CINEMISSES! Night Shift

In today's episode, Matt and Tug dig into Ron Howard's wild 1982 directorial debut, Night Shift. They discuss the 80s New York grime that gives the movie its bite, and the sitcom-perfect (and sometimes not-so-perfect) writing that somehow makes a prostitution racket feel oddly sweet. If you love 80s movies that are packed with quotable lines, zippy energy, and a cast full of faces you'll instantly recognize, this one has plenty to chew on. You'll discover why Michael Keaton's manic debut steals every scene, how Henry Winkler uses Chuck Lumley to escape the Fonz forever, and you'll consider how Ron Howard was able to make a high-concept sex comedy feel more like a story about love, not sleaze. Hold the phone, Chuck! It's another episode of CINEMISSES!

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Transcript

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Tug McTighe (00:00)
You're listening to Cinemisses, a podcast about movies that one or the other of your two hosts just never got around to seeing. I am Doug.

matt (00:07)
I am Matt, reminding you that anybody can make a podcast about movies they have seen. We are here because we haven't. Thanks for joining us on Cinemases and Action.

Tug McTighe (00:16)
You've worked a lot of crummy jobs, as have I.

matt (00:19)
Actually I was gonna tell you about one.

you probably don't know this, but when I first moved to Kansas City, the very first job I got was not as a designer at all, it was as a proofreader.

I got a job with a company called Stouse, which is still around.

they're out in Gardner and they make they're a printing company. And when I started, so that was way back in ninety-seven, I think, it was an election year and all they were doing were campaign signs, yard signs, banners, posters, you name it. But it wasn't a regular hour job.

I was working the third shift, so I was coming in in the afternoon. Second shift or third shift. It wasn't first shift. I would come in at two. I'd come in at three, and I would be there until two in the morning.

And they said, it's only four days a week. And I thought, well, that's great. because I was looking for another job, not this one, but I needed to pay the bills. so

You know, I worked the first four days and they said, Okay, we'll see you tomorrow. And I What are you talking about? They said, Well, I mean it's a political campaign season, so we're all doing we're doing five days until this is over. So I thought I had taken the job thinking, Well then I'll go to bed, and then I'll just get up and I'll have all morning to look for another job. Well

Tug McTighe (01:40)
I'll sleep it

off. Right, I'll sleep off the four days.

matt (01:43)
Yeah, and then I've got I've got plenty of hours in the morning to do this. No, I would get up at like one o'clock and then I'd have to go to work again. so I learned pretty quickly that I was not cut out for the night shift.

Tug McTighe (01:54)
So did you ever have an idea?

To use that time at night to become a pimp and start a prostitution ring out of stouts. You know? That's where you blew it. That's where you blew it, Matt. That's where

matt (02:05)
I never did. It's amazing. Looking back

Tug McTighe (02:11)
you had an opportunity, was laying right there, and you didn't grab it. You didn't grab for the gold ring of prostitution at nighttime. of course the movie we're talking about this week is nineteen eighty two's night shift comedy about City Morgue's

New York Prostitution An Idea Man and a mild mannered former stockbroker named Chuck. one of my old favorites, I've got a lot of heart and nostalgia for this movie. Matt, you had never seen it. So as we always do, let's ask the person who hasn't seen the film, you're the cinemissar in this case, what do you think you knew about nineteen eighty two's night shift?

matt (02:50)
I knew very little. I knew it starred Henry Winkler and a very fresh faced Michael Keaton. I believed it was directed by Ron Howard, which it turns out it was. And I was pretty sure it was about two guys who started business out of a morgue, that business possibly being a prostitution ring. And I knew that at the time it was well received. It was fairly edgy, at least very different from what the, you know, ordinary moviegoer would expect.

Tug McTighe (03:14)
Yeah, my dad was an early adopter for home box office, later to be shortened to HBO.

So this was one of those like you know, these guys had twenty-four hours to fill, and they'd they'd get a movie that people liked, and it'd be on every three hours. Literally, like y you'd night shift for what you know, a hundred minutes, another movie, and then bang, let's put on night shift again. So I remember seeing this

Probably had my parents known, much to their chagrin, at twelve or thirteen years old or however old I was, I watched this probably a hundred times maybe. Literally.

matt (03:52)
Yes,

I I recall the HBO promotional summers where you'd get like a month free. Cause we were

Tug McTighe (03:58)
Yeah.

matt (03:59)
we were I don't know if we were poor, but we were at the the very least cheap and probably also poor. But we definitely took advantage of that.

So I had a summer where I got to enjoy an endless repeat three movies: Superman, Grease, and a movie starring Valerie Bertinelli and Conrad Bain called Chomps. What about the robot dog? I watched that movie a billion times.

Tug McTighe (04:19)
I love Chomps. Yes.

I I call Hudson Chomps

matt (04:26)
Ha ha.

Tug McTighe (04:27)
because of that movie, but also because as you know, dogs like to chomp stuff. I I

matt (04:32)
They do. I think that was the joke. And Chomp stood

for like canine home something.

Tug McTighe (04:35)
Yeah, canine home

protection. Can we please do chomps together?

matt (04:40)
We probably should. And it was it was Benji Mania. Everybody loved Benji, so it was the same kind of

Tug McTighe (04:43)
Man alive.

matt (04:44)
dog.

Tug McTighe (04:45)
I probably watched Tomps fifty times.

matt (04:47)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (04:49)
I have not seen it since then. I would love to watch Chomps. See if it stands up. I'm kinda sure it doesn't.

matt (04:54)
I would too. I don't think it will. I I

really don't. The real question is, as we get into this, did this hold up? 'Cause this movie was same same time frame, maybe a couple years after Chompson.

Tug McTighe (05:06)
High eighties, yep.

Alright, the log line. When a mild mannered morgue clerk gets saddled with a chaotic entrepreneurial coworker, the pair team up with a neighboring sex worker to run a high end escort service out of the city morgue.

matt (05:20)
Sounds right to me.

Tug McTighe (05:21)
B buckets, bang, nailed it. And

matt (05:23)
Yep.

Tug McTighe (05:23)
you nailed it. Ron Howard, Henry Winker, Michael Keaton, Ciddy Morgue, Prostitutes, Shabango. So it's a nineteen eighty-two American comedy film directed by the aforementioned Ron Howard.

matt (05:33)
Directorial debut.

Tug McTighe (05:34)
Yeah. He always wanted to be a director. He had left Happy Days. Biggest show in the world because he had spent his whole life on a sitcom set. and he wanted to be a director. And so he had left

He did I remember him doing a couple of walk-on parts at the end when it really became Fonzi's show. But Richie would come on and get married and then he'd leave and he'd he they they sent him off. He joined the Navy first or the Air Force or something for some

matt (06:02)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (06:02)
reason. so he was off screen. but he always wanted to be director, so this is his debut.

as we said, it centers on a timid night shift morgue employee whose life is turned upside down by new co-worker who fancies himself a free spirited entrepreneur. It's Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton in his first role. Shelley Long, prior to her giant breakout as Diane Chambers on Cheers. it's got Richard Belzer, Clint Howard, as always. Hey, Ron Howard put Clint in the first movie he made, he put him in all the rest.

matt (06:32)
No, that

guy's been in everything he's done, which God bless him.

Tug McTighe (06:34)
Everything.

Yeah, for sure. Young Kevin Costner, Shannon Doherty nine two and as a bluebird, Vincent Schiavelli as a as a delivery driver, just a lot of great great people in the cast because Ron Howard was and is a household name. He was OP on the hugely popular Andy Griffith.

Basically his whole childhood, he took a little bit of a break and then became Richie Cunningham. So he knew everybody and could probably get anybody he wanted to. Even in even even then. For his debut.

matt (07:02)
Yeah. Absolutely. That's how

old was he at the time, do we think, when he directed this?

Tug McTighe (07:08)
Run

I bet he was thirty, maybe thirty.

matt (07:11)
He was even that old. yes, a ton of familiar faces as I was watching this. Even Henry Winkler's fiancee, Charlotte, was

Tug McTighe (07:18)
Yep.

matt (07:19)
familiar and I had to look her IMDB filmography up. She was in an early nineties episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, like with a

Tug McTighe (07:27)
And it

matt (07:28)
with a prosthetic forehead on Alien. I was like, that's who that was. It's always the forehead.

Tug McTighe (07:30)
Well it's either a nose or a forehead. See

it's always a forehead. And and Matt, again, you're you're Leo in Once Upon a Time. Whoop Right

matt (07:40)
I know I know her. How to do at the box office.

Tug McTighe (07:44)
twenty-two million domestically and or worldwide, I will tell you. since this was released so far in the past

Box Office Mojo only lists this number, twenty one million ninety-five thousand six hundred and thirty eight dollars, if you'd like to be precise. opening weekend was two and a half million and eighty two, a far cry from the openings we routinely see today. Estimated production budget was eight million, so maybe it made money. It's just hard to tell. it probably did. I think it was a little movie. Yeah, I think

matt (08:12)
It sounds like it did. Sure.

Tug McTighe (08:14)
it was a little film.

matt (08:16)
If that was a twenty five million dollar movie today and it made seventy five million dollars or sixty eight million dollars, we'd

Tug McTighe (08:22)
We'd call it a win. Yep. Yep.

matt (08:24)
call that a modest success.

Tug McTighe (08:26)
And then it had some life, as we discussed I don't know how the HBO contracts worked in those days, but it had some life likely on video, it had some life likely on on D V D if it even made it that far, but you know

matt (08:39)
They'd get a dollar

every time they showed it and then they'd show it a million times, so they'd get a million dollars. Yep.

Tug McTighe (08:43)
Everybody goes home happy.

Rotten Tomatoes, the tomato meter, ninety three percent from the critics.

matt (08:50)
That surprised me.

Tug McTighe (08:51)
yeah, well, and sixty three percent from the from the fans. I I would argue somewhere in the middle. More like an eighty, eighty two, eighty five.

matt (09:01)
Right. So here's a question and maybe you don't know the answer and maybe you do. So when they talk about

Tug McTighe (09:06)
Seven.

matt (09:06)
when they talk about critics response, is that at the time or is it forever? 'Cause I don't know why a critic would

Tug McTighe (09:11)
Yes. I believe that's at the time.

matt (09:13)
why would a critic do a review of Nightship last week?

Tug McTighe (09:16)
Yeah, Owen Gleberman from Entertainment Weekly's not going back and

Yeah, yeah, at the time.

matt (09:21)
Okay, I wonder and we've seen this before in other films that we've talked about and I can't remember which one's off top of our head, if this was received so positively by critics because it was very different from what else they were seeing.

Tug McTighe (09:35)
Right, right. Pardon. This is not your

matt (09:38)
I look

Tug McTighe (09:39)
this is not your standard rom com. This is a little bit of a concept. and this probably frankly, Matt, probably predates a lot of the rom coms they do in our brain. Feels like later in the eighties. This was kind of a I would call it a light eighties sex comedy. It isn't porkies. It isn't

risky business, which it ha sort of has a c you know, sort of connected tissue to.

matt (10:04)
Right.

Tug McTighe (10:05)
But it wasn't gigantic nude scenes. It wasn't about that. But it's horny and it's prostitution. So I wonder if it's just a like you said, a little bit a little bit unexpected from Ron Howard. A lot unexpected from Henry Winkler.

matt (10:21)
For sure.

Tug McTighe (10:22)
So

matt (10:23)
So mostly positive reviews from critics, as we said. the consensus reads Night Shift bristles with pitch perfect laughs thank to thanks to Ron Howard's snappy direction and a side splitting term from Michael Keaton, which is undeniable. I mean this was his debut, but he was

Tug McTighe (10:37)
Unbelievable.

matt (10:38)
he was like a and I know people hate when I say this because I didn't like Robin Williams.

Tug McTighe (10:43)
Ha ha.

matt (10:44)
Sorry. he was like a more likable Robin Williams.

It's just kind of manic, and I we'll talk about that in a bit. on Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on eleven reviews. What what eleven reviews? What's the point?

Tug McTighe (10:58)
I know, right?

matt (10:59)
Right? many reviewers praised the performances of Winkler and Keaton, and particularly Michael Keaton.

The Chicago readers Jonathan Rosenbaum compared Night Shift to Risky Business, which came after, which also

Tug McTighe (11:11)
There you go.

matt (11:12)
dealt with prostitution, as you said, noting that Night Shift isn't as snappily directed or as caustically conceived, but arguably just as sexy and almost as funny, whatever that means.

Tug McTighe (11:23)
Yeah, I I think Risky Business and Nightshift are about the same funny. I think risky business is significantly sexier than Nightshift.

matt (11:30)
I think you're right.

