Nerdificent Best of 2019 Part 2

decide that you wanted to make a podcast about this? Caitlin? Well, I suppose it was my idea Bragg, But basically, I am a huge film buff, to the extent that I stupidly got two different degrees in film and spent you know, tens of thousands of dollars on an education and film and uh yeah, I mean movies. Movies are life for me. Um, honestly crazy, I mean brave, really really yeah. Everyone started

hashtaging that Caitlin brave. Um. So I love movies and I wanted to talk about them and kind of reconcile the fact that a lot of my favorite movies treat women horribly, or at least the movies that I grew up with and just had become accustomed to watch some of those that you discovered like, oh crap, I love me awful, but I didn't didn't have the representation of women yet, right, Um, the Big three were like for me, it was like the like trilogies of Back to the Future,

Indiana Jones, and Star Wars like those were like the crux of my childhood movie development. Uh. And then just any I mean most movies since and before those also not great to women. So I just I wanted to kind of examine these movies more closely, just any movie that has had like a big cultural impact and uh, you know, take a look at them and figure out, you know, maybe how much media is responsible for the

patriarchy still being a thing. Um. And so yeah, we just I asked Jamie if she wanted to collaborate with me on this idea, and she was very down. And two and a half years later, here we are, Oh my gosh, it sounds about the same as krilling it and eventually nerdifficent. I was like, hey, you want to

do this. I was like, yeah, yeah, good idea. And I had seen like I have not seen a lot of well now I have when the podcast started, I had not seen like most of I had also technically onto film school, but technically I went, but I've majored in radio, so I had also had to use medium radio worth it thousands in debt. Uh but yeah, and I hadn't seen most of the movies that we covered, and so it was like an uh in real time education.

But I think it helps to get those two different perspectives from like me, who like is apologetic to a lot of these movies, and then you're like, oh, I'm just seeing them for the first time and wow, they're not good. Yeah that makes sense, Yeah, because you're watching them with like an air of nostalgia too. Yeah. So for people that don't know what is the Bechtel test, Oh, this is our favorite thing to explain to the Bechtel test.

We can get into the history of it, but just like the version and the way that we use it, because there's a few different like permutations of it. But it's a test that is applied to media, usually movies and TV, in which a movie that passes the Becktel test has a scene with two female identifying characters who have names, who talk to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. That's our d's our version. There's a bunch of different versions.

They're simpler ones, there's more demanding ones, but that's the one we use, Okay. Yeah, And it originally started from Alison Bechdel, right, who wrote in a comic strip that was Dikes to Watch out for that appeared in nine and we'll have a link to the actual comics so

y'all can see it. But it was essentially two women that were trying to go see a movie and had that same thing where they were saying, I only go to see a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements, when it has to have at least two women in it who talked to each other and about something other than a man. And then it ends with saying, the

last movie I saw was Alien. Yes, that was like that, which is funny because that movie barely passes because they're talking about the alien protocol on the ship or Gina Monster as very like major sci fi movie as a vaginal monster because Agina's are scared must but against even more insulting when you see, like how often people pluck from black Twitter memes and pluck from the things that we are saying and use it in their bs and then uh, and then still have the goal to not

want to hire black people for some BS bar that we can't reach because even then, ivye have a hard time letting in black people. And I and when I say black people mean black people, Africans get in higher on average, just so they can say they're letting in black people, but they're letting in Africans. And there goes a whole another baggage that I can but anyway to reel it all in that is that I don't barely

scratch the surface of the baggage. But that's what is up against all of people of color and women, and that type of stuff isn't carried. And that's generally what people talk about, just in case someone needs to hear this, When they mean privilege, that doesn't mean that you didn't have a hard life. That doesn't mean that you may not have been poor. But if you were poorn white, you still have a better chance of getting it Harvard than a poor and black person. It's just simple facts,

and there's data to back that up. Affirmative action help no one but white women, straight up. And it's and it's and that's just why let's just stick to the back. But I would say to go to end that point is essentially that is what studios are more willing to take a risk on, their less willing to take a risk on filmmakers color of color, and they're less willing to take a risk on stories from people of color.

And that has been shown throughout these decades and even now, which is a conversation that we've had in the last couple of podcasts, we're still dealing with that. I wanted to ask y'all about some of the films that were surprising that didn't pass the Bechdel test. Okay, let me pull up our list. There's I'm never surprised when a movie does not pass the Bechdel times. I mean sometimes they like seem to be marketed specifically for women, right,

and there're even some of those don't pass sit. I think the most famous example of that that we get. We haven't covered it on the show, but it comes up all the time is I think it's like a nine late nineteen thirties movie called The Women and all female casts. It's like ten women you do not like your famously, and the way it was market is like it was like you don't see a man on screen the whole time, and that is true. It does not pass the back because they're only talking to talk to

each other. But it's always about it's always about a gotten, It's always about a man named Steve. They're talking about Steve the whole movie. It's you know who wrote that? Let the women? Okay? Written by? Oh, it was written by It was written by two women. So really uh really ah job, no no way to no way around it. No,

the thing is for me. I tend to not remember unless it's like it very handily passes, or it is very clear that the movie would not pass because it only has one woman in the entire movie See Raiders in the Lost Arc, see you Know a New Hope, that kind of thing. Um. I tend not to really remember if the movie passes the Bechtel test or not, just because it's a metric that is useful metric first starting off point to talk about representation of women in movies.

