Crofton's Media Blackout: It's A Wonderful Life

Hello the Internet, and welcome to this special holiday episode of Guys, the production of iHeart Radio. This is the podcast where we take a deep dive into American shared consciousness, and for the holidays, we like to take a deep dive into America's shared Christmas spirit.

The Christmas Geist. Exactly exactly.

I'm joined as always by my co host, mister.

Miles graund Oh, all right, thanks for having me on, Jack.

I can't do it.

It's just domb part of I got to move.

My shoulders and watching is worse than hearing to get into Jimmy Stewart.

You at home or missing something he's having Jimmy Stewart seizure.

Vocal stem right now, new vocal.

Stem Christmas seizure.

Oh boy, let me just be it. That's called the Christmas Spirit. Chris, for this special series of two holiday episodes, were calling Christmas blind spots. We've got a hilarious stand up comedian, actor, musician, one of the very faces on mounta Zeite Moore.

Oh yeah, you can listen to his podcast.

Colebrew got me like anywhere the poetry window was open because it's Chris, motherfucking craft up. Che Che, what's up? Hello, happening, Chris.

Oh, just getting ready to talk about this movie, which I forgot a lot of.

Hey, Chris, for the for the poetry window, could you just like riff a poem about how it twas the night before Christmas?

Before me?

Real quick, twas the night before Christmas and all through the house?

Oh ship, this is good right away?

I can't think I got a ship?

What else? What else?

That poem was actually originally in a cipher that was it came up with it off off the dome. They went freestyle, a rap battle, a rat battle.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So for the first episode of this series, Chris, I'd never seen Home Alone, so we came in. Chris watched Home Alone, and then we got his initial impressions of the film that were better than my impressions of the film because I've seen it so many times. It was like burned into the fucking back of my brain, you know.

You know, I thought I'd seen more of that movie than I had. You know, over the years, there's so many clips of it, but then it turns out I really never saw most of that movie. I kind of thought I must have seen it in pieces or something, but.

I had the exact same experience of this movie. I was so that this time we're doing a movie that is a blind spot for Miles and I. It's a wonderful life of a holiday classic that every time I've ever told somebody I hadn't seen it, they were like, what the fuck is that starts shaking me about the shoulders and neck?

What are your parents not white? Is what I heard. I was like, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I just i'd never had But I thought one of the main reasons I hadn't seen it white another reason.

So I think it's just a black and white reason I have. It's no, no, no, it's just black and white. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

When choosing between there there's plenty of holiday movies I haven't seen, and uh yeah, I'd rather go with one that's colorful and cheerfully.

I think it's to Chris's point about Home alone, it's like I want something that's societal value when its like I need to melt away. And I think also as a kid, when this is always on, I considered black and white movies homework. I b no, this is homework. This is not enjoyable because like I have to pretend it's in color. I can't do that, very child.

That's not something I'm proud of. It's not something no, get on board with this ship, So like why am I on trial here now? And then the other reason is I thought I knew what the movie was about. I was like, yeah, I get it.

What a wonderful life.

I assumed it open and with him on the bridge, that's what I thought was going to be happy. Oh and that shit takes a while, but I will say I was like pleasantly surprised by some of the shit in here, like the the uh accuracy of the snapshot of like how capitalism works. In this movie I thought was more realistic than any like mainstream pop culture classic that I'm aware of, where it's just like, man, this shit will drive you crazy on purpose, relentlessly, it will

In another direction. Oh this is the one. Yeah, the whole time I was.

My first note was why is everyone so worried about George Bailey. Sounds like he's a pretty fucked up dude. Everyone's just praying for you as a bad sign. Like again, I have no idea what this movie was about. I just know Jimmy Stewart in the end, he's like holding a little girl by a Christmas tree. Those are the only snapshots I have of the movie. Is like the end like sort of frame.

Yeah, I see it. I've seen it a bunch of times. And I thought the angel gave him three wishes or something. I had no id I totally turn out. I remember nothing. I remember nothing about anything. I thought he was on a bridge and the angel gave him three wishes and he wished for to nice or something.

Yeah.

I thought it was all gonna be flashback, you know, which I guess it kind of is. But instead of like having it be like I'm George Bailey and I bet you're wondering how I got here, about to jump off a bridge and kill myself? Help, uh, you know, and then flashback instead of showing that, it just shows a bunch of people praying for George Bailey, and then some stars talking to each other for like a weirdly long period.

I'm Joseph the Human Father of Jesus because like I feel, at one point someone says something about Jesus Mary and Joseph help him or something.

It's just assuming a lot of biblical knowledge on a modern viewer's part that I don't think is quite I mean, you got you gotta be like give me Joseph's last name here, like Joseph of Father Jesus or or you know, like I would have thought like Saint Peter or somebody like that, because my knowledge of like how Christian heaven works is based on very very old memories and just like New Yorker cartoons, where like it's always Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.

You know what I mean.

Who directed this movie?

Capra?

Right, So it's like I think it's it's pretty pretty damn good. And I think Frank Capra, you know, he must have had his reputation for some reason. You know, everybody talks about Frank Capra, you know, or at least everybody. Everybody everyone's talking about this Frank film. People talk about Frank Capra, you know up there with like talking about

You know.

It's like because they're illuminum oil hanging off of a fishing line.

Yea with make it light up a little bit. When that's the one that's talking right now.

I'd rather say that than Vin Diesel. I don't know why. You know, it's like somehow like seeing something like that like makes me.

Maybe I'm a little bit fucked up. But I'd rather see this than Vin Diesel.

But yeah, those are the two only two choices too. Yeah, that's what it feels like. That's how I feel like in capitalism, it's either like black and white or Vin Diesel. I'll take black and white. And I used to think black and white was like suck too, Like if I saw black and white, I thought snoozefest right, you know, you know, like because I went to fucking school and

Like in nineteen twelve from the naked Gun opening scene.

Yeah like what yeah, oh yeah they that was supposed to be like ill nerds who watched it.

I was three references because thats yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I think it was Naked Gun thirty black.

And white with like yeah, like okay, like this is back when an action sequence man was was was boring, you know, like a baby carriage going downstairs like apparently Russia went crazy, Like you gotta see this.

