Scrooged - Toilet Seat Covers, Vodka Tabs & a Masterpiece

Tis the season. We are deep in Christmas season, but I want to take us back a few months. I want to take us back to Halloween, which is where we are right now, which is where in reality you and I actually are right now. My brother told me the craziest story the other day, and he was kind of just telling it like it was nothing, and I was like, wait, I'm sorry what happened? And he's like, oh,

I'm already frightened they've given the name.

In this gritty police drama from director Dennis Hopper, Oh, street wise cop played by Robert Duval and hothead Rookie played by Sean Penn grapple with their new partnership on the gang written streets of Los Angeles beautifully. So that movie came out, and apparently the kids at my brother's school, which eventually became my middle school, thought it would be an amazing idea to tress up as either a crip

Where are you going? What are you doing?

And my brother had to explain this is because of that movie. Yeah, And suddenly they these children and their parents. To be clear, parents had to get involved. These are young. These people aren't buying their own costumes. They're fourteen years old. Then a person went to the store and bought their kid quote unquote the crip or the blood Halloween costume and then pushed them out.

The world and go and everything seems fine.

This is not problematic at all. This will age be beautifully.

Hey, I'm Paul America, and this is that aged well yesterday's pop culture. Today we were in the heart of holiday season, holiday movies. Very I was waiting for that to.

Keep going, and yeah, I realized it was like I don't have it in me. Right, I'm done, I'm done.

Yeah, we're good here everyone. We're recording this on November three.

So if you're wondering where we are, if we see the little.

Edgy today you'll know more than we know now in any case, Erica. Before we get to the Holiday movie, we do have a couple of five star Apple podcast reviews. Shall I read the first one?

I think you should?

Yes, Okay, So this is from Heart to Paul. Now. I don't know if that means they love me or maybe their name is Paul.

Maybe it's both, Maybe it's both, Maybe it's both both.

Maybe it's still hug from through the interwebsit or is this you?

Are you writing five star reviews for us? Now?

I just keep changing my username. Heart Paul writes love this podcast heard about your podcast from movies that made us gay, and started with episodes covering movies I love, such as Troop, Beverly Hills, Monster Squad, Beetlejuice, and Back to the Future. I always appreciate hearing people say I started the movies I love and they still like us afterwards.

It's always like it it's really well. I feel like we were nice to all of these movies, except for perhaps Monster Squad.

But even that we appreciated. Yeah, we appreciated it for what was gil Man will live forever on in this podcast's canon, Heart Paul goes on, if you haven't seen the peanut butter Solution from nineteen eighty five, you might want to check it out. I grew up with it and it lives in my brain. Thank you from Paul or polyester in Provincetown. A little rainbow emoji.

Love it. Yeah, I have not seen the peanut butter solution, and I would love to.

I'm intrigued because look, peanut butter throughout the years has solved a great many in my problems. Yeah, like just a spoonful of.

Peanut butter helps the medicine go down.

It sure does, it sure does. I'm like a dog. You have to bury the pill of the peanut butter. I just't lick it off the spoon.

Shall I read our second review?

Please do?

Our second review comes from Jena seventy four. They spell it j e n n a y. I. I have to believe this.

Has to be.

It has to be a forest comfort, It has to be Jeni bye, JENNI bhye Jeni. My wife had been telling me for months to listen to this podcast, and I kept saying I will, I will. Then I started, and now I can't stop. This is a fantastic show. It's funny, smart, it has me rethinking so many of my favorite movies. I love this show.

Thank you, Jenni.

Jeni, you are not stupid as stupid does Jenni.

I don't think you could have died of AIDS in nineteen eighty one, Jenniya.

This review is like a box of chocolates, all.

Right, Hart Paul Jenny seventy four. Thank you so much for these Apple podcast reviews. If you would like a tote bag, let me know this is you. I will send it off for you. Erica, what is the movie that we are talking about on this the third Monday of December.

Today's film is the nineteen eighty eight fen to See comedy Scrooged.

M M all right, So this was requested by Nicole Sidney, Jackie, Megan, Rebecca, Laurie, Karen Sojo, Another Megan, Sonny, Melissa, Amber, Miggie, Julia, Ariel, Ariella, Jessica, Justine, Marissa, Gina, Libby, Kenzie Morgan, another Nicole, and still more of those people whose names could not be determined from their social media profiles.

Wow, yeah, yeah, this was the top.

This is a big film.

This was the top film. For this month, right like when you put out the ass.

This is the first film that lost in a Patreon poll to come back on its own. Oh shit, because we pulled this against up at Christmas Carol last December and it lost.

That's amazing. I forgot about that.

Yeah, yep, yep. So Scrooge made it the very next year. No promises on the other losers, we don't know, and we'll get to them. But Scrooged was was a clear winner.

Here's looking at you, Mildred Pierce next year.

Good luck fingers crossed luck Queen. So Scrooge was written by Mitch Glazer and Michael o'dona hugh. It was directed by Richard Donner and stars Bill Murray, Karen Allen, Alfrey Woodard, bobcat Goldthwaite, David Johansson, and Carol Kane.

Scrooged was nominated for one Academy Award Best Makeup, which it lost to Beetlejuice. That is actually a horse race, because the makeup in this movie is excellent.

Yep.

Yeah. The The Ghost of Christmas, I don't know if it's makeup for special effects, but when the Grost of Christmas Future opens up, his robe. Yeah, and it's like the Lost Souls in there. I was like, that's really well done.

That's well done. Yeah yeah, yeah, And like the makeup on the Jacob Marley characters name is not Jacob Martin.

Oh my god, his name is lou Blue Hayward.

I think, yeah, very well done. But I think I would give it to be do you just.

Had more makeup in it, like just more stuff, more ghouls more.

So like sometimes the acting races go whoever does the most acting.

Yeah, this went to the most makeup fair, which was a fair win, to be clear.

Erica Scrooged was a difficult production, with a lot of conflict between Bill Murray and director Richard Donner over their different visions for the film. Since the film's release, writer Michael o'donna hugh has said he didn't think that Donner understood comedy, that maybe only forty percent of the original script is in the finished product, and what did remain was quote unquote twisted. He said, we wrote a fucking masterpiece. The finished film is a piece of unadulterated, unmitigated shit.

Wow, okay, bold statement, We wrote a fucking master I know. Yeah, baby, you copy this off of Charles Dickens.

Baby, this is an adaptation.

Baby. To be clear, I like this movie, but like, you can't call something this derivative a masterpiece. That's not how masterpieces work. Let's be some more Christmas Carol is a fucking masterpiece.

Yours is a is an imitation.

Of a master Yeah, yours is a satire of said master piece. Do you understand? You know what, sir, call me, We're gonna we're gonna discuss the nuances.

Okay, so a satire of the word masterpiece. I think calling it a piece of unmitigated, undultraated shit is a touch harsh, A touch harsh. It's a little bit much.

I like this movie more than you did. We were talking off Mike about it earlier. I totally understand where Bill Murray is coming from. It is a lot of like the easiest joke wins in this movie. But you gotta remember, I saw this like young, and it like imprinted on me, and so I will I will love this movie forever as a result.

Absolutely so, When did you first see Scrooged?

This was like a big, like heavy rotation around the holidays in our house. It was this, It was home alone. It was a Christmas story like these are. Those are like the top three I think Christmas movies we watched. I had quite a bit of this memorize when I watched it again yesterday.

Oh wow.

Okay, I don't know the last time I saw it before I saw it yesterday. To be honest, I don't know if I've seen it as an adult, Like maybe I saw it in my twenties at some point, but I haven't seen it in a while. Okay, Yeah, I feel like other films have taken its place.

Elf.

Elf has worked its way in Yeah, yeah, how about you.

I did see this as a kid. If you had asked me this a week ago, I would have had exactly one memory of this movie, and that is Carol Caine hitting Bill Murray in the face of the toastra. That is literally the only thing I remember.

Like where your comedy heartless?

Yeah it really is. And having watched it again, okay, let me put it this way. You know how in Sex and the City, when Burger breaks up with Carrie on the post it note yeah and he writes, I'm sorry, I can't don't hate me. I want you and all the listeners never requested this to picture that be with that post it note on my forehead. I didn't. I did not hate the movie. I really didn't. It peaked incredibly early, the first three minutes of this movie.

It's so good, it's.

So funny, the hit joke ratio is so strong that I think, also combined with how many people I know love this movie, I went in with sky high expectations. Yeah, and they simply were not met. And like, and I knew you loved this movie, and I knew a lot of our listeners love this movie. And despite what people may think having this of this podcast, I don't love hating things other people.

Like, that's not true. He does. He told me off my earlier. He's like, I want to break hearts today.

I actually, well, if it's a movie I think is bad, then sure I'm fine hating it. But like, I don't think this movie's bad. I just I think it's one of those things. You know, we hit those eighties comedies where I'm like, I'm not laughing and everyone else seems to be laughing.

We also have had this conversation in Caddyshack and again in Ghostbusters. Yeah, I like Bill Murray's whole thing. Yeah, I am all in on Bill Murray being an asshole. I find him being so mean, so funny. Yeah, like a lot, like a lot of the things, I'm sure great on you. I love when he plays a dick, sure like he's so good at it. He's not afraid

Yeah, he became a much better actor as he aged.

It's really I can't remember if Broken Flowers came out before Lost in Translation, but one of those two movies, those are the two movies. I feel like we're like a real director. Like I'm not to say Richard Dnder' is not a real director or Ivan Wrightman or anyone else, but like like a quote unquote real director like went up to him and was like, I think you could do this. And I think that's when Bill Murray started to believe that he could do this.

Yeah, because there's there's something with the Bill Murray performance in me in this movie that reminds me a little bit of Mike Myers in So I Married an axe murderer. I think it's because I know now, I know he can do it. So when he plays everything with this like sarcastic aloof remove, it really greats on me. Yeah, I don't think he's very good in this movie.

I just don't disagree.

I think that when he starts shouting, I don't think he's actually like, he doesn't make me believe any of the emotion and I performance.

I totally disagree because that ending gets me. The ending of this movie fucking gets me. I felt nothing when his voice cracks and he gets Really I think he's really good at the end of this movie.

I think maybe just lost me by that time.

I think the first ninety percent of the movie he's playing kind of the same note over and over and over again, which is believe I believe why he's so frustrated with this performance in this film because the director is just like maybe directing him in a certain way that he's like, this isn't this isn't what I want to do. Yeah, But the last ten minutes of this movie, or the last ten percent of this movie, I mean, I am all in on Bill.

Murray even outside of that, And you're right, maybe it is the director, but like, because the first ninety percent of the movie is the same note over and over. He's the only character with an arc. This is a Christmas Carol. There is one character with an arc in the Christmas Carol, in a Christmas Carol, and he doesn't have one. I think the movie had Like I kind of believe the writer to the extent of like this

That's so much worse, Dad, I want.

So much more for this movie. From this movie, Paul.

The critics disagree with you.

They do.

Scrooged has a seventy one percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a seventy one percent audience score, and an eighty percent on cherry Picks. Saw do you Like Them? Apples?

I wouldn't give this movie critically much lower than that. I would probably give it like a sixty percent. Like there's great performers in it.

It's so many great.

Performance there's so many cameos from people who I no longer know who they are. But I'm like, I think that person's famous or was famous forty years ago. I would probably give it a sixty percent. My enjoyment of it was probably a little lower than that, but I think that just again, it's just like it's Greek. To me, some of this eighties comedy. It's just Greek. I don't get it.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

Eighty feels high. I'll tell you that, Ladies, eighty feels quite high.

