Anne Levine Show
Funny, weekly, sugar free: Starring "Michael-over-there."
Anne Levine Show
The Sardine Scale
A synth-soaked hello turns into a full-on culture swerve: we revisit Footloose with fresh eyes, one of us remembering a youth where school dances were literally off-limits, the other rolling eyes at choreographed rebellion and perfect hair. The nostalgia is fun, but the conversation bites down when we hit the film’s book-burning scene and its eerie echo in today’s wave of bans. We even rate the movie on the sardine scale, because sometimes it stinks and people still love it.
Then we sprint into Cocaine Bear, treating the gore like comic confetti and reveling in the cast chemistry: Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and a roaring 80s aesthetic. We talk about why camp works when it’s obvious and how “ten buckets of popcorn, one boot to the head” can both be true. From there we shift to a live night with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, praising the genius of rule-bending improv while telling war stories about a crowd that wouldn’t stop trying to be the show. It’s a masterclass in how seasoned performers steer chaos into laughs.
Chelsea Handler gets a redemption arc as we nearly bail at minute ten, then get pulled into sharper, stranger, and very specific stories that make us laugh and wince in equal measure. A detour into tinctures and panic spirals sets up our final act: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. We gush about Jenny Slate’s delicate voice, Isabella Rossellini’s warmth, and stop-motion that feels like a hug for your inner kid. One of us cried. The other almost did. We close with a brief salute to Diane Keaton and a musical glow.
If you’re into 80s movies, culty camp, improv wizardry, stand-up with teeth, or gentle films that sneak up on your heart, this one’s for you. Hit follow, share with a friend who needs a laugh and a cry, and leave a quick review—what should we watch next?
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Hello, Provincetown.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and in other places.
SPEAKER_00:It's Tuesday, October 21st, 2025.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00:And we're hearing it for the boy.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, this song. This is an oldie. Yeah, I I really liked the song when it came out. Me too, a lot. It's one of those songs that got a lot of like everything, you know, got a lot of overplay. I didn't get sick of it though.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't either.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of them I did. This one, no, it it kind of stuck around.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this is one of those 80s anthem, like super uplifting get on the dance floor, whether or not you know what to do, kind of situation. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right, very much like uh the film that it was on the soundtrack of the.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, which we we we shall discuss. We're coming to you from WOMR. 92.1 FM Orleans and Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, 92.
SPEAKER_00:92.1 FM Province Town.
SPEAKER_02:There you go, at 91.3 FM Orleans, and we're streaming worldwide at W O M R dotorg. And uh thanks for tuning in.
SPEAKER_00:The fact that I had already said Provincetown.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, you threw yourself off. You're like, oh, I already did Provincetown.
SPEAKER_00:No, and you were like, and elsewhere. So I said, you know, other places.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. Yeah, you did. Oh whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. Uh very synthesizer heavy. Uh the eighties is great.
SPEAKER_00:This is such uh like David Gampson jam. Yeah. This is totally Yep. Everything about the 80s, hot tub time machine. Take us back.
SPEAKER_02:In fact, it could be it could be there are no actual instruments. Instruments, yeah. Uh on this on this song, yeah. Except for that beautiful voice.
SPEAKER_00:Denise Williams. Yeah. That's a name that definitely would have been buried in my memory had I not had reason to look it up.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. People didn't, you know, people don't really we weren't we don't remember who did that song. We remember the song very well, you know, and someone will say, Oh, it's Whitney, and you you know, because just anything popular in the 80s, everybody says Whitney first.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was thinking Pointer Sisters. Pointer Sisters or La Belle or something. Right. Yeah. And it's it's Denise Williams. And the reason we thought of it or were reminded of it is because, as you know, I've been involved in deep dives.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. You're going through the classics.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm going through stuff I never watched.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Ever. Mm-hmm. And or that I watched so long ago I really don't remember.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And um I was listening to an interview where Kevin Bacon was mentioned. Uh-huh. Yes. And I thought of Foot Loose and realized and remembered I never saw that damn movie. And because at the time it seemed so stupid to me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Just it just seemed ridiculous, and I just had no I I had no time for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I I I understand that. It didn't seem didn't seem ridiculous to me, to tell you the truth, when it first came out, because I came from a world in which dancing was forbidden for the very reasons that they show in the film, for religious reasons. Now, what world was that? That's the the fundamentalist world. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah so now are you saying that but this wasn't where you went to school.
