Flophouse Special! Elliott Kalan on The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

I've never met him. Well, I still have a met him in person, but we met over the internet via video Skype call, and he was kind enough to take time out of his busy life to talk about the taking of Pellem one to three. Uh, the original nineteen seventy four great Great seventies in New York movie version, not the remake, although we do talk a little bit about that. But you know, Elliott's work from The Daily Show.

We talked about his work on The Daily Show and how he spent his formative years working his way up the ladder. They're very cool story, and Elliot's just He's one of my favorite podcasters and a good dude. And I can't think him enough for coming on the show. So here we go, finishing out the Flop House Special. Everybody with Elliott klin on the Taking of Pelham one two three. I was listening to Dan's episode. I thought was really good. Oh yeah, he got a lot out

of that. That shy boy that he's He's strangely, he's very shy on his own show, but when he's on other people's show. Maybe it's because he doesn't have the pressure of having to like carry any responsibility. It's like he's he seems it's used to free him up to talk. Oh, he says, um, this is a show where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it every week. I mean, if he remembers to say it, if he remembers what it is. Yeah, I think he broke down your roles on the show on my podcast as Elliott's

the motor mouth. Uh, he said, what do you say Stewart was? He said, I'm the exasperated one. And I can't remember how he described Stewart's role exactly. I mean, Stewart's basically the cool one. He's like the you know, he's like the cool dude. And if we were if it was like the Burger King Kids Club, then I would be i Q's like the nerdy one, and Stewart

would be I don't remember the other kid. The only other Burger Kan Kids Club character remembers Wheels, and he's not Wheels because Wheels is in a wheelchair, which could be I mean, Wheels was pretty cool and you haven't seen him in person in a little while. No, that's true. Yeah,

he could be. I mean he he had he know, he had had COVID, So who knows what he's doing now, But there was and uh, it's Stewart would be her name, like Ace or like uh like like Spike, you know, like and Dan would be uh but you know, like kind of the anxious one. He'd be the one that's kind of like worrying about everything. Now, where are you originally from? I grew up in New Jersey in a town called Milburn, which is uh, it's known. It's best known for three things. One is Anne Hathaway, who she

was a year behind me in high school. Two is the Short Hills Mall. We're officially it's called the Mall at Short Hills, which is just a fancy mall. And three is there's a theater. They're called the paper Mill Playhouse. That's a pretty fair sized regional theater. And when I was growing up there, Like my family had season tickets to its stuff, and they would get really good performers.

Because they're so close to New York, you could get Broadway actors to be there, and like I saw shows there with like bigger name people then you'd expect to find in a New Jersey regional theater. Like I remember seeing a show there with John Mahoney in it, and a show with with Eddie Bracken, although Eddie Bracken lived in New Jersey, so I guess it wasn't that it wasn't that hard to get him, but like seeing someone who was in movies in the forties, they're performing there.

It was amazing and like so we but but this town moment, it's like a upper class, upper middle class, affluent New Jersey suburb. I didn't particularly like it there so much, but looking back on it, it was fine. You know now feel like it was really like American beauty type territory, even though that doesn't take last New Jersey. It was very much like that. Um I lived in New Jersey for about four years after college. I lived in um Bernardsville near basking Ridge, near Morristown, Okay. Oh yeah,

Milburne is very close to Marristown. Yeah, I thought it was sort of Central Jersey, right, yeah, yeah, it's like central it's like the like northern Central Jersey. Yea, yeah, so it's like Marstown. We'd go to Mars d to go to the movies all the time. There was that the movie theater that was in the Morristown Mall was and there was like a real tiny Superhero store for therefore a compook store there for a while. Uh and

until Superhero. I mean it's it's in some ways it's more accurate because it's not like they were like enter the world of graphic storytelling. This interested in the issue of American splendor. Like it was just superher stuff. And then finally a Combo store opened in Millburne when I was at adolescent. But before then, this town, this this store, and I think that I'm pretty sure it was in the Morstown Mall. I was just like it was tiny. It was this tiny, tiny store, but I'd be like,

can we go, can we go? Can we go? Can you go to the compost store? And there was like very little there to look at or do. And I remember they had like an animation cell on the wall from the X Men animated special that was supposed to be the pilot for an animated series, but it didn't do well enough, so they just lived on on a home video for years and years. But then I was like, oh, this is this must be the most expensive piece of art in the world. How did they get how did

they get their hands on it? Now? When I lived there from late nine to like ninety nine ish m and I remember I saw the Star Wars re release there. That was when that came out, and uh, we would go to dinner beforehand. It some restaurant in that mall that was just a mall restaurant. I can't remember the name. It was probably like a Hula Hands or a Ruby

Tuesdays or something. I'm guessing I spent a lot of a lot of my my childhood being taken to middle like upper scale chain restaurants t J Fridays or Hula Hans or Chilies or not fast food, but like places where it was like Bennigan's or they were all named after Most of them were named after a fictional irishman who supposedly started this company. Hula Hands are Bennigan's or Shaughnessy's or Railies or you know, yeah, that's good stuff.

That was. That was around the time I think we weren't going to the Marstown Theater as much because there was a big Lows which then became so there was in East Hanover I think it was, and it was like and that was, you know what a real, real multiplex where you know, there was tons of movies going on at any given point and my dad could could like drop us off and then we could just sneak

from movie to movie the day. You know, my dad would take us to movies there and he would leave kind of like ten minutes before the movie was over to go scout out what was starting in the other theaters, and he'd come back and he'd be like, hey, so this I remember seeing Fargo there with him and him leaving before the movie was over, and it was on Fargo was a simple plan. Seeing a simple plan there, which is similar to Fargo. You can see how I

got the mixed up in my head. They look the same, but but uh, leaving watching a simple plan and him leaving and coming back and going, hey, a bug's life is about to start. Should we hop over there, and just being like, I don't know if I can handle that that clash of tones go straight from a Simple Plan into a bug's life. Those are two very different films. I loved a Simple Plan. That was a good movie.

Oh it really good. It's a it's there's a whole, there's a whole of the direction that like Sam Raimi's career could have gone in if that movie had like been bigger. But not that. I don't like the way his career has gone because he's made a lot of great stuff. But uh, but that's a real that's some movie I should see again. I'll put that on my list. I have this list for when my son is like fourteen movies I can't show him now. And I tease him with him all the time, like someday, Sammy, we're

gonna watch RoboCop, but you can't watch it now. Now how old is Sammy? And now you said six? He six? Now he'll be six and a half fries Okay, yeah, Now, what what are you diving into now movie wise that you're kind of excited about with him? Like we showed Ruby the Gooneys a couple of weeks ago, and we thought that was maybe a stretch, but she was fine. Okay, Uh, he's it's mostly right now, taking advantage of the fact that he'll watch older movies and he hasn't yet decided

that they're boring yet. So like on Father's Day, I've been trying to get him to watch The Adventures of Robin Hood Errol Flynn one for I think months now, since I recorded it off to you c M and for him to watch, and finally on Father's Day, I was like, for Father's Day, you're gonna sit and watch some of this movie with me, and he really got into it. And so since THENT every day is like,

can we watch more Robin Hood? So like getting him to watch old movies especially, but like I showed him The Iron Giant when he was too young and he doesn't really remember it now, so I'm looking forward to showing that to him. And uh, when he was younger, we were doing a thing. We were watching all the Marx Brothers movies in chronological order, and we never finished because we got to like room service, and I think his interest started flagging around then and I was like, yeah,

I totally understand it. I can't I'm not going to push the Big Store, Go West or a night in Casablanca. That hard on you. But the it's like, I need to sit down and come up with the movies that are appropriate for that age that I really want to show him, because most of the movies I'm excited to show him. I think when he's around ten he'll be able to start like Hitchcock movies and things like that.

And but right now he's really into We've gotten him super into, uh, certain types of musicals, so like singing in the Rain is a is a regular thing at our house, and uh, he's in the middle of you know, we watch movies and chunks with him a lot of time, so like he were in the middle of Eastern Parade, So movies with with like tap dancing, he's usually he's usually into watching plenty of if it's got Gene Kelly or Fred Astare and the tap and there's more tap

dancing than ballroom dancing than he usually he's on board for it, which is great because at some point he's gonna be like, oh, gool, why aren't this I could just see this on TikTok, you know, whatever they're using. I don't know that, man. I mean, I think that's good if you start him young like that with an appreciation for older films and black and white films. Uh, they may develop a taste for it, like clearly you did. Is that something you did as a kid with your dad? Uh?

Not not as much with my dad, but more with my mom a little bit. There was a point when when I was about ten, and I think I have a twin sister. She's about ten and my younger brother was about six and a half or so, she was like, Oh, I want to start showing you Hitchcock movies. And before then we were always a movie family, Like we would if we were going to do anything outside the house, half the time it was going to be going to

the movie theater. So like during the summer, we'd see every movie that came out, you know, we went to the movies a lot. Uh. And we'd go to the video store and rent movies. And for years the only movies I would rent were Gremlins and Gremlins too. And my parents, I think, never realized they should just buy me the tapes and we would save much more money because it probably cost hundreds of dollars over over years for me to rent Gremlin's two over and over again.