But that's pretty much all we use it for, is just like okay, this initiates a larger conversation that we can talk about a wholesoe of other things. So whether or not a movie passes Jamie, as you said, like like The Room, that famously horrible, horrible movie pas Becktel tests, but like it's still such a piece of and you know it's fun to watch, but you know, it doesn't mean anything that that movie passes. And then I think, like we determine chart here, our our friends are very

studious and update their chart. I would say one that I found surprising was You've Got Mail because it's a rom com. Yeah. I didn't think like movies that are like may right, four Women in theory, and that was came out like what two decades ago, So yeah, you think they talked about you know, well, I think, well, no, I think I think it's probably in her book in the scenes in the bookstore, you know, because she's talking about her mom and she's talking about you know what

I mean, Like, I think that's probably how it passed. It. The whole order of the Rings trilogy does not pass the Bechtel test, not one of it. It's a ten hour it doesn't pass. It's crazy. It has every opportunity and it doesn't. Uh. And then another one we did recently that I thought, I guess sort of for the same reason you were saying, Danny about You've Got Mail? Is five d days of Summer doesn't pass the Bechtel test? Um? Wait, were you saying that it does pass? It does pass? Yeah,

it does pass. That's why I'm saying I find that surprising because it's a rom com. You think, like, you know, because she has that she was yeah, okay, yeah, I mean rom coms often don't pass. I think we did. We did an episode about we haven't done, um, you've got mail yet? But would you do? When Harry met Sally and sleepless in Seattle, And there are most of those, there might be like a very quick conversation that just

happens to not be about men. But often in rom coms, I mean, there's it's it's it's interesting because like, there are certain genres that almost never pass, like action movies like often do not pass because there's usually one woman and she's the love interest. She gets captured, she has to be saved, like she's everyone's like, oh my god, she can kick. I mean even if she's allowed to fight.

Usually women aren't allowed to fight. Usually they just or if you're in Raiders of the Locks arc, your only weapon can be like a domestic item, like a frying pan or in Halloween, it's like all domestic items that that are weapons and oh boy, another one I like this. This is like a more specific version of the behind the camera stuff is the Riese Davies test by Katerie Davies. A movie passes if every department has two or more women, uh, which is not which which is something that doesn't happen

very much. Only about a third of movies pass this test because there is such a disproportionate representation behind the camera as well, which is something that I want to be better on our show about like paying attention to of Like it's so rare to see female composers, female editors, photographers, um, where it's usually where I we're talking about directors, writers

and talent. But there's like, there's so many things that like when a movie is edited by a woman, they're probably going to edit out the shot where you know, probably the male cinematographers a lingering, male gay shot of a woman in a swimsuit exactly Like yeah, um, there's another one that is uh, I think lesser known because it's it's newer, but it's called the Kent Test. It's from um Clarkesha Kent, and it's there are many different components to it, so I'll just named kind of the

main one. But it determines whether a film or other piece of media has provided the audience with adequate representation of women or feans of color. And then it has all these different like criteria by which you can like basically, it's like, I think twelve different things, and if it scores higher than like a six or an eight or some number, then it's like, oh, it's doing pretty well. A lot of movies don't fare very well on this test.

I was gonna say, for if he for your episode of Black Panther, I'm assuming that that passed the Bechdel test, right, And I love the fact that Ryan Coogler had Rachel Morrison, who's his DP and has worked with him on Fruitvale Station and on Black Panther, So that was that was a huge thing. That that was pretty cool that he had a woman behind the scenes um as one of

the head people of his crew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was pointing, I was pointing this out to you the other day that George Miller, who made Mad Max, his wife edited it and he there's this quote where his wife was like, why do you want me to edit this movie? Was like, because if I have a man at did it's gonna look like every other action movie. And that that's true. Like one of the benefits you get from having an underrepresented piece to your film is

you're getting a different perspective. I mean, in a good writer's room, that's why you want different perspective. I was and probably one of the most diverse writing room a few weeks ago. And you know we had you know me uh, you know, the show runner was Indian. You had uh, we had like two women to two men who were writing. Uh, and and it was just interesting to like, you know, have you just hear different things to the way people say, like, you know, it's it's all.

It's very interesting too to have just the one line that I always liked to hear in those situations. Uh. You know when someone speak up and goes, oh, a woman wouldn't say that, you know, like his because because I just even from my perspective, whenever you see like a black person written by a white person, you're like, no black person in their life would ever say that today we are covering teen Titans. Actually you are an expert in these in these kiddos. They're my favorite super team.

When Danny asked me if this was a subject that I knew anything about or liked, I was super thrilled, and I was like, how nerdy can I get? Because they're the best. They were the top selling DC title for twelve years. What years were those? Uh? Eighty two? Nine two? It was between them and then the Uncanny X Men or the top two best selling comics. That's the New Teen Titans, the Wolfman Perez era that affected and inspired the TV shows that I think we're gonna

be talking a lot about today. Yeah, but yeah, they're very important, and they're actually in terms of profitability, DC's most profitable franchise really, So we like to think about the Justice League, but to the Justice League have comics, Uh, Teen Titans have comics as well. There's also Titans Young Justice. All fall under that same banner. It's all the same creative teams and all the same characters. So they have more titles consistently that sell better than Justice League, although

