93: The Very Abyssal Episode

of a spooky fridge. And it turns out that the getting trapped in fridges, which was something we were all freaked out about at one time or another, uh, is a shared phobia and also a subject of a very special episode of a television show. We got a night call that explains perhaps why so many people are afraid of being trapped in a fridge. So this is this email comes from our friend Evan and he writes, dear

night Call. I was very surprised when during your recent discussion of kids getting trapped inside abandoned refrigerators, no one mentioned the very special episode of Punky Brewster where this happens to Punky's friend Cherry. Maybe you guys are too young. I remember watching this when it aired in six and being completely traumatized, which I suppose was the point I never tried to hide in any abandoned refrigerators after that. I'm guessing I won't be the only person to write

in about this. My wife, who's the same age as I am, immediately knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it. Actually, all I said to her was on night call, they talked about getting trapped in an abandoned refrigerator, and her response was like in Punky Brewster. But for whatever it's worth, I wanted to bring it to your collective attention. You can watch it yere if you dare, and there's even an oral history of the

episode online with links. While we're on the subject, can any of you recall very special episodes of sitcoms from your childhoods that scarred you emotionally? All the best from Los Fie Liz Evan. Wow, what a great night call. Such a good night call, Thank you, Evan. Punky Brewster was before my time. I was too young for Punky Brewster. Also before my time, I was three. Yeah, some of these shows, you know would be in syndication and you would see them anyway, But Punky Brewster I did not

ever encounter. Yeah, I feel like, you know, I was familiar with like Pippi Longstocking, Like there was some weird, badly dub version of Pippi long Stocking that I definitely watched. I watched That's a good, good weird, which feels like kind of small sponky orphans. The thing that I was thinking about was Small Wonder. I was trying to h I was trying to explain Small Wonder to someone who's never seen it before yesterday. It's hard to do. You feel like I only know about Small Wonder from I

Love the eighties. There was a crop of like E. T and S fired shows such as Small Wonder and out of This World. Also, out of this World I watched a lot of they're kind of like magical girl shows. Actually, now that I think about it, so I wonder, you're a robot out of this world. Your dad is an alien who communicates with you through a crystal, So listen. I looked at the mental flass link that Evans sent, and it is actually it made me look at Punky

Brewster very deeply orphan. So here's meant the mental flass um kind of summary, which is really part of like the oral history of this particular episode said the story of an eight year old orphan abandoned by her mother and found by a cantankerous old apartment manager. Punky Brewster was not conventional network television fair paired with silver spoons in the fall of four. It was created to help satisfy a Federal Communications Commission mandate that early evening programming

be either news oriented sixty minutes or somewhat educational. As a result, Punky's adventures often involved the perils of sleeping pill addiction, missing kids on Milk Carton's Child Moles Station, or a rampaging serial killer Barty. This was not I feel like we missed the golden age of very special episodes.

I don't know about that. To me, it feels like there was a period that everybody is familiar with in the eighties where there were just what was so weird, the too Many Cooks era of where somebody might have a sleeping pill addiction one week on a sitcom that otherwise would never be that serious. Okay, you guys look like you have answers. I do, I do. I had to look it up to just get reminded of it. Um.

Punky Brewster was before my time. I was right on schedule for full House, consumed every single episode of This is our micro generation. Yeah, you guys remember Marlas soakal Off like the bad girl of this era because she was she was ga, my god, what if we have the same episode. It's the smoking one. Okay, it's a full house. I was going to put it like that wasn't traumatizing, and I thought of a more traumatizing one. Oh tell us, Emily, tell us about this one, because

I don't really remember it. This is um so Gia. So this is sort of late because it's when Stephanie is like a pre teen teen and so Gia is like the bad girl at school and there's and she's like smoking in the bathroom and Ondesday and I'm sure if I went back and watched it now would be like, So, there's also a Ghostbuster not Ghosts Ghostwriter episode um where there was smoking or some kind of study pills or something. I can't remember um, but it kind of had a

similar vibe where there's like you find out something. It's always takes place in the girl's bathroom, like you find out something really troubling, like somebody's growing up faster than you. I found out a lot of stuff in the girl's bathroom circuit fifth and sixth grade, so I completely understand.

But I do believe that they Full House often for their Very Special episodes would do a a coda at the end where the cast would be like sitting in the living room and addressed to came, uh if you you know, I want to I don't know what you talked to your kids about smoking or whatever the case may be. Like here's a number you can call and and it's like very and everybody just like looks like they're at a funeral. It's and there's Yeah, that's that's

the scariest thing. The actual episode itself was not that troubling to me, But any time the cast of Full House was direct to camera telling you to be scared of something, I was just like, Oh, okay, guys, that episode is really about like shame and guilt. It's like your parents will be disappointed, Bob sag it's going to

disown you. Yeah. But here's my argument. I think that the Full House T G I F. You're a Very Special episodes was like the end of the era, the Baroque period of Very Special episodes, because you if you were watching all of t G, I f you could have like two in a night. Yeah, but I think this was like on the heels of an eighties time when this was like such a trope that it became like a widely ridiculed thing, a very special episode, although

now we know it was mandated by the network. My answer is, of course, the drunk driving episode of Saved by the Bell what a nightmare because they don't show it a lot because it is dark. They go to a party and Zach gets drunk and then he drives him and I think Jesse home and then crashes. What did they end up in the hospital? I think so he feels really guilty. It's very dark. I know a lot of people would say that the speed episode of Oh yeah, that's the clear, that's the classic, but that

one just has become a joke. It's a joke. It was kind of a joke to begin. It was so ridiculously heightened that you couldn't help but think like, she must have really crushed up all those the drunk driving episodes fucked up because it also like punctures the sort of wholesomeness of the Saved by the Bell universe in a way that they're not allowed to do, you know, which is why Riverdale is because it's just all that