But the but Hitchcock movies were like the first old old movies. And then when I was around thirteen, I like kind of made the decision to get into movies, like, oh, I really like movies. I'm gonna really get into them, and like, uh, like Citizen Kane was gonna be on PBS, and I had heard of that movie, but I had never seen it, and so I taped it and watched it,

and I watched over and over and over again. I just loved that movie and like really loved the way the music and the and the images worked together, and like how it was really serious but they were like really funny parts and just how cool it looked, like all the crazy like deep focus shops in it, and they're like a couple of moments watching movies that like really made a huge impression on me. And like my dad showing me RoboCop when I was eight, when I

was for it and he hadn't seen it. He was like my friend, his friend who was also named Elliott, He's like, Elliott says, this is really cool. So we started watching it and seeing Ed tow O nine just blow away that guy in the beginning and being like this is the most most horrifying thing I've ever seen, and the guy who's gets falls in the toxic waste where talks to waste falls on him and then he

gets splattered by that car at the end. I was like so both horrified and and in love with it, and like like that and seeing making my family take me to see Gremlin's Too in theaters when it's clear nobody else in the family was interested in it, and just being like blown away by how meta it was.

And my my mom's showing me Hitchhock movies, and my grandmother who lived in Manhattan, I would go in to visit her and she would take me to film for him to see, like she she took me to old movies there a lot, and we would be She took me to a double feature it was probably fourteen or so of Unfaithfully Yours and Miracle of Morgan's Creek. And I've never seen any Presdons Jurgis movies before that, and the Miracle of Morgan's Creek is still like my third

favorite movie. It's like, I think it's so funny and just seeing those things and like, you know, my friends are not talking about them, like the only way I'm going to find out about them is either from my parents or my grandmother or literally. What I would start doing is going through the TV guide and just like seeing what movies we're gonna be playing on AMC and then on TCM when we got it. Then they're just

setting up tapes. And I still do that with with the DVR here, I'll just go through the Turner Class Movies Guide and any foreign movie I've never heard of, I record, so our DVR has I'm constantly playing this game where we're running out of it's like two percent left and we have certain like it's like Top Chef is on, so I know we're gonna need to record that, so I gotta I gotta watch some of these movies fast, free up some room. I'm a big Top Chef guy too.

Are you watching the season? Oh? Yeah yeah? We uh we we we it was. Have you finished it or no? No, I'm I'm in the Italy now though, okay, it's the it's the it's the only show that we watched like as soon as possible, and the but seeing them wandering around Italy and just like every it's so hard to watch it and not be like they can't do that right now just like how free everybody moves right throughout the season. When they'd be like, you just won two

tickets to the Olympics in Japan. You just want tickets to the Trolls World Tour premiere, and it's like all these tickets. I know, it's definitely interesting. That's um. Top Chef is one of the I mean, I don't even like to call it a reality show, but that's one that has maintained its dignity all these years. I think because they've stayed on the level and not they never sold out to to try and increase the drama or anything.

It's it's still about the food and the chefs. Yeah, and they've they've kind of enhanced their like over time. I feel like they have built dignity by by keeping that standard going. And like this thing that could easily have been kind of like a joke, like oh, a Top Chef like has becomes such a coveted uh. I guess because it's easier to get to get customers when you can say top Chef and you've become famous, like

so many chefs have become famous off of it. But like to see it become like a real coveted thing, and like this last season it's all all stars and like, you know, Brian Voltage is there for the third time, chasing after this dragon that he's that he knows if

he's going to get it. I feel like a the it's it's a it feels like seeing there's something about seeing the old contestants come back as judges, and different chefs that were judges before coming back and talking to the newer chefs and like chefs who have been through this process before, Like it starts to really feel like um, like the X Men Academy or something where it's like, oh, this is this like large family of special skilled individuals and it's like a school and they're all learning from

each other and there's like different configurations and like oh, fordge is coming back, like he's gonna like how how is he interact with these people? You know, Like it's a it's it's one of the few shows that I watched where this is a weird comparison, but it reminds me of like Madmen were. At a certain point. I wasn't watching Madmen for like the plot. I was just watching it because I had lived with these characters for so long and I wanted to spend time with them

and see how they like grew and changed. And so when when these people are on, it's like, oh yeah, eight years ago when this person was the show, they were like this like hot headed young chef and now they're back on and they have a family, and just seeing how they've how they've changed over time, it's like it's it's like maybe instead of the X ME Kid, I should have compared it to like the Michael Apted

seven Up movies that would have been the classy comparison. Well, it is interesting when the chefs come back UM and do like a guest judging appearance or whatever, like when Blaze was coming back a lot, or when they'll have one of the former contestants. They always come back with a little bit of an air, a little bit of an attitude, like well, I'm on this side of the table now, yeah I made the jumpt do you guys? Are you guys gonna make it here? We'll see what

when did you get into um? Well, first of all, do you know Anne Hathaway were friends? Not not particularly well, she like my sister knew her a little bit and like she was a year behind us in school, so like we had not I had no reason to know, and she was like the star of all the high

school productions. Kind I auditioned to a couple of times for those and did not get picked for any of them, so there was no uh, but she was already, like I mean, she was on a TV show I think when she was finishing high school or like a junior or something, so like it was everyone kind of knew. They were like, oh, this is a person who's like going to have a career already, And and my mom would get mad. She would be a guest on the Daily Show and my mom would be like, did you

go say hi to Annie? And I'm like why what? She doesn't know who I am? Like what? And my mom would be like, she knows who you are. The next time she's on, you say hello, And then I wouldn't and it would make my mom son, But so like what am I gonna go down and say and be like, oh, yeah, we went to same high school. I don't really know you. Well, they'd be kind of I think she'd probably get a kick out of that, or and she did at least pretend like she did.

She would pretend like she got a kick out of it, probably, but there were there were enough other writers who were like eager to go see whatever guest was down there and pretend to like know them, and it's like I didn't need to be one of them unless it was like like Petero Tool when he was promoting Venus, I think like near the end of his life. He was a guest on the show and I was really out and the guest booker, Hillary Kane, I was like, Hilly,

can I meet Petero Tool? And she was and she was like, let me see what condition he's in and she was and she was like she was like they say that he can't he you can't really, but like if you want to wait outside when he's leaving the studio, so I did that. So like I hung around the studio exit when he was but it was just just to see him, like just to see him in like like I didn't interact with him at all, but just to like just to see him and to know that

I've seen him in person. And I saw him and I was like, oh, yeah, he's He would not have survived a meeting with me, I think he would, like my enthusiasm would have been too much and he would have crumpled. But because of the drink, oh, because of age.

I mean, I mean, he's who knows what how much drinking contributed to his life, but he was he was just a very old man and a very frailment he had when he was like he was one of those things where you see like a very distinguished old man who looks like he's already a ghost, Like it looks like he's made out of like just the most like delicate materials, and you kind of don't want to breathe too close to him because you're worried like just blow

away in the wind. But I would there there were times when like like Isabella Rosselini was was a guest when I was a production on the show, and there one of my jobs was to open the studio door for the guest, so like when I was a production assistant, So like I did get to see some of them, but like seeing her and being like I had to stop her when she was leaving, which is very unprofessionally.

He was like, I love the saddest music in the world, Like, how are you going to make any more movies with Guy Madden? And she was so she seems so baffled that anyone was was asking her about that movie in particular. But the that was when I learned doing that stuff that like when you talk to a famous person, they really like it when you talk to them about something that which you probably don't sort of like they took you talk to them about the thing that is not

the thing everybody else talks them about. So especially like if I had seen a guest when they when they did a theatrical production, like they'd be more interested if I talked like, um, Billy krut Up was a guest when Watchman came out and John John was like, I need you to explain to me what this is, like what it like? Who is this character? Like what does he do? So I was John's like Watchman guy, to explain what Dr Manhattan is? And John was like, well,

let me introduce you to him. And he introduced me to to him as like his his He's like, oh, it's Eliot. He's been teaching me about Watchman. And I think Billy Krudup had probably had enough already of comic book people like wanting to tell him what he got right or wrong about Dr Manhattan and so, and he was like, oh hey, and I was like, oh, I

saw you in the Coast Utopia Lincoln Center. This this cycle of Tom Stoppard plays about cool about Russian revolutionaries in the nineteenth century, which was an amazing play cycle. And instantly he was like, oh really, let me tell you about that. And it was like, oh, he never

gets to talk about Coast to Utopia with anybody. Yeah, totally like so, and this makes Stewart and Dan mad because I'll bring up all the time, my families to go to the theater a lot, and so like I'll bring up when we see a movie with an actor and who has been theater, I'm like, well, I saw them in this product, Like oh Jake Jillen Hall. Yeah, well when I was in London I saw him in This Is Our Youth. And they're like, great, who cares? I love it, man. I mean part of what I

