Last Looks: Monkeybone w/ Brad Meltzer

25:14Jason Mantzoukas:Like where are you going to get a pair of shorts that fit kind of perfectly, but that are not too baggy, too long, fashionable shorts. I love these shorts. And I found out after I bought them, uh, they're a bestseller. So I do have good taste. So refresh your wardrobe with Quince, go to quince.com slash bonkers for free shipping and 365 day returns now available in canada too that's quince.com slash bonkers for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash bonkers welcome back by now i'm sure you've all noticed that every week we re-release an old how did this get made episode back into our feed these matinee episodes now come out every tuesday to pair with monkey bone this week's matinee was another movie about a cartoonist interacting with his own creations.

26:03Jason Mantzoukas:I'm talking about 1992's Cool World. And next week's matinee, we'll learn all about June's hatred of breakdancing when we watch Body Rock with guest Alison Brie. So keep on checking off all of our replays of classic episodes every Tuesday. And now, without any further ado, it is time to welcome Jason and a very special guest. That's right, we've teased him throughout the show, the one, the only, Brad Meltzer, whose brand new book, Viper, is in bookstores right now. And people, you're going to love it. You're going to read it. You're going to read it all up. But you know what? Let me have him tell you all about it.

26:38Jason Mantzoukas:But first, John Cohen, play us in.

26:44just chat just chat about it just chat about it

26:57Jason Mantzoukas:brad so excited to have you back on the show it's been too long yeah good to see you guys thrilled to have you here brad brad one of our most accomplished guests on the show you are Emmy-nominated, a number one New York Times bestselling author. You're writing comic books. You're writing nonfiction books. You're on a book tour. But your new book, The Viper, I am fascinated about this. Jason and I were talking about this before you came on, because this is the third book in your Zig and Nola series. And this is all about people who are disappearing right i mean like you are in the world or you know a lot about how people disappear whether it's witness uh protection program you're in the world of disappearing people right right is that i do no listen there is there is there is a in my phone my wife knows if anything happens to me there is a guy to call that little i said put in the word kidnap and it is literally i'm like you call him and he's going to be the one to find we're gonna need that info brad yes because You need to be found.

28:04I mean, but that's the, if you, if you write thrillers for a living, that's what you have to be moving in, right? You have to find, like, I found this book. It's a crazy story. I was in a funeral home, as one is. And, um, and this guy's showing me, you know, he's showing me around the funeral home doing research for one of the thrillers. And he opens up, I see a closet with a padlock. And I'm like, well, that's obviously the most interesting place now, right? So what's in the, what's in the closet? And he opens it up and he's got all these old kind of like 90s era suits and sequined gowns. And it's all the clothes that people pick out that they want to be buried in before they die.

28:41Wow. So especially if you have no family, you pick out what you wear. And it's got like a Jets jersey and a hat that a guy wants to wear because his ex-wife hates that hat. And he's like, put me in the hat. And so people are vindictive.

28:55Jason Mantzoukas:I'm just realizing that. That's hilarious. like to bury them in the wrong like like not their fandom like or like i mean is it like could you no he wants the hat he's like my wife hates this hat but i love it right i love it like my father is buried in a hat that says best pop my dad is buried in a baseball cap because he was just like f everything man i don't care he's like he wants to like wear the baseball like my dad took a picture for his driver's license in a baseball cap my stepfather is buried in a walt disney world t-shirt. Fantastic. It says like, I'm your Mickey. And that was it. But I will tell you, there is something about being in a funeral home because when no one's there, I think I'm used to being there where there's a pomp and circumstance, you're coming in, people are grieving, there's a lot going on.

29:45Jason Mantzoukas:But in those quiet times, in those in-between times, when they're not selling you on anything, we're not showing you, I imagine that is a place that's a little bit more unexamined than we probably even realize. Like you're saying, like there's a closet full of clothes. And not only that, but you get the full attention of the guy walking you around. So I'm like, tell me about everything in here. And I was like, what I realized is if, you know, so, so the book opens and like guy walks into a funeral home is carrying a blue suit and it's a suit he wants to be buried in just exactly what I saw that day.