SPEAKER_02:Not in the school itself, but uh your parents were like, no, you're not going to a dance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, well, I was not raised with anything vaguely resembling anything like that. Right. Um, and I was living in the West Village by myself, and I had grown up in New York, and uh there was no fundamentalist anything, and dancing anywhere at any time was what you did. All we did was go to dance. Should have been doing, right? Right, yeah. So to me, it it just was a huge eye roll.
SPEAKER_02:Like especially with all the dance music, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Now, what's interesting about the movie. Now, granted, there's a lot of incredibly ridiculous stuff in this film. Yeah, yeah, true. And uh, you know, not the least of which, or maybe the most profound of which was Kevin Bacon's hair? No, fabulous.
SPEAKER_02:All right. I thought it was fabulous. Okay, it looked like uh uh you know he he just woke up after sleeping uh upside down in a uh garbage disposal. Oh that was totally.
SPEAKER_00:If I could if I could make that happen, if only I could make that happen now. Um no, I mean I thought I mean part of what was was so interesting is how awesome he looked, including his clothes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the the everybody had pretty great clothes. I mean, it was uh they paid attention, they made it look as pretty as they could, really.
SPEAKER_00:Which was ridiculous because this town we'd we'd be talking about, you know, no dancing dancing aloud town, also wouldn't let you wear what Lori Singer was wearing no clothes. And she was the preacher, she's the son of a preacher man. Yep, she was the preacher's daughter, John Litco's daughter with hair, uh Lori Singer, yeah. Lori Singer, who I hate to say her career never really got anywhere.
SPEAKER_02:No, it didn't, it doesn't seem to have, right?
SPEAKER_00:I mean not in a big way. I mean, she had a few other movies, but when I first saw her on the screen, I thought, oh my gosh, who is that? Is that Daryl Hannah? Who is that so long ago that it's not quite coming to mind?
SPEAKER_02:I gotcha. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And who it was was Lori Singer.
SPEAKER_02:Lori Singer, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I thought, I have no idea who that is.
SPEAKER_02:She always, to me, looks like someone just did a uh like a three-stooges thing and poked her in both of her eyes because like her eyes were always look bloodshot to me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, they certainly did in this movie. Yeah. Um, but I mean, here she is being told that, you know, thou shot shalt not dance unless your bodies become engorged, you know, yeah with like this church lady stuff going on, your tingly bits. And yeah, and she was wearing like short shorts and and backless tops and and she was involved in a lot of naughty hijinks.
SPEAKER_02:She sure was.
SPEAKER_00:She was a naughty, naughty girl.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, that's a lot of that's a lot of PKs, really, you know. A lot of what? PKs, preachers' kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Preacher's kids.
SPEAKER_02:I I know a bunch of them.
SPEAKER_00:But all of the I mean, most of the girls, I mean, because we're talking about teenagers um that were being portrayed. Um so the girls were for the most part dressed very immodestly. Very immodestly. Yeah. And um, oh, who was adorable? Little Sarah Jessica Parker. She was, wasn't she? Adorable. Yeah. And she looked like an actual person.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, true, true. You know, I mean, she didn't as the movie went along, though, the hair kept getting bigger and bigger. Did you notice?
SPEAKER_00:Did you notice it was 1984?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, of course. That's all anyone's hair did. I know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Oh, it was fabulous. Um, yeah. Oh, that reminds me of someone who else's hair was super huge um back then, but we'll get to that a little bit later. I'm talking, of course, about Chelsea Handler. Oh, yeah. Um, who possessed some of the largest hair I've seen. Um, so anyway, foot loose, Diane Weist, who played the preacher's wife.
SPEAKER_02:She was great. She's always great.
SPEAKER_00:So there were a lot of people in that movie that I was oh, Chris Penn in his Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:In his thin days. In his slim days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I didn't know that Chris Penn had bulked up. Yeah, like right after this movie, actually. You know, he got yeah. I didn't know that. I mean, if Sean was my brother, I could see where I might get an eating disorder. Yeah. You know. Um, but anyway, he was kind of great. He was one of my favorite parts of this movie.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:But what I was starting to say in the beginning was so Kevin looked amazing, right? Amazing clothes, fabulous hair, yeah, everything looking hot. And then it was time for him to express himself in dance.
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:And that scene is very expressive. Where he's furious and angry, and he goes into a barn to dance alone and express his rage.