love about the Flap House is that dynamic. And I talked to the other guys about this. When when you will bring up something like that and you inevitably here Dan kind of groaning under his breath or you know, my favorite, very favorite thing on the show, and this,

of course we'll just upset them to no end. Is is your songs and you're singing and appreciate it's the best man, And I rewind them and I listened to them over and over, and it's just, you know, flop houses been my comfort food anytime I'm going through a stressful situation, uh, including quarantine, flat house has been my comfort food. So thank you. It's it's good stuff. And I love the songs. Keep coming no matter so much. Dan has taken to literally getting up from the table

and I'll see him. I'll see him overscape just get up and put his headphones down and walk away. And my favorite thing now is when I go into a long bit sometimes the song, but also a bit is when Stewart just goes uh huh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Like I think, yeah, it's like it's such a slick way to take me down. But but they like, I don't know, you know, the the uh I get. I

get immense joy out of irritating them. And so even if people were like, we hate the songs, it's our at least favorite thing, I'd be like, sorry, I can't help it. Sometimes I just know, I just know Dan wants to get to the next segment and I want nothing more than to obstruct him well, and you can hear him getting more and more agitated as you go, and then the song is but in any other bit would be over, and then you started another verse and dance. It's like, oh my god, come on, are you serious,

because that's the favorite. That's I love it when something when you think something is over and then it starts up. And I used to do when I just stand up very briefly and I stand up. Bit that I love to do was one that I called fantasy where I where that involved me was I say, like, I was in bed with my wife and she asked me to tell her my my my biggest fantasy. And I wasn't sure what. I wasn't sure she ready for this, and she said, no, come on, I'm your wife, you can

trust me. What's like, there has to be some fantasy that's like so weird you never thought you'd be able to tell anybody else, and they okay, well, get ready, and then it's just it's like like a shadow hangs over the kind of bizarre from the iron mountains of the North where we're ringing eternal at the sound of dwarf and hammer on iron and it goes on like that for a while, and then and I would try to see how long I could go with this prologue

to this like BS fantasy story, and then I would stop, and then I'd go chapter the one, and like that was where the where the joke of it was to me, and like I did that. I did that. There was a I was on a like a daily show, like a very short daily show USO Tour years ago, and it was so I had so much fun doing that bit for like these groups of either soldiers or air force pilots where you have like three people in the audience who were loving it, and everybody else was like

what was like why is he saying these things? And but then whenever I would get to chapter the one, and I'd start that pretty like, oh, we get it. The joke is just that it's long. We didn't have to pay attention to any of that. The only joke is that it goes on for a long time. That's great, now, do you. I find myself explaining um, sort of the rules of comedy to Ruby, uh, like there's this when

she's on a swing out. From the very beginning, I would act like I was on the cell phone and she would kick it out of my hands, and she thought it was the funniest thing. And she would say, dude, the phone thing. And I said, I'm only gonna do it if you call it the phone bit, and so she started calling it the phone bit, and then you know, if she'll do something funny, you know, kids, I want

to do it like eight ten times. After the fourth or fifth time, I so Ruby that bit doesn't have legs, and I'll explain to her very seriously, like if something has legs, that means that you can get a lot of humor out of it. Some doesn't have legs, or the rule of threes, and I kind of explain all these things to her. I should I should do that

more systematically. I feel like Sammy has a real, uh intuitive knack for comedy, and he was since he was very young, like he just kind of gets it, uh, and he has he so he wrote so during Quarantine, he's been writing a novel called The Mystery of the Stinky Cheese. And the thing that I love about this book so much, I tried to read it in a flop house many episode and Sammy heard me doing it

literally walked in and told me to stop. But every chapter, as the mystery is about to happen or and it's very elaborate, there's this these mice have their cheese stolen by these tigers, and they're going to fight at the tiger's headquarters, which is a volcano, and there's some mysterious figure called the Great Old Tiger and the and but every time they're about to do something, they devolve into an argument where it's like, hey, stop looking at me.

I wasn't looking at you. Yes you were, yes you are. Stop it. You're still looking at me. I'm not looking at you. And it's and it's literally like it's the it's the opening scene from from Holy Grail where where King Arthur is trying to get trying to get the quest going, and they're like, wait, but where'd you get the coconuts from? Hold on a second, like Sammy picks that picks that them so intuitively, whereas uh my younger one, Gabriel, he's he's he's doing this kind of stuff like like

Ruby's doing wear I have a bit weird. I smell one of his feet and I and I it smells like roses, and I love it. And I smell his other foot and it smells terrible, and I make faces and he's like again a word, very quickly forever, but like good stuff. When Sammy was like when Sammy was little, when he was like three, you know, we'd watch these Marx Brothers movies and then he'd want to act doubt

the different scenes. And there's like a scene in Animal Crackers where Chicko wants a flashlight and Harpo keeps giving him things that sound like the word flash. He gives him a fish, and he gives him a flask and he takes out a flute. And Sammy would be like, let's play the game where I'm your Chicko and I'm Harpo and and he we called them because they're trying

to rob a painting. He go, let's do the painting scene where your Chicko and I'm Harpo and I'm giving you want the things that I'm giving you the wrong things, and we just act out that scene and he thought it was so funny, and I was like, he totally gets why this scene is funny, Like Chicko wants this thing, Harpo's deliberately giving him the wrong things. And then Chicko is also mispronouncing half of it, so he like, you know, it's just he's been like sucking it up. He's been,

he's been sucking up things through those mostes. He was playing the other day with his figures and apparently turned to my wife when he went that's the cold open and then went on with the rest of play. I was like, oh, industry child. Yeah, it's fun at that age because it's it's perfect sort of for my comic sensibilities. Um, like the stinky foot and then the pleasant smelling foot, just any anything unexpected Pratt falls walking into a wall. My wife just thinks, you know, I'm a I'm a moron.

But Ruby eats it up, and I know I've only got a few more years of this, so I'm it's the same here. It's a sad thing when your child's sense of humor becomes too sophisticated for you, and we're like, You're like, don't you think poop is funny anymore? And they're like, Dad, like I'm dreading that day. That's gross. Um, when did you get formally into comedy? I heard you

say you were peeing on the Daily Show. Was that your sort of move to try and get in there, I guess in a in a professional sense, so like I've been I was a big the same way that like, uh, I was into movies at when I was young, Like I like, I feel like I grew up at the time when it was like the best time to watch stand up comedy on television. There were so many stand up comedy shows, and like especially on Comedy Central was

really new and they had short attention span theater. It was just like, we're gonna show you one bit from a person's routine and then so the parts that I hate it, which is when the person is introduced and you have to sit through the applause and then the

person says good night and walks off. Since I was like, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, I don't want this, give me jokes, I don't want this, Like that was the best, and so I was always like a comedy like I always loved stand up in sketch comedy when I was young, and like I have a I was talking about these like formative like film experiences earlier, like I have this, I had this, I have this like such a strong memory of knowing the name Monty Python but not really knowing what it was,

and seeing a picture in the TV guide of the cast of Holy Grail and seeing Monty Python in their night's costumes and not knowing anything else about it, and being like, I have to find out what this is, Like I was so magnetic to me and going to the video store that day and renting Holy Grail and watching the first half hour of it, and I was so excited about it that I had to call my best friend and tell him to come over to watch the movie with me, and he didn't get at all,

and our friendship kind of dissolved from that point on. And that like, but just be like being so inflamed by it that I had to like I had to be like someone else sees this, right, Like I need to know what this is and someone else has to

see it. And so I was always kind of like writing funny things, like when I was a teenager, I wrote some like humorous articles for this like website for college kids and the when I was and in college, Uh, one of my one of my close friends and I we started like a sketch duo and performed for a while. Where was Yu. So I went to I went to

n y U for for for screenwriting. And this was long enough ago that there was my last semester there, there was a sitcom class that they were just starting out, because while I was there, television was considered not worth teaching, and it was you were either a playwright, in which case you were an artist, or you were a screenwriter, in which case you were going to go to l A and get chewed up and then come back to

n y you and become a professor. Like that seemed like the two the two tracks that they had you on. And and at the very last semester they hired a TV writer. Uh this this writer Charlie Rubin who had worked on Seinfeld and a number of other things, and he taught a sitcom class and eventually that became a bigger Now I think you can specialize in television writing

at that program. The But like me, my friend Brock Mahan and I we started a sketch to what we called ourselves, the Hypocrites, and we performed for a bunch of years and we would like rent out a theater, put on a show for just two people we knew, and we would make like a hundred dollars and then you know, we write all new material and then rent a theater again producer. We were so obsessed with like putting on new material and not redoing the old material.

So we never got we never got as good as we could have gotten at it because instead of becoming like a finely honed machine who were constantly trying out new sketches and uh and uh, my last semester at and I was already a big Daily Show fan, and my last semester at n y U, I interned there. And they have they luckily were had a P a spot that was opening up. One of the one of their pas, this woman Campbell Smith, who's now a television executive, and uh, she was moving up to become a researcher.