30:18But what I realized that day is if you go to a bank and you open up a new bank account, there's a file that's filled out and paperwork that's done. Government wants to track you. They'll find you. You go to the UPS store and open up a PO box. There's paperwork done. If the government needs to find you, they can figure it out and track you down. There's like Wi-Fi cookie jars now tell you who stole the last chocolate chip. But if you take the outfit that you're going to be buried in and you secretly sew something inside that suit and you give it to the local funeral mortician and he puts it in his closet with the padlock on it you have the ultimate hiding space that no one will ever track and basically that's what happens the guy walks in hands it over hide something in it he goes back to his motel room they're like where is it he's like i don't know what you're talking about they shoot him dead and basically the suit winds up in the hands of no one that you would ever expect i just ruined chapter one of the viper for you but that's chapter one i mean i'm already in

31:13Jason Mantzoukas:great i love that now zig is a mortician like zig is well you know one of your characters here in the book and this idea that now i'm forget if i'm misremembering it but like does zig work at the dover air force base or okay so the dover air force base the most secretive uh funeral home in in the world or the country in the in the whole country so i i do a lot of work with the uso they bring over you know in the uso they bring over thriller writers i mean they actually like We went the day after the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and like the MMA Fighters. And then it was like a bunch of authors. I went after football players and models.

31:52Jason Mantzoukas:And it's hard. It's hard. Yeah. It's hard. My friend was like, can you tape the audible sigh when you walked in the room? I want to hear how it all just went down. They keep asking me to go with all the models. They keep being like, you're a model, right? A hundred percent. You should. By the way, go. Anyone should go. But like, and so is one of the best experiences I've ever been in because they take care of you. But one of the things I love is they do want to get people pumped about you being there. And when I went, we were there with Rob Riggle, who was on The Daily Show shooting pieces for The Daily Show.

32:24Jason Mantzoukas:But Horatio Sands was with us as well. And I guess the only thing they could get their hands on was a movie called Boat Trip, which might be routinely viewed as not the best film. but every serviceman that we met had gotten it from like the like the store everyone knew boat trip i i was signing boat trip dvds on that door like whatever they give you yes whatever they give you you are it is the best like your worst book is the best book when you're in the desert yes so you're just everything it's great like i remember they had al roker's book in the in the thing and i texted him and i was like dude they got your book here and he's like oh my gosh they got that book nowhere you know but they got it there and he was like a star um but yeah so so i'm there and i and that's where i find out about dover and i i didn't know what dover was but you've seen it it's where all the the those flag-covered coffins when a soldier dies it comes off the thing and everyone salutes but what i figured out and what i realized is dover is where all our fallen soldiers go but it's also where all our astronauts go like when the space shuttle exploding.

33:28It's where all of the 9-11 victims from the Pentagon went there. It's also where all of our spies, our 007s around the globe, when they go on a mission and die, their bodies go to Dover, which means Dover is a place that's filled with secrets. And I love secrets. So I went in there and my main character works out at Dover. And it's just, you know, the morticians there will rebuild someone's jaw and smooth it over with clay for 12 hours because some mother wants to see your son in the coffin one last time, rebuild someone's hand because a mother says, I want to hold my son's hand one last time.

34:02Like, so good luck making a joke at the end of this, you know, description, but like, it's just like the best of the best of us working on the best of the best of us. And you're, and you go there and you're just humbled. And I was like, I need to set thrillers in this world because the morticians here, they know the real name of that fake person they just brought into Dover. They know the person that whose identity they're hiding. like i talked to a guy there who was like on 9-11 he all of a sudden all these bodies are coming in he's putting literally putting humpty dumpty together putting pieces of people trying to figure who's who and the fbi comes in and they surround this one body he's working on he has no idea what's going he's like why are you so interested in this one body and he's like this is the guy flying the plane and that's who he realizes he's working on so these guys have the firsthand view to see things like nothing else.