SPEAKER_02:You've got to get the you gotta get it out.
unknown:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00:And I said to Michael, I want to know who choreographed this stuff. I'm not sure anybody did really, you know. Well, somebody must have. Well, it was the 80s, you're right. There were no choreographers. You could really do anything you wanted. Yeah. Uh, no, it was the craziest scene where he's like, Yeah, um, and now I would like to express myself. It was like a what's her name? Mary da da da da da Molly Shannon's character.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, well, very much like Diane Weiss.
SPEAKER_00:Mary Louise Gallagher.
SPEAKER_02:Very, very quiet, very, you know, demure voice.
SPEAKER_00:No, but that was that would have been, but Mary Gallagher would have been after screaming.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:And then she would say, My feelings would best be expressed by a monologue from well, anyway. That's what this reminded me of, except it was super loud and super intense, and he was raging in his dance. But um I could not, I mean, on the other hand, I say I could not, and on the other hand, I want to see that scene again because it was truly uh extraordinary. Um, and there's no way Kevin Bacon did that. Uh, I'm saying that, I don't know. Huge question mark. Oh, I guess I think I think did Kevin Bacon just come up with that? They just like said, okay, drop the needle.
SPEAKER_02:No, I'm sure. No.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So it was choreographed by somebody. Yeah, obviously. Um, and then, of course, here's this entire community of kids who've been forbidden to dance. That's right. And many of them don't know how to dance because they've never danced, because they've been forbidden to dance.
SPEAKER_02:But it's okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's okay because when the big dance at the barn comes, you will be able to do intensely choreographed line dances, group dances, very intricate, like uh robot moves, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Fancy pop and lock. Yeah. You will all have it down. You will have it nailed without ever having danced before, except for Kevin Bacon.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the king of the dance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yes, not the lord of the dance.
SPEAKER_02:And then uh, you know, the the part about the ending uh dance sequence that is so funny is that that you know, we're watching these mostly the three guys, right? You know, there's that group of three guys that they're watching through quite a bit of it. Uh Kevin and and and Sean's brother and and somebody else. Anyway, so they're watching, watching these guys, and they're doing the dumbest moves in the world. They're just like sliding sideways. For wh why? Where the where the where are they going? Why are they doing that? It's not really it's just very strange. They're just like scooting to we're gonna scoot to the left one inch at a time with our feet, and we're gonna be very and we're gonna scoot to the right. Yeah, and then we're gonna scoot back. Scoot forward? Yeah, scoot back. Well, it's all very like who really who came up with it.
SPEAKER_00:Because well, it reminds me, I mean, in some ways, it reminds me a little bit of all the shuffle dancing that's going on now. Um, in that it's essentially you step to the right and put the foot back, you step to the left, and it looks complex and difficult.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's this huge trend. And, you know, groovy boys in their teens are perhaps the greatest perpetrators of this weirdness. Um so, you know, it reminded me, it gave me a little bit of everything all is new again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it it did, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, in no in no small part when the teachers and the townsfolk um were all freaking out because of the dancing that had been going on. Oh my goodness. And they have they have a little book burning.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's really good, right?
SPEAKER_00:In the middle of town. And they're burning, you know, the stuff that they're still burning. Like, you know, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, to kill a mockingbird, yeah, you know, um, oh, Mark Twain, um stuff that is the great American classics that expressed something that the town folk find enraging. And that's precisely what's going on now. I mean, look at all the books that are banned, you know, this whole thing with where libraries have had people come in and you know remove some of the most beloved titles in the in the canon of American literature, anyway, or in English literature. Anyway, footloose.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was a thing.
SPEAKER_00:So if you haven't seen it, there's nothing better to do, and you want to crack up and you want to see Kevin Bacon's rage dance, and Lori Singer's really red eyes. Well, and Lori Singer doing some crazy stuff. Right. I won't. I don't spoiler, is it a spoiler when it's from 1984?
SPEAKER_02:I don't think she starts she starts off the movie insane, right? Um isn't that how it starts?
SPEAKER_00:Insane, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well with the race.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I mean, actually see it just for that the stuff that Lori Singer does in the beginning of this movie, and what she's wearing while she's doing it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Um, and she busts out of her clothes a few times. She likes tears her clothes off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's hard to keep in them sometimes, really.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I do understand. I feel her pain. Yeah. Anyway, so Foot Loose. Footloose. Then my new favorite movie. Um, and it's a lot of people's favorite movie. Um, but yeah, there's not nothing I can say except cocaine bear. I did it. I did it. I did it. Now, I was partly inspired by hearing Conan. Um, and I think he had had Elizabeth Banks, who made this movie on as a guest on the podcast, it could have been. Um, up until then, I I had zero, I wanted nothing to do with this movie. Yeah. Um, especially after I heard more of what it was about. I was like, wanted even less to do. But it wasn't until I heard Conan talking about Cocaine Bear, not with a I guess after she had been on the show, he was talking about it with his posse and saying how it was so hilarious and fun and silly and crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's really and it's really meant to be. It's not meant to be taken like seriously. No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00:Now cinema it is filled with gore, but I have to do that in, you know, air quotes because we're on the radio.