And so they asked me to interview for that job, and I and hired me for that job. And then it was just like I was at the Daily Show for like the next two over thirteen years. I had always wanted to be in like in movies or comedy. And it was funny that while I was a p at the Daily Show, I was still doing these shows, these sketch comedy shows as the hypocrites. And I was like, well, the Hypocrites is how I'm gonna make it, Like that's I'm going to break in, like the Daily Show will

pay the bills. Well, then I'm like a segment produced with the Daily Show. I'm like, but really, the Hypocrites is what's gonna do? And then like I'm a writer

at the Daily Show. Me at that point, I'm like, maybe you know what, maybe this is my career now, maybe maybe no one's gonna swoop in and offer brocking me a sketch comedy show when when as that was a format that was dying out, although now sketches coming back, So I don't know now, And you ended up head writer at Daily Show, right, yes, I was the head writer for the last kind of like a year and a half of John's run there, and the uh, I

don't know. It was an amazed in place to be like I started there as an intern and I ended at my run there as head writer, and like I was twenty when they when they brought me in where I think I turned twenty one while I was interning right right as they were hiring was a p A. And then when I left, I was married and had a child, and I remember I got I got very emotional when the night of the last show, and I was saying to my wife, I was like, I don't like,

it's gonna be so hard for me to find something like this again. And she was like, you're never gonna find something like She's like, you're never gonna grow up at a show again. Like she's like, you're in your thirties now, like you're never going to be the kid at the show. And it was a very it was just like a real I still haven't like fully processed the full experience because it was such a big chunk of my life for such a for a real form

at a time. But I would still have like I would go to friends sketch shows and it would be like they've packed this sixt theater and they're loving it. If I didn't have this television job, I'd be able to focus on my sketch comedy. That's really cool, man, that you're all your entirety of your twenties was spent climbing your way up the ladder from PA to eventual head writer. That's an amazing story. Oh yeah, I mean that. Thanks. It's a it's a it's certainly a story that's gotten me,

that's opened doors. But it's yeah, it's a crazy event, and it like but now and now, of course it's long enough ago. You know, I'm thirty eight now and I left the show about but five years ago, so like it feels long enough ago that, uh, it feels like it was somebody else's experience, you know, Like I was so young then, and but even at the time, I felt like a like you know, I was like, like, I've been doing this so long. I gotta get out of here. I gotta do something else. And they're like, oh,

it was such a baby. I was like I was. I was so ready to go, but it was, yeah, that was that was my whole twenties, was working on that show. And so people all the time they asked me, they're like, oh, what would you what what's your advice for someone who wants to become a television writer around I'm like, well, start out really young so you can really take your time. It had like someone will a friend of my parents will be like, how do I

get into TV writing? And I'm like, you can't. It's too late, Like I apologize, but it's not going to happen. You're sixty five years old, and you're a lawyer who is retiring, Like this is not a second career you can slide into, Like do you want to take a p job? I don't think so. Now I think, didn't Wyatt start out as an intern to or did I get that wrong? Not at not at the Daily Show? He was he interned, He interned for Conan or Letterman

or somebody. He well, he interned at SNL. Okay, that's right. Why I interned at sn L And then he was in l A for a while and that's when he worked on like King of the Hill and he came to The Daily Show as a correspondent, and um, I owe him an email. You reminded me, why is someone who like the who I don't talk to him as much as I would like to, but I feel close

to and I always want to work with him again. Uh. Yeah, he had he would have these stories about like he had so I don't want to tell his stories, I guess. But he had a story about like playing soccer in the hallways sn L and Norm McDonald getting mad at him, I think, and they almost got into a fight or

something like that soccer game that they're playing. But he uh, I remember when he when he first started the Daily Show, I was working I was a writer when he was starting as a correspondent, and we were working on a chat for him, and I didn't know him super well yet, and just like he seemed like such a such an outsider figure, being a guy who just just came in

from Los Angeles. And he's like he was like, he's like, yeah, they repossessed my car because I I overcharged my credit card buying a bear costume for a sketch for a sketch show I was doing. He's like, I think I still have the bear costume in a storage space in l A. And I was just like, this guy's life is glamorous, Like that's like a real Hollywood life. And now and now, when I think of whyatt, he feels

so indelibly like Brooklyn. To me, that period that he was in Los Angeles is probably like a strange blip in his life. But when I first met him, I was like, this is an l A guy, Like this guy New York. Yeah. Now he's a yeah, sorry, what do you What are you doing these days? Any anythings you can talk about or is it all kind of hush hush um, I can tell you about it. I guess, Oh, actually you know what they remind me? You mentioned on on the episode with Dan you mentioned Jimmy Donne. Who

was Who was he? He and I were pas together the Daily Show and we moved up together quite a bit. So like when you when you mentioned his name, I was like, Oh, I have to get in touch with Jimmy. I haven't talked to him forever. How does Chuck know him? But the what I'm working on now, I hope I can talk about it. It's been I mean the show has been announced that but right now I'm writing on a a new animated sitcom for Fox, uh called Housebroken. That's about that's a show about pets. And the cast

in it is really amazing. It's like Lisa Coudreau and Sharon Horgan and will Forte Richardson and Tony Hale, like it's an amazing cast and the it's working. This is my first time I've been working on a like a scripted what they call scripted show, which is a dumb name because all television show those are scripted. But you know the implication is that a show like The Daily Show is like kind of half made up or that like a late night talk show is kind of like

it's super loose. Who knows what's going to happen when we're just like scripted down to the meal a second. But and it's been a really it's I think it's gonna be a really good show, and it's been a really fantastic experience. Like I love working on it. I would I would like a few things more than for it to continue on for a long time and for me to get to be a part of it for a long time. So that sounds craty, So stay tuned fox Spring. That's great, I'm allowed to talk about it.

That's a good racket to be in right now. Oh yeah, animation is the best to be in right now because you can do it from your house, so you don't need to get a ton of people in a room together to to shoot it and make it happen. I know it was. This was like a uh, it was a real It was a real godsend to be working on this show. And I'm really I'm really thankful to be on it. I think it's I mean that makes me sound like I was if I put it that way. I am genuinely thankful, But it makes me sound like

I was struggling, which is not the case. But like, but like it was. It was a real It was a really great opportunity to get onto that kind of show because yeah, any shows that involve human beings being in a room together are are on hold at the moment. Yeah, that's cool that you're pressing forward. Um, well, should we talk about the Taking of Pelham one to three? Yeah, sure, let's do it. That's what we're supposed to. I'm spilling all these beans about these secret projects and I was

allowed to tell anybody about Uh. But so Taking Pellam onto three is a movie that I honestly, for all these movies that I've seen, where I like so vividly remember the experience. I don't remember the first time I saw it. It feels like my first memory of it. I had already seen it probably three or four times, and like my my strongest memory of watching it is probably when I first started dating my wife. Me and my friend Brock, who I had been sketch partners with.

We the two of us already loved this movie, and me and Brock taking her to see like a midnight screening of it at this movie theater and that used to be New York called the Sunshine Theater. That doesn't exist anymore, but it's a really fantastic theater, and the just like for some reason, this movie. I cannot remember when I started watching this movie, but I've probably seen it,

I don't know how, like dozens of times now. It's one of the few movies where I watch it and as soon as it's over, I'm like, I should probably watch the sake of Hell I'm one to three. When was the last time I watched that? I probably watch it again. And there's a couple of movies where, even though I've seen them, I'm still in suspense when I'm watching it, like an alien when she goes back to get the cat. Every time I watch it, I'm like,

what are you doing? You never can get back to the capsule in time, even tho I've seen the movie so many times. Now, that's such a cool thing about a movie that it can do that after you've seen it so many times. You know, the sort of the magic of movie making where suspense can be carried over after a dozen viewings. Oh yeah, Like, I know they're going to get I know they're you know spoiler alert,

they don't murder all the hostages. That this is for anyone who hasn't seen it who might be listening, that's a movie about a subway car that gets taken hostage, and the hostage here say give us a million dollars in one hour, or for every minute you're late, we're going to kill one hostage. And obviously the bad guys

don't murder a subway car full of people. But like the oh, this is the project I should have anyway, it reminds me there's a project I should have told you about that makes that's much more closely related to this, but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. The but I'm still every time, I'm like, they're not going to get the money to them in time? Come on,

what are you doing? Like hurry up? And it's such a I feel like growing up in New Jersey in the eighties and nineties, the idea of New York in the sixties and seventies, just like primal myth in the background of like this crazier, dirtier, like more dangerous time that my parents and my grandparents had lived through but

which I would never know. And there's something about ugly and grimy things that in real life they look disgusting, but in movies they look really there's something really attractive

about them that I can't quite put my finger on. Like, like, growing up, I always wanted I always loved like punk aesthetic, and then when I was actually hanging out with punks, I would be like, this is disgusting, Like there was this, there was this there s bar in New York called Mars Bar, and I would be like, I am never

going in there again. That place is gross. But like if I was, but like, um, I watched the movie Uh Dudes for the first time recently with John Cryer, where it's like these punks that go out West and they're living in filth and I'm like, awesome, this looks great, Like why couldn't I have done that? And it's like, no, you had your chance to do that when you were young.