34:53And I'm a forever a Quincy fan. So Quincy to me is like, this is just a cooler version. I mean, that is, I mean, you couldn't have just said a more Gen X statement that you are a huge. Have you looked at the three of us lately? Two bald men and like a beard. I mean, of course. Oh my God. Quincy.

35:12Jason Mantzoukas:Quincy was, I mean, Quincy was a staple in my house and it was like, Quincy was like CSI before CSI. Of course. Quincy used to be like the word Xerox. You would just be like, what are you, Quincy? Right. And I remember like 10 books ago making like a Quincy joke in a book, like shut up, Quincy, or something. And all these Gen Xers, like, of course, were like going on my Instagram, going on this, be like, represent, baby, keep it live, Meltzer. It was just like the cult was alive and well. What I loved about Quincy, too, I was so familiar with Jack Klugman from The Odd Couple. And it was like, oh, actors can do different things.

35:51Jason Mantzoukas:I think that was my first realization. He's totally different. He's not Oscar. A hundred percent. I'm like, that guy is two people officially. And one is serious and one is funny. And it was mind-blowing. I can't believe that we have not done a Quincy remake. I mean, I guess you're right, Jason. By the way, I have pitched it. Not only. A hundred percent. I pitch like every Gen X show over again. Like, and I don't even tell them because if they're younger than me, they don't know. And if they're like, unless they're perfectly our age, right. Most of them, you know how Hollywood is. They don't even know.

36:22They don't care. In a world, in a world in which we can have an equalizer movie franchise and TV show. How can, why wouldn't we have a Quincy, a Quincy show? Well, someone just wrote me when we announced our book tour, someone wrote to me and said, have you, are you familiar with the show Quincy? I'm like, I've based my life on it. Like that's not even a simple question to me.

36:45Jason Mantzoukas:Well, I mean, how do you get access here? Cause I was thinking about this too. Like you've been writing for a very long time and you know, I talked to you about the biggest fan that I've ever made for you. I believe is I was reading your book. My dad was visiting out of town. He read it. And now my dad is like texting me like, you get this one. You get that. My dad is like devoured. You text me. I love that. Yeah. And, and, and like, I just was home for Thanksgiving. He's like, you got to read this one now. And I was like, great. Right. And so but it's like you I think you cross this line of, you know, you're incredibly appealing on all these levels.

37:20Jason Mantzoukas:Right. You you can get the people who love comics. You get the people who love, you know, real history. And you have this like amazing voice and characterization to write, you know, dramatic thrillers. But you also get real information and you go deep. How do you get the trust of these people or get into these spots? Because no one else is getting there. Right. I mean, like, yeah. Like how do you have that fixer in your phone? Like where do you? Yeah. I mean, the truth is, is I think sometimes it's just no one's as nerdy as I am to ask for these things. Like, right. Like most people are like, take me to the front lines and show me how you kick indoors.

37:53And I'm like, can you show me the Quincy version of yourself? Like, so that's part of it. But the other thing is, is some of it is, is just being nice. Right. If someone calls you up and says, Hey, and you know, you've done it for roles. Like, Hey, I'm doing a medical show. can I just follow you around for like half a day? Like 99 % of people say yes. The benefit I had is some of the books became popular in DC. And so like, I got a letter one day from, from president George HW Bush. I got a letter from Bill Clinton and they were like, we read your books. And I'm like, Oh, and then I was like, Oh shit.