a special episodes. But yeah, it just makes you be like, yeah, of course these kids would like drink and have sex and drive drunk and stuff. So let me just before I tell you guys mine, I just wanted to let you know first some trip. I watched the episode where Cherry gets It's called Cherry Lifesaver if you want to watch it yourself. Um, and it is the one of the darkest things I've ever seen. And I'm just gonna

spoil it really quick. So um, Punky and her friends whose names I don't remember, and her friend Cherry are all playing hide and seek outside and it starts snowing, and the person who's counting is reaching, you know, like they're about to end their account. And Cherry is the only one who doesn't have a hiding place. So the kind of the kind of like grumpy guy who adopted Punky has just put his old fridge out, and I

think he even mentioned like, don't hide in here, Cherry does. Anyway, they look, can't find her, they go inside, convinced she's inside they're looking around inside, and then by the time they find her, she has stopped breathing and has no pulse. Are you kidding? Not kidding at all? So they take her out and the grumpy apartment guy is like, I don't know how to do CPR. Kid over here, do you know how to do CPR? And he's like, no,

I was in the principal's office. So then by the time Punky and her friend come down, they know how to do CPR. They perform CPR and literally bring this girl back to life, and it's shot in a very distressing way with distressing music and like long pauses. But what's interesting is it was this story was chosen from a pitch contest and a kid wrote in and was like I would like to see because they were like,

what's a lesson that you want to teach me? Was like, I want to see someone save someone else's life with CPR so that kids at home can learn CPR. And they added the fridge. They added the fridge, so then he went to go see it and he was like, what the hell, I didn't say anything about a fridge anyway. So my very special episode is two episodes, both featuring

uncles on family ties. One of them is um I don't even remember who played him, but there was like an uncle but not a blood relation uncle who molested Mallory after giving her some kind of like an internship.

But the worst, the most intense one is Tom Hanks as an alcoholic uncle who comes to visit and it's like played for laughs where he's like just drinking everything in the liquor cabinet and they're like, oh, you drink too much, and Tom Hanks looks so young, and then at some point he runs out of liquor and starts

drinking vanilla extract and Maraschino cherry juice. And then he tries to get Alex to like go for a beer with him, and it's like really like badgering him, and then he ends up slapping Alex Keaton and it's really intense to see a very young looking Tom Hanks slapping. That's interesting too, because I was just thinking um about when Tom Hanks won that award the other night of the Globes. I was like, as Tom Hanks ever played

a bad person? Oh yeah he did? Uncle ned was bad? Yeah, like in a movie, because Tom Hanks ever been a villain because he is bad. Isn't he a bridge of spies? Isn't he bad? In Bridge of I was just curious because I don't know, and I was like, people who tend to only play goody goodies tend to have a darkness inside. Yeah, and then he was feuding with Fonzie. Well all of the darkness and Tom Hanks has been purely channeled through his sun shut. I watched that instagram

so many times. One more thing on the note of spooky fridges. Maybe I just have high fridge awareness now because we were talking about them. But I saw abandoned fridge on the street the other day that someone had tagged slum lord on the side of it. Because a fridge on the sidewalk in l A is often a sign that somebody is evicting everybody, Yeah, and gonna put in a new fridge, So another reason to be scared.

They're never a good thing. It's chilling. If you have thoughts on very special episodes or refrigerators, please give us a call at two four oh four six night or an email at night Call podcast at gmail dot com. After we get back, we will have some thoughts on Molly's very famous and shocking Seinfeld cool and we're back. Molly. On Twitter the other day, you post a very interesting question.

I'd like to talk about how this went down. What happened was we were watching Seinfeld, me and my boyfriend watching Seinfeld, and I said, if you had to have sex with one of the main Seinfeld man, Elaine's not allowed because everybody would pick Elane. But you know Jerry, George or Kramer. Um, I think I was just like, I think most people would pick Jerry possibly Orige might win. But he said, no way. Everyone wants to fun Cramer.

And I was like, what are you talking about. No, they don't and he was like, I promise you if you if you run a poll. He said, run a poll on Twitter. Cramer is going to win in a landslide. And that is what happens. That happened. What were the final results. I think it was like seventy Cramer something, but it was it was like a strong It was interesting too to follow a pulk because it was like people really had I love doing a poll. People had

really strong feelings about this. It made everybody really examine themselves. It made everyone a little sick. Yeah, but um, it really stayed this consistent throughout, like from the when they had a hundred votes to when it had like maybe two thousand votes. At the end, it was like the same percentages the whole time, which was that fifty percent of people chose Cramer, and then it was like Jerry George. I'm so astounded, not as somebody who voted for cramerer.

Oh my god, We're going to cover all the basis. It's gonna be amazing. What what were yours? Well after we guess what, um, Molly picked George and you picked Jerry. Really god about ourselves, because what I learned is that I want to be a person who picks George, but I would pick Jerry, which is horrible to say. This is a fictional Jerry Seinfeld. Also, you can't different from

the real person Jerry. And again we need to emphasize that Cosmo Cramer is not I think I also thought the Michael Richard's nest would get in the way of people wanting Cramer, but I don't know. I mean Michael Richards or Cosmo Cramer seems actually say it's interchangeable. Seems the most like somebody that you might if you were a person that was single and just like meeting people at random in bars or something in New York City.

Now that seems the most like somebody that you us at our age right now would probably run into and maybe like strike up something with romantic or otherwise. I think, okay, everybody everybody picked. I think everyone would pick Jason Alexander if it were the real people. Oh I would yeah, oh, the real people. Between Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, and Jason Alexander, everybody was like, Jason Alexander seems like a nice person

who loves to be in musicals, just loves musicals. But because yeah, this was harrowing for a lot of people, so here I wrote down some arguments against all of them. It was very hard to find arguments for. But I'm my question for Emily would you be okay with him busting into your apartment uninvited, unannounced, eating all your food? And if you stated at his apartment, are you remembering that it was haunted by a doll named Mr Marble's think about it. I mean, this is not dating, That's

what I'm saying. Whoever's place you're at, you know, are you at a motel like that? Change his or yours. I'm gonna say his home with me. But you remember that when Jerry and Kramer traded apartments, Jerry became Kramer like, and that would happen to you as well. We didn't think he would be in my apartment. So she's saying, okay, at your apartment, so then he's gonna eat, and then he knows where you live and he's gonna drop by.

