90: Little Shop Of Night Calls

a cool jazz pod. It's cool jazz paw. It's okay. Emily is going to bring back the techno beats from Berlin for a techno pod. Today, we're gonna talk about home Alone, Little Shop of Horrors as another part of our eighties Terrifying Puppet Movies for Children December. I've been wondering if we should even extend this series into temporary I mean, I've really been enjoying doing it. We'd love to know what Night Call listeners think about our horrifying

eighties puppet Movies for Children December. If you think we should do terrifying nineties puppet movies for children I mean, we could lean into horror, we could do we could just I guess we've already kind of done. You've got a new requests for theme months or themes you'd like to see featured on Night Call. Leave us a night Call it to four oh for six night or a night email at Night Call podcast at gmail dot com. Also,

I'm just going to do this at the top. We would love if you would rate, review and subscribe because it feels so nice. Yeah, as we wind down this year, we're very grateful for all of our Night Call listeners and for for all of your night calls especially. Oh yeah, and we'll be taking some of those later in the show, in particular, one from a very special caller, the most special color. Well, we also had a call from another special color. We have lots of special collars, a very

special color to be to be announced. But first we're gonna talk about a little journey. I took to a land far far away, folks. I'm talking about Star Wars Land. Oh yeah, you're talking alone Galaxy's Edge. Well, there's also kind of a Star Wars crawl. At the beginning of Little Shop of Horse. I went to Disneyland for the first time in a year, I guess. And in that year they finished and opened Star Wars Land Galaxy's Edge, and I felt like I wanted to review it on

this podcast because it seems like something. Testart to ask me about it before we were recording, and I was like, no, we have to talk about it is fairly air. We usually chat before we record, and then every single interesting thing that comes up or save it for the pod, save it for the pod. Color like night talk show hosts exactly, um setting each other for the pre interview. I'm very curious. I'm waiting with bated breath. The spontaneity

is all uh fakes. Podcast is scripted. It is you can tell you can tell it scripted to tell us about Star Wars. Okay, so Star Wars Land Galaxy's Edge. I didn't really know that much about it because I'm not a big Star Wars person. I'm obviously am a theme park and Disneyland uh nerd, not like the biggest nerd. It turns out you're just a fan. I just like themed areas and I like the idea. You know, I'm a postmodern nerd person from Los Angeles. Um, but Star

Wars Land, I didn't really know what. I knew there was only one ride in It's so Far and that it's mostly restaurants and just sort of atmosphere, but didn't really know what the layout in terrain was actually like. So it turns out they decided to do it after a fictional Star Wars planet called Batu two A's I think, Um, I think this planet does appear, but only in Solo, a Star Wars movie, which shows you when they were conceptualizing this land before that movie did not do well

for them. Um, but it's not I guess where the cantina is originally, but there is a cantina and did you eat there? Yes? I did, but okay, So I was like describing it to my boyfriend at home. I was like, it's Moroccan themed, but it's also brutalist and it's like, uh, sort of falling apart city, like a a city in decline that is between places, sort of like Casablanca, like a trading post. And also it's it's a trading post and like thieves and merriment planet subscription

says um. And he said it sounds like Interzone from Naked Lunch, And I was like, oh my god, You're exactly right, that's exactly what it is, because Interzone and Naked Lunch is like the fictionalized Morocco that William Burrows writes about where it is like a Moroccan marketplace, like an open air marketplace. But also there's like bug aliens, and that's exactly what Star Wars Land is. Are there, like the Star Wars bar, are the waiters and stuff

scary bug alien people? No, okay, okay, but there's a there's an alien DJ who I guess is the former Star Tours robot. This this park is so weirdly conceived because it's like it's so fan service e to a certain type of Star Wars nerd that it feels sort of completely alienating to anyone else. Yeah, it's like very chaotic, it's very like grown up it's stuff. It does not

feel child friendly at all. Is that because they serve alcohol? Yeah, and so they know that they're like, this is for you alcohol in Pixar Peer in California Adventure that Yeah, like they st it isn't because the kids can also go in the cantina, like the bar has non alcoholic drinks. It's just like it's an interesting choice because it's like they chose the dirty future, the like dystopian crumbling city future. You know, I was telling you what we're telling you

Emily about it, and she was like, sounds amazing. I'm all in, sounds like something I would love, And I like, I didn't dislike it. It was just like so different from what I expected because I thought I was like, I thought, like Tomorrowland, Tomorrowland is like the clean future. And then Tomorrowland kind of got run down and that

was when it was the most interesting. Was it became the sort of most abandoned part of the park and that's where all the goths would hang out and like chain smoke, so it had a kind of like towld like a nighttime kind of nefarious for Disneyland feel, you know, that's sort of like, oh, this is like danger zone, right, like a real carnival, like a little sketchy in a way that's like fun and exciting. Um that you're not allowed to have a Disneyland, but this is like so weird.