This is like a this thing is crazy.

That's another one where the baby carriage going down the stairs is like five seconds in the middle of this hour long film. But I was like, oh, the one the baby carriage better be there at the beginning middle and.

The cabinet of doctor Caligari or yeah, Metropolis or whatever. They're fine. But but I didn't realize for a long time that there are some black and white movies that are worth seeing. I really action packed directors that just happened to be around when that was like what they were doing.

But yeah, I'd say, I don't know, I'm a little bit fucking weird. But I like this movie Citizen Kane, right, that one does hold up like that. That is one where you like watch it and you're like, this just feels like it was shy yesterday.

Well, yeah, I was wrong about this.

I found out.

I mean I wrote a whole column about how you don't want to you know, I won't go on a date if it's a black and white movie or some shit like that. And it turns out that like A Face in the Crowd, that movie A Face in the Crowd directed by Elia Kazan, that movie is like so fucking awesome and modern and incredible, And that's the one that like turned me like, holy crap, am I stupid?

Chris Andy Griffin, how often did you see this movie. It's a wonderful, wonderful.

I thought I'd seen it like almost like every year for a while.

I thought it was like, but were you tuning in, Like I know it's a tradition on American broadcast.

I must not have seen it that many times, because I really did think the beginning was like the Bridge, same kind of thing with Jack, Like I thought it was like the angel was involved from the beginning. I thought the I thought it was like a modern Ebenezer Scrooge type thing, like were they take him around the

There's a lot of emotional nuance that I feel like if I saw this as a kid, I'd be like, this movie sucks, But as watching it now, I'm like, God, damn like it was. The movie is so heavy to start. I was almost like this is a lot. Yeah, but I'm looking at it in the context of the forties or whatever when it was made, and I'm like, okay, this is probably like this is like laugh out loud fun. They're like, oh, yeah, I think I saw the sound yeah right, right right.

I think I saw the Sound of Music more times, Like I think that was more like our family thing. Yeah, Like then it's a wonderful life. I think we watched Sound of Music over and over again.

Brandon editor is pointing out that there's a classic Tom and Jerry episode that is based on this where the cat is like once to kill himself and then like gets saved by it and all sorts of wild shit. I was and like, I think that is that's the version of it that exists. Is like guy on Bridge Angel visits, shows him his life without yeah, uh, shows him the life without it, but it yeah, so it

Yeah it didn't. It just didn't didn't go see it.

And then just by putting it on TV, which is like a new technology at the time, they were like, oh, I guess we we like this now. It was sort of like to America what Home Alone is to Romania. As we covered in the last episode, Yes, were the show at every Christmas Eve.

How I was probably trying to think of like my next joke or something, So we talked about that last time.

Yeah, it was Ania and poland boat. Home Alone is what we talked about last time. I'm like, mister President, are you okay, sir?

No, No, I just met that part. I like the way certain things are popular like in only some countries. Like there's a song called Boys Do Fall in Love by Robin Gibb and it didn't charge anywhere except it like went to like number one in Italy or something in like nineteen seventy six, and it's just like, yeah, it's like Italy had some had some screw loose for that song.

Yeah.

Should we do the little rock through like we did with Home Alone?

Yeah, just like happening in the movie and our impressions as it goes by. So you covered the opening, the opening where it's like we see the Earth. We hadn't been to space yet, so it kind of looks like shit, the version of the Earth. They're like, I don't know, it probably looks like a big ball of like Gumby,

So the flashback to the childhood. I was so jealous and frightened at the same time because my one of my first and I was like, damn, look how much fun these kids are having on a shovel yes, the shovel.

The shovels led on a shovel.

And the set looked like they act there was maybe that shit looked like ice, like that they had that they were actually sliding on. I was so into the production value of that Winter Sing was like, okay, was this a sound stage? And then I was like, okay, this is at RKO Studios is where they actually shot this. Yeah. So yeah, his brother Harry falls in, he saves them, and it causes like just hearing loss in his left ear.

He loses the ability to hear in his left ear, which is going to become important later when World War two happened exactly exactly because.

They like people who can hear war in stereo. Yeah. So yeah, then, like, there's just another moment that I liked to how like him and all his friends like walking him to his after school job. I'm like, motherfucker ten years old. Yeah, and they're like, all right, man, get your ass in there. Time to go to work.

At a druggist.

Yeah.

Mister hours hammered both within the story and the actor is hammered apparently while making this always actually so he is accidentally poisoning people with the drugs that he's providing them, and uh, Jimmy Stewart George Bailey as a child is like, I think you're I didn't really follow how this all came together, like a hard time. Yeah, he figured out that it was because.

He watched he watched him bag it up. He watched him bag up the capsules and he saw the big skull and crossbones John. He's like, wait, bro, what the fuck?

And so he tells the druggist, Hey, you just like poison that kid, and the druggist just starts beating the ship out of him, which apparently was not fake. The druggist was actually drunk and slapped that kid so much as ears started to bleed.

Yeah that really, are you serious? Wikipedia, Yeah, yeah, that kids. He really was smacking the ship out of that kid.

Yeah, he was really smacking him. And then uh, the it's like the nineteen forties version of like a happy ending for a child actor. He then hugged him after the scene, so it was like, cool, wait, so.

How did his ear start? What the fuck happened? His ear was?

He was his ear was leading Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean.

And then yeah to people on the set and who knows if they were just throwing this actor under the bus too.

Well, that actor was like playing that his son had just passed away, right, that was the idea, Like his son had passed away, and the idea was normally this guy was a nice guy, this druggist, and he was just having a bad day, was the idea. Right, He just was like his son died, and so the what are you gonna do if your son dies except for slap the ship out of his dog?

Boy, yeah exactly, and then poison a lady who has dip theory or whatever.

Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean everyone knows what happens when druggists grieve.

Yeah yeah, yeah, Oh I'm poisoning him.

Put on a helmet. Don't take any of your pills.

The one thing that I thought was very old timing and dog died was when I think it was Mary. He was given some ice cream too, and he's like, you don't do you want coconuts? And he's like, you don't know where coconuts are from?