38:26And, and of course I thought it was fake. I thought the letter was fake. Cause when I used to work in, I was an intern. My first internship ever was in the um the senate judiciary committee and we used to take the pen signing machines and i would take the senate judiciary stationary and i'd sign the senator's letter and i'd write to my friends and tell them they were being deported because i'm like what am i gonna do like so i just thought this is someone playing the joke with me so i call the office and i'm like hey man um i got a there's someone there in the president's office and they said because they said can you send us a signed book and i'm like someone wants to sign book they go oh you got the president's letter like oh this is real oh and so i was like not stupid i said i wrote them back and said hey uh i want to do research on presidents can i come see what your life is like and they had left the white house so i'm like can i come see you after the white house and both of them said yes because what are they doing i'm like how bored are you that your life is so boring now that you're writing to me um and that helped like because once you have that then the secret service is like oh if the president trusts you then i'll talk to you yeah and then if the secret service talks to you And now that, you know, you can get the CIA and the FBI.

39:29And so it's just like these people know each other. And that it just starts from people just being genuinely nice. Tech changed the world. But so did the bubonic plague. Tonight, exclusively on AMC and AMC Plus, the highly anticipated new drama series, The Audacity. Genius is about being unhinged enough to do something outrageous. The show that Mashable says tears Silicon Valley a new one. People who have no integrity. Did you leak the acquisition river? No, maybe. From one of the minds behind Succession and Better Call Saul. We want to save the world or control it. Most of us go Dr. Evil.

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42:00Jason Mantzoukas:I love Babbel. And here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, you can get up to 60 % off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com forward slash bonkers. Get up to 60 % off at babbel.com forward slash bonkers. spelled b-a-b-b-e-l dot com forward slash bonkers rules and restrictions may apply can you tell us something interesting about like the witness protection program because i think that is something that you know we understand it in a grand scheme of things right we'll see it in a movie like one battle after another we'll see it in these things but like which was such a good movie i just saw by the way that's loved it it's so good i got to see it in vista vision out here which was really fun.

42:42Jason Mantzoukas:But I mean, it seems so kind of made up. I guess in my mind, I always thought mobsters. That's where mobsters go, but it's hard. How do you fit in in that world? It's the college tour episode of Sopranos. It's a Sopranos. The Sopranos episode, that college tour episode is what I firmly believe is what has informed the Witness Protection Program for the last decade, right? And I became obsessed with it because we're all obsessed with exactly that because you can't help but ask the question, what if it was me? Right. And we all have this like weird fantasy in the back of our heads, even if you love your life to be like, could I start it all over from nothing?

43:16Like, what does that mean? There's like something sexy and tantalizing. So I became obsessed with it. I will tell you, I've done the White House, the Supreme Court. I've done the secret tunnels below the Capitol. I've done the tunnels below Disney World. I don't think anything except for Disney, which was hard to get into. The witness practicing problem was one of the hardest places ever to research because people's lives are on the line, right? It's not just your dumb ass, like, oh, I want to go and screw around the White House. And so the thing that blew me away is just the pure history of it.

43:45So they said to me, yes, the Witness Protection Program is created for mobsters. We got to get mobsters to turn on themselves, protect them so we can go. And I'm like, great, I know that. I've seen the Tony Soprano episode. But then eventually, guess what happened? They arrested most of the mobsters. so now it's not like crime was done and like batman wins guess what happens new criminals like i want that turf so guess who started becoming the number one person in the witness protection program it was gang members they started putting gang members away so all these gang members were now in the witness protection room and then guess what happened those started shutting down like they weren't you know they weren't the same now the number one group according to my source who's in the witness protection program are accountants because that's the frigging world we live in now and i was just like i am writing about that like this is awesome to me like and just that idea that you can you know because i'm like can you really change someone's face by giving them a nose job no you cannot like anyone like when we were kids we were like oh obviously that's like right sand it totally works but the witness protection program is awesome.

