Watch Party: Splash

Meg and Jessica rewatch 1984’s iconic mermaid romp Splash: a fairytale that examines true love and demands a major suspension of disbelief. We recommend! 5 stars.

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Love,
Meg and Jessica

Transcript

[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s.

[00:18] Jessica: I am Meg and I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live and where we.

[00:28] Meg: Podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and.

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: Okay, so we're doing a watch party for Splash.

[00:39] Jessica: Splash. Yes. And. And I know that I had very strong comments without having seen it in a long time, and I still have strong comments.

[00:50] Meg: Great.

[00:50] Jessica: But they may not be exactly the same ones.

[00:53] Meg: Well, that's the purpose of the watch party.

[00:55] Jessica: Indeed it is.

[00:57] Meg: And no spoilers. I mean, we're about to get into it, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fascinating.

[01:05] Jessica: I thought it was enjoyable. Here's the thing. Frequently those light movies of the 80s, my attention wanders. It doesn't keep me engrossed. And I was engrossed through the entire film. Film. There's maybe one moment where I was like, snooze, but for the. But it was great.

[01:28] Meg: Can't wait to hear the snooze moment.

[01:30] Jessica: No, no, it's not anything momentous. It's just, you know, and. And I have a. Something to say about it, about what made it move. Well, that's something I did not remember when we first talked about it. So I'm. I'm excited to discuss.

[01:44] Meg: Awesome. Let's. Shall we start from the beginning?

[01:59] Jessica: Yes. Well, I have a few comments about the beginning. The beginning. So this is in 1984. This film splash was released, directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer.

[02:12] Meg: In the opening scene, it is a flashback to Tom Hanks youth in the 1960s. And he is on a boat with his parents. And his parents are awful or they don't love each other. They're bickering. There's not a. There's a lot of discord.

[02:33] Jessica: I didn't. That's interesting that you say that. I didn't see it as discord. I saw it as that really stereotyped, you know, like the dad is checked out and the mother is like, anxious and like, don't fall over well. Which was, by the way, not a bad idea considering the plot was.

[02:54] Meg: I thought that it was setting us up for the dysfunction of Tom Hanks and John Candy's characters. The fact that both of them really didn't quite understand how to do a relationship.

[03:09] Jessica: That's entirely possible. I thought they were. I didn't think they. The parents were awful. I just thought they were like uninspiring. In any way love or romantic way.

[03:22] Meg: So he has to escape into the water.

[03:24] Jessica: Yes. He's bored. And Freddie, John Candy, the child who's then John Candy, I think they're showing him as sort of a not quite bad apple, but he has no idea he's a naughty boy in the exact same way that he turned out to be as an adult in the beginning of the movie. So it's kind of like there's no growth. That's just what it is. And in the beginning of the film, just at the very, very beginning, so it opens. And how do we.

[03:57] Meg: The opening.

[03:58] Jessica: And how do we know that it's the 60s?

[04:00] Meg: It's a little sepia toned. Oh, the music they're playing. Yes, yes.

[04:05] Jessica: They're playing Woolly Bully.

[04:06] Meg: Yeah.

[04:07] Jessica: And when the music. When it begins, the film begins and I'm like, oh, it's about a mermaid. I'm like, why is Wooly Bully the opening credit music? So that was kind of a little jarring and odd. But of course, then it makes sense. And talk about people looking disenchanted. Boy, the band looked really checked out. They were like, what a terrible gig on the Staten island ferry or wherever they were. Oh, no, they're in Cape Cod. They were in Cape Cape. They're in Cape Cod.

[04:33] Meg: They were in Cape Cod.

[04:33] Jessica: Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[04:34] Meg: They're in Cape Cod. Yeah. Cape Cod is. Has imprinted on him as a child. He jumps overboard to, I believe, escape his family.

[04:43] Jessica: And. But I thought that when he jumps overboard, like, you see the flickers in the water of the fish. So there's a school of fish drawn to the water. Yes, he. There's a school of fish, like silvery fish going under the water. And then when he jumps in and he sees the Little Mermaid girl, he doesn't seem surprised. It's sort of like, oh, you. So my assumption was that we see the fish. He had seen her with the fish. All right, but.

[05:16] Meg: And then we flash. He's saved, by the way.

[05:20] Jessica: Yes, he's. He. And she's. She at first saves him.

[05:23] Meg: Yes, she does. Because he can't swim or breathe underwater. Or breathe underwater because he's not a fish. But when he's with her, he can. He seems safe, he seems comfortable. But then she saves him. And then the people on the boat go, boy overboard and, you know, come over. Yeah. All right. So then we flash forward and John Candy and Tom Hanks are brothers and they've grown up and they are working together as fruit importers produce.

[05:55] Jessica: Because there's A line where John Candy actually asks, do we also do vegetables? So they are produce importers, which was their father's business. So they're on the water yet again. They're at the docks.

[06:09] Meg: He's drawing. But in New York City.

[06:11] Jessica: In New York City, yeah.

[06:13] Meg: And I couldn't figure out where those docks were. It wasn't South Street Seaport, obviously, that's fish. But it's.

[06:20] Jessica: I think it was the fantasy of movie making. And because this movie, like, so, like every movie had them running around the city in locations that had nothing to do with each other. And you're like, how did you get from Columbus Circle to Wall Street? By turning the corner?

[06:36] Meg: No, that was a thing Billy and his friend Noam were watching for a while. And even they were like, what?

[06:43] Jessica: That doesn't work.

