We Watch TV

A Hallmark and Netflix Christmas (2024) Super Cut

Hope and Daniel

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 Welcome to another super cut! A super cut is a combination of all our thoughts on a specific show from previous episodes, cut together into one long episode. This week's super cut is extra special as it kicks off the 2025 holiday season by looking back at all the Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies from 2024!

Please note these are spoiler heavy episodes.

Music by yourtunes from Pixabay

Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/wewatchtvpodcast

SPEAKER_02

Hey everybody and welcome to We Watch TV. It is the podcast about the TV that we watch. I'm Daniel, and this is a very special Christmas Supercut edition. If you're new here and you're not familiar with what a supercut is, that is when we take our conversations about a specific show, movie, topic from various different podcast episodes, and we smash it all together into one big supercut. So it's all in one place for you to listen to. And this week we've got a very special Christmas edition for you. We are putting together all of our conversations about our Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies from last year, 2024. That's right. We talked about a bunch of Hallmarks and a bunch of Netflix Christmas movies like Hot Frosty last year, and they're all right here for you to listen to. Getting ready for this season's uh fun Christmas conversations. We started our conversation last year in episode 88, Hot Frosty, where we talked about obviously Hot Frosty and also a couple Hallmark movies. Alright, and now here we are, everybody's favorite time of year. It's Christmas time. We've watched some Christmas movies. Movies, air quotes. I'm air quoting. I'm air quoting as sarcastically as I possibly can right now some movies about Christmas that we're gonna talk about for 2024.

SPEAKER_00

The because somehow we were talking about One Tree Hill, which you brought up, not me, missed opportunity for you to lead in to the first Hallmark movie that we watched because it starred the guy that played Clay on Wentry Hill, Fugue State Clay from the later. He joined in season seven.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I forgot all about it.

SPEAKER_00

You could say you were in the fugue state?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, very much so.

SPEAKER_00

Clay was the repl basically like the Lucas Payton replacement. That was season seven. Yeah. So yeah, so Clay was in a movie called what is his name? I gotta find out the actor's name now. Talk about the movie while I look that up.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that would require me remembering the movie.

SPEAKER_00

It was called Twas the Date Before Christmas.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so in this movie, in this film, in this made-for-tv Christmas hallmark.

SPEAKER_00

Spectacular.

SPEAKER_02

Spectacular.

SPEAKER_00

Um Robert Buckley. That's his name.

SPEAKER_02

Robert Buckley agrees to a is it a Christmas Eve?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Date with a woman because she just needs a date, but they're not dating.

SPEAKER_00

I love the fake dating trope. It's probably my favorite trope after enemies for lovers.

SPEAKER_02

They get together, they have like five seconds of like, okay, sure, yeah, well, fine. They share zero information about one another that would help them in this endeavor. Because the idea being they're like, you don't just take somebody you met five minutes ago on a Christmas Eve date. So you would assume that if she's bringing this guy home to her family on Christmas Eve, for a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_00

That's what she tries to make her family.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, okay, and so so but they share zero information with each other about like things that you would need to know in order to answer.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna back you up about it. Why she okay, so her obviously, like her fiance or something, like died.

SPEAKER_02

Dead fiance, take a drink.

SPEAKER_00

So she's really sad about that, and her family's like, you know what? We they the whole point of their Christmas Eve, they do the Christmas Eve Olympics.

SPEAKER_02

Oh gosh, I had really few stated that one happened.

SPEAKER_00

And they're like, Well, we're not gonna do the Olympics this year. And she's like, No, I don't want you to change the tradition for me. I want to do them. She's like, I have a boyfriend, it's fine, I'll bring my boyfriend. And he his friends had matched him with somebody. He was like, Yeah, what the heck? I'll go on a date on Christmas Eve. And then when they get to the house, she's like, This is my boyfriend. He's like, What? And he kind of rolls with it. They have a side conversation and he agrees to stick around and then they play the Christmas electricity.

SPEAKER_02

But when he agrees, no, at no point do they go, like, okay, here's some like a bit, here's my last name.

SPEAKER_00

Uh oh, and you find out the other plot, like her sister-in-law owned her sister wasn't a witch. No, her sister. Her sister-in-law owns like a candle store, like a brick and mortar. Oh, okay. And like he is like It's about community. Yeah, he's and he doesn't have an online presence because he got his credit card got hacked once. We do find that out in the movie. That was weird. Um, but like he's primed to be the CEO of his dad's company. I think his dad is dead too, right?

SPEAKER_02

Dead parent, drink.

SPEAKER_00

But like he's kind of like, you know, not totally taking charge yet. And his company is wanting to buy that building for for a good purpose for low-income housing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they really tried to make them. Like they weren't like an evil company. Since this the main character has an ownership stake in this company, they're trying to make sure it's not like big, evil corporations. So it's like, we're gonna tear this building down to make uh affordable housing. Yeah. But we still need you, small business, to get out.

SPEAKER_00

But they don't find out this out until like part way through the movie, and then she thinks he only agreed to the date to get to her because she's related to the person, blah, blah, blah. So that's like that was like your little bit of conflict, and is she ready to date or not? Other than that, like kind of nonsensical storyline, I think this was a fun Hallmark movie. It was a good one to start with. Like it was it was the format of the Christmas Olympics was funny, and they never were like, I love you. Like it was basically like, hey, let's agree to go on a date and have your kiss at the end. It wasn't like we are in love from spending five hours together.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, at the end, they're like, Oh, we'll see each other again. And even somebody's even like, well, we'll see you next Christmas, and he's even like, hello man, it's just been one date.

SPEAKER_00

And I like I liked the format of the Olympics. I thought that was some funny, silly shenanigans. I thought the two leads worked well together. I think he is, you know, obviously I remember him Clay from One Tree Hill, but I think Robert Buckley, who's been doing a few Hallmark movies now, I think he's one of their better. I think they need to keep making him do the movies, like throwing money at him to do making him.

SPEAKER_02

He is a slave to only dance for us for our Christmas enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what you said yourself that you've seen way worse.

SPEAKER_02

I've seen way worse. I have seen way worse.

SPEAKER_00

And you liked it that they because we had a big talk about this. You liked it that they weren't like, oh, I love you immediately.

SPEAKER_02

Oh no, that was one of my favorite parts. Was it was like like almost like suspicious, the kid that was like, see you next Christmas to him, and he was like, like, they could totally do a sequel of this one and like see how things are going and have a second Christmas.

SPEAKER_00

They shouldn't, but they totally could, and I think they should. I felt like too, like when we were first watching the format, I was like, How are they gonna it's gonna be like a day that they're spending together? I'm like, how are they and they and they ended up not like making us think that it was this epic love story in one day, like it was actually done very organically. Like, she's like, Oh, I think I'm ready to date again, so that's why I I think we could have you know possibly a sequel. The aunt, was it her great aunt that was in charge of the Olympics? We had that whole joke about her like ride share driver. Yeah, she's like, he's my ride share driver, but like everybody knew it was her boyfriend, so there was that funny joke.

SPEAKER_02

Had a weird stepdad. Which is all weird stepdads are always an A plus in a in a He was like a good weird in a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Weird in a good way, but like you could tell he didn't like the Christmas Olympics either. He just kind of rolled around.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I married into this stuff, though.

SPEAKER_00

So I want to do a Christmas Olympics.

SPEAKER_02

I don't.

SPEAKER_00

You don't think you could win the contest?

SPEAKER_02

I guess we don't. I guess the five K we run is on Thanksgiving. So I guess you want to go outside.

SPEAKER_00

We did our gingerbread things last year, our gingerbread houses.

SPEAKER_02

Whose house didn't fall down?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, your house did end up falling down.

SPEAKER_02

Only because you crushed it.

SPEAKER_00

No, I didn't. Will not fall down. Remember, I was talking about Will's house, it completely fell down.

SPEAKER_02

Your house was my house did not fall down at the time. Gabby's somebody sabotaged it.

SPEAKER_00

Hopefully, please. See, this is why I think Christmas Olympics would be very good. What's better than yelling at each other on the holiday season?

SPEAKER_02

I'll tell you. Hot snowman.

SPEAKER_00

It's not a snowman. Oh, it is a snowman.

SPEAKER_02

I thought you were gonna say a perfect transition. And she's like, what are you talking about? It's not a snowman.

SPEAKER_00

No, it is. You know what I was thinking about? Santa. Like hot Santa. I love Santa. Okay, not a Hallmark movie, but stars the Queen of Hallmark movies who did a Hallmark this year. And this was, I think, her first Netflix. This is a Netflix holiday movie called Hot Frosty. For all these Shits Creek fans in the room, Ted from Shits Creek plays the Hot Frosty.

SPEAKER_02

And it was also a hot pile of garbage.

SPEAKER_00

It was probably horrifyingly bad, but it was one of those that was so bad and cheesy that it was actually entertaining. Yes, it was. Now you said what you had one very nice comment about it. Please say what it was, or I will remind you what you said.

SPEAKER_02

Remind me what I said.

SPEAKER_00

You're like I can tell the budget on these Netflix ones way better because this looks way better than the Hallmark ones.

SPEAKER_02

It looks way, it looks, it looks like a proper movie as opposed to a made for TV.

SPEAKER_00

The Netflix movies always look really good.

SPEAKER_02

And that is the nicest thing I will say about it.

SPEAKER_00

I had high hopes for Hot Frosty because I was like, this is gonna look really good. This is gonna be awesome. And it was really bad. It also has that woman, she has been in like her own sitcoms on like I think like ABC, maybe NBC, I don't know. All I know her is it's from Four Christmases, Mexican dude.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You have to say what it is.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, Ricardo Montoin.

SPEAKER_00

What I can't wear to CrossFit miniskirt. I'm not gonna say the other one. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Screensaver.

SPEAKER_00

And that's all I ever think of her. And then she plays the doctor in town, kind of a wacky little doctor. Okay, so guys, basically, again, we have a dead, dead husband.