And my boy little George pulled out a full on Nat Geo magazine from his pocket like it was a smartphone. Yeah, and he's like, you had back then that's my childhood too, pulling a magazine out and I'm like, there, you you don't understand.

I'm not kidding.

No, I mean I definitely had I mean I was carrying around Slam magazine, the Source double XL, Like, I definitely had things like that in my back. But I just love the idea of like how he's like, within my pocket, I have this magazine with information about coconuts. There's just so many of these sort of bygone era things that I was these are really nice textures that I'm like, we've lost touch with humanity completely.

And the coconut was like this exotic thing to them. It was like want to try coconut.

Mary?

Because they were starting from square one. They fucking wiped out the Native Americans who could have told them all about coconuts, probably, except they were starting from the scratch, Like what I discovered, yeah exactly, Yeah, have you heard about porn?

Would be great if he tried to pass it off as his own discovery.

I mean it really was like it was like, that's why white people are so out of controls because they think that, Yeah, like they started with this clean slate that was artificially cleaned by them.

Yeah yeah, yeah, they're like, let's start the slate now, yeah, right now.

Just like when they're already rich and you want to You're like, now, now everybody should be able to fend a marriage.

Now yeah yeah, yeah, true truly, like they wrote out of history the fact that everybody had just died from the plague. They were like, it's it's amazing, like America has these had avenues in the middle of the forest just naturally, Like uh no, you're walking through a post apocalyptic city right now. It's amazing. Like we we pulled up to Plymouth Rock and there were all these houses with like dishware, They're just like there for us to use. It was so cool of God to do that for us.

All this imagine like a black like because the people in this movie that are black are well there's very barely any at all, and there are all certain things and they have to listen to these kids lecture about coconuts from like their fucking home country.

Yeah, was like, are you listening, Like, yeah, I don't know if there's anything worth listening to. I know she was giving but then but then, but then Harry was smacking Annie's ass. I'm like this is all the fucking mess y'all. I was so mad that fucking Annie was giving this motherfucker her money. At the end, I was like, do not give George Bailey your money.

And that's true.

I thought that there was another there was another black woman too who like when every even when she's like, oh, this is Freez, I'm like, no, this girl not for fucking man's plains.

That guy man's plains. Coconuts.

I remind you, remind me to tell you where licorice comes from. Oh you're gonna believe this, but apparently there's a tree called the rubber tree. Mary, there's sugar as a cane. All right, let's take a quick break and yeah, we'll be right back, and we're back.

We're back.

So uh cut cut forward to high school and this is.

The weirdest depiction of high school, A good.

Early example of some ship we would be doing to this day, where they got someone who's forty playing eighteen.

I think he's supposed to be right, Harry's graduating high school in that scene. Yea his little brother yeah yeah, yeah, oh.

His brother is I thought he was about to go off to college.

Yeah yeah, But all so, if you Remember there's also that that big party that starts off is Harry's going to his high school gradus his younger brother. Oh okay, so he's like twenty then, Yeah, yeah, he's just a little bit older. Yeah he's he's.

You know, this is the first time we get James Stewart playing the role who is thirty eight when this movie's made, playing serious, yeah, playing twenty playing twenty.

Yeah.

I was like, is this because everybody back then looked like shit or like drinking and spoken all the time, Like is this just what like twenty year olds looked like? But now he was thirty eight when when they made this, this was after the war, and apparently like he and Peter Fonda couldn't find work for some reason. So he was like, yeah, heck ca, you'll do your movie.

Oh yeah.

This is also where he's he's talking about how he has big dreams to get out of this Yeah one one horse town. Yea, and at one point utters the line, I feel.

Like, if I didn't get away, i'd bust.

Bro.

He can bust at home, you know what I mean? That's right, he does.

He can. He can ultimately bust at home.

You can bust where I want anytime.

You could say that at any time back then, you know, you could say you want to bust, You're about to bust nobody, I'm about to bust.

Yeah, everybody's like I know, yeah, well, like because this is like the theme with George is that he has these dreams of seeing the world, but at every moment he has to sort of seize that moment.

He takes the road to sort of choose stability, to choose what's better for the group than the individual. So the first one is his dad dies of a stroke.

Yeah, right, is he's about to go away?

Yeah, Like truly he's like, all right, I'm off to what dad? And then you got this asshole mister Potter in here and be like, I want to dissolve the fucking company. Interesting fact, I didn't realize that guy is like Drew Barrymore is like great grandfather Barrymore, the guy who plays like mister Potter. Oh is that John Barrymore, That Lionel Barry.

Lionel Barry.

You're going further back. We're going further back in Acting Dynasty.

So Mary goes away to college, his brother goes away to college, he stays back.

Just run to run the building and love. So his dad owns this runs this building and loan, which is like, I don't even know, you know, I know so little about economics that I even this was like hard just even the basics of this movie trying to explain a building and loan. But it's some kind of community owned bank. So anyway, he stays in town because his dad dies, and so he stays to run the building and loan, even though he wanted to go look for coconuts.

Right, And also he gives all of his touch like college money to his brother. He's sort of like, hey man, I'm gonna have to sit back and like hold down the family business. You go and get an education and you go do your thing.

Yeah, he's out into the world and bust for the both of us.

He's the opposite of every person alive now.

Yeah, yeah, he is a good man.

He is a good speaking of like the level of biblical literacy of the people then compared to now, they're like I was reading about the casting of James Stewart and Frank Capra was like, you know, I was like thinking about who would be the best person to play a good sam. I was like, good Sam, and he was using that for short for good because they were talking so much about good Samaritans and other like biblical figures that they have, like shorthand for it.

Yeah, like if you said recommendation, they'd be like, what what the hell did you just say? Good Sam? What that guy's bats? So yeah, he's says, Harry, you go live a life, and the agreement being look, bro, you go get educated.

When you come back, I have to get the fuck out of here. Okay, like I have to get the fuck you will run that. He's like, yeah, run the business. Maybe you don't worry. And then Harry comes back to married Yeah, with the job from his new father in law. George now resigns himself to running the building and Loan and George and Mary begin to rekindle their relationship.

Yeah in a in a scene.