44:55And these guys are really good at what they do. The problem is all the people that are in it miss something about their lives. And if you miss one thing about your life, same thing as in One Battle After Another, you can't hide away. That calling eventually gets to you. And that's what fucks everybody up. It's not the program. It's the person in there just says, I need to see blank. Maybe an old girlfriend or an old wife or someone wants to have sex with someone but someone's got you know that's what screws it up and you think you can kind of yeah those tethers that keep you connected to your old life those you you know and that's the thing is like because in our lifetime i'm thinking of people like uh henry hill or whitey bulger or those kind of people did wait was whitey bulger in witness protection or was he just hiding can i tell you i've never told this before whitey bulger at one point i got a tip that someone told me they knew where whitey bulger was and i couldn't tell anyone and i'm like and i'm literally like what am supposed to do this and and i will tell you in the end it was totally wrong and it was completely not okay but it was a really good source really good spot and i was like but yeah he was he wasn't in witness production he just ran he was just hiding himself yeah yeah he was good yeah oh boy was he good but that's like what i was gonna say is like the mod like the world used to be so much bigger and more you could disappear into it and so much of the world now is online on camera we are living in a world which it would be very difficult, I feel like, to disappear because everybody is existing constantly publicly, you know?

46:28That's, well, now I'm not going to ruin the plot of the Viper, but that's a key part of it, right? Like witness protection back in the old days was just give someone a new driver's license and someone would move new to your neighborhood and you wouldn't know much about them. But as the world changes, anytime someone moves to your neighbor, guess what we all do? We Google them, we check them out. And if there's nothing there, then we're like, oh, that's even more suspicious. So they have to now figure out how to, and they've gotten really good at giving you long historical backgrounds. Because if there is nothing from back then, you're like, something's wrong.

47:02But all of us can go on Zillow and know what our neighbors paid for their house and what they bought and where they drive and how much they pay for their car and what their wife makes. And we got it all. So good luck hiding in today's world and in the viper and one of the key parts of it is how do you do it really well how do you

47:18Jason Mantzoukas:how do you disappear from the government today yeah i mean this i i love this uh but i guess the question that i want to ask though is you know there's been a lot of interesting stuff going on in the comic book world we've been talking about this for a while are you working on anything uh in the dc world right now uh kind of yes kind of all right yes all right but also i feel like but also i feel like you're inside of the marvel ecosystem as well so that's i can say i can yeah i am i am working on a new marvel project okay great okay okay oh interesting all right but i can't i can tease that okay you can tease that can you tease what it is thwip thwip

47:59wow so subtle um i can't say no or maybe snicked or maybe snicked snicked but go all the special effect yeah all the sounds yeah no i mean i i'll say yes to one of those yes to one of those yes to one of those i like this i like all right this is exciting i just want to by the way i want to just live the rest of my life with people who understand that if i do snick or i do bam for i do i was gonna say just like can like how far we can take understanding having a conversation with