You thought it was gross, but uh, there's like but this movie so captures that feeling of like this city that is in like a bad state and crumbling and falling apart, and the people they are constantly mad at each other. These things that I used to take pride in as an East coaster until I moved to l A and I was like, oh, people are really happy out here and they're mad at each other all the time.

Like it feels like it captures that so well, and it's like super suspenseful, but it's also super funny and I don't know, and it looks great like they did uh Owen Roisman who did the uh who did that cinematography for it, Like they do such an amazing job of just like making everything look making these subway cars and like the transit hubs and everything looks so cool.

And you'll see these people running at a late twentieth century subway system using boards that are just covered in little blinking light bulbs and they're just tracking trains and You're like, this is amazing. Like it feels like I'm watching the old world, you know, die as the New World rises from its ashes, have to live through that that chasm, you know. Yeah, it's a movie that's um I mean, And there are a lots so many movies that capture New York so well, but this movie is

almost about New York in a certain way. Um. Every character in it, from the um from everyone at Command Center, everyone's always angry everyone's tough. Uh, the passengers that are hostages, the people on the street, the little wooseye mayor like it's just such a New York in the seventies movie, Yeah,

it's so. It's there's such unrelenting hostility between from everyone to everyone in the movie, like the movie where Walter math I was like the most laid back guy and even he like is like that's a crazy movie and like a that he uh that, Like the hostages are

like how much you're asking for? Like they need to know how much that the hostage sakers rising and they go thirteen millions, they go one million dollars and the guy goes, that's not so good, like like and that uh that there you know the U A trans officers just walking by somebody or maybe or maybe it's transit officer if it's cast allow, it's one of the one of the transit bosses who's like walking by somebody who's been forced off a subway trainer this and he's like,

I'm gonna sue your ass. I'm gonna sue you. It's like I shut up. Like everyone's just so mad at each other, and I think, what that there's I hadn't thought about this war. But what it feels like to me is it's like every character in the movie thinks they are the star of the movie. There's nobody, including the extras. They all think that they're the start of movie, which is the way real life is, the way that New York City is. Everyone in New York thinks that

New York is their city. That they then it's the story is all about them, and so like, certainly I felt that when I was walking down the street in New York, it was like, Yep, I'm the star. You

guys are the backgrounds. That's the crazy guy who's like local color for my for this scene right here, like where you watch a movie like um like Taxi Driver kind of carries that captures that a little bit too, where it's like everyone in New York is convinced that they're the star of New York and like everyone in Taking Time one Too three has like that moment where they get they do not show the difference that a supporting character and extra usually shows to the leads, the

lead characters in a movie like It's so there's such a lack of respect from everyone very well, which I love.

It's like they're in this like Marx Brothers world where nobody respects anybody, which would be terrible to live in, which is why I live in Los Angeles now, partly because I got tired of it, Like it takes so much energy to live in New York and I was like, well, I'm tired every day, Like it feels like I live in like a termite hive and everyone's just kind of like crawling all over each other and you never see

the sun. And but we watch in a movie and you're like, this is cool, Like I wish I liked there. You know, yeah, you're right, there's I didn't really notice that. But there's no deference to anyone. Um, there's no respect for the bosses. There's no respect for the mayor from the deputy mayor. Um, there's uh, there's no respect for women anywhere in the movie. It's definitely doesn't. I mean,

there's things that I think. The one thing that really doesn't age well for me, and it is Walter Matthew being racist to the Japanese metropoli, the Japanese subway guys with Tokyo subway guys who comes and like he gets like a tiny come up in and that like they knew they could understand him the whole time, but it's not enough. That's the that's the part I was years ago. I was trying to pitch a book called How to Watch Old Movies, and nobody was still buying it. Very rightfully.

They were like, anyone who is interested in watching old movies watches them already, Like no one is going to go get a book to teach them how to watch old movies. And I was like, that's a fair reason not to publish this book. I bet it would be funny, though it would have been. I wrote, I have to look it up. I find it somewhere. I wrote two chapters of it, and I wanted to talk about something that I was going to call the classic movie cringe, just like it's gonna happen if you watch an old movie.

There's gonna be a moment where there's a made character, where there's some comment or joke when you're like, that's not okay, Like it's never okay, but it's especially not okay, like and but you just kind of like power through those. So it's it's this. The one thing in this movie that really bothers me is that thing and the misogyny is there all over the place. But I feel like that's that's where I'm like, well, these are these I'm judging these characters the movies. I mean, these are not

so often the people who are misogysts or not. Like the reason that I think it hurts that Walter math is doing this because he's the hero of the movie, you know. But yeah, and the you know the character that the one the first guy to get shot down in the tunnel um that amazing as actor. He uh. I think the line he has is he he says he curses in the room or something with the sort of new female employee and they say to watch his mouth, and he's like, you can't even curse anymore with these

women around. He was like, how am I supposed to run a railroad if I can't swear? But he's like, I was that character. I think about him because like I love him in the movie, but I would hate to interact with that human being on any level. Yes, similar to how like Grimy New York looks really attractive in the movies, Like there's something about that guy in a movie. I'm like, this is hilarious, but if but to encounter that person in real life. I've encountered guys

like that. I'm like, what can I what what do I have to do to end this conversation right now? Like what do I have to do? Never involve myself with this human being again, because he's like objectively terrible. But and there's no deference for him either with um well, there's no deference to any of the hijackers because the guys on the back of the train with a gun, he's like, you stop right there, man, and he's like,

fuck you, I'm coming on that train. And every everyone that talks to Robert Shaw through the whole movie, it's just like, you know, listen here, you son of a bitch, Like you know, you need to give us more time. The guy, he's, uh, which guy is that? Who it's Frank? I think is the is the guy who is like manning the desk at first, And he's like he's like listening to him, maniac, We're not gonna do whatever you say.

And it's like he's talk this is he's talking to the hostage taker like there's no and what what seems to Mark Walter Matho is weak in the other character's eyes, is that he's willing to negotiate with the hostage teaker because all he cares about is keeping those hostages alive. He's the only one I think that cares about keeping them alive. It feels like everyone else is just so focused on getting the getting the trains moving, or the votes or and he's and even he the guy who's

at least engaging with the hostages. Even he's like, you know, you should really think of getting therapy after all this, And even he is not is not respectable. That's a great line. It's fun. I mean, Walter math Out is one of the greats, and it's kind of fun seeing

him play a little bit against type. Here I guess um and that it just wasn't a comedy, although he gets his his laughs here and there, same as Jerry Stiller is so funny and where when uh, he's the Walter math is showing around the guys from the Tokyo Subway. He goes, here's and here's Terry Stealer's character name. I gotta look at him. Here's Rico's right, and here's and here's Rico. On on weekends he freelances for the mafia and and he's sitting there with it. He's sitting there

with a newspaper open. He goes, Zack, I'm busy, Like he's literally just sitting there reading the newspaper. But like they walked by a they walked by a police officer who's like so bored that he's like drawing something on the side of a cup, on the side of the stone.

Was like, here's our here's our in house artist in residents like Walter math is just like there's there's a line because that we're Uh, he's talking about the the crimes that they deal with, and he's on any given day, the transit police deals with climes including it's like murder, loitering and uh, and he goes michigas and that, and that's not in the That's not in the script, so I have to assume that he added it in or that it was adit like it's so funny, like he's

he's brought so much to it. But there's a it's a there you talk about the mayor and like the mayor is so funny, like that the mayor, that the the and these characters. It's like a very ensembly movie in some ways, and that characters kind of like pop up and drop out of the movie. Asn't necessary that this mayor, he's sick in bed, no one, no one respects him. His deputy mirror bosses him around, and uh, he's like, I'm gonna go there as a show of strength.

I'm going to go there to the subway entrance. And you see these police officers outside the subway entrance and you just here boos, just booing, and the cup goes, Oh, the Mayor's here, And that's the last you hear of the mayor for the risk of the movie. Like he ends being booed off screen. Yeah, he never he never gets his bullhorn speech does He doesn't deserve it, doesn't

need it. Like it's such a Yeah, it's such a It's like the whole movie at times is it feels like a like a political cartoon that's come to life and sing this and this this is the this is the project. I should have mentioned earlier. I'm gonna gonna

insert a plug here, which non organic cliss. There's what I should have mentioned is there's a complex series that I've written that is going to come out next year from Aftershot Comics called Maniac of New York where I basically was like I wanted to do a kind of like kind of what if there was a in some ways, what if there was a version of Jason Takes Manhattan that was that actually was in New York, didn't spend

most of its time in Vancouver. But like, how the way that problems that show up nowadays, it seems like there's always there's always like a big burst of attention, and then it kind of becomes this widespread idea that it's kind of easier to live with a problem to actually try to solve it. And so there's this kind of like, uh, this mask you know, in more, this masked unkillable slasher that's rampaging through New York and nobody could solve the problem in the first couple of weeks.