Justice League has more issues. So if you did I can't do math, and I certainly can't do math for inflation. Justice League probably wins in the comics. However, we've only had one Justice League movie and it's arguably a whiff. It's controversial at best. We've had one animated television show that's over a decade old. Teen Titans had the original animated television show Teen Titans Go, which is DC Warner Animations most successful DC property show that also spun out

on an animal there. Even though I know you're on this okay trend because this is gonna be my one like rant and I'm gonna try and keep it at that. But the reason I stopped you at Teen Titans Go is a lot of people grew up on the Teen Titans before that, me included, and loved it. And I feel like Teen Titans Go got so much hate online from people out of the age range, like so many people who grew up on the first team titles like

not my teen Ties, not my teen Titans. And I get that you want something for you, but just go ahead and repeat what you just said about Teen Titans Go. That is the most successful animated show and it's fun out its own animated movie. So many people try and push this idea online that they keep pushing this bad teen Titans go. But if it's it's most profitable, it seems like it's not as bad as we want to

believe it is. I get you want the serious, you know, dark teen titans uh that we have, but that time's over. We had it and we enjoyed it. Now the kids that the demo that is watching that time slot is getting something they enjoyed, so layoff. Also what's funny is like, as much as people hate it that there were some people online who U saw I was like, yeah, that's good. That was probably me. I love it, but I'm I'm

not trying to be a trolled. I just like whenever people people are going to get upset, whenever people take risks and do like a different take. But I understand I understand why that doesn't always work to me. I just like when we're super I like seeing the bizarro world. I like the opposite, Like I don't always want the same thing. I like seeing like what if this person did go off the deep end? And he was like, yes,

go off the deep end. But honestly, that's the true heart of comics because that's how you get things like Red Sun, and you get things like you know, old Man logan like, that's the there. Someone pointed this out to me a while ago, when I really were it was reading capes and they're saying they stopped reading capes because they got too obsessed with cannon and we stopped doing these one off fun things like All Star Superman

and Superman. Is fun. I mean it's fun in the sense All Star Superman made me like Superman because I would Superman and then when I saw it, yeah, yeah, down, Wait how did you not like Superman? He was doing perfect? But you like Goku? He's dumb. Goku's dumb, you know what I'm saying. His flaw is that he has this childishness about him and that he does put people in danger because he wants to challenge himself. Superman is just perfect. He's smart, he's handsome, he is the top of his job,

he gets the girl. He can't do anything wrong. He's not dumb, you know. Like so he is too perfect. But I could see where you would think, oh with Goku. But Goku does have so many flaws that I'm constantly debating against online. Also, we're not here to talk about Superman, but when you were, Um, I'm originally from Canada, so when you're not American, Yeah, Superman is sort of held up. It's Superman and Captain America held up as like these bastions of American identity. So for me growing up, I

was like, you can't like Superman. I'm not American, which is funny because he's like an immigrant. But yeah, but I hadn't thought about that as a a I mean, I married a white guy from a farm in Kansas, so clearly I've come around. But I remember when I was in the university. I went to the University of Ottawa, which is Canada's capital city. UM had a really good friend. He's actually on that YouTube show Wayne now is one of the twins. I haven't seen it. That's just the

thing that people might know. He had a Superman belt buckle, and I was like, you're Canadian, you cannot wear that. We were like getting vites about that. But Superman is a difficult character for people to come around on, which is why I think Teen Titans, like I was saying, was so successful, because they are deeply flawed. Um, Robin is the best among them, and Dick Grayson as the best. Robin is a deeply flawed leader, but he grows up

to lead the Justice League. So I know you have a moment that you talked about on the Daily Zeite guys, which is really funny. It's so funny because like it was a moment I totally forgot about but then remembered when I saw it, and it was it was actually a pretty cool episode where like, you know, it kind of uh try to deal with the racism because it was talking about racism and Starfire's family and he was like, oh,

I definitely know about that. And he was like, oh, you you know about being judged because of the color of your skin or because of how you look, and he was like, yeah, I'm a robot. It's so great because because it definitely gets so close and I could definitely be just see the network notek of being like now I pull that back, just say it's because he's

a robot. Can I ask you, um, what is potentially an ignorant white person question that you're under no real otis to answer, But I'd like to ask you, as an African American person, how do you feel about booya

as a catchphrase? Oh? You know, I didn't care. It seemed like yeah, yeah, because it seemed like one of those things like he's saying something cool, but we don't want to make anything like you know, seems like it's because he's black, you know, because when he said it in Justice League, like I was really excited, and then I saw a bunch of people who I respect and who I look to for guidance because I was not

a person of color. I don't know, Um, I got really mad about it, and I was like, oh, I just thought it was really cool that he said the cotch for you. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think some you know, not a diss on them, but some people are just like hyper sensitive of what one way would

be taken. But I feel like the only way to have taken that was that it was a call back to something he always said in Teen Titans, just like an X Men when he says I'm the Juggernaut bitch, you know, like it's like I don't to like across the world, yeah, like to like, you know, take that in any other way. I you know, I think there's more to unpass, you know. It's just I don't know, I don't agree. I don't even agree that you could really take issue. I don't want to control how anybody

feels about anything. But there I feel like there's a level too. Now there's there's this social currency to find the things wrong that are not woke, and it leads to people just jumping to stuff when they might have like, even if they didn't like it, be like all right, that's kind of whack and move on. But now that you can get likes, retweets and clicks, it kind of encourages more to kind of lean into something you might have just let go. Okay, so I'm allowed to like

it good, That's all I care about. So so it's Jason Todd not as red uh red Hood, but he's not red Hood right until after the joker beats him to death of the crowbar and then he gets thrown on last. So this all takes place before that, I guess, because because my only gripe with Jason Todd would have been like if we got f Batman Robin, that kind of takes the wind out of red Hood sales, right um. And I like I like it to Grayson, who's like not as much of a Gali g but also degreason