Tug McTighe (11:31)
what did old Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune say, Matt?

matt (11:34)
Gene Siskel in the Tribune gave the film two stars out of four but hailed Keaton's superb comic performance writing. This was really funny, that based on this one role, I would now pay to see Keaton in just about anything, anything except Night Shift.

Tug McTighe (11:49)
So that's the definition of a backhanded compliment, I believe.

matt (11:52)
Yeah, he didn't care

for it. I watched that episode, so I was like, I wonder what Raj thought about it. So I went and found the at the movies episode, The other movie they were reviewing that week was an officer and a gentleman, to kind of put it in the time that it was. So

Tug McTighe (12:09)
So

so so here, night shift,

matt (12:12)
Right.

Tug McTighe (12:13)
officer and gentleman not not the same.

matt (12:16)
No. I liked Officer and a Gentleman. I thought it was

Tug McTighe (12:18)
So do I.

matt (12:19)
and Roger Ebert said, and I agreed, there were so many things happening throughout that it made the movie seem much longer than its actual runtime. And w made worse because you and I watched it on Tubi or Pluto TV. So every

Tug McTighe (12:31)
Calling.

matt (12:33)
every ten minutes you had a commercial for something.

Tug McTighe (12:35)
Hey,

did you notice too? On Tubi at least, it's one of three, one of six, one of seven. I'm like they're the brakes get longer and longer towards the end. It's like a endurance battle. And we're advertisers.

matt (12:49)
Yeah. I

Tug McTighe (12:51)
We we make commercials.

matt (12:53)
I know, I hear ya. It's that's why nobody watches commercials anymore.

there were so many scenes in this movie. Cut to the subway. Cut to the apartment. Cut back to something else. I mean, and fast ones. Like, it's not a ten-minute scene or a five-minute scene.

Tug McTighe (13:06)
No.

matt (13:07)
It's like a 45-minute scene and you're cutting out of it. Ebert also said he thought prostitution as a concept was an odd thing to try and make funny. And when you do try to do that, you end up with kind of a sitcom.

just rehashing old bits, but consider Ron Howard's experience was in sitcoms. He was from sixty to sixty eight he was on Andy Griffith. From seventy four to eighty he was Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. So more than his life was spent on a sitcom set before he was even twenty six years old. And I think that's about how old he was now that I think about it when he directed this. He was twenty six, twenty seven, something like that.

Tug McTighe (13:39)
Yeah,

so Young, like you said, his whole life on a sitcom set, learned from sitcom directors. Jerry I think Jerry Paris was the was the one that he he points to, Ron does about who directed a shit ton of happy days, and he learned everything from him. So yeah, it feels a little bit like a sitcom. And it it's only it's only an hour forty two, right? It's a hundred minutes, hundred and two minutes. But there's a lot

matt (14:02)
It it seems so much more.

Tug McTighe (14:04)
packed into it. so

Again, Brian Grazer, people may r recognize that name. Still Ron Howard's partner producer. he kind of helped conceive the story after finding a New York Times news story about a prostitution ring run from a city morgue. So the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree there.

matt (14:21)
Wow.

Tug McTighe (14:23)
there's a l a lot of like no thank you, Brian and Ron. Paramount said no. he the

Preview the nineteen eighty two edition of Preview Magazine said that Grazer approached Howard in the summer of eighty after the pair had become acquainted and they want to search for a project together. They hired t Happy Days's writer writers Lowell Gans and Babalu Mandel, who we will discuss here in a moment, to write it. And then they got their themselves approved for a six point four million dollar budget within a few days by the LA Company.

Which was run by former star Alan Ladd, who I remember vividly fr from Shane. Alan Ladd was was in the movie Shane. He was in fact Shane.

matt (15:04)
Yeah. Okay, there it is. yeah, even the movie

it was.

Tug McTighe (15:10)
He was in fact Shane.

matt (15:11)
No kidding. We watched that in school. Did you do that?

Tug McTighe (15:14)
Yeah.

My dad made me watch it. My dad was a movie buff. He made me watch all these movies and Shane was one of

matt (15:18)
No no no no. We watched it at my school. The entire school.

Tug McTighe (15:21)
No, I didn't watch it in school. you watched it in school?

matt (15:24)
Yeah, I went to a little Catholic school. There were I don't know, thirty kids in my class and we had one class. So I mean times eight. I don't know. You had a couple hundred kids. They brought us all into the lunchroom and showed us Shane one day. The entire school. I don't know what that's about.

Tug McTighe (15:35)
Hey, let's dial up Shane for the group. Hey, why don't we put on old Yeller next?

matt (15:42)
but yeah, even the movie intro made me laugh 'cause the logo for the Lad Company comes in like a dot matrix printer. And as I'm watching it f fill in this tree, I'm like in my head.

Tug McTighe (15:51)
And you know

that you know the designer was like, man, that's modern. God, that is good stuff. God is cutting it.

matt (15:55)
It's cutting edge stuff. Have you seen these dot matrix printers? They're amazing.

Tug McTighe (15:58)
Okay, can we talk about Lowell Gans and Babaloo Mandel for a moment?

matt (16:02)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (16:03)
I'm just gonna read some movies. Night Shift eighty two, Splash eighty-four, Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Spies like us with Dan Ackroyd eighty-five. Gung ho

Michael Keaton again, 86. Vibes, don't remember, 88. Parenthood with Ron Howard, 89, fantastic movie. City Slickers 91, fantastic movie. Mr. Saturday Night with Billy Crystal 92, not a fantastic movie. A League of Their Own, 1992, Penny Marshall, fantastic movie. Greedy, City Slickers 2. Forget Paris with Billy Crystal. Actually kind of an underrated movie, but he's a basketball ref. NBA ref. Multiplicity,

matt (16:36)
yeah.

Tug McTighe (16:37)
Michael Keaton again recopies himself. Father's

matt (16:39)
Seen that?

Tug McTighe (16:39)
Day, don't remember. Ed TV was like a

Proto it was

matt (16:44)
True Michelle.

Tug McTighe (16:45)
proto Truman show with McConaughey. no no no. Wasn't McConaughey? I think McConaughey and

matt (16:47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, T D was

Tug McTighe (16:50)
Woody Harlson.

matt (16:51)
Yeah, I think it was McConaughey.

Tug McTighe (16:53)
Where the Heart Is, I remember the title, remember the movie. Robots Animated, which I actually quite liked.

matt (16:58)
I loved robots.

Tug McTighe (16:59)
Ewan McGregor played one of them.

matt (17:01)
Yes, it's so rare to have yeah, and I think Walken played his dad, maybe.

Tug McTighe (17:06)
I'd have to go back and look.

matt (17:08)
no, we ha we bought it. So this was back in the era

Tug McTighe (17:10)
We did too. The kids the kids had it.

matt (17:12)
Yeah, young people won't remember Blockbuster, but they would at a certain point they would periodically just sell off DVDs so you could buy them for cheap. relatively cheap. And I bought that one. it is rare.

I think to see movies with strong father son relationships and that one had it. I was like, that's nice to see. You never see that. Like a dad and a son and they've got a strong relationship, they love each other. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that.

Tug McTighe (17:36)
And they're getting along and it's not that's not part of the plot. That's not the conflict. Yeah. Yeah.

then Fever Pitch, which was the Jimmy Phoul and Drew Barrymore movie, the Nick Hornby book is way better than that. Tooth

matt (17:47)
laugh.

Tug McTighe (17:48)
Fairy, with I believe The Rock.

matt (17:50)
I believe you're right.

Tug McTighe (17:51)
and then they're then that's where it ends for them. But holy shit, what a run.

matt (17:57)
Yeah, and if you think about those movies, which I've seen at least I bet I've seen three quarters of those movies.

Tug McTighe (18:02)
You and me both. Yep, you and me both.

matt (18:04)
and actually Mr. Saturday Night you said was not a good movie, but I do remember David Paymer plays his brother in it and his his manager.

Tug McTighe (18:11)
David Paymer's great.

matt (18:13)
David Paymer was great and

And there's a line where Billy Crystal says, you know, I was a star in Bill in David you know, I did all this stuff and I was amazing. And they're old men at this point. David Paymer says, Yeah, but you could have been nicer. Because Billy Crystal was just

Tug McTighe (18:27)
Right.

matt (18:27)
a jerk his whole life. And it was just I thought that's such a good line and so well delivered. David Paymer was really good.

Tug McTighe (18:30)
Right. Yeah. dude, we're gonna

talk about the line delivery and the bits and the jokes, 'cause those guys are sitcom writer A plus plus sitcom writers. So there's great lines, beautiful deliveries all throughout this this movie.

matt (18:46)
Yes, and in all their all the movies we talked about, common themes. Dialogue driven humor, like you just said, mixed with emotional warmth and a hook, where those

Tug McTighe (18:54)
Yeah. Heart.

matt (18:55)
that stick with you and you're like, Wow, that's a great line. and comedies about mismatched pairs learning to understand one an each other. Gung ho, what was that? You know. And Getty Wanatavi was the Japanese guy, but

Tug McTighe (19:04)
Right, that was where Michael Keaton was the American auto worker. Yeah, g yeah, he w the they

he either went to Japan or they brought the Japanese to to Detroit. To Detroit 'cause the town

matt (19:12)
They brought him here. Yes.

Tug McTighe (19:15)
was going under. Yeah.

matt (19:17)
So I watched that movie in Kansas City. my aunt

at the who passed away earlier this year, god God bless her. she took my sister and me when we graduated, we were a year apart, so when we were done with grade school, she took us on a trip to Kans City, bought us clothes, took us to Worlds of Fun, took us out for a nice meal, and we went and saw Gung Ho. So that's my memory of that.

Tug McTighe (19:35)
There you go, I love it.

matt (19:37)
Back to Kans City. and also having kind of Easter eggs in the form of uncredited cameos. So Ron Howard shows up in two different places in this movie. We'll see if you know that.

Tug McTighe (19:47)
I can't wait to to see if I know him. Okay. so Howard approached, you know, his very good friend Henry Winkler with a script during Winkler's lunch lunch hour on the Paramount lot where they were shooting Happy Days. Howard said, Hey, I want you to be in the movie, you wanna get out, you you wanna not be typecast, you don't wanna be the Fonz the rest of your life. Pick one of these roles. You can be I I wrote Bill Billy Blaze for you.

Or you can be Chuck. He goes, I want be Chuck. which I think is so so smart.

matt (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (20:19)
he really wanted the departure from the Fawns. I love that it's rumored that he he he lost fifteen pounds to be this little smaller, a little less l unassuming kind of person.

matt (20:34)
Nebushi, perhaps?

Tug McTighe (20:36)
Nebish, if you will. i and and

he t God Howard tested reportedly forty, which is a ton to test, of two hundred possible actors for the role of Billy Blaze Jowski, eight of whom read scenes with Henry Winkler, and and pot this is all around him shooting happy days.

matt (20:57)
Right.

Tug McTighe (20:57)
So so they're auditioning during the week. Semi-finalists came in on the weekend, which was Henry Henry Henry Winkler's sat day Saturday was his only day off.

And they screen tested. So again, a lot of effort. Ron Howard wanted to be a director for a long time. And he's like, I got this shot and I gotta make it I gotta make it work.

matt (21:15)
Yeah, it was his first shot out the gate. He wanted to get it right, so credit to him. And he's that kind of person. if you look at his history. I mean, he doesn't cut corners. He's thorough. I don't but we agree

Tug McTighe (21:25)
No. He's he's all in. He is a director, right?

matt (21:29)
that movie wouldn't have been made without Henry Winkler's involvement. As you said, the biggest star in the world.

Tug McTighe (21:31)
No, of course not. He was the biggest star he was the biggest star

in the world. Literally, I mean, there was a Fonz cartoon where there was a Fonsey dog and he would just Yeah the space aliens, yeah. The whole deal.

matt (21:38)
I do remember that. I think Fonz

and also Ralph Mauf was involved and there was and they had a crazy dog named Mr. Cool. I remember that.

Tug McTighe (21:44)
Ralph Mouth. Thank God Ralph Mouth. Yeah.

matt (21:48)
so it says a lot about their Yeah, there's so much junk in my head.

Tug McTighe (21:49)
Totally unscripted, everybody. That wasn't in the plan. for sure. and

and again, he he didn't want to be Gilligan, Bob Denver, or JJ Walker,

matt (22:00)
Yeah, or Jimmy, J J. Walker.

Tug McTighe (22:02)
right? 'Cause those that you can't work. And as we as we

matt (22:04)
I thought that was really smart.