Paul, thanks. Women are wrong. Women are bad at judging films.

Paul said, So, women don't understand Scrooge.

Women don't understand comedy. Well, we all know women aren't funny. Well, so how dare they try to understand comedy.

If we can't take women aren't funny as just a starting place for an open conversation and an open dialogue. Erica, I don't know what we're doing here.

I think seventy percent is right. I think seventy I.

Mean, it's like, I'm not angry at it.

It's so funny. Now I didn't know this this backstory of like the writer and the star and the director all being at loggerheads about this. So I can't tell if that's putting things in a different like I'm seeing things differently now than I was five minutes ago.

Okay, sure to be.

Honest, because five minutes ago, it's like it's a pretty good movie. Yeah, it's a little one note, but it's also like it's a holiday movie for family, Like it's not supposed to be it's not supposed to be this like great masterpiece, although apparently it is. It was at one point, it was at some point. But now that I know that, that is sort of coloring my like version like what I see when I see this movie, and I'm like, I do see like Bill Murray is sort of playing the same thing kind of over and

No, I agree, because there's unlike in like a Christmas Carol where it's just like ghost ghost ghost in this movie that's ghost and then return to the real world, interact with people. Ghost returned to the real world, interact with people. So I'm like those two sections where he's we want to see something different. Yeah, and I agree. I don't think that's I mean, I think Bill Marie

Is that a line from a Christmas Carol? I haven't read a Christmas Carol since I was thirteen.

I never read a Christmas Carol. But that does not sound like Dickens.

He was the one Dickens book I liked growing up. Oh one that I read that I had that I was like, oh yeah, And unfortunately it's the first one I read, so that when I was when I encountered other Dickens later, I was like, Jesus Christ.

Your experience of Dickens is my experience with Scrooge peaked very early.

Yeah, yeah, And I was like, go back to a Christmas Carol, bro These other books are long, there's slugs. If it is a line from the original, then I like it. If it is not, then I don't like it. Okay, I can't tell you.

I'm going to go on a limb and say that Dickens didn't use the phrase odd and hysterical. That just does not sound like Charles Dickens to me at all. But I could be wrong. Prove me wrong.

It was the best of times, It was the worst of times. Should I read the synopsis?

Please do.

Frank Cross is a mean TV executive with perfect qualities of a modern day Scrooge. Before the night is over, he'll be visited by three ghosts from the past, present, and future. This person is like, guys, you know this story?

Why not? Just right? It's an adaptation of a Christmas Carols, Yes, with Bill.

Murray with like it's a comedy version of a Christmas Carol. H You're welcome.

Yeah. If you want the actual comedy version, watch them up at Christmas Carol burn burn Yep.

Burt actual synopsis for this film. A film so overstuffed with cameos that you will not even notice Miles fucking Davis is in this movie until the forty fifth time you've watched it.

Wait. I actually didn't notice Miles fucking Davis in this movie.

And I had to be I have to be honest. It's after I read the like Wikipedia for this movie, and I was like, wait, where's Miles Davis in this movie? And then I watched it last night. Yeah, he is one of the street musicians when Bill and John Murray are walking down the street. Yeah, and Bill Murray's yelling at the street musicians for playing to the tourists. Yeah, fucking Miles Davis, isn't that he's one of the musicians.

Bill Murray just knew everybody, or Richard Donner knew everybody, Like they're like, when it can be in this movie?

Sure, yeah, I bet it's Bill Murray.

Probably Bill Murray. Yeah, yeah, all right, everyone, Uh, we're gonna play some commercials now. If you don't want to listen to commercials. You can go to our Patreon Patreon dot com slash that Age Weel podcast sign up on any paid tier. You will get ad free episodes future Paul here list. I just want to let you know

We open with a jaunty chorus singing la la la la, la, la la la, as the camera zooms overhead and focuses on a wintry Christmas village. We go inside one of the sweet candy looking houses. And see Santa's workshop. Santa and missus Claus are encouraging the elves to finish making toys for all the good girls and boys.

Okay, I have to interrupt you for one second because you will appreciate this. Remember, all I knew was Carol Kane hits Bill Murray in the Face of the Toaster, and canonically, a Christmas Carol is a is a story in which like some form of magic or like exists right like other worlds whatever. So I was like, I really did not remember that Santa was a character in Scrooged, and I this was about to happen work so well on me because I bought it. I just went with it.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really fucking good. Suddenly, Santa looks out the window and sees what appears to be a missile heading straight for them. He screams, didn't come in, and the workshop is besieged by fire and bullets from an arm to militia. Dressed in black, Missus Claus goes to the gun cupboard and grabs her AK forty seven and start shooting back as Lee Majors played by Lee Majors skis in through the front door. And exclaims that he's here to save the day.

Has has a more American phrase ever been uttered on this podcast than gun cupboard?

You know, the the gun cupboard.

The thing we all have in our house, the cupboard that you where you have your china in the cupboard, we have your gun.

Yeah, two different cupboards.

Yeah.

Santa tells Lee Majors that he's been a very good boy, and we hear a voiceover proclaim that Lee Majors is starring in the Night the Reindeer Died. We cut to another commercial for another show. This one's called Robert Gulay's Old Fashioned Cajun Christmas and it is actually Robert Gulay on like a raft in the swamp, singing jingle bells while alligators circle him.

I want to be guess, I wrote down, Is it Bob Gulay's old fashions the better?

And then another commercial for an updated classic, a remake of Leave It to Beaver call, or like a Christmas special reunion special of Leave It to Beaver called Father Loves Beaver.

Okay, so these three things happened in like ninety seconds, said I am soaring above the clouds.

I'm like this is the best movie I've ever This.

Is the greatest thing I've ever seen. More Please, yes, I am sat.

All these programs and more are available on IBC's holiday schedule. Youle love it if mule, of course is spelled y U l E.

I do also want to point out that in the commercial for Father Loves Beaver, June Cleaver, you know that the kid comes in and asks for data is June Cleaver says, always probably out chasing Beaver. I was like, yes, thank you. All right, So the promo package ends and we're in the dark, foreboding office of Frank Cross, played by Bill Murray, the president of IBC, which is the television channel that we're watching. Frank demands to see the Scrooge promo. Okay, this will bother me the whole time.

I kind of love that actually, because it's like, these are not these are not like intellectuals. Yeah, these are not artists. Yeah, they don't give a fuck. It's called a Christmas carol. They're calling it.

Scrooge like it's Charles Dickens Scrooge I'm like, no, it's not. It can't be.

That's part of the joke.

So we see a promo for a live Christmas Eve production of Scrooge with all the bells and whistles, including Mary lou Reddin as Tiny.

Tim excellent no notes.

The solid gold dancer excellent no notes, which is a phrase I cannot hear without hearing Darthy's bornac go, I look like the mother of a solid gold dancer.

Every time they cut to the solid gold dancers in their string bikinis, I was so happy. It's such a dumb, funny joke and it works on me every time.

And it's hosted by Sir John Houseman's and they.

Actually got fucking John Houseman to be in this movie.

Frank's nervous employees expectantly turned to him, hoping for the best, and they do not get it. Frank caustically declares that it sucks, it's toothless, and worst of all, it's boring.

The worst thing you can be is boring.

I mean, is Frank a co host on this podcast?

Yes he is?

Maybe really, he says, now I have to kill all of you.

See that works on me, okay, because the way he goes, well, now I have to kill all of you. Yeah, that to me is Bill Murray being the best version of Bill Murray.

One of the executives Mousey and Sweet Elliott Loudermilk played by Bobcat Goldthwaite, which I fully expected to be a cameo, but this character will track throughout the movie.

I took him out of the most of the recap. He only appears basically out and then at the end because it does not work. And I love Bob Kat Gulfwaite, but this doesn't work.

So Elliott informs Frank that they've already been running the ad for a month and it's getting a strong response. People want to see the show, and Frank screams at Elliott that wanting to see it isn't enough. They have to be terrified of missing it.

So Frank has his bleakered assistant Grace played by the excellent Alfre Woodard Unimpeachable, Unimpeachable, queue up the new promo that he has cut for this program for this holiday classic.

Just a note for everyone, Paul is still fully on board with this movie at this.

Because this promo is fucking funny.

This whole sequence in the office.

So the promo starts with acid rain and ends with nuclear holocaust. It is bleak as hell, and it claims that you can't miss IBC Scrooge because quote, your life might just depend on it. Everyone in the room is stunned, and not in a good way. Yeah, grown men are physically like ill as they're leaving the room, like, I can't believe I just saw that.

I have to say, I, for me is a personal experience. This like, like, I enjoyed, I got the joke. I did get the joke. I thought it was funny. I've watched them baseball over the last couple of weeks because the met's actually went so, I saw a lot of political ads and as a result, this joke did not age well for me because it was like, oh, it's I mean, it's obviously not I haven't seen any political adds. Let me tell you something. It's not this, But it's not not this, Like.

Why are we getting political ads here? What a waste of money?

Well, a lot of house races?

Oh, okay, fair enough. I was like, I think everyone knows where New York City is going.

Yeah, it is not the movie's fault. It's one of those situations where we did not age well and the movie it's a perfectly good joke to make.

Oh because okay, so I because I have a blackout, I have not watched any political ads as everyone show, and this joke lands extremely well on me. Perfect So Elliott walks up to Frank and meekly suggests, hey, this ad will not only frighten children, but might actually turn some viewers away because it's so graphically violent, and Frank pretends to be grateful for Elliott's on his feedback, thank you. You know, I did not see that point of view until you pointed it out to me, and Elliott's like,

Once Elliott is dispatched, Frank and Grace going to his office and they go through his holiday gift list, in which most people, including Grace, Frank's brother, and Colonel Tom Parker that made me laugh, are getting towels, while a very select few are getting top of the line VC.

Okay, So for those of you under forty who are listening to this, i'd have to explain what this what this meant. In nineteen eighty seven, when this film was made, a VCR was like a DVD player. Let me go back. A DVD player is like a DVR. God, do you even remember DVRs?

I think we have to go to Netflix.

Okay.

Prior to Netflix, I actually had that literal conversation with my youngest nephew because he was watching some sitcom that's actually airing on like linear television, and he was like, have you watched the latest season of Abbot Elementary or whatever it is? And I was like yeah, and I was like, it's airing now. He's like, well, I've seen all of it. And I'm like you can't have it hasn't aired. He's like, no, I saw of it on Netflix. I was like, no, you saw last season. There's a

Aren't, because TV still exists.

Y TV does exist.

That's funny. Yeah, that's funny that kids genuinely are like but what's TV. Yeah, so I don't even know how to explain a VCR to people.

I'd also like to point out the in Frank's office, we will have a tab sighting. I like to I like to spot tab so much tab vodka.

Tabs vodka as a drink.

That tastes like heartburn to me. Okay, So, company CEO Preston Rhinelander played by Robert Mitcham, enters and tells Frank that they should start creating programming for cats and dogs because he read somewhere that cats are starting to pay attention to what they see on TV.

Look, I worked in television for a while. This is not this is not an insane conversation to have. There are TV executives who are having this thought. We're having this thought ten years ago already.

Well, and you know what, there there are channels for them now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like like this this came true.