[06:44] Meg: Why would you go to Times Square if you're coming from Bloomingdale's?

[06:48] Jessica: What? Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, that's every. I think anyone whose city is shown in the movies a lot, it's always like, you idiots.

[06:57] Meg: This past weekend, Billie's friend Noam was staying with us and we also watched the Warriors.

[07:03] Jessica: No way.

[07:04] Meg: Which also makes absolutely no sense geographically in the city.

[07:08] Jessica: No, there was. I can't believe you're bringing up the Warriors. So I was doom scrolling, as per usual these days on Instagram. And randomly what came? Well, I guess not randomly, considering what we do and what I'm always looking up. But there's a clip of the original cast of the warriors now wearing vests similar to their warriors vests.

[07:31] Meg: Oh, fun.

[07:31] Jessica: In the subway coming up being filmed coming up out of the subway. People in the subway were like, oh, my God, it's the Warriors. And they were like, yeah.

[07:42] Meg: And now they're like 25 years old.

[07:45] Jessica: Yeah, it was so charming. Cause like, people instantly recognized it. Which reminded me of another sort of, you know, game that people are doing that they're filming and putting online is someone's interviewing people in, like a school or an office. And they say, what year were you born? And they say. And then they're like, what's Jenny's number?

[08:07] Meg: Yeah.

[08:07] Jessica: And they're like, what? 8675309? So I just chalked the warriors up to the same thing. I thought it was very cute.

[08:15] Meg: Back to Splash.

[08:16] Jessica: Oh, yes, that movie. That's the other movie.

[08:18] Meg: What did you think about Tom Hanks accent? It was very thick at the beginning of the movie.

[08:26] Jessica: I found it wrong and inconsistent and fluctuating and then gone.

[08:32] Meg: It was just bizarre.

[08:34] Jessica: It Was. It was not quite right. And John Candy is always so clearly from Chicago. And I think that Tom Hanks, his. His accent, he was trying to do New York, and then it became this odd Midwestern flat thing. Right?

[08:53] Meg: He just. He just kind of gave up. He just gave up.

[08:56] Jessica: Yeah.

[08:56] Meg: I don't know. Where is Tom Hanks from? Who cares? Who.

[09:01] Jessica: For some. I'm gonna look it up. For some reason, what popped into my head first was Chicago, then Michigan, and who knows? So we'll. We'll look it up.

[09:11] Meg: What did you think about Tom Hanks being able to take a cab from New York City to Cape Cod?

[09:17] Jessica: Okay, so let's. Let's roll back for a second. For those who do not know the movie, what happens is the. After the little boy is rescued in Cape Cod, cut to the New York City skyline. It says New York City 20 years later. And interestingly, later in the movie, he Sundays, I was eight when I went over. So they actually make him his own real age in the film. He's 28. He's. He's working. He's, you know, at his produce distribution company. And there's a guy who is there, like, my cherries are terrible. Where? My cherries. And I'm just like, jesus Christ. Like, why do you need the cherries so badly? Like, what, is there a cherry emergency? What happens? And he's like, they're slimy, and they're this. And then he's like, how about some bananas wholesale? He's like, that's great.

[10:09] Meg: Thanks.

[10:10] Jessica: I was like, that's just hilariously dumb. And why did you make that such a focal point for the entire first scene of this film? Very weird. But he's there. And then a sports car comes roaring up, and it's John Candy, you know, in his most. You know, like, he plays vulgarians so well, and he's, you know, lovable. Absolutely. But, you know, like, bumbling and. And, you know, in a velvet jacket. And turns out that, you know, the cherries have something to do with gambling that he was involved in. And he comes out of the car with stacks of Penthouse magazine saying, hey, my letter got into Forum. And I was just laughing. Cause I was like, I think that we even covered this on this podcast that, like, Forum was not, you know, it's. It's not anyone actually writing in a letter. So it was, you know, he's. He's. That guy.

[11:12] Meg: He's a perv.

[11:13] Jessica: He's a total perv. And Tom Hanks is. He goes into the office, you know, their office. And he's on the phone with his girlfriend, who breaks up with him on the phone. We never see her. And he's like, I never really loved her. Right.

[11:32] Meg: That is important.

[11:33] Jessica: Right. And he's like, I never loved her. But, you know, he's kind of bummed. And interestingly, the woman who plays their receptionist also played the receptionist in Grease. It was Dodie Goodman, of course.

[11:45] Meg: With the pencils in her hair.

[11:46] Jessica: Yes. Oh, my God, yes. And I was like, wow, Dodi Goodman, really, just, like five years later, just got cast in the same role. Good fa. Huh? And then they have to go to. And this is also kind of hilarious to me. Like, one of the dock workers. It's his wedding, like, the next day. And then they're having the wedding at the Plaza Hotel. It's this big, lavish wedding.

[12:06] Meg: Oh, by the way, maybe five different scenes were filmed near the Plaza Hotel. Did you notice? Near the. It was the Paris Theater. It was the fountain at the Plaza. It was the park. The entrance into the park, that's at the Plaza.

[12:22] Jessica: It's like, that was their shooting day.

[12:24] Meg: That was. But that's crazy that they could get that much done in one day. Or they just. I don't know if it was saving money or just like, you know, they got a bargain.

[12:34] Jessica: Yeah. Maybe their permit was like, you really gotta push 59th street and 5th Avenue. Like, really?

[12:40] Meg: It was what tourists. They cannot possibly be back at the Plaza. That is crazy.

