Civil War uh era, uh stories of comedy and adventure and the harsh grittiness of the West. And I just thought, oh, did uh did Buster Scrugs like become kind of uh because it was also that was a Cohen Brothers uh uh production. So did they get motivation or inspiration from Rustlers Rhapsody? I figured that, yeah, that probably was the case. I mean, Rustler's Rhapsody, if I I don't I didn't see the movie, but if I remember correctly, it was an anthology series as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

So you've walked into Deadly Waters.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Okay, because it was not an anthology.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Ah, something bit me. So Rustler's Rhapsody. So essentially, Rustler's Rhapsody was the premise, really, was you've got a singing cowboy. Okay, yeah, yeah. And he's doing singing cowboy stuff. Like he jumps onto his horse and he rides into battle, you let's say, uh, standing on top of his horse, and he's like got the bit between or the uh the thing you hold on to, the tiger with the reins. Thank you. So he's holding the reins in his hand, in his mouth, and he's got both of his six guns shooting while he's standing up in the saddle. Oh, wow, okay. Um, because it's it's you know, like I say, it's singing cowboy stuff like Roy Rogers kind of stuff, you know. So it's really hyperbolic. Yeah. Well, it just it's just um superhuman, but it's a much bigger and it's clearly not tied to it's not into realism or this is really what's going on. Because first of all, you've got this guy who's singing cowboy, and they're they're in the old films, the originals, you know, you'd have some premise in the for the guy playing the guitar um and singing. And of course, when he's singing, it's not just the guitar, it's like the full orchestration kicks in when they're sitting around the campfire. So it sort of was a mocking, or not a mo mocking really isn't the right way to put it, but just taking that idea, but then applying some aspect of the real world to it, but not completely. So it wasn't like a negative thing of this guy's just gonna get shot because he's screwing around. But the singing cowboy is also always the good guy. So they get another guy who's also a singing cowboy, and so the our hero is kind of stymied because he's limited in what he can do to another singing cowboy, which essentially is another good guy. Okay, and then that gets flipped around and so they have they have issues.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Now, that character is kind of reflected in Buster Scruggs because yeah, the Tim Blake Nelson character, he he does wild stuff that's kind of like not really based on reality, as far as uh all his, you know, gun he he kills all these people gleefully and and but with like the wildest kind of like gunplay you can imagine. And then he ends up uh I think just a little too a little too overconfident and he ends up getting killed in the in the movie. Well that's no good. Yeah, no, but uh but just that type of caricature where he's like bigger than life.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah, so I think I think that aspect, and that's you know, it could have been a Rustler's Placid City thing, or it could have been just going back to uh like those early pictures. So, you know, they're wearing oftentimes it's they're more decorative. So they're wearing like a Porter Wagner suit. They're wearing something that's got uh you know, the big gloves with a lot of fringe, a lot of um broitery work on the Western shirts. Yeah, it's that kind of look. So it's a much more decorative look, and then would you know the stuff things that aren't practical if you're out for the day, you know you could be, you know, he's riding out across the range all day, and there's no dirt or dust or you know, everything's spotless. And in the originals, I think it was just that kind of happened, but they weren't bringing any attention to it here. You know, he's wearing a lot of white, and it's they're bringing a lot more attention to it. And then at some point he does get dirty. It's like to some point the real world does infringe a little bit around, but there's still this was the issue with the film that I had with it. It was that they they kind of want to do sort of this parody of this idea of the singing cowboy who you know wears this particular outfit, which is not native to the time, um, and who doesn't get dirty and doesn't have these problems and doesn't have these dealings with the real world. But they also wanted to do some real world stuff, and so drawing that line or or mixing those two, like he's the singing cowboy who now has to encounter real world stuff. They kind of did, but they also kind of played a little fast and loose with that of not really applying it. And like the bad guys were aware that he was sort of this archetype character, and so that's why they get their own singing cowboy, their own archetype to go up against him. So it was a cool idea, and I think you could do more with that, and certainly you can certainly do that now. I mean, it's so much time has passed, and you know, every ten years or so there's some Western that breaks through, and all of a sudden the Western is back, right? And we're all watching Westerns again. So we're I think you could certainly bring that back because it's a different take, and and uh you could do it as a comedy and just focus on that, but it's the trick I think is in the writing and and yeah, and playing that having that balance of he's this archetype character, not real character who's in a real situation and how he deals with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