in my opinion, because it's only just my opinion. I don't want take anything away from him and likes it. Um would never say a f Batman. Well, that's the one Robin who would never like that's adjacent Todd moved and that was my gright with that. So me and you are back, even though you want to get rim because because because I love I love that's your thing. It's like, you don't like it more for me. I don't like it more for you. But like Dick Grayson

worships Batman. So when I heard that line, I already noped out and I was like, and once again, I'm the same way. I have no qualms with anyone who's like jamming on it. I will never say not like the thing you like that. Those words will never come out of my mouth. And don't take it that way if you're like liking it and it's like, hey, should I not like this because it no? Enjoy it? Enjoy good things. I think Pacific Rim is one of the

most perfect movies ever made, the best. It's It's sorry it promised me a robot, I mean a monster getting beat up by a giant robot with a freightership as a bat And what did I get when I went in a giant robot b being the monster with the Freightership. You barely get your promises keptain movies these days, and I was happy with it. I honestly didn't know that people didn't like Batman and Robin. I think I've said

that before on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, and I didn't because I saw it when I was little, and I'm like, oh, this is it. Literally was like if you're watching as a kid, It's like a comic book come to life. It's so colorful, stunt, dumb stunt. You have Uma Thurman as like may West. You know what you have like Arnold. I was like, this is so we have um, you know, Alicia Silverstone who was coming off clueless like I was, Oh my gosh, it was my jam. I didn't realize

that that was not a good movie. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'm hoping you're enjoying the best of Hopefully you're remembering the things you did last year while you were listening to these episodes. But let's take a quick break and then come back to it, and we're back, y'all. It's almost time for this episode to end, which means it's almost time for next week, which means it's almost time for a brand new Neurodificent.

But now let's get back to the hits are Woman of the Hour, the wonder Woman, the wonder the Woman, the Myth, the legend, wondrous and a woman. Yeah, she's um super dope. She is one of the first superheroes just period, especially the ones that still exists and right now. Um she She and Captain America debut in the same year, so about ten ments of parts. So she was and um also interesting because their colors are the same, yeah,

and there the same pretty similar and then American flag essentially. Yeah, And it's interesting because they kind of both did come from a place of challenging society at the moment because you know, Captain America is very much hate punch Nazi to yeah, so, and then she also punches Nazis because that's also a thing that you're supposed to do. But like, um, you know, Kevin America was very much about, um, you know, kind of like an immigrant ideal, like rising up for

your country kind of situation. And Wonder Woman is a feminist ideal, which when you say feminism, you don't think nineteen forties, but hey, that stuff existed. Then yeah, you say what I said. So you posted a picture of the DC Archives and my first thought was like, these

are sex toys because it was a whip. It was like it that looked like something else, and there was like but it's so funny because relating back to Professor Marston, he was that he was into S and M and they and it was interesting that they had like that. This was actually brought up that people were accusing him of having bondage spanking homosexuality like in his comics, which again this was in the forties, so it's like to me,

it's super dope and like slid that in there. But anyway, it definitely some of those the original DC Archive like stuff. I'm like, yeah, I could I see what they were doing well. And also I think that it seems like it's really like out of ordinary for that kind of delicious stuff to be in the books. But if you actually look at the comics from back then, like the thirties,

even they've got crazy stuff going on. There's a lot of like female vigilantes that like merk dudes left and right, and like like we had wor up, we had water propaganda. But also these men were reading these during like that we're going to war, you know what I mean. They were like so in the same way that early pornography, you know, like they had pen of those magas the pin up and she looks like a you know to some extent. Although he definitely kept her, she was definitely

sexualized later. I think her early stages were not as much. And you can and those and also heard that skirt in that first episode of that first issue is not actually skirts pant coats. You can actually clearly seep. Isn't that funny? They're just flowing breathe. Um, we have I know this is gonna this is gonna be a three hours. There's so much uh so. She her official title is

Princess Diana of Themiscira, also known as Paradise Island. Um, that's what I called it forever because my first comic was of her, was her original run from Marston and they called it Paradise Island. Yeah yeah, And that's also why. And she's a daughter of Apolita. That is also why I'm a hardcore old school o g that she came from Clay because that was her original that has been

changed a couple of times. So the nineties are really weird because there's a lot of like really awesome stories that were happening during that period with a lot of off putting art for me, So I know what you mean. Yes, so we're going to talk about Yeah, we're gonna talk about Artemis real quick. Um. So, this modern contemporary age, especially in the nineties this kicks off. The eighties in particular, was an era of I think a lot of people

will call it more adult storytelling. This is where the Dark Knight gets that gets to be the Dark Knight, you know. This is where a lot of comics that people are saying are the best comics ever made they get made during this period. Um. And so they're experimenting more with this stuff. This Jason Todd gets killed, uh you know, like Superman, Like they actually Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all lose their mantles, all within like two years of each other. Like this period of like five years.