I'm just saying, yeah. The thing that really puts Test off is apparently the drop in skis the drop in no, but that feels very like charming in nineties. He drops in all of a sudden. I'm living in a communal table. Yeah. Yeah, I think I realized that I would I would pick Jerry, which was really disappointing to me but also made me be like, oh my, like a little attracted to contempt. Jerry is too much like people that I've actually dated

a lot of other girls I know said enough Jerry. Yeah, I think I didn't really date ny Jerry, so I could I could handle the idea. Yeah, not for a relationship, it's just one one. But I just think it would be very boring, probably probably for one night. Who cared boring is probably fine, would not be boring with George. I'm just saying, Um, George may have terrible parents to be obsessed with the Civil War and like a just

terribly neurotic person. But George would like maybe bring a sandwich and that's really But that to me says that you are George, I think. But he's also based on Larry David. I think that George would be actually the only person to really think about like taking you out for jenneral Fee. George would do anything for someone he was enamored up. Yeah, so you'd be treated the best us. Probably. We would like to know what you think of the

great Seinfeld poll. This is good because I did a poll last year that was which one of the friends as a murderer. Oh, which is a very tough Um. I believe it was like Ross and Monica together working together as a sibling duo. Not such a stretch. I don't believe that anybody, any of them, you could make an organ l you think Chandler. Chandler seems obvious, but Joey seems like he would maybe like vehicular manslaughter and then just be like, no, never happened. What about Phoebe?

She could Be. I I would say Phoebe and Chandler would be my top picks. But you know you couldn't imagine it for almost anybody. If you would like us also to talk about who we would like to make out with or kill honest scom, honestly com honest sitcom. If you want us to do a bracket of who's the most fuckable on Taxi, we've got answers. Can we talk real quick about another below would figure to figure

of the nineties? Who's in us? Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow is going to have a Netflix show called The Group Lab. I want to work there. I want to work at the Group Lab. That makes me so sad. I want to be a woman in stem. I want to work at the group Shout out to Wesley Morris for shouting us out about Group. Yeah, Wesley wrote a really great piece that I've of course, really vibed with because the headline of it, I believe is I love Gwyneth Paltrow.

There I said it. Um. It was in the New York Times last fall, so I think it was when she was in the Politician, which I did not watch. I'm not my my opinions about Gwyneth Paltrow have nothing to do with the politician or acting. No, actually, it does have to do with her acting. I think she is a wonderful actress. I think that the only problem that I have with Group really at the end of the day, is that she's doing that instead of being

in movies. Uh. There's a whole thing with the people that are like, it's I'm making I could make more money as an influence sert than an actress and work less hard, So why don't I just be an influencer? That to me, it's like, how fucking privileged do you have to be to be Like I'll just take like however long I want off from work, and when I come back, it'll just be there. Well, she was the pioneer of this, and I think that a lot of it.

I've written about this before, uh in Grantland. I think a lot of Group as I understood it, like that, given the timeline and later interviews that she did, was very much about her postpartum depression. I think she had

a really hard time after she had her kids. And I think also she had had a lot of bad experiences in the industry as we now know, And I think it's all very understandable and to like want to just like start a business and do something that doesn't have anything to do with that and kind of like go, yeah, just do something. Its like lower stakes at that moment, like when Goop is just a blog, but it's the worst business I ever started by class class war gasoline.

If it were cheap, if Goop, you'd be sign the news free. If the things that she sold were cheating, Oh, I won't buy any of the things she sells. I just enjoy like and she and she has a lot of recipes. I have actually like used a lot of her recipes in the past. I copped to using a couple of recipes and finding them good. But my my issue is I feel offended by the price point I make recipes off. Christian from vander Pump Rules is yeah, okay, you hate an influencer, not one, but I just feel

like she sells snake oil. That's what's the real issue is the when she makes borderline medical or scientific claims it's her doctor, not her it is her doctor, but cheat, but the doctor giving the doctor a platform that has like legitimacy to it is an issue like the vagina and I don't think that we get to like our now our moment of like self care now though without Goop, like and I think, but you what you love self grandparenting it basically the same satire of how stupid self

care is. I think it's more that self care the industry versus self care the practice. If you can self care for free or for cheap, then it's a different thing. But when people talk about self care in terms of like even just the expenditure of time for like a multi step face, you know, and and there's like a backlash. It's like the idea that you're just like this endless vagina that just like turns inward eternally. That sounds great, that sounds like it's like you have to love that.

She she signed off on the art for the Goop Lab, though I don't like how like it's like let's like just shut out the world and like work on ourselves. And that's just like do a million face masks and like masterbate and just like take baths like no fuck you. There's a lot of ship going on, and like the fact that she's in such a bubble is like less attractive than ever, even though she's been usurped by like influencers.