[12:45] Jessica: Who knows? Maybe the Plaza was sponsoring it. Who knows? But there they are, having this really extravagant wedding for someone who seems to be a teamster. And I'm like this. And he's having sort of a breakdown because he has no love and everyone else does.

[13:04] Meg: And then he escapes to Cape Cod in a cab.

[13:07] Jessica: In a cab. He's like, I can't take it anymore.

[13:09] Meg: And I don't think you can do that.

[13:11] Jessica: There are so many films in which a taxi is taken in Metropolitan. They take a taxi from the Hamptons.

[13:20] Meg: I think the Hamptons, maybe, but Cape Cod? A cab's gonna drive you to Cape Cod.

[13:27] Jessica: He said, It's 300 miles, bub. And he was like, I'll pay it. And off they went.

[13:33] Meg: And off they went. And there we meet for the first time Eugene Levy, who is a fascinating character in this movie. He starts out as pretty clearly the antagonist he's trying to find. He's very paranoid and he's very jumpy.

[13:54] Jessica: And he's a twitchy little man.

[13:56] Meg: Yeah. And angry. Very quick to blow up. He's trying to Discover mermaids. He thinks Daryl Hannah is a mermaid and exists in the water and wants to find.

[14:08] Jessica: Well, he doesn't know that it's her yet. He just knows. He knows from lore of some kind. Does Tom Hanks ever say why he's going to Cape Cod?

[14:18] Meg: I think it just draws him right.

[14:20] Jessica: So he never says anything. All that we know is that's where he was. And he's like, I need to get to the island.

[14:26] Meg: Yeah, I need to get to the place where I, you know, we know that he had this formative moment when he jumped off the boat, but he doesn't articulate that.

[14:36] Jessica: He's dropped off in, quote, Cape Cod and he's on the beach. Which is where, like what? Which is where he sees Eugene Levy and two local yokels who were doing the whole you can't get there from here thing. And Eugene Levy's like, fucking incompetence. And Tom Hanks gets into a motorboat and the guy whose motorboat it is says, oh, I flooded it. I'm gonna go and get some equipment.

[15:06] Meg: That is really funny.

[15:07] Jessica: And he just leaves.

[15:08] Meg: He just jumps off the boat and.

[15:09] Jessica: He leaves Tom Hanks bobbing there, which is hysterical.

[15:12] Meg: And I did remember that. I knew that was gonna happen before it happened.

[15:15] Jessica: It's so silly.

[15:18] Meg: Can I say how beautiful the underwater scenes are?

[15:21] Jessica: Gorgeous.

[15:23] Meg: So we see Daryl Hannah as a mermaid. She is underwater. She's with the fish. She's in and out of a sunken pirate ship.

[15:32] Jessica: Because yet again, Tom Hanks can't stay in a boat. So he tumbles out of this boat too, yet again, about to meet his untimely demise. And we see Daryl Hannah coming to get him because obviously she is drawn to him and she's able to save him. So it's like, Tom, get a life preserver. Like work that out. But yes, it's beautiful.

[15:58] Meg: Absolutely beautiful. Her hair in the water. She must have had to hold her breath. I mean, I don't even know most of the movie. She's holding her breath and we see her bottom.

[16:12] Jessica: We see her naked bottom. Well, once she is no longer a fish tailed mermaid, we see her bottom.

[16:20] Meg: So he.

[16:20] Jessica: Now how does he get fished out of the water again?

[16:27] Meg: My memory is, I think she saves him, but he's kind of passed out. And when he comes to, he's on the beach and she's hiding in the dunes.

[16:36] Jessica: Yes, that's right. And then he's. Who are you? Where are you?

[16:39] Meg: Like in the dunes. And then she comes out of the dunes and she Is n naked with legs and a perfect bottom.

[16:47] Jessica: A perfect bottom, indeed. An enviable bottom.

[16:51] Meg: I will say so. And I remember that scene too where I was like, that's a bottom.

[16:55] Jessica: That is a good bottom. You can't argue with that, Botto. No, you can't.

[17:00] Meg: But rather than have like an in depth interaction with him, she jumps back into the water and. And swims away where she finds his wallet that fell out of his pants when he was almost drowning. And in the Wallet has his ID and his address, which is 25 Tudor. Tudor Place.

[17:22] Jessica: Tudor Place. So, intro. Okay, so that's the first of two instances. And in. In the same scene where it's like, okay, she finds his wallet and everything in it is as crisp and can be as can be and perfectly intact. What? Like. Like it. Nothing looks like it's even damp. It's. And then she's like, aha, I'm going to swim to the sunken ship where there are maps, pirate maps out where New York pirate maps that are paper and have been underwater for hundreds of years. And she already knows they're there. And she's like, I'm just going to unfurl this and it's gonna be in perfect condition. And her little friends and the turtle.

[18:10] Meg: Is like very like. You go, Daryl.

[18:13] Jessica: That was a really lovely interpretation that you did of giving him a motivation. He's like, he's the actor who's like, what's my motivation? That's my motivation. Okay, I'm gonna be egging her on here. And also, by the way, she's still an uninitiated mermaid. How she figures out New York. How she figures out anything from his driver's license. Oh, I don't know. I'm just saying. Look, there's the magic of movies and.

[18:47] Meg: There'S a lot of it is truly magical.

[18:49] Jessica: There's a lot of, you know, suspended disbelief.