SPEAKER_04:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But um, otherwise, I might put it in actual quotes or underline or do something grammatically correct to emphasize that the gore is not real. There's nothing about the gore.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's very cartoony.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, exactly. And you are not meant to see anything resulting from the again, quote, violence in this movie um as more than what it is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and you definitely feel like there were times when I felt like, um, oh my god, this is what I would do if I was a kid, you know, and I had, you know, I had a way with Play-H, and I could like make someone's leg and then say to my sister, okay, Elena, hit record, and then throw a throw a fake Play-Doh leg in the air and watch it land.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. It was like that. That's the gore. Um, and some of it, there's some really gross stuff. Let me tell you about this cast. This is a cast straight out of the Americans.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. And I don't know if yeah, that's true. Actually, the Americans, yeah. The television series.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, which is there's another thing. If you never watched the Americans, yeah, that's really something. You need to watch it. Matthew Reese and Carrie Russell.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Carrie Russell, Margot Martindale were the stars of this movie. And then you had what's his name? The Senator Oh, Isaiah From the Wire. God, I can never remember this guy's name. I think his name is Isaiah. The guy who says she. Yeah, who was the senator, yeah. Uh let me Oh, darn it. I can't think of his name. Um and but then, and Matthew Reese is actually in a tiny Isaiah Whitlock Jr. Isaiah Whitlock Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Or Isaiah. Uh actually it's spelled I A instead of uh A I. Is Isaiah Isaiah I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, that guy. From the wire, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's so well from the wire and like everything that's been made since. Um just fantastically hilarious. Uh and oh my god, whoever did the styling for this, the 80s come raging back at you. Um yeah, the costumes, the whole thing. Um and when when I heard about this, I heard, yeah, well, it's a story of a bear that gets um a hold of a bunch of cocaine and goes on this raging cocaine-fueled violent trip. Yeah. And basically the bear just wants more cocaine. So the bear becomes a cocaine addict. Um, and I mean, it was the 80s. Yeah. Yeah. It sure was. Even bears wanted cocaine. That's right. Um, but of course, this film was made what in 2022? Uh yeah, something like that.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, they're just trying to make it more look more real, you know, be more realistic.
SPEAKER_00:So it's hilarious. I don't know if I would recommend this for Nell. I don't know that she would love this. Um, I'm not sure who I would recommend this to. I think most people out there would say, I don't know if I would recommend this to Anne Levine or to Michael. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Um, but I still found it completely hilarious. And I actually want to watch it again. There are a few scenes I want to see again. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and and going to it the first time, there's there's stuff that you miss because you can't believe what just happened. Right. Just went by and you're like, what? Exactly. And then yeah, so yeah. So you kind of have to in order to to get the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, also the first time I was like tensed up a little bit. I was like cringed up a little bit. I thought, oh no, this might be really ups. This could be upsetting or not to me.
SPEAKER_02:You know, you know what's funny. We're talking about you know, the a lot of violence in this movie. Um also a lot of violence in the in the films about the kingsmen. Right? Do you remember those movies? Oh, yes, I do. So ridiculously violent that when when you're done with it, you you like don't even r remember. Well, it's because they blast you so much with it that it's so gratuitous. Yeah, it's just there's just so much of it, and it's just so over the top that it really desensitizes you by the time you get to the end of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, in yeah, in the case of Cocaine Bear, it's gratuitous, most certainly. Um, and there's stuff like, oh no, his leg came off. Or no, her hand is, you know, crushed. But then you just sort of carry on with the crushed hand. There are m amazing, amazing scenes in this thing.
SPEAKER_02:Some pretty crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_00:So I would say I give this ten buckets of popcorn as a popcorn movie. All right, yeah. Okay. Um sounds good. And then as a serious film, I'm gonna have to give this oh, close to nothing. One boot to the head. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I would like you to rate footloose for me. Um use any scale you wish.