Tug McTighe (22:05)
know, Henry Winkler's now been working the next forty years.

matt (22:09)
And s surprisingly to me, like if I'd just seen him on Happy Days, I would have thought, yeah, he's kind of a one trick pony and he's not really that funny. But he's got really great I mean, he's been in a million things at creating comedy chop, so

Tug McTighe (22:20)
Yeah. Yeah, he's incredible. He's actually incredible I feel. Yeah. And

apparently the nicest guy in Hollywood. A million stories. Yeah, he loves Patrick Mahomes here in Kansas City by the way.

matt (22:26)
Yes. I see pictures of him on on Twitter fishing all the time. That's his

Tug McTighe (22:33)
Classic. they discovered Shelley Long in Caveman, which was a nineteen eighty one Ringo Star Vehicle, if you can believe that. but she was in Calexico, California.

filming a movie called Tijuana, which was later retitled Losin' she came and and and had update a couple days off came and read and then met with Henry and then she didn't really want to play a prostitute but according to Wikipedia Long conducted independent research and then accepted the role.

matt (22:59)
What does that mean?

Tug McTighe (23:01)
I don't really even want to know what that is. That's just Yeah.

matt (23:03)
I think she just met Prostitutes and were like, They were pretty cool.

I had to look up Losin' 'cause I didn't remember it. apparently not very good or well received. It has an eighteen percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but I feel like every the universe kind of comes together. Shelley Long was praised for her charm and skill at physical comedy. and she was really funny in cheers too. She's she's great with the line.

Tug McTighe (23:22)
She was very funny and ch d deliciously funny. Yeah.

matt (23:25)
and it starred a young Tom Cruise, who would go on to

Tug McTighe (23:27)
Yeah.

matt (23:27)
star in

Risky Business, his breakthrough film.

Tug McTighe (23:30)
Just the next

yeah. losing it is terrible. I have seen it, so you're

matt (23:33)
Okay.

Tug McTighe (23:34)
not missing anything.

so this was produced principal photography in New York City around November of eighty one. And this was Henry Winkler, bless him.

Henry was working Monday through Wednesday while concurrently shooting Happy Days on Thursdays and Fridays. So he's shooting Happy Days Thursdays and Fridays, taking Saturday off, then Monday through Wednesday on this. This is just again, it seems awesome to be an actor. And I'm sure it is. But these are like twelve hour days out and low on location.

It was a lot.

yeah, a lot of great New York stuff here, Matt.

matt (24:13)
Yeah, you can really see what a seedy kind of crap hole New York City was before Rudy Giuliani, who used to be beloved by everyone. He was.

Tug McTighe (24:21)
America's mayor. Yeah.

matt (24:23)
he cleaned he really cleaned it up. So

Tug McTighe (24:26)
For sure,

if if you go back like in seventy I don't know, seventy five or seventy six when taxi driver, Scorsese's taxi driver takes place in the large in New York and then a lot of a lot of it's around Times Square. It it's a dump. And then eighty two, there's a large scene in the middle where they're walking around Times Square, they're really in Times Square, and it's porn theaters, people all over the streets, prostitute. It's really seedy and dirty.

And you know, now it's basically Disneyland, right? So crazy. Okay, the music. There's a lot to get to with the music. Why don't you take us take us through the song Night Shift by Corner Flash?

matt (25:03)
Okay, so the opening song, by Quarter Flash, when I heard it start, I thought, it's hardened my heart by Quarter Flash Which which I was really excited 'cause that was the first video I ever saw. I was gonna say on T V, but I mean that's the only place you could see videos.

Tug McTighe (25:17)
That's where you

saw him.

matt (25:17)
So the first time I saw MTV, that's the one that was playing. And it's got that if you know remember the song, it's got that Sax intro, because everything

Tug McTighe (25:25)
Yep.

matt (25:25)
in the eighties had saxophone. Well, I I realized quickly that it was not in fact harden my heart, but Night Shift, which was not a very good song.

Tug McTighe (25:33)
No, but

I agree with you. I totally thought it was hard in my heart at first.

matt (25:37)
the closing theme song, and a song that you hear a lot in snippets throughout the movie, That's What Friends Are For, written by Bert Back Bert Backrack and Carol Bayer Sager. It was performed by Rod Stewart and over the closing credits of this. the version I remember is the Dion Warwick one.

Tug McTighe (25:55)
Well, everyone remembers that one best 'cause it was a gigantic hit.

matt (25:58)
other tracks on the film were Street Talk by Burt Backrack, Girls Know How by Al Giro, I Did Love Al Giro, The Love Too Good to Last, just forgettable stuff. But yeah, that's what Friends Are For was the biggest one.

Tug McTighe (26:11)
Yeah, Some Day Some Way by Marshall Crenshaw. I I love Marshall Crenshaw and I love that song. So I gotta yeah.

matt (26:14)
How did I miss that? And I yeah. me too.

Tug McTighe (26:19)
my my one of my favorite needle drops in this was Talk Talk by Talk Talk. which was playing in the disco when Michael when Billy Blaze accidentally picks up two cops to bring back to the to the morgue. he's like, Great beater. Hey, you guys

matt (26:31)
Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. It's like great beat. He did that

throughout the movie. He was like, Hey, great shoes. I I like that was kind of a I appreciate that later. There that

Tug McTighe (26:38)
Yeah. Right. Right. A running bit. Yeah.

matt (26:43)
was kind of a tick that he had, but he'd be like, Hey, that's that yeah, that's great haircut. He did it

Tug McTighe (26:48)
Right, right.

matt (26:48)
all the time.

Nope.

Tug McTighe (26:50)
You heard a live version of Jumba Jack Flash and Billy Blaze and Chuck Lumley singing Jumba Jack Flash. yeah, was it

matt (27:01)
Yeah, I wonder if they got around

did they get around like like royalties by singing it themselves?

Tug McTighe (27:07)
I don't know,

matt (27:08)
'Cause there's a part where I think they're playing a live version of the Stones performing something. Okay.

Tug McTighe (27:13)
Yes, they are. Which

speaking of live versions

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matt (27:57)
That's amazing.

Tug McTighe (27:58)
dot graphics today.

matt (27:59)
So nice. I love it. yes, I don't know that I've actually gotten any jobs from this podcast yet. So all twenty five

Tug McTighe (28:05)
Not yet. Fingers crossed.

matt (28:07)
of you. Yeah, I'll work the night shift if that if that's what it takes to your right. I love that.

Tug McTighe (28:10)
That's exactly right. While listening to the Commodore's night shift. And watching Night Shift.

matt (28:15)
That was a big deal. I saw the Commodores here. In Kansas

Tug McTighe (28:18)
A lot of Commodores.

matt (28:19)
City. They opened for are not it's not the Commodores, it's cool in game. They open

Tug McTighe (28:23)
Cool in gang. There you go. Night Shift

is cool in the gang. You know what? I love cool in

matt (28:26)
It is called the gang. They opened

Tug McTighe (28:27)
the gang too.

matt (28:28)
Well, who doesn't? do you know who they opened for when I saw them here?

Tug McTighe (28:32)
Who cool and the gang opened for?

matt (28:34)
You'll never guess.

Tug McTighe (28:35)
Earth, wind, and fire.

matt (28:36)
No, they were on the soundtrack of this movie.

Tug McTighe (28:38)
Quarter flash.

matt (28:39)
Van Halen. V

Tug McTighe (28:40)
Really?

matt (28:41)
here's the story. Van Halen, so my buddy Sean and I, who is the listener of the show. Hey Sean. Yes.

Tug McTighe (28:44)
Cool Negang just just so I understand. Cool

Negang opened for Van Halen. That makes me super happy.

matt (28:49)
Yeah. I'm gonna tell you what happened.

I'll tell you what happened. My friend Sean Lipford, who's l listener, friend of the show, hey Sean, invited me to go see Van Halen with him. It was the lineup with David Lee Roth, and Wolfgang Van Halen playing bass because Michael Anthony left.

Tug McTighe (29:06)
Okay, yes.

matt (29:08)
and it was loud. It was like an audio jackhammer. it's the loudest show I've ever heard.

They were touring with Audio Slave and got in a fight with them and Audio Slave quit the tour and they had to get

Tug McTighe (29:22)
Okay.

matt (29:22)
somebody to fill in and the band that they could get was cool in the game. So, you know, we got

Tug McTighe (29:28)
that had to be a dream come true for ya.

matt (29:30)
it was pretty good. We got celebration, we got jungle boogie. Like they knew what they were doing. They're like, just just play the hits, man. That's all anybody wants. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (29:35)
All killer, no filler. All killer, no filler. Alright.

Speaking of all killer, no filler, this is a great cast. So Henry Winkler's Chuck Lumley, right, he was a giant star. thanks to Happy Days. really, I did a little research on Happy Days and what happened was remember he had a brother Chuck, Chuck got written out, the Fawns wasn't

matt (29:55)
Right away.

Tug McTighe (29:56)
even really in it. The first season was disappointing.

And then they they brought Fonsey on to the end and people just reacted to him, so they retooled the show, got rid of Chuck, and really made it around Fonzi helping Richie and Ralph and Potsey navigate high school. but Fonzi was everywhere from seventy four to eighty four. Lunchboxes, T shirts, posters, bicycles, as we said, cartoons. I j incredible. So this was against type. and

really paved the way for what Henry Winkler would do the rest of his career,

matt (30:28)
Right. So admittedly, and we've talked about this, I didn't like Happy Days. I just didn't like it. and I've thought about why I didn't like it. And I think for the most part it's 'cause the the part of it that I was watching that I could remember were the dumbest years of the show. It was the mortg from orc shows up.

Tug McTighe (30:44)
Yeah.

matt (30:44)
it was Fonzi gets hit in the s in the chest with a crowbar.

Because he supposedly has some indestructible polish on his jacket because they're trying

Tug McTighe (30:54)
Like right.

matt (30:56)
to trick the mob. the jump to shark ears. That was I didn't mind that.

Tug McTighe (30:58)
What what I mean, it's

jump to shark. The term jump the shark is the term jump to shark be fas Fonzi literally jumped a shark on water skis.

matt (31:07)
Right.

Tug McTighe (31:08)
Yeah, so it's a mess. It got it was a mess at the end.

matt (31:10)
Right. But

I've loved him in so many other things. he plays the lawyer Barry Zuckercorn in Arrested Development. He's great and his comic timing, his delivery, everything he does is really good.

Tug McTighe (31:23)
Yeah, he's he's father to Jean Ralphio and Mona Lisa Saperstein in Parks and Rec. He's Doctor Saperstein.

matt (31:27)
That's right.

That's right. The worst.

Tug McTighe (31:31)
so good. talk about Michael

Keaton for me, will ya?

matt (31:36)
Bill Blaze Jowski, also called Billy Blaze. prior to being a movie star, Keaton's whose name was actually Michael John Douglas, and he

Tug McTighe (31:44)
So he couldn't be Michael Douglas.

matt (31:46)
couldn't be Michael Douglas, and he couldn't be Mike Douglas, because there was a kids don't know this, but there's a talk show host named Mike Douglas.

Tug McTighe (31:49)
T V host. Yep.

matt (31:52)
he got his start as a production assistant and sometime character on a famous

Pittsburgh based children's television program. Do you know what that was?

Tug McTighe (32:01)
Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

matt (32:02)
That's exactly right. and he actually years later, I think in 2018, they did a big show that was a kind of an homage to honor Mr. Rogers and he hosted the show.

Tug McTighe (32:15)
my mom and dad are from Pittsburgh. And I was there from nineteen seventy two. Was born in Youngstown, moved to North Carolina, then we moved back to Pittsburgh. So I was there from seventy two to seventy seven when we moved out to Kansas City or seventy eight. Mr. Rogers is one, an American treasure, but two,

matt (32:33)
Agreed.

Tug McTighe (32:34)
a proud Yinzer, Pittsburgh,

everybody loves Mr. Rogers in that town, so and Michael Keaton is from there, from Moon Township, which is just a little bit about twenty minutes away from where my mom and dad grew up.

matt (32:47)
Yeah, he's had

written into many of his con subsequent contracts, time off to go see penguins games, pirates games, stuff like that. I

Tug McTighe (32:54)
Yeah. So and he's literally

chewing up scenery here. Yeah.

matt (32:59)
For sure. my work

took me when I was at C three work took me to Pittsburgh and I'd never been and it's remarkable the difference. It's almost like a Hunger Games thing. Like that's a in that's the industrial sector. Like it's

Tug McTighe (33:13)
Yeah, that's the Rust Belt.

matt (33:15)
it's very different from everything I've known as you know, s seeing cornfields and wheat fields in the Midwest.

Tug McTighe (33:18)
As this midwestern guy, hundred percent.

It was culture shock for my parents when they moved out here for sure.

matt (33:23)
Absolutely.