Yeah. Can I tell you I was once watching like like Animal Planet in my house and my cat wandered in just as a lion was walking across the screen, and my cat wigged out that it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. My cat he jumped so high he hit the ceiling and then it was like he was a ghost. He was in the kitchen before I even knew what it happened.

The fuck is that? Okay? So Frank Usher's Presston away with a promise of including some mice and Scrooge to entertain the cats. And then just as Preston leaves, Bryce coming an la slimeball who calls the elevator operator Pops played by John Glover. I love John Glover this Like.

I didn't get this performance when I was a kid, Like I didn't understand what he was parodying. This is maybe my favorite performance in the movie. And I didn't know that until yesterday. Yeah, I was like, he is so so funny.

I saw John Glover and I was like, oh, John Glover, I love him, and I clicked on his Wikipedia link. I want to share a little tidbit of trivia from his Wikipedia.

For Yah, I love John Glover.

Please, no, no, this is good. This is a celebration of John Glover.

Oh thank god.

Kay. He slept with Freddie Mercury. Oh yes, he is the champion, my friends. He will rock you. He felt Bohemian Rhapsody.

He slept with Freddie Mercury. Good for you, Jungle John Glover is still with us, right, yeah, okay, good, good for you John Glover.

Yeah, all right. So Bryce enters and casually mentions to Frank that he's here to meet with Preston and that he went to college with Preston's son.

Everything about Bryce screams entitled like yuppie scumbag asshole. It is such a good performance.

It is. I'm confused at the dramaturgical decision to write an adaptation of a Christmas Carol and then put a character in the story that you're supposed to dislike more than you dislike the Ebenezer Scrooge analogue.

I think that's in a Christmas Carol. Though there are awful awful people in a Christmas Carol.

Okay, My Christmas Carol is the Muppet.

One, and Mike Christmas Carol is the immortal Charles Dickens classic.

Scrooge, the masterpiece.

I I don't care. I just don't care because his performance is so goddamn funny. Yeah, and and I don't mind him having another antagonist to work off of.

Okay, fair enough, So Frank panics and orders Grace to work late with him that night so they can get ahead of Bryce trying to take Frank's job, and Grace protests that she has to take her son to the doctor, and Frank's screams, I care like a petulant child.

I feel for Grace, Grace girl, and Bezel and Bezel money. Now what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Frank goes back into his office to find his younger brother, James, played by actual younger brother John Murray. All four of the Murray brothers are in this film, so James is waiting for Frank in his office and James invites Frank over for Christmas dinner with the rest of the family, and before he can even finish the offer, Frank's like no,

Yeah.

James looks disappointed, but not at all surprised. He's like, okay, well, the door is always open to you should you want to.

Why do you think they chose to have this relationship suite, because like in the in The Muppet One, like.

It is, it is only frame of reference.

Yeah, well, I haven't read it. I'll be honest, I've not read.

A Nephew was really nice in the book.

Nephew's really nice, but Scrooge is a dick. Yeah, I think I wonder. I'm working this out in my head as I say it, so this may not be accurate. But like, I wonder if part of the reason that he's playing a similar note the whole time is because they're starting him in this already somewhat mitigated place of like he's gonna be nice to his brother and we're gonna have La Slimeball. Come on, it's actually even worse than him. It's taking some of the teeth out of how horrible he is in early on.

I don't know, because he's he's already screamed at like four people and be like a rage monster at the office, So I don't know that he's not not terrible. We're gonna find out later that they come from a really shitty, broken household. I think the implication is that these two sort of like Frank kind of raised James, like he did his best to like protect James totally and so and I think that so. I think bringing that, like that, that backstory into it makes this make a lot more sense.

Yeah, maybe that was included in the masterpiece version of it.

Yeah, yeah, I like it. I like that he and his brother are like close.

I don't dislike it, to be clear, I just dramaturgically like questioning.

Yeah that makes sense. I again haven't read the book in a minute, but I think this is closer to the relationship and he has with his nephew in the book.

Okay, yeah, So we cut to Frank stealing an old woman's cab and flipping her off excellently.

She's like, sir, please don't take my cab, and he just gives her the middle finger through the window and she goes, you set up a bit.

I hope you're rotten now. He takes the cab to a charity dinner where he's receiving the Humanitarian of the Year award, and then he goes back to the office and he leaves the award in the cab. Once he's back to the office, he fixes himself another vodka tab. Is there something that would be grosser than a vodka tab?

I've never had a tab? What does tab taste like?

Worst diet coke?

Oh?

Is it?

Or does it have like a Doctor peppery kind of what the fuck is? Oh?

There's not, there's no there's no enigma to it.

Okay, because doctor I've had doctor Pepper once and it rewired my brain. I was like, I don't wait, what what's happening? What is this taste?

I actually like doctor Pepper tab from my memory. They discontinued it. It just can't get in twenty.

Twenty, bud if you can find it twenty twenty. Yeah, it lasted that long.

It did, holy shit, because I looked it up because I was like, can I get a tab to try to?

I have not seen a tab in the wild since fucking Reagan was president.

You want to what if we go to like a bodega in Deep Queens.

There's still a tab in the back.

There's a tab something? Yeah, yeah, there is all right. So he's he's drinking his vodka tab and he hears a knock at his office door and that quickly becomes a pounding and then an explosion as the door flies open and half the wall breaks down with it. He reaches into his desk to grab a gun that he keeps in his desk at work and his gun drawer. His gun draw doesn't have a gun covered.

At least he has a gun drawer.

He's a gun drawer, and he hides behind his desk and the dust settles, and the decaying, walking talking corpse of Lou Hayward played by John Forsyth cheerfully enters the office and starts to fix himself a drink. Why in these stories? Why does Ebenezer Scrooge or Frank Cross in this case? Why did they qualify for like the Final Warning?

Like?

Did did Lou Some or Jacob Marley make some deal with some underworld figure to be like, look, I I know I will be burning forever, but can I have one night to try to send a couple of ghosts to my friend Emmy's or to try to save him from eternal torment?

That's a good question, actually, Like I think because deep down the character is just so deeply lonely, and that's where the anger and the like the greed comes from, and that they're fundamentally good people, I guess, but you're right, that is a weir like of why this asshole, all the assholes. There's so many assholes.

Maybe just because he's rich, and like the powers that be are like, all right, well, if we're gonna put out this effort, we need to know he's going to be actually able to make change.

I mean, then send the ghost to Preston. Yeah, send the ghost to the man who writes Frank's checks, not to Frank.

It's interesting that he's not the top of the totem pole in this telling of it. Yeah, Like in the original he owns his own business and he's, you know, just a money lender, right, So like it's interesting that he has that he's beholden to someone else.

Yes, So while he's worried about his job, Yeah, he genuinely has to worry that, like, while he's having these misadventures, his job is being taken by Bryce.

Yeah, he's obviously incredibly rich, but he's it's not fuck you money like he's working.

Yeah, we never see his home. I just realize he only ever goes to the office.

Maybe that's where he lives.

That is where he lives.

He does have a gun there.

I always keep my gun in my toothbrush wherever.

He's saying, it's the American way, all right. So the mummified corpse of Lou, he's not really mumified, he's kind of decaying.

Yeah.

But by the way, when this guy entered, I was like, I bet this is why young Paul doesn't remember a single thing about this because the makeup is quite good, and there's a scene so he appears to have died in the golf course. He's dressed for golf, he's dragging a bag of clubs with him, and Frank shoots him a couple of times. Obviously doesn't hurt him, but he shoots a hole in the back of his head, out of which a golf ball falls, and then a mouse crawls out of the hole in his head and then

Yeah.

So Frank is like freaking out. He shot Lou. Lou turns around, turns to Frank and says cheers before and downs his drink, which starts to seep out of the now bullet hole ridden corpse because he's now got holes in himself. Frank starts to actually recognize him, and he turns to him and he's like, oh my god, you're Lou, and like this is when we find out that Lou is his former boss, his best friend, and currently been

More likely brought on by the tab.

To be fair, actually made me laugh this time. That's another joke that when I was a kid, I would not have understood. And now I was like, Okay, that's funny.

Vodka will kill bacteria, but tab won't.

Yeah, not Chernobyl, but vodka. We don't know what those Russians are putting in our drinks. Lou warns Frank not to waste his life like he did. My one kind of thing about this is because we do see, like even in the original Christmas Carol, we do see like Jacob Marley and then Lou Hayward in like their heyday, and they seem like pretty okay guys. Yeah, like a little scuzzy, definitely cheats on his wife, but like he's fun and he seems really nice. So he tells Frank,

Of course, he doesn't die short movie if he did. He wakes up in his office, which shows no evidence of the explosion or gunfire, and he sees the phone on his desk dialing a number all by itself. It calls Frank's old flame, Claire Phillips and gets her answering machine. And as soon as Frank here's the answering machine, he picks up and he starts to leave an urgent message. He asks her to call him back, even though they haven't spoken in fifteen years.

Yeah.

So we cut to Grace aka bob Cratchit Alfre.

Woodard totally bob Cratchit.

Yep. She's in her humble apartment which she shares with her large but loving family. This includes her sweet little son, Calvin. Calvin's the only kid that we have to be aware of.

He's the only one who's named the movie Jesus. Yeah, we don't know any of the other kid's names.

Calvin doesn't speak. Grace's mother and oldest daughter asked her if she got her bonus for Christmas, and she shows them the towel Frank Gaffer, which, by the way, isn't even like a full bath towel. This is like a hand towel.

It's yeah, it was a big ugly logo company logo on it.

Lost opportunity here, Sorry, And I'm not trying to pick on the movie. But again I don't understand, like it'll matter more later when he visits her with the ghost of Christmas present, but no one bad mouths Frank. All the people he visit aren't like fuck Frank. He sucks, oh, which is which is what affects him.

Yeah, Like, well, although doesn't this work a little better then actually that It's not like people are like I hate that guy. It's more like, oh shit, I see my what my actions have wrought without it being like I don't want people not to like me, kin.

I think it needs both. I'm okay with your right effective I don't. Maybe I'm too maybe I'm too expecting it to follow the beats of Christmas Carol closely.

You mean it's Christmas Carol version.

Correct.

You don't know what you don't understand. Guys, there's so few books that I have read that Paul hasn't that I'm gonna lord this over him. You didn't read a Christmas Carol, but can you even read?

Don't think. I don't think that this character would get that. I don't buy this character having the self awareness of looking at someone and feeling for them. He doesn't feel for other people. Why does he suddenly start feeling for people? For me to buy it, I need like a kickstarter, and then this can be also part of it, because like this is what I have wrought, It's always part of it. But he kind of needs the other part too, I think. So.

The next day at the office, Frank finds out that the dark Scrooge ad that he greenlit frightened an eighty year old woman to death. The head of marketing puts like a newspaper in front of his face. It says something like eighty year old woman scared to death. She is played by the way by Mary Ellen trainor Yeah, the excellent actress from the eighties.

I kept expecting her to be in more. I guess maybe she was almost a cameoll.

Yeah, it's a smaller role. I wonder if there was a version where they're having an affair, because there's clearly something there that, like, I think got cut out of the movie because in the Masterpiece, she's the only executive that seems to like, really actually like him agreed. So she shows his paper and Frank puts his face in his hands for a few seconds, and you think he's really upset, and then he goes, yeah, this is amazing. You can't buy this kind of publicity. He's so excited

Frank turns around and he comes face to face with Claire, played by the genuinely luminous Karen Allen, the Woman Gloves.