And another weird thing is they don't have any baby Yodas because they didn't plan, they didn't anticipate the baby Yoda rush, so there are people in a boardroom who are just so upset with the execution of this. Well, it's like a whole story that they decided to like like I think I just read that, like Donald Clover like convinced Jon Favreau to do it by being like, look at how Beyonce surprise drops albums, like you should surprise drop Baby Yoda, and like if you start the merchandising,

people will know it's coming, I guess. But this was the wrong choice of because there's like, instead of selling baby Yodas and like baby it is in Santa hats and like so many baby Yoda should be everywhere, there's no baby Yoda. There's not even a regular Yoda really, and instead they're selling these like nightmarished dolls, what what kind of dolls, like of Star Wars creatures that I do not recognize because they are so obscure. I'll show

you one picture. There was one that was amazing because it was like a pork, which I do know what that is. That's from Last Jedi Uh and those are cute. Those are the old baby Yoda that they put in the trash compactor after the new Baby Yoda came out here. I'll showing you now at this photograph, So it's a pork, and then I don't know what the middle one is. It's another like cutie pokemon. It's frowning. And then on the right there's like a butt hole with teeth and tentacle.

It looks like a dog toy that's had better days. It also kind of looks like when you make a bird feeder by taking a pine cone and rolling it in everything. It's like a room with teeth. And then also all these like weird tentacles and it's like, is that plush, It's not like rubber. And then there was some other like weird just like weird random Star Wars characters that looked like dark crystal style, just like I was like, these are probably some eighties you know, some

characters I don't know about. But even then I was like that was a weird choice. I was like, why wouldn't you just be front loading with like e walks and like cutie things. It's very like spiky, which is not inhospitable. It's inhospitable, and it's like confusing. It's like it is very immersive in that you don't see any of the rest of the park. And you just sort of It's located um in Critter by Critter County. Do you know where the Petting Zoo used to be over

by Splash Mountain? Yes, yes, Splash Mountain listened to Karina Longworth's Song of the South. You must remember this series for more on Splash Mountain. Whole season now available. It's over by yeah, where Splash Mountain and the Country Bear Jamboree used to be. Where the Country Bear Jamboree. Uh lead over to Fantacy Land and there was like a barbecue place with some so they knocked that down and some office buildings in order to build Star Wars Land.

It's a gigantic but there's only one ride in it, and that ride it's like an updated Star Tours. It's like Star Tours, but it's all like a video immersive thing and also well it's also sort of like it's like enders game. It's also like a military simulator kind of thing where you have to like shoot the guy the whole time, like buzz let your blasters or whatever. Um, And that was my job. I was a gunner and then I was like really good at it. I was like,

oh no, I have the killer instinct some too. Still there Star Toars isn't Tomorrowland still Okay? But doesn't that make it kind of redundant to have two of the simulator games? I mean kind of they're opening and I mean this is also like to get to the ride, you just walk down like a million sort of like storage facility feeling weird tunnels that all have like fake insulation coming out of them and fake like freed wires

and stuff. You know, I like the Dirty Future, but this made me be like, oh, I like Space Mountain more than this Space Mountains the bomb still but wait, so are they is it still under construction? Well, they're opening another ride. So they built this like giant fake mountain ridge that is currently nothing, but they are turning it into a dark ride that is like a fifteen minute long dark ride, like the longest dark ride they've ever done. I think maybe Pirates of the Caribbean. It's

also about fifteen minutes. And uh they have it open already in Orlando. Somebody, a friend of ours, Christina uh friend of the night Call pod, went on it and said it's really good. It has this like trackless uh ride system that they use. Now that's just controlled by WiFi. What could possibly minute ride is at? She said. The best part of the ride is there's like a slight

saber comes at you from underneath through the floor. Spoiler spoiler erase from Yeah, but you know, it's like this giant It's also weird because it's just like a giant mountain and they're like, soon this will be your ride. Now it is just a giant fake mountain mountain. Can't you see in some of the pictures you posted on Instagram it looked like there was almost like scaffolding or something up for the ride or was that just that

was part of the future, that was part of Haunted Mansion. Okay, because Haunted Mansion they're about to take off for a couple months to like fix it, which I was also thinking about a lot because of our puppets are decaying puppets conversation and talking about how puppets need to have their hair cut, because it gets like I can't stop thinking about me too, and and thinking about how like some of the attractions at Disneyland, you know, I haven't

been updated probably since the sixties or seventies, and so but it is like it just reminds me of the construction in l A right now so much where it's like there's so much construction going on all the time that it's never not distracting because it's like something's always down and they're always like, look at the new thing we just build. Pay no attention to all the other rides you want to go on that like aren't working anymore,

but we building. Um. I will also say the food at the cantina is like the weirdest choice of I didn't really eat it because it was like a meat and cheese plate, but I can't describe what happened, but it was like it's made to look like alien food. Oh oh, what does that mean? Like the thing that you can order is like a meat and cheese pla. There's like one thing on the menu cantina and that's it,

and then like a snack or like a cookie. There's like a weird So they're just like, you're only here because this is the only place you can drink alcohol in the park, and there's like you can I think you can drink alcohol and other parts of Star Wars Land you can just maybe buy it it stands, but the cantina has like a year long wait to get in. Yeah, it's like it's also just like a weird choice of things to have in a park. It's like an exclusive thing that has a small capacity. Go back to how

it's alien food. Okay, I mean, so are their legs on the salami? No, but it's like instead of crackers, it's like a giant like shrimp chip kind of with like green powder on it, and like the cheese is all like brown or like a weird color you wouldn't expect, and like in a cube. It's just like something about