So now it's years later and it's just a thing that New Yorkers have to deal with, and the and that like you may and uh the New York One Rail and Road Report now also has a tracker for the Maniac where it's like the Maniac was sited in Lower Manhattan, so like if you work there, maybe stay home today. The and in this in the first storyline in the series, he gets loose on a subway train,

and the whole and the whole thing. I was like, I was like, I want to do the Taking of Peem one to three but with like a slasher slasher murderer, but also trying the way the taking Peem one two three is about kind of like when there's a crisis, everyone is just kind of they can't lose sight of their immediate interest, you know. Yeah, it's it had a very low fi that way. Yeah, and this and this,

uh in this storyline is kind of similar. So Maynia come New York from Aftershot Comics coming out in February. I guess, so maybe don't release this episode until realized of promoting a lot of stuff for next year, we can rerelease it, you never know, Yeah, they yeah, perfect, oh, great, great, excellent,

This is the this is the advanced buzz. And then but the yeah, there's a that like something objectively terrible happens, and all that the people in different areas of power can think of is how does this affect me and my priorities? Like, my job is not to save people's lives, My job is to keep a train running. Has this affect the train I'm the mayor. My job is to stay mayor and be re elected, So how does this

affect that? Whereas Walter Matheo is the one guy in it who's kind of like, well, I'm my job is to not let people die, and so I'm going to try to let that happen. And he's even with the with the stuff with it, with the Tokyo guys, he's kind of trying to grope towards not woke because they didn't have that same kind of concept as widespread back then, I guess. But like how they like, oh, there's an undercover cop on the train, how do we know? How

he hasn't done anything? And he's like, could be a sheet, And then the movie he keeps going back to the idea like it could be a woman who's the undercover cop. And then the undercover cop happens to be dressed as a hippie, and Walter Matho at the end sees him from behind. It just sees the long hairs like, don't worry, miss, We're gonna get an ambulance over here. But that he is, even in his attempt to be open minded, he is he is still incredibly close minded, but That's one of

the cool things about this movie. That was you had this, um, you've got the hostage situation going on, and then you've also got off to the side this other sort of mini mystery of who's the undercover cop? Uh and then it occurred to me not only through the naming conventions, but with who's the undercover cop? I was like, this is Quentin Tarantino completely ripped this off for Reservoir Dogs Obviously?

Well he was, Yeah, he was, he was, he was he was borrowing from it, you know, seeing as seeing as I just wrote a complic story that's like Jason on Kellum one to three. I can't go after Aline Tartino for stealing some names. But but like the but it's very like, um, it's there's a no, I don't remember what I was gonna say. Actually, let's if if you could take out that part in case anyone from involved in Jason tries to assume me at some point,

that'd be great. Uh. Sure, the the it's there's a what you were saying, Quentin Tarantino took it for Reservoir Dogs, and I think it's definitely it's definitely. I wouldn't say he likes stealing from it, but he's definitely borrowing from it in the way that he does. But it's such a he was up front about it, you know. It's not like he tried to get away with anything. No, that's true. He didn't make a movie that was called like the Stealing of Oldham four or six, and he

was like, I've never heard of the old one. There there was one before. But there's something about the movie that is so specific to the time it's in, but it's also very universal in terms of like people are always going to be butting heads about different conflicts and crises, and there's so many things in it that are so like that. The thieves in it are so not cool

that they become cool to me. They're like the dowdiest kind of like they all have these like big fake glasses and big fake mustaches and these big coats on, and they're not trying to be cool. And when they did the remake of it, one of many things that I didn't like about it is that John Travolta, I think, was supposed to be kind of like a cool, like

funny bad guy. And what I like so much about the bad guys in this is that they feel like four dudes who are just in this job together and they're not cool, they're not funny, they don't particularly like each other, they don't puly trust each other, and it's just like this is a job and there's It was only during the Quarantine that I finally read the book that it's based on, and it was interesting. For the book,

it's pretty good. There's so much of the there's so much in the movie that's good that comes directly from the book, like lines of dialogue that comes straight from the book, and the plot mostly runs the same, Like Walter Mathos character is kind of a combination of two characters that are in the in the in the book, but the book is one it's like crazily overwritten, like there's there's so much overwriting. But also it's told from a couple of different characters inner monologue points of view.

So the undercover cop, you know who he is through the entire book because you're in his head it because he's like, should I do anything? I'll just sit here for right now. I'm dating this girl who's a revolutionary who hates the police. I can't I revealed I was a policeman. Oh boy, was this mean for that? Let me have a fan let me have a flashback about

when we had sex. One Sometimes it was like, and uh, Robert Shaw's character, you learn a lot more about like who he is and and and it was like the movie benefits so much from stripping it down to where you're not really in anyone's head. You don't really know

anyone's backstory. This is just a day that happened to them, and you are kind of you're just seeing people in a city kind of thrown together in this instance, as opposed to like, Okay, here's our five main characters that were really going to get to know and everybody else. But there's But I was amazed reading through the book.

I'm like it was almost like a disappointing at times where I would be like, Oh, this whole section of dialogue that I love from the movie has just taken wholesale from the book, and I should think that's great, I said. I was like, well, I kind of wanted that to be a special thing for the movie. They're literally just taken from the book. But it's a very it's like a there was like you learn more about the characters but it feels like a lesser experience in

some ways. Yeah, I think the movie, um, because it was a product of his time, was underdone. There wasn't like if that. I mean I didn't see the remake, but I picture if it would be made today as as a brand new movie, the Walter Matthew character would have had some like falling down esque backstory like Robert Duval had where it's his last day on the job

and he's too old for this ship. And in the new one, it's like it's Denzel Washington plays that part, and it's like he had a history where he got in trouble with that he's under suspicions somewhat. And and and John Travolta's character is like a former day trader who's trying to use this crisis to like sink the price of gold or something like that. You don't need such a more elaborate plot, Yeah, you just don't need it.

And the it was almost like like there's something inherently ridiculous about someone taking a train for ransom, because as as they keep pointing out in the movie, they're like Jerry Stiller's like, I think I figured out what they're gonna do. They're gonna I think they're gonna fly the train to Cuba and and well, I was like, you're a sick man, Rico. But that that like they keep pointing out, this is a crazy plan. It's a stupid plan, like they're trapped underground, and it's almost like in the

remake they were like, this is a dumb plan. We better try to clever it up a little bit. Instead they just super complicated everything. But I love the idea that, like, uh, Zachary Garber went to work. The first time we see him, he is literally napping on a bench outside of the outside the office. And then he expected he was going to have a boring day. He had this incredibly ridiculous day.

He and that Rico then have to go around trying to find the final man who wasn't caught, and then he's just gonna go home and like tomorrow is gonna go back to work, and like that's it and it's just gonna go back home and do whatever they do the next day. And he's such a one man show. It's almost surprising that he takes Rico with him at all, because in a modern film that would have been such a bigger action sequence when he finally goes down into the tunnel at the end to you know, to solve

the crime and face Robert Shaw. He's by himself. He would have it would have been such a and I'm sure in the remake it was. It was played up as such a bigger thing with like a squad of elite cops behind them. And I'm trying to remember what happens there, like on a bridge, and I think there's a gunfight, but I can't quite remember. Holding I apologize, I have to. I keep hearing the doorbell ringing, and it's probably coming through on the recording, but I should

see who it is that. I don't expect anyone, But

I'll be back. Sorry about this, all right, Elliott is back. Uh. We we heard the beginning when the doorbell rang and you had to leave, and then I just want to let you know from my point of view, what happened is I saw you leave the room and shut the door, and then I heard these sort of muffled voices, and I totally thought I was going to be in the middle of a Hitchcock movie for a second, where I would hear a scuffled breakout and you would fling the

door open, bleeding and like crawl back to the computer and say, Chuck, solve the find my killers, avenge me. If only, Oh man, it truly felt like a Hitchcock movie. All of a sudden. I was like, oh man, I'm gonna hear a gunshot any second now, if only my life is that interesting. In fact, just just tear away the curtain for the audience. We have a shower drain that has backed up and it's really disgusting. And so that was The plumbers arrived a little earlier than I expected.