48:29Jason Mantzoukas:nothing but the sound effects i mean oh it's what a what a world to live because that's how i just find my friends like yeah you know it's like going out and being like i said to my son i'm like if you find someone and this is you know who knows a couple of legion of superhero home planets they're just going to be your friend yeah that's just you could just find them and so that like we should just have like little quizzes i would just move through life with that and be very happy uh i love this bradwell i'm very excited we'll be watching anxiously to see what this will be um all right you can get viper wherever you get your books but i got what if i can't leave wait before i go i gotta know what do you read i don't know what comics you're reading what are you reading oh my gosh you know this is great this is a good uh question right here i have been uh very i've been loving this the mashups right like the like you know the deadpool and batman has been fun like i've been i read them i just read them this week there was some i thought kevin's uh smith's i there was did you read that story i haven't yeah it's on my desk and uh did you read tom taylor's that one was great too yes love tom taylor i also loved the mashups that were happening previous which was godzilla versus everybody oh man there was a bunch of good godzilla versus each of the marvel teams each it was a very fun predator marvel one too which is like just yeah which is great uh i'm really enjoying fractions new batman run um with jorge jimenez i love jimenez i love the way he does the um like like how he dials into the stuff on the utility belt like that's inspired that's one of those ideas like i always think the best continuity things are the things that you go it's new but it should have always been there and i look at that i'm like that should have always been there that's well that's like the reveal that um in um absolute batman that the bat symbol is an axe that oh yeah he takes the bat symbol off of his chest and it's an axe is incredible by the way do you know how many nerds just got hard on that page when it happened it was just like how many friends have told me like did you see when he took that i'm like i know like love that book is so good they're killing that book i'm also reading i will say there's been i think a bunch of great stuff um uh wait what was that ghost machine come on ghost machine have you guys been reading our stuff great this machine is is so i have a good and i'm not saying it just because i'm part of ghost machine and i do have a book coming out with jeff johns next uh that'll be out later this year but their stuff red coat is so good and and gary frank's art obviously is so so good um i love i mean all the books i'm and now i'm gonna start naming and feeling like i'm bad i'm leaving people out but every ghost machine book you should read too they're great i love it i love it i was thinking that this is a great just time for i mean i'm going back to batman for a second i've also been a big fan of what scott snyder has been doing and they have the absolute joker i think is coming up right now or something like that like it's i've really loved just because one of my favorite artists is uh somny so the batman and robin uh mark wade chris somny book i think if you went to my kitchen right now it's on my island because i want my son i'm like this art i you know i said to wade when i saw him i'm like this art is so beautiful it's incredible like when he does that robin that young robin it's so i'm like it's so kinetic fresh air it is exactly it reminds me of michael turner when i first saw turner it just it had movement without moving And I was like, how is he?

51:46It is incredible. Every flip, everything. It's just so good. I can't recommend his book that he did with his wife, the all ages book called Jonna and the Impossible Monsters. Yeah, that's a good book. And that's another character whose movement is so beautifully drawn in that book. Incredible.

52:06Jason Mantzoukas:You know, I've been really just trying to get my kids into stuff. So we've I've been trying to read with them a little bit right now and just trying to find what they're connecting to, which is interesting because I have been having a harder time than I thought I was going to have with my kids. How old are they? They are 9 and 11. They have just gotten in majorly into Marvel. And so I'm like, I'm trying. Can I? I have one. I have one. Just because it's Chris Somney, I'm going to shout out Thor the Mighty Avenger. Well, yeah, that's great. Have they read Hilo? Wait, have they read Hilo by Judd Winnick?

52:40Jason Mantzoukas:No. give him hylo for sure at nine years old that's a gimme they're gonna love hylo hylo is a no-brainer not marvel but bone is a great bone was good um i will again i'm sure they're reading dogman like that stuff yeah dogman i mean dogman is like non-stop that yeah dogman and and uh and captain underpants like pilky dave is one of my dearest friends oh pilky is like a big we just got like the boy underpants boy it's not even captain underpants like it's a yeah and dave is a dear friend of mine he's come to my house because and my like he's literally my son is like loves dave pilkin is like dave pilkey is the greatest writer of all time and i'm like you know i'm a writer right like you understand what i do for it but he's but for that age that's the perfect jump on point yeah because this is that's what they are devouring and so i'm just trying to like let them find their little things and oh i got one more oh yeah please uh batman brave and bold that's what my son read when he was younger he couldn't read like like now these like when you once you hit 13 right as far as i'm concerned you're ready for anything because you and i we all three of us read at 13 it was like whether it was dark night or teen titans or like we were all reading it but at nine years old my son read the batman brave and bold series um and just put them in you'll but it's beautiful and it's a fun book and there's like team ups like like a scooby-doo team up he loved the team ups okay it wasn't just the brain well it was it was like the scooby-doo team-ups with batman and they he loved them all right this is good this is good this is what i'm doing we are making our plans to go see uh avatar to just watch the trailer for the avengers like that's why we're going to see avatar 3 a movie we have not seen one or two of i mean i have they have not and there's like they just want to see this trailer which i'm also i'm thrilled that they're into it most nine-year-olds now are like you know my kids love all those movies and we'll go to them but nine-year-olds now are like i'm not watching the new ones because i got to watch these other 25 ones i know this is yeah so it's been interesting i've been i've been enjoying watching them get into it they met john cena in costume as the peacemaker which truly was by the way what a set to take him oh you took him to comic-con i was at comic-con and he just was wearing the costume and man oh man it was the best thing yeah you can't i mean that's yeah you can't compare like you win you win that like i of course took my children who are older to meet eric from the boys and so like so you know eric is a dear friend of mine as a showrunner so he i told him like listen man you got to impress my kids my boys you know they watch the show they love it so on last scene of the boys and huey's mom and one of the scenes is like she's literally reading one of my books and i just sat there and i just sat there like this i knew it was coming he told me it was coming and i was like it's amazing how much bullshit as dads we will pull off to impress our kids like i don't care about anything i never took my kids you know it's the white house or anything like that you can pull off but i pull and i just sat there trying to be cool and my kids both turned to me and and i and i was like okay how's that dave pilkey how's that oh i love it um all right this is great brad book viper is out now and i'm sure by the time this is out it's gonna be another bestseller this is what you do you you just you just rack them up Well, Paul, I'm looking at my calendar right now, and it's telling me that the book is already out and is already a huge bestseller.