it is like space food from the nineties. Yes, yeah, you know, it's like it's like they would serve it an American psycho exactly, like but in space like a little like yeah, but you could also see that being a yuppy food trend of just like it's all the meat is blue and green, right, but they don't eat meat in the future or in space, I think. Yeah. I mean it's also just weird because it's like what you want is like chicken fingers. You know, it's like

they're trying to do something too weird. Which what if they had gone vegan and have like weird experimental vegan food. Well, they said they have some vegan food actually at one of the other restaurants in Star wars Land, because you think Star wars Land would be the place to have vegan food. Well, yeah, my friend knows all the vegan things in Disneyland, and one of them is the Pineapple

the doll Whip technically and technically vegan. But yeah, it's just like it's it's strange, and it's like there's these ambient animatronics. These are the best thing, for sure. There are just sort of some like free floating animatronics in like the stores and the like main areas that you're walking around, and they're all so scary that they're so on brand for eighties Puppet Month because they're like specifically

like terrifying, like latex oh dear weird things. There's like one thing in a store that looks like a hammerhead shark with like a testicle that has like teeth in it. Yeah, you know, now eat your brown meat brown. She like it's very strange. Um. There's like this guy I'm showing you, I don't know his name, but there's like a little frogman who's just in a tank. I'm ashamed. We don't know this guy this guy. Really we should know this.

There's some like subtle animatronics. He's the frog chameleon, snail'st him. He's my favorite. He's a cutie if you know the name of the frog cutie boy I met podcast the ride. Well, now he's like a cutie frog boy with tentnacle little what are those antennae? I'm an idiot. Um and he uh he lives in a tank in the cantina, and the cantina also plays they only play Jeez music, which is the type of music they have at at Disneyland.

And it's like, here, look at this guy. I just want you to see this one because this is what I was like, who is this for? We will have to put oh oh dear right. So that's it looks like a camel with a whale's mouth on its neck, yes, and but also another mouth will at all. But it's also like silly putty color like if it was if it was green, it would be fine, but it's that kind of like that uncanny like silly putty flesh monster thing. Um.

So star wars five out of five stars. Um. Yeah, there's one guy who turns a giant like tounton on a spit. That was another one where I was like, a child sees this, I have nightmares forever. I an adults see this and still think it's nightmarish, and I'm like, what who is this for? It's like not like cute or enchanting or like magical provoking. There's also like it's very fascist feeling because there's like a brutal brutalist but there's all but brutalless isn't always fascist. I like brutalist.

This is like there's just like a giant flag hung on some stuff. There's like hunk a junk, like a millennium falcon and like a big spaceship that's like crashed into the floor or whatever. And then there's like yeah, but there's like a giant flag hungover one dough And

my friend was like, is that a Nazi flag? And I was like, well, I don't know if it's resistance or Empire, but I'm guessing it's Empire because it just look it does look like a Nazi logo because it's a red flag with like the black sun on it basically, which is a Nazi logo. It's like an asterisk with a million points, you know, and it's just like on this giant concrete dome and it's pretty pretty intense yis um.

And then there's like stormtroopers walking around. The Stormtrooper And when I last went to Disneyland and there were Stormtroopers there, a lot of children were crying at the stormtroopers. Some children love the Stormtroop devices. Friend Ian's kid loves the Stormtroopers and was really into the shirt that had all Stormtrooper faces that are the same and it's like the many emotions Stormtroopers and it's like sad, happy, and he kept being like, look at my shirt, isn't it funny?

But they cater to that too in a weird way where they do kind of cater to like, hey, if you like the bad stuff, that's okay. So we did like a lightsaber ceremony where somebody got a lightsaber um and they give you like to choose from. It's like, if you want the blue and green ones, those are like the classic your classic Star Wars stars, but if you want to be the bad guy, they have like an Empire themed one. It's called power and Control. Oh

my god, this is an acosticview. We if you have been to Star Wars Land, Please give us a night call and tell us more, because now I'm very intrigued. But I also Disneyland is too expensive to go to right now, so I'm not gonna go um, but Disneyland, you know, yeah, pay us to us they want um. Speaking of things that disturbed children, let's take a night call. Fine night call. This is a constant listener who, just by coincidence, is Molly's dad, and it's also weeks behind.

So I just heard you talking about lob. And the scariest thing I've ever seen at a movie was in the lobby of a movie theater when I was a little kid and my cut's got a troop got taken to see some movies and terrible movie. But the next attraction at the theater was the blob. And I knew this because in the lobby there was a big, big crate, a wooden crate, and it said the blob, do not touch. And coming out of the spaces in between the wood was this red jello e substance that was clearly the blob.

I was so scared. That's my story. Bye, Wow, thanks Dad, a great night call. That was a great nightcall. Why are children so obsessed? With slime. They are, they've really come back into it. I mean, the blob is so scary because it's sentient slime. Yeah, or it's I don't even know. I mean, I guess it's sentient. It has to be. It has like motivations. Yeah, I don't know if it's really thinking the motivations through. I think some things the way that they think, it's just like expand expand,

expand the whole the whole thought, that's their whole nature. Um. I can't even imagine. It's funny too to think about seeing something like that for the first time and happening. Well, it's also kind of interesting how something high tech can pale in comparison to just a grown up deciding to put a bunch of slime in a crate and the don't touch. That's what we need, the scary part totally, that is. I think we've been talking about that all the time with Baby Yoda too. But I think that