It's kind of like in nineties, as you were saying, here's the thing, I don't need Gwyneth Paltro to be a voice about any kind of social issues or politics right now. And I think she understands her role. Like what I know that she's like endorsed Pete or whatever, but like in in the in the broadest sense, though she has like she has a quote that everybody hates her for, but she's like, I can't pretend not to

be a rich person. And I actually think I actually think that that is more honest and like good to just put out there in no uncertain terms than like to try to be something that you represent something or give voice to something that you really cannot give. I actually completely agree with. But also I mean sure, but I also think it's bullshit to have an aspirational brand because like people can't aspire to be born rich. Every single brand is about aspiring to be rich. That sucks,

I know it. But she's not unique for that. I will not unique. But like her pioneering, it doesn't make it like good. It just means she did it before everybody was doing it. I mean, I still don't think like I think you can buy into the actual website and like order ship from her store or whatever. But that's like I I still just get her newsletter and I actually now I have my in box marks that has read already, so I don't even read it most

of the time. But I will go to her website for recipes, which I don't think is like that's not a buy in at all. I just feel that's just like a source for like, oh, I would like to have this soup that's like, you know, makes you feel like warm and and and good and has ginger in it in the winter, like I don't know, like she's she's she's good for stuff, like I know, And I actually hear what you're saying now that you read it

more like a blog and less like a catalog. And I think when you feel like you're being targeted as a customer as opposed to an audience, then you your interpretation of it is very different. If you feel personally like targeted by stuff like you must buy a jade egg, and if you are if you feel insulted by this, like you have taken it, you know too hard enough that you're like the fact that I don't have a

jade egg makes me mad. Then, like I feel like I feel like it's a wrong approach, Like it's just like she's telling you to buy a jade egg whatever. You don't know. It's more like when you talk about her postpartum depression and stuff like that. I think when with the jade egg and some of the health and wellness stuff they're vagina steeming. It's it's more the idea that you are like inherently have toxins and kind of

things that you must purge. And when you think about people who are potentially like neurotic about those things, who are being sold things that could actually harm them, that to me is like a different branch of the blog, right, And she definitely doesn't. I feel like she's less hardcore

about that stuff than a lot of people have. Jane Murrayon from the Dream which she's doing a wellness season to be the arbiter of weather Coup is a charlatan and then though a business woman a business woman, I just I so think one of the most like sympathetic things she has said as part of group is just like I still have my own American spirit. Every week yeah, I definitely. And that's your skin is not aspirational at all. It's one figurette a week is doing nothing bad to her.

It's not like like you look at Gwyneth Paltrow. I don't think anybody looks at her at this point. And it's like, oh, I wish I was her. I don't know. I ran into her at a restaurant. I ran into her like as if we exchanged her. But I saw her at a restaurant like two years ago, and she is very beautiful, I think, and be rich. She is like,

go be rich by yourself. I I know several Asian friends of mine and we have all copped to having the white lady that we have wished at sometimes that we were and and Gwyneth was mine and it has always been mine. What is it? Is it just that she I like her? Well? I liked her as an actress when I was in high school, like I love her in Talented Mr. And Wesley really highlights the scene and Talented Mr Ripley as great and that playing a rich bitch, yeah, I mean she, but she it's more complicated.

It's a fantastic. Maybe it's also like she reminds me of like Beverly Hills princesses that like we grew up with. So it's like, I don't I don't know. I never thought i'd be defending Gwyneth Paltrow against anyone. I'm grateful for this spirited debate. I'm like, I don't know why. It's fun. I'll always stand up for for my my lady GP. The funniest comment I saw an O and T D with somebody being like, I'll watch this show if it's like, hey, I'm going with Paltrow, welcome to Jackass.

Well I'm in. If she just does a backflip into a Yoni egg, I would be way into that. I mean, I think it will be weird. She's weird. Doesn't even take mushrooms on the show, apparently because she doesn't want people to see her lose control. That's such a cop out. She has kids, so what, everybody has kids and I don't have to see it for ourselves. I will definitely will check back in when it hits Netflix. Every episode, Um, we're taking mushrooms on the air, Taking mushrooms and live

live the group lab sounds great. Something that we can all agree on, I think is um that the Postmates delivery robots. Oh yeah, evil. I saw one right before I got my cavity fields, which okay, So they look like little yellow shop solid shopping carts with eyes and they roll around. Yeah, I saw some. I saw a woman jogging behind one, and I thought it was like, maybe she was Yeah, a stroller, robot stroller is what

I thought it was. Uh, and they just a day expecting that nobody's going to kick them over, because that seems like the obvious it does. They go pretty fast, so they carry carry up to fifty pounds. They can travel thirty miles between charges, and uh, there I think called Serve. According I looked at the Postmates website and there is floating tech that says over the picture of the robot that says delighted to meet you. Serves personality

is all about understanding people. Nothing about Serves intelligence is artificial. Yeah, right, Serve. I hate it. Oh my god, yeah, I just god, I don't know. I hate this. I hate all I hate all the literal I hate all the trash that all these companies are crazy. And then they also like blocked the sidewalks for disabled people and people who live on the sidewalk. So what does serve is serve running around in New York? Like, is serve running around a

place where people use the sidewalks? I mean they were first permitted in San Francisco because The Verge reported on it in August that they've gotten a permit for San Francisco. Yeah, and Garcatti will let any old trash happen in Los Angeles. If it's got wheels, then he will give it. Right, is like a wheeler from Return to Oz. It's like a wheeler. It also just looks like it reminded me so much of Wally because you can see how quickly it's going to degrade, you know, just beat up and

sad white. Right, they're gonna look like minions. They're gonna look really dirty very quickly. I don't It's weird how I come to the defense of these robots, Like I'm not mad at them, I'm mad at the people who created them, Unlike scooters, where I actually like the scooter. Well you do, don't answer because you're like unionize. They have eyes, and so I'm like, who's your boss who

like unleashed you onto the streets. You're not safe here and we know it's because they're like trying to get around having to hire human beings because they demand things like fair wages. Wait, were you guys tell was it on this podcast that you were telling me about the robot at the airport? Yeah? Did you watch a video of her? It's heartbreaking. She's like, hello, hey, can I

tell you? And people are just mean every single podcast, I feel like I find a way to bring in like the sad plight of robots, but I'm thinking about it so much. One story about nature taking revenge on all this nightmare are Bridge that we all found inspiring. The story about the mega tumbleweed in Washington that shut

down a highway because it was so big. Um. My friend Aurora Tang wrote me a message about this to say that these are called nuclear tumbleweeds because they were came from a nuclear plan at some point, but that they are not glow in the dark or anything. I don't know if them being nuclear is what makes them get so big, but it's very much like imagine the blob, but as tumbleweeds. Yeah, it doesn't, it's not. It doesn't

even register as a tumbleweed in the photos of it. It It just looks like it does look like the blob. It looks like a big cloud that is like descended over. So they trapped cars and shut down a highway. Yeah, and tumbleweeds themselves are like an invasive species that were brought over I think by Russians in like the eighteen seventies or something to the American West and became this like iconic symbol of the American West. But they are invasive.