And that yeah, exactly, and that and that's like I said, this wasn't uh Buster Scruggs was an anthology, so there was he wasn't throughout the entire anthology. Uh that that Tim Blake Nielsen's character was just one of the stories, but it was exactly like that. Right. He wore this outrageous outfit with a little frilly, he was white, wore white in a white hat that never seemed to get dirty. Right. And uh but that kind of bit him at the end, you know. But the other stories, like I said, range from from different comedy levels to really kind of intense uh Western drama, you know, just because the West was not like the movies, it was very, very uh it was very intense. And it was like people had a tough time being you know, after creating the world, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

The thing that always blows my mind when I sort of had the realization of of exactly when that period was, uh that it's it was really short. It was really short, and it was always much later than I thought of it. And I don't know why, but I thought of it as like well, that's not really that close to 1900, it's much earlier. Well, really, it's like very close to 1900. I mean it's like 1880s into the 1890s.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Between like 1870 to like 1890, like that j that 20 years is our entire like quote unquote cowboy, you know, culture. Because then you've got the the trains coming across.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So it's uh anyway, that just didn't for whatever reason I couldn't wrap my head around that for the longest time. So that is uh Russia's Rhapsody and discussion. Do you have anything else about 85 you'd like to throw into the pot? I got it up.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Couple extra things. Uh, one of them that I'd like to talk about is an actress who was uh in three movies in 1985, one of which was a oh actually, two of them were Oscar nominated. Uh where they they had not they had Oscar nominations, they weren't best pictures. All right. Uh but that that waitress. Who was that woman? Oh my god. This mystery woman you mentioned. The actress was Rebecca De Mornay. All right. I really loved Rebecca De Morne. Well, we all did. Yeah, we all did. Uh in Risky Business, I think that's what really catapulted her. She was on like two movies before Risky Business as like minor characters. What were they? Um Exactly. Exactly. Risky Business is a big deal. It's the big one. And that kind of catapulted her. And that very like two years later, in 1985, she did three movies. Now she's never done three movies in a year. There was a couple years after that where she did two movies or maybe a couple TV shows. She's still active to this day. I mean, she still has uh IMDB credits uh that that that date all the way up to like 2025, 2026. However, in 1985, she was in three big time movies. One was The Slugger's Wife.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Uh with Was James Garner in that? I don't know if James Garner was in the city. Who is the male lead in that? Uh Don Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

No, it wasn't Don Johnson. Uh Lorenzo Lamas.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

It was not Lorenzo Lamas.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Kevin Nealin.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Kevin Nealin.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

James Conn. No, not James Conn.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Nick Nolte.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

It might be Nick Nolte. I don't know. Oh. John Void.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Close, it was. It is not gonna be close. I'm almost guaranteed. But okay, so the slugger's wife, the male lead. Michael O'Keefe. Michael O'Keefe. Yeah. What else was he in? I know the name, but I'm thinking Miles O'Keefe, who I think was Tarzan with Bo Derek and Tarzan the Ape Man. So Michael O'Keefe, I've also heard that name.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Uh he was in Caddyshack.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Was he the young Danny Noonan? Danny Noonan. Okay. So he so Danny Noonan from Caddyshack. Yep. Now is he the slugger in the sluggers one? Yes. He was the slugger. Okay. So so Miles O'Keeffe is really a sports kind of guy. Michael O'Keeffe. Him too.

unknown 15:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So he was a golf movie. He does a baseball movie. Oh, right. Okay. I see where you're going. Okay. I mean, I'm spelling it out.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Gotcha, gotcha. So what else has he done? What else is he like? Oh, he did Caddyshack. Uh he did um The Great Santini. Okay. The uh the the Robert uh boxing film.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah. From a spoon person.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

No, no, it's the not boxing.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

That was I know, I know. It's it just gets boxed around the ears.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, he gets cuffed a lot by his uh dad. We'd call it MMA now. I think we call it abuse now.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, you know, people are so soft these days. Oh, he was also in uh what other sports movies has he done?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