Everybody gets there, their titles usurped from them for various reasons, and Wonder Woman is no uh, no exception to this. So they find this lost tribe of amazons um called the Bonna mcdal and they are real hardcore and they're like and so the when they come back to the island, they're like, Okay, well we weren't here during the contest of Champions, so we should be able to do the contes as the champions too. So they take their best warrior artemis In she actually wins. So Diana is no

longer technically a wonder Woman. This is where if you've ever seen a picture of her wearing bicycle shorts, this is where that comes from. All of her iterations are so like her eighties. There was one in the eighties and she just looked like she was like in Madonna's music video or something, you know what I'm talking like. I think she had a leather jacket. Yeah, that's that's that's the same one. It's a leather jacket with the bicycle shorts the top. Yeah, she looks like she's in

a music factor. But specifically, I'm not gonna lie because the new Wonder Woman that's dropping. Um, I believe we're not going to get it in twenty nineteen yet, now, are we? Okay you think? Yeah, Wonder Woman eight four literally takes place in eighty four, as it says, Um, So I'm kind of curious if they're going to put her in. I would love to see Diana in eighties

where yes, she has to be to blend in. I've seen a couple of like photos from like you know, the shoot or whatever, and I try not to look at them very much because I don't like being spoiled ahead of things too hard, because you already guess what happens in movies without it. But I just was so curious about her clothes. There is some shoulder pads happening

in one of the outfits, so yeah, definitely. And I saw one picture of another person and in the most eighties track suit, and I can't wait to see it. So let's talk about the movie. Um, if you can't remember, did you did we see it together? I don't think we saw it together because I saw it in a plane. Okay, never mind, I don't think you're on the theater. Yeah, if you, what do you What was your takeaway from seeing her brought to life on in film? Oh? I loved it, and it was you know, it was so

obvious what the solution was too. And I've talked about this many times anytime I talked about like what d C needs to do to blah blah, blah, it's always this, which is simply like get new voices in there, getting new director was in there, and like I think Patty just really just brought a whole new like perspective to the series. And what she did was she made it a war story. Like, it wasn't a story about you know, is she going to like be like being a superhero

or you know, any other like superhero story. It was a story about like this person dealing with the war and how that how that treats them and then being an outsider. So yeah, she was a fish out of water. Um, that was very well done. One of the things there were a couple of complaints that people had that I

want to address. Uh. One was this idea that she's not a feminist because she fell in love with Steve Trevor, that it's literally not what feminism mean, and that to me is it's it's such a It just shows how outdated and singular that those people's view. You know that she can you can be a mean, you can be a fully fledged you know. Another thing was that she wasn't They were like, well, she's clearly not queer. Then I'm like, but you know, queer, you can sleep with

you can you can do both. So there's a reason it's called by like you can do both. And it just so happened that this particular one, you know, and she fell in love with Steve Trevor. But I I find it hard pressed to believe that someone that looks like that would not be exploring on an island where other women are also equally as hot. It just like listen,

I mean, that's just a woman myself. Listen. And also again, like if we're talking about like I, I very much want to loop a lot of what she does into actual Greek mythology because I do think mostly the better or the more impactful writers tap into it in the right way. And if you think about ancient Greece, they

didn't care. Yeah, they were tapping everything you pretty. I've seen the I've seen the porcelain, I've seen the plates in the and then with the very detailed tapestries they are and they there, it's it's part of their thing, that's what they did. But yeah, the one of a movie I'm really looking forward to eight four. We somehow have Steve Trevor back. Yeah, there's would you like to hear my theories? UM, sure, I guess we're just saying that this is everybody listening. This is a theory obviously

isn't privy to the script, has not seen it. It isn't even finished yet. Just somebody that knows wonder woman that is thinking that this might be how he's there. Yeah, so I have too. Well, three there's three things. Two of them are kind of related. So number one, remember when he was bathing in that pool, that healing pool, girl, I didn't even remember that. So what was that water? What did it do? What's going on with that? He could have survived this whole time. You know he blew

up in an airplane. We don't know what that water that was like to Smithery. Okay, so that would be like in Terminator with like the do like all of the little metal pieces coming back together. That leads to me my second theory, which is, uh, we were told all the gods are gone? Are they? Somebody could have plucked him out of that plane right before it it's floated, and that he's been off somewhere else in another dimension,

in stasis something something for a very long time. That could be a thing, right because he still kind of looks the same and it's the eighties, so and it seems to me I haven't read a lot of stuff or whatever. The I think the most the least likely of the three theories is that he is somehow Steve's like Great Ransom or whatever. But I think that's not that doesn't make sense to me because there's nothing that they set up that just looks exactly just exactly like him, um,

which they do in movies all the time. So whatever. But like so, so that third theory is like the least likely one where I'm like, you can kind of throw that out there and be fine, But it's that blue glowing water, what does it do? And um, we already know that Apocalypse has beef with the Amazons and the gods of old, so it's possible that it wasn't even a Greek god. It could be one of the

other gods that did it. So like that, like that could have plucked him out, or that they're still hanging around because the dark sides will exist, then why doesn't the other ones have to be there somewhere? Um, And it could have been interesting if that was like a last pull of their power at that time. And then it takes sixty you know, a hundred years or whatever that for them to like be able to pull him back into this dimension because nobody's worshiping them except for

like Amazons, so they kind of have to recharge. Maybe I don't know those are I want to know who came up with all of these? Did you all just call you called it real monsters? So that yeah, because it's like or we just called monsters or whatever like that. You know, you always you always show folk come from the theater originally, so in the theater you sort of

just it's not Sweeney Todd, it's Sweeney or whatever. You know, it's not Oklahoma, it's Holma, or it's not that or the one that the one theater speak out with here because you have to say it this way is Scottish Plow. That's a whole different thing. Scot the Scottish the Scottish play. When I asked you to be on it, though, I made sure I didn't want to be disrespectful, so I made sure I like got all the a's and all of the exclamation call. I think it's three as two ages.