Really Yeah, I didn't know that. It's super interesting and so it's an invasive plant. And I just love the idea that plants or animals might take their revenge on us. That's very annihilation. Yeah. Um, we'll get to more annihilation type things soon with the abyss, but first we got to talk about the Crimes and Elon musk Baby. We are I feel like contractually obliged to talk about the

spawn of Grimes and Elon musk Um. I mean, only Grimes would announce her pregnancy with a bad photoshop job, Like I just it was like a DV and art pregnancy announced. It was like my twisted baby and she had one with nips and one without, so the like for ultimate postability, Like I said that it made pregnancy made her feel feral and warlike, yeah, which is just girls, because I was like, girl, there's a war, yeah, maybe about to happen. Yeah, maybe it's not cool to be warlike.

So who are you worrying against? Like, who are you protecting your child against? When you're inside the compound? The cider truck, by the way, I realized from watching Total Recall again just is a Johnny cab from Total Recall, which are the like robot driven cars. It's just what they took the shape of that and made it. But it's supposed to be dystopian in Total Recall, You're supposed to be like, oh, a self driving like brutalist nightmare car.

What do you think they're going to name their baby? That's the hardest question ever. Stupid um something from a video game that I haven't played. Somebody said Mars Mars. Somebody else said it'll be in wingdings photos like the Moon of Mars. Something fucking stupid. I just I don't know. It feels like I don't know. It feels like a I hate the Elon Musk, like online persuinga or whenever he's like addressing anything having to do with crimes, because

it's like very hello, fellow kids. Like yeah, by the way, he's not old as fun. Nobody's got like hell of kids already. He's forty eight, she's thirty one. It's just that he's like embarrassing, he's just very levels. Yeah. We just we're an anti Musk pod. What can I say? Yeah, we are anti. I can't believe there's still to gain.

I there has been. They've been quiet over there for this picture of them at Kim and Kanye's Christmas party, and it was just like the most Hunger Games thing I've ever seen, and I was just like, fuck this. The weirdest thing is that didn't Azalea Banks like congratulate them, say she's going to show up like Maleficent claimed the first time. This is for the recording session. It never happened to put a curse on the baby. It's what it deserves. Hey, it's not the baby's fault. I know

the baby is gonna be so fucked up. Sorry, I feel bad for the baby. I wish no harm on the baby or them, but but I wish they weren't famous so that we didn't have to like address any of this. But we just like it does feel like the when like some quirky art school girl you know, turns out to just be like a boring normy and you're like, oh, I could have sensed that all along.

Anyone who's that obsessed with being quirky and unique, it's probably like deeply boring, Like no, wait, I can make motherhood like alt, I'll make it, but it's also edge lordy to be like I'll make it all by like getting with a billionaire psychopath. All I could think about when I saw the picture was that I think Kate Raft from jack Am needs to do some art about this, because it is very like pregnancy is twisted, like you said, uh, and I think it can it can inspire good people

to do good things. I enjoy pregnancy body horror. I think we're just like, how dare you co opt pregnancy body horror when this is horrifying. Legitimately, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to kick off a new movie series. You're a Night Call. We are back. We are starting a new film series. After the rousing success of our puppetry series that we did over the holidays. At the end of

the last week, we started this series last week with Cats. Yeah, in a way that was just a little but that was a taste taste. It was a taste of the uncanny, a little fancy feast on the spoon. So we're following up Nightmarish eighties puppet Movies December with Unnerving c g I January from the like mostly what I would call early c g I eighties and nineties bad c g I. It's just early. It was great for the time, so it's unnerving. I would argue that that the c g

I in our movie today holds up. It was pretty well. But I also feel like Unnerving covers it's still yeah, and also covers Cats, Yes, and the lawnmower Man, which we're going to do next week. Yeah, so you can study ahead. Um. We are talking about James Cameron's The Abyss this week, which I had never seen, and I realized I hadn't seen because it's been kind of difficult to watch. Historically, I think that James Cameron is very

protective over versions of his family. He's kind of lucacy in the way where he's like, you can't see this until I have the perfect version of it ready to So, so now there's a it's on HBO Go. There's an extended version that's not the version that's on HBO Go. But I was actually able to like you're actually able to stream it now, um, which is has not been

the case for a while. So I was like, Okay, that's why I haven't seen it, because I was watching this and getting through it, and I was like, this movie kind of rules. And I'm sort of mad at myself for not having seen it earlier after having known about it for such a long time and known about it as this like early I l M thing like that was like kind of put made. I l M industrial lite and magic this um cool get I can't

speak boundary breaking part of like Blockbuster. It was the first big test for the use of c g I in a Blockbuster before Jurassic Park. And it's interesting too because it's a movie with a lot of sets as well, and somebody was saying, like, oh, it's interesting this movie like kind of killed set building. Yeause, the c g I did succeed. The c g I seems like it

was probably the easiest part of the film was shot underwater. Yes, so the behind the scenes of the ABYSS we'll talk about the Abyss and movie, but also the behind the scenes. No one can talk about this movie without talking about what a nightmare it was to make. Apparently the crew would call it the Abuse or the Son of Abyss. Another one. Um, nobody wants to talk about it. Who was involved, which is also maybe either hasn't been like a retrospective or a big you know, release of it.

