Unionize the ETs

California's state of mine. Whoops. Uh. Yeah. We are here today in the middle of December, to continue our sort of loose I feel like we've been kind of leap frogging every other episode and going dipping back into the eighties and weird comfort fair that kind of goes hand in hand, I think with the holiday season, so not necessarily Christmas movies, but movies that make us feel warm and weird, just like Christmas warm. And that's another log

line for our pots. Yeah, and the warm and weird stuff. Well, we like to take on the cozy cannon, sure saying I realized, like, but we can reinvestigate it. We can, we can, we can challenge the cozy canon kind of like our criticism, like the former Amy Nicholson podcast The Cannon, where they would you know, decide when. Yeah, we're going to talk about three totems of the eighties, maybe more, maybe less, depending on how what we feel, depending how do we feel, Which are ET Goonies? And what was

the third one? Never ending story? My god, it's almost like you didn't watch it, Molly he Emily watched ET for the first time, but you have never seen it. So Yeah. This is the other unifying theme of this of this series is that, like, we keep going hitting things that one of us has never seen or experienced. I was saying the ultimate night call experience is something where one of us loves something, one of us hates it,

and the other person who's never seen it. Yeah, I'm not hesitant to do this episode, but I think, like I think that this kind of movie and this genre of movie is one that one I think is like wildly over discussed, especially among people of our generation, and two like I actually have very limited or selective interest in UM, which is why I've never seen ET and I didn't see Goody until I was like wenty or something like weight lightly by the time it was no

longer really applicable to me. Um, it's always I know, I like, I like goodies. I think it's pretty good. But E T I had genuinely. I mean I knew, like I've seen scenes of it and stuff, and I've I thought I thought I had cd ET and finger quotes, but finger weird elongated finger, single finger singer. I mean, I understand like not watching something just because you're like

bros like this. Therefore, I'm not going to watch it out of spike, because I do that with many things, right, I mean, I my Yeah, my line on E T is always in my internally has been like e T is a movie for nice boys from big houses. Like it's just like it's good birds. I just I like that. I saw Jaws for the first time a couple of years ago. I still haven't seen Jaws. That's the one. That's the one that makes you understand why people gave Spielbury a lot of money to make movies. Yeah, it's

like a fake Hitchcock movie about a shark attack. Look, you guys are so cynical. Eats a good movie. I'm so cool about all the eighties movies that ruined the possibility of ever having stories about real people again. I don't know. I think ET is a really good movie, but I also think that I watched it as a child, and if you watch it as a kid, it's a really especially back then before it looked like it was

done with like five dollar sock puppets. It still I don't know, no, no, no, et himself come on, well, there's no c g I at the time, though it was so expensive to make, you know. I mean, what these movies have in common, I think is like these are all like the Baroque era of practical effects, right before c g I comes in to like sweep everything away.

My favorite Baroque era of practical effects movie is Interviewed with the Vampire, because they just like burn all this stuff down, you know where You're like, man, a year later, that would be a c g I fire, but like they're still like, let's build a huge set and burn it a movie making. Yeah. I wanted to ask tests though, as the person here who likes ET, went, how old were you when you first saw it? Super young, like five? How How are you not like completely traumatized for life

because I loved it. What's weird is looking back. So like my favorite movies from that from like the Kindergarten through second grade era were et Never Ending Story, Labyrinth, and Flight of the Navigator. All of them, with the exception of Flight of the Navigator, which is like a good movie, was a good movie. And now watching it, I'm like, I can't even watch it because I don't

want it to be destroyed in my mind. But it's interesting because like I was supposed to be scared, and I was scared, which felt good to be scared by a movie Like I was all in for that, So it was an enjoyable thing to have nightmares about a movie I love. I've never seen Labyrinth, but from what my God, Molly, it's like a Phantom of the Opera with David Bowie, Oh my God, is pretty much and a bunch of creature puppets. It's a very very sexy movie. I think I have to say that I am just

a little afraid of scary puppets. No, you won't be, because these are most of the puppets and Labyrinth dark puppets. They're like, it's not like the Dark. Crystal's also a movie I loved, but Labyrinth, it's mostly kind of like merry trickster puppets, like they can be won over. They're not all just like evil, right, but just the presence of puppets among human beings is really unnerving. It's very

unnerving to you watch like Sesame Street. I feel like Sesame that kind of interaction, and then it does get like the harder stuff. Honestly, find me a kids movie from the eighties, A puppet. I think they haven't confused with the voyage of the Mimi. Yeah, you're right. There were so many puppets, and there's a lot of like high fantasy, very baroque, big budget. Yeah. And I think