I think it is still got it. Yeah, with these amazing actors, I mean the people who started the show were great uh, um, Charlie Adler, who's one of the great voice over people of all time. Um, and then uh, I don't have her name from Christine Christine Kavanaugh. She's the late Christine Kavanaugh. She was wonderful. A guy named David eccles, who it was a sound guy at cross Key Chupa had a really interesting funny voice, so he was became Crumb, the guy with the eyeballs out. And

but then the guest actors would come in. The casting director was a woman named Barbara Wright who would just cast these amazing actors so like people like you would never expect to show up, like Tim Curry and uh and people who now like have had big careers later like, um, this Guyamexander Berkeley. You know Xander Berkeley. He's in the original term. He's a terminator too. He's the guy who who was um, John Connor's like step stepfather gets killed

with the like the thing through the face. Yeah, Uh, that's Sander Berkeley has been in a million things. This guy named Toby Hass who has been in a million things. But like big Margot Kidder, the late Margot kid Like, these people just come through just doing like one voice, you know, because this woman was a great woman who like like these people. So I get to sit in and watch these amazing voice sessions and and the animators were great. It was just just a really fun experience. Yeah.

So for people that don't, oh, I haven't heard of it. I don't know how. But the show focuses on three young monsters. It's its Obelina and Crumb, who attend a school for monsters under a city dump and learned to frighten humans. Uh. Many of the episodes revolve around them making it to the surface in order to perform scares as class assignments. The series premiered October at eleven am on Nickelodeon. That's cute. That was a good slot, running a total of fifty two episodes over four seasons. The

final episode air December six. So, like you were saying, Charlie Adler voiced it is do you hate do you have a favorite or like one that I'm like, I hate to ask this good to ask your favorite monster? For sure? I mean he was so he was because he was he was a little bit me too, because he was like very nervous and anxious and always worried. And you know, Crumb was the cool one who liked nothing bothered him, and Obelina was super cool and stylish,

which I wasn't, so uh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I liked writing for him too. He was fun to write for. But my first episode, I'm trying to remember. I don't think I pitched the story. It couldn't have been because I didn't know anything about it. But it's the one that people seem to remember the most. Was my first one, which is where Crumb got a pimple that that came alive and started talking to him and it was voiced

by Jim Belushi. But I remember writing that having a good time and that the pimple became more popular than him and he sang a song, and um yeah, it was just I was like, oh, I can I can't believe. Because I grew up as a kid just loving cartoons, uh specifically Bugs Bunny cartoons. So I would come home from school every day, and where I lived in New York, there was a Channel five in New York, which is show Bugs Bunny from half an hour from like three

o'clock to three thirty. So I come home from school, turn on the TV half an hour of Bugs Bunny. But I came became so obsessed about it, Like that's if if I was doing that show all these years ago when I was a kid, I'd say I was nerding out about Chuck Jones because I knew the names of all that I could recognize the director's style, tell it Chuck Jones from Frizz Feeling from a Bob Mackimson from a Frank tash Lyn. Uh, you know, and and I so so have a chance to work in animation.

Was just im planned on it, but it just really because of that guy, David Litson, you want to try and write on this cartoon, and I just ended up just loving it. I couldn't believe here I was this kid from Jersey, like you know, in Hollywood, like working for a cartoon show. It just was a thrill. I do have to say from it. I think I've told this story in here. But my mom used to be teased for her lips. She had big, full lips, and

she they would call her Sandy big lips. Also like kids were like, couldn't think of a better Yeah, like you old Sandy big lips. But that was one of the things because the women in my family have really full lips, and I remembered that about Oblina, like it was just so, well, look, we'll take representation wherever we can get it. And was the thing that I loved about her having these big, full lips. It just like reminded me of the women in my family and I

loved that so much. Um. And then when my mom grew up, everybody was getting them injected to get their lips like her. So there you go. And then I was a good representation for people who are growers not showers. Wow, the joke was right there. I couldn't leave it sitting. It was right there. David eccles, was the voice of Crumb, said okay, yeah, I did not know that he voiced the monster under Chucky's bed in the rug Rats, So

that comes full circle. He was a monster in that world, and then a monster he was, I'm pretty sure a guy who just worked in the sound department at class Key Chupo, and he had a really it was a funny guy, had interesting voice, and I think maybe he did that thing in rug Rats. And then when they came up with the monsters, they said, for you want to do this too? Yeah, all right, Yeah, I love just have a weird voice. Yeah. And they did actually

have an official crossover. So in the sixth season of Rugrats Akasblina and Crumb Crashed, Tommy Chucky, Phil Lill Dill and Angelica's Spooky Slumber Party, it was called ghost Story and uh iconic crossover. Yeah them. So we were talking about at the break, we were talking about the fact that Nickelodeon is rebooting a bunch of these shows apparently right there. I think they're do new Rugrats. They're doing

new Hey Arnold. They had a movie for Hey Arnold, uh that came out last year, and then they also had Rocko's movie came out Rocko. That's right, So why not monsters give me a call, call me up, get the gang back together. There were the writers on that show were one. I mentioned some of the other guys already, but Mark Stein was the guy who ran it most of the time that I was there, and was a guy named Mark Palmer, Uh, Spencer Greene, Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Just we were the main staff. They're just great, great people to work with, and we're talented and funny people. Yeah. And also it was just like such weird. I love that it embraced the weird grossness, you know, especially because children love that. But also I think that that might be why all of these iconic writers that came together

to kind of start in this room. I think that that's why it resonated with us even now decades later, that it was just such a it was just doing something different that I feel like a lot of the other shows weren't. Let's take a quick break and then come back to it, and we're back. Let's get back to the hits. Today we're talking about the Man the Mystery, James Vond. James Um, so you know, we're going to