She is so good in this movie. I don't think I noticed it until I was until this time, because when I was a kid, I didn't really pay attention. But like, she fucking sells the shit out of this character, and it's a hard character to sell.

I agree, she's very good in it. I think the script script really does her dirty, but she's very good in it.

I mean that the source material, though, Bell is a fucking nothing character, so it's really it's hard. It's hard to make this into something, but.

I think they did, okay.

I mean it does her dirty in that, Like does she not have anyone else in her life?

For the last year, you look like, Karen Allen, You've been pining after this guy for fifteen years. This guy that That is my big objection to it. That, like you expect me to believe that this guy was ever charming enough to make Karen fucking Allen pine after him fifteen years. I had difficulty. Claire got Frank's frantic voicemail message answering machine message not a voicemail back then, it was an answering right. She came to check up on him.

This is a business mullet, this business.

We'll get a fullet. Claire keeps trying to have a real conversation with Frank, but he's interrupted every few seconds by someone on set needing something from him. So there's an animal handler that comes by and tells Frank he wasn't able to glue the tiny antlers on the head of the mouse, and Frank suggest he's staple the antlers to the mouse's head. This horrifies both the animal handler and Claire, who threatens to call the Humane Society on, Frank, Why does the.

Mouse need to have antlers in the first place?

That is an excellent question.

Why And it does not get resolved that you do see antler laden mice later in the film, in the version of Scrooge that they are producing. Okay, does not need they do not need to have antlers.

Let's let's answer this question. So if they have antlers on their head, that means the mice must be on some playing reindeer.

Yeah, they're reindeer mice.

They're reindeer mice, some kind of mutant hybrid.

But there's no Santa Claus in Scrooge. Screech does not have Santa Claus in it as as a character.

But perhaps perhaps they are. They're part of a diorama. Perhaps, Yeah, you.

Know what, Paul, this is their art. I shouldn't should just let it wash over me. I shouldn't try to analyze everything to death. What am I?

Who are you me?

But like, honestly, I was staring at it. I was like, but wait, why does the why does the mouse meat?

That did not occur to me? You're so right?

Is there a tiny Santa Claus in this version of Scrooge?

A tiny Santa Claus is played by.

Like, I don't know a pigeon, and then I google dormouse because they always refer to it as a dormouse, and I was like, do dormice have antlers? And I could hear Google laughing at me. So Frank smiles oring Leah Claire and asks, hey, are you still trying to save the world? And she smiles back at him and say it and says, are you still trying to run it? It seems like there is now about to have a real conversation when Frank spies a small child hiding on

Frank goes to lunch with Preston. He seems nervous around Preston. Preston's his boss, remember Preston ryin lander, uh, and he mimics all of his mannerisms, including cleaning his silverware, which is it's like, it's like proto pretty woman, right. He doesn't know, he doesn't know how to act in this restaurant, which is an odd choice.

Honestly, No, I think he does know how to act in a restaurant. He's just in Preston makes him nervous.

Oh you think it's not okay? Okay, Yeah, this is not.

A usual situation where Preston is like, why don't we go ahead and have lunch on Christmas Eve? And so Frank's like, what the fuck is about to happen?

He updates Preston on the live Scrooge telecast. They're planning to cut from the telecast in New York City to someone painting the Berlin Wall and the Pope blessing the entire Zulu nation in history's largest mass baptism. What is this show? I don't care for that at.

All, but is happening by the way earlier on, like when we first saw the first preview for for Scrooge, it says it starts at ten pm, first of all, Eastern Time, which what's what we're about to say makes no sense because that Berlin Wall thing is happening. It's at five in the morning. There are time and we'll we'll be simulcast from New York City, Bethlehem, hell Sinky. What are they doing in Helsinki, West Berlin, which now we find out is the Berlin Wall thing and the Great Barrier.

Read Preston suggests that Frank is spreading himself a little thin and informs Frank that he's hired Bryce Cummings to work under him, and Frank is not thrilled. Doesn't help that Bryce bounds into the restaurant and barks Pellegrino rocks twist to the waiter before sitting at their table and telling Frank he should definitely, absolutely totally completely not be threatened by him at all. I'm just here to learn, I'm here to work under you here to how Preston doesn't want you to work too hard.

We're here to work at the altar of worship with the altar of Frank. Yeah, oh my god. Frank heres a clock strike twelve pm and suddenly remembers lose warning that the first ghost would appear to him at noon today. Bryce, unfortunately, at this exact moment, pulls out an old timey pocket watch to check the time, and Frank sees the old timey watch and assumes that Bryce is the ghost, and he goes ah ha at a very bewildered Bryce and Preston, who are like, are you okay, and then immediately realizes

That guy, the waiter's also a character actor. I don't know his name.

I've seen him a million things, and he's doing his level best to like keep Frank calm. Frank excuses himself from the table. He runs across the restaurant, grabs an ice bucket from someone else's table, and throws it on the man that he thinks is on fire. At this point, it is a full special effect. The man is like

He's just looking up at Frank.

This is a joke coming up that I absolutely did not understand when I was a kid, and it always show and it bothered me that I didn't understand it. Frank apologizes to the man and says, I'm sorry, I thought you were Richard Pryor and exits out of there very quickly. In the early eighties, Richard Pryor accidentally lit himself on fire.

Yeah, all freebasing cocaine. Yeah.

I did not know that because I was seven when I first saw this movie or eight, and so, like my parents would not have turned to me and been like, so, just so you know what's happening here is this.

Is a reference. Richard Pryor's a comedian.

Richard Pryce. No I knew who Richard Pryor was.

Oh what at seven?

Yeah? See you no evil? Hear no evil right from his movies, not his stand up that is yet. No, I loved his stand up when I was seven. All in on Richard.

Pryor there's a great fall here. It's a pratt fall as he's leaving the restaurant and I enod up and they said it was real. Look, if it is a pratfall, top notch fucking pratfall. And if it isn't, good job staying in the moment so they can keep it in the movie.

Yeah.

Frank jumps into the first cab he sees, even though it just hit another cab. He's like, just get me the fuck out of here, and is confronted by the somewhat worse for where ghost of Chris Smith's past, played by David Johansson.

I love this performance.

I one hundred percent agree with you. We are on the same boat.

He is the best of the ghosts, honestly. Yeah, honestly, in a film where Carol Kane is another one of the ghosts. Yeah, David Johansson still gets the most laughs out of me.

I agree with that. He's kind of odd looking dude anyway, but like they're really like he has pointy eaters here, and like he looks like a satyr or something like that. Like he's otherworldly.

Good actor, right, he's for those of you who don't know he's a musician. He's in the New York Dolls. He's a punk legend.

Yeah.

It always shocks me when when a musician is just a good.

Actor, there's good they could just also act.

Yeah they can also remember Tom Waits, Oh yeah in Dracula being fucking great. Collect Tom Waits can act, so can David Johansson.

So he's driving the cab and the Ghost of Christmas Past doesn't care about traffic lights, or speed limits or general safety at all, and Frank is a terrifying ride through the streets of Manhattan until they go through a cloud of smoke and up on a festive suburban street in nineteen fifty five.

So, okay, we are in nineteen fifty five. They pull up to Frank's childhood home and we see that it's the only one on the street that isn't decorated for Christmas. Yeah, Frank insists he's not going to get all blubbery and sentimental just because he's about to see his parents. And David Johanson again as the Ghost to Christmas Pass, is like, you say that now, but when Attila the Hunt saw his mother na yahgro Foles, he points to his eyes the.

Accent really is I presume it's just his accent, but it is perfect, so.

So fucking Brooklyn, deep Gravelly Brooklyn. They go inside and Frank is confronted by his very sad and lonely childhood, with a silently suffering mother and a very cruel father. Little Frank's only enjoyment comes from watching television, and when Frank sees his mother wishing four year old him Merry Christmas, Frankie Angel and then going to bed, Big Frank starts to weep. He can't, he can't control it. As they exit the house, he tells the ghost of Christmas Past

Yeah, one of them was the Little House in the Prairie.

He goes, give me the homecoming episode of Little home Coming episode of Little House, and Frank realizes, oh shit, my childhood really was dog shit.

Yeah. Frank demands that the ghosts take him to his office, and the ghost obliges. We cut to IBC headquarters in nineteen sixty eight, so we have jumped ahead thirteen years. Frank is now, I guess eighteen.

That will make me laugh every time.

I did not realize that.

Do the math. Frank is eighteen looks like Bill Murray and also, weirdly, Bill Mury just looks old in this scene anyway.

Because he has They should have given him a wig. A wig probably would have. It would have looked stupid anyway, But like he has a widow's peak yeah, like and a full mullet like. Uh. It is a swinging office holiday party, despite the fact that his coworkers are drinking and dancing and getting up to all kinds of sixtyes shenanigans.

There's a lady xeroxing her button then handing it out like Christmas cards to the rest of the queen. I fucking love this woman.

Frank doesn't stop working long enough to join the party and lou the Jacob Marley analog form earlier he's alive, he's young. He pulls young Frank aside and he tells him to enjoy himself. Very odd to make the Jacob Marley analog and the fs A wig like those are different characters in the Christmas Carol and they've they have married them here, which speak to your point of like this.

Guy seems like he was fine, yes, really sweet.

Actually why not just make that different person anyway, it doesn't matter. Frank boils in the party, and he even turns down the advances of a very friendly coworker.

Was this the one, Tina? It's the same woman butt seroxing her button and like being like, here, Merry Christmas.

Xeroxing your butt was how you could tell someone you were DTF in nineteen sixteen, it was.

It's so excellent. Yeah, present day Frank follows young Frank eighteen year old.

Frank eighteen year old. That actually is the funniest thing in the now that I know he's supposed to be eighteen, because in my head I was like, oh, he's twenty five, which is already which is still ridiculous. But you're like, okay, he's an adults whatever, Like you're not going to date they couldn't d agent back then, and fine, but eighteen.

He should have leaned into it and just had Frank like like Bill Murray be like, but I'm.

Eighteen, I couldn't have any drink anything to drink. I'm not a of age yet.

So young Frank has his first encounter with Claire. She accidentally hits him with the door as she's exiting a shop and he falls to the sidewalk and she's like, are you okay? And they have a meet cute and she nicknames him Lumpy because he's gonna have a big lump on his head the next day from where he hit the sidewalk, and the two of them basically fall in love at first sight.

This scene has a line that I love in this movie. She's walking away and like, you know, they're doing the doing the meat Joe Black thing where you're hoping one of them get hit by a car, but they don't. And he goes, would you like to go to a Christmas party that's going on right now? And she looks back with the big caroen Alan smile and she goes not really relatable, very relatable.

So the Ghost of Christmas Pass takes Frank to Christmas Eve, nineteen sixty nine. One year later, nineteen year old Frank now Clara and Frank are living together in a tiny apartment in the village, and they are very happy and in love. These are the salad days, the halcyon days of your They open presents and he gives her a set of knives, which is I think that I didn't get this when I was a kid, but I'm getting it now. In the scene with his parents, his dad

She's like, I love it.

It's nice.

That does make it. I didn't get because I that was a moment where I was like, I feel like I'm missing something. But now that you say it makes sense.

It's not made explicit in the movie. I'm doing a little bit of work and I've seen the movie a lot, and I was like, actually, that makes a lot of sense. He's bad at giving gifts, even in the future.

Fucking towels come on, right, VCR is a good gift in ninet eighty eight.