Tug McTighe (33:24)
I love that town. Greatest entrance into any city on the planet. When you You

matt (33:27)
Well yeah, I did that. When you come through the

Tug McTighe (33:29)
go through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and you're going guys, you're going through a mountain. You're coming down from the airport. That's where Moon Township is, between the airport and the city, Matt. So you're coming down through the air t on the down a giant hill.

You go through the four pit tunnel, which is a mountain, I'm getting the chills, and you explode. It's dark, dark, dark, dark, dark. You explode into the light, and you're on a giant bridge hundreds of feet above that's the Monongahila. The Ohio is to your left, and the Allegheny goes up, up all the way to the left. And you're at the three rivers, and the city's down there, the stadiums, it's explosive. I'm not joking.

matt (34:02)
It's amazing.

It's got a Thunderdome quality to it, I don't mind saying.

Tug McTighe (34:05)
Unbelievable.

Because you're in the you feel like you're in that tunnel for twenty seconds, thirty seconds. Yeah. It's awesome.

matt (34:10)
Right. And then it's just open. Everything's open. It's a yeah, it's amazing.

Tug McTighe (34:15)
So Shelley Long was Belinda Keaton. this role predates her gigantic expo explosion of success on Cheers. I also found out, I'm happy to know, she was a member of Second City in Chicago before all this.

And she turned down the the D. Wallace Stone role of mom in E. T. as she had

matt (34:33)
Ooh.

Tug McTighe (34:33)
already signed on for this. What a different world it would have been had she been in E. T for her. It still worked out great, but nonetheless.

matt (34:39)
I can't yeah,

it's don't worked out great. so Henry Winkler's least favorite actress to work with?

Tug McTighe (34:46)
Yeah. I don't

matt (34:45)
Shelley Long. Because do you know why?

Okay, there's a scene in this movie where they're standing next to each other and you would think she's six inches taller than him. They're the same height. She does a thing where she stands in a certain way to make it look like her male co stars are much shorter than they are. And it

Tug McTighe (35:03)
Is that right?

matt (35:04)
Yeah, absolutely, he was really pissed off about it.

Tug McTighe (35:06)
Okay.

So the aforementioned Gina Hecht was Charlotte Coogle. Great name, Coogle, Chuck's ill fated fiance. Pat Corley was Edward Kugel. Her dad. Woof. What a jerk.

matt (35:20)
a Kugel is

a Jewish dish too. Yeah, a Jewish food dish. Like a noodle Kugel. So I th that was intense.

Tug McTighe (35:23)
is that right? Well, there you go. Okay. Bobby DeChico was Leonard Carbone,

who ran the morgue.

matt (35:31)
He was an idiot.

Tug McTighe (35:33)
Yeah. And then that guy candidate Basil Hoffman as Mr. Dralhauser. Clint Howard as Jeffrey. Ron puts Clint in all his movies, starting with this one. he's not a pretty man, but he's awesome. Joe Spinel.

As Minetti, he was the gangster that Rocky works for in Rocky. and Willie Chi Chi in Godfather One Two. why don't you talk a little bit about Richard Belzer, who plays one of the thugs?

matt (35:56)
Yes. success he was a stand-up comic who started taking more and more acting gigs around the time and he's an interesting looking guy. again, I would not say a beautiful looking guy, but I feel like if New York if New York was transformed

Tug McTighe (36:07)
Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

matt (36:09)
into a person, they'd look like Richard Belzer.

Tug McTighe (36:11)
Yeah, for sure.

matt (36:13)
he I thought this was interesting. Most people know him as detective John Munch from Law and Order Lawn Order SVU, but he was the same character in another movie, Homicide Life on the Streets.

Tug McTighe (36:24)
Yeah. In homicide.

Yeah. Crazy.

matt (36:26)
Did you watch that show?

Tug McTighe (36:28)
I've seen I've seen some of all I've seen s some of both of them. Yeah.

matt (36:32)
Okay. When I was in my early twenties living with my buddies Josh and Bill in our three hundred dollar a month apartment in Moline, Illinois, we would drink Bush Light and watch that show. And that was that was

Tug McTighe (36:43)
Okay, there you go.

matt (36:44)
a great show. So it's like related to The Wire. It's the same universe.

Tug McTighe (36:48)
Correct, correct.

matt (36:50)
Andre Brower, Richard Belzer, Ned Beatty was in it, classic. and Richard Belzer, as it turns out, is or was, because he passed away, Henry Winkler's cousin.

Tug McTighe (36:59)
There you go. Grand L Bush is Mustafa.

matt (37:03)
Do you remember him from Die Hard? He was. That was one

Tug McTighe (37:05)
I did, he was in diehard. Yep.

matt (37:07)
of my favorite lines when he picks up the phone and says, This is Agent Johnson, no the other one.

Tug McTighe (37:11)
The other one. Charles Fleischer was one of the guys in the pris in the jail cell. He's the voice of Roger Rabbit. Vincent Schiavelli was Carl, the delivery driver. Vincent Schiavelli probably has two hundred and fifty character parts. He was in Batman Returns as one of the circus people. He was in Ghost as

matt (37:29)
Yep.

Tug McTighe (37:29)
one of the ghosts. He was one of the teacher who's said, Bear with me, I'm off caffeine in Fast Times of Rage Mount High. He took the kids, I think, to the see the Kidaver.

matt (37:39)
If you see him, you'll know him.

Tug McTighe (37:39)
But yeah, there was a there was

lot of yeah, yeah. And then we mentioned Kevin Costner in his very first role as Frat Boy No. One, great great character. And Shannon Doherty as the bluebird who blows the whistle. Brenda from nine two one she was a little girl.

matt (37:53)
I had to go back and look, but that's her for sure.

there were a bunch of Shelley Long's fellow prostitutes that were omitted, that had actual lines and screen time, but they didn't really develop the characters because there were so many people in the movie. But one of the call girls billed as Ildico Jade, was in fact Jade Barrymore she is the mother of Drew Barrymore, and this was her acting debut.

Tug McTighe (38:13)
So she was shooting

here's the good mothering. She was shooting night shift while her eight year old daughter was shooting E.T. Because remember Shelly Long couldn't be an E.T. 'cause she was doing this. Good parenting. We all know how that turned out.

matt (38:28)
Yeah, she I don't think she was

a good mom. So the plot, let's talk about it. on a gritty

Tug McTighe (38:33)
Can't wait.

matt (38:34)
downtown street in New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones, who is a pimp, is chased by two street tufts. They corner him in an alley, but he escapes back to his apartment where they're waiting. They tie him to a desk chair and they toss him out of a window, killing him as he goes through a basketball hoop on the way down.

Tug McTighe (38:52)
Yeah, and they're two guys who are playing basketball, betting if the guy can dunk, and as he's dunking, the the the chair comes down through the thing and he goes, You still owe me that dollar. So I liked this opening and I didn't remember it because I just remember the bits. This was a really gritty opening, a lot of visual storytelling. Howard is doing a good job setting up how rough and tumble New York City was in those days. And there was also a really nice one sh one or one shot, no cuts, at the beg the very beginning, about a minute of

following a person across the street, there's a woman going up to a car to maybe, you know, take a date with the John and then the camera c another person crosses. So there it's it's beautifully rendered. That's a really nice

matt (39:30)
I agree.

Tug McTighe (39:31)
shot at the beginning of the movie.

matt (39:32)
Yeah, and I thought it showed really kind of the brutality of New York City at the time, how blase these guys were to s to see a a corpse just kind of fall down in front of

Tug McTighe (39:39)
Just walking around, it's trash everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

matt (39:44)
and it's like they shrug.

Tug McTighe (39:45)
Yeah, the basketball players don't even react to the dead body. They're like, give me my money. so then later that day, we cut to the City Morgue, where Charles Chuck Lumley is an orderly, mild-mannered, risk-averse man. He presents the body of Franklin Delanore Roosevelt Jones to an NYPD detective and one of Franklin's girls, Belinda. This is Shelly Long.

Who's there to identify the body? She's man, don't I recognize you? And he's like, No, no, no. He goes,

matt (40:11)
Mm.

Tug McTighe (40:11)
he was your pimp. She's like, Yes. So he's like out, fish out of water. so then they leave the morgue. we learn, we we learn this later, but Chuck was formerly a successful stockbroker on Wall Street, but found refuge from the ulcer-inducing rat race as this attendant in New York City. He says

People take your ideas. You're working all the time. I was getting an ulcer. I need this quiet. I need this calm. and he's living his life. So this is act one. This is our main character is in the world he's in. Even if it's a terrible world, it's it works for him, right? He's safe. so then Mr. Carboni promotes Chuck to a night shift supervisor to make room for his Carboni's nephew Leonard. Chuck is then further exasperated by

The irrational exuberance, energy, and ideas of Bill Blaze Blazowski, his new co worker.

matt (41:06)
Yeah, I don't know how I missed the whole thing about Chuck's business acumen and the Wall Street and that he was good at this sort of thing. 'Cause I wasn't I wasn't drinking

Tug McTighe (41:14)
He has a monologue where he Sorry, go.

matt (41:17)
when I was wa I wasn't drinking when I was watching it. Like I was

Tug McTighe (41:19)
For one.

matt (41:20)
for once. I mean I was I was locked in, as the kids say. So

Tug McTighe (41:24)
Right.

matt (41:25)
I I don't know if it's my fault for just missing it. 'cause it I think it could have been a more valuable payoff if I'd noticed it or if it had been expressive.

Tug McTighe (41:31)
Right. He he says

to Bill Why you working here with these stiffs, right? Billy says. He's like, I couldn't take it. I spent months working on a deal and someone else would take the credit and the money and I was getting an all s so he he mentions it to him in dialogue. But yeah,

matt (41:45)
Right.

Tug McTighe (41:45)
I I think maybe one more scene of that. the fiance mentions it later.

matt (41:50)
they did a good job of establishing what a kind of a go along sad sack guy that Chuck really is.

Tug McTighe (41:54)
Yeah. Do you remember what he's do

we remember what Chuck says to him?

matt (41:58)
which part?

Tug McTighe (41:59)
about the new employee.

matt (42:01)
I noticed that he has

the same last name as you.

Tug McTighe (42:04)
Yeah, yeah, I I think he's my nephew. And then he just leaves so so Chuck is getting pushed out. and then I I love that Billy Blaze coming in with this frenetic energy. Like I said, he comes in dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Yeah, he's just listening to Walkman, all fired up. very very fun. Very funny.

matt (42:23)
Chuck is in a tenuous engagement to Charlotte Kugel, who storms out of Chuck's apartment on his only night off of the week after they encounter Belinda. that was a good scene where they're playing loud music from her apartment and Chuck she says, Go tell him to turn it down and he goes out and there's just a giant g guy in a cowboy hat in his underwear who looks like Lee Horsley.

Tug McTighe (42:44)
Right. Right. And she's like

she's like, I didn't recognize you. I I I'm the from down at the morgue. I knew I knew you and she's like, Can you just go back in there? She goes she goes, the rodeo's in town.

matt (42:55)
Right. I thought that was pretty good.

Tug McTighe (42:57)
Yeah.

matt (42:58)
but you get Chuck's really wants to have sex with his fiancee and that's just not happening. She's got all sorts of body issues.

Tug McTighe (43:04)
Correct. And then by the time

by the time he's talked to the guy, she's f fully clothed and she's like, I'm just not in the mood and he goes, Wow, you got dressed fast.

matt (43:15)
Yeah. She's like you have no backbone, no drive, you never should have left Wall Street. So you know

Tug McTighe (43:17)
Right. Right.

matt (43:19)
from the start that things aren't going very well there.

Tug McTighe (43:22)
Right, she he and so we know now w now we're ten minutes in. Chuck has a bad job, a bad boss, a bad fiance. He lost what he was really good at 'cause it stressed him out too much. And he also has to fend off this angry Doberman pincher every time he leaves his apartment. And he's he's he's jiggling the keys and this dog like So everybody's against Chuck. You also see some scenes later of

him trying to get on the subway and s a guy just pushes him out of the way and he gets crushed up against the wall or he gets he's walking up the stairs and he gets pushed down. So he's none of it's working out for Chuck.

matt (43:55)
Absolutely. and Charlotte's awful. we'll talk about kind of social mores and things that were considered edgy or taboo or whatever, 'cause it is a movie about prostitution. At least that's a big plot point. I just thought it was interesting that Chuck and Charlotte have separate apartments. I mean, they're engaged,

Tug McTighe (44:10)
Right. Right.

matt (44:12)
they're intimate. Like you wouldn't see that today. That would be weird. Like, for me, I was like, That's odd. They don't live together. okay.

