‘Happy Gilmore 2,’ ‘The Naked Gun,’ and the 21st-Century Comedy Movie Crisis

26:04Changed a lot. She changed a lot. She had a great power. Also a central character to the movie. She was. The original movie... Okay.

26:15The original movie is weird because this is something that a lot of comedy sequels get stuck in. It's about an outsider trying to break into a system. Right? A lot of golf comedies especially are about this. Caddyshack is about this. tin cup is about this. You know, people who are kind of, who are the like the rebels who do things a little bit differently and are trying to subvert and infiltrate a very staid traditional world. Happy Gilmore 2 can't work if he's just a successful golfer. So they go to great lengths. They kill his wife. They make him an alcoholic. They completely eliminate his ability to be successful at golf.

26:55and then he has to work his way back but he has to work his way back against the encroaching forces of a terrible villain. Well also, why does he initially start to come back? In the first movie, the happy Gilmore character is motivated because his beloved grandma who raised him, her house of 60 years which his grandfather built with his bare hands is being foreclosed on and he wants to save it, his childhood memory and he needs hundreds of thousands of dollars. In this movie, his daughter wants to go to ballet school and that's why Happy Gilmore needs to come back to golf because he needs this is a guy who does not have kids five grand a year this is my point you gotta fund her art man there's no problem with that this is why I'm like this is a personal movie you don't have kids it's some girl dad shit but listen you know he has nothing you find those equal motivations well yes of course I can't say I was like profoundly moved by grandma's plight in Happy Gilmore that wasn't like the motivating interest for me to get excited about the movie she didn't pay her taxes That's true.

27:54That's a really good point. She's being tortured in an old people's home. I know. Yeah. I mean, his daughter's being tortured by four idiot brothers. Yeah. I mean, I have more issues with the construction of this movie than I do the larger thematic choices made by Sandler and his personal relationship with movie making and his career. Yeah. But there are no new jokes in this movie. I agree. The lazy cutbacks to Happy Gilmore 1. Every character is just the son of the character from the original movie. You have Chubbs' son doing the same joke with the hand. You have Eminem being the son of the heckler.

28:27He's in the movie for 75 seconds. He gets eaten by alligators immediately. Enjoyed that. Boban is the son of Mr. Larson. None of these cameos even stick around long enough for them to be actual characters that can do anything. It's not a real movie. We're also ignoring the fact that the last hour of this movie is an AI Mr. Beast video about a fake golf obstacle world. And sure, you can say it's a commentary on Liv. this is just all extremely generous the thing about it being a live send up which I thought was like if not clever then at least I was like oh hey well okay that's something but aren't half the guys in the movie also on the live tour playing a pretty significant role and when like both Brooks and Bryson Bryson moved over right?

29:16Brooks is the Gretzky wife and the... Yes. No, that's Dustin Johnson. Oh. Oh. Okay. Who's not in the film. Who's not in the film. Brooks is the guy who looked like the Terminator. He was like, I'm an NFL linebacker coming to conquer football and then began getting injured routinely, struggled with those injuries and gets injured in this movie. Right. Which I thought was kind of an amusing joke. Right. And Scotty Sheffield gets arrested. That was funny. I laughed. I chuckled at that one. I don't know. I thought that stuff was okay. I mean, it's a little inside baseball for golf, but I didn't think it was like deplorable.

29:50No, no. I don't think that is either. I just, I wish it was just a normal movie and it had five cameos and they were in the whole film and they were characters in the movie that grew and changed and things happened. Yeah. Rather than 200 jammed in, you know, 100 minutes. I won't defend it. And yet it didn't bother me. When Margaret Qualley showed up for eight minutes, I was happy to see her. I thought that was kind of amusing. Again, I don't mind the choice. It's the execution. Sure, sure. And Tim Harrelly's son is in that scene as well. Who I like and think is funny. Please don't destroy. And I think those guys are great.

30:22So you're a big man. I'm so upset. I'm so upset. This is kind of a perfect episode because your youth is being destroyed and now your youth is being destroyed by Hollywood. This movie is the maxi golf of movies. The movie is ostensibly about saving golf, but the movie itself is ruining movies. I mean I I don't disagree with him I was happy to see 90 year old Jack Nicklaus give a somewhat decent performance in the film I mean that was that was impressive he wasn't terrible I thought Christopher McDonald was good I think he's a good actor he was very good I was surprised by Travis Kelsey honestly I thought he could deliver a line it was better than I thought they also gave him some really flattering lighting until he had to get like punched a million times in the Bad Bunny Bad Bunny was very funny older in his career Bad Bunny Bad Bunny is incredibly funny I thought he was incredibly funny in this.

31:14I've always liked Bad Bunny. I think he has great comedic timing. The thing that he does on SNL so well, he's so funny on SNL. I thought he was one of the, arguably the best part of this movie. I actually totally agree. I think one of the best things he's ever done is with Please Don't Destroy. That short film they made of him as Shrek is hilarious. He has great comedic timing. He's bringing that same energy. So I don't know. Come on. It's not bad. Oh, I mean, it's slop. It's really bad. It's bad. And we should say it was the most viewed Netflix movie in its opening weekend ever. Well, let's just talk about why is this slop okay with you and other slops not okay with you?