do the nitty gritty that I always start with. This is the first time the nitty gritty is very chunky, like usually, you know, the nitty grete. We just take the kind of synopsis of the subject that kind of launches us in at the discussion. But James Bond isof it's yeah, yeah, so Phil free to jump in. Commander James Bond cmg R n VR is a fictional character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in N three. So I guess I was not aware that

he was first in novels before the films. Yeah, now he was. He he wrote like Ian Fleming wrote like two or three books that he wrote. Um, I think Casino Royale and like On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr No in some version of that order, and and they were kind of like they didn't go anywhere, like they're just gonna hit the marketplace, and they just kind

of died. And then um, it became like I think it was John F. Kenny did an interview with Playboy magazine back in the day, and John F. Kenny was like, my favorite books are James Bond books. And suddenly became, oh well, if President screws a Lot really likes these books, then there must be something going on in there. And then suddenly, like boom, they became best sellers. Mark, are you telling me that John F. Kennedy was the first influencer. I think so. I think I think he tagged up

like this this is a paid post. So have you read any of the original novel Um, I've read like five or six of them. Um, they're shorter than the movies. They are like crazy misogynist, I mean, like that's that is that is They're very much a product of their time in that like James Bond loved Jamaica because Ian Fleming loved Jamaica like he would like he would summer there or winter there or whenever he can go there.

And so like reading like gold Finger, which is all set in Jamaica, you're like, oh, like it's kind of yeah. I mean like you're like that we'll go to the Bahamas and that's gonna be different. But you know, it's just like it becomes he's got like a black buddy

who's not really a buddy. He's more like a waiter slash show for a slash valet, and and every woman is kind of disposable, you know, and it's it is, uh, bringing that to the modern era is a challenge, I think is the And and you see these James Bond movies as you go, you go back and look at the Sean Connerys, and they still retain that vestige of

of old school feelings about masculinity and femininity. And then you get to Daniel Craig and it's like, listen, you're gonna like have sex with a lady, but it's not going to be as unfortunate as it had. Yeah, it seems like as it moved forward in time, it went from the Bond Girls to the Bond Girl, right, you know, I mean there there would still be the like does he have to like sleep with like three women? Like and there's always like the Bond girl who dies early

to his you know, adventure. I'm really motivated now that now that I can't even remember who she was, but she's dead and now revenge must happen. Yeah, And like the Bond novels especially and then the movies sort of

after the fashion were aspirational. I think to like a generation of men um for good and for ill, and like the good of it is like James Bond really like dressed well and he lived well, and he liked good food and like it's a weird like Samelier's Guide to Wine and stuff, like those books are all like he's super refined and super defeat and super like you know, well, you wouldn't have the fifty four rothchild before a steake. My god, what kind of barbarian are you? It was like, dude,

like you're a killer. But but and that's that's sort of how it helped tie into the Playboy, because Playboy was also very much like, here's here's the guy that you kind of want to be, Like, here's how you should dress, Here's the party you should go to. Here's the music you should listen to. Here's the books you should read. Um, here's the women you should want to consort with. And James Bond fit right into there. It

was like he he was the guy you wanted to be. Um. That changes over time, you know, and especially the as the more diverse a audience gets, the less they might want to just be that guy, you know. And and James Bond may or may not eventually change with those times, because there is no good reason why James Bond, if it's going to be played by a bunch of different actors, yeah, couldn't also be played by a person of color. Yeah.

I have one quote that I wanted to say. It's exactly what you said about him being a blunt instrument. This is from Ian Fleming in The New Yorker from nineteen sixty two. He said, when I wrote the first one in nineteen fifty three, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happen. I wanted him to be a blunt instrument. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonists, I thought, by god, James Bond is the dullest name I've ever heard.

Funny because now when you hear Bond, James Bond, it's like a man of mystery, and he's sexy debonair and

it's just like, oh no, this like dole office worker. Yeah, like he I think that he was in his Jamaica estate, which is also named Golden Eye because of course it is um and he had a wall full of books and one of them was a book on birds, like bird watching and stuff, written by a guy named James Bond, and I was like, oh god, if that's not the most boring person and the most boring man, so boring

dude that's ever been here's my spy. Well, it transforms so much, it's so interesting that it was like, oh, just this man that things happened to happen to him, to him being this force of nature essentially wrecking. He's a wrecking ball in my opinion, very much so. And and like those movies and even the stories, there's the version of those that are very reactionary, right, because like James Bond is kind of like this global cup who like, I'm gonna go right or wrong, but the wrong has

to happen before he gets called off his game. So it's very much like we said, it's like, here's your mission, James, go do the thing. And then he goes and does the thing. But it would take a while before the movies began to make him proactive, before they gave him missions and drives and revenge and all that stuff that actually makes for here that you want to be tuning into over and over again, as opposed to just a guy waiting for like a case file to fall on

his desk. I guess I gotta go get that bad guy again, little fail. I'm gonna come and get you. I'm coming and get you. It's so funny because I have never seen a single James Bond film Wow, but I have played many a Golden Eye. And Golden Eye is special in the sense that it had it normalized first person shooters. It changed the game literally, and so you know, it got people well aware of of crappy hit boxes with odd job. If you chose odd job,

you were a horrible human being. And so like everything about Golden Eye is so fun and they recently did a source remaster for PC, so you can grab that if you're on the PC man Aster race. But you know, it's super. It was fun. And what kind of sucked was it was so good, so nostalgic that a Bond game never was able to survive around there. I think there was like was it a die? It was either die another day or um, what is the one that came out for PS two or PS one Night Fire? Nightfire?