SPEAKER_02:Um okay. Uh I'm gonna put it at uh like two on the sardine scale.
SPEAKER_00:Two on the sardine scale.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Two out of two out of ten. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I'm gonna give it. Is it uh because well uh the sardine scale is because number one, it stinks. Oh and number two, uh some people really like it anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was just about to say a lot of people love a sardine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So that's that's why I've made that scale up.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm gonna take it up to a six on the sardine scale. Okay. Um we went to see Colin Mockry. Yes. And please tell about that.
SPEAKER_02:And Brad Sherwood. And Brad Sherwood. At uh up by uh Forse's at the Tilden Arts Center. Uh oh, that was so much fun. And uh, if you don't know who either of these guys are, they're both uh they both uh have made a living for many, many years with uh Whose Line Is It Anyway on on TV and touring around with it and then touring around just the two of them. They've been doing it for a while too. Um and it's all it's all improv show, and it's really it's not whose line. And they actually make a point of that uh that they wouldn't have uh if one of the audience members hadn't brought it up. Right. Yeah, but it's not who's line, it's just it's just these two guys, and they're and it was fun, it was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's classic improv games.
SPEAKER_02:Um and they started with the moving people. Right. Which always is hilarious, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um, where two people out of the audience come up and each one is responsible for the physical movements of one of the two players. Yeah. So you have one person who's and what they are instructed to do is anytime you want to move, you know, your your character as it were to move, you tap behind.
SPEAKER_02:Right. You tap whenever that part is behind their leg or on their arm or their you know, their heads.
SPEAKER_00:So if you want them to walk, you have to go tap, tap, tap behind their leg. Um, or move their arms, you tap elbows, or you tell tap arms. And It's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02:It is very funny.
SPEAKER_00:Um people totally lose their minds. And by people I mean volunteers.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Oh, and the and the other other element to it is that they're not moving anything that the participants haven't moved. Right. So some they might have tried to turn somebody around in the opposite direction, but they, you know, the Colin isn't moving his head at all. It's just his body. Right. And it's, yeah, so it gets pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00:It does. Um, and so those were um that was some of the best.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that was fun.
SPEAKER_00:Um Michael and I talked a lot about this show. It was it was fun. It was a fun show. And we had fun and we're glad we went. Yes. The problem with the show had nothing to do with Colin and Brad. Exactly. It had to do with the citizens of Barnstable.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Whoever whoever showed up to the first few rows of the show.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and to around us also.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Now, when it started out, I was thrilled because super net noisy, super rowdy crowd, which is a really good sign. Yeah. I mean, when you've got like people that are gonna do improv games.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's it's a great thing to have a crowd that's up and talkative and yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what we were to discover not long into the performance, the show, was that they were talkative, meaning yelling um on and off during the show.
SPEAKER_02:People were yelling out um stuff that that weren't actually helpful, yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that they weren't supposed to, you know, they wouldn't just in the middle of something stupid. Right. Um, there was this one ding brain behind us that every time Colin or Brad said thank you, he shouted out, You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I know. It's uh it's like that joke wasn't funny the first time or the second time, or the eighth time. You know, I just really wanted to yell to him to shut up. Um, unfortunately, I knew that that would just create more problems. So yeah. Um, and there were people like that. There were also volunteers who just wanted to be the funniest thing happening.
SPEAKER_02:Right. They they got up on stage and instead of actually trying to follow the the story and the rules, you know, that what was laid out in front of them, they tried to come up with the funniest thing they could think of. And for one guy, it was just fart jokes. Uh you know, bodily functions, gas and diarrhea. Right.
SPEAKER_00:All of his suggestions.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So, you know, so a lot of those were really, I mean, they a lot of the participation was pretty awful, really.
SPEAKER_00:To the point where, and I have spent a lot of time in improv. I was in an improv trip. I taught improv. I have never seen a player take a suggestion and change it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. He completely he what he did was he changed it phonetically.
SPEAKER_00:So it sounded like So he changed diarrhea to diaries.
SPEAKER_02:Uh Right, or diarrheaing.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so someone writing in his diarrhea. Diary all the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that I've never seen.
SPEAKER_02:No, but uh yeah, they had to steer it away from the just the awful ridiculousness that was coming out of some of these people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. They were trying to be so brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and uh if they'd had just played along, it would have been Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Just do what they say.