Goonies it's great. I love Goonies. I don't I think my My defense of Goonies has always been like, there's two girls of it instead of one, and one of them is Martha Plimpton, and she's so good. She's performance is so good. But wait, getting back to mad racist, we'll get there. We'll get there. And I don't remember if et is racist, but just racist by emission. I found this great new bra from Third Love using millions

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listeners off your first order. Go to third love dot com slash call now to find your perfect fitting bra and get off your first purchase. That's third love dot com slash call for fent off today. Et I had not seen the movie. I had at least once, maybe twice. I can't remember, written the Eat ride at your studios R I P. Which no longer exists. You can go through the Spaceship landing area, the only animatronics ride in Universal.

Yeah it was, and it was a real dark ride, but like you got to ride a bike and like even having not seen Et and not knowing, you know, I was still like wow, Like ride in a bike on a ride and you've got a little eat in your basket and you go to once and it was with tests. Our name was Baby Spice probably, yes, that was what we said. It was like, hello, Baby Spice. Yes. The ride was like a superior version of Peter Pan at Disneyland. I really, I think they're at the same level.

I don't. I don't think one is bad. I think, but this is the same. Like go on podcast the ride with these opinions, Yeah, yeah, yeah. They talked a lot about how okay, so ET is like from a planet like a green, like flowery planet. Maybe it's like a planet of flowers. That's why he can make the flowers bloom and die, which otherwise doesn't make any sense without having seen the planet and the ride, and they're right this backstory and there was like his mentor or

something is on the planet. In the ride and then the podcast, right, guys were saying that, like they saw the like husk of that animatronic like left out to rust in a field. They're all super sad about it. That's exactly what happens to himself. They also they also made a shirt commemorating it. I forget what the mentor's name is, but it's all about how he's like the dank guru. Um So, yeah, I learned a lot about the Et mythology recently, none of which matters in the movie,

I guess. I I feel like this movie is both weirder and more boring than I had thought it was going to be, because it does really get extremely dark, and there are parts of it where I'm like, this is such a beloved movie and everybody I feel like on on this planet has seen it except for me. How come I have never seen certain images of it that I feel like should be memes at this point. This is what I tweeted about. I was crying laughing when when Et is found when he gets sick and

he's found facedown in the cutter. Oh yeah, I have actually being like touched. It wasn't a raccoon bothering him on him. I was dying and I was like, I think because it was so upsetting, And I was like, if I was a child and I had seen this, this would be a formative image in my mind, Like I would not be able to sleep thinking about et with the raccoon in the cutter. The thing that's the most fucked up I think when you're a kid watching

this movie is when he's dissecting the frogs. Oh yeah, right, So I like the scarer like, oh no, what will happen, Like, no matter what happened, something terrible will happen. My gen X husband, I was like, is this was this a thing that happened? Did you have to kill the frog by chloroforming it? And he said no, So I feel like that was just made up thing. I mean they just came toad become pre evolved. Yeah, they were traditionally.

I don't think you ever have to chloroform um. The scene where he and you realize that he's linked to eat, which also doesn't make any sense at all. I don't understand why, both on a psychological level and why on a narrative level, Like how it happens that so So this is the thing about Spielberg movies is that the way that people talk about them is being in speaking in this like broadly accessible language of pop culture that like every every American innately understands. I just am not

on the wavelength. My brain just stops it, like wait, why are they linked? Like why? Like I didn't see you're not a red blooded all American boomer. If if ET was like a giant robot and he had to climb into I would understand by for the iron giant is off putting to me about Et is not like anything about the idea of like a boy making a friend. That's a weird thing. It's just specifically the weird thing they made is so weird. It's like a bag of ball look like a mashed up bag nuts. But it's