SPEAKER_02

Dead husband, right?

SPEAKER_00

Lacey Shaber's character named Kathy. So she is her house is fallen apart. It really does kind of start off like a horror movie. There's like dampness on the steps from a leak, it's cold in her house, but she runs this diner. So she's been, you know, she hasn't really opened herself up to love or anything. You know, what better time than the holiday season? So she is, you know, working at her diner. She goes to this, it's in this like creepy little town. I felt like the town was creepy. I'm just gonna say it right now. So she goes to like this thrift store, and this woman's like, here's this magical scarf. It's just like the one that my husband wore the night I met him. And she's like, Okay, so then she's walking around, and I really want to know what had happened if she had put the scarf on like the regular looking snowman. Yeah. But instead, she chooses the one with like chiseled abs, she puts it on him, she takes a picture of it, you see this little wink, and then he like comes to life.

SPEAKER_02

And then you see it, it's a pan-out shot. It's a pan-in shot.

SPEAKER_00

This is what you don't get on Hallmark.

SPEAKER_02

It's a pan-in shot on the snowman turning from snowman to man naked with just the scarf to cover him up. I do have to ask a question.

SPEAKER_00

I've been making a move.

SPEAKER_02

Who made this snowman?

SPEAKER_00

I think that the people at the thrift shop did, because I think that half this town is snow people come to life.

SPEAKER_02

Because I just want to say I just want to say that, like, from a structural standpoint, there's no way that you could actually make a snowman like that.

SPEAKER_00

It was more like ice sculpture.

SPEAKER_02

Ice sculpture you could do, but a snowman.

SPEAKER_00

Do you not agree with my theory that half the town is are snow people that have that have been brought to life?

SPEAKER_02

Except for the one point, uh, the point that I was waiting for them to pay that off, even with just a like a a little uh a frisky little frosty little wing. Right? They never did, they never paid it off one single time.

SPEAKER_00

All they wanted they wanted you to think about this movie and interpret, make your own interpretation. Well, I interpreted that it is crap. Hot frosty is meant to make you think and challenge your brain.

SPEAKER_02

It made me think about bowel movements.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, I think half the town is so I think definitely the one woman's husband was a snow person. I think they all knew about it, but like the doctor like easily was like, oh, well, I guess he is a former snowman. I think she might have been a snow person at one point. I think that, and then like when the whole town finds out, they're all just very accepting of it. They're like, oh, they are, yeah, you're right. Which makes me think half of them, and maybe their memory maybe as you get into being a human, your memory of being a snowman, like or snow person, like fades away, like just as snow melts, your memory, it melts of that. Just like hear me out, like you know how snow melts, it melts, like so your memory melts, and then you just are like, Well, I've always been a human, I've always been a person, I've always magically had a social security card, I've always had my backstory. And that's because like the whole like that no one because basically, y'all like he got a job at a school. I think he just kind of showed up and they let him help.

SPEAKER_01

They said he said he got a job.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. Like Oh, okay. Because if he showed up, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_02

Because if he showed up at a school and they were just gave him something to do, that's any better.

SPEAKER_00

Another thing you don't get from Hallmark is horny older ladies. So maybe those one of those older women like hired him. Like the like that, all that part was funny. Like the ogling over him. Then it kind of made me feel uncomfortable because he went on a little too long. But like the whole like thing with the scarf placement when he did come to life, like that's stuff that you're gonna get from Netflix that you're not gonna get from Hallmark necessarily.

SPEAKER_02

Like, it's a little full frontal male nudity.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, I think I think the whole the whole town was snow people because at one point we got we got this whole other side plot. They're trying to of Daryl from the office and Charles from Brooklyn 99, who are like he's like the sheriff, and that's like his deputy in town. So we got that whole thing going on. They're trying to figure out who this stranger is in their town. They're like, we don't recognize him. So they put him in a jail cell that's hot. So obviously, you know, Frosty's gonna melt.

SPEAKER_01

Melting out.

SPEAKER_00

And they called him Jack, like Jack Frost, right? That's like what she called him. Yeah, that's what his name is now. So they have to like bail him out, and the whole town was very like accepting of it. Like when they found out he was a snowman and like helped bail him out, and then you think he's gonna like be totally melted, but then true love's kiss. This movie had all the elements though. True love's kiss brings him like back to life, and then suddenly, because she didn't have was it cash only to bail him out? Yeah, because it it had to have been because suddenly for Christmas, she's like, I'm getting us a trip to Hawaii. And I'm like, How are you going? Do you have an ID? Then I'm like, How'd you have all that money to come up with Hawaii, but you couldn't fix your house, and then you had you couldn't help bail him out? Like, I'm I I think the house. I think the house fixing thing was because of like like her sadness over her husband. Oh, yeah, the shopping spree.

SPEAKER_02

They went on a shopping spree to buy him like clothing.

SPEAKER_00

We also got a makeover montage, like shopping montage, not really makeover montage, but shopping. Those are like expensive suits.

SPEAKER_02

This was a very odd film.

SPEAKER_00

So if you think we sound psychotic talking about it, that's basically because the movie it was all over the place. But I I'm gonna give it one of those ratings of so awful, you have to see it because it's so awful, it's like, what am I watching? And do you and you'll have to let me know if you think that at least not maybe not everybody in town, but I'm gonna say at least two-thirds of the town are snow people come to life.

SPEAKER_02

The only one we really got hinted at was the husband of the shopkeeper lady.

SPEAKER_00

See, I thought they were all too like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02

Well, they were all very oddly accepting of the oh, he was just a snowman.

SPEAKER_00

A medical doctor was like, sh yeah, he's a snowman.

SPEAKER_02

Well, if she's a snow if she was a snow woman at one point, she's not a real doctor because he's a handyman now, but he's learning it all from YouTube and TV.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So none of these people are credentialed. The conversation continued in episode 89, a wicked Christmas. Unfortunately, I wish I could say our next topic is something I wanted to talk about more. Because hey, everybody, it's time to talk about Christmas movies. And I'll tell you what, everybody, Netflix is just like they have they didn't just throw their hat into ring into the ring of making bad Christmas movies, they jumped into the deep end of the pool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I I didn't think Hot Frosty could be topped, but boy, let me tell you something. The Merry Gentleman, what a steaming pile.

SPEAKER_00

Now I want to call you out because when we were talking, we were watching one of the hallmarks over the weekend, one of the many, and you were like, Well, Hot Frosty was bad, but it was actually so bad that it was entertaining and fun, and you agreed with me about that, and now you're trying to say that hot frosty is just bad. So which is it, Daniel?

SPEAKER_02

It was bad. But it wasn't but it wasn't bad in the way that this this one was.

SPEAKER_00

Hot Frosty was so bad, it was entertaining. And am I gonna watch it every year? Probably. This one I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with you that the Married Gentleman was not good. The only good part about it was watching Chad Michael Murray's body as he danced. I find it interesting that his name was Luke, since he's best known for playing Lucas Scott on a little show called One Tree Hill. I feel like they were like, you know what, we're gonna just give this to millennial women, and hopefully Chad Michael Murray will be the selling point. And I have seen Chad Michael Murray in Hallmark movies before where he put more acting into the role, and I feel like he was just like, I'm here to look good. All right, name's Luke.

SPEAKER_02

Do we want to do this the way we normally do it with me poorly recapping?

SPEAKER_00

Sure, city boy.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man, you took it. I was gonna say so so we we we start on on a a dance thing. I think it's supposed to be kind of like the Roquettes in New York C in New York City, in the big city.

SPEAKER_00

Britt Robertson's character is basically a roquette.

SPEAKER_02

And we we meet her and she's a city girl, and she's but but then she's fired from her job because she's too old. So she goes home to nondescript Midwest Place, and her family there owns a bar.

SPEAKER_00

It's like a bar performing club or something. I'm not really sure.

SPEAKER_02

The rhythm the rhythm room and I think that's what she finds at she apparently has not been home in a really long time because uh over the course of the beginning of the movie, she finds that they're not doing well financially. And so she decides to hatch a plan to bring them out of this financial doom, and the very first idea she comes up with is men with their shirts off dancing in front of ladies. And the men, Luke in this case, and a couple other who just they're immediately on board.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Luke is like a handyman that moved to the city to be with his wife, who he's now divorced from because she left him, and he's been helping her parents out.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Which her parent, Aunt Zelda, is her mom.

SPEAKER_02

Right, but but no, none of the men, what we got, four or five men that end up.

SPEAKER_00

There's like the bartender that works.

SPEAKER_02

The bartender, Luke, there's the her sister. Her Uber driver. Her Uber driver, and then the old guy at the bar. Every single no wait, before you get there, before you get there, every single one of these men, they're asked immediately, like, yeah, absolutely, I'll get on there. Like no conflict, no conflict whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00

Like, sure, I'll take my clothes.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, talk about the old guy at the bar.

SPEAKER_00

Now they don't get completely naked, they keep it PG. Okay, so the old guy at the bar is played by Maxwell Caulfield, who is in the iconic better than the OG, fight me because it's the best. Grease 2. He is in Greece 2. He is Michael Carrington.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not a Greece fan at all, but I feel like you are on and you are in an extreme minority of people who say the second one of the things.

SPEAKER_00

That stand Grease 2 and we think it's better. I want a cool rata.

SPEAKER_02

Could you talk for five hours about why Grease 2 is better than Greece?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I'll write like a dissertation on it.

SPEAKER_02

So, anyways, the the men do their dancing, the ladies of town love it. They show up every night, or how it's unclear to me how many performances go on.

SPEAKER_00

Well, she's home at the beginning of December, so I think it's like every night in December. But can we talk about how these are supposed to be like average small town men and they all have like insanely amazing bodies? Like they all have like chiseled abs. Even like Maxwell Coffee, he's he's been working out for his age because I think he's like in his 60s now.

