Tag: children

194 – The Adventures of Ragtime

Ragtime or bad time?

Tim wisely goes absent with leave as Jen invites Bitter Karella to the necropsy of a dire children’s film from 1998, The Adventures of Ragtime.

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Should you wish to self-harm, you can watch the full movie (with helpful timecode) at Showcase Entertainment’s channel on YouTube.

Is it crass to post this screenshot of Shelley Long from the movie? Yeah, probably. Has that ever stopped us?

See photos of Ragtime at a very Web 1.0 site that his caregivers appear to have left up as a memorial to the tiny stallion.

For some more grown-up yet still juvenile horse content, listen to our Hot to Trot episode! 

184 – Clifford

Pure evil or sublime comedy? The two are closer than you might think.

Jen and Tim come to a tenuous agreement about a once universally loathed Martin Short comedy, Clifford. Also, Tim punches down ruthlessly on a twenty pound miniature pinscher [who could lose a little weight].

Reggie, an asshole minpin
This dog is an asshole.

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The Slate article about Martin Short that riled everyone up may be found here, but if you want to skip right to the synchronized swimming sketch from SNL, you can watch it on Vimeo. 

The Vulture oral history of the making, the release, and the eventual cult fandom around Clifford is as exhaustive a history of the film as one may be expected to tolerate.

DNA specialists identified the Boy in the Box as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, 65 years after his death (be careful if you search for info on the case; the police distributed postmortem photos shortly after he was found in an attempt to generate leads).

Tim is beside himself that Clifford is not this movie.

While Clifford is the exception, why not check out one of our several other episodes about traumatizing children? Or look at this awful little kid from Woodchipper Massacre?

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!

152 – Spaced Invaders

Spaced Invaders key art

Jen and Tim enjoy a silly 1990 comedy with startlingly good practical effects, Spaced Invaders!

Hear the whole thing at our Patreon!

Director/writer Patrick Read Johnson’s long-gestating nostalgia trip, 5-25-77, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 22, 2022. In the meantime, you can read Karina Longworth’s review of a cut of the film in 2008 from the now-defunct Sprout Blog. The director left a comment rebutting some of her criticism there (thank you, Internet Archive).

This Slate article sums up the probable facts behind the “War of the Worlds mass panic” myth quite well.

The song from Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds that Jen was talking about is “The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine.” Ulla!

151 – Return to Oz

Tim and Jen start spooky season early with a shockingly dark release from Disney, Return to Oz.

Jen forgot to mention that the main reason the film does not resembles the MGM film from 1939 apart from the Ruby Slippers™ is because all of the trappings of the MGM version were and are copyrighted. In fact, Disney had to shell out to use that plot device in the film. Hence, while Walter Murch’s desire to make a movie closer in spirit to the L. Frank Baum material is admirable, it most likely played second fiddle to the demands of copyright law.

Additionally, the movie finally made a profit from a 1949 re-release, not “like twenty years later” or whatever Jen glibly claimed.

Animator Doug Aberle made a video where he talks about his process for animating the demise of the Nome King. Plus, he includes interviews with the late Will Vinton.

If you want more details about the drama between Sarah Polley and Terry Gilliam, you can read an excerpt from her memoir here.

138 – Short Eyes

Shawn Elliot, Ken Steward, and Jose Perez in Robert M. Young's Short Eyes (1977)

Tim and Jen get locked in with a raw adaptation of Miguel Piñero’s sensational play, Short Eyes!

Hear the whole thing on Patreon and get access to more than 50 bonus episodes!

Go here for a bio of Piñero, the trailblazing Nuyorican playwright, as well as a list of his works. 

BTW, there’s a documentary called The Survivor’s Guide to Prison that is slick, well made, and narrated by Danny Trejo as well as many other cultural icons. You can watch it for free with ads on Tubi, or on Kanopy with a library card. In other words, it’s perfect for sending to your normie friends who haven’t been hipped to the cause of prison abolition yet! 

NYC Urbanism has historical information on the setting of Short Eyes, the Manhattan Detention Complex, aka The Tombs.

If you missed our episode on The Jericho Mile, why not give it a listen? It’s free!

098 – Willow

Warwick Davis in Willow

Mike Rosen joins Jen and Tim to discuss that movie you really liked as a kid and then revisited as an adult and realized it wasn’t that good. That’s right, it’s Willow, from 1988! George Lucas perhaps wisely handed off directing duties to Ron Howard, but results are still mixed at best.

Speaking of Ron Howard, Jen and Tim depart significantly on his legacy as a director. We briefly discussed his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard in our Antichrist episode.

Tim alluded to the very fine podcast 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back. If you’d like to hear their take on the Shadow Moon series, start here!

For another fantasy misfire, try our episode on Krull!

084 – Vile Pervert: The Sequel and Guilty

Jen and show MVP Mike Rosen dissect some disgusting works by a disgusting person, Jonathan King. That’s right, he won’t go the fuck away! Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 50 bonus episodes!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 50 bonus episodes!

If you can stomach it, here are our earlier episodes about Jonathan King’s revolting outsider works: we looked at the original Vile Pervert in episode 009, and the unasked-for sequel in episode 38!

038 – Vile Pervert Redux

Jonathan King poses with Margaret Thatcher, date unknown
Two bad people

Mike Rosen returns to vituperate Jonathan King’s unasked-for sequel to Vile Pervert: The Truth Awakens!

Listen to our discussion of the original Vile Pervert: The Musical here.

He’d probably tell you that they were bought and paid for, but we still recommend looking at victim statements from Jonathan King’s 2001 trial. We will also remind you that he served four years of a seven-year sentence for sexually abusing teenage boys. He continues to bitch about how unfairly he was treated to this day (we did yet another episode on him in 2020, because he keeps making videos).