also like the color pellette. They chose the fact that he's like tann like what your kids want to hang out with, a giant raisin, Like it's it's too close to like human flesh tones. If it were like green, it's uncanny valley to you. Yes, if it were green or blue, if it were like a traditional alien color, it would be less creepy to me. But the fact that it's just like it looks like job of the hut. It's just like an orb of like pulsating. His face

was inspired by Einstein and Hemingway. The actors too. The head was like the neck and the head were above the actors, and then the actors were two little people. And then also a twelve year old boy was born without legs. Interestingly, and they saw through ets chest. Also this I went down like a deep hole. But now I know, I'm like there are people who have gone

even deeper. I'm sure, yeah, exactly. Um. The voice of Et was this woman who smoked two packs a day, and she she did nine hours of work and she was paid only three hundred and eighty dollars. So upsetting. No, it's in the Wikipedia union and and they also recorded sixteen other people people in animals, including um raccoons, otters, horses,

Deborah Winger. I I kept reading the Wikipedia being like what what there's so many woods that makes it sound like it's such a low budget production, though they had so much money. It was supposed to be his like

low Budge. He was like, I want to make a small movie, like an intimate movie based on like my experience growing up as a kid not experienced this was like it's a project he'd been wanting to work on for a really long time, and then I guess like he drew on like several different stalled projects to you were telling me about that a little bit listeners. So I also learned about this that there's a conspiracy out there.

I don't know if this is what Test is referring to that um the guy who directed the Pather Ben Charlie, the APU trilogy and I have announced his first name, but Ray, yeah, he there's this conspiracy that this was his film and that and that Spielberg stole it from him. That's what he claimed. But then he didn't. He also not sue because he was like Spielberg is a great director and it's a good movie. It's just that he stole it from me, which if so, like I would

watch his version like a hundred times. Where wanted to make and he made a movie called Ali. I think he wrote a treatment for maybe you didn't make it, but it's about and the description is like the same. But then like Spielberg fired back and he was like no, like he was like very impacted by his parents divorce

and this is like whatever. He had this project called night Skies and it ended up being installed project, but he took a lot of the material and used it for e T and also for Poultergeist I guess, which Molly brought up at the end of our last episode. And it's also a movie that I love that you've never seen, Molly, have you? Right? Yeah? Um? It is interesting though, right because like et kind of kicks it up.

It's such a like weird beginning of the movie that the mom has this like really intense reaction to the dad being with the Mexico woman but he hates Mexico, and then it's just like drys I think it works. I don't know. Well, so the one thing in this movie that I don't think was wildly oversold to me about it was Drew Barrymore, who is incredible sheardy or

gird or whatever. So she reminds me of most of Tutti and Meet Me in St. Louis like that kind of child star where you're just like, it's not even like that creepy thing of like like a hyper talented like semi adult child. Sorry, You're just like you're so good at being a kid on camera. It's insane. Yeah, it's the guy too. What's his name, Henry Thomas. The guy plays Elliot's amazing. I have to disagree here. I am Elliott. I found Elliott to be such a lame protagonist.

I could not get into Elliott. Yeah, I'm sorry. He seemed like such a wet blanket. I thought it was really creepy when he was drunk in the classroom. I wait for my hot take on the guy who played a tray you later when we talk about never ending story. Uh yeah, I mean, I I think that scene, but that's like the frog scene. That's where he like gets drunk because he's linked to Et who's getting drunk on

beer at home. Again, all this stuff would never exist in a movie like this now, which is like one of the things like kind of like about it, but so none of it works for me actually at all. But I like the sense that it is kind of and I think that this is like a uniting theme with all these movies, Like they're like more funky than any kind of family movie can be. Now. Yeah, they have many weird edges, which makes them like not necessarily likable,

but definitely like interesting. It seems like a relic from a place that we all were, because sometimes some of the relic nous of it has to do with like how racist eighties movies are, where you're just like, it's crazy, this was in a movie that that kind of stuff is different, though, I'm talking about just like the way that it looks and feels and like the things that

they allowed to escape past the field. Honestly, I'm talking about like the kids breath kids, the keenis breath smoking, just like these like latch key kids who are just allowed to like bike around and like do whatever and

they're super thing. Maybe we're just so tired of that from all the iterations of it so that it's harder to put it on e T. Yeah, it's really hard to watch this now, having seen like at least just the first season of The Stranger Things and a zillion other things that riff on this sort of thing that just made us all like collectively side because we were like, what if there were like a bunch of Drew Barrymore's riding bikes and like still like one little special white

kid who's got special dreams. Well, and it's like it's I don't know, I mean, I I kind of knew this already, but like Stranger Things, it's it's like a large part of the plot is just ET, but like with a girl instead of as Stephen King. I guess, yeah, Weirdo comes to town. Some of these things are just like but they like they have like quirky foods that they have to feed her and stuff. It's just like it's so rough. I I hate Stranger I've never seen