So he's like, what a lot of his big moments come from just like drunkenly wandering around the town. Yeah yeah, yeah, Like he's like drunken wanders over to his future wife's house and it's an interesting so like it's a time of like weird morality around like kissing and sex. Like the it's much looser when it comes to being able

A face kissing? Yeah, but they're just like like at first kiss, you kiss first, you kiss like someone's cheeks like six times, and then you move over to the mouth.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think gets you arrested.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's like starting much grosser than just like kissing.

Up with someone, start kissing their head.

Yeah, Like so they are while they have this moment where they're like fighting and then they're like getting together and then like yeah, they just like do this like animalistic like hug where he's like starts kissing like the side of her eye and like her forehead and then like moves down to her mouth.

And I wrote my note was what in the Jim Crow was that kissing style? Because it was like but also there was a moment when her mother is like, what are you doing down there? Marriage's like having violent sex. Mother, I think she said violent. Yeah.

I was like, oh, I must have got their attention. I must have gotten Hayes's attention Haze code Yo.

But that scene, I will say, the scene where they're on the phone together, you know, and the kissing like they're on the same phone, one of those phones you got a hold two parts. Oh yeah, one part goes up against your ear and the other part you hold and talking to That scene made me cry because I thought it was It was so kind of like I really thought it was effective, like the two of them like being in love with each other, but they she was like with somebody.

You know, it was on the phone.

I just maybe cry, You're not trying to steal my girl, are you. It was just sort of like, I don't know. I thought it was fun that they dwelled on that, aside from like, yeah, like being like why are you kissing in the back of her head or whatever?

Before before before it looks like they're making up kissing. Like if I had to, if I had to guess, like the first time someone kissed someone for like the when it was invented, probably looked like that, you know, like it was just like, I don't know what if we did this, it was probably some form of eating, right, like I'm eating your face? Yeah, and someone was like, Okay, yeah, that leaves marks that scene. For me, I had a

Oh man.

I seriously I was crying because I was like, I don't know, probably because I'm having a nervous breakdown, but but I just there's something about it was romantic to me, just like the idea of that mark.

I thought it was there, you know what I mean. George trying to get the other Wayne Wright or what was the guy's name was? That guy's not named George, right, whatever his the other guy? They're crazy, dude say.

I was like, Zam the rich yeah guy, the guy I need all your money, George, I tell you right now, this is the next big thing.

And he was like getting into plastics. I was like, hey, George, you know that he's not fucking lying. You know you better get in plastics.

The nice guy needs to borrow money is the message of this movie, sadly, and I'm living it.

Wasn't there also a bean's this story where like somebody was going to a bean factory or something. I feel like it was just kind of funny. It was like everything was just being discovered for the first time. I thought there was like a bean thing, a bean subplot.

Maybe that was another opportunity he had to make money. Maybe that's where it's get rich.

Was going.

So he was going to like work for his well father in law's bean.

No, he was because he's really good at research. That's what it was. He's doing research for her father's company. It's not gonna touch now, but it has a good future.

That was what the beans.

I thought there were beans in the goddamn movie. They're crazy, but he did.

I will say also, like the reason why that thirty eight year old thing isn't it works because I think the other actor is thirty eight too. They look aged appropriate.

She was like twenty five or something.

Okay, so they've all looked older than death. I looked older than eighteen or whatever.

This is when you're also like years old. Damn. This is what like lead and pollution and all these other things and like child labor due to a person's face at that age. We were like, fuck, bro, I thought you were forty eight.

Somehow they were saner than us. They all knew the Nazis were bad.

Yeah, like that, we need more.

We need to put lead back in gasoline so we can.

All So we got enough fucking violent streaking and stuff. I should all start.

Smoking again immediately so we can be nice.

The one thing that was really funny was before he goes drunkenly over to Mary's house. Is when he sees Violet in the street and she's like, oh, hold on, Fellows, I think I got a date, and that one guy's like, we'll be waiting for your baby. I was like, I've heard that as like a non sequitor a lot, and I'm like, god, so much, Like I realize how influential this film is because I have friends who say that. I'm like, oh, this is they they're funny baby, yeah,

Yeah, that was just that was his fault. They made that seem like she was the weird one. He was the one who was.

The first part of all the times George fumbles the bag.

All right, George, you're scaring the hose. George, you were scaring the hose.

Scaring these fumbling the score board.

You need a scoreboard behind Jack with the how anytime bumbles.

The guy from the movie Plastic could have gone in plastics at a time he would have been fucking making bills.

Okay, you could have them. You could have owned the first Lambo brodang, both.

Of those chicks. Ding yeah, Fumble says something weird about running through the fucking grass. Be talking about touch grass. Fuck out of here.

There was So then they get married, right, there's a kind of a smash cut. They're getting married. They're about to go on their hose. See the smash cut of this movie.

You know what I'm saying, Jesus shows and kissing. Huh m hmthing animalistic? Are you looking at someone on your phone? You're just watching the kissing. My hands are right here, My hands are I didn't ask about that. Why you only put one at.

A time, like you.

It's not as good in black and one. I yeah, well I don't know. I actually wouldn't know. I've never seen sex in black and white.

All those porn sites wherever, like sometimes yeah, like they could yeah, turn porn, you know, or something like that. Yeah, I don't know why vintage would. I don't know with me, I don't know why someone would google vintage porn. But if they did, there's an acceptable area like you know, like the seventies and eighties, and then there's like, you know, you don't want to see nineteen twenties.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like dagera type pornography if possible.

Yeah, you can't see that. You can't see what's what's what's happening? Really, there's too many shadows.

So again another moment shows up. George is about to hebe we're gonna go everywhere. We're gonna go to Timbuctoo in Paris, the oldest shade, and they've got all this fucking cat.

Saying the way you do that, you're going, You're gone, Like there's why looks he looks like an actually human.

He is inhabited.

You gotta throw ahead to get that, by my fucking boah god boy. So they're about to go on their honeymoon. They got all this cash, and then they look there's a fucking bank run on a bank, on his bank. Yeah, because again this is some shit with mister evil fucking potter owning the bank, calling in a loan and being like, you've got that money on you, bro, No detected, No lies detected.