That's a great gift. But like even for a cheap gift, like just flowers, Just send flowers. Man, if you're not like, what are you.

Doing, send me the twenty bucks.

Yeah, I have a gift card. So he gives her a set of knives, and she gives him a copy of the Kama Sutra. It's very cute, and he starts looking through it and he goes, done that, done that, done that, did that twice, and she's laughing, and then he goes, look, it says here that if you touch a woman behind her neck a certain way, she'll start to bark like a dog. And she plays along and she's like, she starts to pant, and the camera pans out of the apartments. You don't see anymore. But he's like,

Or less weird than the Donald Duck themed for play. We're pretty sure Gilda Radner and Gen Wilder.

Ha way less weird. I was into this. He used to look like they're having a good time. I get I followed them on the journey of where they got to where they're going, and donkey style is a thing. Sure, So yes, this all.

Makes Puppy play is a whole thing going on right now.

Perfect fucking sense to me.

So the Ghost takes Frank to Christmas Eve nineteen seventy one, where young Frank is playing a giant dog on a kid's TV show. What was Frank's career path to go from the.

Dog themed foreplay to this is just what a perfect cut? Yeah, Frank's career is insane.

It's insane.

He goes from the mailroom co hosting a kid's.

Show to president president of the IBC. Lou invites Frank and Claire out to dinner that night, and Frank accepts the invite without hesitation, And when Claire tells him they can't have dinner with Lou, they have a tradition of spending Christmas Eve with their best friends. Frank calls her selfish for not thinking about his career and putting her needs before his Okay.

Frank is wrong. Frank is wrong, but Claire calls it a tradition. Yeah, two years ago they were not spending dinner, they were not spending Christmas Eve with those friends. They were having dog themed sets in their apartment. Good for them. So they spent last year with their best friends and now this year. Girl, that's not a tradition. It has to happen at least three years in a row for it to become a tradition.

I get it.

Frank's being a dick, but you can't call it a tradition. I'm I'm just gonna put that out there.

I'm not completely not on his side for this, honestly. Yeah, Like, I mean, don't be a dick about it, but just be like, this is a really important thing for me in my career. And it's funny because because the movie's jumping around, we obviously don't get to see if, like

Well, it is a low key argument's key argument. Yeah, and you live together. Fine, she can go spend Christmas Eve with her friends, you go to dinner like it's not you're not going to see each other in three hours.

Yeah. Or also you could just say, you go ahead, I have to go to this meeting. This could be really big. I'll come as soon as I can. Yeah, And that should be fine.

It should be fine. There are little clues in this scene that Frank has changed, so like at one point some guy comes up to him like on the set like a pa and hands him a towel and Frank goes, thanks, babe. But I think you're right. There needs to have been one more step, yeah, in the middle between that last scene and this scene, because I'm like, this broke up for no reason.

I think in the masterpiece that was there. Yeah, I think, well, I mean I think the movie to me, I think a lot of my issues in the movie, and a lot of the way you enjoy it, I think partially is because you've seen it so much you can track like those little bits and pieces where if you only watch it once, there's so much moving and changing that I'm like, I just feel like I'm running to try to keep up with the movie. And then the emotional art doesn't work because I'm like, but wait, where am I?

No, he's already doing the dog show.

Yeah, so fifteen years she will pine for this man who she last.

Saw wearing a giant dog costume.

I look, from what we know of their sex, maybe you know what, maybe maybe he pitched because the show is called Frisbee right, uh huh, maybe he pitched Frisbee based on their sexcapades.

Yeah, the Frisbee Show is Frisbee Show, low key like like, yeah, uh.

They've had some fun in that costume.

I was gonna say, in the early in the late seventies, it would have been very hard to find a man who's willing to dress up as a dog for you. Yeah, and she found him and now she's losing him.

She's losing him.

So the ghost of Christmas past abandons Frank at the TV station, and Frank suddenly finds himself in the present day. He's at the rehearsal for Scrooge. It's the scene where Belle breaks up with Ebenezer and tells him that she hopes he'll be happy with the path that he has chosen, and Frank goes, I am happy with the path I've chosen,

Yeah, not a good bet to be. Like, I'm going to go to that homeless shelter you say, you run, and I'm gonna find all the selfish things that you're doing there. That's that's good. That's not gonna have a high success.

Right then it's so like him and the actress turn to him and they're like, are you crazy, what are you doing?

Yeah, So Frank rants all the way to Operation Rescue, and he's ranting about how he's not lonely, and he's never been lonely, well except maybe on his birthdays and on the weekends, and maybe on sunsets. I'm lonely, but not usually. Usually I'm very not lonely. One of Claire's coworkers assumes that Frank is there for help and rushes over the foot of blanket.

Around him walked in, ranting like a lunatic. She goes, oh, no, we got another one.

We we got a live one. Frank is approached by three very friendly residents of Operation Rescue. One of them is from Goonies.

Oh I forgot that actresses Mama Anne Ramsey. Yes, yes, well I believe the person playing her the other the other man is her husband. Oh it's so it's a real life husband wife Parry.

That's cute. And they tell him that he's Richard Burton.

They think he looks like Richard Burton. And I had to pause the movie. And I didn't get any of this when I was a kid at all. I was this all went super over my head. I'm like, why are they calling him Dick. Why is he suddenly doing this. I don't understand who's Liz he keeps referring to. And now, as an adult watching this movie, I was like, oh. And then I was like, he doesn't look anything like

There's not not a resemblance there.

And then I realized, well, Richard Burton wasn't as good looking as I thought he was fair. Claire approaches and Frank hugs her and tells her that he's been thinking about the past and about some of the decisions that he has made and and some of his regrets. And Claire's eyes light up at that at that last.

Word, and she's she's like gun, and she's.

I brought the caller whip it whippod.

That's about the name of a dog read and a sex act and.

A sex act. It's perfect. And she tells him, look, it's the good thing about is it's never too late to change and fix the situation. And he tells her, I want to take you out to dinner tonight, and she says yes, and just as they're about to like run off into the sunset together. Two of her volunteers approach and there are some crisis at work. This is Christmas Eve. First of all, one of the fuses has blown. Okay, that's not a crisis. She'll show this woman where the

Frank goes back to work, where they're rehearsing a scene in which Scrooge is cruel to a group of homeless children. In Frank's absence, Bryce has taken over running the production and uh, oh, he's good at.

It, galling, how dare he? Hy dare he? He's actually very good at it.

Bryce calls a dinner break and everyone leaves set. Frank is left alone, and then suddenly a spotlight appears and illuminates the very ditsy and sweet ghost of Christmas Present, played by Carol Caine, the Great Carol Cane. Yep, she's dressed like a ballerina in a sugar plum fairy costume, and the que card next to her reads the ball breaker sweet, I didn't see that que card. That's funny. Frank tries to get tough with her, but it turns out she's not easy to push around. She kicks him

My guess is those those shoes.

Have some metal in them. And then she slaps him in the face when he doesn't do as she says. I will say this every time Carol can hit Bill Murray. I left every single time.

The joke that she is this like sweet little angel fairy, but then like when he fucks with her, she just hits it really hard. Excellent, excellent.

She asks him to close your eyes, and once they're closed, she sprinkles fairy dust on him and then punches him in the face to bring him to their first destination, which is Harlem.

The way she says it like always makes me smile. She goes Harlo. So the two of them stand on Grace's fire escape and watch as Grace comes home to pick up her oldest daughter and take the oldest who again just doesn't get named sorry Grace Junior and Calvin to the screwge set. That's how overworked Grace is. This

You remember her wearing black for a year.

He's like, yeah, but I just thought it was fashion. Everyone was wearing black.

Oh man, oh man. This guy is not great. So the Ghost of Christmas Present gives Frank a hard right hook and he lands in his brother's house and right into james Christmas Eve party where he was invited. The group is playing trivial Pursuit and James and his wife Wendy played by Wendy Malick, and she is.

So good because she gets almost absolutely nothing to do in this film, and yet she elicited tears from me at one point, like that's how fucking good Wendy Malick is.

There was there was this viral tweet going around this past month or something about like at least your top five MALEIX about the about Terrence Malick the filmmaker. I was like, the best Malick is Wendy.

Wendy is a genius.

Let's just let's just establish one thing right now. Okay, So James and Wendy keep missing TV questions like what was the name of the boat that took them to Gilligan's Island? Which I have to say, even I know that, and I have quite literally never seen an episode of Gilligan's Island, So people who are adults in xty eighty eight should definitely know the answer to this.

I was thinking about this again. I'm actually going a little too deep, much deeper than this movie needs me too. But I was like, the fact that James doesn't have the TV, like didn't watch Obsession that Frank does tells me that James had a better childhood. I think that's because of Frank. James is actually able to go outside and be a kid.

This was all in the masterpiece.

In the mastery, I honestly like, there's something there.

Nothing, nothing, None of the connections that you have made once you had made them, because you've seen the movie fifteen times and tell me about them ring untrue to me. Like it's just like I couldn't catch that on one viewing. No, of course not. Okay, So when details James to open Frank's gift to see if it's as lame as the one he got the year before, which was an IBC shower.

Curtain, good gravy, Frank, move out.

Of the bathroom. Forgive what's actually gold plated toilet plunger.

I mean, honestly, not the twelve piece knife set he gave he gave the girlfriend earlier, years earlier. That would be fine. Gives bad that I would I'd be very happy with a twelve piece knife set.

Yep. It turns out that Grace went rogue and sent James a VCR instead of a towel, and James is clearly touched. Remember what we told you kids, VCR ninty eighty eight. That's a good gift.

I'm trying to think of what the equivalent would be today, like a car an iPad. Yeah, an iPhone, an iPhone, that's that's the equivalent today, punting edge technology, the newest iPhone.

Yeah. So James is clearly touched by this gift. He proposes a toast to his big brother, who he wishes was there that night, and Frank is so moved by this that he decides not to fire Grace for her in subordination. Ah. This is, by the way, right after in the previous scene he was like, oh, she might be due for a raise. Like he's still pingpong all over the place. Yeah.

The Ghost of Christmas Present clocks Frank on the head with a toaster by one memory in Paul's favorite moment in the film, and sends him to a frozen gutter underneath the city streets like genuinely Frozener's icicles.

Everywhere it looks it looks like a scene set from Batman Returns.

One hundred percent. So now she's disappeared. She's left him the way the ghosts of Chris's past left him, and Frank is left alone with the frozen corpse of one of the men that he met that day at Operation Rescue. How fast does it take for someone to freeze to say yep, well, because this I can't tell you enough. This is like frozen corpse, blue ice.

This is corpsic.

This is a corpsicle. Also, how cold is it in New York City? Because Frank doesn't even.

Have a coat on and you can't see his breath. So what's going on?

What's going on? I don't mean to make fun. This is actually a real bummer of a scene. So the man is his name is Herman and he's played by Michael J. Pollard in like truly excellent casting because Michael J. Pollard is one of those eighties character actors that when you see his face you just want to give him a hug. He has a kind, kind face, just the

IBZ, he's disoriented.

Fair, Yeah, fair, He just saw a fucking corpse.

And has been hit in the face or the balls seven to ten times by a mystical being. He's ushered off the set by Grace and Bryce, who suggests that maybe Frank should steer clear of the set for the rest of the night, and Grace is about to take Frank to his office when he encounters the actor dressed as the Ghost of Christmas Future for Scrooge. Yeah right, so this is not the Scrooged Ghost of Christmas Future. This is the Scrooge Ghost of Christmas Future. He freaks out,

We must be our right, it's peachy thirteen.