What else has he done?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Uh he's ghost of Mississippi. Oh, no, that wasissippi. Yeah, he was an Ironweed. Uh Bridge to Silence.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Ironweed, I think it was a drinking movie.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Uh yeah, that was uh the 1920s movie with uh Meryl Streep. And and Nicholson drunks, I think. And the Whoopee Boys. The Whoopi Boys. Yeah, a comedy film.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Oh, how could it not be? The Whoopi Boys, yeah, kind of. So how about Miles O'Keefe?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Miles O'Keefe the Tarzan? Yeah, what is the LCC done? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Are they related? No. Are you sure?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Oh my god, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Let's find out. We got hours to fill. Oh no. That's the whole point of the show. Right. Just put any time on nonsense that does not matter.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Miles O'Keefe was not related to Michael O'Keefe. You can say that definitively. I can.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Does it say he wasn't? Or are you just assuming We don't have to prove a negative. You know, it we must. All right, fine. So Carlos is going on. So send your cards and letters about how Carlos is wrong about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

The Retrospodcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

So if you've got some connection between Michael O'Keefe and Miles O'Keefe, like a family connection, we'd love to hear about to know so that I can ride Carlos to the ends of the earth about it. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

So that's all because of the slugger's wife.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

With Rebecca De Mornay. That's right. Right. Let's rein this back in. Get him back into the barn.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, she's like an aspiring uh performer. Aspiring. Aspiring. Oh, an aspiring performer. That's a very different movie. But she like she she she meets up with uh the Miles O'Keefe character. Miles O'Keefe. Oh my god. Michael O'Keefe. See what you did. And he's like a star on the rise.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Okay, so she's an aspiring performer. He's like an actress performer.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Okay. And uh Michael O'Keefe is the baseball player who's also aspiring. He's like doing well and she's a uh triple A ball. Yeah. Yeah. So he's trying to go for some uh uh He's trying to make the big show and and and and and and get a uh what do you call it? You hit the ball way out. Home run! He wants to get the biggest home run list. He wants to get a touchdown. Sports we can just get into the net. And uh the the wife isn't sure, you know, Rebecca De Morning wasn't sure uh her character didn't know she wants to like give up her.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Maybe you could say Rebecca. I think we don't need you to explain. You don't need me to categorize that it wasn't Rebecca De Morning, the actress said, I don't know, Michael Keith is gonna be able to get the winner for the big game today. Alright. So the sluggard's wife does not have faith in the sluggers.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

What we're is that basically but uh I think that that also got her um a chance to get on two movies that were Oscar that that had Oscar nominations. One was The Runaway Train, which was uh based on a Japanese movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Okay, so I I don't know if they came out the same year. Yes. I think the production would be such that you she wouldn't they wouldn't have seen her in that film.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, and then okay, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, so probably the on the on the strength of risky business alone got her.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I think that's the case. I think it's basically that that risky business was so big and then she blew up that it could be that that just writing that out got her these uh at least one of those gigs, you know. Um I guess it depends on what she did in 84, but uh but it wouldn't surprise me if uh she didn't do if something was you know that that basically she got some gigs. Yeah, because she would have been she would have been acting on those films in '84 for an 85 release. Right. So yeah, I think everything comes from from Risky Business. So many things come.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

So many things. So uh yeah, the runaway, uh, the runaway train. So runaway train, right? Johnny Voigt and Oh, oh, oh, don't say, don't say it's uh Okay, his sister His sister, I know, his sister was really big.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

She played a uh pizza waitress for a while. Right, right, right. She played a her big role, she played a prostitute who was friends with Nina from or not Nina from the female lead in Just Shoot Me, the TV series just shoot me. Right, right, right. Oh, Laura Sends. Yes, Laura Sendja. Oh, Roberts. Eric Roberts, that's it. It was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, yes, Eric Roberts and in Runaway Train. Runaway Train.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