Tug McTighe (44:16)
And it and and it was but

it was weird then if they would. Right?

matt (44:22)
Right.

Tug McTighe (44:23)
okay, so Chuck and Bill are settled into this relatively copacetic working environment, chatting, sharing takeout together. it's here when Chuck tells Bill he used to work on Wall Street he too stressful for him. there's a knock on the morgue door, a young man, young Clint Howard, shows up looking for Bill. It turns out Bill, the idea man, remember Bill says, Chuck

You know why I talk on this tape recorder? Because I got ideas all the time. The ideas, they're coming at me. I can't even fight them off. And goes, like this. And he picks up this piece of paper, he goes, Chuck's idea for eliminating garbage. Edible paper. You eat it, it's gone. It's out of there. Eliminated. So he's got all these kakamami schemes that he's putting into this into this tape recorder, which is how we get to the to the next Kakamami scheme, which is he's running a. He's using the air the

Morgue limos a as a limo service. So Clint How Yeah, he pulls that b Billy Blaze limo service. And it clip he's

matt (45:15)
Yeah. I love that he had his own logo on a magnet that he just stuck over the side. I thought that was great.

Tug McTighe (45:22)
he's like, I'm taking him out to the taking him out to the island. I'm taking him out to his fraternity dance. I'm picking up his date. He goes, You're using the morgue vehicles as a limo service? He goes, What if we have to pick up a body? He goes, we'll work it out. No big deal. So

matt (45:35)
Right.

Tug McTighe (45:35)
it's all pretty funny.

okay, so Charlotte, who's trying to lose weight ahead of their wedding, continues to value eating snacks more than her relationship with Chuck. She's they're in

matt (45:45)
Did you?

Tug McTighe (45:46)
bed on one of the other nights and she's like eating a Malamar. Right? Yeah, that's that that's that New York cookie. Yeah. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Malamar

matt (45:49)
Is that what it was? I was trying to figure out what that was. Like a marshmallow, chocolate covered marshmallow okay. That's a mellow mark. did she need to be in this movie?

Tug McTighe (46:00)
we'll talk about that when we get there.

matt (46:02)
I don't think she did.

Tug McTighe (46:02)
I mean she

disappears for twenty minutes here in a little bit. so again, we're clearly shown that that he's a sad tack, we know it. I'm not sure she had to keep on piling on over and over again. That's a little bit of quibble. Leonard the day shift guy is a complete moron. Leonard Carboni. he never does any work. He's watching a little TV and he's watching the Flintstone and he goes, Man, Barney Rubble, what an actor. and then I love how Chuck is super

a particular and every night he cleans off the desk, he opens his locker, pulls out a plant, puts his desk mat down, sets his desk up, put he sets it all up the way he wants it. And then but the Yeah. Yeah, it it was the only thing in the locker. Yeah.

matt (46:38)
I didn't like that. The plant was as big as the locker. So it was like a three foot tall three foot tall plant that equals out. I like that.

Tug McTighe (46:45)
and then Bill comes back from Atlantic City telling Chuck

They threw me out of the casino for being too good of a player. He goes, I'm I'm because I I was working on the numbers. And Chuck's like, How much did you how much did you win? He goes, Well, I was down a couple hundred. But they threw me out. They wouldn't let me. They thought it was a bum. And then he's talking and talking and talking. And this Chuck this is Chuck's first moment. And even though Bill is the target, the first moment where Chuck stands up for himself and he goes, Would you just shut up? Right? Just shut up.

And he he goes, You you want you w want me let me have your recorder and he goes, this is Chuck reminding Bill to shut up and then

matt (47:24)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (47:24)
he's like, Hey man, I thought we were friends. So they're settling into this thing. Chuck is being completely beat up by everybody, except for Bill, frankly.

matt (47:35)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (47:36)
and now he's lashing out at Bill.

matt (47:39)
Yeah, he's at the end of his rope. And then he pulls him he hears the the he hears it re rewinding and being replayed

Tug McTighe (47:43)
He's just re repeating it over and over again? Yeah.

matt (47:46)
and he he opens the morgue drawer and there's Bill lying there with his tapered water. So he feels

Tug McTighe (47:50)
Just laying there playing Shut Up Shut Up

Shut Up Michael Keaton is great in this. just every scene he's in is fantastic.

matt (48:00)
Coming home a few nights later, Chuck encounters Belinda again in the elevator of her building. she's obviously been beaten up. She's lying in the corner, has blood on her lip.

It this was a really good line. What was the line?

Tug McTighe (48:12)
He says, what happened? Did you fall down? Did you get beat up? And she goes, Actually it was the opposite. I got hit and then I fell down. So yeah, it's a just a funny

matt (48:20)
Yeah, I thought the line deli

Tug McTighe (48:22)
line.

matt (48:23)
We talked about that, that Mandel Cats line delivery. I probably got their names wrong. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (48:27)
Yep, yep. Dj just just quick quick hitters, right? Bangin' a mouth.

matt (48:33)
and they all got good lines. Everybody did.

Tug McTighe (48:35)
Yeah. Everybody got a yeah, everybody got a bit.

matt (48:38)
And then the elevator doors open as Chuck's trying to help her, and a group of Girl Scouts led by Shannon Doherty starts yelling, Mugger! Which again tells you about nineteen eighties New York City.

Tug McTighe (48:47)
Mother Yep.

matt (48:50)
They were on the lookout for mugger such

Tug McTighe (48:50)
She blows the whistle.

matt (48:51)
and then there's suddenly there's like twenty Girl Scouts hitting him over the head with cookie boxes. Yeah. So that was pretty good.

Tug McTighe (48:56)
Yeah, they're beating the shit out of him with cookie boxes. this is the point

this is the point when you see everybody pushing Chuck around. Right? Like I said, at work on the subway. There's a moment where he's opening the door of his building and a guy just grabs him by the chest and pushes him against the wall. And then the

matt (49:13)
Right.

Tug McTighe (49:13)
little girls beat him up too. So yeah, it's just it's really really they're setting up the character growth in a great way.

matt (49:21)
Yeah, there was this scene,

I know you remember it in the subway, when a saxophone player comes in

Tug McTighe (49:25)
It's all awesome scene.

matt (49:27)
and sees he comes in and he starts playing and he's got a little cup, kind of on the bottom of his of his sack so you can put coins in, right? You can put money in.

Tug McTighe (49:35)
Right.

matt (49:36)
and Chuck smiles, he's like, finally something nice. This guy's playing a nice sax solo and he obviously wants some money and he

put some change in his cup and the sax player starts just playing terribly like fast and loud and horrible and Chuck so you think Chuck's gonna take out his wallet and put like get cash money? No, he takes out his check book and starts writing a check. that was great. And do you know who that sax player was?

Tug McTighe (49:54)
Checkbook. Checkbook. So funny.

Walter Cronkite. Ron Howard, of course. There you go.

matt (50:02)
Ron Howard. You have to go back and look, but that's who was.

So Belinda tells Chuck that without a pimp, because theirs is dead, all of Franklin's girls are in more danger than they were. So why why was that?

Tug McTighe (50:16)
Yeah, she said, some guys figure why pay if they don't have to? And again, they've treated up to now they treated prostitution as a fairly benign profession, but now you're getting okay, this is actually really dangerous. She's she lays on Chuck what she's really doing with she says, you know, the some of these pimps are tough. He goes, Well get another pimp and she's like, Man, some of these guys are bad news, Chuck. They'll get the girls hooked on drugs or they'd beat up or she goes, Yeah, it's a nice choice.

matt (50:42)
Yeah, I d it's not obviously not an accurate presentation of prostitution, but if it were nobody would be laughing. There aren't that many movies about prostitution as the subject, I think for a good reason. you had Night Shift, Risky Business, Doctor Detroit, if you remember that, Dan Aykroyd movie. And then kind of a dry s that's right, Donna Dixon.

Tug McTighe (50:58)
Dan Aykroyd, he that's where he met his wife. can't think of her name. She was with bosom buddies. Donna Dixon.

matt (51:04)
Kind of a dry spell, and then you had Pretty Woman, which kind of did the same. It glamorized that. And then

Tug McTighe (51:08)
Right. Right.

matt (51:10)
you got some more realistic depictions. do you remember leaving Las Vegas?

Tug McTighe (51:14)
I sure do.

matt (51:15)
Okay, a good friend of mine.

Tug McTighe (51:18)
Not a light hearted summertime romp, if that's what you're asking.

matt (51:20)
No,

a good friend you you also recall perhaps that at the same time another Nick Cage movie was in theaters called Honeymoon in Vegas. So a

Tug McTighe (51:28)
I do remember hunting me to Vegas.

matt (51:30)
good friend of mine took her grandmother to leaving Las Vegas thinking that it was honeymoon in Vegas and

Tug McTighe (51:34)
that did not work out as well as it could have.

matt (51:36)
it's not. No, that was Julie. Sorry, Julie. so I don't know, how do you explain that? What are your thoughts?

Tug McTighe (51:41)
Yeah, I think

it's what you were alluding to before, Matt, where I think nineteen eighty two so okay. I this is not my theory, but I firmly subscribe to it. The first couple years of every decade are actually the last couple years of the previous decade. So

matt (51:56)
True.

Tug McTighe (51:57)
it's not really the eighties until about eighty three or eighty four. So it's really seventy nine plus two more. So

matt (52:06)
Right.

Tug McTighe (52:06)
it's really the seventies.

Okay? And the seventies was like Norman Lear broke every rule in the book with Archie Bunker, right? Using Kami Pinko, using slurs, making this guy a complete bigot racist, then moving him in next door, the Jefferson's lived the next door. So but that was explosive, like people couldn't believe it. And so I think we're still we're still have the hangover of the of the seventies. This was maybe right around when Freeze Company was coming on.

Probably right around this time. And right, you couldn't have a guy living with two girls, even platonically. So they pretended that he was Jack had to pretend he was gay. And they made a ton of jokes about that. And e e even then you couldn't have a re a a an actual gay person on TV. So there were just so many so many rules, unwritten or written, that just couldn't be broken. I just think that they were pushing these boundaries. Like

Bullshit, we're making a comedy about prostitutes. Or a couple of with Doctor Doctor Detroit. We talked earlier about these this was right in the wheelhouse of the sex comedy. Por Animal House, Porkies, right? Porkies two, The Return. a Return of the Hole. you know, Losing It, we mentioned. So there was a bunch of these sex comedies. So I think they were just pushing the boundaries, seeing what they could get away with.

matt (53:24)
It makes sense. And I think when you see some people too are gonna see, this is the way the winds are blowing and I can make a buck, well I'm gonna jump jump on that train.

Tug McTighe (53:31)
Correct. Correct correct.

matt (53:33)
Interesting. But I don't think Braun Howard was doing that.

Tug McTighe (53:35)
No, I think so Ron Howard, his first two movies were high concept romantic comedies. The next movie was Splash. What if a guy fell in love with a mermaid? This high concept is what if a guy ran a prostitution ring out of a morgue? So it's not just two people meet in a cafe and fall in love. It's two people meet in a weird high concept circumstance and fall in love. So I think that's kinda what Ron Howard was doing at first.

matt (53:59)
And Yeah,

and it just occurs to me right now as you're talking about it that Ron Howard, who grew up on the Andy Griffith show and on Happy Days, which was not a raunchy show, was not a raunchy guy. And even when he makes a movie about ostensibly about prostitution, it's really about love, right?

Tug McTighe (54:21)
Correct. Yes.

matt (54:22)
the sex sex seems

secondary and unimportant to this story. this is about him

Tug McTighe (54:26)
One hundred percent. One hundred percent.

matt (54:29)
falling in love. And and even when you know later on when he wants Shelley Long's character to he just assumes she'll stop doing what she's doing because they're in love. that's there's no this the sex is s secondary. Interesting.

Tug McTighe (54:42)
Yes, throughout. Throughout.

matt (54:44)
Yeah and look at Splash. Splash was about love. I mean if you look at a lot of his stuff, he's a family man. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (54:50)
Hundred percent. A hundred percent.

matt (54:51)
All right.

Tug McTighe (54:52)
Yeah.

There you go, see? Insight. Real insight. So

matt (54:54)
That's fine. Hey, it worked out.

Tug McTighe (54:56)
so they're riding on the subway. Chuck and Bill are riding on the subway, and Chuck tells Bill the story about the elevator and the kids and the being beat up and Bill's Bill says, Well, why don't we start a business? I'm the entrepreneur, you got the financial n smarts. We'll open a prostitution service headquarters at the morgue. Headquarters at the morgue he goes, become pimps, and he goes, No, love brokers.

So he wants to become

matt (55:19)
I'm very.