Wow. Is there no other curse? No, he curses.

There is no other cursing.

Really, this is it.

There might be like a shit at some point, but that's it.

Wow, all right. Bryce ushers the actor playing the ghost away from Frank and tells Grace to take this lunatic to his office.

Back on set, they are three minutes to air, and we see Mary lou Retton in her Tiny Tim costume, toss away her crutches, practice her tumbling pass and pronouncing God bless us everyone. Calvin watches her. Earlier in the movie, we saw Calvin watch an original version of a Christmas Carol, like the one from the fifties, and he saw the moment where Tiny Tim says God bless us everyone. So it's kind of in Calvin's head this line.

Frank goes to his office. He fixes himself an extra large vodka tab. Yep, it's clear there's so little tab and it's just vodka on ice with a splash of tab. Yeap. He opens his Christmas present from James and it's a handmade photo frame with a picture of them as kids in it, and the inscription reads to Frank the best brother a guy ever had, and Frank can barely contain tears as he downs his drink. He sits with it. Now, as I was watching this, this came back to me.

This is the only other thing in the movie, I bet because this is scary that I was like.

Wait, I remember that, which I think this is probably the moment that I was really like, because I did watch the whole movie, because I saw Carol Kane's at that point, you're not going to watch Kenny. Yeah, this I remembered as soon as it started. I was like, Oh, this scared the shit of me as a kid.

Yeah, I actually have a memory of seeing this as a kid and being like, oh, that's spooky.

Frank is sitting with his back to the tower of TV screens in his office and he doesn't see the real Ghost of Christmas Future take over every TV and it starts to reach its bony hand out, and then we cut to the Ghost of Christmas Futures perspective and we see its hand reaching out to grab Frank. So an actual, like physical prop is reaching out to someundly grab Frank. Yeah, just as it's about to grab him. A very drunk elliot, remember Elliott, Bobcat Golden Wait, Bob.

I have cut him out. The movie has been returning to Elliott periodically. He has been getting progressively more and more drunk.

Elliott bursts into his office. He's very drunk. He has a shotgun and he says, Honey, I'm home. I'm not even gonna attempt to try to do the Bobcat Goldwate for us. I can't do it hard voice, and he tries to kill Frank. Frank underreacts.

They do this like they genuinely do like a bugs Bunny moment here. Yeah, Like he's like the elliot is bugs Bunny, and he's he's doing like a voice, and there's there's I feel like there's like a sound cue here that's like the patter of feet, like as Frank runs away. Really I'm making that up.

I didn't notice it.

If I might be there, I know the gunshot sound like pew. It's straight out of Looney Tunes. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you right now, this does not age well. It doesn't and it does not work. I hate this part of the movie.

This was my biggest problem with the movie.

Why Paul this just like you said, I can't I can't understand why it's so funny. It's so funny to watch someone run around in office with a shotgun.

Frank runs through the office. He tries to convince Elliott that he's had a very bad day. Not the tactic you want to use. Not when when the drunk man that you fired, who we find out in the rest of the movie, like got his wife threw out of the house, he's been on the street the whole night, and like when he comes in, don't be like I've had a worse day than you. I don't have time try to try to empathize anyway.

Money at the problem.

Elliott counters with his own bad day. He lost his job, his wife left him, he took their daughter with her, and Frank manages to escape into the elevator where the real ghost of Christmas Future is and finally has Frank all to himself.

The ghost of Christmas Future in this film, the real one has a screen for a face. It is a television screen, and it's wearing this long black cloak. And I think I said this earlier, but like the cloak opens up and a torso is made of tortured souls screaming to get out. It is so creepy.

It's creepy.

It's excellent. And Frank still isn't sure it's the real ghost. He still thinks maybe is part of the production. And he goes he looks at the tortured souls and he goes like, yeah, we're gonna get letters about that.

That was funny.

That's this is a lot, This is too much. Maybe, so the ghost takes Frank. All the other flashbacks had like a veneer of realism to them. Yeah, that's not what's happening with the future. The future is this expressionistic, dystopian place. Suddenly Frank is in like a hallway that's tilted. It's a totally different visual language from the rest of this film, right, and this one almost looks sci fi. Yeah, it looks like sci fi.

It does.

Yeah. And he sees this dystopian future where Calvin is locked in a padded cell forever and Grace comes to visit him and Calvin doesn't even acknowledge her. And Claire has decided to take Frank's advice and is now this like awful cruel unfeeling person, and like she's sitting with her girlfriends in this high society cafe and there's like a group of kids begging for money and food and she goes, oh, look at those urchins. Send them away.

Karen Allen looks amazing in this.

So creepy in this scene because like all her friends sitting around the table are it all. It's all done in like black and white, and all of her friends are like in normal makeup for a black and white scene, and she is in like pancake white makeup and like deep eyeliner. And then he sees James and Wendy putting his own body in a crematate because there's no funeral for someone as unloved as Frank. It's just James and Wendy burning Frank's body.

This is not a criticism, This is a genuine question. The movie seems to propose that, like being cremated is in some way like worse than being buried. I didn't get that, Like, is it just because it's like no one's spending the money on you to actually bury it. No one wants to even Oh.

I didn't think anything of that. I genuinely thought it was just a cool visual effect of like what's gonna happen, Like cooler than being buried alive.

Sure, okay, yes I was. I was trying to parse what was going on because it's.

Also burning in hell, like you're now going to burn in the fires of hell, right, Like that's the that's.

What they're trying to do. But what made me laugh about it was the fact that he's still in a coffin, and I'm like, famously expensive. You don't want to buy the cough if you're going to be cremated, Yeah, yeah, just going going nude.

I don't think they would put a coffin in a crematorium.

That's seems like wasted energy.

You're gonna melt a lot of steel there. That's not good. This is so silly, But like the my my other favorite Christmas Carol is the Disney one. I love the Disney one with Scrooge McDuck and there is a burning in Hell like sequence in that one where the ghost of Christmas Future grabs him and throws him in his grave and then he's like covered in flames. I think that's what it is. It's the visual of him literally burning in hell for eternity.

Now, no, no, I totally agree, like I got that that that because his reaction is a little I mean, he's like, I died. I died. I'm like spoiler alert, everybody's gonna die.

Because he walks in and he only sees Wendy first, and he goes, oh, no, James's funeral. He's so sad. And then James walks up and he's like, oh okay, so wait a minute, wait a minute. If James is here, who the fuck is in the box?

What's the box?

What's is the box? So Frank tries to stop the cremation, screaming at his brother that he's still alive. These two actors are nailing it. John Murray and Wendy Mallick are weeping at Frank's cremation, and this is when when Wendy Malick gets me, I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna cry. And suddenly Frank is inside the coffin and he's banging at the coffin door like let me out. Let me out. I want to live. I want to live, and the flames start to hit his feet and he

The IBS logo is just it. It's just it's just a toilet, but it's like reaching out to hug you circular part like you're home.

You're homegirl, You're safe here, just sit down, You're safe. It's actually a logo of the sun. And he goes up to the wall and kiss it and he goes, I never thought i'd see the sun again. Excellent.

I'm sorry, I'm thinking about toilets in the eighties. Now do you remember the toilets that had like the shag, the padded the padded toilets.

Wait, it was there, like shag, wasn't there? I kind of as soon as you said that that felt so correct to me.

Maybe I could be having a fugue state member.

Both remembering it like shag carpeting.

On the toilet, see the toilets, which must have been.

The most disgusting thing thing. I do remember the padded toilet seats, The padded.

Toilet seats, I remember. But the padded toilet seats are clean. You can wipe them down.

Yeah, there's not.

It's not fabric just.

It literally was like shag carpeting on a toilet. I have a vivid memory. I think. I don't think this is a mass delusion that you and I are having. I think this is to look it up. Pause, pause here for a moment. Hallelujah chorus. Okay, we're back. Not only was it a thing in the eighties, but Paul, yeah, you could currently buy it right now at Walmart.

No, we were stupid in the eighties. We didn't know.

Yeah, like there are other stores where they only sell the cover is shag like a bed bath and Beyond will have that shag cover, yeah, which is already I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

But but my flesh is not going.

On there, but on it at Walmart and it's it's on sale clearance.

You guys, I can't imagine why.

You can buy machine washable, thank god God, toilet covers that are basically shag carpeting.

So what do you buy like twenty of them? After every bathroom use, you have to you have to put it in the in.

The in the washer. I should dishwasher iw.

Thing to get soap on it. Frankly, you have deep.

Fucking burn it. Fuzzy toilet seat covers apparently a huge thing in the seventies and eighties. Pinterest has a whole story about it.

Oh God, we were discussing. I had forgotten them until I started thinking about a warm, comforting toilet seat.

I had totally and Okay, the fact that we both remember it means at some point in our lives.

We both used them.

We parked our asses on someone's fuzzy, shag carpeted toilet. Truly outdated bathroom decor. Shag carpeting toilet seat covers, and then a whole Reddit thing that's like what sort of monster put a shack crpet? Gross? Now I'm just going down the rabbit hole of like fur toilet lid cover I'm sorry, excuse me. Fur Paul Paul, currently on sale Walmart once again, because this is a dystopian version of America.

Look at it.

The fact that it's seven dollars less than seven dollars, and it's got like maybe a cat on it. There's a picture of a cat. Burn it down, burn it, just burn it down. Oh my god, Oh my god. There's a checkerboard, one with a dog's keboard, one with a dog.

Okay, So Frank is running through his office. He's sounding I never thought i'd see the sun again. I'm alive, I'm alive, and Elliott points his gun right at Frank. He actually gets the barrel in Frank's mouth, and he says not for long, but Frank is too jazzed up to care. He embraces Elliott, and Elliott is so freaked out by Frank's turn around that he lets Frank take the gun and drop it on the floor. Another shot fires off.

Yeah, this is the one that sounds like Looney Tunes.

Frank grabs Elliott and spins him around while telling him that he's promoting him to VP of Programming at double his former salary. It's the same shot of Kate and Leo and when they're dancing in Titanic. Elliott asks what happened to Frank, and Frank says that the Jews taught him a great word, schmuck. I was a schmuck, but I'm not gonna be one any longer. And Frank swings Elliott into the elevator. He grabs the shotgun and he says, we're gonna have some fun.

Okay, okay, right, this is right. Buckle up, kids, because there's some stuff. If you haven't seen this movie in a while, you probably have forgotten this plotline like I did. Does not age well. Yes, trigger warning in all senses. Cut to the final act in Scrooge in Charles Dickens Immortal Classic Scrooge. I really wish we'd cut to the Great Barrier.

Reef for a moment, but oh well would I would just love to know why?

What? What? Like?

Like is it a shark wearing a the Santa hat was happening? So we cut to the final act of Scrooge. Ebenezer is tossing a coin to a lad on the street. The camera follows the coin as it falls, but instead of the actor playing the lad catching it, Frank runs onto the set and grabs it before the actor can. We cut to the control booth, where everyone is in shock that Frank has disrupted the show. What the fuck is happening? This is live everyone, of course, except for Bryce,

Like, party, I have fun.

We told you to have fun. And you'll see people crying in the in the country Hill. Amy Hill is an actor in the scene she's she's an extra in this movie, and there's a moment where they cut to Amy Hill and she's weeping and pretending to dance because she's being told to dance by a man holding a shotgun. And I'm like, what part of this do you think

Eighty eight, Yeah, I don't. I'm like, because I was trying to figure out what the what the gag was supposed to be, and I was like, is it just supposed to be so ludicrous.