SPEAKER_02

Like, that's not I felt very body shamed as a as a man.

SPEAKER_00

That's not the men you'd see kicking around a small town for this production. I think they should have at least gotten one like dad bit dad bod.

SPEAKER_02

Just for a joke.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Not a chest hair insight.

SPEAKER_00

They should have had at least one dad bod type on the stage. But yeah, at one point we're like not even halfway through the movie, and I'm like, oh, that wasn't the conflict getting him to do the show.

SPEAKER_02

So then the conflict is just like her old boss in New York calls her back, and the replacement, young replacement for her couldn't handle it. So she's gonna go back to New York and do the show. Luke gets all upset, she decides not to, she comes back in, they saved the day. Yay!

SPEAKER_00

Because his wife left him and went back to the city and decided she didn't like the small town life. Now, can we talk about okay? So the city girl, how often did that annoy you?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, he said it every other line, it seems like. And you know, all I heard I'm not sure he knew her name.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know her name. I don't remember her name. I know Britt Robertson played her, but you know, all I could think about the whole time with his delivery of City Girl, so on One Tree Hill, do you remember he would always call Brooke Pretty Girl? And he would say it with the same inflection. He thought this is a shout-out for all the Brookes fans, since I know we were hard on you the last time since we talked about Leighton. But Lucas Scott would always call Brooke, hey, pretty girl, from like season one. Like, even I feel like when they were like broken up, he still I think caught her that sometimes, which I've probably been paying, I would have been like, really? Um, but he always called her pretty girl, and every time he said city girl, that's all I heard in my head. And then I saw I read an interview, right, which had Michael Murray after that. He like he asked for his character or something to be named Luke because he likes to do it as a wink to the fans. Because he knows that me, a One Tree Hill fan, even though I was a Nathan Galley, you know, I wouldn't have said no to Lucas. Like that I'm gonna watch this trash, trash pile of steaming garbage movie. And this, this y'all, it's not one that's so bad, it's good and funny, like hot frosty. It is truly bad.

SPEAKER_02

This was like a mid or low tier Hallmark movie. I would call it like worse than a low. Like the conflict barely exists. The story was held together so tentatively.

SPEAKER_00

Like And can we talk about her hair? Britt Robertson has short hair, and I don't know why they can't just let these leads have short hair. So they had wigs that look like they went down to the local party city and plopped a wig on her head. Like you didn't notice that as much. It was dry, but once I pointed it out to you, you couldn't unsee it, right? How bad her hair looked.

SPEAKER_02

I what just strikes me about this movie is like I you know, I'm from a small town, and I can tell you right now, if the local rhythm room decided to just start having male dancers going around, there'd be people in town that have problems with it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, maybe they're not in like the the Midwest or Appalachia, yeah, maybe not.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know. Like it's less area, I guess so. Yeah. But people would have a problem with it, and finding that like, yeah, it's just it's just so much of it depended on things that just made no sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00

And her parents just went right along with it too. So they're like, okay, whatever.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, they didn't seem concerned.

SPEAKER_00

Her sister was played by the girl that plays Gia on Fool House, which we had an argument about how popular she was. I don't think she's Sarah Michelle Gatler level popular, but she was in a lot of stuff in the 90s. She played Stephanie's best friend that was caught smoking in the bathroom on Fool House. She, what else did she do? She dated James Franco for like a really long time. She was in that movie Whatever It Takes. She played Joey's sister, the one that's like end of you with on Friends. So she's had a lot of different little roles. I thought she looked pretty good. No, I was not thinking properly when I said that. I apologize. I was wrong. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_02

I wasn't gonna call you out, but you brought it up.

SPEAKER_00

I was incorrect. I was just I can't really think of anybody that would like compare. But she she was like, you know, sort of decently, you know, maybe like G-level.

SPEAKER_02

That's nothing to remember.

SPEAKER_00

Well, she was the lead in whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_02

What's that?

SPEAKER_00

I just said whatever it takes, that movie was Shame West, James Franco. It's a very good movie, and one of my favorite, like teen movies.

SPEAKER_02

What did it take?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I'm just gonna smack you.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Um, so that's Netflix for you, and I'm praying that they don't have any more left to give us.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, can I just say well, one, they do that Lindsay Lohan and the guy that played Ezra on Pretty Little Liars is joined a movie, and theirs looks really funny, and I have high hopes for that. I also have you seen the way Lindsay Lohan has been looking lately. I need to know the name of her doctor who's doing her Botox because she looks phenomenal and they have done a great job. People are like, can we talk about all the work Lindsay Lohan has done done? And I'm like, Yes, because I need to get the number of that man. Like, you I should I'm you probably don't watch the TikToks I send you, do you? Okay. So just bravo, bravo for that. So we'll have to watch that one. But some of the other Netflix Christmas movies, there's just like this princess series that was a tril trilogy that Vanessa Hudgens did. Those were amazing. Well, maybe not amazing, but they were pretty good. They were pretty good. And she did one with like it was called like the night before Christmas, where this night came to life, like a night K-I-N-I-G-H-T. And I really liked that one. K is a knife, but yeah, yeah. Hot Frosty's still leading the stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Somebody at Netflix has been watching Hallmark movies, and then they said, wait, we don't have to pay nearly as much money to make these movies and still have a bunch of people come watch them. That's what's happened here.

SPEAKER_00

True. But we have watched a lot of Hallmark movies. So I'm gonna pull up my app here.

SPEAKER_02

I'm I'm really I'm I'm I'm I'm hyping myself up here to try and recall the plot of most of these films.

SPEAKER_00

So for these Hallmark movies, again, I encourage you, annual PSA, and I've already done it this year, to get their app because then you can check off the ones that you have watched. So we talked about 'twas the date before Christmas previously, but we have watched a lot since then. I'm gonna talk about two that I watched without you, three actually, and then we can talk together. And I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it brief because the ones that I watched without you were not great. I watched the five-year Christmas party. I chose this one because Jordan Fisher, whose scene's ready to begin the happily ever-after theme song. He also played The Flash's Sun on the CW show The Flash. I chose this because he was in it. I chose poorly because it was not good. It was basically a situationship for five years of these friends, and it was awful. It took me forever to get through that one. Now I also watched holiday crashers. That was good. Basically, like these girls, she was supposed to go to law school, but then she like she did, but then she decided not to take like her what is it, the LSAT. And so she's working at this greeting card place with this other girl. So they get these like cards, invitations that they do for holiday parties. So they decide that they're gonna like crash the parties, but then she meets this like guy who's like rich and a CEO of some company, shenanigans and Sue. It was decently entertaining, but I really honestly I can't remember what else happened in that one. And then you started this one with me and I finished it. I watched Confessions of a Christmas Letter. So if you're fans of The Office, you might like this one because Oh, I could not even I could not. You were there when Kevin showed up, right? Yes, I was there. It stars Angela from The Office, but then Kevin from the office works at like the post office.

SPEAKER_02

So basically, you didn't realize he was what his voice actually sounded like.

SPEAKER_00

No, I'm like, he doesn't sound like Kevin in real life. Like I know the actor that plays Stanley sounds different, but I didn't realize he did. Because she sounds kind of the same. So basically in that one, she they have like a neighborhood contest who can write the best Christmas letter, which I think is insane. And like the neighborhood like head lady was like she always wanted to beat her and she always did terrible. And then her husband, bless his heart, he was such a supportive man. He's like sarcastically says, like, why don't you write this author that I like and tell him to come help you? So she does, and he's like in an in a writing rut, and his abuelo is like, Yeah, he'll come do this. So he just goes off to this random town to help these people write their Christmas letter. And Daniel, spoiler alert, he did get with her daughter. Remember how we like to do it.

SPEAKER_02

I wondered if that was gonna be the case.

SPEAKER_00

And I did like that little like subplot romance because he was pretty cute. So just shenanigans and soon. Then we find out the lady that had been winning the competition all along, it was her husband that wrote the letter. She didn't even write them.

SPEAKER_02

And then obviously Did they ever describe what they mean by best and like what like how do you like best written when you win?

SPEAKER_00

It has to be the best written, not so mess not necessarily like bragging, like what people a lot. Okay, I like reading Christmas letters, but sometimes people do brag in them. So that's not what it meant, like who's accomplished the most, but it was also like the best written. Does that make sense? So Angela from the office. No, got it. So Angela from the office, like decides, you know, that her family, while it's not very perfect, it's great the way it is, and she finally writes a letter from the heart, and she doesn't have to use the author guy's help, but then he's inspired to like finish his book, and he gets with the daughter. It's very happy ending all around. And those are the ones that I have watched without you. Are we ready to talk about ones we watch together? Let's go ahead and kick it off with a good one that we watched the day it aired. I usually don't do that with Hallmark movies. This one is a sequel to three wise men and a baby, and it is three wiser men and a boy. It has Tyler Hines, my favorite Hallmark male lead, Paul Campbell, who is in Battlestar Galactica, and I have to bring it up every time. And then it has Andrew Walker and what do you just think?

SPEAKER_02

Back again, back again, back again.

SPEAKER_00

The guy that Daniel thinks looks like a pencil and mentions it every year.

SPEAKER_02

If you watch any of these movies and you see him and you do not agree that he looks like a pencil, just just go ahead and fan mail me. Like let me know. But but I'm gonna tell you right now, you will see him and you will go by the end of the movie, you will go, you know, yeah, kinda does.

SPEAKER_00

Like another one.

SPEAKER_02

Because I've got you on board. Yeah, I've got you on board.

SPEAKER_00

And I still think he's cute, so I guess in that way, a pencil is cute.

SPEAKER_02

Which is say I mean it's a freshly sharpened pencil. I didn't say it was like dolled out from writing or anything.

SPEAKER_00

We're taking a really weird path. But Blair Waldorf's mom, and also who plays Connie in Independence Day, plays the boy's mom, so she reprises her role. And we have a five-year time jump, because at first I was very concerned about that. I was like, okay, this movie premiered in what like 2022, and I'm like, and the baby is already five, what? But they took they totally address that for people like me who's very concerned about time.