And Harris, I think was genuinely traumatized by making this movie, which is understandable. Harris, who plays the one of the leads, so the leads in this movie is very James cameroney. The leads are like a bickering divorced couple. They're still married estranged, but he has his wedding ring that he tosses in the party. Friday on a submarine. Yeah, um, but it's a submarine movie. But I was also like grateful for a submarine movie that had like a woman

or two in it. They tend to not. Yeah, well, James Cameron is always good at like a rag tag team that like everybody kind of He likes to have strong ladies. And he didn't he criticize some movie because he was like, it's not as cool as like Sarah Connor. He's very into himself being like a pioneer feminism. Like I mean, he had some quote I'm sorry, Emily, but he had some quote about like I love like really independent, like difficult women. That's why I like keep marrying them.

But then I couldn't find one who needed me because they're so independent and bitchy. And then I found my wife, who's like an independent woman who needs me. I was just like enough. James Cameron and this is white the number five. It is wife number five. He was married to Gail Anne Heard the producer who rules looked her up and also maybe like, oh, he's got a type because she kind of looks like Katherine Bigelow. She just looks like a cool, cool, tough broad. He works in Hollywood. Um,

she produced Aliens as well. Seems like she is a big genre pioneer. You should be talked about as much as James Cameron. I mean, she did a lot of effects that she had Terminator, she did Aliens with him. She and then she did the Abyss and then they were divorced by the end of the Yeah, those things that they were married when they started filming. They separated during filming and they were divorced by the end, and I think he was already with Katherine Bigelow at that point.

He hops from lily Pad to lily Pad. And I think she she did executive produce um Terminator two, but I think that she was not hands on in it. It was just because she had produced the first. Imagine, once you produced Terminator, you could probably chill out for one minute. Yeah, but this movie rules. It's really it's great. I mean how long it is, and the extended version is longer by like a half an hour or something stop, so it's a full three hours. It's almost three hours

long the extended version. I took a break in the middle. I will admit, Um, there are a lot of set pieces. Yeah, yeah, of course it out. But then I did watch the end of it as I was going to bed, and this movie is ridiculous, hands really strong. Um yeah, I was like, oh, I only want to watch movies where the third act is just completely tripping balls. Yeah, because it was like a ten to one sketch or something. You were like, excuse me, he's really trying for a

two finale and you can feel it. I knew it was coming, but it was sort of impressive also after so let's tell what the abyss is about in case you don't try. It's about nuclear war. Also, it's like Russian sub and an American sub fighting to get to the bottom of the ocean for some reason unclear, at least in the non extended version unclear stop a nuclear war, but that is not clear in the theatrical version. Um. And then it turns out there's like benevolent alien TI

non terrestrial intelligence. The n t I s have like kind of intercepted this American sub and and sucked it up and driven it off course and it crashes and it has nuclear has like nukes on board, and so they have to go down, like this crew has to go down and search for survivors, which is actually like the scariest part of the whole. And it's good also because it's like a space trucking movie but underwater. I

mean it is a space movie on or water. It's aliens on which is such a good idea and especially at that time, Um yeah, and going in the opposite direction of aliens and being like the aliens are good. They're good. But and and I think it's spelled out more in the extended version that they're kind of like they're kind of Godzilla esque and that they are kind of these godlike punishers for the ills of man. They're really cool looking. Also, they just look like a jelly fit,

like a bioluminescent jellyfish. Well, so like the the aliens, they call them nett ees. It's like non terrestrial intelligences. Um, they are. As far as I can tell, It's really hard to find information about that effect because the water column thing is like the most famous thing, and that's the c g I thing, um, and that was the thing that I LEM did, and the and the Aliens.

I don't think that I l M did. But they're like a really kind of cool They kind of tron like gets sort of that projection ara of like graphics, but like a practical puppet is involved as well. It makes sense. Yeah, it's really great looking. Is that this movie also invented like farming out different effects to different effects houses so that you could get them all done at the same time. But I did think that the

jellyfish looking thing was it did have a puppety feeling. Yeah, it was the hand it was like inside of a jelly That was just really good. C G I, and I was actually so impressed with how it the c

G I. Well, it looks fantastic. I mean, that's the thing that's interesting about this movie, even just like within like film history, is that you have both you have you have c G I and you have this really interesting puppet design and Jurassic Park is like that, and that's why they both work so well, because it's like a groundedness to it where you don't just feel like they're pete dragon like animated in like you do with full on c G I. But I once was like,

why don't they just always do that? And it was like, because it's really expensive at this point, it's like people choose c G I. But I do think that something is lost when you don't have like the puppetry underneath is what makes it. Yeah, well, it's the kind of thing where when you notice c g I, but then you notice an effect and you identify it as not being c G I, it becomes less bothersome because it's

unpredictable it. I don't it doesn't bother me to notice something c G I, or even to notice bad c G I, as long as it's not the only thing that's going on, because then you become obsessive about it and start to you know, disengage. But I think like, especially when you're animating something, I think it's easier if you're doing something like an alien or some kind of like uh, non human thing where that when it enters the film, the tone and the feeling of the film changes.

So it's like, okay, if it doesn't look like everything else, because it shouldn't. It should look genuinely alien. And I think they pull that off really well. Yeah. The Alien City is really cool. It's like, how I not before It's like pink aliens and Ed Harris like touching their fingers and stuff, and it's great. And then the aliens are going to kill society, but they decide not to because of the love between Harris loves his wife Dr Lindsay Brigman. She's so good. I really yeah. It was.