[18:52] Meg: She shows up and this is another doozy of a scene. She shows up at the Statue of Liberty island and there's a tour guide and a bunch of tourists and she just walks up and she's naked as a jaybird. And when people notice her, they're. They almost keel over because she's very naked.

[19:16] Jessica: Which, you know, really struck me. Did it strike you at how like at the time, that kind of reaction, Although over the top it was like it was still funny because it was like, oh, yeah, a naked lady, like, that's a lot of nudity to sub now it would just be like, oh, that's just a. Like, you know, Lunatic or. Or a. Literally a hair's breadth away from what you see people walking down the street in. So you're kind of like, okay, all right, whatever.

[19:51] Meg: Well, yeah, yeah.

[19:52] Jessica: They lose their minds. And weirdly, they're also. They seem to be approaching her, like they're trying to get her to sign an autograph or something. They're like grabbing at her.

[20:00] Meg: Yeah. I mean, they're taking pictures of her. Flashing cameras at her. Yeah, no, there's definitely this sort of like paparazzi feel to it. And she's protected by the park rangers at the Statue of Liberty island. And they give her a big old shirt and then they don't really know what to do with her, so they take her to the police station. And then she, I guess, gives them the wallet. Tom Hanks wallet. And so they call Tom Hanks. And he instantly knows who she is. And he goes to pick her up and this is what I love so much. And now we're going to start talking about her character. Okay. She can't keep her hands off him. Everything she does is with absolutely no hesitation. So she loves him. So she just wants to kiss him all over him all just wherever, whatever. And he's like, okay, gorgeous lady. And they end up having. They almost have sex, like in the police station. And he gets her home. They have. I guess they definitely have sex in the. In the elevator and then in his apartment. And.

[21:09] Jessica: And by the way, because really, family movie, 80s, you know, that they're having like the elevator stops between floors. You know, there's a little scene in his bedroom where he's like, you're killing me. You're gonna put me in the hospital.

[21:24] Meg: And then he's about to go back to work and he was like, ah, I can stay a little bit longer.

[21:29] Jessica: But you see nothing. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, yeah. Just.

[21:32] Meg: It's just her. The openness of her expression. I mean, nothing. It's shame free.

[21:40] Jessica: It's really beautiful. It is amazing that she was able to just embody. And I think that's one of the reasons the movie was so popular, is that there is. She embodied so much innocence and joy that it was kind of impossible not to get swept up in it. It was very sweet.

[22:00] Meg: Yeah. There was nothing lewd about it. Okay. So now he does go to work. And when she is left alone, she learns English by watching hours. Oh, no, wait. Sorry, sorry, sorry. First, first she's watching his television. Television is a big, big thing. In this movie. In the first part of this movie, and she sees an ad for Anne Klein at Bloomingdale's. So.

[22:26] Jessica: And by the way, how great was the ad? Because it was clearly. Oh my God, an actual ad.

[22:31] Meg: Yes. They showed all these like 4Real New York City local ads. So she asked the doorman Bloomingdale's, like, she's. She can say that.

[22:42] Jessica: And she's dressed in one of his suits with his shirt and his tie and even his shoes.

[22:48] Meg: So she looks kind of Annie hall ish.

[22:50] Jessica: And she gets to Bloomingdale's and the minute that we see inside the store. Now, there was an article in the Times that I read recently from, you know, the Times Machine, the Way Back Machine, about how Bloomingdale's was a pickup joint and like, people would go like. But it was so, like, it was so popular and it was seen as the sophisticates place to be. It was, it was like, you know, the people who had a sweater tied around their shoulders, brunching, you know, all of that tortoiseshell glasses in the 80s, that that's where upwardly mobile upper middle class clientele would be. And mobbed. That's what. And so when the scene begins, that's exactly what it looks like. And I remember that, like you couldn't even get up to the makeup counter, you know, and she's looking at all these women being made up and she's like squeezing in as though she's trying to get a drink at a bar. So it's so packed.

[23:53] Meg: And she ends up at the Audio Visual Studio.

[23:57] Jessica: No, no, she goes to the clothing.

[23:58] Meg: Oh, sorry, sorry. First things first.

[24:00] Jessica: And there's a quintessentially New York character actress who says in a heavy New York accent, oh darling, no one's doing the Annie hall look anymore. Let's get you into something. And what I noticed. So do you remember how I said that I felt that the film infantilized her before? Like when we first talked about it and I was like. So one thing I noticed about her wardrobe in this movie is that she's only in pink and blue. They're infantile colors. They're the colors of innocence.

[24:35] Meg: They're like, sure, I'll go with you for a second. They're also very 80s coded. That turquoise blue, for example.

[24:44] Jessica: Yeah. Yes. It wasn't like receiving blanket blue. There's a lyric from remember Joe Jackson's song Stepping Out? And he goes, you dress in pink and blue just like, like a child, but an enter yellow taxi, turn to green and smile. And so that was in my head when I was like, oh, she's in pink and blue all the time. But. But of course she looks great. Cause she's Daryl Hannah and she's wearing pixie boots. The pixie boots were Chef's Kiss. Perfect. It was great.

[25:13] Meg: And she ends up at the Audio.

[25:16] Jessica: Visual store in Bloomingdale. In Bloomingdale's, which, P.S. i looked up did not exist.

[25:22] Meg: I was like, did they sell TVs in Bloomingdale's?

[25:25] Jessica: No, but she.

[25:26] Meg: In this movie, they did. And it's a wall of TVs. And she just sits there for hours and is watching tv. And she sees all these commercials. She sees Crazy Eddie commercial with the actual phone number.