56:01Jason Mantzoukas:That's what I'm saying. This was great. I'm excited about The Secret Project. And always great to talk to you. We'll talk to you soon. You got it, brothers. Thank you, Brad. I love him. He's the best. And if you want to buy his brand new book, The Viper, just click on the link in the show notes to this episode. Now, it is almost the end of the show, which means it is finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be saying goodbye to Monkeybone and returning to No Place Like Home. That's right. We are watching 1985's Return to Oz. This was Disney's sort of sequel to The Wizard of Oz that was based on the book, not the original movie.

56:35Jason Mantzoukas:So yeah, a tricky sequel indeed. It stars Faruza Balk as Dorothy in her feature film debut. And IMDb describes the plot as Dorothy, saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, is somehow called back to Oz when a vain witch and the Gnome King destroy everything that makes the magical land beautiful. Yikes. Rotten Tomatoes gives this film a 59 % score on the tomato meter, and Joel Baltake from the Philadelphia Daily News wrote, Return to Oz is very much a great film, an adventure ahead of its time. I doubt it will be appreciated now. It's the kind of movie whose greatness will be discovered in 10 years.

57:09Jason Mantzoukas:Well, guess what, Joel? You're wrong. Listen to the trailer. Now, fly away with Dorothy and her wonderful new friends, The Gump. Half moose, half flying sofa. A talking chicken. Where are we anyway? Jack and Tip-Tock the mechanical soldier to save the kingdom of Oz from the evil princes and a king with a body of rock in a magical new movie. Return to Oz. You can stream Return to Oz on Disney Plus or you can rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, or Fandango at home. And as you know, I am always going to shout out the digital media services offered to you by your local public library like Hoopla and Canopy and Libby.

57:54Jason Mantzoukas:Even though Return to Oz is not on these services, they are still great resources to find movies, TV, music, audiobooks, e-books, and comics for free. That is it for Last Looks. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, rate and review us. It makes a different. Leave a comment for us. And if you're following us, make sure you have automatic downloads turned on. It helps the show and we appreciate it. You can visit us on social media at HDTGM. And a big thank you to our producers, Scott Sonny, Molly Reynolds, our engineer, Casey Holford, our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum. And of course, we'll forever be grateful to the one and only Averill Halley.

58:29Jason Mantzoukas:If you have not seen it yet, there's a beautiful write-up of her, a beautiful celebration of her life. We posted it in the Discord. We also have it on the How Did This Get Made Instagram page. We will see you next week when we travel down the decaying remains of the Yellow Brick Road as we return to Oz.

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