SPEAKER_02

That kid was five.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, no, maybe he's like six, because it's a five-year time jump. I don't know his age. Remember, the play was K through five. All right, so Daniel, you take it off and you do the summary.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory, but it's like um the boys' kid, the boy's mother goes off for a Christmas time conference somewhere, so she's out of town, and dad is pencil man is in charge of helping out at the K through five Christmas pageant.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's because the brothers, Tyler Hines character Taylor, well he's Stefan, they knocked over all the sets.

SPEAKER_02

So they all knock over all the sets, and now they're in charge. Um, and uh at the same time, the gamer boy brother is like losing his job, losing his house. So he's like, oh, what am I gonna do? I don't have any work.

SPEAKER_00

He's the only one that's not with his girl from the first time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he's not with his girl. She broke up with him clearly. It's never addressed. Billy from Battlestar Galactica. Yes, he's having trouble with commitment, even though he's been with the woman for five years, but it's clear he's like, he's still a little nervous about taking that next step. So, anyways, they all convince the gamer guy and convinces everybody that they're gonna go move in with their mom for a week. For Christmas. For Christmas, and to help the kid out with the holiday pageant. And he also meets a female friend at the holiday pageant. Who's like him? Who's like a little bit more his speed, I'd say. And um, so yeah, they help with the pageant.

SPEAKER_00

And what about the plot with the mom?

SPEAKER_02

Mom has a new boyfriend.

SPEAKER_00

A pastor.

SPEAKER_02

I just want to say Pastor Dave, is all I want to say. That's all I think about as course. That's all I think about.

SPEAKER_00

Pastor Dave. We're not doing what does she say? We're not doing presents. We're gonna go around the room. Is it no, it's Pastor Phil?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm thinking Pastor Dave from that 70s show.

SPEAKER_00

We're thinking about tuna.

SPEAKER_02

We're thinking about different Christmas pants.

SPEAKER_00

I'm thinking about Pastor Phil when he makes them do the the pageant with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon up there. Woman, do your job and swaddle this baby.

SPEAKER_02

And so they the guys don't like that either, and so they give him a hard time. But in the end, everything is okay. The pageant goes off as a you know, case a hit. As a f as a as a as well as a pageant with that age of kids could go. And Gamer Guy gets together with the girl, Billy from Battlestar Galactica proposes to his girl, and then you know, the mom that abandoned her kid in the first movie because shows back up again after her Christmas pageant to be there for Christmas Day, and they're all happy.

SPEAKER_00

And they're all cool with Pastor Roy. Can I just say that Pastor Roy would have bugged me too? Because he was obviously he's a nice guy, and their mom has found a nice guy, but he was really inserting himself a lot into traditions.

SPEAKER_02

He did bring in the Christmas tree.

SPEAKER_00

That would have made me mad.

SPEAKER_02

Like, I mean, it wouldn't have made me mad if somebody came over and hauled our Christmas tree out of the basement to put it.

SPEAKER_00

But he didn't even ask them. He just didn't have it, but he didn't ask, yeah. Like, people do are like peculiar about like their traditions. It was just it was almost like he was very much a tryhard, and like he would just always show up, and I know he's being helpful. My favorite brother is still Taylor, the grumpy gamer one. I do wish they would have ad at least addressed what happened to his you know, woman from the first time. I don't even remember her, so she had the curly hair, the blonde curly hair.

SPEAKER_02

You could just keep on going. You could draw a picture and I wouldn't remember.

SPEAKER_00

It was such a memorable movie, though. I felt like it was very good though. It's probably my favorite one they've done so far because I like the shenanigans. I like I feel like these three male leads work well together.

SPEAKER_02

What do you mean the best one they've done so far? Like this year?

SPEAKER_00

This year.

SPEAKER_02

What is it? We're gonna talk about it. The the the scavenger hunt one.

SPEAKER_00

The scavenger hunt one? The one that I watched with the with the uh with the bar trivia?

SPEAKER_02

No, no not the bar trivia one. The Christmas Olympics?

SPEAKER_00

The Christmas Olympic No, the one Which scavenger hunt one?

SPEAKER_02

In they're in Chicago and then they drive around the greatest scale, the great race kind of one. Oh, is that one on our list to talk about today? Or did we already talk about that? They all blend together so much.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it is!

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it is! You think that that this one is better than that one?

SPEAKER_00

What was that one called? The Jingle Bell Run?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the Jingle Bell Run. You think this one's better than that one?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

You're wrong.

SPEAKER_00

I only like it just because I I like that it's a sequel. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

They're probably see that that right there is teaching Hallmark all the wrong lessons. Now soon, see it's- I want a trilogy. Soon they're gonna get to the place where they're not even making new ones, they're just making sequels to the ones they've already made. And it's just this this race to the bottom.

SPEAKER_00

I want three wisest men and a teen because we never got that with the three men and a little lady and a baby franchise. Think of what could have been.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, at some point though, they have to give a time break on this movie because if they're gonna do teen, they gotta give these pencil men and the other trio a chance to age a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. Maybe they're from the same town as the Chad Michael Murray people that just look really good and all fit from the merry gentleman.

SPEAKER_02

I think you now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like you just completely forgot about the other one.

SPEAKER_00

I did.

SPEAKER_02

Everybody, I just want to make sure it's all very clear that Daniel remembered one of these holiday homework. You know what? Actually, I'm not making the point I think I'm making here. Go on.

SPEAKER_00

No, keep you you remembered it more than I did. It made quite an impression on you. I I don't know. I would say I think you're right. I just forgot about it. I'm I'm glad these movies are particularly memorable for you. So with that, let's get let's kick things off with Jingle Bell Run, Ashley Williams, and again Andrew Walker, Pencilman. Kick us off with the plot as best you can.

SPEAKER_02

Ashley Williams is a teacher.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, she's a teacher.

SPEAKER_02

She really likes crossword puzzles. Really likes crossword puzzles. But she never travels anywhere, she never goes anywhere or does anything.

SPEAKER_00

She likes history.

SPEAKER_02

Dead husband, dead fiance?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think they mentioned that. Okay, she's single.

SPEAKER_02

So shocker. Um her sister enters her in a contest and she wins. So she's going on a Christmas scavenger hunt around the country, kind of like a greatest. It's like the Amazing Race. That's what I was trying to think of.

SPEAKER_00

And you and I were disappointed because we were hoping that they would do like a jingle bell run, like a marathon, but you can pitch your idea for that movie later. So go on.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, you're right. I would, I would, I would be a great writer of these movies, which is not, again, not the brag. I'm I'm thinking it is. Um, so she's gonna she goes to the gym for like three days before this thing starts to try and get in shape. She meets Andrew Walker's character there, they don't like each other, and then she's a hockey player. He's a hockey player, retired. They get to the race start day and they throw through throw all the contestants through a loop that it's actually going to be teams this year. They're randomly matched, and guess what?

SPEAKER_00

What?

SPEAKER_02

They get matched up as a team, and then they go on, they get their clues and they go do their thing, and they start to like each other, but then the producers of the show from The Bachelor show up and be like, Hey, we need you, pencil man, to boo this teacher up.

SPEAKER_00

I'm falling in love with you.

SPEAKER_02

Because uh we need some drama, we need to juice the drama on this show, and so he I it's unclear to me if he really participates. I he never overtly does it, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

I think he was already starting to like her at that point, and just but he's also trying to revive his career. So he was like, mm-hmm, but I don't think he really does it. I think he's basically like he actually is falling for her. Because at one point, like he does tell the producer that he's not gonna say what they wanted to say. So that gets to the end of it. She heard the wrong part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02

She hears the wrong part of the conversation. That's the drama at the end. They resolve it by having a conversation and communicating with each other, like every single one of these movies ends, and then they end up winning the race. And instead of taking all the money for themselves, they donate it all back to the other what's going on. Well, they took some of the money, but then they gave only a million bucks, and after tax, they're only getting like 500.

SPEAKER_00

They really like mean girls at the end where Katie Heron splits a TR.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah to some of the other contestants. Um, and that is that.

SPEAKER_00

I think like what ends up happening is she wants to do something with like books at school. I don't remember math. I don't know, something with their school.

SPEAKER_02

Books at school. He wants to start a developmental hockey league, which is like I'm like in Chicago. Are you telling me there's not already 50 developmental hockey leagues in Chicago?

SPEAKER_00

Maybe his wants to reach like low-income kids. I don't know. And then like the the the two the other contestants that were paired together, the chef, was he a chef?

SPEAKER_02

Uh they they both are chefs because they ended up wanting to start a restaurant together.

SPEAKER_00

And they got together.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then the other like this is the one woman that was like a mother figure, and then the girl that wanted to be, what did she want to be? Like a playwright or something?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But she couldn't say barista. She what did she call it? Barista. Barista. Yeah. And you and I were like, honey. Um, but they oh, that mom, her daughter died.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and she went dead daughter, drinking.

SPEAKER_00

And that's why they were like, but and so they did like a scholarship, they set up a scholarship in the daughter's name, because that's what they were gonna do. So they all kind of split the money. But you're right. That one, if I had to think about it, that one was more entertaining than three wiser men and a boy. I just think I was so excited for that sequel, so it's still gonna rank higher for me.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, it had its holes.

SPEAKER_00

You're all over the place with these movies, though, because you were insistent that twas the date before Christmas was the best Hallmark one, and now you're saying the Jingle Bell run is.

SPEAKER_02

What one's that?

SPEAKER_00

Twas the date before Christmas is the one we talked about with Clay from Wentry Hill.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, see, as soon as we talk about them on the podcast, I just purged them.

SPEAKER_00

That was the one with the Christmas Olympics. You just get rid of them. You were like adamant that that was the best Hallmark Olympic.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's not anymore. Now it was then.