[25:42] Jessica: And did you notice that in the ad, when the phone number comes up, it has a copyright stamp and it says, Copyright 1982 Crazy Eddie. On an actual ad. I was like, that was in ads. What?

[25:56] Meg: There's a Richard Simmons show that she watches. She watches game shows. She watches commercials. And that is how she learns English.

[26:06] Jessica: So what I was interested in is, you know, that that became a device that people used in movies for quite some time. The trope is the foreigner, the stranger, the whatever, learns what they need to learn from sitting in front of a TV for, let's face it, a remarkably short period of time. And, you know, the.

[26:29] Meg: The level of grammar.

[26:31] Jessica: Yeah.

[26:32] Meg: Soap operas. Or they start talking like game show hosts.

[26:36] Jessica: But she was as fluent as could be. Not a problem.

[26:39] Meg: Not a problem at all. And Tom Hanks, fortunately, when he gets home and he panics, his doorman, I believe, was Joe Grifassi, the actor who my teacher and grads. My professor in grad school knew Joe Grifassi. So I always like, oh, my God, it's Joe Grifassi.

[26:59] Jessica: Who frequently played doorman.

[27:00] Meg: Yeah.

[27:01] Jessica: That was like his sht. And cab drivers.

[27:03] Meg: He knew that she, of course, had gone to Bloomingdale. So that's why Tom Hanks is able to find her. Then a very weird thing happens.

[27:12] Jessica: Well, she. Her name.

[27:13] Meg: Yeah. And she's like. I don't know if I should say it. It's hard to pronounce in English. And she does it anyway, and she.

[27:23] Jessica: Sounds like a dolphin.

[27:24] Meg: It shatters all the televisions.

[27:25] Jessica: And in this wonderful fairy. Because, like, let's. Let's get back to. What is this? This movie is a fairy tale. In this fairy tale, no one has to pay for the TVs.

[27:35] Meg: Right.

[27:35] Jessica: Exactly. Okay. Oops. That happened.

[27:39] Meg: They go all over the city. I mean, to put it bluntly, they go like, let's hit the highlights. They go To Times Square. They go to what street?

[27:48] Jessica: Well, I looked this up as well. You'll be interested in this. So they're walking on Madison Avenue. She's saying that she wants to. Like, she has to. He says, you've got to choose a name that can be pronounced. And she says, oh, Madison. I like that. And he says, that's not a name. And I was like, you know what, Tom Hanks. You're right. So I looked it up. It's true.

[28:10] Meg: It was not a name until this movie.

[28:13] Jessica: Well, the first use of that name from census records was 1970. But there was no use, no real proliferation of this as a name until 1985, after the movie came out. And babies were then born. So you had a year. People went nuts for this name. And that seems to me to have been the thin edge of the wedge for all of these names, like Brooklyn, Madison, you know, Wisconsin, whatever. People are naming their kids Paris, Dubuque. So, yeah, she's named Madison.

[28:56] Meg: So they fall in love, and it's wonderful. But she does bring up the fact that she can't stay for that long. And she looks up at the moon and she says, basically, when the moon.

[29:07] Jessica: Is full, she can only stay a week. So when the moon is full or.

[29:11] Meg: Whatever, she has to go. And clock is ticking.

[29:15] Jessica: And there are a couple of other, like, magical fantasy realism, not even realism moments where, like, he says that he's always drawn. They're in the park, and he's always drawn to this fountain of a mermaid. And he's like, I don't really know why I like it. I don't even. Like, Mer. Like, I don't know what that's about. And she's like, I love you. I bought it for you. And it's. Not only is it in his apartment, but it's hooked up to a water source and electricity. It's fully functioning in his living room.

[29:43] Meg: And that is, by the way, a fictional fountain that does not exist.

[29:47] Jessica: It does not exist at all.

[29:49] Meg: What did you think of that amazing racquetball scene?

[29:53] Jessica: The best.

[29:54] Meg: Do you want to hear a fun fact that maybe you know already?

[29:56] Jessica: Yes, I do.

[29:58] Meg: John Candy showed up. He had stayed out all night long, drunk off his ass. He hadn't slept a wink. He did it in one take.

[30:07] Jessica: John Candy, from everything I've ever read about him, was basically perfect. The kindest person, amazing actor. He could show up and do ridiculous comedy and, you know, pathos. He was amazing. But what I loved about that scene is it's also when he stops Being a joke.

[30:33] Meg: Thank you.

[30:34] Jessica: And so his character is really interesting to me because he's the one that shows. He's the one character that shows real growth because he goes from being, you know, this gambling, porno, loving, you know, wannabe, slick playboy to being his big brother and really caring for him.

[30:58] Meg: And also, of the two of them, he actually does know something about love. Tom Hanks still doesn't. He's still kind of clueless about it. He's blind to what love is. And he clearly is incredibly drawn to Daryl Hannah. But he's also closed off. He's holding back. And John Candy is like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[31:24] Jessica: You go around once and you're lucky even if you don't understand it, if you have the opportunity to love somebody.

[31:32] Meg: So I loved that the truth about love was coming out of that character's mouth. Now, speaking of characters, I would like to talk about Eugene Levy, because his character, who, by the way, is. I mean, it's. There's this whole subplot that if we get into the details of it, it's ridiculous.

[31:51] Jessica: But here's what it is. It's another 80s trope.

[31:54] Meg: It so is. I was thinking, like, War games. Yes.