Close Encounters. Close Encounters is pretty good. I think, well, what how about how about a final defensive et from Tests? Okay, So I just want to say, like, so I rewatched DT. I also watched d T two two years ago. I tried to watch about six months ago with my kids because I was like, their older, right, the spoilers not start screaming uncontrollably when Eat came on screen because it's a nightmare. They just like it was even before that.

It was like, you know, the ship starts glowing and they're just like, no, really, but you said they got through Peee's Big Adventure. They got through my mind so much, scary Molly. They got through Jurassic Park when they were like, it's fun like a Marvel movie at that point, like the film language is this close enough now wow that I think there's almost like a joyous atmosphere and Jurassic Park that you forget until you like rewatching, and then you're like it's just like a party at a theme

park and it's you get swept away in it. You almost don't notice when things go wrong. I guess if you're like six years old. No, it's a great it's a fun movie, Jurassic Park. I mean, I don't know when E T. I think E T I am reminded. I think that's one of the great things about having kids is that I would be like cynical and more inclined to kind of not in not let myself enjoy

a movie like ET. But when I watch it, there's this thing of like, you know, when you see your kids going through the same like stages of childhood that you went through, and when you watch a movie like ET, which is essentially a kind of like you know, visual representation of developing empathy, it's it's like it's you know, it's kind of a powerful thing. Sound like embarrassed, but it is. I mean it's like that. Do you think like the empathy aspect of it. We'll see when I

can make them sit through that death. No, it's too early. I mean my kids at the time it was. I think it was when my oldest was five and my youngest was like two. Did they join you to watch Tully? I can't even talk about Tully. Tully is the Locust poduc my psyche? Yeah? Eight trill, trill. Today's episode of Nightcall is brought to you by the Assassinations podcast on

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There are certain things about E. T. I also just think it's like a beautiful movie, despite the fact that ET is like hideously ugly. I love the like Vista of the Valley is like people who love it, or like it's about learning to care for something that like may not be beautiful, but it's like, you know special. Well, it's also like, you know, it's a very isolated kid, and like it you know, brings his family together when you can learn empathy for the ugly. I think they

were just a cutie, like Gizmo from Gremlins. If it were Mac and Me too. Oh, we got Mack and Me. Have you ever seen Mac and Me, Emily? No, No, it's the ET clone that I have seen parts of before and like it starts a really good child actor in a wheelchair and does this someone you said was like a tie in with McDonald. Yeah, then I just found out it was all sponsored by McDonald. It's like they took the idea of the Reese's Pieces and ET, which is like the first one of the first big

product placement. Well because m and M's were like, no way that animal that Dalien's like way too scary looking. You can't sell him that good on them Pieces did so well? Go to that movie is the Mac and Me has the creature the Mac Tonight head another terrifying one of the scariest things. Did you know that it's supposed to be a joke about Mac the Knife who's a serial killer? Really? Yeah, that's the joke is Mac

Tonight and he sings Mac the Knife, but about McDonald's. Also, the alt right has claimed Mac Tonight and good they can have it. That's scary. The left has taken Gritty and I'm fine with that, because we should have him. They can have Grimes and Mac tonight. This is all way too much of the veil between like the real and the Internet getting way too thin. You know what, if Gritty were m et, I'd be so happy. So I found Gritty and a ship and had to like brush him and like brush out his furn and we

should get right to that. The Gritty feature filming Gretty moving onto g Goonies is the Richard Donner movie. That's a better Spielberg movies and the Spielberg movies. Wow, and We're done. That's it. That's what I got. You know. It's like it's the same kind of like lash Key kids hanging out right, but a couple of them are girls. It's a real organ movie. It's real wet organs, just like Phantom of the Opera Core you like things where

