Month: April 2023

169 – Dick Tracy

Warren Beatty and Madonna in Dick Tracy (1990)

Paul Jay returns to talk with us about Warren Beatty’s greatest love! No, not women— by all evidence it’s Dick Tracy. Also, we are interrupted by a dog.

View one of Beatty’s rights-maintaining Dick Tracy specials, in which he’s interviewed by Leonard Maltin while in character as his favorite comic strip detective.

We’ve talked about Warren a couple of times before on the show— once with beloved recurring guest Sean Morris for Bulworth, and once to inagurate the whole dang podcast with our Ishtar episode!

A small shaggy black dog sleeping on an ottoman. He is very cute.
Moose!

168 – Body Slam

Sam Fatu and Roddy Piper in Body Slam (1986)

With Tim AWOL (Absent With Overabundant Lego), Jen invites wrestling expert Darren Herczeg to discuss a half-assed wrestling comedy, Body Slam!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

You can read Dirk Benedict’s idiotic whining about the female Starbuck over at the Internet Archive. 

For a peek into the primordial soup of reactionary mass media, read this piece about Wally George and his UHF televison show, Hot Seat. More proof that the worst place God created is not the Nefud desert, but Orange County, California.

Speaking of shock TV, watch a representative clip of The Richard Bey Show! Bey later claimed that his show was cancelled because he aired an interview with Gennifer Flowers, one of several women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. #ClintonBodyCount

Finally, don’t forget to follow the world’s greatest Instagram account, a veritable museum of weird gimmicks and jobbers, @hamandeggers. Our special guest Darren does, so shouldn’t you?

167 – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

Tommy Rettig in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Jen and Tim talk about a truly weird musical fantasia from the mind of beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss— The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

So much of this episode wouldn’t exist without the superlative work of Seuss biographer Brian Jay Jones. His book Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisl and the Making of an American Imagination highlights Geisl’s creativity and enduring legacy in popular literature. Jones talked in depth about the life of Dr. Seuss on the Our American Stories podcast (listen to our show first though lol).

The charming animated short Gerald McBoing-Boing may be viewed on YouTube.

Jen mentioned the Australian child murderer (and worse) Mr. Cruel— see the legitimately terrifying police sketch of the suspect at Wikipedia, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

And yes, we highly recommend that calendar Rifftrax short we mentioned, whether you like to laugh, or if you’re just genuinely confused about how to use a calendar!

166 – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Russell Crowe aboard the Surprise in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Tim and Jen discuss a beloved epic whose time has come, the Peter Weir masterpiece Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World!

The GQ article mentioned appears to be yet more proof of the widespread affection for this film.

The doctor who pioneered sanitary practices in medicine was Ignatz Semmelweiss, although these ideas didn’t take hold until the time of Joseph Lister. Additionally, other medical men (like Oliver Wendell Holmes, for one) arrived at similar notions independent of Semmelweiss. The latter, in fact, refused to publish anything about hand washing because he believed these practices to be “self-evident.”

If you want to read about Grover Cleveland getting surgery at sea and see some icky-yet-illumunating photos, the New York Academy of Medicine has a good blog post about it. If you want more, the book Jen mentioned is called The President is a Sick Man, and author Matthew Algeo answered questions about it in this C-SPAN presentation.

And finally, if you love Russell Crowe as much as we do, listen to our chat about an early starring role for him, Virtuosity!