[31:57] Jessica: It's E.T. it's war games. It's. Anytime there's a problem, miraculously, the army is called. And by the way, the government. Shadow government is.

[32:09] Meg: Shadow government is ev. And shadow government is not gonna do good things to the magical creature.

[32:16] Jessica: Exactly. And so. But it's hilarious because they're just. What is the joke? Like, they go to the opening of an envelope. Like, they show up for anything. So they're, you know, ah, we have to go find the mermaid. As if anyone outside of that lab would believe that this should be funded. Like, it's a mermaid.

[32:36] Meg: Now back to Eugene Levy, who is not a member of the government, but does work with scientists and historians who are. So he's government adjacent. They're the big guys who are in charge. And he's kind of the guy who. Like, he knows what they're doing. He's in the know.

[32:54] Jessica: I remember the word. I was. I was searching for. He's a cryptozoologist.

[32:59] Meg: Okay.

[32:59] Jessica: And so he's looking for fantasy creatures.

[33:02] Meg: Right. And this is what I have to say.

[33:04] Jessica: He's like sort of part of some marine scientists group that's connected to the government, but he's like the one that everyone makes a joke out of.

[33:14] Meg: And up to this point, he is our main antagonist. And what we know about him is that he has been. Because we're told this, he's been obsessed with mermaids from when he was a little boy, just like Tom Hanks. And in Tom Hanks apartment, by the way, you see all these fish tanks. There's a huge fish tank in his office at the Fruit Emporium or whatever. But here they've gone about it very differently. Right. Somehow Eugene Levy has become a bit of an incel about it, and Tom Hanks has become a romantic about it. Their obsession with mermaids. So that's where we are at this point in the story. Very.

[33:57] Jessica: By the way, nice call on the incel because Tom Hanks got kissed by the mermaid. Eugene Levy. Never been kissed. Right, right.

[34:05] Meg: Okay. Well, we have to talk about the World Trade center restaurant scene.

[34:11] Jessica: Oh, yes.

[34:11] Meg: I mean, classic. With the lobster.

[34:14] Jessica: Yes. I had a birthday there with my.

[34:16] Meg: Friend Windows on the World.

[34:17] Jessica: Yeah.

[34:18] Meg: Daryl Hannah is served a lobster and she eats the whole thing through the.

[34:24] Jessica: Shell and all the tail through the shell.

[34:27] Meg: It's an incredible, incredible scene. Did you know that Daryl Hannah was a vegetarian and was not willing to do that?

[34:35] Jessica: So what did they make it out of?

[34:36] Meg: Mashed potatoes?

[34:37] Jessica: Interesting. Yeah.

[34:39] Meg: Fun fact.

[34:40] Jessica: I wonder where the shell was made of. Interesting. And again, being the fairy tale that it is. Like, a couple of people look at her askance and he's just like, well, that's different. Instead of like, I think that maybe we should go, because this is just not for people. Public viewing.

[35:00] Meg: Okay, so remember, there's this crazy plot about Eugene Levy knows that she's a mermaid, wants to expose her. How does he expose her? He wants to try and splash water on her. They're funny little scenes where he's splashing water on the wrong people.

[35:17] Jessica: And it's always the wrong.

[35:18] Meg: The same, wrong people, same couple. Every time it's hysterical. So every time we see Eugene Levy again, he's got a broken arm or he has a broken neck because he keeps getting attacked by the guy who he's throwing water on. It's hysterical. And then for some bizarro reason, they end up at a dinner for the President of the United States.

[35:41] Jessica: Yeah, the. Well, it's a dinner. It's actually. It's a fundraising dinner for a senator and the president is going to be there, which is even more like, why? What's the point?

[35:53] Meg: Just to make it government y or something?

[35:56] Jessica: Or just maybe something was edited out. Hard to say.

[36:02] Meg: In any case, there are protesters, there's paparazzi, there are many people to witness Eugene Levy finally throwing a bucket of water. Onto Daryl Hannah, and she turns into a mermaid. She is exposed. They whisk her away. Whisk her away. Because now they're going to figure out what the hell she is. And Tom Hanks doesn't.

[36:28] Jessica: Disappears.

[36:29] Meg: Doesn't come to her aid.

[36:31] Jessica: I was like, you know what? Fail.

[36:35] Meg: He does. He fails.

[36:37] Jessica: He fails. He fails. Not romantic.

[36:41] Meg: Not at all.

[36:42] Jessica: So, in fact, is Eugene Levy the worst guy around?

[36:46] Meg: Well, this is.

[36:47] Jessica: Or is it?

[36:47] Meg: Tom Hanks is when we learn this is what actually makes the movie a hell of a lot more interesting than we probably thought it was at the time, because we didn't understand these nuances. But there's a turning point for both of their characters. And Eugene Levy ends up being quite the hero, as does John Candy. Yes. And between the two of them, they are able to bring out the best in Tom Hanks and show him what love really is. And also Daryl Hannah, who, by the way, is now a fish in a fish tank. And she is brokenhearted and, like, her scales are falling off its own horrible.

[37:28] Jessica: Whoever did the special effects did a very nice job with her fishness.

[37:34] Meg: Yeah. God, she must have been pruny. Quite like. That's a lot to do. I heard that it was so hard to get the fishtail on that she would just have lunch in the fishtail.

[37:45] Jessica: Well, I have that photo that I'm going to send to you of her lying on a table with the rest of the cast and some of the special effects guys around her. By the way, just a quick moment. Cause we're talking about the fishtail. That wig that they gave her could have been a higher quality. What do you think?