It's Mary and Mastro Antonio, Mary Anne Mary Elizabeth Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio who was she's the sister's sister in Scarface. She was also I realized, um, I was listening to the blank Check episode on this film, which I hadn't listened to before because I had not seen the movie. Um, she was also made Mary and Rob. She is a very she's an amazing actor, and she has a very like very cool face. Yeah, I mean I do love those James Cameron like tough broad in a wife everyone

he loves a good face. Let me not say wife, Peter. I do love I do love those James Cameron tough

tough chicken the tank top. Yeah, well, like at the end of the film, that's as fast forward to the end, but just like when you know it's the end and they they've come out of the um the what's the rig and they kind of like get pooped out of the rig onto the surface of the the alien craft whatever it is, and she's just in like sweats and like like a kind of ill fitting sweater and like that's that's what she's wearing in the Victorious end, seeing it's kind of like she looks like she's just been

blogging all day. Nobody has time for Bras and the James can ray they gotta work on this ship. Respect that. Um. Yeah, it's also really funny when you come out of the super long c G I sequence, which is really psychedelic, really amazing, genuinely sort of overwhelming and made me be like, oh, I wish I was watching this lit a large screen. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah. And then the first person

you see is Chris Elliott. Yes, Chris Elliott is So it's such a surprising so hard because I saw him on the cast and I was like, oh, it must be another Chrysalia that I was like, Nope, nope's cry it's cabin boy. Yeah. He's like the comforting bookend at the beginning end of the like he's like, oh, we're back on earthwork. There's a couple of things about this movie that come up also. One is that the set was just kind of left there in the half built

nuclear reactor where they filmed it until two thousand seven. Yeah, so you can find people who did are been exploring to go to. There's like an ionine post about it. Um. But it's a little disappointing because it's just like a tank. It's not like the interior or the subs or anything. But it is really creepy and very annihilation e because it is an overgrown, unfinished nuclear reactor place. This would be the Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant in Gaffney, South Carolina.

I think they also did um. I was really fascinated by the idea of them filming in this giant underground lake in a mine in Missouri. I mean all of the like in the context of how horrible filming was because you're filming underwater, which would make you insane. But it's not only that, but it's the chlorine, it's the darkness there. The diver's hair was like bleached, was burned. James Cameron clearly seems to have some sort of a

playing god. This is the issue is that he his the way that he kind of justifies what he puts actors through is I wouldn't ask you to do anything I wouldn't do like, but James camera James Cameron. So James Cameron is a super crazy deep sea explorer, so it's like, of course you would do it, James Cameron. He almost died too, and the story was that he was running out of air and then he like punched this diver in the face and like swam to the surface.

Great call Um Ed Harris almost died and talks about how he pulled over on the side of the road to cry. They're like they would have breaks in the green room with the whole cast to just weep and

like throw furniture out the window. Yeah, Mary Elizabeth really hated him because she made them film the scene where she gets resuscitated, and they ran out of film and then didn't stop filming that was the thing, and she's like she yelled, we are not animals, and James Cameron and stormed off, And then the rest of the scene, all of at Harris's sides and that where he's crying was done without her and on sets a little snuff filming, because yeah, what this made me realize. It's like James

Cameron is obsessed with like someone almost almost filming somebody drowned. Well, he's yeah, he's obsessed with water in a very elemental way that I do think, despite all the masochism and or guess sadism in this case, is like, I mean it's both for him, but but I think it's like actually kind of compelling, Like it's the kind of thing that makes me feel like, oh, James Cameron is like an artist as opposed to just like a guy who

makes big blockbuster films, because there's nothing that's objectively like lucrative about doing these like very complicated and dangerous underwater films and like always having to build a tank and do all this stuff. Loves water. He's a hitchcock, but for people dying in water. Yeah, So it was also I was like, oh, if you made this now, you would just c G I it and you wouldn't have to film it underwater. Actually, and then I found out they filmed the second to Avatar sequels that are coming

out underwater. Pioneered a new type of motion capture that you can do underwater. I read that on Wikipedia. I read that he was as a child really fascinated with shipwrecks, and also that he he's just an adrenaline junkie and he feels that everyone should push themselves to this limit. And he's become a really you know, enthusiastic conservationist. He runds a vegan school with his wife. He's like a narciss cistic conservationist. He's like a colonialist conservationist, and he

sees the sea as like a colony. I actually saw, well, I have have an encounter to that. Okay, Okay, Well, I think that he genuinely thinks that they're like ghosts in the ocean. Yeah, it's I think he thinks he can discover being here. I have proof of this. I saw the Imax movie. I think it's called Aliens of the Aliens. Did you see this? Okay, at the Imax at the Science Center. It was like a three D Imax thing he made where it was like very James Camerone.

It was like pseudo fictional but real scientist but he picked like the most adorable, diverse group of scientists that you've ever seen. Cast it like a James Cameron movie. Um. And yeah, he goes to the bottom of the ocean with them because he wants to go to the ocean inside Jupiter in Jupiter's moon and you, yeah, he wants to go to Europa and he like talks about it very angrily, where he's like he talks about everything angry

talks about. But he's like he's like I can keep think. Okay, So the abyss is what he thinks is happening on Europa for real. And there is this whole thing about how there's like a little drill robot they want to send. He's like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna like send this spaceship to Europa's moon to Jupiter's moon, Europa have it drill into the center and then sent launch another robot that will swim down with a camera and like show us where the aliens that clearly live in

the water are. But we can't do it until we fucking explore the stupid ocean to its full capacity. I guess, oh, I don't. I feel like he loves the ocean. I won't think that the ocean is stupid. But he's like mad that they won't just let him go drill on the moon on Jupiter's moon because he's like so convinced. Well, because he's already broken some kind of record because he

diving hours or something. It was, well, he was the only person to make a solo dive to the Challenger Deep, which is the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, and then he found new species of like a c cucumber and an amiba. I don't know how that was. Like an explorer, he wants to be an explorer, and like he's angry that there they've run out of places for him to explore. I haven't though there's still so much of the ocean that's not explored. It seems like he's

having a good time. I can. I mean I can relate to like wanting to live underwater. Yeah, I mean I think I think there's something cool with how genuinely compelled like to and to imagine like a benevolent creature being in the abyss, or at least like a neutral like kind of This movie really does also kind of like cemental his weird hitchcocky and things where you're like, he doesn't just want to explore, he wants like a cool woman by his side, like reinforcing that he's the