SPEAKER_02:Like l we're telling a story up here, folks, and when we when we raise our hand and you're it's your turn to speak, continue the story.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's the idea. And they would, and then you could hear them thinking there's that horrible pause when someone isn't just saying the thing that just occurred to them, but they're trying to think of what's the funniest thing I can say. Yeah. And so when that think music starts and you can watch it and see, and you know what's happening, that that person is thinking, it's like, oh no. Yeah, we're in for something long and ridiculous and unruly.
SPEAKER_02:And then uh there was there was one time someone responded with a long, a very long sentence. Yeah. That made no sense whatsoever. So that you like are are like, wait a minute, did she have a stroke? Is this like a TIA or something? Because her words sounded all jumbled up. They weren't making any sense.
SPEAKER_00:And they just skipped her.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. They just went to the back of the line and they uh waited for the next guy to come up.
SPEAKER_00:That was another moment that I've never seen. Yeah. Uh so this It was very interesting.
SPEAKER_02:I've never uh I've been to several, you know, improv deals, but uh I've never seen one that where the performers had to work so hard. But they did great, you know. They they did great.
SPEAKER_00:And they turned in a two-hour show.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Two full hours. Yeah, it was it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And they uh they had all kinds of you know callbacks to earlier stuff that were that were very funny. Yeah. Um yeah, it was I I had a lot of fun. I and I'm so glad we did that. I really am. Yeah. Uh I I had seen them before. I had seen the uh almost the entire cast of Who's Line, the American version of it, except for uh Wayne Brady. I'd seen them all before in doing a show in Seattle.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so it was Drew Carey and and Colin and Ryan and Brad, and then there was Chip Eston and um Kathy I can't remember her name, Kathy. Uh she played Mimi on the Drew Carey show. Uh, and she was there as well. And so it was all of those guys, and it was so much fun. Oh my uh, it was just a blast. But just these two guys, I mean, Colin's my favorite of them all, anyway. I think he's the funniest of the bunch. Um I think he uh I think he's the most clever um because he he knows when and how to spectacularly break the rules.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:To make it absolutely hilarious. Yeah, so you know, and and not a lot of people, I mean it's not a good idea to break the rules uh in improv, you know, because there's a reason that they're there. So it doesn't die on its own accord, right? But uh sometimes that's well you've got to be you've gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00:You've gotta be an expert to not only earn that right, but also to know how and when to use that superpower.
SPEAKER_02:And Colin is like the king of that, I think. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and looking rather kingly with the beard. Yeah, he's got the goatee thing going on. Yeah. Yeah. And definitely looking um every bit of his age, he's looking a little old and uh and well and a little creaky. Well, see, I was more looking at, yeah. I don't know. He looked like his back was killing him. Yeah. Which when you're an old person whose back isn't killing them. Right. You know, that's kind of the Sometimes you have a broken back. Sometimes you do. Yeah. Sometimes you do indeed. Well, anyway, so if they were still um, if they were doing more than one night in town, I certainly would have gotten one of them um to do an interview.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But if they're playing somewhere near you, go wat go see them. It's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02:It is fun, it really is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So uh well, another thing that Michael and I watched was Chelsea Handler's special. Oh, right. The Feeling. And that's a special from sometime in the last, I don't know, what, four months, five months?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean this year.
SPEAKER_00:It's recent. And I was never a huge Chelsea handler fan. Michael was.
SPEAKER_02:I'm uh well, I'm no uh I'm a fan, I was a fan of the Chelsea Handler show.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I was not.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You mean Chelsea lately?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right, yeah. Um that I thought that was a very funny show.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Um most of the time.
SPEAKER_00:I did not. I was never a fan of it, um, nor of hers until more recently, and the reason I've been feeling more kindly disposed towards Chelsea is because Fortune Feemster, of whom I'm a tremendous fan, um was on that show and was on Chelsea lately. And I have heard so many funny stories from Fortune about Chelsea Handler. Um, one of the funniest of which is about a dinner they had where everything was made by um chefs using weed. Oh. So every bit of it from appetizer to dessert had TH.
SPEAKER_02:If you were eating, you were getting ripped.
SPEAKER_00:Well, they all got so ripped that I mean fortune's stories about this dinner are just hysterical. No one knew everyone was still high the next day. Yeah, yeah, that can happen. Which I'm familiar with. A couple of the people had couch lock, which I'm also familiar with. Uh and so I heard, oh God, this is veering off the topic, but well, these two things come together. How much time do we have?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I don't know, we got uh 20 minutes on. Okay. Well, 15 really.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So all right, these these two things come together, and this is part of why I thought of it. So what I did watch that I profoundly recommend is Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Ah, yeah. You must watch that film.