was also the thing with Star Wars Lands. I was like, a creative slime, yeah, would be both more magical. Yeah, we need that creative slime. I wish. Even though it's not Star Wars, it's not actually from the star wars Land. But you know that the robot at l a X outside of that one restaurant, and that poor robot, that robot it is. It's such strong feelings in me of like I need to liberate the robot, like that robot's life sucks, not that it has a life, but whatever

existences is terrible to me. And seeing people being rude to that robot makes me angry, which doesn't make any sense. It's not because it's a service worker. It does make sense. It's because you're like, they want to outsource all the like most degrading jobs, but also jobs that like people need, you know, they want to outstarce the working class or robots. And I think, but also I feel, I don't resent the robot. I empathize with the right. You're not like

the robot took my job, my waitress job. You're like, the robot is also a waitress. Hey, Molly, it sounds almost like you're talking about capitalism. We watched a movie about capitalism. Let's talk about Little Shop of Horrors, Little Shop, Little Shop the Horror. It's a very good song, it's a very good film. It's a great film. So should we take a break and then come back. Yeah, when we come back, we'll be discussing Little Shop of Horrors

and during the break we'll be singing, and we're back. Okay. So Molly had never seen this movie. It's one of those things that I assumed you had seen. I think I have such a lot of times on the pot, but I sort of missed the eighties. What were you doing reading books like a nerve? Oh? Come on? So was I. But like my parents were not into, like they were watching twin Peaks and stuff, and I would

like see things that they saw, but I didn't. My entry point into like regular garbage was full house, which has to be nine. Not until kindergarten was I like, okay, I must see what the other kids are seeing. I was just like doing my own weird thing. Yeah, that makes sense, doing your own weird thing is. But I think my parents they saw a Little Shop before. Of

course they did well. So when we talk about a Little Shop Before, as we are of course talking about the nineteen eight six film directed by Frank Oz, but there's also the two musical and the nineteen sixty what is It? Roger Roger Corman movie, which if you if you haven't seen that it's fun. But also you could just see the clip of Jack Nicholson singing in it, which is great, very young Jack Nicholson. Um, So this movie I saw. Maybe I don't think I could have

seen it in the theater when I was three. I started watching this movie when I was tiny, So one thing I learned about it was that it didn't do that well in theaters, but it was one of the first ever huge VHS hits, which makes sense because in theaters this is the kind of thing that I think happens pretty frequently where if a film, if if parents are afraid that something is too scary, there's always the feeling of like I'm not going to blow movie ticket

money on it. And my parents also were like I think my mom in particular, was like she knew I couldn't handle a little shop before year, because I was not. I was kind of like trauma, mild trauma from this movie. I think I had like some recurring nightmares. But I think because it's so over the top and because it's a musical, it takes the edge off of even seeing the like a brutal axe dismemberment thing, which does happen again. It sme also makes you feel like, man, the eighties

were wild. They were I mean, they were. One thing we talked about a lot is like that. The problem with a lot of mainstream movies now is that therefore this audience of like adults and also children, and they're time cats. Well, no cats forts for me, Okay, it's just for you. You can have a little cats as a treat um. No. But I think when things like try to split the difference between like for everybody, that's when you get like the pod race or Anakin Skywalker,

like a baby and a rocket. Well, but when you say that, what's really the thing that's most interesting about the evolution of different releases of Little Shop is, of course that the original ending. So apparently in the screening the audience was like right there, they were clapping, they were laughing, and then the original ending is just this like absolute horror blood bath. I watched it first because

nice have that version queued up. I was like, I'll watch the bat the like scary ending, not bad, but the director's cut ending, and then I'll watch the theatrical release, happy ending, because I'm a baby. I don't want to see as much as I talked about how much I love seventies down er endings. I was like, this is too dark. It's too dark because because the main characters

are so likable despite being very flawed. Right, it's a testament to how amazing Rick moranis and are the you do like love Rick moranis the whole time, even when he turns out to be a murderer. So just to set this up, I mean, I'm pretty sure people know the general synopsis of this movie, but just in case, we have, um, we have Rick moranis as Seymour and uh, and we have Audrey and they're working at Mr Mushnick's

flower shop. Seymour gets this plant that is Audrey. He names it Audrey Too, and it's a weird looking fly trap thing, puts it in the window. The struggling business becomes a sensation overnight. Everyone's really intrigued. Christopher Guest is the first customer who notices Audrey two in the window, comes in and it's like, I'm obsessed with that plant. I must have one. Um. And the problem is is that Audrey Too only eats human blood and meat, so

that's a that's a problem. But in the director's cut ending and the original ending Audrey to the plant ends up eating original Audrey one Rick Moran. Seymour comes in prize Audrey out of the plant Audrey's mouth, but she can't be saved. Then Audrey like blows everything up, eats Seymour, and then all of her little baby plants that live

on her ten drils take over the world. Yeah, and apparently in musical in the stage version, at that point when Seymour is like pleading with the plant and the flower, the little baby plants open, they all have the faces of all the people he's eating them. And there are many, many fatalities in this movie, which is also crazy to

think of all the children growing up watching. And that's what I was saying, It's like, it feels like a lot of these eighties movies we're talking about, but they were like really for adults, but also their children's kids liked them because kids want to like adult things too. Kids are like, oh, it's for growing up, so I can handle it. Not allowed like, of course that's what I want to see. I don't want to see something for babies. But this movie is legitimately scary. And then