31:48I'm a complete contradictory asshole. That's okay. I'm not even asking you to say that. It's like, is it the emotional thing? Like you just... I dig what's, I just dig what Sandler is about. I think that what he, the way that he is like going about his career where he's like, I'm not giving up on this stuff, but I'm also going to do Hustle because I think this filmmaker is interesting and I'm also going to do the Baumbach movie. Yeah. I just think that's so cool I think the way that he has like flexed his power is a no drama celebrity seems to genuinely like appreciate and support his friends I just feel like he's doing it right and so I'm just gonna be more generous towards this stuff we don't review most of the movies that he puts on Netflix because we know that they're negligible and not very interesting and that they're just like rehashes of things he's done before this was a movie we can't ignore because so many people are watching it and it is a sequel to a hugely important movie for all of us in some ways the fact that you're golf pilled now too makes it all the sweeter to me it's so funny i was really upset but it's like what are you gonna do it's just all around us and i guess you know it is like pop culture at this point it is more and more and this and like this movie is sort of like an evil tool of that as well so in that sense i'm bad but i laughed well i laughed at the scotty joke i got the scotty joke and i laughed at it it's an it's an interesting time though in golf where i think and i talk about this with your husband all the time three or four years ago as golf fans we were like, this is the greatest time that's ever happened.

33:09Like, we don't have Tiger, but we have somewhere between 9 and 14 guys who are incredible to follow on a weekly basis, let alone just the majors. And the last couple years have been pretty juiceless. And the looming tower of Scotty makes the sport a little less interesting because he's so damn good. Unfair to Rory. Well, I was very happy for him. I'm glad he got the monkey off his back. That was cinematic. That was great stuff. I would like to get him longer shorts in a seated situation. Well, he's Irish, you know. We like to show off our legs. You know, otherwise I just, I didn't, I thought they, like, otherwise it looks great.

33:42I just think this is kind of a funny adrenaline shot in a, in a very quiet golf year. Yeah, sure. I can't believe, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm terrified that I'm on an island. You're not, no, no, no. No, no, no. No, the reviews of this movie are, are rough. I know, I know Rotten Tomatoes is not, we don't really care about Rotten Tomatoes, but the scores are, are pretty close to the original. The, whatever the word. I mean, no, no, no, we can't do it. The fan rating is higher for Happy Girls. You can't do it. You can't. Like, you can't even look at the scores. You can't. Like, it doesn't really mean anything.

34:14Think about who's clicking the tomato, you know? Yeah. Like, no. Just, it doesn't matter. I listened to the No Laying Up guys talking about this movie. They did, like, 15 minutes at the end of an episode earlier this week. They were not in it. They did not like it. They weren't in it. Yeah. I think Neil had, like, a very small cameo, but Neil wasn't talking about the movie. And they really thought it was bad. Like, really bad. and they did not cotton to any of the golf contemporary culture stuff and they didn't have the same sense of I don't know emotional rejection that you feel around the movie this is apocalyptic to me it's so funny to me it's so nice to be relieved of this burden where someone has to be this person on the podcast I don't think it's good and yet I didn't hate it I didn't hate it and I feel okay saying that the last hour of the movie the first hour I thought was bad I texted my friend he said just wait the last hour of this movie is really AI slop it is there are ATVs and purple smoke and CGI AI Haley Joel Osment why is he the villain in this movie and they're spinning around like they're at a carnival hitting the ball how do you feel about the hip surgery as a way to make guys super golfers horrible horrible I thought that was amusing you enjoyed seeing him spin around like a demon looking at Happy Gilmore yeah I thought it was funny the final scene of this film is Bad Bunny and Happy Gilmore on a spinning top of a green that did look quite bad trying to make a putt I did start online just saying golf thought it was amusing you guys seen Caddyshack these movies are not fucking sophisticated this is not Casablanca it's Happy Gilmore's sequel it's very funny to watch people feel have their youths attacked by contemporary movies.

36:06This is like a trend that has been happening for about 20 years now. It's not going to stop anytime soon. And now it's time for a new segment crafted for cravings presented by Starbucks. Some things just hit different in the summer. Big screen blockbusters and refreshing Starbucks drinks both top the list. And while Starbucks' summer beverages always deliver the film offerings may vary. Let's talk about a few summer movies that really tickled our fancy this year. F1 springs to mind an incredible adrenaline rush What did you think about that movie? Very fast. Very fast. Very exciting. Biggest screen possible.

36:37Like, you know, a summer event. The classic, classic summer tentpole. A throwback. A great star performance from Brad Pitt. And a lot of fun to see on a big screen. What about Superman? I was, I liked this. I did. We liked it. And I think the further we get from it, the more we were like, okay. That really kind of did work, didn't it? It really worked well. It was kind of the tentpole franchise movie of the summer for me personally. Really love the cast. David Cornswett, Nicholas Holt, Rachel Brosnahan, all turning in great performances. And then 28 years later, which I guess is sort of a surprise as a summer blockbuster, but is one of the best movies of the year so far.