SPEAKER_02:I have not seen all of it yet. I've just seen clips. It is phenomenal. I've heard many, many wonderful things about it. I knew it was nominated for an Oscar. I thought it had won, but apparently, uh, you know, it's been was nominated for a lot of animated.
SPEAKER_00:It's stop motion. Um, so if you're not into a cartoon, let's say, it's not that kind of animation.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and everything about it is designed to look real. What I don't know. I'm not good at my terms here when it comes to animation. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:None of this is designed to look like a cartoon. Right, yeah. So those of you who might conflate animation with cartoon, which I sometimes do, um, no. This is gorgeous. Anyway, what I'm coming to about Chelsea Handler and the couch lock and the being stoned the next day is Jenny Slate, who made Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Right. Did an interview where she was describing that she's saying in this interview, she lives in Marblehead, by the way.
SPEAKER_02:I did not know.
SPEAKER_00:Local, local woman. She lives there with her Ben or her husband Ben and their daughter Ida. Um, and she is from oh, where is she from? Newton, maybe?
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, I'm not sure. Um, but yeah, she was living in LA in Silver Lake. Oh, really? At one point. Um, and she was working on a career in stand-up and so on. Anyway, she said, I used to be, in this interview I heard, I used to be a pothead. And she was asked, well, why what happened? Was it the baby? She said, no. She said, a friend of mine told me that um, she said, this is one tincture where first she said, I was trying to kind of cut down um because of smoking.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And she said, and this friend of mine said, Oh, you've got to go with tinctures. But you've smoked so much pot, you smoke so much all the time that you should probably take um three or four droppers full.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah, that's a lot.
SPEAKER_00:So she said, Oh, well, if it's three or four, I'm gonna do four. Long story short, she went into a thing that lasted like two days of complete panic. Oh, and yeah, and the kind of couch lock where, as she said, and this killed me because I know exactly how this feels, she had to throw up, and she got to the outside her bathroom door, which was open, and she ended up throwing up on the floor because she couldn't figure out how to get over the threshold. Oh no, into the bathroom. And so I totally know that horrible feeling, and she said it was such a horrible, terrifying experience that she wanted nothing to do with marijuana for ages. And she said, and then many years down the line, she was thinking, oh, you know what? I'm gonna try a hit just to see what happens. Okay, yeah. And she said, and she went right back there.
SPEAKER_02:To the panic. Yeah, yeah, it does that to some people.
SPEAKER_00:And um, and I've been there. I'm always for me, it's borderline. I have to be really careful. I mean, I'm not I don't even bother anymore.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but um I've been there a bunch of times and I ignore it now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:No, I can I can walk right right through one of those panic attacks now. It's you know, because I'm I realize I'm thinking to myself, oh, it's just the weed, and then I just keep going.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, this is where this isn't that. This is where you are so out of your mind that you can't say this is just the weed. I I know, but see, it I've never been never been that okay with weed, even though I mean I've I've taken a lot.
SPEAKER_02:I've never been to that point.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, you obviously metabolize it differently or whatever. Yeah. I was absolutely I I've been absolutely freaked out.
SPEAKER_02:And that's I know you have, I've been there and it's been awful.
SPEAKER_00:And that thing where you get high the next day where you're still high.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Oh boy. No, that's it. That's not a good feeling.
SPEAKER_02:That can be a problem, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So um anyway, yeah. So so poor Jenny was high for like a couple of days and messed up, messed up high.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it can really goof, uh it can really, really mess you up.
SPEAKER_00:In her little house in Silver Lake.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway.
SPEAKER_02:If you're not ready for it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oof. Or if you are horrible. Anyway, Chelsea Handler has Chelsea Handler, and she talks about this quite a bit in her special, is devoted to drugs. Yeah. And just loves drugs. She's a big fan. Yes. All kinds. Um any reason. Yeah. It's she's she's into it. And so she's telling some incredibly funny stories. I did not enjoy, say, the first 10 minutes of this show at all. And I was about to turn it off. And I said, you know, Michael, are you a fan? And he said, Well, not so far. Not of this special. Yeah. And I was I said to myself, Well, I'll give it a few.
SPEAKER_02:I thought it started off pretty much.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe this whole segment will play itself out. And it did, and it was worth hanging in there, in my opinion. Because after about 15 minutes in, it became hilarious. Hilarious. And if I don't know what percentage of these stories she told about her childhood are true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You don't want any of them to be true, really.