I mean, do they specifically say that he's waiting for him to go out of town to do to do some shit like, because that would that does seem like what would actually happen is he'd be like, all right, this motherfucker's out of our hair. Let's go. Yeah.

I don't know, I don't know, another moment shows up. He could have gone and drank the oldest champagne and just say, you know.

What, brother, maybe the building a loan just needs to go down and I don't give a fuck about these people houses.

But he did. It came back doldash.

So they have their honeymoon and an old like burnt out the spooky haunted house.

What are the what are the tendency then?

Because it just felt like they're like, yeah, you know what, I'm having this old abandoned house, honey, put up the fucking wallpaper.

It was kind of like the next bit of that whole season.

I was thinking they bought it, but I guess they never.

Really, I'm sure they did.

They did never established where they bought it, but.

I guess it was yeah. Yeah, when the cops that you have your honeymoon in there, I gotta say that technology. They deployed the record player rotisserie. Did you catch that? Like the turntable, like the needle was hooked up to another cable that was rotating fucking two chickens on a rotisserie. I was like, this is this was peak technology.

Yeah, they couldn't get in. They couldn't go on their honeymoon. So the towns people who are they were all friends with because it was a small town, you know, really small town, and they knew everybody. So everybody knew he couldn't go on his honeymoon. So they all got together and and like turned their house into a hotel like with the with the local people pretending to be the bell boys and the concierge, and and then like you know, it was like all and that made me cry again.

It was very nice because you yeah, I was also I was. There was a moment at the end. I was actually the most moved.

Yeah.

Then whole time, Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's beating out of us till our ears bled until that last turn and then they gave us a hug, and we're like, oh, okay.

Yeah.

The movies about like this guy named Potter who's like a modern billionaire, except smaller. Back then there were just billionaires that ran towns as opposed to the whole Earth's.

Yeah, he was doing the original work so that our billionaires could be billionaires. You know. Yes, he was consolidate.

He was doing evil bootstrapping, but he ran the town in the sense that he had so much money hoarded that he could just interrupt any plans, like he could offer like when the when there was a run on the run on the bank, he just offered cash to the people who needed their money. He offered fifty cents

And uh, that's I just think that was that was one of the scenes. I knew about the run on the bank, and I thought it was like run on the bank straight to the bridge.

Then we get like you really just kind of poked your head in from this movie. Yeah exactly, all right, cool, cool, and who's this guy? But so then then you kind of get George starts to kind of win because the next sort of shift you see is that he started Bailey Park. It's like a whole housing development. And then like fucking evil mister Potter's like money goons like, hey man, you should look into this Bailey Park place. You know,

That slow movie like it's just like very much about finance for a big stretch of this movie. It's really just like yeah, and so it's like watching someone play monopoly, where it was like all right, then he bought this and then this guy tried to buy him out, all right, all right, Well, you have to understand is this is a leveraged buyout and he's actually gonna give him bad rates.

Yeah.

This was around the time when I was writing in my notes, I can't believe how long it's taken to get to the attempted suicide.

Yeah.

Uh so then you get Christmas Eve and there's gonna be a heroes welcome for his brother, who was like, now a Navy Ace like fucking star. He was like, as if being a football star wasn't enough, this fucking guy prevented a Kamakazi attack and the Navy Ace and he got the fucking Medal of Honor and you're like, oh, one thing. I was like, that must have been You must have been so popping if you were like a football like a college football star, then like i'mbat ace. Right.

Oh yeah, was he a big He was the biggest celebrity in the world. That guy. He had secret families all over the world. He was the eugenics guy who he went crazy like Elon Musk and tried to have as many children as he could. Because he was like, I am of the superior race because I flew an airplane across the ocean.

Oh I love it.

Charles Lindberg was like, that was how he got famous back then, was like pioneer crap.

Jimmy Stewart was a decorated naval aviator military he flew missions and oh.

Great, the crowds man, the do you know who's wow, Jimmy, thanks for thanks for the restraint there. Then we get to like, this is where it starts getting wobbly because uncle Billy who didn't realize, like I, I noticed late in the film that he had a pet raven.

Like I was like, yeah, oh that he's got birds loose. He's got loose birds.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah.

That was that inspired to my old age. Just have a raven, Raven's following me around.

I was reading about that raven. That raven was like in according to the handler, like over a thousand things because the raven was so like useful and could do anything. And he described that raven as being able to do anything an eight year old child could do and knew about like five hundred words to say. So, look, they didn't give that raven a speaking part what they could have.

And there's a moment where he's like, hey, look, mister Potter Fumble number seventeen. He tries to just smear in mister Potter's face that Bailey Park is doing so well, but in the process drops the fucking eight thousand dollars bag with the fucking newspaper. He wraps it in the newspaper and then it's like, here's your fucking you think that Bailey's aren't cool, well check this out and like gives it.

To him and then can't remember that he did that. Yeah, yep. So then he's the doddy old man who's friends with Ravens. Yeah yeah, exactly. Uh So, then obviously mister PBDT keeps some money. Evil piece of shit Billy can't find the money. The fucking bank forensics expert is there to be like, where's your fucking money, And that's when your money. This is when it gets fucking wobbly. Now for George Bailey. They try and find the money. They can't find the money.

And just like the gas and it comes along with capitalism where you're just like they make you feel crazy, but.

Yeah, would you spend it? Spend some women? He got a secret family, George playing the market? Oh honest, I wasn't.

Yeah, George is just too earnest Steven like think about that. He's like, oh, I know you think that I did, but I didn't.

He was showing the headline about George's brother getting the congressional Metah. Not only is the building a loan kicking ass, but the Bailey boys are at it again. Yeah, Bailey, George Jailey, then Bailey Boys, Bailey what's his name, Harry Harry.

Bailey FONTI uh so then okay, He's like completely destitute. He's like, fuck, We've completely fucked this up. What am I going to do? George is like he's getting drunk at the bar. He's trying to figure out what he can do. He realizes he's got a life insurance policy that maybe he can offer his collateral and Potter he has in his pocket. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I care. That's so desperate. He's like, what do I have, Yester? Potter?