Because it's Bob cackles that squird voice that he does, and he's like four feet eight tall tall.

Yeah, no one can think Bobcat Goldthwait is actually scary or anything. But and look, I think it's obviously made worse by what has happened in the forty years since this movie.

But if they hadn't had her crying and like, yeah, being genuinely frightened, that's that's the unforced error.

Yes, exactly. The reactions of the people around him in the booth are taking it seriously as opposed to being like, ugh, fine.

We keep the camera on him. Yeah, it does not age well. It is so unappealing. It is so not funny. I wish they'd cut all of this out of the movie. You can also cut all of Elliott's other stuff out. I hate to say it, but like it is like old timey, like hobo imagery with Elliott. Throughout the rest of the movie, they keep cutting to him and he's like drinking a bottle of scotch out of a bag on a street corner and he's got like fingerless gloves on all of a sudden, and you're like he got

And I would have loved it if they had taken the time given to him and given it to Grace instead and built up that side of the story so we can have a better like not necessarily a better like happier relationship, but like a stronger feel of the relationship between Grace and Frank, like yeah, you know, like or see him grow closer to Calvin. All of this

Those people.

Every hotel I worked at, every restaurant I worked at, they were all open on Christmas Eve. Every every play on broad it has a Christmas Eve performance. Like it's fine but anyway, he pulls the photo that James gave him and tells the audience at home that he has the best brother in the world. And we see James and his friend watching on TV and they're touched by Frank's speech, and Frank then confesses to James that he gave him a towel, not a VCR. Grace did that.

Guy who wrote the movie is her husband. Again, like I want to give her a moment here.

But dramaturgically, I have no idea like she should she'd be like, oh yeah, or like I mean, potentially she's she's the one in that scene earlier who's like harsher on him right, like it's not that bad. But she's like, oh, he gave you a shower curtain last year, which is fair fair criticism.

And like, I hope my family likes their fuzzy toilet sea covers they're all getting for Christmas this year.

What a great stocking stuff.

The IBS logo getting that for all of my nephews, all of my colleagues enjoy.

Yeah, Like, hello, Wendy, I'm also sorry that I'd never gotten a chance to spend time with you. You seem lovely or something something like that.

This is how good Wendy Malick is, though oh yeah, because you feel it. I actually think Bill Murray is great in this moment too. I think this, to me is the part of the movie where Bill Murray is a very very effective actor.

Here's my thing. Actually, having gone through this movie with you as much as we have at this point, I think if I watched it a couple more times, I think I would get to the point you're at with it, because I think the story is better and more arced than I gave it credit for upon my viewing of it,

I was like getting teary eyed watching I'll be honest, I was not. We cut back to the control room Boo. Preston calls and demands to speak to the idiot who allowed Frank to hijack the show. Elliott answers the call and says Bryce is responsible, but he can't come to the phone right now because he's tied up, and the camera pans over to Bryce, who was literally tied to

And I doubt that this was the case. But it's weird that you've made the joke about the one actually gay actor in the cast.

Is he the only gay actor?

Well, the only I guess only actor I know of in the cast. It's gad Yeah.

Now I'm like panning through the cast.

I think I bet Karen Allen's bisexual.

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what what Michael J. Pollard told you is. Back on set, Frank orders champagne for everyone. Buddy, it is eleven five on Christmas Eve? What shop is open? He's like, everyone relaxed, it's a party, and they y'all just start to kind of vibe.

On the set.

He kisses one of the solid gold dancers because she's standing under a missletoe. And that's just the rules, that's the laws, the federal law. Federal law declares, I must kiss this woman. And to be clear, the solid gold dancer is into it. She grabs it, She grabs Frank's tie, She pulls him to her and like gives him a good one.

Right, yep. Look, if you're a solid gold dancer and a TV executive starts doing that, and he's not he's not being gross, to be clear, he's being actually kind of sweet. Go for it, see what you can get so we can get out of it.

This according to this movie, this guy is irresistible.

Yeah, so Karen Allen waited for him for fifteen years for.

That irresistible Bill Murray Dick.

No one else would do the German shepherd with her. That's when he gets into a shepherd's outfit and he talks like he talks in a German accent, and he crooks her with a crook.

Oh, the shepherd's crook. The shepherd st no what no one else would do? The docks and bigger what's that? That's when you go down to the docks.

And fuck, no one else would do the hot dog with her?

Yeah, the hot dog? What's that?

Poll? That's that's when that's when you take hot dog fingers. Remember from everywhere to all it was hot dog fingers and you just do what comes naturally.

Yeah, we don't have to if we have to describe it. You you're doing not understand, you're doing hot fingers wrong. No one else is going to do the toy poodle with him.

Oh of course, but what is the toy poodle again?

The toy poodle is when you the toy poodles when you dress up like Sherry from Lamb Chop and prance around the living room. Okay, So anyway, he kisses one of the solid Gold dancers and then he declares to the world, but that kiss was good, but it wasn't great Burns Gold Dancer. She's standing right there.

Someone isn't on the Terry gar and Goldie Hawn track. Son of a Bitch, Jennifer Lopez.

He doesn't mean it as a burn, but it does come across as a burn. He says, it really was only one great kiss in my life, only one great and that was Claire. And he tells Claire that he still loves her and he wants her back. In fact, he's hoping that they could continue their work through the Kama Sutra that they started years ago. He starts to describe a move where they twine around each other like snakes, and everyone's.

Like, wooooooo, we see Claire and all the folks at Operation Rescue watching on TV.

Zero chance that would happen, Yeah, zero chance. The people at this shelter are like, can we watch Scrooge? Also, just imagine your ex boyfriend's whole thing.

Your ex boyfriend is on TV, and this is when TV was big, so.

Like literally, like, you know, this is the super Bowl.

Two hundred million people are watching your boyfriend describe sex acts that you did with him fifteen years ago when you were young in limber. You can't do that anymore. You can't do the Doberman pincher anymore, which is well, it's a lot of pinching, and you bruise like a peach. You bruise like a peach now, So everyone else applauds. When Frank declares his love for her and Claire rushes outside. She takes the first taxi she can find, and who's

Frank leads the casting crew of Scrooge in a singalong of Deck the Halls and then tells the audience at home, now this is this is kind of a crazy moment in this movie. He starts to like give a speech to the audience at home. Bill Murray gets really worked up while while giving this speech. He gets he gets really choked up. His voice cracks, and I fully believe him.

Claire makes it to the set and Frank picks her up and drags her in front of the camera and says, the whole world, Claire, Claire, the whole world, and he kisses her and says and they lived happily ever after, and Claire smiles and kisses him back, and then Erica writes here and she's not wrong. The movie remembers that it has Alfre Woodard in it, and she starts to sing along and put a little Love in your Heart so good, which was a we heard it on a radio in an earlier.

Scene and in her apartment, yeah earlier.

Yeah. Frank looks up. He sees all three ghosts and lou plus the ghost of herman, singing and clapping along with everyone else, and we see everyone in the trol booth and Grace's family and the folks Operation Rescue and Preston and his wife all sing along to the song. My favorite was the cut to John Houseman who's not clapping on the beach.

Who's like, I've never heard this before.

What's going on?

What's happening? So everyone is singing along? And then I don't think I said this earlier. Actually, when you asked me when I first saw this film, I think I said I saw it young. Yeah, I saw this movie in the theater. Oh, like, I have a very vivid memory of seeing this movie in the theater with my parents and my brother because of what is about to happen next. Gotcha Bill Murray, not Frank Cross, Bill Murray.

It's totally Bill Murray. Yeah.

Walks over to the camera and breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience in the movie theater sing along as well. He's like, put a little love in your heart. Come on, everybody's saying. And then he's like, how about just this side of the theater And then he points to the left side and he goes, okay, no, no, no, no,

Like, it's so funny that like, because to be clear, I knew this is not what was happening, but because of the world today, when he said no, the real men, I went, I like recoiled. No, that sucks, but it's not his fault.

It was a perfect gag because I'm telling you it happened in my theater where he goes, okay, just the men and no one sang, and then when he was like the real men, and then then yeah, some of the men were like, okay, we'll sing and I and and.

I was like I literally had the thought of like, well, what's I don't get the joke because those words have been so weaponized, weaponized again against like the trans communter. Everyone knows what I'm talking about but like, that's such a great story to hear.

It's so it was. I have this strong memory, and again I do remember all the women in my he was like no, no, the real women, and all the women were like yeah. So Bill Murray is doing this sing along with the people watching this movie in real time in the movie theaters. And then we cut to James and his friends right back to that, to that that Christmas Eve and John Murray, remember Bill Murray's real life little brother, turns to the camera and says, my brother the King of Christmas. End of movie.

End of movie.

I love this ending. Yeah, it is so weird. If you are listening to this and you have that experience, I would love to know what happened in your theater. Yeah when you watch this movie, like, do you remember people singing along or people already like shuffling for their for their keys.

All right, everyone, so that is Scrooge. Stick around after a couple of messages and we will give you our random observations and final rankings, and we're back Erica. Do you have any other little little little little bits that we're still on the same We're still in the same turkey. Well, it didn't last very long. Yeah, yeah, what do you got for me?

At Frank's Jim at his office, the wallpaper just has like a big sign and it says cross.

Like it's like it's like a like a dictionary definition, yes, and it.

Says cross a thing. They nail people too.

I saw that.

I was like, what the hell is that? That's his inspirational thing that he looks at while he's working out.

I guess there's there is a moment he skipped over that definitely does not age well in the in the past, they're talking about Chinese food at the party. Yeah, he says, Oh, you don't don't eat Chinese food. They cut up alley cats and put it in chop suey and then they double down because when he meets Karen, she's like, I don't want to go to the party. Then she's like, but do you want to go get some Chinese food? And he's like okay, And they get in the cab and they drive off and you hear rare.

It's like, damn it, gross, damn it.

Yeah.

Another line I Love Frank is with Ghost of Christmas Present with Carol Caine and he threatens to pull her wings off because she's so mad at her. He's like, if you do that one more time, I'll pull your fucking wings off, and she just smiles and goes, oh, Frank, you know I like the rough stuff. Wow, you'll love it.

Pretty good, Carol Cane. It's a hard, des hard voice to do. All that can be Schmidt watching.

All that ghost of Christmas present having.

Yeah, I only have one more. It's just the fashion in this movie is overall pretty good. I think he's getting a lot of outerwear because every a lot of people are outside. Poor Alfred Woodard is having to deal with a couple of outfits.

She's not like power suits on yeah.

Yeah, very long coats. Yeah, but you know, good for her. She's she's making it work overall. Wendy Malik in the scene the first scene where she's celebrating Christmas Eve, Yeah, the red shirt red. It's like a red shirt with white polka dots. But it's eighties. It's fine, like it's it's not actually the little shoulder pad action she has on her ears these two large silver like bear silhouette earrings and then at the at the top button of her shirt it's clasped by a large silver horse brooch.

Yeah, I know you're thinking, Paul, I like it.

I knew you were gonna like it.

I do.

I like it.

Here's because here's the story that they're telling us with Wendy and James without telling us anything, because he gets into their house and it's under renovation. These two are your artsy couples. I think she's supposed to be like an artist.

Oh totally.

Yeah.

I would like my full credit for managing to say b R O c HS brooch and not brooches gratulation.