SPEAKER_00

No, I asked you on Sunday which one, and then you were like, actually, I think hot frosty's the best out of all of them. And I'm like, Daniel, you're just I think you're just messing with me. Is that what you're doing? You are messing with me. I can't believe this, please.

SPEAKER_02

What's next?

SPEAKER_00

Let's see here. What is next? I've got I've I'm looking all the all through the little list right now. That would be a blessing. Okay, trivia at St. Nick's. That's the one we watched this weekend, where they are like, well, he's like a football coach, she's like an astronomy professor, and they all compete in this like Christmas trivia competition. She doesn't like that the school allocates money to the football team. He doesn't do buffet etiquette, right? Correct. That's correct, yes. So they kind of argue they have to win.

SPEAKER_02

And I want to just sit here and suggest to everybody that that uh her suggestion of bu buffet etiquette is correct.

SPEAKER_00

See, I think she's a little bit wrong. It just depends on the situation. Because if I'm at like a big buffet like that way that was, and you only want one thing and you don't want to stand on the line, I don't think there's anything wrong with being like, excuse me, I just want to get like a piece of chicken.

SPEAKER_02

What if you were getting everything though, like your first time through the buffet? Yeah, she's right in that situation. Wait, wait, let me I want to get you with the hypothetical. You're in line because you are going through your first time, so you want to see what everything is there, but you look ahead a little bit and here's something up here that you really want. But then right before you get there, a couple people up from you is one of those line skippers and go in and they take the last one, and you don't get one on your first round because they don't haven't restocked it yet.

SPEAKER_00

Or I'd be like, I would say, are you usually if it's like at a most buffets, they're quickly to come in, and I know I'm gonna get a fresher piece anyway that less people have touched. You know what? I'm on the other side of buffets. Anyway, I I didn't care for this one very much. I thought it was kind of annoying.

SPEAKER_02

It was fine. You know what really irritated me a while, and maybe this is just like my innate sexist ism. Um it was really odd to me that he didn't know how to change a tire.

SPEAKER_00

That is sexist.

SPEAKER_02

But uh everybody should know how to change a tire. I was really hoping when that that they were gonna turn it on us, and he she was like, You don't know how to change a tire. Because she asked him, you don't know how to change a tire, and I was like, Okay, now get out and change it. I thought that would have been awesome, but then they didn't go that way. Instead, they wait for the mechanic to show up to they had to have the conflict that they missed the same.

SPEAKER_00

That they missed the thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00

I wish they had just done a movie where they give the trivia and we could participate because I wanted to play. Like I wanted to play along with that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but it was bad trivia because like one of it was for that fake made-up university, and it's like, I don't know how anybody ever wins at this trivia game.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. Because it was a stake.

SPEAKER_02

They had some categories that just seemed really. I'm done talking about it. You want to keep going? Cool, yeah, that's fine. Do you have anything else to say? I don't, I don't.

SPEAKER_00

You're getting very passionate about this one.

SPEAKER_02

Stop.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Now I watched most of this and then you joined in at the end. This Santa Tell Me. That's the that show. Did you hear that?

SPEAKER_03

No.

SPEAKER_00

Somebody was excited on a motorcycle outside, maybe for this movie. Santa Tell Me that had, I think her name's Erin Craco. I can't say her name. She is on the show that I don't watch on Hallmark. I know your mom watches it because she told me about it, called Wing Cause the Heart, and like her fiance or no, her husband and baby daddy on that show, because it takes place in like Little House on the Prairie Times, I think. Like he was like uh what are the Canadian people call it? Like mounties? Is that what they're called?

SPEAKER_02

Are you talking about this Christmas movie?

SPEAKER_00

No, I'm talking about the actors, what show they're on, because there's a there's a whole people were excited about this one. So, but like he's can't he wanted it that actor wanted to be off that show, so they killed his character off. So, like everybody was, I guess that watches the show was really upset about it, but he is in this movie as the leading male with like the leading male to like her female counterpart. So it was like a really big deal to a lot of Hallmark fans that watch that. So I was going somewhere with this. Again, I don't watch When Calls the Heart. I know your mom does. She has a lot of opinions on it. So his name is Daniel Lissing. That is his name. I've seen him in other Hallmark movies. I've always liked the one. He's in one of the ones about like a December, not a December bride, one of the bride ones that you don't like because you don't like the ones where they get married at Christmas. Anyway, basically, she writes she writes this letter to Santa when she's a kid. And it she basically says, like, I want to meet, you know, my husband. I I want to meet Mr. Wright and have this magical love story as like a like an eight-year-old child. And then, you know, we have a time jump, and now she's like a woman in her 30s, and she is working at this home shopping network, kind of like a QVC thing or like a lifestyle network, and she gets in charge of like hosting their Christmas remodel show. But then it turns out she has to host with him, and he's does he does this show called like models in a model home with like actual like supermodels, and she's like, How stupid! So they have to work together. Obviously, it starts off as like, I don't like you, you don't like me, kind of thing. And he's like, you know, what we're gonna do is we're gonna remodel your childhood home. So she and her sister are out scouting the place and they hear magical bells, and they find her letter, and then magical ink comes to life to reveal a letter from Santa saying that she will meet a Nick, somebody named Nick, that's gonna be like her Mr. Wright by like December 24th. So right after she gets this magical letter from Santa, she has three different meet cues with three different men named Nick. One in a coffee shop, then she meets another one. I don't remember how she met the other one now. I can't remember. She meets three different Knicks. Oh, one's like a carpenter that was gonna work on our set. So she meets three different Knicks and she goes on these three different dates. Something goes wrong on each of the dates. Like one of them, she accidentally like poisoned him with like a cookie with nuts in it, which I don't think that's a very funny thing to joke about because you can like die from that. Like if you have a nut allergy. The other one, she like accidentally like popped the champagne cork in his eye, and then the other one, they were at this like fair thing, and she accidentally hit him in the head with a ball. So it's all going disastrous. So she's trying to figure out. She kisses one of the Knicks that's like the doctor, who I thought was really creepy that he set up this like private ice skating date to begin with at the beginning. I'm like, coming on a little strong boy. And but all this time she's working with this guy, and they start to have a connection, but his n he does not go by Nick. I think he goes by Chris, and it's like he's not. I don't go by Nick either, so he's not Santa's son. Don't so they didn't go in that direction, but then she realizes these men aren't for her, and she's like going to disregard the magical letter. We have a train station scene, and then guess come to find out what's his actual name that he doesn't go by. Nick. Nick. I gotta be. So Santa was right.

SPEAKER_02

I gotta say something right here. I hate how Hallmark-pilled my brain has become that as soon as we find out his name is Chris, well, both of us are like instantaneally are like, maybe he's Santa's son.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they've done a movie about that on Hallmark where she did Santa's son.

SPEAKER_02

Such a broken man that that that that that's where my mind goes when I hear this stuff in these movies.

SPEAKER_00

I will say I did really like this one. It was that classic Hallmark formula, and sometimes you and I know that they've deviated, and I've enjoyed some of the different, you know, they found a second, they're almost close to finding the second plot. This is kind of more the traditional one. I did I did really like this one. I thought it was funny and that the acting was good in it. You only watched like the tail end of it. What did you think?

SPEAKER_01

Boring.

SPEAKER_00

Alright. And then another one that we watched together. Yeah, we I think so. Oh, I can't believe I forgot about this one. This is the last one we have to talk about.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

This was the one with the ants from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Holiday mismatch. It had Beth Broderick and Caroline Ray in it. They played Melissa Joanhart, Sabrina, like from the 90s. Oh, yeah. Her ants. So we have the there is a romance plot. Basically, it's like, here you go, you're much better at the plots than I am. So take us away, Daniel. Go back in time. Remember this movie.

SPEAKER_02

All right. There's these two old ladies. Um of them runs the Christmas festivities in town. The other one just retired from her high-paying CEOs. No, she was like a lawyer or something, right? She's an accountant. Oh, an accountant, okay. And she got volunteered to help with the Christmas committee. They clash because they're two different styles of people, laid back versus uptight. B plot.

SPEAKER_00

They were basically their characters from Sabrina. Because was it? Yeah, Hilda was always like the laid back one, and Zelda was uptight.

SPEAKER_02

B plot, they're also trying to get their kids hooked up. Not with each other, but in general.

SPEAKER_00

And their kids are the opposite personalities of them.

SPEAKER_02

They are, and so they get on apps and fake to be their kids and end up setting their own kids up with each other's kids, and then they get they're like, oh, and then they actually start liking each other, so they want to break them up, but then the kids realize that they're trying to break them up, so they try to get do to date harder. And so it's a we know they know, you know, we know situation.

SPEAKER_00

The kids knew that they were actively trying to break them up, though.

SPEAKER_02

I think they were trying to stay together.

SPEAKER_00

They were fake dating to get their parents off their backs.

SPEAKER_02

Off their backs, and the parents, when they found out that it was each other's kid, worked together to break them up, but that brought everybody closer together.

SPEAKER_00

And then the mom started getting close, and then they all lived happily ever after. And then there was a little bit of a conflict with the kids at one point, but then everything was good. I I loved it because I like seeing those actresses on screen together. It's like a comfort for me because I always liked Sabrina, the teenage witch. And like I they basically did like play themselves, and they made a Sabrina reference at the end. She's like, What are you, a witch or something? And I'm like, Oh, that was for us. That was for all the elder millennials that love Sabrina the Teenage Witch from the old TGIF days. What did you think? You always say that you want a Hallmark movie to be different and off script, so what did you think? Because this was different than the new movie.

SPEAKER_02

No, I wish it would have been different. No, but not like this. I wish uh this movie would have been better if the A plot was the the the son and the daughter getting together and the moms were the B plots.

SPEAKER_00

Really? See, that would have been just more of a normal Hallmark movie. I guess you're you're really starting to become a fan. Now you told me one um while we were watching this that you used to think that Aunt Zelda was hot in the 90s. Do you think she's aged well?