And Voigt and Roberts were both nominated for uh actor and supporting actor in that. Uh I I didn't realize it was based on a Kurosawa um screenplay. Oh, it's he yeah, he just never had a chance to to to make it because of funding, but they got the the the screenplay translated into English and uh they had Rebecca De Mornay in it.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Uh that seems crazy. It it's something they say that it that and you know this happens over and over and over again that you've got some big name director, someone who's had has had success and certainly had critical success, uh that they can't get a movie made. Now I can understand if it's like you want to make something that's a fortune, uh that the studio isn't necessarily going to go along with that. But for something like Runaway Train, where it's fairly straightforward, you don't have a huge number of sets, you're not doing something wild, basically you need some bit of railroad. Track that's not occupied by trains going over it, and then you need an engine and some cars, uh that you can't get the funding for that. Because it seems like that would be fairly cheap, and if you got a guy named Kurosawa who's said all the success, right, that you would almost be guaranteed to be able to make it for a price that you know you could make back, as well as getting the prestige of it's a Kurosawa film, so there's always there's always some a decent shot at getting it more nominations at least. How much Kurosawa was asking or wanted for the budget that I mean it could be it could certainly be that he's asking for a lot, but it doesn't seem like you'd be able to ask for that much. Just be if it's depending on how close his script was to what they actually ended up doing. You know, so I mean if he was had it set up in some other that it wasn't a train, it was something else, and they adapted it to be on a train. That is one thing, you know, maybe there's something there, but it just seems that again and again I think this often happens of you've got a big name director who wants to do something, and it seems like this guy should be able to get the funding. Because you've got since it is a big name, you've got some people that are gonna come because of that. It's certainly something you can can put on the you know that you can advertise the film based on who the director is, and that director is gonna be more likely to get a bigger name who's more likely to work for less if they're working with that person. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, it it was crazy to me that that that Curusau was even in that same conversation, but that's uh that's how they're able to get the movie because Curso couldn't couldn't get it uh running, and uh Rebecca De Mornay actually lost her game. Yeah. She actually Karen Allen was supposed to be in the uh in the in the trainway, but she had to bow out and what was she doing so important? I have no idea. Uh but in 85?

SPEAKER_01 24:28

I don't have no idea. Karen Allen was doing. She was in Come on, let's go through it. Now wait, am I thinking of I'm not sure I'm thinking of the right person. Karen Allen was she in an Indiana challenge film? I think yeah, that's I don't know if it was the first one. Yeah, she was the she was the one that was in the end. The first and uh in the fifth, the fifth. Okay. The one with the Russians. The fourth, and I think briefly in the fifth as well. I think maybe because Sheila Boof wasn't in the fifth. He was referenced in the fifth. He was referenced in the fifth. Yeah, so she may have, if she was in it, she was briefly. She had a big part in the fourth movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the fourth one, yes. Um, I don't know. So what was she doing? Well, you gotta bring her up Kelly now, take a look. What was she doing? What did she was what was she in in '85?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Uh let's see, 85. She was in nothing in 85. After Starman in 84, she didn't work again until 87.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Well, what was she doing? All right, well, maybe she had a family. Who knows? Yeah. Star Way was good. But we're not talking about 85. We're not talking about Starman. We're not talking about Karen Allen. We're talking about Rebecca De Mornay, who was in The Slugger's Wife as the titular character. Yep. Like that. Yes. I looked that word up.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

And runaway trains as an ad action. She wanted to do an action adventure. It was like the first time she was able to do uh to be in a role like that. And she there's scenes where she has to like run across the top of a moving train, and she really wanted to do that. She was like just gung-ho to be action chick.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

She's got a whole train thing going on.

unknown 26:14

She does.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

So, okay, so those so she's in those two. She's done her obligatory train movie. We'll have to look at that and see if she's got a whole history of train movies. I'm sure she does. And then so she did a train, and she did the slugger's wife, and she did Trip to Bountiful.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

She played the character of Thelma, who was the young lady at the train station who helped Geraldine Page get to her.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

To Bountiful?

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah, yeah. Her childhood home or her her young home. Right. That uh that she wanted to. And she did such a great job in that too. I really you her characters, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

That all that was very good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

And I was just thinking, man, uh the reason why I hope about the sun is like Rekko's in a lot of movies in '85. And she was.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Well, she did three. I mean, I think that's by the limit. I mean, maybe there's somebody who's in small roles, but I think when you're doing a lead role, yeah. Yeah, I I don't know that you can do more than more than three. That seems already a stretch.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Well, she she certainly uh she certainly uh uh tried it.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Well she not just tried, I mean she didn't know it. Oh she did it, yeah, yeah, she did do it. Uh but I think it's also that it's a good variety of films. I mean it uh you've got something pretty quiet and uh much smaller with a full where you've got this big action sort of action sort of film uh with uh Runaway trained and uh and then Slugger's wife, I guess sort of a regular sort of drama.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah, it was it was a sports drama. The the one side note I have for the Slugger's wife is they use actual you know baseball professionals in the movie. Baseball professionals.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Professional players. Like umpires and stuff like that. No, like actual players.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Front end of the head office guys. Yeah, the guy who sells the peanuts. Why do you say baseball players? I should have said baseball players.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Like a real first thing.