You can take this? And he's like, well, how much have you in rested already? He's like five hundred dollars a fifteenth housard right right, right, right right, and he basically says, you're worth more dad than you are alive, Potter. And this is where the spiral really really begins. On this dark Christmas for him.

He goes home and he's like real mean to his kids and then he like balls out his kid's teacher on the.

Phone, like, oh think you use the term that her husband did? Yeah, my wife's ever been balled out like that in her life. U the that seemed kind of fucked me up because I was like, damn, bro, like that was that's kind of that was that was real, regardless of like what a specific situation is like parents under financial stress, completely unable to be present because of like the fucking crushing weight of having to toil and survive. Yeah, just be like, oh and you kids don't know anything's

He know that scene was like that scene was like I said to the person I was watching with, and I said, that was like my house like every day.

God, it really was.

It really was.

It was like my father had kids and had no idea. He just had this idea my father, father and mother. But my mother had some idea of what she was getting into. My dad had none. And so once he was in that situation, he just acted like George Bailey on his worst day. Every day he just came home from work and was just like this is a disaster and I have no money and you guys are all like annoying and and why did this happen and all that sort of stuff, except he didn't like seriously like

Yeah, that's what I mean. If I watch it as a kid, I'd be like whatever. Whatever. Now, being older, being a parent, all this other stuff, I'm like, oh, so much of it. I was like, this ship is so fucking heavy. Like, this guy's life sucks. Okay, He's like every time he's trying, you think he's gonna do the thing he wants, he ends up fucking like putting

Who rescued He's like, this is his this is his one superpower. He jumps into water and saves people. So I'm gonna take advantage of that.

Do you know what? Did you see him dive into the water? I was like, that was nice. He's kind of nice with it, for sure. Do you do you do your own stunts? Jimmy, That had to have been Jimmy, right. They didn't stunt people to die. Oh well, I can dive with the best of them, and he probably did.

That was probably not the best idea. I would go feet first if I'm jumping off a bridge.

If it's on a soundstage too, it's like, Jimmy, you're six four, this tank is only five feet deep.

Back when there was a middle class, like you know, it was like there was a lot of time to talk about like which like teach kids, like which salad work was for the sald you know which work was for the salad? How to dive dive properly. It was like a big thing, like you don't want to be caught diving improperly. I would have done tried to dive in head first, but like over rotated and landed on my back and just been paralyzed.

Yeah, Angel has to.

Like it's like fuck, or you just kill Clarence because you land on him, Like reason not.

To date somebody Like I was going to marry George, but I noticed that his diving is his diving, and that makes me think that he's not going to be a good provider.

There are the glimpses of a better world, like the gym is on top of a pool, like that, there's a there's a part like the meat cute with George and Mary is like the night of a big dance, and like, these guys prank them by opening up the gymnasium floor which has like a beautiful pool underneath it. That's Beverly Hills High. Yeah, which is in Beverly Hills High. But they're just like, yeah, I mean sure this this makes sense of the normal high school thing.

Yeah too.

I was like, what the fuck is that? It's like this is smart, dude, yeah, very fuck.

Is this relatable? Is this relatable?

Shit? Do I want to fall in a pool doing the fucking Charleston?

Yeah?

I thought about how many tuxedos that just like they must have had on standby. But then I realized that like everyone back there then wore tuxedo all.

You were a tuxedo. It was not casual Fridays. It was a tuxedo Friday. They wear a suit Monday through Thursday. Fridays. You wear you're dining outfit, your piece of ship.

So yeah, that's when Clarence saves our. You know, Clarence goes in the water, he gets out, and you he's Clarence slowly starts to reveal that he is is an angel, but like everyone's like, shut the fuck up, your weird piece of shit with your weird underwear.

Yeah, you're drunk as it looks like a cartoon drunk.

It looks like a cartoon drunk.

It looks like W. C.

Fields all right, rummy for current reference, but that like weird his underwear that he roes like, oh my wife got me this.

I'm like in the fucking eighteen seventies, what the fuck is that? But again, that's just me looking at it from twenty twenty five and not understanding anything. And that's when sort of like the whole thing of like George saying, look, bro, i I'm probably just I wish I wish I wasn't around anymore.

Carl Havoc, Yeah, I'd just rather not be around.

My favorite thing is that in the favorite part of the whole movie or favorite actor in the movie is the guy who's trying to spit tobacco but he keeps like doing a double take because the angel keeps doing supernatural shit. Like the guy who's in charge of like taking money at the bridge.

Oh oh yeah that guy.

Yeah, that guy's the fuck for me.

He deserves an the killing ward that guy ruled.

If anyone wants to watch it again, a breakout comedic performance. In my opinion, he just because because Clarence is revealing he's an angel to George, and George is like, I don't believe you, and he's like George had been punched in the mouth when he was drunk and so like he had blood coming out of his lip. And then the angel's like, check to see if the blood is still on your lip. You've never been born. You've got your wish, you were never born, and so he checks

Know, no what's coming by at night, just making sure that nothing goes down on the bridge.

Sitting in there and chewing tobacco and that's what are we going.

To leave this bridge unattended all night?

But yeah, that guy's like that guy's performance where he keeps being about to split the tobacco, but then he double takes when something else crazy happens, and the eventually runs credited.

I'm Sad is his name, And he was like a vaudevillian guy. So makes sense, no joke.

I was like that guy, Holy shit, what a great job.

Also, he really he really cast. He really earns that check. When Clarence is like Irons as two, He's like, what's as too? Man, he's like Angel second class. That's yeah, there's like it couldn't have just made that up.

Yes, I there were a couple more moments of like morality that probably wouldn't make it in a modern movie. One was I'm not a pray like when Jimmy Stewart before he goes to the bridge to kill himself, says like I'm not a praying man, but like I don't know, like help me out here, which like I feel like there's no way that a modern movie would have the person be like in a movie that's like this much based on like him being like I'm not a praying man.

Yeah, you know what year was this, forty six? I think forty six?