SPEAKER_02

Uh absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Because she was also the mom in let's circle back in the Mary Gentleman movie. You realize that, right?

SPEAKER_02

That she's Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's still hot. No, no notes.

SPEAKER_00

On that note, I feel like that's all we've watched so far. There it's been a lot that.

SPEAKER_02

That's it? That's all? We just talked about like six movies. That's it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're we're on top of our game this year. There's still several to go, though. I never I always have my goal to finish all of them, and I never do. Maybe this year I will actually achieve that.

SPEAKER_02

And we wrapped up our conversation about the various Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies in episode 90, Another Christmas in the Trenches.

SPEAKER_00

We got we gotta talk about some Christmas stuff. We did do some fun things. Once our power came back on, we went back out into the cold, but for fun purposes, to go see the Christmas lights, do a little Christmas fun.

SPEAKER_02

You see, everybody, what was fun about that was that I spent the entire day at home in the cold. The heat comes on, and I get about 45 minutes of heat, and then I've got to go outside to a walking Christmas light thing for a couple hours. So uh that day when the power was out, I got I finally got warm at about 11 30 p.m.

SPEAKER_00

But you did have fun at the Christmas lights.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, cold fun.

SPEAKER_00

Cold fun. But it's like it's like our own little Hallmark movie.

SPEAKER_02

Uh it's it's Hallmark adjacent, sure. Small town America is not exactly what uh Hallmark depicts.

SPEAKER_00

But the the park all lit up with the lights. Yes, it looks very nice. It's very fun. So speaking of Christmas, Christmas is you know, right? It's very soon.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Are you excited?

SPEAKER_02

Um yes.

SPEAKER_00

Sound sound more joyful.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Joyful, joyful, joyful.

SPEAKER_00

Well, do you want to get into some of the Christmas movies that we have been watching during our hiatus?

SPEAKER_02

I will attempt to recall them because I feel like it's been forever. The hallmarks this year fell off a cliff, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's talk about Netflix first. Okay. Oh, oh. So we had another Netflix Christmas movie that we watched starring Lindsay Lohan and the guy that plays Ezra on Pretty Little Liars. I don't know what his name is. I think it's like Ian Harding, I want to say. And that movie was called Our Little Secrets. So, Daniel, do you want to kick us off with a plot of that one?

SPEAKER_02

I think I can. So, guy and girl, girl being Lindsay Lohan's character, like very good. Are high school sweethearts? I was unclear of their relationship.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like they were childhood friends that grew into love. So, like high school, young sweethearts, but then she her like mom died, so she got really depressed.

SPEAKER_02

Dead mom drink.

SPEAKER_00

And then she wanted to take a job opportunity and move away from town and try to deal with the grief that way. He was not support. I did not like him from the the get-go. No because he got like really drunk and was really unsupportive and was like, you need to stay here and blah blah blah. Well, you weren't doing a very good job at it.

SPEAKER_02

So anyway, I just asked what so their relationship ends on a sour note when she decides to leave to go abroad.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, and he asked her to marry her.

SPEAKER_02

He asked her to marry her to get her to stay in front of everybody to get her to stay and at her party to go at her going-away party. And she he's she's like, nah. And so she leaves, and then ten years go by. And so then we meet them, each individually on their own, with new partners. And new jobs. Go new jobs. She's back in America, apparently. Uh, going to the family of Christian Chinowitz. Their new partners. And oh, look, it turns out that they are dating brother-sister.

SPEAKER_00

What are the odds?

SPEAKER_02

Go to the same place. They make a pact to just pretend like they've never met before, and all, of course, it goes all wrong, and they end up together at the end.

SPEAKER_00

You glazed over where I said Kristen Chenowith was the mother of the kids that they are dating.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't do casting in my recast.

SPEAKER_00

The original Glenda from Wicked, still on my Wicked kick. Who's surprised? Well, it was really funny because they referenced how young Kristen Chenowith looks like throughout the movie. That was a funny scene.

SPEAKER_02

I don't remember that at all.

SPEAKER_00

You are a piece of work right now. You've had you're acting like so tired, and you've had how much caffeine today?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I would rather not say I would rather not disclose that information.

SPEAKER_00

Two cups of iced coffee.

SPEAKER_02

I believe I've had over 500 milligrams of coffee today so far.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this is the type of guy that with all this caffeine, he could just shut his eyes and fall asleep. Whereas I could go, I could even have like cough syrup that makes me sleepy, no caffeine, and it takes me like at least two business days to fall asleep. What's it like to be the favorite? Anyway, back to this movie. Bad idea at the beginning where they know each other because she's dating the son, he's dating the daughter who's a bit younger, which I thought was funny because Ezra on Pretty Little Liars was the teacher that dated the student. And I'm like, is this just this guy just date the young gals? I don't know. And it just that's just a bad idea. You just that's like I understand it was the whole shtick of the movie, but like you should have been honest and upfront and be like, oh, we know each other, we're both from this small town, we dated or had a situation. He even proposed to me. Like, there's definitely a history there. So one of my favorite things about these Hallmark type, or I guess now Netflix Christmas movies, is just casual cheating. I feel like that just gets glazed over by the happiness and joy. Now they don't actually kiss or anything, but you can tell the feelings are still there. And well, I have to ask a question.

SPEAKER_02

This is this was a weird, this was maybe the most contentious weird thing for me in this entire movie. When they get there, at some point they are asked to go get the family Christmas tree. And that's weird. The girlfriend of the brother and the boyfriend of the brother have never met. Who have allegedly, from their perspective, never met. They're like, you two go get the Christmas tree.

SPEAKER_00

That's weird. What? And you can tell the mom, like, she was definitely like she has, you know, her son, a mama's boy. So she's like really hard on Lindsay Lohan's character. But she loves, I'm just gonna call him Ezra because I don't know what his name is in the movie. She just loves Ezra. She just loves him, um, the daughter's boyfriend, to the point where she was even like, you should ask, you know, whatever her daughter's name is to marry you. Or yeah. And it's that that was a frustrating plot point. But yeah, see, like, okay, so if you guys asked like me and Sam, my brother-in-law, to go get like a tree, I don't think that'd be weird because we've known each other forever. But if like that was the first time I was meeting your family, and like if we by some time continuous spectrum, Sam was around at the exact same time that I had met, like, whatever, because we met Sam obviously when we were on the house. Everybody knows the metaphor you're going for here. Like that, like that, that would have been weird. I don't think it would be weird now, but yeah, that that's odd, very unusual. And again, they always do the trope of like, okay, so we're gonna make something wrong with the son. He's a mama's boy, he clearly has feelings for his other girlfriend. Yeah, not totally into the relationship, so we can justify Lindsay for that. But I feel like they didn't do a good job, like justifying the girl, the daughter, like other than that she was young and it influenced her type. Like, what was her like flaw? Like that she was just young and still wanting to, like, I don't even know if she was on a party, but just like, I don't know. Like, like it was that what was her flaw?

SPEAKER_02

We didn't try, they didn't even try to do anything.

SPEAKER_00

And they just really glazed her. We didn't really get to see that breakup.

SPEAKER_02

Like, we didn't get any see any resolution of that from a breakup or what she was doing afterwards. So it was just like I'm not gonna. We have the whole side plot with the parents are cheating.

SPEAKER_00

So, like, the dad is cheating with the friends of the daughter that the son actually likes and still hooked up with, and then the mother, Kristen Chinowith, spoiler alert, again, later she gets with the dad anyway. So it's like the old partner. You're not Don Cheatle is not in Mean Girls. It's the first podcast lore, podcast lore. For those of you that have stuck with us in the beginning, Don Cheadle is not in this movie, but the guy from Mean Girls is. I do think that this was the best of the Netflix Christmas movies, while Hot Frosty was the most ridiculously fun. The Married Gentleman, terrible, awful F. This one was the best acted. Like they did with what they could with the script.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but the thing is, like, I agree with on everything you said. If I had to rewatch one of these three, it would still be Hot Frosty.

SPEAKER_00

I think I'm gonna agree with you there that I would watch the ridiculousness of Hot Frosty again, even though this was probably the better, like, standalone movie from an acting perspective. You thought it was boring? It was just boring, like you knew they were well, you always know they're gonna get together in the home.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, you do. But the shenanigans, like like all of the situations they put them in. Are supposed to be like these funny shenanigans, just for like eating gummies.

SPEAKER_00

You didn't think that was funny.

SPEAKER_02

They were just bland. They weren't they weren't entertaining.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't love the dog part where she would feed because I have a dog and I'm very protective of my dog, and I don't think it's crazy to be obsessed with the health of your dog. I did not find that part funny with like the book of the thing. That was weird and inducing vomiting.

SPEAKER_02

I think, yeah, maybe the funniest one was her being high at church.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that was probably the funniest one. I didn't think the the Alzheimer's grandmother was very funny either.

SPEAKER_02

No, and they were really trying hard to play that off as funny. Like they were very intensely making that supposed to be a very funny thing, and I was like, this isn't funny at all.

SPEAKER_00

From an acting standpoint, though, this was the best acted one. But I think like I'm definitely gonna agree with you. If I would go back and re-watch, I'm just gonna re-watch the ridiculousness of Hot Fox.

SPEAKER_02

By the way, I'm not I'm not going back to re-watch any of these ever again.

SPEAKER_00

None of these are becoming You've watched Holiday in Handcuffs like four times with me over the years.

SPEAKER_02

None of the movies we're discussing at this moment. Savannah calm down. None of the movies that we are discussing at this moment would I ever go back and re-watch again. They're not gonna become part of the Christmas pantheon of movies that we watch. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00

I might watch Hot Frosty again. Just because it was so crazy. Anyway, let's get into some hallmarks. I'm gonna have to pull up my app to even remember what we watched because we watched a lot of these while I was on my cough meds.