the songs are so good, they're really good um. Obviously Levi stubs from the Four Tops as Audrey too, is like the It's just an amazing thing. Also the fact that like in Audrey to the songs, there's a lot of cussing um, and there's a lot of like jokes about Audrey to punching more in the balls. You're like, okay,

it's very off Broadway. It is extreme it started, and it is also cool to think about, Like, right, this is something that would never get developed, but it became like a hit organically, so to speak, and then became a movie and it was going to be directed at one point by Martin Scorsese. That's so funny. Why not? Why not? I mean, I would love I could see it. He should remake it. But I also, yeah, I think Frank Oz like makes the tone of it work because it's very hard to see it working. But it is

sort of muppety. It's like the humans are sort of also like puppets, and humans are very well because everybody's kind of like scrappy and dressed in sort of fuzzy stuff and everyone's poor. Everyone's poor. So that's the other thing is that they live in a kind of fake New York that they call skid row and it's I mean watching it as an adult. This is the first time I've watched it as an adult. Um. And what's really obvious when you watch it as an adults is

that it's about capitalism and the green Scare. It's kind of that is what other people in the internet side. Well, that's the It's just obvious. It's right there because it's um, you know, obviously there are also different layers that I was like reading every single blog about this movie. But I mean people made the case that it was about gentrification, which totally seems to work as well, um, and about the American dream with the white picket fence and like

somewhere that's green money. Yeah. And Johnny was saying also, he was like, right, this is about New York when it was like when people considered it like scary and run down. Yeah, well it's an interesting apies they gentrified it. But that was when they were gentrifying it, right. But I mean I I read somewhere that the sixties movie they were like, oh, it's you know, the red scare, and then the idea of like aliens that kind of being tied into this like personification of this fear. This

is then turning that on its head. But definitely, I mean, so this was I believe shot in London, um on a sound stage, but it definitely has a lot of like nineteen eighties New York stuff in it, which is curious if you consider that sixties. It's the eighties sixties which we all live exactly. UM. I have to say that my favorite part, which I totally forgotten about, and this is one of the many really great cameos, is John Candy as Wink Wilkinson, the DJ for w s

K I DY so I love him so much. Sean Candy talked about another John Candy movie after this and we will um. But he has a he has Night Call, like his show is Nightcall. It's Wink Wilkinson's Weird World, and it's I was like, wow, that's probably the most analogous thing to Night Call. If you have a plant that eats people, please give us a night call we Wink Wilkinson's. We'll enjoy it. As a plant enthusiast, did this make you fear have fear of your plants? No?

I mean we talked I think last week about the fact that plants emit ultrasonic screens. Yeah. Um, And that was really fascinating to me because I got a plant a while ago from Home DEEPOT. My plants from Home

DEEPO never hold up that well. And this was a mimosa plant called that they branded as the Emo plant because when you touch it's um it has kind of like almost fern like, uh, they recoil from you and it's like you can't stop doing it, even though you know that it's the plant is like stop stop stop um. But I mean, it's one of the things that's kind of curious about this. Well, one of the things I love about the plant itself is how massive it gets.

It gets so big. It took like sixty people to operate this, this puppet plant, including Brian Henson, who has featured into every single one of the movies that we've covered in Scary Eighties Puppet Odyssey. He owned the genre and he did a great job. Also his younger sister and these are all the Henson family, but his younger sister appears in the dentist scene, and the dentist scene is so good. Steve Martin the doctor, that's I think why we decided to watch this test and I both

had some some crazy dental experiences. Yeah, and and that's all finally behind us. But I'm glad we watched it after Oh my god, and shout out to everyone on the Night Call facebook page who like sent me very supportive messages. I was, I've never been so scared in my life, and last week I was like fresh off that experience, and now I feel like a brand new lady. And then you can process it with laughter by watching

that scene. Well, it's really crazy is they offered me nitros and then they explained that there was a nitrous shortage and then the you know what, there's a nitrous shortage because they explain I didn't even look into it because I wanted to just being out. They said it was like something about the Middle East, and I was like, what does that mean? Like this is a I don't understand. It's a guy like can't you couldn't you really just manufacture this ship? How hard? Could only one way to

find out? Right? Um? But Steve Martin obviously dies from a nitrous oxide overdose before he has dismembered in a very Robert Durst kind of way, because Seymour is like, I didn't kill him I just cut him up. I was like, I've heard that before and again. Testament to Rick moranis godd he's so good wonder and Gloria ranis that he makes Seymour so lovable the whole time, even as he gives into his greed and makes the fausting impact. With Audrey Too, he doesn't have a choice. He just

wants things, like a blob. He's only he's operating out of need, right, I guess the blob is kind of the same thing. It's a blob. Capitalism is capitalism, Um, do you think that Audrey Too, if this is capitalism, represents the consumer big business, Like what what do all of these moving parts? Well, I think Audrey Too is like the monster that needs blood to live, right, which

is human labor. And then also uh that it like is like any company where it's like it insists that it has to get bigger each year, it has to keep growing and growing forever, and then once it gets big enough, it has to have the only things that come from it can populate the MARTA's Amazon. It could be. I was at first, I was like, oh, is it Silicon Valley? I mean, you can you can have some real fun twist though, what if the plant did nothing wrong?