That's what it's saying, James Bond double O seven Night Fire for PS two. Okay, I think that's what it was. Then it was it was not great. I just remember that Golden I was the first party game I'd ever really played. It was, you know, like it was. It was a game where somebody had an N sixt before you go over and always be like five or six people in that house and for them would be playing Golden at any given time, and there was and it was It became a social event in a way that

video games hadn't been for me and before. And there was always like it. And the screen was divided into those four boxes, right, and so four people were playing at once. I'm on a giant screen. There's always one screen where some person could not figure out how to focus, like just look straight ahead, Man, I can't do it. Yeah,

that was that was next level. And you know, just talking about Golden Night, it's crazy to think that in sixty four launched two of the biggest like multiplayer party games. Uh not counting Mario Party. But you have Smash Bros. And you have Golden It's it's crazy to know that all that came from the n sixty four totally. The actors that have played James Bond. To me, Pierce Brosnan was my James Bond because he was who I was first introduced to and who I grew up with until

Daniel Craig came into the picture. Who do you consider your James Bond? Good? Um? The first Bond movie I ever saw was Never Say Never Again. Um, So Sean Connery is my Bond. Um. I think I've seen more Roger Moore James Bond movies and seen anybody else, and that was more contemporary for me, Like I was a kid of the eighties and he was. He was a late seventies into like eighty five, eighties six, I think.

But it's kind of always going to be Sean Connery for me, and even like Never Never Again is when he's the old Bond, he's war like to pay Bond, like it's just and it's a remake of another Bond movie because they're like MGM has the like the lock on James Bond movies and I have for since the very beginning. But there was some weird dispute with the screenwriter of Thunderball and he claimed some rights to it, and so that's the one movie that if any other

company wants to make, they can remake Thunderball. And so it was Thunderball and then Never Seen Ever Again, which is just a remake of Thunderball again. Um. And so I remember that that was a summer and I was a bad boy at school and it was just coming out on HBO, and like I had forged my report card, like I like the kind of forgery that in junior

high school you're really really good at. So it was like, oh, I'm gonna make these fs a's because nobody will notice that, and these ds are gonna be bees because that totally works. And uh. And I had told my parents like at length that I really wanted to see this movie movie. And then when I they caught me in my master forgery. They were like, you can't do anything for a summer. So you know Caribbean parents, that's how that goes. Oh yeah, so so from like June through September, I was locked

in my room. But then like once once I got paroled, like my dad had videotaped never Say Never again for me, Like that was his present for me as I completed my my rounds in in the Big House. And I remember watching that movie and loving it to death even though it's not great, Um, but it didn't matter, yeah, because like this was this was the price. Yeah, that was your freedom. This is my freedom for like I'm free given up. The new one, No Time to Die,

is dropping April eight. Um. It's directed by Karrie Fukanaga and that he co wrote with Scott z Burns and Phoebe waller Bridge What Flee Bag Herself Indeed, which like that that in and of itself between Kari Fukanagen and

Phoebe waller Bridge. I'm more excited for this Bond movie than I've been for a while, because you know, you can eat as I think you find with like sort of Black Panther is a different Marvel movie than every other Marvel movie because the perspective of the people who get to tell that movie, like Patty Jenkins is wonder Woman. It's a different superhero movie than every other DC superhero movie because the lens through which you're telling that story

is different. And so to look at this now fifty year old franchise and look at it through a lens through which we've never seen it before, because every other director of a Bond movie has been a white British dude. And so now you get a sort of you know, multi racial you know, like American with a crazy eye, and it's a crazy flair for this sort of thing.

And then you get a script that's that's co written by one of these smartest women on the planet, Like what does what does a James Bond movie from those people look like? You know, what does it keep? What

does it retain? And how does it innovate and how does it propel the story forward in a in a way that we've never seen before to an audience that might not have responded to Bond before this, you know, because it is it's an archaic idea, you know, it is something of it of its own cinematic dinosaur, and to find a way to put a fresh coat of paint on it, and to and to roll it off the assembly line looking like something brand new while still feeling like something old. I'm all here for that. Yeah,

So we have Lashawna Lynch. She will be playing double O seven. You will have recognized her from a bunch of things, but most recently Captain Marvel cannot wait, cannot wait, I mean, And it's like even even if you've been burned before, and you know Bond has burned before, it's clearly it retains. It's its capacity to be like what was that all about? You know? There are enough pieces to it. You know. It's like it's like if you look at at at a car manufacturer that's been making

cars forever, like you know, BMW, Mercedes or whatever. If you look at like a modern day Mercedes and then a Mercedes from fifty years ago, they look like cousins. You know, like there's enough elements to it. There's enough kind of curves in the bodyline. It's all kind of work the same, but you've now brought it into You've innovated, and you've put all kinds of bells and whistles on it,

but it's still that car. And if you can do that with James Bond and like you know what, like this was a Rolls Royce from like Night, but like look at a Rolls Royce today, Like you can still kind of tell this faster and it's leaner and it does things better, but it's still it's still a Bond movie. Yeah, And like, give me that travelog, give me that hero who does the impossible when nobody else could pull it off. Like give me these women who now have agency in

a way they've never had before. And give me, you know, gadgets I've never seen, like just push it and that's it. Thank you for listening to the best of Nerdificent Part two. We missed you and I can't wait to see you all next week. All right, y'all, stay nerdy,