Yeah, okay, so yeah, it was before the Cold War kicked in full cold The Cold War really created a great opportunity for introducing caricatures of how to be Yeah, Like it was a great moment, and I don't think people realized that. That's that's an interesting point. I didn't think about that, But you're right, there were these moments between wars, like after World War One, when people were like, well,

Like a run on the bank. It's a run on the bank.

I'll give you fifty cents on the dollar for everything you own. And they're like, ohkay, opportunity and we're going through that right now. We're going through that right fucking now. I mean, we're being sold this fake fucking emergency that's convincing everybody to be mean. And yeah, that's a very good point. I didn't think about that, but you're right. There's a moment there where people are like, listen, I don't care if you believe in God or not. We

Yeah.

It's in many ways like watching Home Alone and then this, like we were talking about like how is the family from Home Alone so rich? It's like the dad from Home Alone might as well be like mister Potter's grandson, you know, right, Like it's just but it's just like

Yes, And that was a dream that was like when these were smaller scale problems at least somewhat believable, like when it was like a local millionaire against like somebody who was trying to do something good. But now I'm such a jam because we're dealing with like forces that are not surmountable by some just good natured person. It has to be like a billion good natured people having some weight awakening.

Yeah right, yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and yeah, we'll be right back, and we're back, We're back. I did have that question of like because of like how small scale it is that an eight thousand dollars getting lost like sinks the bank essentially was like, what what is that in today's money comparison? It's one hundred and forty thousand dollars, which seems low to sink a bank.

Yeah? Right, because Potter won, right right.

It's like, you're not going to pull your money together to fucking help each other? What are you fucking dumb? Welcome to city bank. I also do think our inflation because they were like in one hundred forty dollars and twenty twenty four, it's probably like two hundred.

And five years. I call that seven million. Now for sure it's a.

Bed a bed year of people who aren't billionaires.

So then he's we're now in this alternate time where.

The alternate timeline where he's never existed.

And I think one of the first stops he takes is what he's just kind of, uh, where do they go? I think they go. I don't know, I don't have it in order.

I think he goes to the bar at some point that used to be Martini's and now it's Nicks and Now the guy behind the bar is oh y yep, is like, hey, I don't know you buster her, Why are you talking to me? All familiar?

See yeah, yeah, it's like no one knows him. That Martini is like fucking gone. He's like an afterthought.

And the evil his name is the first thing he hears is the name of the town is Pottersville.

Now, yeah, it's called Pottersville.

Yeah, so he knows it's like being called Trumpville. So so everybody in trump Bill is in a in a corresponding mood. They're all in a horrible mood, and they're all mean as snakes.

Yeah. I do like though, just how cruel they were. Like when old man Gower came in, he's like, get out of here.

You're drunk and hits him with the seltzer and I was like, he lost his son to the flu twenty years ago and he was playing this.

Help this man, this ice it's ice agent shit.

Yeah yeah yeah. And then also to the point about the tuxedo. I loved how divy Nick's bar was, like the door man was the one guy in a tuxedo when he's like show on the door, yeah, and he's like of course and a guy in a tuxedos like grabbing him by the collar. I'm like, oh, well he got a tuxedo on. So you know, they keep it formal. They keep it formal.

I will say, the time travel rules they're pretty loose in terms of like his brother drown without him there to save him. But he was at that same sledding hill on that same day even though he didn't exist. Yeah, Like, I feel like if I had found that out, I'd be like, man, maybe I don't matter. So he ended up doing all the same shit, and it's just like I was just there to save.

His ass kind of. Yeah.

Yeah, that's one way to look at it. That's one way to look at it. But this is the nineteen forties Jack, So let's just let's not you have enough, you have too much contact with time travel. And then he goes to his house and he sits in a cuckchair and watches his wife wife fuck her successful husband from the plastics factory. Uh.

No, cuckchair is a cup chair, just any chair that faces a bed.

Yeah, yeah, so you can watch, so the partners watch.

It's not especially design chair or anything.

No, I mean, he doesn't need to be Okay, Yeah.

I don't know if you see the chair and burn after reading, but that can that can make it a little more fun.

Finitely, I haven't seen that either.

But yeah, so mister Gower, he's he went to jail for manslaughter. His mom doesn't know him. The city of Pottersville now looks like a Christian person's version of Hell because it's just like it's all dancing and music. Yeah, a lot of girls, girls, girls sense yeah, oh buffalo gals, won't you come out?

And I.

Was I've heard that melody. I had to google it and just be like, what the fuck is?

And so it's it's like a it's a runner from the it's what I think. It's what they're dancing to when they go in the pool, and then it's what they're singing as he's walking her home. That scene is also probably worth mentioning that she loses the uh robe that she's in because she had gone to the pool, and so she's naked hiding in a bush and he's like, wow, before I could tell tickets here, hold on, maybe I'm a piece of ship, come on out. And but but yeah,

Buffalo Gals was sung by minstrels, and it was talking about the dancers because Buffalo was the western terminus of the Eerie Canal, so all the port men had their cash by the time they got to Buffalo, so they're all like, Buffalo girl, let'd you come out tonight. It's basically, and then apparently in these minstrel shows they would it was like local comedy. So if they're in New York, then they'd be like New York. She'd be like New York girls, why don't you come or like Mississip girls,

Yeah, Buffalo Gals is like I'll tell you one thing. You know some of some of the things that were good back then, you know, some of those things were like maybe you could the local businessman can still fight the junior oligarch. There's one thing that has improved, and that is fucking music, because man, oh man, imagine trying to have sex to that song, which obviously it would be implied that they would crank up the victrola.

Yeah right, right right, and they would listen to that while they fucked.

I'm getting hot, I mean, for God's sake.

Yeah, I mean, we've seen the way they kiss.

So if they're putting on buffalo gals and bumping uglies, I don't know what the fuck that looks like, but.

But we yeah, like think about I mean, just how much better off we are sexually speaking?

Yeah, well, I think once they let black people perform as themselves, that helped a lot. I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would help a lot.

Like and really for a long time, like we are in, we are lucky to be around for some fucking rock and roll and some fucking funk, because for a long time people had to fuck. Just She'll be coming around.

The mountain, Old Gray Mayor.

She and they were pumped because I mean, it's still sex and it's still gonna be.