I think it did do What if It's like a Frankenstein's Monster though, where it's like the real villain is Man for creating it. No, but Mandan created it came from Spain, from space. But Man was stupid enough to, like, you know, take the apple from eat In and be like, this looks good. Gotta do it because I can. I like a good biblical reference. That's just perfect sense. Yea one to one analogy. Did you have a favorite song? I mean, I was singing the theme song for like

the next twenty hours. But also, you know, suddenly Seemore is so so good. I think the best song is dentist exclamation mark. Oh yeah, it's so good. I think I read the Lady. Gaga played Audrey in a production of a high school production. We were talking about the fact that this is apparently very popular as as a children's and community theater production, which is like, really, well, yeah, but you like everyone I've talked to who loves this movie like saw it as a kid and loved it,

So I guess it's not that disturbing. I always thought it seemed very vaginal, but that's not the metaphor that is a vaginal plant and it's the mother Well, all plants are the vaginal mother planet. I guess so. Um you're saying you also like Sweeney Top, which is another

murder musical. Well, I just I'm not the biggest musical fan, and it's obviously hard out there for a non musical fan right now, and I've just been kind of crouching down waiting for the musical trying to flow over for me to put you on a leash and bring you to Cats. Yeah, so let's discuss this really quick, because obviously this totally lines up with our scary puppets theme. But I don't think I can bring myself to go see Cats after all these reviews. Well, the reviews just

make me want to see it more. They did for a bit, but then after I had read all of the reviews, I felt like I had already seen it. But I'm also like people wouldn't like any adaptation of Cats. Cats has such a bad reputation as a musical because it's so dumb. It's perfect. Our friend Tyler Coates went to the screening. He is a he is a fan. He's a huge Cats fan. He said, he's seen it four times, three times as an adult, and he hated this movie. I hated it. I gotta know. I got

to know. You have to have to see it for myself. I have to know about it because it's like Star Wars Land. I'm like, each baffling choice here was vetted by thousands of people, and this is where we arrived and finished hours before at premier, which is the funniest thing to me, because of course, and to make something like more horrifying than anything in Sweeney Todd or Little Shop in a musical that's not supposed to be in

any way horror core. I just think it's upsetting that they added elements that weren't there originally to try to have more going on, but it didn't result in that. But it doesn't appear to have a cat the Cats Defenders logging on right now. I mean, it's an adaptation of a book of poems, and it's like essentially I was. I was also telling you that there was this thing about how like the producer was like asking Andrew Lord Webber what it's about. Being like Sweeney Todd is about

like Victorian industrialization, grinding people up into mince meat. Uh is cats? Like, is this cat Queen Victoria and this other cat is the British Empire? And he was like, no, they're cats. It's just cats. It's just cats. I would I would have rather it would be easier to get me into the theater if this were a movie of just actual cats, like and then there was just a voice over or something, or you know, you could somehow like make the cat's mouths move like in Snowbuddies or whatever.

How was the Lion King did that? Though? That was scary. This is like I respect that they're going for the nightmarishness of the eighties original um, which is really weird. And I liked that. I mean, I knew it was campy and like dumb, but it is like just like a tribute to British vaudeville. It's like here I am singing my song. Now here's another person singing their songs. Here's some stuff about me. Right. There's like barely any overarching plot, which is like very relaxing, although the cats

did come into the audience, which totally scares children. Wait what Yeah, they're like clowns that come up to you and they're like, I'm speaking of things that scared children. Yes, let's take a minute for home alone. Yeah, let's take a minute for home alone. So you just watched this for I'm assuming you've seen it before, but you recently. I watched it as much as other people do. I've only seen a holiday tradition. I don't watch it for

the holidays. Is the first time I've done that million years. Because somebody else was talking about it, I was like, sure, I'd watched that. Um. I didn't like it that much at the time. Yeah, when I was a kid, because I thought it was so violent, I loved it, um, But every other kid did. So I was alone. This was my ultimate fantasy as a child is just to be home alone for for a really long time. It was like just get the parents out, not so much the robbers, but just like having a like a big

house all to yoursel. Yeah. And then when he was when in you know, when he was in New York, Oh boy, I was like, yeah, at a hotel by yourself. Imagine that's the life if you're a kid, Oh boy, Because then all of the tedious stuff where you're like, oh, Kevin's house is getting really messy, like he doesn't know how to clean his house. He's like tiny that that's got to be affecting his psyche when you're in the hotel,

like you know, there's housekeeping, some talking food, the home alone. Oh, I would I would just like fantasize about that all the time. I guess there's a lot of things for kids that fantasize about being like an adult but you're still a kid. Yeah, or or just like the idea of could I make it, it's almost like a testing survivalist. Yeah, Oh I never had that. I was like, I would die,

I know, but you're you're more social. I was just like, wow, imagine no, but I would die, Like I would die left to my own devices, I wouldn't be able to like, you be fine. No. I was like, if I got lost in New York, I would be in the Hudson River so fast. That's a kid, like, come on, no cell phones yet, I would have been just I would have just fallen into manhole. I felt like I could

hack it. At one time, I went on a plane by myself when I was like probably eleven or something, and there was that there was bad weather and I was in Texas overnight and um had my parents they were like, what are we going to do in the airline? They because somehow set it up so that I could stay in a western overnight. And I remember I was like a tiny coffee maker, Like I can figure out how to use this tiny like a cup of coffee.