37:15Yes. I don't think that we expected it to be as good as it was, even though it was a return of Danny Boyle, Alex Garland, actors we like, and Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. So we knew it was going to be good, but I don't think we expected to start crying. we were crying yeah we were crying it was a beautiful story about yeah about love and and childhood sure and coming of age and viruses and it was it was wonderful and there was a there was a bone temple yeah and that was extraordinary if there's one thing you can rely on to hit the spot this summer it's starbucks summer beverages try cooling off with a new strato frappuccino blended beverage it's a crave worthy ice blended beverage topped with creamy cold foam making for delicious layers of silky flavor, available for a limited time only.

38:01Your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. Let's pivot to The Naked Gun. Okay. This is a really, really interesting text because this is a theatrical movie. It's not a streaming movie. It is directed by, I think, one of the very few good comedy directors of the last 10 or 15 years, Akiva Schaffer, who is one third of The Lonely Island, who directed Popstar, he directed Hot Rod. Both great underrated movies. Great comedies from the last 10 years. This is the fourth film in the Naked Gun franchise, which was originally spun out from the Police Squad TV series, starring Leslie Nielsen.

38:32This new movie stars Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, and Danny Houston. Helpful note here, 85-minute runtime. It was unreal. Dramatic difference between the two hours and nine minutes of Happy Gilmore 2. Here's the story. Following in the footsteps of his bumbling father, Detective Frank Drebin must solve a murder case to prevent the police department from shutting down. Amanda, I'll start with you. I just want to know your relationship to The Naked Gun because we've never talked about these movies on the show. I have seen the original, not the sequels, but it was not like on a repeat in my house.

39:04So I guess I have like generational reference point and some of the jokes like live outside of the movie at this point. So I'm not unconversant, but it's not like Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison or Tommy Boy or any of those. Okay, that's good to know. What about for you? I've seen it a couple of times. I love it. I'm a fan of all of that kind of spoof genre from the 70s and 80s, the airplanes, a lot of the Mel Brooks movies. I think these are just like classic joke writing films. And that is something that has basically disappeared since, I don't know, I think there's elements of that in the Austin Powers movies a little bit.

39:45But it's largely been gone, I think, for the last two decades. Yeah, this is, at the time when it was released, a style of movie that was very common and Zucker Abrams who made Airplane are behind these movies and they made movies like Top Secret and The Spoof The Joke a Minute Spoof I was also raised on um these movies predate Happy Gilmore a little bit but not too much um I remember seeing Naked Gun to 33 and a third as a birthday movie they feel very far apart Naked Gun's 88 Happy Gilmore's 96 they feel 15 years apart they do but the sequels were in the 90s yeah yeah um I love these movies.

40:25I don't think I have the same emotional connection to them that I did to the Sandler stuff or Tommy Boy or even Austin Powers. But they're not sacred texts in any way. You know, I was just listening to Seth MacFarlane on The Town and he made it a very interesting point. He's the producer of this movie. Yeah. That the one thing that was really important to him when having conversations with the studios is you have to cast real actors to execute on these spoof movies. You can't cast comedians because the whole point is that they have to deliver the material straight because this is a spoof of a hard-boiled cop noir.

41:00Yeah, procedural. Yeah, that's what these are. 50s, 60s movies, like the big heat. And I like this new movie. I think it's funny. I wish it was like 20 % funnier. And I don't think that that's like a damning criticism. But when the whole premise of the movie is joke a minute and every other joke hits, I felt maybe my expectations were too high because we saw the trailer at CinemaCon and I was like, fuck, hell yes. I'd like to talk about the trailer because a lot of the jokes are in the trailer. The trailer has half the jokes. And that's a problem just in terms of the number of jokes that it indicates, but also because you have spoiled half of the jokes, including the opening quote-unquote set piece in the trailer.

41:48It's true. It's a tricky part with theatrical movies now because you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. You need to show people at home that it's funny and it's worth getting out of your chair to drive in to see the movie. But then also you don't want them to sit down, watch the movie, and be like, oh, all the funny moments are in the trailer. Yeah, and I completely, I basically agree with every review of this movie that is like, thank God theatrical comedies are back because I want them to and we can talk about what's happened in the last 20 years or so. And I want this movie to succeed.

42:13And I think Liam Neeson is pretty good. I thought Pamela Anderson was very game. For the most part, like it works. You know, the plot works. I thought Danny Houston was the absolute MVP of the movie. I thought he was very, very funny as a villain. Also, I mean, how many Elon Musk's have we had in movies just this summer at this point? That's like at least three, I think. It's the most dependable villain style right now. And so I dug it. We can talk about some of the gags that really work and that are funny to us. It's a little bit hard to explore beyond like, did you think it was funny? Did you think it was funny?