SPEAKER_02

And ladies and gentlemen, I want to say I need to get cough medicine hope on this podcast one day because she is a trip.

SPEAKER_00

No uh you said I was quiet.

SPEAKER_02

Until you're not.

SPEAKER_00

Example.

SPEAKER_02

I I had a whole conversation with you about the things that I bought when I that I repurchased at the store from the throwing them out from the power, and then I had to have that conversation with you twice.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know how many times I have to have conversations with you, not twice, but thrice simply with your brain because you can't remember anything?

SPEAKER_02

I have no recollection of what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00

Oh okay. Okay. Alright. So let's kick this baby off here. We watched Christmas with the sings. Am I saying that right?

SPEAKER_02

I'm just gonna say it right now. I swear we already talked about this one. We didn't, but if we didn't, I'll I'll admit to my being wrong. If anybody wants to fact check us.

SPEAKER_00

Why you are thinking that is because we had started it and we hadn't finished it yet the last time we recorded. This one took us a good piece to finish.

SPEAKER_02

I didn't watch all of this one.

SPEAKER_00

Um I think all you watched some of it, right?

SPEAKER_02

I did not watch all of this one, no.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, what do you remember about it? And then I'll jump in and fill in the plot.

SPEAKER_02

Uh the main Indian family, they're Christians, and they I s the only reason I say that is because they were like hammering it off.

SPEAKER_00

I brought it up like 50 times.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so so she's a nurse. She runs into somebody she went to school with.

SPEAKER_00

High school with who was like a jock in school.

SPEAKER_02

They date for She's a sports writer now. Okay, okay. They date for an entire year, and then she decides to bring him home for Christmas, and her whole family is just massively rude about it. I didn't finish the movie, but I take it that didn't get much better.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's one of the main reasons why I didn't like it. So you fail to um remember that he proposed, so they're engaged. Oh, okay. So it starts off her dad's already mad because he had never met this or even talked to this person. She's like, Oh, my dad, you got my dad to say yes, so the dad's already upset about that. I do think it's really weird to date someone from a year and propose and yet you never meet the parents. Like, that is odd to me. Like, I'm not saying that you need to be traditional and ask for like the father, the father for the daughter's hand in marriage or whatever, but to never meet the parents is strange. Which I guess maybe if they don't live like close to their hometown and they're far away, it's just it's odd to me.

SPEAKER_02

The more I hear about relationships and marriage and stuff like that, I realize that we were just children when we got married. And so our concept of how all this stuff should work is probably skewed by that.

SPEAKER_00

Although you typically the parents meet the fiance at least once.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, no, I'm not arguing.

SPEAKER_00

They had like seeming like I felt like they didn't even know that they were dating or something.

SPEAKER_02

It was I met your parents like three weeks into I met your parents, I think, before we were even dating, just because we were in school together and there they were bringing snacks, and I wasn't gonna turn down snacks or dinners.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you met them like probably like across the country maybe.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's a different thing. I'm just saying, I think it's odd to have a fiance and they they acted like that they didn't even know that the people had like dating the other person. Like it was the first time any of them have communicated, not by phone or anything. That's just that is weird. I'm sorry, that's odd. And if I if like my child came home, you know, my grown child came home and was like, oh well, not only have been dating someone for a year, but I have a fiance and I had never heard about this, I'd be a little weird about it too. I don't think I would be awful. Like her family is. So her family is just right off the bat terrible, and they have all of these traditions, and it this really what this might be triggering for some people. I see on TikTok that a lot of people have like problems with their in-laws like adapting to traditions and everything. That's what basically this movie was about. And like her family didn't want to change like anything, and then she was getting irritated with him. His family was more go with the flow, but then they do kind of get irritated at one point, like, okay, we always do this, like the mom always does this Christmas play. Like, so there was these like arguments. I was half asleep throughout a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02

Did his parents get back together in the end?

SPEAKER_00

They definitely indicated that they were going on a date at the end. Yeah, his parents are divorced. Other plot point, and they totally did indicate that they were gonna get back together at the end, which did you said you didn't want that to happen. No, because it's unrealistic. Correct. So finally, at the very end, her parents come around and they blend the traditions, and then they all have a really, I guess, Merry Christmas. But it was it was just contentious for no reason. Like they were messing with him at dinner, like they gave him extra hot Indian food.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, granted, he was eating it on purpose and he was trying like super hard.

SPEAKER_00

He was trying hard basically the whole time.

SPEAKER_02

I think he was trying a little too hard at times. Like they warned him it was dad was scary.

SPEAKER_00

Well I don't know. It was it was just it w this one was, you know, F minus minus F. Whatever. The lowest grade I could give this one. So moving on through this list, we also have a 90s Christmas. Care to catch us up with that one.

SPEAKER_02

Time travel?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Um this one was like I did not like this. No, no, no. It's not even no no, not it's not even a quality situation. I did not like the resolution of this story. Well, first give us the plot. So so the lady lives in big city, duh. Chicago has put off her family because she is um big high-powered lawyer. I think she just made partner. Yes, and she ends up meeting her old boyfriend from high school in a diner. A situationship. I'm sorry, excuse me. Is that the new is that the new fad of 2024 situationship? Yes. Um and so she meets him and then leaves and gets into a cab, which isn't a cab, it's actually a time travel machine. She's right. I think this the that the the person who's driving her in this thing that time travels her and and heckles her throughout the film is a ghost of Christmas past gone rogue. Yeah. You know how in the movie from a few years ago with Carl Winslow's character in it, we learn there are multiple ghosts of Christmas present, past, and future and multiple people have been scrooged. Right. So I think this is an individual ghost of Christmas past that has broken off and formed her own splinter cell.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

And she so she took her back in time.

SPEAKER_00

We need the TVA to get her out of there.

SPEAKER_02

To the nineties, in her nineties body, and took her to a very formative the the first Christmas after her dad passed away. Yes. Which was very dead parent drink, and um, very close to when she made decisions about like what she was gonna do with her future, blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00

She was out of high school already, she had taken a year off, and like he was getting ready to like he wanted to go to acting school or something. So in the future, he was married and divorced to a girl that we also randomly meet in the past.

SPEAKER_02

What gets me about this one is she lives through all this time, she doesn't she tries to change things and doesn't change things and tries to change things, and then somehow ends up she just gets to relive it all again. She's not transported back to the future, she just actually lives for that 20 years again and gets to do over.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's that was what bothered me. So she has the letter that she made partner with that's still like she can still see it when she's back in the 90s, and anytime she changes something in the timeline, bits of the letter disappear, and she's like, Okay, to keep this letter intact, I can't change anything. But then she realizes, like, no, I want to change things, and this is what the problem that we both had with this. Scrooge doesn't get a redo, he doesn't hook up with his boo from long ago.

SPEAKER_02

We don't see that woman, he has to live with the consequences of his actions he but he has given the opportunity to change himself going forward.

SPEAKER_00

And that's a good story. This she basically got, like you said, a redo, a second chance. So she now I was I would have been more um at peace with this if she said, Okay, fine, and she goes back to Chicago when I'm back in Chicago. Okay, anyway. But that's the way my brain works. Sorry. So she is back in Chicago, back in the future, and she reaches back out to her old situationship. They form and she decides at that point that she wants to change, she wants to reconnect with her family, she wants to go home with Christmas, she wants to spend more time. That would have been satisfying. But basically, we are led to believe that if she hadn't changed the timeline, that her sister would be single and unhappy and not living probably like her truth, and that her mother would still be like depressed. Like basically, we are led to believe that like it's like if she didn't make these choice, he would have never gone to acting school. Like, like all these people's lives were like her fault. Like, so that was really weird, a weird flex. I did like it that they didn't go over the top with 90s references, like they didn't beat you over the head with it. Like you could tell like the clothing was a little bit different, but that could have been for budgeting purposes. However, they did make the friends reference. Like, what was her nickname? He caught her lobster, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We got we nailed that one.

SPEAKER_00

We nailed that immediately, and then he brought up like how like getting ready to watch Friends or something, and we're like, Oh, they're gonna be like he's her lobster, which you and I do that reference for each other. You are my lobster.

SPEAKER_02

She had all this foreknowledge of the future. Do you think she used it in any way for good or for evil?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02

So she didn't warn anybody about 9-11?

SPEAKER_00

That got you got really dark.

SPEAKER_02

She didn't buy any Bitcoin coin, didn't buy any stocks, like because she even told her friend to buy Apple stock.

SPEAKER_00

She did do that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. Do the do the claws, the lobster. You admit it, we do, we have that reference for each other.

SPEAKER_02

We do, yes. And that's why, like, when he first said that, I I immediately thought that's where he was going. Because he said it and then he just played it off.

SPEAKER_00

Like, yeah, she basically wakes up and she's married to him, they have kids. I'm like, do you remember having these babies? Like, it was stupid. Dumb. It was dumb. Did not like it. Next. F. Get ready for holiday touchdown, a chiefs love story. Kick us off, Daniel.

SPEAKER_02

I hate this so much. I hate it. I mean, and what else? What is there to say? There's a magic to Balgan hat. There's the Chiefs, there's a contest about the biggest Chiefs fans. Yeah, this which is a the contest between a house with a bunch of lights. Which looks stupid. A cat that's dressed up as a Chiefs fan.

SPEAKER_00

Catrick Mahomes.

SPEAKER_02

And this family that has a magic hat.

SPEAKER_00

If they don't wear the hat, the Chiefs lose.

SPEAKER_02

If they don't wear the hat, the Chiefs don't make it to the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_00

That's what it is. They don't make it to the Super Bowl. So it doesn't guarantee all wins. Correct. Okay, so anyway.