[38:06] Meg: You thought she was wearing a wig the whole time, dude, when.

[38:09] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[38:10] Meg: She didn't just grow her hair out.

[38:11] Jessica: Dude, like, for real.

[38:13] Meg: Okay, I guess not.

[38:15] Jessica: Oh, my God. When I show you the photo, you'll be like, oh, yeah, that's what her hair really looked like. And when it gets wet, like, it really looks like acrylic, you know, like, it's. It's like a 14th street wig.

[38:28] Meg: Believe you, I was swept up in the fantasy of it all.

[38:31] Jessica: No, I love that you went there. So, yes, Eugene Levy. They're like, how do we get her out? No one can get in. And he's like, wait, I can get in. So they pretend that they're Swedish doctors who are coming to see her. And the way that they get in. And again, John, by the way, they're.

[38:50] Meg: In the basement of the American Museum of Natural History. The American Museum of Natural History. Has an evil basement, which is interesting to know.

[38:58] Jessica: Yeah, well, you know, you gotta be evil with fish somewhere, I suppose. And I'm sure you noticed that as they were walking to the evil basement, they were in whatever the fish. What is it? Ichthyology. Part of the museum was. So I was like, that's really spot on. And they get in because the guard who's like, you know, you're not the Swedish doctors. And he's like, I, you know. No, I. There, we're Swedish. He said, oh. And he speaks in Swedish and John Candy says something and they're like, what did you say? And from his porn, he's like, there's a lot of Swedish porn. And he said that I have a 12 inch penis. And for some reason in the ridiculous dialogue, it works. And he's like, oh, okay, fine. That's normal. Okay.

[39:48] Meg: There are lots of like, I mean, you know, the 80s comedy, harder har har things that they just had to slip in. So you're so. But ultimately, yes. I mean, and we don't have to tell the end. End of the movie. Maybe someone will watch it. Oh, come on. Okay, okay. I mean this in brief. Once she is saved, and now he knows that she's a mermaid. And he has been encouraged by his brother and Eugene Levy to embrace love. And he's like, all right, I'm all in.

[40:22] Jessica: So they're back in a. In a vehicle of some kind. And this is the chase where they go from col. Columbus Circle to Wall street in like two seconds by turning the corner, and they wind up at the Battery, right? And that's how she's going to enter the water again.

[40:37] Meg: First she says that she'll stay with him. She's willing to risk everything and sacrifice for love. She's going to stay. And just so you know the rules, once she stays, that's it. There's no going back, right? And she's willing to do it. But then remember the fucking government, the horrible government. And they're bringing tanks and they've got helicopters and she's on the pier and it's like she. They will never let her alone. She's not safe. She has to go. She has to go. So she dives in. Ugh. And they'll never see each other again.

[41:15] Jessica: Well, and she says, and he, she sort of says, like, will you come with me? And he's like, but Freddie, right? You know, he talks about his brother and she's like, she's understanding.

[41:25] Meg: She's completely understanding.

[41:26] Jessica: And she's just like, okay, I get it off. She goes.

[41:30] Meg: And then there's a moment where Tom Hanks just, like, has a moment and goes, I can't. I can't let her go away. And he jumps into the east fucking River. And at this point, Billy is watching and he's going. Cause he sort of dipped in and out. And he was like, they couldn't have filmed that actually in the east river, right? And I was like, absolutely not. There's no way they made those people jump into the East River.

[41:59] Jessica: There's a way stunt people went into the East River.

[42:03] Meg: I heard she did all of her own stunts really, really well.

[42:06] Jessica: Then Daryl Hannah needed a lot of hepatitis shots after she went in.

[42:12] Meg: And then the last sequence when they are under the water. It is so beautiful.

[42:21] Jessica: Yes, it is very beautiful. And they are swimming and swimming, and.

[42:25] Meg: Then you sing and they do the entire song.

[42:28] Jessica: It's a Rita Coolidge song.

[42:30] Meg: Yes, exactly. And they do the entire. It's like you're watching a music video of the two of them swimming to this Rita Coolidge song. It is so. I mean, if you're not crying, what is wrong with you?

[42:42] Jessica: And then they wind up in the distance. You can see her mermaid city all lit up. And that's where they're going. And it's lovely.

[42:51] Meg: It's very lovely.

[42:52] Jessica: But it's. Yes, it's a fairy tale. I, of course, then looked up exactly what was the original fairy tale. And as always, super dark. Super dark. And the Disney doesn't even touch it. You know, Ursula, the sea witch and all that. In the real original fairy tale, the little mermaid falls in love with the prince, and she does a deal with the sea witch where she can have legs, but she has to give her voice to the sea witch. And the way that the sea witch gets it is she cuts out her tongue and that's that. She has the voice now. But interestingly, if she stays on land, and I think it's like, gets the. The prince to marry her. It's not just that she has the prince, she gets immortality. So she's searching for immortality as well. And then the prince totally disses her and marries some princess. And she knows that if he doesn't go for her, she's gonna die. She's gonna turn into sea foam. And so she realizes that's it. She goes back into the water and she dissolves into seafoam. But then she becomes a sprite of the air. And so she does achieve immortality because of some other entity. That's it.

[44:16] Meg: Hans Christian Andersen Yeah, yeah.

[44:19] Jessica: And apparently there was something in his life like he had. He's had some unbelievable loss and that was the basis for that fairy tale.