42:42I thought it was really funny. I thought it was a great time. You chuckled. Oh, yeah. I think I was even, I watched it with Amanda. And I think I was even suppressing my laughter a little bit because I didn't want her to think I was laughing at really stupid jokes, but I was inside. First of all, I've never been judging you. You did chuckle. I did notice you chuckling, but you were more reserved. I was like, oh, interesting. Craig's not like a laugh out loud kind of thing. We were also seated next to two people who were loving it, laughing at every single thing. And the room was pretty good, I thought.

43:13The theater had a great time. This is a huge part of whether or not this movie is going to work. Did you see it in a full theater? I saw it at the same theater that Matt saw it in, which was a very big room at the studio. And I would say it was not as raucous as you would have wanted it to be. And I have a lot of fond memories in the 2000s of going to see all these movies. Sure, yeah. And, you know, seeing The Hangover, regardless of how you feel about The Hangover, seeing The Hangover when it came out in a movie theater on a Friday night, insane. Anarchy, yeah. It was like being at a Kendrick Lamar concert.

43:42I mean, people are losing their shit. So I didn't quite get that. it was also a very big theater. Sure. You actually kind of want to be in a small movie theater for a movie like this. Yeah. Because then the laughter gets more infectious and I didn't have as much of it so maybe that kind of dimmed some of my enthusiasm for it. I definitely thought it was funny and effective and it works. I just, one, I'm a little bit cautious about people being like, this movie is fantastic. I'm like, it's good. It's a good spoof comedy and nothing more than that and overpromising, I think maybe does the movie a disservice.

44:12But also, I desperately need somewhere between seven in 14 of these a year. And I do not understand why we don't have them. I've heard the excuses and I've heard the explanations around it's expensive and it's harder to get people in the theater and streaming and we can talk through some of those things. But like, I sent you a list of movie comedies released this year. It's dire. It is absolutely terrible. Okay, so before we get too far down the road of that, what else like popped out to you about The Naked Gun or what did you enjoy about it? I thought this was the right way to honor IP. where you keep the style, but you make it your own.

44:49There were minimal callbacks to the original. There were some that were funny, but they largely made their own jokes in the same style. It's just nice to know that this is still possible, that there are writers who can still do this, that there are actors and directors who can still pull this off. I just found it to be a very easy, fun time at the movies. It's 85 minutes. The theater, I thought the theater was pretty lively. It was, yeah. And had a great time. You could have laughed more, and then I would have laughed more, too. I thought it was well cast. I think it's going to be, I don't know if young people are going to see this movie.

45:19I think they maybe should have tried to cast somebody in the Liza Koshy role, give her a bigger part and maybe a slightly bigger star to just try to expand the net for audiences just to bring people to the movie. You pointed this out on the town that there's no young person draw in the movie, which is an interesting choice to have two, basically two 60-year-olds be the leads of this theatrical comedy. But does that say more about who the movie is trying to appeal to? Certainly. Like, is it trying to get the 40 and 50 year olds into the movie theater more so than the 20 and 30 year olds. I think so.

45:49Anecdotally, I have like a lot of 40 year old peers who are like, oh, I can't wait to see that. People who don't go to every single movie theater, but they remember it. So maybe, I don't know, they've maybe at least identified their audience. It's also a movie, this style of comedy is well suited for now, for 2025. The joke a minute, fast paced attention. I want to talk about that a little because I did think it was funny and I like the joke a minute structure. I watching it was remarking on how topical a lot of it was, how like 2025, like just a lot of recent references, which in the moment works now.

46:25But, you know, you do wonder whether like three, six, you know, nine months, like five years from now. And maybe like they're not going for shelf life. I also listened to you guys talking to Seth MacFarlane on the way here. And the thing he said to me that was, that was to me both interesting and sort of chilling was like most people now experience this type of comedy in like adult animated comedies. But there is something to that where, you know, topical, very fast humor is just like it's a volume thing, you know, and a thing that's supposed to live on on a streaming service so you can dial it up whenever you want.

47:05So I don't know whether, I guess it's harder to, there's a reason that it's not in movies as much because it's not what you return to 45 times. You just do another one. It is pretty consistent with the original Naked Gun movies. In my head, I have a strong memory of seeing there's a pointed crying game joke in Naked Gun 3 that is like very tasteless in the movie. but is like such a early 90s movie reference that like watching it now, any 20 year old would be like, what, I don't even understand. I mean, I can get what the joke of the character is, but I don't know what it's a reference to. So it's not out of fashion per se.

47:49It might mean that the movie doesn't age super well. I don't think, you know, these movies, the idea then was get asses in seats in theaters. And that's the idea now for this movie is to get asses in seats in theaters. I mean, a couple of things that I really liked in it. my favorite part was the love montage where the snowman I don't want to ruin that for anybody not in the trailer I thought it was really funny and really well done and like to me classic Lonely Island like hyper absurdist musically oriented just a very funny tight sketch idea inside of the movie that I really laughed at and apparently it was almost cut yeah I'm glad they didn't do that and they wanted to replace it with something more similar to the montage from the original.