things happen o Oregon, Oregon, it's as an organ. It's a foresty, wet movie, which is why I like it because that's what my childhood looked like. It felt very dark and rainy all the time, and I didn't visit any caves, but I would have liked to. I could listen to the soundtrack to that one song from Gooneys. I could listen to it every days are good enough that, well, that song is fantastic, but the one I was like,

do do the is it? John Willias? Yeah, I mean Goonies has its problems, but that's one of those things that people are super into that for some reason doesn't bother me, and I feel like Sloth. The character of Sloth is sort of like a better et to me, where it's like the monster that turns out to be like lovable you know, right, Um, well, what's the big I can't remember what the specifically the now problematic aspect of Goonies is because it's actually been a second since

I've seen it. Oh, there is an Asian American kid data data Data. It's just real eighties, that thing where they're like, look inclusionive but he's like a human calculator. Yeah. Yeah, I still haven't seen sixting candles for this reason. I just can't. Well, it's interest is much more offensive. Well, they're both offensive, but they're offensive, but you're also like they're interesting to watch from the point of view of like thinking about Getty watching Abi's career and being like,

you know, he has I don't know. I feel like he's talked about it and been like, yeah, yeah, it's sucked up. Well you can't deny that it's sucked up.

Oh no, it's all sucked up. But it's weird to even think about, like watching those movies in the eighties that people didn't think it was sucked up, right, this was like so normalized, and especially some of that stuff, the like fear of Asians in the eighties because they were going to take over the right like every big eighties movie, like so many eighties movies have that undercurrent, like Blade Runner obviously, but as a movie, it's just

like it's like an adventure movie, an adventure team movie. Yeah, I enjoy it because I just want to go in a cave mainly, and it's like it feels dangerous, like e T does. Like never any story does, I think to a sir extent, but like it does feel like I don't, I don't know. It feels like the ultimate like realized fantasy of running away when you're a kid, Like yeah, running away with a group of kids that

are all like escaping fun up situation together. Also really amazing how much kind of ambient suspense you can add to a movie by giving a kid an inhaler and then you can just suspense any time you want. So many Inhaler kids in movies of this era, we're at the EpiPen kid. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of like if you took an Indiana Jones movie and just condensed it down to like trying to get into a mountain for most of the movie. Right, it's a it's a good kids movie. Yeah, I haven't seen it. I didn't see

it until I was like in college. You know what the better movie is that I always talked about. My friend Sarah Johnson is also obsessed with this movie. It's called gold Diggers The Legend of Bare Mountain. Yeah, I feel like I've talked to It's like a fake fake goonies, but it's Christina Ricci and fake Anna Paquin and they're just like two girls who like find some gold in a mountain together. That should have been the future of

movies right there. That should have been two girls on a you know, paddling in a canoe through a cave. What was bad about this movie that it's not more well known that goonies Like I was justaingp off. Yeah, I mean are there any like kids on an adventure movie? I guess that's stranger Things, Yeah, but the kids aren't on an adventure and stranger things are like in their town.

Like I don't know if any. They're very few movies now where kids are genuinely like out in the wild, like away from their parents, and their parents are right, it's like the most anxiety and the kids have to be away from the parents. That's why I always talk about the Ewok movie. I love the Ewok movies because like the first one just starts with like their parents just die and they're like stranded on the planet. The Ewak movies are so scary sah. It was so dark.

But it also like there's that thing when you see something dark when you're a kid, and you're like, this feels like it acknowledges something I'm not supposed to know about that every good kids thing hasn't it. And that's why the never ending story Yeah, nice, this is the thing about never ending story else So that I noticed this time because I don't think I've seen this movie since I was eight or something, and I watched it many many times when I was very very young, like

like barely even probably knew what I was watching. But in this movie, so it does the thing where the main character is unsupervised and on his own for a while Bastion when he's reading, Yeah, in school, but he's but he's in the he's like locked in every like all night and stuff. He's not, he's he's in like

an attict. But so I was thinking about this because like I feel like I've seen several kids movies recently where you you go into another world or something, but then there's some explanation for why your parents or whoever your guardians are won't be looking for you because like