[44:29] Meg: Thank you for that context. All right, do you want to hear what some of our listeners had to say about the most amazing movie that is Splash, y'? All? This is from Nick, who gave us the idea to do a watch party of it. Oh, my God. You guys need to see Splash again. Daryl Hand is 100% a full human character. And at the end, Tom Hanks leaves everything behind to follow her into the sea. Total reversal. Sniffs.

[45:00] Jessica: Aww.

[45:00] Meg: That's what he said.

[45:01] Jessica: Aww.

[45:02] Meg: And then I will probably cry when they sing this sadly Oscar nominated song. One Fine Day Love Came to Me, sung by Rita Coolidge, who was never heard of again. I had a Daryl Hannah picture on the wall in my room in high school. Interesting. He says that. That's what Nick said. I remember.

[45:22] Jessica: That's not on blast.

[45:23] Meg: The guy that I was dating, dating his friend would never stop talking about fucking Daryl Hannah and how gorgeous Daryl Hannah was and how Daryl Hannah was sensation. The epitome of the perfect woman where, you know, I'm like, okay, you don't have to keep talking about that.

[45:43] Jessica: Well, I was talking about the movie with Ruby today, and she said, don't you remember that there were rumors that she was a man? And I was like, really? She's like, yeah, because she was really tall. She had like, you know, like volleyball player body. She was, you know, very thin but very strapping. And she was right. There was. There's always a negative scuttlebutt when anyone is deemed too beautiful to be believed.

[46:08] Meg: Lovely.

[46:08] Jessica: And that was the thing that. Is Daryl Hannah actually a man? No. No, she isn't.

[46:15] Meg: This from Ben. Regarding Splash, I said, it doesn't hold up. But actually, I didn't even like it in the 80s. I was too young to see it in the theater, but my mom rented the video. But I watched it a few years ago, thinking, surely I'll like it now. And I thought it was boring. Who knows why? I'm trying to think of a movie that I did love in the 80s that I really don't like now. Oh, the Goonies. Just another conversation altogether. Yes.

[46:45] Jessica: You're like, say nothing. This is for later.

[46:48] Meg: Okay. But Ben did want you to know in particular that he was not a fan of Splash. This is what Jo has to say. Okay. The comedy and characters were broader, cartoonier and bawdier than I expected. I had remembered it as Princess Bride level But it's more like Caddyshack as far as sex and violence. Yeah. Yes. New York locations were a mixed bag, combining verisimilitude and totally made up stuff. But Tom Hanks living in Tudor City is spot on. The New York accents were uniformly terrible, especially Tom Hanks. What's the deal with this family produce business? Alan is dealing with slimy cherries, but he drives a BMW in the city and his brother drives a Trans Am. Are these guys mobbed up? Yes.

[47:34] Jessica: Yeah. In fact, we. There is a scene where the mob comes. Yes.

[47:39] Meg: Interesting things from Daryl Hannah's Wikipedia page that I did not know. She is autistic.

[47:44] Jessica: Yes, yes, yes.

[47:46] Meg: She has been married to Neil Young since 2018, and she once fled a hotel room through the fire escape to get away from Harvey Weinstein.

[47:57] Jessica: No. Well, and she also had that unfortunate relationship with Jackson Brown. I know, who probably came up to her kneecaps. He was a little, teeny, tiny man who was beating her up.

[48:09] Meg: Yeah. Okay. And then this from my mother, which is so special. I text her, did you watch Splash? And she goes, yes, sweet. But they cut out the controversial parts. I say, what controversial parts? She says, no, period or I missed it. I go, oh, mommy. The period scene was from Blue Lagoon.

[48:35] Jessica: Oh, my God, help me. Oh, help me now.

[48:38] Meg: Isn't she great, though?

[48:40] Jessica: That's adorable.

[48:42] Meg: Like watching all these movies that we tell her to watch. Waiting for the period scene in Splash.

[48:49] Jessica: If that fish can have a period. I'm tuning in all day, every day.

[48:54] Meg: I mean, it could happen. Like, that would be surprising for Daryl Hannah to get her period as a human pokey.

[49:01] Jessica: But here's the other thing. And I remember this being a question at the time. So at the end, he goes into Fishtown, right? And she's got her tail. What's, what's that sex life all about?

[49:14] Meg: Of course you're thinking that.

[49:15] Jessica: Well, wouldn't anybody? I think that's entirely true.

[49:19] Meg: I'm sure he's thinking that too. Well, I, well, she'll have to teach him a new ways to do things.

[49:24] Jessica: Okay, so here's the deal. I'll bet you anything I'm gonna look it up after we finish recording and I will bring it up next time. I will bet you anything that there's a Reddit thread on this that will be really rewarding. So I will get back to you with viewer thoughts.

[49:53] Meg: Well, that was so much fun.

[49:55] Jessica: Yes.

[49:55] Meg: I'm very glad we did that.

[49:57] Jessica: I enjoyed it. I, I was really surprised. I, I, I don't even know if I enjoyed it. I was engaged through the whole thing. The dinner, the fundraising president. Yeah, that's where I was like. But I understood that they needed it for the paparazzi because that's how she got on the COVID of the Post. Right.

[50:18] Meg: So, I mean, they didn't really need it, but sure. Okay.

[50:21] Jessica: I mean, the movie was just a cavalcade of devices.

[50:26] Meg: Very 80s coded.

[50:27] Jessica: Devices indeed.

[50:29] Meg: Much fun.

[50:30] Jessica: Hooray.

[50:31] Meg: Hooray.