48:32Oh, interesting. Okay. I thought, even though this was spoiled, Frank Drebin Jr.'s body cam story and getting really sick in the car because of the food that he eats is gross. But like so naked gun. Like perfectly naked gun. I really wish I didn't know anything about that sequence because I really would have loved it. I also, the hardest I laughed in the whole movie was near the end when there's a showdown between Neeson and Danny Houston and Neeson punches Danny Houston in the stomach. Yes, so good. And his reaction, what Danny Houston says and how he responds to it is dumb and beautiful and why I will always watch a movie like this.

49:16Any other moments or memorable gags that you guys liked? I love when they have Kevin Durant in the fake hospital and then all the walls fall and they get him to admit to the crime and then they ask Liam Neeson, Frank Drebin Jr. how he was able to do this. And then those doors, those walls fall down and they catch him and then it happens again to Liza Koshy. It's very funny. That part was very funny too. Great little Mission Impossible fallout call out for us, Amanda. I enjoyed, I thought Pamela Anderson really was very funny. She was. And very game and like the jazz stuff was pretty funny but the taking the chair is just like really stupid and like, you know, and keeps playing.

49:54It's really funny. Yeah. There's a lot of good moments like this and memorable stuff and, you know, to the point you were making about Happy Gilmore 2, this is another movie that when you just put the joke on X.com in six months, it's going to be funny. You know, it's like this movie can also be kind of pulled apart and dissected. And I'm glad it exists. And I'm glad that Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson have found love together in real life. Sure. How wonderful for them. Yeah. I immediately thought it was a bit leading up to the release of this movie. Like, we can't know. Yeah. So you think this is a stunt?

50:26I don't think it's a stunt. No. I often feel this is, this does not apply to Tom Cruise and Anad Armas, which if you'd like to talk about that, Craig, we can. I know that's material. But everyone else, it's like, I think that there probably is something romantic going on. I do think they also just have to be in the same place, like, a lot right now and have for the last six to nine months. So I don't think it's a, you know, like a normal, like a civilian relationship. But I believe it. You know, we'll check in in a year. Okay. You know? But that doesn't mean it's fake. Yeah. You believe in their love?

51:01Sure. I don't want to yuck anyone's young. Good. Okay, that's nice. I hope they're both very happy. Are people going to go see this movie? Well, the tracking was, I think, around$20 million. That's pretty good. That's good. It is good. What was the budget? Do we know? I think it was$42 million.

51:18I don't know. I mean, young people go to movie theaters, and old people are the ones that kind of don't. Right. It's true. This will be a good test. You know, people like my parents, often when movies come out that they want to see, the number one thing I hear from them, I'll just wait until it comes out on the street. Yeah. I do think this movie, and this is a problem with comedies in general that we can get into, it is very hard to make them feel theatrical. This is a really fun movie theater going weekend. In addition to, you know, you've got second weekend of Fantastic Four, you've got Together, the new horror movie with Dave Franco and Alison Brie, which I liked.

51:52And you've got The Bad Guys 2, which is an animated hit that is getting a sequel that I'll be seeing with my daughter on Saturday. Oh, that's cute. So, to me, this weekend that the movie is like looks like what I remember. You know? Something for everybody. Yes. It's spread out. All three of these movies are pretty good. I assume Bad Guys 2 is good. It's gotten good reviews so far. And there's not a$180 million movie that needs to make $700 million for it to break even and we don't have to have that discourse. And everything can just be like pretty good and you can have a nice time and then go home.

52:26And I hope they all win. I hope everybody has a lot of fun. My one thing with this is like it's not necessarily guilty of any of the legacy stuff that we whinge about. It doesn't commit any of those sins. But it is still not original. And it is still using the exact same structure which works in its favor and the exact same style. In fact, an actor with the initials LN is the star of this movie. And I don't feel bad about it, but I would have preferred ultimately an original comedy from a strong writer director and an exciting new comedy star. And this is kind of the opposite of that. So it's not a crisis.

53:16It's exciting that it's here. My concern is that if it is successful, that the takeaway will be we should make a new top secret and we should make a new hot shots and we should just remake funny spoof movies and just only do those and not give exciting comedy voices a chance. And I know that there's some conflict there too because some comedians, you know, Bill was talking about this with Matt on his show recently. Why would Shane Gillis want to make a$40 million movie comedy when he could bank half a million dollars over a long weekend on a tour? Right. I get it. Yeah. Spending one to two years developing a movie, getting notes from studio executives, risking the movie being terrible and flopping, or he can just go on tour, have a podcast, make his own TV show, and make more money.

54:04It's completely logical, and yet, obviously, this is a movie podcast in my favorite movies, but there is still something about being minted in a movie that is unlike anything else. If you make Sinners, people will never forget. you will be able to say for the rest of your life I was a part of something that was a phenomenon that touched so many people and had a kind of mass cultural expansion so I do I feel like it's going to swing back you do I do do you? I don't know because I I never believe that the the right lessons will be taken from this and I like I I had a perfectly nice time at the Naked Gun I thought it was pretty funny like once we stop recording I will quite literally never think about it again.