unknown 28:13

Baseball.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

I'm gonna rip off my mask and show you my insectoid head. No, the picture, the picture that uh was in the movie was a man named Mark Fidrick. You probably know the name. Yeah. Mark Fidderick was just this wild person in actual baseball history.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

So we did some LSD during the game. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Oh, he he would also, on the mound, during the game, there'll be all these like little cleat holes. He would get on his hands and knees and fill up the holes with his fingers. Like, and it took like 20 minutes to do it, but he he had like this whole process. It's baseball, man. It takes 20 minutes to do anything. What makes baseball the actual game itself? Eh, whatever. It's all these crazy little uh, you know, ceremonies and and and superstitions of baseball that make it faster.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Superstitions, but you're down your hands and knees filling the cleat holes. That's not a regular celebration or or regular behavior, even on a baseball.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

It's not. However, he he struck a chord with uh with all the fans. They loved watching him do crazy shit on the exactly. What are you gonna get today? Right, and then like the general manager, including him. Oh no, and the general managers were like, okay, we're winning games, don't mess with this process. Let nutty be nutty. Let nutty be nutty.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Let's get some more wins.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

So he he was uh he was in that movie and uh doing his nutty stuff. I just thought that was uh that was kind of fascinating. Probably it was about by 85?

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Uh maybe, yeah. Yeah, it was like 10, 15 years after the after his height of craziness. I think he was an early 70s guy.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

You know, when everybody was doing LSD.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

And cocaine and human growth hormones.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah, it was back when cocaine wasn't addictive.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Keep doing it, you're fine. You can quit anytime.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Quit, why would you?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Fuck having a beer. So I just want to give uh further you know, kudos to Rebecca De Mornay for doing so, uh shooting so meteorically into in Hollywood and and making good movies.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Taking advantage of her moment. Yes. I think that's it. Yep, and to be able to do a good job in all three, all three are solid films. Right. That there was uh there's no stinker in there, there's nothing in there where it's sort of okay, well I'll do this because it's a money grab, I'll make some cash on this one, and then I'll do some serious work on this other one, and then I'll knock out this the third thing. Alright, so Rebecca De Mornay, excellent.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yep. And uh one of the the final things I'd like to uh discuss in 85, because there was a whole lot of this in not just 1985, but throughout the years, is kind of wild. And that is the uh the horror comedy.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Uh one of the big uh horror comes well there so there were so many in in the 80s, but uh so many in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Now, why do you think 85, why does it bring your attention to 85? Because I've got a theory, but I'll let you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

There were two movies in 85, and I believe we discussed them. And one was uh Reanimator, came out in 1985 based on the uh Lovecraft novel, right? And Return of the Living Dead, which I know we talked about because it was one of my uh comedy gold uh movies. Right. And I just I was so enamored because it was really kind of the first time when I saw Return of the Living Dead, because I saw uh Reanimator much later in life, but in '85 I saw Return of the Living Dead, and I was just blown away, like, oh man, I love horror movies, but this is a funny horror movie. Holy shit, like the the the melding of the two genres worked really, really well with this movie. And there's I looked it up and there's like tons of horror comedies. There's like over 80 horror comedies in just the 80s alone, like an average of six to seven horror comedies a year. And I start going through the list of names, you're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, that one.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

I think that comes from personally that the first sort of horror comedy was Nightmare on Elm Street. The first one, not not so much as it as that series became, where they put a lot more comedy in. And I think that does come from Return of the Living Dead, and and less so Reanimator, because Rean Reanimator that really came to life on video after the fact. Right, okay. Because I don't know that anybody saw it when it was first released. But Return of the Living Dead got a lot of press. And the big thing with that was that zombies were running. That was the first time you had zombies running, and it just blew the minds because that was not how zombies acted.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah, 2000, wait, 200 20. Oh my gosh, I went too far 20 years before uh well, before anybody else was running.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