greatest man who ever lived. He wants to solve his marriage while going into the Mariannest, which is funny to make a movie about that while you're marriage is falling apart because you're making this movie that's so insane and obsessive. And the only person who ever worked with him again from this movie is Michael Baine, who's the He's the one who goes. He gets like the nerve, the mustache guy. He loses his mind from being crazy. He's great. I

thought he was a real babe. Also, yeah, he was very kind of Yeah, Freddie Mercury ish, I feel like I got kind of a Walton Goggins energy just kind of yeah, kind of a cookie. But he worked with Cameron again, but even the composer didn't worker. But but like honestly, the novelist Orson Scott Card who wrote the Like book version, said he would never work with Cameron again and didn't Cameron to adapt any of his books. I don't know. I think you can do without Orson Scott,

that's true. He's expendable and Allen Sylvest. What do you guys think about Avatar? The Avatar sequels? I have not watched Avatar. Why. I tried to watch it because it's on Disney Plus and me, as this is now a Disney Plus spawn, give us money Disney Plus, please, And I tried to and I could not make it past the first like twelve minutes. It was so offensive to mine eyes. And also don't care for it really, but I am you know. This made me be like he

might have some crazy ship left in the pocket. The sequels. I enjoyed Avatar fine when it when I saw it in the theater, he seen in three D, and I thought it might be appropriate to show my kids Avatar, and that that would be a mistake. They were terrified. I did the same where I'm like, I think this

is good. It's about respecting Mother Earth. Watched this while I go into the kitchen and like make food and then talk on the phone with my mom or something for a long time, so I'm literally paying no attention, and by the time I came back, they were huddled blanket and there was I mean it was like there was offensive language, like some homophobic slurs, I believe, lots of like violent weaponry and stuff, and they were just like, this is like the worst thing we've ever seen. This

is terrible. Just to cape for Cats again, I want to say the reason Cats is not like that is because the human faces are allowed to show through the whole time, and that grounds it in like but they kind of showed through an avatar. That's the that's like it falls into the uncanny valley so deeply, Like there's never a moment in Cats when you're not aware that it's Judy Dench with like Cats shurt it on and that's what makes it work is you're like, Judy Dench

is here, it's not a night, it's not the Polar Express. Well, before we we end today, I just like on because this is a series about early c G. I and we haven't talked much about the water column or of water dick you, which is like kind of the the show is stopping scene in this and the middle of it where the aliens have learned to control water so they like kind of it's called a pseudo pod. I believe um just like an arm, a water arm that

finds its way through the submarine. Uh. I don't think it holds up that the face thing is the only bad thing in it, and that's like, but that's like the most they could do at that time. I think that effect also just became so played out, you know that now when you see it you're like, oh, Alex mac right, But Alex mac right, Like it's when you think about, like, what was that like to see for the first time. Did it seem futuristic or did it

feel kind of like jankie? Yeah, I think like the camera effect when it's it's the point of view of the pseudopod is actually reaches out and touches it and then there's a little drawful walk like I don't know. I thought that. I thought it was kind of cool and that was Yeah, that was like the main c G. I think that, like, you know, everybody it won the Oscar for that. Yeah, I guess it was kind of a flop for a James camera. It was not. It did not do well, but it was critically I think,

pretty well received. It just didn't make that much money. And I guess Spielberg studied it because it was like the for Jurassic Park to be like, here's here's how we can do this for the future, and then they never made anything better than Jurassic Park. I was just gonna say, I think Jurassic Park is far better than the Abyss in my humble opinion though, because it's so

good Emily, there's two good c g I months. Yeah, there's a solid twenty minutes of inside a submarine, just kind of walking around in water that needed to go. It didn't feel about a submarine movie too, like I've watched plenty of submar just like it's an inherently claustrophobic environment compared to Jurassic Park. But it also there was so much just trying to establish relationships when the relationships were very thin. You know, you didn't actually between Bud

and um Dr Brigman. Obviously, there was a lot going on Michael, Michael Baine, Michael Bean, question Mark not be I think it's Michael Bean't go with Michael, but I mean he obviously has his own psychosis going on. He has a few cohorts, but the Coharts are the funniest. Yeah, he has his like lackeys where I'm just like, why are you doing what this man is saying when he's

obviously lost his mind. It's never explained, um, but there was so much of that in the middle between book ended by the like really wild ending and the beginning that I just got pissed because I was like James Cameron, this was so hard for these actors. You you did not need all of it. But one sequence you can

tell that everybody almost died. Yeah, it looks dangerous. It looks dangerous, and you can just they all seem so exhaust there's fear on their face, which works for the movie, but that's what makes it like a snuff film that you're like, Yeah, if you want your actors to seem terrified, why don't you almost kill them them? For real? Have you guys seen The stunt Man? No, it's really good. It's a movie about an actor who thinks the director is just trying to kill him? Is he right? Well?

When we should do that sometime we'll be We'll be back next week talking about Laen more Man and I'm so excited. I've never seen it almost scared. And if you have any suggestions for other early cg UH films that we should talk about, give us a night call. So is that a call back to the day by the bat? It was Jesse Spana. Thank you for thanks

for noticing. Please clap please clap um. Yeah. If you've got questions about spooky fridges or other haunted appliances, weird c g i um, people almost dying in outer space or the bottom of the ocean, or plants coming to life and taking back what is rightfully there's give us a call a night Call at two four o four six night or send us a night email at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com. You can find us on social media also a Nightcall pod on Twitter and

I Called podcast on Instagram and Facebook. And you can support us on Patreon if you're not already, we are at patreon dot com slash Nightcall and you can subscribe at a variety of tears to have an extended special edition Night Call Experience directors. We'll be back next week. Thanks for listening to everybody right. 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.