54:52And so I worry that many people will be like, people will go, people will see it, people will have a nice time. And then the lesson will be, let's just do like refillable things that you don't ever have to think about again instead of making something original, something worthwhile, something that, because that is a lot harder. There are a lot of uncertainties. There are a lot of things that don't hit. and the theater business is not in, or the studios are not favoring, like taking any sort of risk, so. Yeah, unfortunately, I think comedy movies are no longer the cultural center of humor. And if I asked you to tell me your favorite comedy quote from the 2020s from a movie, I bet you couldn't even give me one.

55:41However, if I said, name 10 memes right now from the last five years, Oh, kombucha girl. Homer Simpson going back into the hedges. Jennifer Lawrence saying, what do you mean on Hot Ones? That's how people speak in memes now. I mean, us growing up. What's kombucha girl? You don't have a kombucha girl meme? No. The one where she's making it two faces. Oh, she's having kombucha. She's deciding if she likes it or not. I know her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul Rudd on Hot Ones. Look at us. Who would have fucked? That is how we speak. Now, those are the jokes that, even on the fantasy show, when we tried to relate to the audience or come up with a reference that applies to whatever we're talking about, We usually speak in memes, however, which is just horrific.

56:19However. I don't know. There's, you know, there's art everywhere if you look for it. Yeah. Look at you. Andy Warhol over here. It's why I'm nervous. I know. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were on the town and Seth was saying that he thinks all it's going to take is one big smash comedy hit to kind of revive the genre. I don't know if I agree. I think one smash hit could come, do really well. And I don't know if that means others will follow because I just inherently think it has become so splintered and niche now, people's interests in comedy. And it used to be all you had was, oh, it's 2005, we have the 40-year-old version, we're gonna go, even if this isn't exactly what I want or tailored to me or whatever, we are all going to communally have a relationship and interact with this movie.

57:04And now it's like, there are 10 TikTok people on reels, on TikTok or whatever, that give me my exact brand of humor that I love. and so why would I need to drive and spend$30 at the movies for a movie that might not even be for me? Do you guys ever think about dying? Is the line from a studio comedy of the 2020s. Oh, what is that from? The most successful movie of 2023. It's called Barbie. Yeah, weird Barbie. Barbie's a great example. Screaming about cellulite. Of something that we're not doing is putting big stars in comedy. My job is beach. And having good directors with good writers make them and then supporting them.

57:40Barbie's the only one. Because I agree, that's obviously a huge hit. But that is, I mean, that's a little bit of a, I mean, that is massive IP. Yeah. So it's in a different bucket a little bit. But I loved Barbie and I think it is fantastic. It's just a great example of how you need to kind of game the system in 2025. You need to be able to locate material that can get made and find a way to elevate it. Now, the Naked Gun, I would say, doesn't elevate it. It does a really good job of replicating it. Barbie was an elevation of something that we didn't think was possible because there's just so many talented people applied against it.

58:09I still would have preferred an original Greta Gerwig movie, to be honest with you. I don't know if she could have gotten one of those made at that scale with those stars. It's still number three on my Greta Gerwig list. Right, exactly. So, it's such an interesting thing because, one, everything in Hollywood is cyclical. Everything always comes back. There are nine genres. They all have moments that circle back over the 120-year history. So, I do think that there's a version of this that can happen. The person that is the most important person of this century in movie comedy is Judd Apatow for a variety of reasons.

58:38Obviously, he had an enormous success. But when you look at the origins of his career, started out as a stand-up comedian, working alongside Adam Sandler, then became a writer to the stars, wrote for stand-up comics, then went into the salt mines of television, working with Ben Stiller, working with Gary Shandling, learning about the inside of the business slowly, slowly, slowly, develops into more of a writer-producer who identifies talent and helps build talent up. And he became a kind of Svengali. We need someone like that. To me, it's not one hit. One hit I don't think will change everything.

59:10We need a person who is a culture-changing person. He also is happening alongside Todd Phillips and Adam McKay and a number of other voices who were crucial to this new generation of people. But Apatow was the one who was like, he was the 800-pound gorilla. And we don't have one right now. And I don't know if we can have one. It was interesting to hear Seth talk about the fact that, Seth MacFarlane talked about the fact that he just can't get a movie made that he wants to get made. and he has been one of the money factories of American comedy for the last 25 years. The shit that he created 20 years ago still has an audience and is successful.

59:46Whether or not the people who helped do this are also responsible for its downfall, whether or not like Family Guy's success led to a smaller theatrical stake, I guess you could argue that. But I, and I don't have any picks for who this person is because I don't know enough about who is at the bottom and wants to go to this place. But like, even two years ago, you might've been like, oh, Quinta Brunson, she's interesting. She created Abbott Elementary. She's got the requisite experience. She has a kind of like bigger things in front of her, but I don't, I don't get the impression that she wants to like take over.