Tug McTighe (55:20)
Love Brokers. Belinda knocks on the door one morning. Again, the time is a little sh shaky on this. It's all happening kind of between September and J January. Because we get

matt (55:30)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (55:31)
Thanksgiving in there and it all it all happens pretty quickly. But Belinda knocks on Chuck's door one morning and says, Hey, do you want to eat breakfast? I I I noticed we both get off around the same time. so that was funny. the the kitchen

Chuck's kitchen door is or kitchen window is painted shut and she's like, God, it's so hot in here he goes, Yeah, it catches all light. She takes off her own, she's just just in her underpants, and he just about has a heart attack when he sees her, which is a great and by the way, he's still engaged to Charlotte, but he like straightens his tie, pushes it puts Banac in his mouth.

matt (56:08)
It's a Banaka.

Tug McTighe (56:09)
And then he sees her and then he completely melts. so

matt (56:11)
So was that a running gag? 'Cause

her apartment's cold later.

Tug McTighe (56:15)
Yeah, later on in the movie they're talking about it being cold. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It

matt (56:17)
There's just too much. There's like a script doctor would have done s I don't know if they had those back then, but

Tug McTighe (56:23)
maybe was 200 pages, they had to get it to to a hundred, you know?

matt (56:26)
That could be

Tug McTighe (56:27)
so then of course when he's thinking about cheating on Charlotte, she calls

matt (56:37)
Yeah, and he and she says, I I gotta make I gotta admit something to you. I cheated and he's almost relieved. He's like, She's like, Yeah, on my diet Would she eat a

Tug McTighe (56:46)
And then he has

matt (56:47)
a Nestle Crunch bar, I think.

Tug McTighe (56:49)
as she she's confessing, he goes, It's okay, honey. And he turns and he sees Belinda disrobing, and he goes, my god. And she goes, What's wrong? He goes, I just stepped on attack. So I'm laughing at that right now.

just reenacting it. so then he

matt (57:04)
But good delivery.

Tug McTighe (57:05)
Yeah, whoo, very good stuff. So Bill is trying to talk Chuck into this over over several nights. They're walking around Times Square. It was a fucking slum, man. Holy crap. they're grabbing some food. Chuck keeps getting the wrong food all the time. And he never says anything. And

matt (57:21)
Right.

Tug McTighe (57:22)
Bill's like, just tell him, man. And then Bill sees him getting a haircut.

cachaler's parents are coming to town, he has to get a haircut, and he says the barber s he says he says, Hey Leo, this looks a little uneven. He goes, That's the way I always do it. He's licks his hand. That's the way you like it. And he goes, I do? So there's y again he's just letting everybody walk all over him. Bill's like, No man, cut this guy's hair right. He goes, Look at his sideburns. One's up here and one's all the way down here in Australia or whatever. So it's funny.

matt (57:54)
I think we

get enough of that. I'm reading I was listening to an audio book called About Joke Farming and I can't remember who the author is, but

Tug McTighe (57:59)
Yep. Okay.

matt (58:01)
it was kind of deconstructing why how jokes work and why they're funny. And comedy comes in how many number?

Tug McTighe (58:08)
Three.

matt (58:09)
Yeah, and why is that?

Tug McTighe (58:11)
It's symbolic of completion. Past three is symbolic of completion. Father's Father, Son, Holy Spirit, past, present, future, faith, hope, charity, body, mind, spirit. throughout.

matt (58:21)
I I

would say that it's three because it takes two to create a pattern and three to disrupt the pattern.

Tug McTighe (58:28)
There you go.

matt (58:30)
so I feel like we get more of Chuck being a sad sack than we actually need. I'm now I'm script doctoring. Now I'm like, how would I redo this story? And I think that's what I would do. I would be like

Tug McTighe (58:38)
I don't disagree. We got it.

No, we got it. We got it twenty minutes in. Right?

matt (58:43)
Yeah, you don't need to keep

telling me you're done. All right.

Tug McTighe (58:46)
It yeah, we we got it.

so

So

Bill and Chuck are continuing to discuss, becoming love brokers. Belinda at breakfast raises the stakes for Chuck. She says, Yeah, my friend Lupe got her arm broken recently. so he's like, my god, this is terrible. So he's getting his hair cut 'cause it's Thanksgiving. Belinda's parents and his mom is coming in town. Belinda gets arrested on Thanksgiving, calls Chuck

To bring her ID and bail money down to the police station, which is in her apartment. So Chuck's mother and Charlotte's parents accompany Chuck down to Night Court to get her out. there's a great scene in Nightcourt where she's describing what happened and it turns out she's bitten him on the ass 'cause he wouldn't pay.

matt (59:31)
Right.

Tug McTighe (59:31)
she's really funny, the guy's really funny. and Chuck's mom and Chuck's Charlotte's parents are just awful people. When they're in the

matt (59:38)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (59:38)
cab, they're just talking around him like he's an asshole moron.

Charlotte and Chuck's mom are just you gotta push him aro the mom's like, I had to push his father around and this and that and the third thing. You gotta push him around. It's just awful. Yeah.

matt (59:48)
You You do get some insight on that relationship and that was

so that's well done. Like when you have a line like that, like you need to push him around the way I pushed his father around because he wanted to be a furniture s create. You wanted to make furniture because I'm stupid.

Tug McTighe (1:00:00)
furniture maker. Can you believe it? He

belongs on Wall Street, blah blah blah blah blah, right?

matt (1:00:04)
So I think that's where you get really good writing is when you impart that kind of information with that with just a line.

Tug McTighe (1:00:11)
Yeah. Yep, with just a piece of dialogue, that's right.

matt (1:00:15)
I agree, they're terrible and you know things are pretty much over with Chuck and Charlotte at this point. He makes he makes a face and you just know it's done, which is good, 'cause we she doesn't come back for quite a while.

Tug McTighe (1:00:25)
We won't see her for another twenty minutes, twenty five minutes.

matt (1:00:27)
Right. So, going down to the police station and Chuck being treated the way he is in the car ride is when he decides to take his life back. and he goes to visit Bill at his apartment and tell him that he's in on the prostitution business.

Tug McTighe (1:00:40)
Y do you mean the love brokers business? Billy had some great Bill what's that?

matt (1:00:42)
The love broker's business. And his apartment was cool. His apartment was cool.

Tug McTighe (1:00:48)
His apartment was cool. He had some great posters on the wall.

Alright, so now Chuck has prepared a presentation for the girls. So Chuck and Melinda invite the girls down on the morgue to present their idea. Bill starts it, but completely loses the plot in a very funny bit. Just Michael Keaton riffing here. He's like he writes on the board Prostitution.

Let's break it down. Pros. no one knows what that means. Tits. Tit. Two.

matt (1:01:11)
That's nothing. It's nothing. Obviously.

Tug McTighe (1:01:16)
Two two tit obviously two tits. Shun. To say no. To push away. To reject. Which does not make any sense either here. So I think at this time, I need you all to show me your two tits. And then they all

matt (1:01:31)
And then they're all leaving.

Tug McTighe (1:01:32)
They're

like, this guy's a fucking joke, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then Chuck jumps in and takes charge for the first time, completely selling the girls on his vision. I want you to think of William and I as agents, as business managers. I have a knack. I can take money and I can turn it into more money. He says, which pimps off for a dental plan? Which pimps offer a medical plan?

Sound financial foundation. So he he completely sells them on this 'cause he's the financial whiz, right? and they all decide to join the team.

matt (1:02:07)
Yeah. I think I think the entire Charlotte subplot could have been dropped and replaced with more about Chuck's business acumen. Like,

Tug McTighe (1:02:16)
Yeah.

matt (1:02:16)
he got fired for somebody else's mistake and he just accepted it

so back to being script doctor, I feel like that's a a better s subplot, a better supporting bit of backstory for this like how did he become this sad sack?

Because we don't really we don't really know, right? He's like, I was so stressed out. I think there needed to be an inciting event. We don't need Charlotte

Tug McTighe (1:02:37)
Other than they said it was too stressful. That's it. Yep.

matt (1:02:42)
at all. And then I do I feel like we

Tug McTighe (1:02:44)
Yeah, he's just a dude who got

matt (1:02:45)
could go back to Ron Howard and be like, Hey, I I we can make this better. Yeah, do you need I'm glad to help you out. Like it w I'm not even that

Tug McTighe (1:02:49)
Hey, do you want us to help you here? Because we're real good. Yeah. I think

matt (1:02:56)
I'll work at scale.

Tug McTighe (1:02:57)
I think Ron Howard may put us in one of those doors at the morgue if we do that.

matt (1:03:01)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:03:02)
but I do like that subplot, Matt. So I and I agree you could have cut Charlotte out of this. so now we get what everybody wants a sweet 80s montage. Billy drops

matt (1:03:12)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:03:12)
one of the girls off at a date. Chuck takes the money and provides assignments.

Billy's out on the street selling. Chuck hands out the girls contracts for a pension from C and B Enterprises. Chuck keeps stuffing money into an ever growing lineup of coffee cans. The girls in Bill's shop. Chuck invests the business's money. We can see it growing. He's working on this green computer screen and he's it says Chuck and Bill Enterprises and but unfortunately we also see Chuck drinking Alka Salter because he's getting stressed out again.

matt (1:03:43)
That was good. Show don't tell.

Tug McTighe (1:03:44)
He he he also then has a crisis of conscience. He's like, We're pimps and then he tells Bill, Look, this is what happened to me a little bit on Wall Street. I I got successful and then I just couldn't handle it.

matt (1:03:58)
okay. I loved seeing him work with rudimentary spreadsheets on a nineteen eighties Apple II. That was like

Tug McTighe (1:04:03)
The green yeah.

matt (1:04:05)
it was like watching a caveman discover fire and they like realize he can cook cook buffalo meat on it.

Tug McTighe (1:04:08)
It's like freaking out. It's so Yeah.

matt (1:04:12)
the program by the way that he's using is VisaCalc. And apparently that's a software app that kicked off the PC boom of the early eighties.

Tug McTighe (1:04:18)
Okay.

I would argue to you that that name is a combination of visual and calculator, so VisaCalc. There you go.

matt (1:04:25)
I agree. That's how we did it back then. Branding brilliance.

So Billy decides to host this huge party at the morgue with a bunch of frat boys and the prostitutes. Chuck is falling deeper in distress and feeling sick and just shuts down the party. He's like, You're partying in a morgue.

Tug McTighe (1:04:42)
You're partying in a morgue.

matt (1:04:44)
And who did we see there?

Tug McTighe (1:04:46)
Kevin Costner in the Congo line, right behind Michael Keaton, who has a Miller light on his head.

matt (1:04:49)
Yeah, I don't know if he got a line.

It's funny because if you look at the if you Google this movie and look at the cast, he shows up second. Yeah,

Tug McTighe (1:04:57)
Yeah. He's on screen for two seconds.

matt (1:05:00)
and I don't think he I don't think he had any a line or anything.

Alright. So the party starts back up, Chuck leaves

he's talking to Belinda in the morning and he starts to confide confide in her and they become closer. And then cut to driving in Bill's new car which has just ridiculous like stickers and magnets all over it.

Tug McTighe (1:05:19)
Unbelievable.

matt (1:05:20)
there's a whole scene where he explains all the various features that they have.

Tug McTighe (1:05:23)
Yeah, I got this, I got that,

I got fur fur line, leather, yeah.

matt (1:05:28)
Yeah. So Bill happy go, lucky Bill, he pledges to start Operation Chuck to help him learn how to have fun. And then later Chuck takes the girls to a burger steak, which I think we is like a Burger King, I would guess.

Tug McTighe (1:05:39)
Yeah.

matt (1:05:39)
Fast food place location that he has purchased as an investment for them all. He said, You're the owners of this place. how much did a burger franchise go for in nineteen eighty two?

Tug McTighe (1:05:50)
I don't know, couple hundred thousand bucks? Couple couple

matt (1:05:52)
I would think I don't

know how if they were taking ten percent instead of whatever the pimps were taking, which was like sixty or seventy, I'd I'm not sure where this money's coming from.

Tug McTighe (1:06:01)
Right. Fair. Fair.

matt (1:06:02)
but that's it doesn't matter, I suppose. Belinda tells Chuck that she's just so happy and Chuck's falling for her, obviously.

Tug McTighe (1:06:09)
Yeah. So now everything's going great, Matt. Until it's not.

this is the part of the Save the Cat beat sheet where the beat shows up called Bad Guys Close In. So who shows up but the two thugs who murdered Franklin? They're pissed. They're looking to find out who the new pimp is that the girls are working for.

they are beating a guy up, talking to each other about, hey, let's just tail some of Franklin's girls, see who's pimping for And then they tell the guy that they're kicking the shit out of next time, watch out whose car you sit on. So they weren't even No, he was

matt (1:06:40)
So he didn't have anything to do with any of it.