And and not like the movie plumbers who are like, yeah, yeah, we're the plumbers, you know, we paint houses, but like a just a disguise who handle plumbing. So what what neighbor? Who you went out there? I meant to ask, I live in Eagle Rock, which is like that's where. Oh really, I didn't realize that that's right, because you know what, now I'm remembering when we had that call with you and Andy Daly. We were joking about the rock the

actual eagle, right, and that's right? And Andy Daly was like, it doesn't look that much like an eagle you know. Yeah, I lived on Las Colinas Avenue. Okay, sort of behind Senior Fish. Okay, yeah, we're not too far away. We're kind of like on the we're closer to where like the Trader Joe's is. Yeah yeah, and uh yeah, we just moved here last year. I really love it out here. It's I think it's cool. We we we got a house and I'm like, all right, I could see living

here until I die. This is hounds pretty this is pretty good. We can stay in this house for thirty forty years and then some one day I'll just they'll just find me on a lounge chair outside, just not reathing anymore. That sounds all right, right, so uh we can wind it up with Pelham. We were talking when the doorbell rang about how a movie, uh and I imagine the remake was just so much more overblown at the end, and you were talking about how they had

some big shootout on the bridge. I think I'm trying to remember it well because it wasn't like it was like I don't think it's like an army of cops versus the hostage, but it was definitely like Denzel Washington become more becoming more of a man of action than Walter math hous in this and the what I what I want to say was that lot And I know people who like at the remake somewhat it's not my

it's a it's a Tony Scott movie. And like Tony Scott movies have never been like totally my cup of tea, except for something like The Hunger Truman, like The Hunger, which I think is such a strange movie where you're watching it and you're like, I can't quite tell what this This movie is beautiful, but I don't really know what's going on at any given point with these characters.

But the it's like that. It makes me think because like the taking of Pelum one two three is such a I feel like if there's any movie that is like this is New York in the mid seventies, like this is that movie. And from the with the remake, they really had a chance to be like this is post nine eleven New York, Like let's show that in a movie, and they like didn't do it, They like couldn't pull it off. Maybe I think they just weren't

trying that hard. But I wanted to point to the movie Inside Man, Spike Lee movie, which is great and which I think is that movie, like Inside Man is the taking of Pelum one, two, three, four and immediately post nine eleven New York, where it was like it's really talking about like what's going on in the city and what it is, what it lives, what's like to live in that city, but still super suspenseful, and there's

still funny parts in it. And the only thing that rings not totally true to me is Denzel Washington's sexy wife just lying around in her underwear all day, calling him on the phone constantly to get him to come home and have sex with her, and well he's busy with this case, and it's like this is is someone from a different movie calling him, like what's going It's

feels so so strangely out of place. But the but that's the movie where if there's any movie that kind of like picks up the torch from Taking a Palamont to the original, it's not the remake, but it's the

but it's Inside Man. Yeah, I mean, I was just sort of thinking about the third act and the end of this film is such a great third act because there's so much suspense with um the literal ticking clock, which is always fun when someone literally starts a time or in your movie and you've got this cash on the way, You've got Matthou bluffing, um, you've got the Runaway Train being intercut with uh, with math Ow going

down there by himself to confront Robert Shaw. And there's kind of a lot going on, but it's still sort of I keep saying low fi. It's just it's underdone in that perfect seventies movies way. Oh yeah, I mean there's a there's a sequence that where they they've got to get the money together too, and this at a time period when New York as a city had no money, Like this is right before the Like yeah, he've been said in the movie, like we we can't afford this

is a city a million a million dollars. The idea that New York City can't bring up a million dollars in cash at a given moment is a crazy scenario. But that's how it was at the time, And like New York really looked like it was, you know, dying.

It was just crumbling. And there's a sequence where they have to get the cash to them and you're just watching women's hands counting out bills and putting rubber bands around the stacks, and they throw the bills into a shopping cart that has to be walked down the down the hallway, and there's a in the beginning of Zode Act, there's like an inter office shopping car like this that's we walked around and I have to assume it's a

it's a pelleam like and uh. And then they got to put it in a bag and the bag has got to be handed to some cops in a cop car. And the cop car literally has to race from the bank downtown up to where the to where the train is. And it's like the it's so like you're saying it's low five. There's no like, well we'll just well okay, well ven moow the money to your account. And they're like the transfer got got interrupted. Oh no, It's like

this is physical money. We've got to count it, we've got to stack it, we've gotta rubber bands around it, we gotta put it in a bag, we gotta hand it to guys in a car. They've gotta physically take it up there. Then it's gonna be taken onto the tracks to take the train. And it's so like a and they shot most of it, I think all of it. I'm not I don't I'm trying to remember if any of it was shot outside of New York, like almost

all of it was shot. It's and it's all like the in the in the abandoned subway station that is now where the New York Transit Museum is, and just

on the streets of New York. So that's the other thing that it's like a personal thing for me is seeing these street corners that I know really went like seeing Astor Place in nineteen seventy four and seeing like Union Square East, these areas that because I went to n y U like I was around all the time, and seeing them just and like being like, that's what that building was before it was a Barnes and Noble

and stuff like that. Like there's a there's a movie called The Landlord The How, a Shoby movie with Bow Bridges that's set in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I lived for a number of years, and it's set in it's from nineteen sight I think, and so it's Park Slope, which is now like the most it's I mean, it's a very pleasant place to live. It's like it's like the most kind of like bougie. You know, it's where the big food co op is and you can't afford to buy a house there. They all cost, you know,

millions of dollars, these old brown stones. But it's set when this was still when it was still a majority black neighborhood and white people with money we're just starting to come in and there's so many buildings in it where I'm like, oh, that's what that building was, like that yoga studio used to be. He used to be a hairdressers. And there's a same where Bobridges is driving his car and in the background you can see a pizzeria sign that has this huge Coca Cola bottle cap

on it. And until four years ago, that sign was still up on that pizzeria, and I would love to see it and be like, oh, I know that pizzeria. I go there and it was and this sign was there at the time. So like it's there's a I'm not I'm not above getting a thrill out of seeing things that I've known in movies. There's a there's a

very bad movie called Robot in the Family. Uh Strangoe Pangliano, Uh that it's it's not very good at all, but so much of it is shot around the antique stores that are between fourteen Street and like twelfth Street on Broadway in Manhattan, and again like that was the neighborhood I was walking through all the time, so it would be like it's a terrible movie, but watching it, I still got that thrill of like, I know that store, I've walked by there, I know that stretch of pavement.

But team went Pelmento three like it. It benefits much from being in the city. And apparently it was a nightmare to shoot. I was listening. I was watching an old interview recently with the Joseph Sergeant, the director who passed away a few years ago. When did he die? He died in if I died about six years ago, and he was talking about how because they were literally in a subway tunnel all day every day shooting that it was so depressing and just and I hadn't even

thought about that. I was like, oh, yeah, they didn't. They were the air and subway tunnels is horrible and it was probably worse then, and there was no sunlight, like it must have been so nasty to be just spending all day in a subway car like the and it all comes it sounded miserable, terrible, and it all

comes through the movie. Like the characters in the movie really feel like they hate being there, like it's so whereas in like a in the remake, like they can get an Internet signal down there, and this is before they had WiFi in the real subway systems, and like the characters seemed to be able to like open the doors for fresh air, and it's like that's not how the subway works, Like the air down there gross. And

also they keep the doors closed. But it's such a now I don't even remember how we how we got into this, but there there's it's that it's a it's a low fi world that you're saying, and it feels real, Like it feels like really in this space because they were in that space. They were really When when you see the cop car like tearing down the street and the one cop who's driving turns to the other mose,

I've always wanted to do this. We're scaring the ship out of everybody and people are like diving out of this car. Like, I mean, it looked real. All the streets stuff looked really good. It sort of reminded me of Dog Day Afternoon at times. How that felt really real too, Yeah, yeah, because it's all like we're gonna take a real place and we're gonna shoot in it, and they, I mean dog Day after It's another one where it's like New York's a grimy, gross place to live.

Let's take a look at, like what what life is like for ordinary people there? And uh, there's a I remember the first time I saw I was I was. It was a while before I finally saw The French Connection, which is kind of like in a similar type of movie, and I had a real chip on my shoulder when I finally saw I was probably like twenty when I finally saw it, because I kept comparing it to Pelham one to three and being like, this is best picture Pelamon.

There is a better movie than this. But the French Connection is great too. But how you see these scenes where it's like Gene Hackman living kind of like a blue collar life as a cop, and then the drug

dealers living a white collar, rich life. But even the drug dealers stuff looks really chancy and bad, like even their furnishings and their houses look like seventies crappy, and there's just something about it that's like, like I said earlier, like on film, it looks so attractive to me to live in this like grimy, ugly world, but in real life living in it, you'd be like, this is terrible.

I need something like this is I wish I didn't live in a place where everything was dirty, and the best I could get is this shag carpet that looks

that's like orange, This orange shag carpet. Uh. Well, I think the last thing we should cover with the movie is that very last scene and shot when they you know, they set it up so obviously but so well with the sneezing and the gazoo tight throughout the movie, you know it's going to be how the guys found out, and uh they in the movie on a almost like in a sit commy way, if anyone's listening hasn't seen it,

one stop listening and then go watch it. But like all throughout Martin Balsom's character, who is the most reluctant of the of the thieves. Uh he's an ex motorman on the subway and he's he's the one who has the no house that they can pull off this heist, but he's the least hardened of all the of of the three others, Robert Shaw, who is you pick up is a mercenary who has commanded African armies and shooting rebels.