1:00:18I think she wants to do her stuff and that's it. And I think you need a kind of unhealthy ambition to shift, to force the industry to make a change like this. So I don't want to be doom and gloom about it, but I, I hope that something like this comes along soon because we're hungry for it, you know? And I don't think you need to sacrifice memes at the altar of a movie. We can have both. There's no reason why we can't have both. Like we always think of these things in binary. Well, it's like, well, people only like things like this now. I just don't think that's true. You know, I think that there's a way to have both things at the same time, the same way there can be a successful comedy TV show, which we also don't have a lot of at the moment.

1:00:53Right. So I think just got to keep banging the drum. Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. I don't know where that person's going to come from. I think in the 90s and 2000s, I think you had these kind of natural pipelines of talent. I think scarcity drives demand where SNL and stand-up were kind of the only places where you could identify talent and put them in a movie. And also it was the only thing that people at home could watch. And so it was like, oh, we all like this guy, Will Ferrell. We all like this guy in a stand-up. He's in a movie now. SNL, which I love dearly, does not have that same cultural cachet.

1:01:28Even though it's still doing quite well, There's just so many other ways to have, to consume comedy and humor. There are so many funny people out there. I don't know how you're going to be able to find five of them and build your Apatow universe and put these people in movies. And I, like an example I always think about is like, I was watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin two weeks ago with some friends on a trip. The movie is still very funny. I think it holds up in most ways. but the humor itself I'm kind of like I see this humor online a lot like they're like somebody like Veronica is cool I don't know if you know who that is she's the the love interest in tires she's hilarious she has a TikTok channel she's great she's making tons of jokes I think she has great comedic timing there's 30 of those people online and so I'm just like I don't know if people need to go to a movie to get that feeling anymore because it's everywhere and people are doing it at a very high level they're just making it on their own yeah I'm kind of with him you know I don't think comedy is bad now I think there's great comedy there's almost too much of it it's everywhere and it's personal but it's yeah it's not it's not scripted it's not in movies and it's not really in TV either which I think is like an important point so the point that you're making then the movies that have been successful in the last 5 to 10 years have been eventized right large premium format action movies theatrical or horror which is like you have to have a moment there's a moment an experience you're having you can't have anywhere else even though you can get comedy in all of these places I do think that there is a communal experience that is lost that is really fun with comedies you know like you guys are talking about that screening of Naked Gun like you can get it at a stand up comedy show but otherwise you can't get it looking at your phone I just think I think it's incumbent on studios to try to make hay of this because when a movie like this takes off it's very profitable like these movies don't cost 250 million dollars to make and me continuing to hear like well the financial incentives are not there for a movie like this makes no sense.

1:03:26Like, the budget is going to be significantly smaller on a movie like this than on any other genre except for horror. And so I don't know. I guess I'm just flummoxed. I asked you to do an exercise. I asked you to pick what you thought were the 10 most significant movie comedies of the last 25 years. Yeah. How did you feel about this? It was an extremely fun exercise. I had a tough time whittling it down to 10. and I'll read you my 10. It might be colored by the fact that I'm a 30-year-old white guy. So I don't know. Yeah, I was going to say, did you, like, what was your methodology here? Well, Sean gave me kind of a prompt, which if I can, it was like significance, staying power.

1:04:07Success. Success. So I kind of tried to boil that all together. And then he also said, just also personally what you love. So in no particular order, my top 10, Anchorman, Superbad, The Hangover, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Wedding Crashers, Bridesmaids, stepbrothers, meet the parents, and mean girls. It's a very 30-year-old white guy list. I was very nervous that you weren't going to say mean girls. You saved that one for last, but that one is important. I would probably add Girls Trip to that. That's also one of the... Okay. Yeah. I guess you could add Barbie just in an effort to continue to widen the aperture of who gets to participate in movie comedy.

1:04:53I'm sure there are some other 21 Jump Street comes to mind yeah movie I like I yeah personally I feel like the staying power of that movie has not stuck around as similarly as movies like I don't know Superbad Hangover 40-Year-Old Virgin Game Night yeah love Game Night but I don't know if it's stuck around later I agree I would put Zoolander on the list but that's a personal and that's a generational thing did you have a trailer like a fake trailer at the beginning of your screening starring Liam Neeson. No. So we did. Spoiler alert, if you are going to see Naked Gun and don't want a joke spoiled for you.

1:05:33Before the film, they did basically like a Save the Children commercial, but it was like Save the Comedy. And it's Liam Neeson direct to screen being like every time you buy a movie ticket, like a comedy is saved. And then they did honor like a bunch of other movies. Zoolander was in it. Clueless. They had to go back about 30 years to really get the full breadth. But it was about buy a movie ticket, see a comedy. That's very funny. We didn't have that. It was very, very funny. And then at the very end, they list in the way that here are some other organizations you can donate to, just a bunch of comedies.