SPEAKER_00:Well, see, I want all of them to be true in a pr in a certain way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and it just, oh my God. And here is yet another person talking about just having parents that were out to lunch.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, and at 10 years old running a hard hard lemonade stand on Martha's Vineyard.
SPEAKER_00:People, you've got to see this.
SPEAKER_02:It's really funny.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It is. Um it it's worth it for the last, I would say, 45 minutes. And then how and where this whole thing ends up is insane. And I'm sure some of it's true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm sure there's got to be something. Oh, yeah. Obviously.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, there's a whole thing with Andrew Cuomo.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Um, there's Oh, you know what?
SPEAKER_02:That has to be true.
SPEAKER_00:I think it is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think the stuff with with all the specificity and stuff, she could get sued if it wasn't. Right. I would think. I would think so too. There's a lot of yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And very interesting. With George and Laura Bush and with Bill Cosby. And were you there for that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. Oh.
SPEAKER_02:You know. Mr.
SPEAKER_00:Cosby wants to see you in his room at 3 p.m. You got people watch this special. It really is um really is something. There there's a lot of very, very funny stuff there. Yes, there is. Fascinating stories. Really fascinating. Um and things that sort of tell me, oh my god, now I know why she is, who she is, where she is. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It informed so much about yeah, who this who Chelsea Handler is, and definitely made me feel a lot more affectioned towards her than I did previously. Um okay, now Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which I told you you must watch. Yeah. Everyone listening. I mentioned Jenny Slate, who's Marcel, plays the role of Marcel, Isabella Rossellini, um, who plays Marcel's grandmother. And then there are some surprise cameos that you are not expecting at all.
SPEAKER_02:And Conan, uh-huh, right?
SPEAKER_00:Stephen Colbert, Leslie Stahl, very interestingly. This is such a must-see. I this is one of the best, certainly the best movie I've seen in several years. Uh I'll put it that way. Okay, yeah. And definitely on a list of top something. I don't know where it would fall, but top something, though. Well, I mean, I don't know if it would be my top 10, my top 20. That's what I meant.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Like I'm not sure where, but some, you know, it would be on a list of one of my favorite movies. And oh god, it's so good. I I wanna just have it on a loop. It is the only film that's made me cry in a very long time. Yeah. So I don't know if it would make everyone cry. It would certainly make everyone, you know, get the clamped. That I guarantee.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So if you don't want to get the clamped, um, you know, this isn't your movie. Other than that, oh, you gotta see it. You gotta see it, gotta see it. Um now, who am I leaving out? I feel like I'm leaving someone out. Oh man. Um now, what this has made me want to do now that I've seen Marcel is I want to do a deep dive into Jenny Slate. Have you ever seen any of her stand-up or anything?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I have, yeah. And she's funny. I I've always liked her. I'm trying to remember. She was in another movie too. I don't see, I'm not seeing the credit. Uh, I was looking it up, but I'm not seeing a credit for her there.
SPEAKER_00:For which movie?
SPEAKER_02:I that's the that's the problem. It's a it's a goofy, nutty one where she uh where there she's got a little dog and she's an assassin.
SPEAKER_00:Well, oh my gosh. Speaking of little dogs, there's a little dog situation. Oh now Marcel the shell with shoes on um is about a sh a shell with a snail in it. A snail shell. Um I'm just I'm just freaking out. I want to just turn it on. There are some scenes I want to re-watch right now. Yeah. What a talented voice this woman has. Jenny Slate's like 41 or 42 years old.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you're not expecting this little boy voice to be um coming out of, you know, a forty-two-year-old woman's body. But it is. And she has done tons of voiceover work, which oh what are we hearing, Michael?
SPEAKER_02:We're hearing my birthday twin. Joe Stafford.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. What a wonderful song to accompany what I wanted to mention, which is we had to say farewell to Diane Keaton recently. And Michael announced it to me by saying, You're the only Annie Hall left. Yeah. Which, um, for those of you who don't know, Hall is my middle name. So a lot of people called me Annie Hall. And at one stupid time we were asking me if I was named after the movie. Yeah. And I wish I was, because I would be looking much better. But what's the name of the song she sings in Annie Hall? Do you remember, Michael?
SPEAKER_02:I don't remember now.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, darn it. Well, a lot of people have been playing that song in her memory. But I much prefer this. So for Diane Keaton, please put a light on.