You're so you're the only kid in the world who's like a night by myself in a hotel without my parents. Sweet sweet. I think Kevin felt that way too at first. How old is Kevin? I think Kevin's supposed to be. I would guess fifth grade, fifth grade? How old is that? Fifth grade would be like eleven or maybe like let's say ten or eleven eight. I don't think let's say

nine or somewhere in the nine to eleven range. I've noticed that a lot of books um for like kind of kids who are in elementary school, like young elementary school, they all seem set in fifth grade. It seems like kind of kind of like a pivotal age where kids are able to have their own thoughts but not have them and by or to be self sufficient but not really where you're like in your mind, you've got it all set up, but then when you actually try and

execute the most basic tasks. You're like, I'm a kid, damn it, and assault and everything. Um, tell me more about your love of home alone. Well, I I watched it with my kids, and I didn't remember how violent it was, And then I felt kind of bad about that because it is. It's it's a tremendously sadistic like you're really supposed to just want to see these guys like punched and tripped and burned. Is it weird that I was like, they're doing nothing wrong. They just they're

not trying to murder anybody. They're just trying to get some valuable to get out. No, I think it's pretty mess I think that the real distressing thing is that they were surveilling the house right and waiting for everyone to leave, and when they realized that there was a child involved, they were like, you know what, let's take a chance. If someone gets hurt, no big deal. And you're like, but he's he's Kevin, he's a little kid.

But I'm saying to like, you don't know that Kevin is like you know, Rambo until they don't set it up at all. Well, to explain that we were talking about this, I was saying, it's like there's nothing in the first act of Home Alone to let you have any idea that Kevin would be good at, like setting booby traps, doing pranks, like having any kind of technical know how. There's nothing, you know. They show him with his brothers and he just siblings, and he's so powerless,

and he's like the little kid. He's the youngest. I think, Um, he gets lost in the chaotic shuffle, but he's sort of just like is a helpless little kid until his medal is tested and then it turns into straw dogs. And that is the weirdest. It's like one of the weirdest act turns in a movie ever. So let me

let me pause it this. I think that if they had had Kevin at the beginning of the movie when they're ordering the pizza and that in a blings and cousins are threatening to like pee on him and they're just all hating on him, if he had retaliated, then first of all, you would have expected that he would retaliate against the robbers, which I think it's better if you're like, wow, he found his grit. Okay, yeah, you

came into his own. But also he would have seemed like such an asshole because he already kind of salty. It's also like, you know, no offense to Macaulay Culkin's face, but there's something a little like Richie rich about him. You know, he seems like a little smug like blonde kids, so to speak. Yeah, he's very delicate, he's you know, he's pretty, but I don't know, it's like they don't they just kind of make him be like he's like a little woos and then it's like, no, he's not

a Woos. That's but that's why it's it's kind of a survivalist thing. But it's also kind of a coming of age thing because when he's by himself, he's like, are the Wet bandits puberty? Oh? What if? What if? I mean it is it makes a lot of said you know, when you turn thirteen, Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci show up and tell you something a total like adolescent Joe Peshi. Joe Peshi the Jareff for into adulthood. I love Joe Peshi so much. Um, I've seen We've

seen so many Joe Peshi movies. Here, congratulations to us. Yeah, when everybody was talking about how Grady is in The Irishman. Some of us were like, you mean JFK. You mean how amazing he is in JFK. But he's also amazing and home alone, I mean home Alone. It's so hard because, like I realized that it could be reduced to people saying it's not the finest film ever made. I mean, but I think it might be. It's up there for me.

It's also cartoon violence. I think that's the thing too, is it's like, what makes it jarring is that the first half of the movie is like John Hughes social realism, you know, or it's like takes place in reality and it's good. It's like the kids aren't like sickly sweet, and there's there's older Pete from Pete and Pete like the kids talk kind of like assholes to each other, which is believable, and they're all like competitive. It's not

like his family. At the beginning is like, the most wonderful thing is that they're like the family and like sixteen candles just like ignoring him, which is I guess the big John Hughes is um. But then in the second half it turns into like a loony tune and that is confusing. It is, but I mean there's it is like a nice kind of like revenge in a way. It's just he can't he wishes his family would disappear,

and so they do. But then it's like he still kind of has the grudge against them that hasn't been worked through yet, and he just takes it out on the Wet Bandits instead. It's just so violent. That's super violent. And that's also the Angels with Dirty Faces influence, and which is a meta commentary on you're watching a violent movie, now you'll be violent. I forgot also that he like has a gun. It's a baby gun, but still that he like puts a gun on his back and it's

like time to fucking do some business. It's so that was the exact moment when I looked at my like tiny children and was like, I'm so sorry, you're not allowed to do that. Yeah, they don't even for a while, like we would just refer to guns as those things you don't like. So I was like, there's those things I don't like in a movie. I insisted we watch. Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing. There's just yeah, there's something

kind of creepy and conservative about it. It's very like standard I know, but it's very guy asshole I know. But it's still like like defend your I don't know, just like hide in the basement, kid, let them take your stereo and just hide. That's the thing. He doesn't know that they're after stuff, Molly right, And then they do eventually threaten to kill him. See, at which point it becomes I guess justifiable. Maybe we should do a series on like coming of age movies and have this