1:06:10I think everything... I don't know whether Meet the Parents was on that list. It was. It was. Okay, you noted. All right, so were all of your movies represented? Most of them. The only other movie I thought about adding was Ocean's Eleven. Do we count that as a comedy? It's funny, but no. But I like where your heart is. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at a list of the highest grossing live action comedies of all time. And I think this tells you the tale of why we don't get a lot of comedies in the vein that we're describing. Number one is Barbie. Number two is Deadpool and Wolverine. Number three is a movie called High Mom, which is a Chinese comedy film that made$840 million.

1:06:43Number four is Deadpool 2. Number five is Deadpool. Number six is Detective Chinatown 3. also a Chinese movie. Number seven is Men in Black 3. Number eight is Men in Black. Number nine is The Hangover Part 2. Number 10 is The Mermaid, another Chinese film. So the only pure original comedy there is Hangover. Right below that at number 11 is Ted. Yeah. Which I would say is another movie that belongs on the list. I thought about it. Which was really funny. It was a funny movie. I think that's the loudest theater I've ever been in was the first Ted. That movie, which I didn't love, I enjoyed. But it's funny.

1:07:15Oh, I think that came out when? 2012. Yeah. Yeah. I was a teenager. I mean, it hit home. We loved it. It's a big movie. That show is pretty funny too. The new Ted TV show that no one has seen. But now, Seth and Farhan said it might not get made because the bear is so expensive. Yeah, CGI. It's tough. It's not ideal. Anything else that we didn't mention or that Craig didn't have on his list? If they substituted just like, you know, like an animatronic or just like a bear talking for like a stuffed bear as Ted, I would still think that was funny and I would watch. so maybe they could save money.

1:07:49If what did? Like, if they made Ted going forward just with, like, one of the large stuffed FAO Schwartz bears, which are not expensive, but... Which are not cheap, but are less expensive than CGI. Like, I would still laugh. That's just a free idea for Seth MacFarlane. We'll sign Seth that note. Looking at this list of top ten, does it, like, what does it tell you about right now? I think we're in a moment of cultural confusion where the previous five years were defined by a certain level of sensitivity or perceived sensitivity in the culture where you were not allowed to enjoy the hangover or wedding crashers the same way that you did.

1:08:29I was as guilty of this as anybody. And because of some of the style of humor or who was being at the center of the story and now like obviously things kind of sociopolitically have kind of swung back the other way where there's like less of a concern about offending people. unless you're buying American Eagle jeans well I'm glad I didn't have to have that conversation on this podcast I know you had it on jam session I think that probably portends an openness to returning to like an Aptovian Todd Phillips style comedy sensibility right now back then it's just like it wasn't that different from how it was in the 70s 80s and 90s you know it was like loud obnoxious white guys who were dumber than everybody and we all laughed at them.

1:09:15And that was true for Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. You know, Eddie Murphy was not white, but he was also doing a version of that. The kind of like fast talking, getting into big trouble comedy star was pretty significantly consistent for 25 to 30 years in movies. And now I feel like everybody's like, ah, I don't know. Who's the right person to center in our story? Does it have to be a tall white guy? And yet here we are talking about of Liam Neeson and Adam Sandler movies as the big comedies of the year. So maybe it means that that also is swinging back a little bit. I also think stars used to factor in comedies as part of the movie star playbook.

1:09:52And I'm not sure they're really doing that anymore. I really respect Jennifer Lawrence trying with no hard feelings. The movie I think is good. I agree. Yeah, and she's very funny. She's very funny. To me, that was like, that's actually what makes her super special as an actor is that she can do that and no other like ingenue prestige actress can do that. But maybe we just don't know. Emma Stone can. She can. And Emma Stone did. She's gotten away from it. She has. She did, but that's, you know. Because what often happens, you do your comedies and then you take yourself more seriously. You want to start expanding your resume.

1:10:20But I would love to see Timothee Chalamet and Florence Pugh and Michael B. Jordan making comedies as just part of the overall resume they're building. Robert De Niro made comedies. He did. He can be, you can be one of the best actors ever and make a comedy. Michael B. Jordan did make that awkward moment, you may recall. Whew. Yeah. Remember that movie? I do remember that. Who was the third? It was Miles Teller, MBJ. Who was the third fellow in that movie? Zac Efron. Wow. There we go. That's all credit to Sam. All right. Stacked cast. Nice job, Sam. Any closing thoughts on the state of comedies?

1:10:54We're so back. We're fucked. It's happening. I'm nervous. I'm nervous about it. Are you more nervous than you were a week ago? Yeah. Having not seen these movies? Yeah. Oh, no. I'm nervous because a lot of people were like, Happy Gilmore 2, pretty good. Okay. I'm like, we're screwed. Wow. Shots fired. Yeah, it comes for us all. Thank you to Craig. Listen to him on the Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast, which is heating up now that draft season is nearly upon us. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. We'll be back next week with a summer movie mailbag. We'll see you then.

1:11:39Thank you.