Tug McTighe (1:06:43)
he was completely innocent of any of this.

matt (1:06:45)
So is

this a reverse save the cat or ha what do you call this where

Tug McTighe (1:06:48)
It's like

what is this beat the cat up, throw the cat into the water, kick the cat?

matt (1:06:51)
Like you need to know that these guys are not just bad, they're really bad.

Tug McTighe (1:06:53)
They're bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Alright, so again, we were at Thanksgiving. Now it's Christmas time. The girls are throwing a party, as Lupe says, for Mr. Chucky and Bill. Lupe writes them a heartfelt poem. They buy Bill a sweet ass boom box. He's like a new tape recorder, radical. He says radical a lot. they Yeah.

matt (1:07:11)
I was probably he does say radical a lot. And I bet

that taper court I bet that boom box was super expensive. Yeah. P c so the

Tug McTighe (1:07:16)
So are you kidding? That was a nice boombox.

matt (1:07:19)
young people don't know how expensive consumer goods were back then and how cheap they are now.

Tug McTighe (1:07:24)
So much.

You couldn't afford We couldn't you and I couldn't afford

matt (1:07:26)
Nope.

Tug McTighe (1:07:28)
so they buy Chuck a fur covered pimp hat, which is fantastic. And then later at the morgue gets Chuck, Bill, and Belinda around a Christmas tree getting drunk. Really opening up. Billy talks about my dad. He was out of there. he was you you get a little insight into Bill, you get a little insight into Belinda, and then Bill says, Chuck, look at this guy. He never spends any of his money. And Chuck goes, No, I I spent some

and he drives him out to a to a cemetery and and Bill goes, Chuck, great idea. People gotta die, right? Great did you didn't did you buy this? He goes, But you you bought a full one. Should have bought an empty one. But

matt (1:08:06)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:08:07)
then you you learn that Chuck loved his father where Belinda had no relationship, Bill had no relationship, and Chuck bought a giant headstone for his father. And he said it used he used to have the

Smallest one in the whole place but not anymore. So that's what Chuck spent his money on.

matt (1:08:24)
Yeah, sh the the part where she Belinda tells Chuck that she he's nice and decent and that seems to really strike a chord with him. He says, You think I'm

Tug McTighe (1:08:32)
Yes.

matt (1:08:32)
decent? Why do you think that was?

Tug McTighe (1:08:35)
well, I think because he's he's having this conscious crisis about being a pimp and he couldn't make it on Wall Street and and I think he looks up to his father he knows his father was just put upon by this his mom forever, wanted to make furniture, couldn't do it. So I think he's just sort of going, Am I am I decent? I wanna be decent. Right,

matt (1:08:55)
And he's cheating he's cheating on his fiancee still.

Tug McTighe (1:08:58)
there there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot there. Right.

matt (1:09:01)
So Chuck takes a chance, he stands up for himself, opening up to Belinda about how he's fallen for her. And she kisses him and they have their first encounter. we haven't seen Charlotte since Thanksgiving, and that's fine.

Tug McTighe (1:09:14)
That's fine by everybody,

including Chuck.

matt (1:09:17)
Yeah, and then skip ahead. It's there was like a long period of them trying to get each other out of their clothes, which I thought went on a little too long, but sit commie, yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:09:23)
Yes. Sit comi again. Sit comi, yeah.

matt (1:09:29)
and it was very cold in their in the apartment they were in. That was part of it too. so they

Tug McTighe (1:09:33)
Right. Even though it was hot before.

matt (1:09:35)
Yeah, so they end up in the bathroom smoking and so it's po post sex, right? They're having the cigarette.

Tug McTighe (1:09:40)
Yes. They're in

the bathtub and like underneath her fur coat.

matt (1:09:44)
Yeah, and Chuck Chuck says, Can I tell you something? I don't smoke and he starts coughing. That was funny. That was that was pretty good.

Tug McTighe (1:09:50)
Yeah. Funny event.

and then he he says something really important. He says, Did you ever see that movie Clute with Jane Fonda? And she says no. He says, Well she plays a plays a prostitute and she's there's a sex scene and she's really

Really vocalizing and really enjoying herself and then right in the middle of it she looks at her watch and then he pauses and she says I don't wear a watch. So this is how you know it's not fake for her.

matt (1:10:18)
Yeah, again, credit to the writers.

Tug McTighe (1:10:20)
Yeah, very nice scene. He's he's really vulnerable and he's really worried 'cause he's really falling for her.

And he's really worried that she's not falling for him and she says, I don't wear a watch which is a great chef's kiss of a line to to turn that corner.

matt (1:10:35)
Yeah, how many other writers

how many other writers would would have gone with something easier or more direct or like No, I love you. I'm not yeah. I thought that was great. And that's what they're good at.

Tug McTighe (1:10:40)
Just let it right. No, let it it let it be that. That's beautiful. Yeah. Right. Right. So really, really well done.

matt (1:10:49)
And they've made you know, thirty other movies where they write the same kind of dialogue.

Tug McTighe (1:10:53)
They did similar

things, yeah. So Chuck gets to work late and he he enters like Billy first entered through the window. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and you think it's Billy, but it's Chuck 'cause he's pumped. 'Cause he just had sex with Melinda.

matt (1:11:08)
Yeah. 'Cause

yeah, you see a silhouette through the kind of frosted door. So

Tug McTighe (1:11:13)
Yeah, yeah.

matt (1:11:14)
yeah, this is a a callback to when Billy did this the first time, and you think it's gonna be him again, but now it's Chuck. So that's

Tug McTighe (1:11:17)
Yes. Yes. Right, but it's Chuck

being Bill, right? And then of course Bill is being Chuck. Where have you been? You're two hours late. I got steps coming in one end, I got girls going out the other. I don't know what's going on. She's flipping out. He's just

matt (1:11:32)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:11:32)
let me take care of it. and he goes, Plus I don't know where Belinda is and Chuck's like, I don't think she'll be coming in tonight. Who shows up right then but Belinda? Sorry I'm late, Bill. And

matt (1:11:40)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:11:40)
Chuck is like

You you're not quitting? And she goes, Hey, a girl's gotta earn a living, right? And this is a really terrible scene in a great way. Emotionally terrible. Where they're like getting heated about the argument, I thought you'd quit, I gotta earn a living, you know, it's doesn't ch change anything doesn't change anything between us, Chuck. Yes it does. And he goes, 'Cause you're a whore. And and then she goes, Well, you're a pimp.

matt (1:12:08)
Yeah, that was

Tug McTighe (1:12:08)
And it's just this really emotional scene.

matt (1:12:10)
Yeah. It's like he was fumbling the ball in real time, you could see it.

Tug McTighe (1:12:13)
Yeah. Well and

he and yeah, and and k he he right, he's growing but you know, what two steps forward, one step back,

matt (1:12:22)
And he's

obviously hurt, so it makes you you know, you have to wonder is he hurt or does he actually feel this way or is he just lashing out 'cause his his feelings are hurt. But it was a good line, yeah, and he's no better than she is, so that hurt him too,

Tug McTighe (1:12:32)
That's exactly right. So

matt (1:12:33)
because he was struggling with this his morality over being a pimp

Tug McTighe (1:12:38)
Correct.

matt (1:12:39)
as he should.

Tug McTighe (1:12:40)
So of course, his passiveness keeps him from telling Belinda he loves her. He's on his way to his better self, Matt, but he's not quite there.

matt (1:12:47)
Yeah, this may th okay, so maybe I do have at least one fond memory of happy days where the Fonz, Marion Ross, who was Richie's mom,

was forcing the Fonz to apologize for something which he was too cool to apologize. So he's

Tug McTighe (1:13:02)
Right.

matt (1:13:02)
like, I was rrrr because I was rrrr he couldn't say wrong. So

Tug McTighe (1:13:04)
Right. He can't get wrong out of his mouth. Yeah. Yep.

matt (1:13:09)
I don't know. I thought that was funny. That reminded me of that.

Tug McTighe (1:13:11)
And this was a really nice really one of the only scenes with Bill and Belinda, just Billy's taking her to a date and Bill says, You you guys didn't mean what you said back there. She goes, Yes, we did. and he goes, I you know, it's not his fault. He's this meek guy and he probably you know, he probably thought you guys were in love. And she's crying and she goes, So did I. So that's again, really beautifully written.

small amount of dialogue that tells a big story. So Bill says, I'll just take you home. She goes, What about the trick? And he goes, I'll just get him drunk. Take off his clothes. He he won't know the difference.

matt (1:13:45)
Okay.

Tug McTighe (1:13:46)
speaking of not knowing the difference about

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matt (1:14:25)
Meanwhile, the dangerous pimps who've been tailing the girls, Richard Belzer and his buddy, come to the morgue and they threaten to kill Chuck.

Tug McTighe (1:14:33)
Yeah. They he he he he's he's just overwhelmed by these two mean, mean mean thugs. and it's just beautiful Henry Winkler stuff here. Just he's

matt (1:14:42)
Definitely.

Tug McTighe (1:14:43)
just really good.

matt (1:14:44)
So meanwhile at a club, Bill meets two undercover police officers, that he thinks are just two guys looking for a good time. So he brings them back to the morgue.

Tug McTighe (1:14:52)
Yeah, he says you guys are

seem to be unencumbered. Do you want to get cumbered?

matt (1:14:55)
You

wanna get cumbered. so fortunately he does that because that's where Chuck is being assaulted by these pimps.

Tug McTighe (1:15:01)
Yes, he's tied to the gurney and they're about to fill his mouth up. They stick the fire hose in his mouth. They're gonna fill him up with water. Again, just murder him.

matt (1:15:11)
Yeah, we go back to the reverse save the cat moment. I think these guys have shown us that they're terrible, so now they have to be torturers too. They can't just They have to

Tug McTighe (1:15:20)
Right, right, right.

matt (1:15:22)
show us how bad they are.

Tug McTighe (1:15:23)
Okay, so then the cops are there, right? Because Billy's brought him back. Shootout ensues. The pimps get pinched. Chuck and Bill are rescued. However, they are arrested for promoting prostitution. So this is a a problem. They're now in a holding cell, Bill and Chuck with with a hundred other people.

matt (1:15:40)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:15:40)
And Bill doesn't give a shit. He's like showing the guy card trick. He's making friends. Chuck is mortified. Bill and Chuck have a fight. Chuck tells him, We're through.

He goes, You got me in jail here with Peter Laurie's son, who's Charles Fleischer, Roger Rabbit.

matt (1:15:53)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:15:56)
Peter Lorrie reference I think was dated in eighty two, but good lord.

matt (1:16:00)
I know. but people still knew what it was. Robin Williams did it in Aladdin ten years later 'cause that was part of his shtick.

Tug McTighe (1:16:05)
Yeah. so Charlotte

comes to bail Chuck out. Of course

matt (1:16:09)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:16:09)
you of course you wouldn't abandon me. Of course thank God. Char Charlotte. Instead she spits on him. Literally spits on him. I guess formally ending their engagement. We haven't seen her for thirty minutes. So

matt (1:16:22)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:16:23)
yeah. So so instead the girls come to bail them both out.

Belinda's not there. Yeah, she didn't want to come, right? the j I thought the jail scene was funny. pretty funny. Michael Keaton is just hanging out with all these other guys. And and when when she spits on him, Bill goes, my god, that's you don't deserve that and he goes, Yes, I do. I deserve to be spit on. And he's like

matt (1:16:46)
He's spitting on himself.

Tug McTighe (1:16:46)
He's spitting on himself. And and

and Bill goes, D stop he goes, Stop, me I'm not in front of the guys. Like he's trying to impress the guys in the in the jail. Yeah,

matt (1:16:56)
The criminals that he just met.

Tug McTighe (1:16:57)
so that gave me a laugh.

matt (1:16:59)
Because their arrest would be a political embarrassment for the city, the two men are offered their old jobs back and a dismissal of all charges, which sounds pretty good. and Chuck says, Yes, absolutely. Bill says, No, we've got over a barrel.

Tug McTighe (1:17:12)
We got him.

matt (1:17:12)
We gotta get something from which starts a fight in the lawyer's office. Chuck says to Bill that he wants to go back to his old life. and Bill says, No, I'm not gonna let you do that.

Tug McTighe (1:17:22)
He says, Let me give my old life back and he goes, No And for some reason, Bill's got a tennis lesson later. And he

matt (1:17:28)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:17:29)
says that to the guy, he goes, Hey man, how long is it gonna take? I got a tennis lesson. He's got a

matt (1:17:32)
Right.