one be this can enter into the well. You and I both love The Bad Seed, which is a movie of the best, the best movie about an evil little kid. Um. And then I also saw The Good Son for the first time. Oh it's so which very so good and scary and uses everything that's unsettling about Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone to like the greatest effect to be like this is the kid that like can convince adults he's

doing whatever. Oh, what about sociopathic child movie? We could do The Bad Seed, um, the good Son, the Omen. We could have fun. What else we got, well, Brainstorm, Well, brainstorm, you've got some ideas for sociopathic child movies. Give us a night call it to four oh for six night? What should we take one more night call before we get Let's take one more night call? All right, let's do it. Hi, guys, So I had to pause your latest episode where you talk about the Unclaimed Baggage Center

in Arizona. And I have not been there either, but I've been kind of fascinated with this place ever since I was a kid. And I saw this kind of long form autobiographical ras Chast comic about when she visited there,

and it's really kind of moody, like especially for her stuff. Um, and it's really interesting and she talks about, Um, she talks about like going to this little diner that's right next to it, and she orders like a peanut butter coke which is on the menu, and it's just like coke with with pe DUTs in it that like flowed up and down. Um. Anyway, it's really interesting and I recommend you check that comic out. I think it was in her anthology book Theories of Everything, but UM, I

don't know where it was originally public. Probably the New Yorkers, but um, he definitely took it out. Um. Thanks for the guys, that was a great nightcall. I don't know if the caller identified themselves. But thank you nightcaller. We'll call you peanut butter coke. Um, we love raw shast Yes, I actually just I'm like halfway through her. It's kind of like a memoir. Can't we talk about something more pleasant, which is about her aging parents and it's it's very sad.

But also if you love ros she's the best. Her Instagram, which is just her name, Rack shast Um, is the best instagram of anybody. It's amazing. She does a lot of art and like comicy stuff, stuff that she can't do in the New Yorker. Um, that's just kind of like self reflective, self reflective dream comics. She does use dream comics all the time. She has always just been

one of my favorite cartoonists. Um, my parents always had her stuff in our house and a big night call inspiration total like just a lady person you in her own call drinking that peanut butter coat. She does something also amazing for Halloween. I'm not sure if they do it for Christmas also, but for Halloween her and her husband put out these like insane dolls all over their yard. Really where do they live New York? Probably outside New

York somewhere. Um, and she said I thought it was maybe her thing, but she said at some point that it was actually her husband's insane obsession. But it sounds like she found somebody who also would appreciate the unclaimed baggage area. Oh, editor's desk, the unclaimed baggage that we referenced in last week's episode and we said was in Arizona is in fact in Alabama. So thanks for letting us know about that. It's too far for us to go.

I don't think we're going to go to Alabama for that, but if you're in the vicinity of Alabama and you want to report back on the unclaimed baggage, please do, please do. Um. Yeah, ros Chast is awesome and I also rock Chast. Come on Nightcall, Yeah, come on night called Ros. She's also been a really cool mentor to a lot of other like cartoon this that I really like. Um, she's just the Rattus. She seems like a good person.

Before we go, I should mention that we have a box sitting between Yeah, we're going to do a nightcall unboxing, so we This is not technically an ad. I think maybe this is for an ad for a later date, but we so this is a genuine endorsement of how excited we are to open a box of cookies from Pepperdge Farm. Yeah, we got asked if we wanted to endorse a Pepperidge Farm cookie, and we said, are you kidding me? We would do that even if you didn't

ask us to, which is what we're doing now. You've always been a big fan of the dark chocolate milanas. I love the gingerbread men. Also I like the jam thumb pretty cookie. See how great it is if you do. If you get ads with Nightcall, we'll just start endorsing you before if you if you get an ad with us or a partnership with us, we will we will wholeheartedly endorse you, especially if you send us cookies. Okay, tests, This is sound of tests opening a box. Oh wow, Wow,

it's like a Milano superpack. We got the Milano Double Dark. We got the milk chocolate Milano, which I actually I like milk chocolate. Kind of weird about that milk chocolate. Some of these are seasonal and we got a nice card. Thanks Pepperidge Farm. We'll do a real ad for you, and how good these were. But where we wanted to

share our genuine enthusiasm. UM. If you have any weird recipes for peanut butter coke or something like that, or if you have any puppet movies of any era that gave you nightmares that you would like us to talk about, theme park ideas, weird creatures, things you'd like us to cover in give us a night call at to four oh four six night Um. Also, because how how things

line up, I don't know how calendars work. This is one of our last night calls of the year, but I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Night Call. We've been podcasting off and on since I believe, UM at different places, different places. Uh, but it's really it's really nice to us that we get to do this still and me we love it, so thank you for supporting the pod. UM. If you would like to support the podcast on Patreon, you can at patreon dot com,

forward slash Nightcall. We are Nightcall Podcast on Facebook and Instagram, Nightcall Pod on Twitter, and again, if you wouldn't mind reviewing and rating and subscribing and all of that good stuff, we really appreciate it. Yeah, and we will have a lot of stuff in the new year, we will have Emily back, of course, and we will have more mixes, more book Club episodes, more live events, some weird adventures, exciting weird adventures to be told. So please stay with us,

and you are appreciated. You are appreciated. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next week for a special book Club podcast release. Yeah, thank you for listening. Copy Holidays, We'll see you next week. Yeah. Nightcall is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.