time works definitely here or whatever. Um, And that is not the case in Never Ending story, Like he's just not at school and we never hear like if his dad went looking for him because he's apparently there like all night also a school and I know, like terrible, Yeah that is so bad. He's like, get over it. But for me, as a kid, like that kind of thing of like their parents are worried about them because I was such like a giddy two She's like, I

feel like they would always wait heavily on me. I would always be so aware of the fact that like somebody's gonna be lucky for you, like, oh God, I've gotta go back home like um and and that is not the case. There are many eighties movies I feel like about sort of delinquent parents that are about like yeah, like parents sometimes just don't care, Like night Are on

elm Street. Movies are all about like the parents are so absorbed in their own stuff they don't even realize, like how fucked up the teens are, like they don't believe them that none of them can sleep because Freddie is trying to get yeah uh never Aenning story was also sort of like yeah, the kid that nobody cares about,

so read all night. It was very interesting to watch these back to back for me eat and never any story, like when a movie that I had never seen and always felt like alien to me or like not just like interesting words, but like it just felt like of a different tradition that I wasn't like tapped into or interested in. And then never any story, which just felt like it was like my movie for a very long time, and I like write stories about it and stuff when I was a kid. Um and it's such a it's

such an only child movie. It's like insanely so, and that it was very evident to be this time because it's about making an inner world. Yes, yeah, well, and he gets thrown in the inner world. It's just so much. He has all this to have a friend to hang out with all the time. Well, that's the thing he has. All of this time, he's like so lonely and nobody's experienced. Like he's lost his mother. Nobody shares that experience. His dad's a dick, nobody shares that experience. He's so alienated

his health in the world of books. Yeah, but he finds like the scariest book with the ROBBERI what what what kid doesn't love a good robbery. Yeah, this movie is amazing. I think it held up. Yes, he did not. It was one of my maorite movies and I was like, wow, this is a really Jankee movie or oh my god. So at the time. Fun fact, when this was made, it was a It was a West German coproduction. It was the most expensive German movie to ever be made.

Uh it was, and it was directed by Wolfgang Peterson who uh later made a lot of American movies. This week's episode of Nightcall is brought to you by robin Hood. If you've been thinking about getting into buying and selling stocks, e t f s, options, and or cryptos, but have been too intimidated to do it, then robin Hood is the app for you. Robin Hood is an investing app that lets you do all of the above commission free, and they strive to make financial services work for everybody,

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way to make them challenging, but without being daunting at all. Yeah, Like all the kind of challenges are very introspective and about like your own self image and your estimation of yourself. It's like it's like Miss the movie. It is it is It totally is. I mean there's a reason that I like, it's like a series of ambient environmental challenges that are terrifying. Actually, do you know where that's because

it's like a nightmare. It's like a nightmare where you have a task and then you do the task and it doesn't matter. Yeah, and when you do complete the task, your reward is just to hang out in the world for as long as you want, which is of course the ultimate prize. Um. I don't know about spoiling the Like what I think is like the really great moment in this movie that is at the end in case people haven't seen it or something, because I think it's

genuinely good, Like I think, I think it's fine to spoil. Well, I mean like it's like a completely generation different generation of kids movies. Is the spoiler that it ends? No, Uh, the spoiler is the part where she's explaining to a tray or the childlike Emburst is explaining to a tray. You that there is the kid who's reading the book, which is bashion, but then he's a part of the never ending story and while he's been reading the book, there are all these other people that have been watching

him read the book. And then you realize she's talking about you. And it's such a like moment when you're a child. Um, and it gave me to the movie. It's like it's definitely it's like Dune for kids. Totally, totally, totally, Yeah,

it's like a Dune primer. It's a missed primer. And I was thinking that there's something very alt about it too, like not all like now I feel like all this only used as a pretorative but like you know, like it feels like the all too like the Spielberg movies or that stuff, because it is so it's so hero it's so and I was saying it at one point and found out that the the author's father was like a German Expressionist surrealist painter whose work was then like

censored in Nazi Germany and I think destroyed here, like you know, filed us degenerate art um and I don't know, I don't forget if they were Jews, but they you know, it was like comes out of German Expressionism, and that made it make so much sense to me because I was like, it feels very German Expressionist. But the guy who wrote the book hated the movie, so yeah, he bashed King and the Shining Michael Andy, I think, or yeah, yeah,

he wanted his name taken off of it. He particularly was like just so grossed out by the Sphinxes, which is like a very I was like, that's a pretty sick part of the Sphinxes, who shoot lasers out of their breast. But Andy called the movie a gigantic melodrama of kitch, commerce, plush and plastic. Oh that kitch is the worst thing in Germany. Yeah, and he said that the sphinxes are full full bosoms strippers who sit there in the desk. My god, the biggest embarrassment of the film.