I mean, it was just that that was the first time, and and I can remember seeing that for the first time and seeing the zombies running and just being blown away by that. Of of what is this? This is insane. Uh yeah, so spear tackling, and then also, yeah, and then also that it's the comedy in that is very deliberate and very obvious. Right. And some of it is more straight comedy, and some of it is sort of the situational comedy. What I'm thinking is there were certainly things where you know, through the lines and stuff, that is clear that this is set up as a joke, as you know, we're we're eliciting a laugh for this. Then there was things like the half dog who comes back to life and he's still a half dog, and he's barking and his tail is twitching, his half tail is twitching, which is presented as just oh god, this is horrible and disgusting, but also very funny in that the dog is biting at you and is barking and everything.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Oh, send more cops. I I we I saw that I remember seeing the preview on TV that made me want to go see this movie, and that was the zombie going, send more cops. Like, yes, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

So, like I say, I think that there was a just that little hint of it, just with a few things, Diamond Home Street, but very, very little. And I think it really was uh Return of the Living Dead that really broke that open of doing just straight comedy and in a very much a horror film. I mean clearly a horror film with this, but with still a great deal of uh of comedy right into it.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Now that that goes into my question of like what makes a successful horror comedy? Does it does that obviously if both of those cylinders are running and they're successful, that's a successful um movie. Do both have to be successful in order to have like if the horror part kind of falls flat but the comedy is really good, does that make it successful, or vice versa?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

I think it's how you approach it in that if your focus is we're doing a comedy which has horror elements, then I think that's Ghostbusters. Yeah, Ghostbusters. So if you're successful on that on the comedy side of that, the horror part sort of takes care of itself. It doesn't have to be you don't have to have huge shocks, you don't have to have the gross out, you don't have to have the spooky like sending and shivers up your spine stuff. It just has to some you know have elements of of horror. Do it as a heavy horror film with comedic elements, I think is tougher because you gotta pick your moments and it's gotta work in the nature of you're creating a horror world, you can do comedy in that, and and that's sort of I I think the easiest way to do it there is the characters are clearly being comedic with one another, as like we've got the stress of the situation that we're in, so we're making jokes with one another. That it's much more it's not so not so big a part of the picture, it's it's a horror film, and then these guys are telling there's some jokes or some little jokey bit of business right in the midst of it as they're dealing with the horror aspect.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

And and that to me is also uh another thing of Return of Living Dead, is like it is it is very much it is built as a like typical horror movie, zombies are horror. But how the how the heroes and even how the the monsters interact with each other and interact kind of with the audience on screen is very comedic in value, but like I said, it all just seemed to gel really easily. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

It really does because what I was just thinking is you could change or take out about five to ten minutes of that film, and it would be very much a comedy. That it wouldn't take that much to to really uh take some of the heavier horror elements out, and that it would play much more as a Ghostbusters kind of film, that it really is a comedy film that with with this in this sort of horror world. Yeah, so uh so that's horror comedies, and I'm sure we'll get back to more horror comedies at some point. Oh, yeah, that's right. Maybe we could do a show on horror comedies if you could probably do that too. There's not tonight. I'll put my foot down.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

No more. But I think uh I think that's that's everything I had for well 85 horror comedies. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Do you have any other 85 information of anything? No. I'm not actually leading up to anything. Oh, you're just messing with me. I'm just messing with it. Okay. Because that's what brings me joy. And I say, let's bring joy into the world. Uh so thank you everybody for listening. That's that's it for our 19 our animation show for 1985. Uh, going back and covering some of the things that we may have missed or glossed over, uh, or just things that we built horror comedies that we wanted to that came to mind we wanted to spend more time on. So thank you for listening. And again, you can find us at the Retros Podcast on any number of social media platforms, the Retros Podcast, and of course, you can also find us at our website at the Retros Podcast. Oh, come on. I just I wanted you to save me up.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

The retros.buzzsprout.com. The retros.buzzsprout.com. Yes. All right. You can also find our podcast uh anywhere that you uh listen to podcasts. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

So we're out there, and if you've heard this, you know that. Yeah. But you can also communicate with us if you choose to do that, and you can also go to the website and perhaps do stuff there.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Join our Patreon. You could do that. See some uh you know special uh uh special shows that we've made, uh support us and in our work here. We would be very appreciative for our very important work coming out the academy.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Who else is doing this? No one we are riding alone with our banner held high against the Academy's bad choices. So that's it from me, Kord. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

And that's it for me, Carlos. Thank you for listening and watch more movies.