Tug McTighe (1:17:32)
racket. Chuck takes the racket from him, beats tries to beat him up, beats up the office. So it's a great finally a little bit of a little bit of physical comedy. It hadn't been a ton of physical comedy in this, but we get a nice beat up the office scene and they're fighting and all this. The girls come in and break it up. it's a pretty funny bit.

matt (1:17:48)
There could have been more physical comedy, honestly, because they're they're both good at it. Like everybody in this movie's good at it. So I would have liked to see more than that. But starting act three

Tug McTighe (1:17:52)
They're both funny. Yeah. Yeah. this is

th th yeah, this is all is lost.

matt (1:17:59)
Yep. Chuck's a sad sack and he's going back to being a sad sack.

Tug McTighe (1:18:01)
Yep. No Belinda,

no Bill going back to his old life. so that was fun. Begin act three, yep.

So sometime after Chuck goes back to the morgue, we don't know how long. he sees Belinda in the hall of their apartment complex. They have a conversation about how things are going. She says, I guess I won't see you. I'm moving tomorrow. I I bought a condo. And he goes, Ooh, good investment. Right? and again, he will not fucking tell her he loves her. she leaves and he becomes really angry with himself for being afraid.

And this is when he he breaks, he pops. the livery man, Vincent Schiavelli, shows up with the wrong sandwich order, which has been a running gag, and he keeps getting the wrong sandwich. Chuck berates him and tells him he wants a whole new sandwich. He goes, There's mustard. I said no mustard, and he takes the top off and he rubs it on the door and he puts it back together and he goes he goes, there, you happy? And he goes, No, I'm not happy. And then the Doberman Pincher shows up and he goes, You go home! And the dog's

whimpers and runs away and then he goes, You clean off my door. So now you know Chuck is back.

matt (1:19:05)
Yeah, no I like that. And I liked seeing seeing Vincent Shavelli, we talked

Tug McTighe (1:19:09)
So good.

matt (1:19:10)
about him before. You you'd if you saw his face you'd be like, yeah, that guy and I love as a rule, conventionally unattractive people who can make it in home.

Tug McTighe (1:19:20)
So do I, and we've talked about this with that guy. They're so good. They're such great actors. They kicked a hundred of parts a hundred parts in their life. They're just not pretty enough to be leading men. But they're they're real and they're amazing. And they're living and they're living a nice life in the Hollywood Hills, I promise you.

matt (1:19:32)
Yeah, and they know it. They're like, that's it's I'm Paul Giamatti. I'm gonna be Paul Giamatti. Yep. Love it.

Tug McTighe (1:19:40)
so with renewed determination, Chuck finds Belinda working at a in an adult club. I don't know what that is.

matt (1:19:46)
It's a sex club.

Tug McTighe (1:19:47)
But it's

really seedy in there. Lots of massages, lots of hot tubs, and lots of scantily clad women, and lots of fat bald guys.

matt (1:19:53)
topless women. That's why

I think that's the only thing Roger Ebert liked about this movie. He loves movies with topless women in them.

Tug McTighe (1:19:58)
He Robert's always he's good for

a he's good for a boob scene. and then of course he finds Belinda, he professes his love for her. He also finds Bill is employed there. again working for the guy that Rocky broke thumbs for. he apologizes to both of And he goes, you're not a towel boy, you're idea man.

And again, Bill has his all this last moment, like I'm saying. I never did any of the things I said I was gonna do, and Chuck says, Hey, none of this would have happened if you had not come to work at the morgue, which is a really beautiful thing. And then and then Bill goes, What? And he pushes the mob guy into the water, they run like hell, and escape out of the city street. And it's winter,

matt (1:20:36)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (1:20:36)
so Bill's freezing because he's in like a Tarzan.

matt (1:20:38)
Right. yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:20:40)
So Bill's freezing. Chuck gives him his jacket. And then Bill back to his idea man status. He goes, Wait a minute, Chuck, hold the phone. Microwave clothing. Stay warm and bake a potato in your pants. And then

The three leave the club and they go out of town. there's a lot happening in that club, Matt. Jim Stahl was Belinda's date, he was a regular on Morgan Mini, Tony Gazzo, the guy Rocky worked for, and he was Willie Chi Chi, and the godfather was Joe Spinel. The club, just the whole thing. also, Keaton calls the boss a Jagoff, which is a uniquely Pittsburgh swear word. It just means asshole.

But they say Jag off in Pittsburgh like water coming out of the of the faucet. so I was glad to see that we got a little Yinzer in there.

matt (1:21:28)
Is that a word you're you heard out of your dad's mouth back in day?

Tug McTighe (1:21:31)
boy. Ba

ma man. Mom calling dad a jagoff, dad calling mom a jagoff. Yes.

matt (1:21:36)
That's great.

Tug McTighe (1:21:37)
Everybody's a jagoff. Alright, what do we think? Closing thoughts.

matt (1:21:42)
Okay, so I think having a sentimental connection to a movie makes a difference when you review it. I think you have one, I don't. so I can honestly say it's okay. It's fun talking about it. It's especially fun thinking about ways this could be redone better. 'cause you tighten things up.

you'd make this line better. You'd eliminate

Tug McTighe (1:22:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

matt (1:22:04)
this subplot, etc. because you and I are professional movie critics, and

Tug McTighe (1:22:09)
That's correct.

matt (1:22:10)
and script doctor, so anybody listening that needs a script doctor, you got it.

Tug McTighe (1:22:13)
We're here to assist.

matt (1:22:14)
Absolutely. so Siskel and Ebert, I think we're right. It does feel like a sitcom. It's Ron Howard's first movie and he spent half his life to that point acting in sitcom, so I don't think he knew any better. But for a first effort it's not bad.

My criticism has way too many scenes and they're way too short. They're constantly cutting from one to the next. They have way too many characters and not enough development of most of them. You didn't need to have nineteen prostitutes that you never knew anything about when you could

Tug McTighe (1:22:40)
Right.

matt (1:22:40)
have just a few and you actually cared about them. and it doesn't look that great. So cinematography I thought was just not that good, but maybe that's what movies

Tug McTighe (1:22:47)
Very simple, yeah.

matt (1:22:49)
maybe that's what they look like back in the eighties. That's the best they had.

Ultimately it treats the subject of prostitutes the way Annie treated orphans. Like they say it's a hard knock life, but they're singing and hanging out with their friends. Maybe it's not that bad. All I see is the good

Tug McTighe (1:23:01)
They're singing while they're mopping.

matt (1:23:04)
stuff of being an orphan and being a prostitute. So there was good dialogue. Michael Keaton was nuts, but already showing some of his natural comedic instincts that made him such a star. And you see him expressions and body language and all that stuff that you love about him. Yeah, exactly.

Tug McTighe (1:23:17)
There's a bit of Beetlejuice in this performance. Yeah.

Yeah.

matt (1:23:21)
Like that

he's made that he made that ex you s there's a Michael Keaton expression like like are you kidding me type thing that he makes that is just so him. So that

Tug McTighe (1:23:28)
That that is a lock. Yep. Yep.

matt (1:23:32)
was fun to see. I'm not gonna tell anybody to rush out and see it. I'm not gonna rewatch it, but I wouldn't say

Tug McTighe (1:23:36)
Right. Certainly not on Tubi.

matt (1:23:38)
Yeah, absolutely.

Tug McTighe (1:23:40)
Yeah, from total sentimental connection for me. I love it. I think it it brings back a ton of memory, so I hadn't seen it in years. I still say to Sarah and the kids, Sarah loves it too, 'cause she hurt she had HBO as well.

matt (1:23:50)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (1:23:51)
I'll still say, Hold the phone, Chuck. when I need someone to really listen close. a lot of great lines, a lot of funny bits, a lot of great line reads. And to your point, Keaton is just incredible. you know.

Barney Rubble, what an actor. Michael Keaton, what an actor.

matt (1:24:05)
Mm.

Tug McTighe (1:24:05)
I love that Henry Winkler decided to do something so unfonzi-like. so because I really like having Henry Winkler in our lives. In our pop

matt (1:24:11)
Yep, me too.

Tug McTighe (1:24:12)
culture lives. I'm glad I got seated again, even if I did have to watch it on Tubi with a shit ton of commercials. hold the phone, Matt. This is Tug. Idea to eliminate commercials. You watch the show. Wait a minute. Like you pay for a service.

And the commercials are gone. They're out of there. No commercials. Think somebody had that idea already.

matt (1:24:30)
You know

what's funny? Most of the ideas Michael Keaton had in this movie actually turned out to be things that were actually done. Like microwaveable gloves and clothes and things like that. You can do that. I don't know if you

Tug McTighe (1:24:38)
Well yeah, especially the more approximately. Right, right, right. At one

point he said, Hey, you know I thought of that first? They already had it though.

matt (1:24:47)
That's probably true. Alright, so

Tug McTighe (1:24:49)
All right, skin a hitter, gonna miss.

matt (1:24:51)
I it's I hate being that guy like three up three shows in a row. I d

Tug McTighe (1:24:55)
You love Cloverfield.

matt (1:24:57)
I did like Cloverfield. it's kind of a cinemas. Like you could I don't know. There's so many movies out there, buddy. Nobody needs to see this one. What would

Tug McTighe (1:25:05)
There's so many. Yep.

matt (1:25:07)
be a better version of this?

Tug McTighe (1:25:08)
When Harry met Sally. Splash

matt (1:25:10)
Probably. you know what's funny?

Tug McTighe (1:25:12)
hey, by the way, Splash is a better version of this. Two years later.

matt (1:25:14)
Yeah, watch Flash instead. Watch a lot

watch almost any other Ron Howard movie because he's he develops his craft. Yeah. Parenthood's awesome. That I love that movie. That was

Tug McTighe (1:25:19)
Yeah, parent parenthood is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Great movie.

matt (1:25:25)
Yeah. one of the funny things about this is when I thought, okay, I'm gonna try and look up all the movies about prostitution and one of like the fifth one on the list was Working Girl with Harrison

Tug McTighe (1:25:37)
Right?

matt (1:25:38)
Ford and it was like

It was it was not about prostitution at all. No, that was Melanie Griffith where she gets No. She worked in an office. She was a working girl. Come on.

Tug McTighe (1:25:43)
No, no, no. She was my god, you're right. No, not at all. Just she worked in an office. Jesus Christ. That's fucking AI, man. Give me a break.

Alright, thanks again for listening to Cinemissis. If you like what we're doing here, please help us grow the show by subscribing, sharing some episodes, or writing a review. It really does help. And even better tell someone you think might like it to give us a try.

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matt (1:26:22)
Okay Tug, for our next cinemas and what does our cinemisser, who is you, think you know, I have a few questions first.

Tug McTighe (1:26:31)
Go.

matt (1:26:32)
How do you feel about ensemble casts?

Tug McTighe (1:26:36)
Love it.

matt (1:26:37)
How do you feel about Dutch angles?

Tug McTighe (1:26:40)
First learn about them in the s nineteen sixty six Batman series.

matt (1:26:44)
Okay, well you're gonna get a bunch. the move

Tug McTighe (1:26:45)
Ha ha.

matt (1:26:46)
The movie that we are going to watch is Sam Raimi's Western, The Quick and the Dead. I've s it's been a while since I've seen it. I think you're gonna have a lot of fun with it and it's nice to get Sam Raimi in here, a new director. I don't think we've done anything with him yet, and I'm not gonna tell you who's in it, but there's a ton of people and they're all awesome.

Tug McTighe (1:27:07)
Alright, so I think it's a Western. I know it's a Western. I know it's Sam Raimi.

matt (1:27:10)
Yeah, I talked to

Tug McTighe (1:27:11)
Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio.

matt (1:27:14)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:27:15)
It has something to do with duels and who's a quicker draw. I guess who's the quick and who's the dead. And it's a Western. And it's Sam Raimi. That's it.

matt (1:27:21)
Mm-hmm. All right.

I feel like I gave away some of that. But yes, that's everything you know. There's nothing else. Anybody else in there? All right. I think you'll enjoy it.

Tug McTighe (1:27:31)
Yeah, that's it. I'm looking forward to it. And it's one of the it is a true

cinematist. I'm like, I should see that movie. And then suddenly I looked up and thirty years got by.

matt (1:27:39)
Yeah, no kidding. yeah, all right. Well then that's what we're gonna watch next time. I hope you'll join us. Thanks for joining us this time. I'm Matt.

Tug McTighe (1:27:46)
I am Tug, and that is a wrap. Wait, Matt.

What if you fed mayonnaise to the tuna fish?

matt (1:27:53)
that was in the movie.