That whole movie is full of just images that stay in your brain forever. You guys have to read the I think it's common sense media where like kids basically right reviews of movies telling you if it's okay to show your kids and you should see what like the recent reviews of Never Ending Story are because all of these kids are like, they're like, I just came to

say that I'm so upset. My parents said this movie is so good and like just the thing that happened with our attack up and I'm never going to get over. It's like Bambi level of exposing children to the realities. So it's such a long scene and apparently the horse was like I do not want to do this thing, and then there was an urban legend the horse dies. It's the thing you remember about the movie, is that a horse. There's many things to remember also, that is

the thing that you remember that. But I had to take a break after watching that because it was both like this thing I had been buried in my memory and like reliving it and it was just so awful. Yeah, and it's like to bring to bring it back to

us being old millennials. It's also like the idea of watching a movie like this and then like you couldn't just immediately like watch it again, you know, right, Yeah, you had to just think about it and try to remember if you scare yourself trying to remember it, and then like eventually you could rent it at a video store.

But just that your access to these things was like limited, so like something you could see something once and it would like stay with you in this intense way that you wouldn't even be able to remember what it was maybe after a certain point. And that's all this movie is.

I just think it's interesting, like thinking back in my lifetime of watching movies like this was so so so early in it, and I think like the idea of the nothing as an end is such an advanced place to start, like as far as thinking about like forces of evil or bad or just antagonists in general, and in movies like it's such a just existential idea. Um. And there's the part at the beginning where the little guy on the snail and the bat Flying Guy, which

is just like, so it's so adorable. I love all the design and stuff in this. But they're like talking about how like, oh, there used to be a lake in my village, um, and now it's not there anymore. And they're like, what it was a dried up lake. No, a dried up lake would be something. There's just nothing. It's just like this very kind of like, I don't know,

introduction to philosophy type thing for for children. It definitely probably put me in whatever ruminative mindset would be as a four year old when I watched it, and I probably are I feel like find the moment I found out it came out of like Nazi Germany, I was right, like somebody who would flat Nazi Germany, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, that that checks out. Honestly, it made me want to go back. And I've never read the book,

and it made me want to read. Yeah, I want to read the only it only covers the first half I called, which, by the way, someone suggested on the Facebook group that we we consider seriously starting so just to tie E T and the never ending story together.

So um. Spielberg like helped edit the US version of the never ending story apparently, and so he has the or in you know, oh yeah I heard about this, Yeah he has, but also apparently, like I didn't notice this was like an Easter egg, but I guess it's pretty well known, but not to me. So I'm gonna

say it anyway. Um, in the Ivory Tower scene when the Phantasians are all around there, if you look at this, if you like, pause it and look, there's Yoda, Mickey Mouse, Chewbacca, C three p O, the e Walks, E T, and Gumby only last for a split second. Yeah, that's what they say. I find that hard to I mean, I was really checking out that crowd because it's so fun. There's so many good like little designs like the giant head people and stuff, and I was really like of

investigating them. But I didn't notice that at all. That's wilds. I looked. I was like, this is this a tricky thing where they're going to say, like too, like why don't you put this on a podcast? But I think it's true. We're all gonna have to do the jfk

Z man exactly. Um. I also just one last note about um never name story is that I do think that This is the the lens through which all gen xers and old millennials think about climate change, including having a giant, old, ancient turtle who's allergic to youth, who does not care about climate I love that turtle. What's his name, Morla or something. Yeah, but he is Mitch McConnell like, oh, but he's cool. You know, he's a turtle.