SPEAKER_02

Because if they don't wear it on Christmas Day, the Chiefs don't make it to the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_00

Got it. Don't wear it on Christmas Day this year. Wink wink. Anyway, I gotta tell you something. Your mom messaged me the other day and said that apparently Hallmark's headquarters are in Kansas City. She's like, I think that's why they did this movie. That might be true, but that's not why they did this movie. That's not why they did this movie. They did this movie because of one, Miss Taylor Swift, who is yes, the Kelsey brothers were popular before there was Taylor, but she is, let's call it what it is, catapulted them to extreme popularity. And this is Hallmark just wanting a piece of that pie. They're wanting a little bit of that. So we've got, of course, we got Donna Kelsey. Was Donna Kelsey herself in this? Because they called her Donna the whole time. So I'm to assume that Donna Kelsey moonlights at the barbecue place that her set of grandparents work at. I did not because Donna Kelsey also was working at another place in the Philly Hallmark movie that I watched.

SPEAKER_02

I I understand that they called her Donna. I don't believe she was canonically playing herself in either of those.

SPEAKER_00

Didn't she show up on the field again?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, for some reason, no one knows why.

SPEAKER_00

Donna Kelsey just decides to work random jobs.

SPEAKER_02

Can I just say one thing about Donna Kelsey before we move on to this movie, the rest of this movie? Yes. She was not the worst actor in this movie.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. Now, with the whole hat plot point, and so basically she's dating the guy that works for the Chiefs, and he just has a job with the Chiefs. He's not a Chiefs super fan. And that that happens in real life, people, believe it or not. And like he if he meets her when he's going out to try to get some culture about the town, but then later he finds out he has to judge at this contest. So they're they were all nice rolling out the red carpet for this dude, giving him their special like pudding, all these things. And then they tell him about the hat thing, and he just kind of makes a joke about it. Shunned. They temporarily shun him, even the daughter. Now I know that I can be a little crazy, as some say about sports. I've heard that. I'm not that insane. I wouldn't like write somebody off completely about my lucky hat. Come on. Would I be that crazy?

SPEAKER_02

No. Um, this was nuts. So they were crazy. Yeah. And the movie just proceeds from there. They try to win the contest, they win the contest, they lose the hat.

SPEAKER_00

And Santa Santa has the hat. And took them. What's up with Santa messing with people?

SPEAKER_02

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

So then it turns out they decide to give like everybody because it's the hat it's about what the hat represents.

SPEAKER_02

So they come up with a hundred thousand knit vintage Chiefs hats to give to everybody at that game randomly out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00

All I know is that I hope the Chiefs do lose on Christmas Day. Here we go, Steelers.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, and what you pointed out the most egregious thing. They didn't even play the Steelers.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. And that is the game that the Chiefs were playing.

SPEAKER_02

They didn't even get the team they were playing this year correct.

SPEAKER_00

Come on, folks.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know what they're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00

Do you remember at the beginning of the year when I was like, until the Chiefs personally impact me, I don't care. They're about to personally impact me. Even though we already clinched a playoff spot and the NFL hates the Steelers because of our brutal stretch of schedule. Come on, folks. I could rant about that all day. But I don't have a lucky hat. Maybe get me a lucky hat to wear.

SPEAKER_02

I can't get you a lucky hat. You have to go find it from a random Santa Belle Santa outside of a store somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

There was the year you got me Antonio Brown's jersey and then he went crazy. Like within days of me receiving this item. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_02

See, I'm only able to get you cursed items.

SPEAKER_00

I guess so. Juju Smith Schuster. A lot of good I have with that jersey.

SPEAKER_02

I told you, coming from a longtime terminal Browns fan, never, ever buy a jersey, a named jersey from a player until they are retired without scandal and incident. Then get one.

SPEAKER_00

So Donna Kelsey also showed up in a movie that I watched without you. And I'm trying to find, I think it's called Christmas on Call. Gotta pull up on my app here.

SPEAKER_02

I saw parts of this.

SPEAKER_00

This took place in Philly. You watched part of this? I thought I watched this when I was six.

SPEAKER_02

Pie on cough syrup.

SPEAKER_00

Do you remember any of this?

SPEAKER_02

It's like all the different services. He's an EMT and a firefighter. The cop.

SPEAKER_00

And she's a doctor.

SPEAKER_02

She's an ER doctor.

SPEAKER_00

He says Aunt Jenna from the Vampire Diaries as the doctor.

SPEAKER_02

They're all on call. They flirt with each other, finally get together. It's all in Philly. And I actually Donna Kelsey's there. Yeah, I actually made the remark.

SPEAKER_00

I was like, well, Donna Kelsey, you know, she should show up in Philly too, because the whole J Jason Kelsey connection. And then she did.

SPEAKER_02

What NFL teams will they make Christmas movies about next year?

SPEAKER_00

Christmas with the Brands.

SPEAKER_02

Jameis Winston plays in the snow.

SPEAKER_00

He did sing jingle bells.

SPEAKER_02

That's true.

SPEAKER_00

Other than the outcome of that game for me personally, that's been the most fun NFL game to watch all year.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it has been. It had everything.

SPEAKER_00

It had pageantry drama. Neither team wanted to win. There was snow. Classic. It was great. Minus minus the outcome.

SPEAKER_02

I like the outcome.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Your team has been eliminated from the playoffs.

SPEAKER_02

I'm you're you're saying this like it's not something I know how to accept.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway, I don't really remember much else about Christmas on Call. They just hunt out and did things in Philly. Didn't it like the Fire Chief almost die?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they had to save him for some reason.

SPEAKER_00

Like there was not a drama betwixt the couple.

SPEAKER_02

No.

SPEAKER_00

It was about just like their jobs.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Boring.

SPEAKER_00

It was another like love actually kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02

Boring.

SPEAKER_00

Boring. What else did we watch together? Oh, Lacey, she also did her Hallmark movies. She was in Hot Frosty. She was in a movie called The Christmas Quest. And this one, I don't think I was feeling very good when we watched this one either. And I you gotta fill me on the plot because all I remember was like magical gnomes.

SPEAKER_02

Like the Yule lads.

SPEAKER_00

The Yule lads.

SPEAKER_02

Remember the Yule Lads? Um, so so think very bad Indiana Jones in Iceland.

SPEAKER_00

Is Lacey Indiana Jones or is that her husband?

SPEAKER_02

That's a situation. She is Indiana Jones.

SPEAKER_00

It's like her ex-husband and they have to work together.

SPEAKER_02

At the last minute before Christmas, they have the opportunity to track down some treasure of the Yule lads.

SPEAKER_00

It's like Outer Banks. They gotta go find the treasure.

SPEAKER_02

But they need somebody who can read these runes, and that's the thing. And like her mom used to look for this crap, right? Her mom used to look for this crap. Dead mom drank.

SPEAKER_00

Um and they're divorced because Lacey was so fixated on treasure hunting, it ruined their marriage, right? Correct.

SPEAKER_02

I thought you didn't remember this one.

SPEAKER_00

It's coming back to me now.

SPEAKER_02

So they go, she convinces him to go along with them with rich guy who turns out to uh-oh, be the bad guy.

SPEAKER_00

What country are they in?

SPEAKER_02

They go to Iceland.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. Oh yes. Because Iceland is green and Greenland is ice. We learned that for the movie. Let me ask you a question.

SPEAKER_02

How much of this movie do you remember being green?

SPEAKER_00

Daniel, I'm just spouting off facts from one of the greatest movies of our generation, the Might D2, The Mighty Ducks.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. So, anyways, they follow a bunch of clues. There's other people following the clues. They find the treasure, but it ends up being a bunch of junk. And it was just about the friends you make along the way.

SPEAKER_00

But there were there were no no Yule lads were gnomes.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, they and no. Where are you getting gnomes?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I just made something up.

SPEAKER_02

The the Yule lads were hooligans.

SPEAKER_00

It was just so that was weird.

SPEAKER_02

And they found so and then they indicated they are real and magical at the end, so of course.

SPEAKER_00

That was that was an odd one. You know what I'm gonna say about some of these Christmas movies this year for Hallmark? I would rather just watch them walking around drinking gallons of hot cocoa and going to Christmas pageants and festivals and building gingerbread. Because these are a lot of movies that are set at Christmas time. They're like trying to diehard us with these movies. I and I'm not I want to be beat over the head with Christmas.

SPEAKER_02

I saw a TikTok about Die Hard, except it's the Muppets. And they showed everybody cast in the movie except the one who's the in okay. If you're casting the original diehard, who are you casting as the person? Who's the person around all the Muppets?

SPEAKER_00

Like an a living actor?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But it's diehard. So the normal cast of diehard, the original diehard.

SPEAKER_00

I'm casting like Bruce Willis.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, Bruce Willis is a Muppet, you know, his his wife is a Muppet. Now who's not the Muppet?

SPEAKER_00

But Bruce Willis can't act right now, so would you want me to find it?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh. Hypothetically, okay. You're just replacing it. Okay. Everybody with Muppets except for who's not the Muppet.

SPEAKER_00

Hans Gruber. Hans Gruber, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That would be who the Mupp who the non-muppet would be, yes.

SPEAKER_00

Or you can make Hans Gruber like Gonzo or something.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, it's gotta because it's gotta be him, that actor.

SPEAKER_00

Oh. I know he's dead. I guess I was to say, that's Snape.

SPEAKER_02

I know he's dead.

SPEAKER_00

He's in another Christian movie. Love actually. Yes. He must be mad in that movie.

SPEAKER_02

So, anyways, that's that was a fun little TikTok. Um Do we have to talk about any more of these Hallmark movies?

SPEAKER_00

I think we're that's about it. Oh free at last, free at last.

SPEAKER_02

I can say we're free at last because we've already started watching, we've already started watching our regular Christmas movies. And once we start that process, we don't go back to the Hallmarks.

SPEAKER_00

We've watched The Santa Claus so far. We've watched Four Christmases. Highly underrated movie. Four Christmases is great. Can't spell families without lies.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's all we've got for you this week, folks. Thank you for tuning in. Have a Merry Christmas, and we will see you next time.

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