And Hector Alisando, who's like, they make a bigger case of this in the book, but he's like the guy who has kicked out of the mafia for being too crazy, like he's too violent, and in the book he is just such a disgusting, despicable person and he spends most of the book trying to figure out how to have sex with the prostitute on the train right while still doing it, and like the book is the book is

so much more sex heavy than the movies. And Earl hind In, who's like the quiet but also clearly a professional soldier, and it's hard for me to every time I watch and I'm like, oh, that's Wilson from Home Improvement and he's one of the hijackers, the guy that

Tim Allens always getting great advice from. But uh, but Martin Balston has a cold and yeah, and over the radio he's always sneezing, and Walter Mouth will be like, gazoom tight and then they go to Martin Balstom's house because he's the last name on their list of motor men who are fired from the job or suspects. And

he gets and he lives in this disgusting apartment. It's so gross, like a rat hole, and there's like all these boxes of old cereals sitting on like just in piles on the on the refrigerator, like against the window. He's so lived in gross, and he's like wearing this like greasy bathrobe, but he looks so he's wearing like these these soiled long John's. It's so it's great. It's

so disgusting. And and they get and they talk to him, and he starts feeling really cocky and it's like, how dare you come in here and accuse me of this stuf? Da da da da. And as they're leaving, he sneezes and yeah, Waltimatate goes zoom tight and then just like opens the door and just like gives him, Yes, sitcom

look like wop wop. It's so funny, and it's like it's something I went through real cycles with first being like, oh, that's kind of a two that's too silly a way to end this movie, but then really loving it because it's like, yeah, these are just these dudes, and like there's so much you can read into Walter math As face that that expression is so New York to me,

because it's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like seriously, like come on, dude, like and but also like the look in his face, but he almost seems disappointed that that's how they caught the guy was because the guy sneezed, you know, at the wrong time. Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like there's some kind of crisis going on in my family at the moment outside the door, so I shouldn't unfortunately take too much longer. But h I apologize this has been a This has been a much

more disjointed recording than I hoped it would be. But it's like, but but sorry to act the ending. But there's something about that look that is so like it's just another thing where like you can't write in the script. Detective Garber gives a look to the almost to the camera as if to say, can you believe this guy?

Like it's only it's something you can only do when you have Walter Math how in the cast, you know, and I'll have to go back and look at the look at the script and see how they describe it. But it's just one of those moments that like, it feels like, yeah, it feels sitcom me. At the same time, it's like, in the world of this movie, this is just a crazy thing these people have gone through. It's not the biggest event in their lives, you know. And so for Tim to be like, all right, okay, well

we're done with this now. I mean, in As doesn't have to drive around anymore looking talking to people. But I don't know, it's it's such as. I'm just such there's so much about this movie that I'm recommended to people all the time. And when I'm recommending and I'm like, oh, this feels so keyed into the things that I like, it's hard for me to imagine people enjoying it the same way. But I hope they do. That's great. It's a wonderful movie. Um, we'll do with speed around here.

At the end, we do five questions. And I know that both of our families are probably mad at us right now, so very much. This has been a podcast heavy week for me, So I think my wife is like another one okay, all right, we'll do it. We'll do it very fast. What's the first movie you remember seeing in a theater? The first one I remember seeing in the theater was probably like a rerelease of Cinderella.

I think. I think that's the first time I remember seeing like going as a kid, either that or when they re released Fantasia when I was a kid and my parents were like, We're going to see this movie. This is a special movie, and we waited outside the movie there in the rain for some reason until the time for the movie to start. I think that might be my first one, but it was. I'm sure it's some It's some Disney rerelease was my first time memory.

First R rated movie you saw that was Ierod either RoboCop, and it must have been RoboCop, like when I was eight and my dad borrowed it from his friend and was like, I heard this is really cool, and we watched it and it was the most It was the

bloodiest thing I've ever seen. And I have this such a clear memory of ed to a nine killing that guy and me putting my hands in front of my eyes just by in shock, and then like slowly pulling the hands away from my eyes because I really wanted to see what happened next, and my dad was not like, let's turn this off right now. He just kept it going,

so we watched the whole movie. It was either that or we used to watch Coming to America a lot when I was a kid, like, it's so funny, and I haven't seen it in years, but I meaning, we watch it, like, and there's so much about it that I'm sure I did not get as a kid, but it's so funny, all right. Number three? And I asked the other guys this, this is the standard question, but you do a bad Movie podcast, but I still have to ask this question. Do you actually walk out of

a bad movie? Uh? There have been movies I've watched at home where I've been like, I don't need to finish this, but if I'm seeing a movie in the theaters. I can really only think of one movie that I've walked out of, which was my grandmother. When I was a teenager. We went to the Museum Modern Art and Norman Mailer's Dead Men Don't Dance was playing there and neither of us knew what it was, and my grandmother was like a free movie, okay, And about ten minutes.

Ten minutes in, my grandmother said this isn't for us and got up and we walked out. All right. Number four, you're a big fan of old school comedies and comedies from the screwball comedies. What classic comedy do you wish you had been able to be in a writer's room

if they had one. I really wish I could have worked on any Mark's Brothers movie, even the Bad Ones, even like even like Go West, like they seem to be such They're so important to me as like a singular comedic energy and talent, and I just there there's there are people where every now and then I'll realize like I'm never going to meet this person, like the uh my wife and I took a trip to Springfield, ILLINOIL years ago so I could see Lincoln's tomb in

his house. And it was only when I was standing at Lincoln's tomb that I was like, oh, I'm never gonna meet Abraham Lincoln, Like it really could really hit me hard. I'm never gonna get to meet I think about him every day and I'm never gonna get seem but the Mark's Brothers are similar, like just I'm sure

it would have been a terrible experience. But because they didn't stick, they didn't stick to their lines, and groud Show was genuinely nasty to Pep like, he just was always making fun of people, and they were very hard to get ahold of anyone who worked on our March for this movie. They seemed to not enjoy the experience. But I really wish that I could have just to just to have like it's been around their energy, you know,

just to have met them. Although Harpo everyone says nothing but good things about He's the one brother everybody loved. Oh yeah, although the one movie he made that was just him was terrible. But anyway, Uh. And then finally movie going one on one? What is what is your movie ritual? At the theater? Where do you go, where do you sit? What do you eat? Um? Uh, that's

a good question. For years and years I would go to when I when I was young, I would go to the film Forum after work and I would bring in a package of goldfish with me and I would just eat that throughout the movie. And then by the end of the movie, I would be so tired that I would be falling asleep and my eyes would close and the movie would continue in my head and then I'd open my eyes and be like, this isn't what was happening in the movie. Like so they're like the movie, Um,

I Live in Fear, the Characro Song movie. I'm still not quite sure how it ends, because I can't remember what I imagined while watching it and what it actually happened. But these days it's uh Dan, I listen to Dan's episode, who was talking about going to the Alamo Drafthouse, Like that's pretty much the place, that place I go to see movies when I very rarely get to see movies in the theater these days. Uh, but I'll go there

and I'll order there. They have like a huge chocolate chip cookies, and while I'm eating the cookies, I'm like, this is bad for me. And I'll just sit and watch the movie and uh, I'll get there, you know, a half hour ahead of time, and like read a book until the movie starts. And there's always that moment when the lights are really going down and I can't read anymore, and for a split second, I'm like, but I was reading, and then I remember then I got to see a movie, and I'm like, oh no, this

is good. This is why I'm here. That's awesome, Mallet. This has been a lot of fun, man. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun and uh and I really appreciate it. And I just apologize that my life is a chaotic rolwind and so no, this has been great.

Where can people for all you on Twitter, please follow me at just at Elliott Kalin E L l I O T T K A l A M at Twitter and you'll see me occasionally tweet about politics or for a little bit, I was tweeting about the closed captions on the print of Bad Taste that's in Amazon Prime. I mean, I'm being called somewhere, so unfortunately, have to run. But all right, thanks a lot, Elliott, Thank you later, see you later. Talked to you later. Thanks all right, everyone.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I think, through the magic of editing, Ramsey will be able to put that together in a pretty coherent story. But we had a lot of weird interruptions, stops and starts, and uh, we we worked our way through it. This is called podcasting and quarantine. But Elliott was a true gentleman and a champion for kind of working his way through that with me and being patient as my recording stopped and I had to restart. But that just shows

what a good guy he is. So thanks to Elliott for coming on follow him on Twitter like you mentioned, and um, we all look forward to that animated show coming out on Fox next year. That sounds fantastic, as well as the comic book that he was running for. So support Elliott anyway. You can support the Flop House over at Max Fun. Those are great guys. It's just a treasure trove of hysterical podcast about bad movies to

listen to. So I'm sad this is over, but I'm glad we got to pull it off and get these three in a row in they can. So big thanks to Elliott, and big thanks to the Flop House and Max Fund for this crossover series, and thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you next week. Movie Brush is produced, edited and engineered by Ramsey Yount. You're in our home studio at pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia, or I Heart Radio.

For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,