I also love the rock fighter guy, and that's so sad when he gets and when he goes away and he says, this movie has great scary strong hands. Strong hands. They looked like strong hand. Oh my god. And I'll watch Labyrinth and we can do a Labyrinth. We will bring Leslie back for the Labyrinth. I like how you're really leaning into that syllable in the middle. There isn't it. Can we just say Labyrinth? There is a Labyrinth through Labyrinth, Labyrinth, Labyrinth.

There's a big Labyrinth themed cosplay ball in Los Angeles every year. Oh, let's go. I had an uber driver who told me about it because she does it every year. It is. It is like the horniest movie. It's so uncomfortable because you're just like, this is just a very like it's very just David Bowie. Yeah, but it's like okay, but also, aren't children's movies of the eighties full of like horny and drogynous man like Curry and David Bowie

that are just like, yeah, give you weird feeling. Well, Labyrinth doesn't even try to like hide it really like because she's like gonna marry. It's also like Beetle Juice too, if you if you're into Beetle Juice. Was never I was always like, get away from Lady. Well, this has been a good a good trip through memory Lane on night call a good a good cozy cannon on that Weird Dragon, Falcore, Falcore, The Luck Dragon. I'm so obsessed with this movie again the se no yeah, yeah, yeah,

because I was. I was thinking, and I was like, why was I into it? Because it was old when I saw it, because the second one had come out, So I went back and saw that. Emily, have you seen the t Wait, that's the HBO one from two thousand two, that one, but then there's Tales from the Never Ending Story is the like it was one season of a TV show that then went mini series on HBO also really quick, So isn't it really crazy that

in the German version of this movie. They don't have the never ending story tune by Limb Hall or whatever. It's all orchestral, so they don't have the marauder thing in the in the movie. In the German thought has like them all. It's really weird. It's like the most German song, but it is not yet will be. So

we had a really exciting nightcall moment. Um. I think we were all like, really emotionally invested in this kind of thread that has run through our podcast for the past couple of months in ways that we didn't realize. But we got a final update. I know I said last final update was the final update, but this is really the final update from the woodworker who made the

murder board. So Um. The Woodworker contacted the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and Occult, which was a suggestion that one of our listeners called in and said, maybe that's the best place for the murder board. Uh, he says. I didn't have much hope that they would be interested, but I sent an email to the curator, Greg Knwker. To my great surprise, he got back to me within a day and was very interested. He's listened to the

podcast and knows the history of the murder board. He immediately requested more background information and pictures, but made it clear they would like to have it. He was very informative and helpful. Long story short, the board was mailed out today and they will begin whatever study they do on such things when it arrives. A couple of days later, there was a tweet from the Paranormal Museum. This this

just like made our day. So we got a tweet, uh from at the Para Museum the Paranormal Museum's Twitter account. They said, Hey, night call pod. We received a package at the museum p O box this afternoon. Take one guess what was inside. And then a little picture of the note that the woodworker attached to it that says, as discussed, please find and closed the murder board. As much as I almost don't want to know, Please keep me updated with what, if anything, you find and what

the future holds for the piece. I wish you the best of luck, safety, and repeat my thanks for your help in this matter. Yeah, all's well, that end a swell. It's a really beautiful story. It's it's the best ending to this story. Like we were, we were saying, what we thought should happened, and it very organically it came to the best conclusion. I also want to thank Bizarre States podcast that I went on this year for introducing

me to the Traveling Paranormal Museum. Yes. Um, yes, it feels nice that we're all in this weird, little cozy cult together. Yeah. So thank you to the caller that suggested, uh, sending it, sending the order board to the museum. Thank you to the museum. Thank you to our wood worker. Thank you too. Of those two weird tweens who wanted to they were teens, not tweens who wanted to make a luigia board out of a piece of murder. Would Uh. None of this could have happened without everybody's hard work

in the method. Yeah. And if you have any quandaries or moral questions about the unknown, the paranormal and unknown, or just any kind of questions at all. If you have thoughts on your favorite eighties movies, Never Ending Story, Goonies, things that We've Never Broken Era, the Oake Eric Children's movies, I think that's a good label for it. Yes, give us a call at two four oh four six night or an email at Nightcall Podcast at gmail dot com. Also,

please follow us on social media. Nightcall Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, Nightcall Pod on Twitter, and if you're enjoying the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. I think that does it for today, y'all. We'll be back next week for holiday special