I know what you're thinking, and it is. It is weird, but I like it in this very nineteen eighties downtown artsy dealer kind of way.

I don't hate it. I just couldn't let it go past unremarked.

Fair no, no, no, fair. It's and again it's also Wendy Mallick, who used to be a model and really can't carry anything off.

Yeah.

I only have one more two and it's a small thing that I only noticed this time, and I'd never seen it before. When they cut to Operation Rescue at the end of the movie, after he's like declares his love for Claire right and everyone's watching the TV, the box that's holding up the TV is a top of the line pioneer VCR box, the same one that James gets earlier in the movie, which posits that Grace went fully rogue and sent every single person Frank knows the top of the line.

VC to work list.

I think, because honestly, I was like, this brings up more questions and answers. Is it a coincidence? Is it just the box and there's no VCR? Was this a gift from Frank? Was this a gift from Grace?

Yeah?

Why is this there? It's such an odd Maybe.

Colonel Tom Parker donated his to the shelter.

Yeah, he's like, Elvis is just gonna shoot at it anyway, may as well give it to the shelter.

Yeah.

Yeah, Erica, how are we gonna rank? How are we gonna rank scrooged?

One to ten masterpieces that are derivative as fuck?

One to ten masterpieces that make you go, I think I know this story.

Yeah, this is not a master master implies first of Yeah it.

Did, yeah, number yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a peak. Yeah.

You can't call yourself a masterpiece if you are a copy of another person's work.

A lot of people have made very good copies of the Mona Lisa, but theirs aren't masterpieces. Yeah, it's the original Mona Lisa.

The original Dogs playing Poker is the only one that could call itself a masterpiece. Of the rest of you are garbage.

That's right. The whole nine was a masterpiece, but the whole ten yards was derivative.

It was derivative. That's not a masterpiece, to be clear.

How about one to ten vodka.

Tabs the most delicious drinks.

Delicious drink a second only to a Tea Maria and orange slice, third only to.

A vodka tab that actually does have chernobyl tainted that makes you hallucinate wildly.

The chernobyl tainted stuff makes me reminds me of like the lithium from Back to the Future. Uh huh where It's like the eighties were a whole different world, man.

Wild What was nuclear holocaust on everyone's mind? Like that must have been terrible. One to ten furry toilet covers. One to ten absorbent toilet covers, furry fucking toilet covers, shag carpeting seventies nightmare toilet covers. I would love to step into a situation right now where I have to pee in in someone's house and they have one, and I'm like, im paying in your sink. I'm just paying in your there's That's that's the only thing I can think.

To do, right. I do not think that's what you would do. You would leave the house. I can trust nothing in this house.

I would call a swat team first, and then I would leave that house. Yeah, honestly, truly, I would disinfect my entire body. Was like, I touched things? What did I touch in that house? If this is their standard of cleanliness.

To ten sex acts named for dog breathes, this one should be one.

Yeah yeah, like a multi pooh?

What is a multipoo?

This is when you take multiple poos on someone?

Oh, it's it's it's an advanced one. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. She couldn't find anyone else to do the lassie with her.

What's a lassie?

A lassie's when one of you, one of you has to jump down a well, the other one gets to do whatever they want before they hoist you up.

She couldn't find anyone else to do the bull mastiff with her?

Oh, what's a bull mastiff?

Just giant Schlong just huge, just a human something enormous.

P yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. You know what she loves. She loved the great Dane.

Ooh, what's a great day.

That's just when you ask Eric Dane to be your third.

Yes, yep, yep. Or a Saint Bernard, what's that? That's when one of you dresses left like George Bernard.

Show and you fucking a hallowed place. You fuck it in a religious religious institution?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so this one, this one, this one, Okay, do you want to go first?

You want me to go first, I'll go first. Since this was my doing, it does not age well, you guys. I love this movie and I will defend it. And I'm not even gonna give a palate cleanser, although that Disney Christmas Carol is fucking legit. Yeah here, I'm gonna do the bad first and then I'll do the good. Bad Bobcat goothways whole thing.

Yeah.

Bad.

The movie has a mean spiritedness that's just part of like comedy from that era. I don't really know why. There's just a lot of anger. I think in the eighties, the stuff with the censor constantly getting hit I thought that, which was not that funny, like the return on investment isn't enough for it to be Like, well, then why is this even in there? Ycause she just keeps getting like smacked in the head and like run over by something.

I'm like, all of that just is kind of You have someone that you wants to hate, why not have Bryce keep getting hit like, I mean not so badly that he can't keep directing, but every time you see him, he's he has like a new cast or a new bandagiant, Like yeah, it's.

Not this random person. There's like a acousticness to it that like maybe feels refreshing to you in a Christmas movie, because I think a lot of people maybe enjoy that part of it because Christmas movies are so triakily generally and like it's like this or bad Santa?

Are your options?

Are your options?

For?

Like, if you want a Christmas movie with like a fucking edge to it, It's fine, It's not like the worst I've ever seen, but there is like a meanness to it. Yeah, there's a lot of like eighty eighties jokes in here that don't that don't feel great, Like the the gay joke at the end, when he's like, he says he feels about you romantically, and then the other guy gets furious and it's like he's trying to humiliate Bryce by insinuating that an openly gay actor who's

But A swapped the gender of Bob Cratchitt, so that that is an active choice. Yeah, they swapped. They made that character person of color, and they made that character woman.

Yep. And then they put Alfred Wooden in their movie, which is only which only can only improve it only improves everything. So I will say, like, for that era, that's all very progressive. That was not That's not anything anyone would have in the room been like, we really should think about diversifying. Like no one had that conversation. So kudos to them for that. Honestly, very diverse. I

Oh what is that?

That's why you have sex with a with a chubby person in the snow? How about you, Paul?

Yeah, I agree with you. I really this happens every once in a while this year podcast. But like talking this through with you, I like it more than I did in the beginning. A lot of the connections that you're getting as soon as you got as soon as you said them, I was like, oh, right, that did happen. But they go by so quickly, and the movie really

I don't know, honestly, I think that's part of the complacency too of the filmmaker. Yeah, is like, well, everyone knows where this is going, so it can be sloppy.

But like everything you said, I think it's a for the nineteen eighty eight very diverse cast. Alfred Woodard's character is a fully fleshed out character. I would have loved more of her, but like grading slightly on a curve here, Yeah, a good job there.

And Carol Kane gets to be so eccentric and.

Weird and weird, just so weird.

Let her go off.

It so fun. That doesn't age. Well, it's it's the guy in the office of the shotgun like at one point he has the shotgun in Bill Murray, like before he brings the down, he's like, you're hired back, And I'm like, do you think any of your coworkers might have something to say about hiring this guy back right now? Like that's not great? But then the terrorizing, the booth

Minutes we did that fumbled on the one yard line.

Yeah, the Chinese food joke is not great. It's it's it's got a lot of eightiesism's in it. I'll agree with you. I'll give it a four. I was considering a five, but I don't think. I don't think it quite rates for five.

Oh, I'm honestly I think four is reaching. Yeah, because some of these some of these problems are bad.

Yeah, but I was trying to offer like credit for the fact of putting consciously putting outfree Wood in that role and Cane and Carol Caine, but it just doesn't quite rise. I think I think it was a better movie with these drawbacks and that then I could do a five. But it's also just really shaggy, even even like though I like it, more like it's it's very very shaggy. So I will give it a four, a four out of ten sex acts coated as dog breeds like the Golden Retriever.

Oh dear, what's that that?

Oh?

It's kind of like a game of hide and seek, where like you say go and then you run, and the first person to return back to the bedroom, the boudoir or wherever you're staging your your sex act returns something that's actually gold gets to bottom.

Nice. I kudos to you for not going where I thought that joke was going. Well done, Sirtain.

I didn't bring up urine one, not even once. So do you want to offer a palate cleanser for scrooged?

No?

No, because, look, it is problematic. There are a million other versions of a Christmas Carol out there for whatever flavor you like, if you want one for kids, if you want like an old, tiny one. This at least I have to say, is like, it's interesting because it's a comedy and it's kind of a caustic comedy version.

And it's a different it's probably the furthest from the original text that I've seen it.

This is they just do one of these with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I feel like they just did.

They did a musical. I don't think it's a Christmas Carol.

Oh okay, I think it's an original story. Got it? Think what could be wrong googling? Now, Paul, are you offering any palate clunchers? While I google the.

Muppet Christmas Carol? That is my favorite Christmas Carol. I think it is.

Perfect and better than the book. Apparently that he did not feel.

The need to read better than the novelette.

You know what?

So I googled it and it is in fact. Spirited is the name of the movie with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, And it is based on a Christmas Oh it is. It's a remake of a Christmas Carol and it's a satire. Oh, it's a satire of the various adaptations. Since, okay, that's interesting.

That's interesting. That sounds like it could either be great or just become a mishmash of stuff of stuff.

I did not see it. I couldn't I couldn't tell you.

All right, So that is the end of our show. Everyone listening. You can follow us on social media. We are on Twitter, we are on threads, we are on Instagram. If you want to get your name read on the podcast, you can sign up for Instagram. You can request movies there. I will post the theme and you can request specifically for our monthly themes. We have a tea public shop. You can go there. You can pick up podcast swag.

Christmas, Paul give me. Does Paul's gift to you to give to him? That Aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kola. We would like to thank Nicole, Sydney, Jackie, Meghan, Rebecca, Laurie, Karen Sojo, Another Megan, Sonny, Melissa, Amber, Miggey, Julia, Ariel, Ariela, Jessica, Justine, Marissa, Gina, Libby, Kenzie Morgan, another Nicole, and still more people of whose names Paul could not gather from their social media profiles, but one of whom is canonically Octavia Spencer's right. Octavia

Speaking of that, some tears on our Patreon come with thanks from a podcast character. And if you are a member of one of those tears and you haven't been thanked yet, make sure to respond to our message. We have lots of people signed up that have not been thanked yet, so please let me know how to do it and we will arrange it for you. But enough of that. Today we are hearing from Oh oh no, it's Mary Fisher from She Devil.

Hello, my name is Mary Fisher, but you can just call me Mary. I'm so pleased to offer thanks for my dearest darling friend Hannah from Scotland for listening to That Aged Well. I've actually written several best sellers set in the Scottish Highlands, Who Could Forget He Neaped Her Taddies or My luck Ness trilogy Bound by His Bagpipe, Under Killian's Kilt and the Highwayman's Heaving hagis So thank you Hannah for listening to Fat aged Well.

With your hot, throbbing ears.

May your days be filled with champagne and your nights with quivering erotic activities.

I didn't realize she wrote for different countries.

That is a big thing in the romance genre. It is Scotland set romance novels. For some reason, women are horny for Scottish men. I don't know when that happened.

I think we learned about that in Sex and the City. If their tongues can do that to a little letter R, yes, imagine what they could do to me.

Right, I am sweating after all?

Right, Erica, any final thoughts on screw Ruge.

Merry Christmas everyone, from the ghost of Christmas present and.

A happy New Year from the ghost that Christmas passed.

And then just the sound of death. That's the ghost of Christmas future. Merry Christmas everyone, put a little.

Love in your heart, and the world and the world would be a bed a place, and the world and the world we'd be a bed a place for you, for you.

And me and me. Just wait and see, wait and see. You're welcome.

You're welcome, You're welcome. Everyone. Merry Christmas.

Oh my god, it's ar Records. They're calling a sinus