Good, but you had your kids play the piano downstairs. My pianola, Mom and I are upstairs for a little bit.

Like, if you're listening to a song like that and fucking you're probably okay with sawdust being on the floor. But if you're listening to like pony by Genuine, then you say, let's clean up in here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it can't be a total nightmare in here.

If I'm got genuine, rag over the light and throw on buffalo gals.

If it starts smoking, they'll get the rag off the lamp because it'll sort of fire.

Are there any better rhythms than that?

Yes?

No, this is the only one we found so far. Loop Yet what you're not an engine? What were you doing that for?

Uh? So, then we find out other things. The building and loan has failed, Uncle Billy. As a result of the building and loan failing was institutionalized. Bailey Park is not a neighborhood anymore. It's a cemetery. And then he also discovers again like you said, brother gone, the other died was that same? Yeah exactly, and the druggist poisoned that kid. Yeah, so again he really might as well not have existed. Everything went exactly the same, except for

I didn't think about it that way.

He was just yeah, right, I mean.

They hadn't discovered chaos there yet, so they didn't know that that wasn't realistic. I was wondering maybe the angel could like snap and take him around with the magic of film editing instead of having to wander around everywhere. But it's effective, he gets. They pack it with all sorts of details he does. He does ask where his wife is, and they're like, well, why that old spinstress. She's out at the library closed closing it down. And we get the first that I'm aware of, probably not

Okay, corny is what the is this? But I do that scene when he sees like very spray search come.

He's not getting it, by the way, he's not really not getting it.

And she is freaked the fuck out.

She's like, runs to the fucking bar, and again I like that he's crashing out in this bars, like that's my why, and all these like dudes surround him. One guy in the crowd, just an odd line in the crowd, and like they're trying to restrain George Bailey from going at Mary who.

She's like, I don't know this man.

One guy's like, it's a crazy guy. Hit him in the head with a bottle. That's what we do here.

Yeah, it's like we still aren't past our conflict resolution methods with people having some kind of caras like fucking attack them. This guy's lost it. And then I love that the cop pulls up and just starts blasting from the hip, blasting shot again. Again.

It has everything bad about America, predatory capitalism, police who shoot wildly onto a crowded street, except in this case the police officer is like his old friend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really really something.

And being associated with being alone, right right.

A librarian, yeah, exactly, the worst thing.

Why she's the worst thing.

She could be institutionalized a librarian.

Oh my god.

But that was like kind of Georgia's thing too, Like, wasn't he headed to the library one of those scenes.

Like we're yeah, that's what he's the library, Like all right, fucking loser, dork library, all right, bag fumble number ninety, fucking I fucking hate this guy.

Fucking George dude, fucking loser.

Round. It does give me hope that this is like an American classic because it is so anti capitalist. It's just like the that sentiment is there in people's hearts. They know what's happening, they know that there are potters out there and they're fucking people up. But yeah, it's it's just wild. It's really laying dormant and has been for eighty years now.

Yeah, that reminds me of something I thought of when I was watching this, which was when I grew up. I was in this play in first grade called Stanley, and I played a caveman that was like shunned by the other cavemen because he liked like to decorate and he wanted to sleep on a pillow instead of using a rock, and he danced with a mouse like in the play, I danced with a mouse, you know, and like the other cavemen were like you know thought that

And so that is what you learn.

Right then seven years later, if you were good at playing lacrosse in my town, you were above the law. Like how did that?

What is the first part for?

If we throw it all out the window? And that's what's happening to me every day in America now, I feel so sad because I just feel like, what is all this talk about being all this stuff we were raised on?

What was it all for?

And how could we all be so easily just from eight years of this idiot you know, be have that all shaken out of us?

Right?

I mean, I know it's more complicated than that, but the basics of you know, Ice is wrong. What they're doing is wrong. What what Trump is doing is wrong. Trump's way of speaking is wrong. Trump saying that he's going to take people out of things, out of campaign rallies on stretchers is wrong. How did we manage to shrug off a million years of not really but you know, fifty sixty years of like like what we supposedly celebrated, which was the morality of the United States, which is

You know, what's the rhetoric that's changed? Right? To describe those people Now it's not like someone down and out, it's like a potential threat or these other things. You completely see.

All you need to get is the media on board with that, and then it just takes away all that stuff we learned, but I mean, I also know that like it. It was very like, I don't know what the point of it all is. I guess just to make people feel better once they start doing the bad stuff. They said, well, a long time ago, I talked about what was right to do.

Yeah right, welcome to Pottersville, motherfucker.

Yeah yeah right.

Interesting. So at that point we've reached the part where George bed is like, I actually want to live. God, I can't stand there's anymore. You got to bring me back.

I'm my family.

And here comes Burt in the cop pri and he's like, George, you're looking all over for you. And he's like, birs, you recognize me. He's like, of course I do. Anyway, So he's back, he exists, his mouth is bleeding, he can't hear out his left ear. His fucking drunk driving accident is still there. And it's okay because your friend is the cop. And let's not forget George is technically a banker, so it's not like he's also sitting pretty.

It's like just because he's a community. But he's like, hey mom, I'm sitting on all this capital. Let's be real, Okay, they're waiting back at his house with the media because it is two bankers by definition also if you kind of think about that. But again, the values are still I think the point is still there. And then he gets home.

He's like, he's so happy that he doesn't even give a shit that the cops are going to fucking arrest him, that he doesn't have the money to fucking keep the home and loan solve it. He's just so thankful that you know, he's here and he gets to enjoy this. He gets home, and then we come to find out that his uncle has been going around telling people we're in trouble, and everybody in town came through with the cash that he needed for thing to work out, and he.

Had done that when there was a run on the bank. He had given them the money from his wedding.

And that's when I got really touched by that part was because he I think he began to realize too. He's like, damn, like, I my life, I've actually been doing so much good. I just there hasn't been a moment where that was like reflected back to me and with such clarity that I could understand what that was. And I felt like I was similar. I felt similarly when I lost my house in the fire and like all these people were helping me out. I was so

I had a nice experience with that scene too because or just like his general joy because I under financial pressure right now, you know, as I think anybody or most people, not anybody, but a lot of people are. It really is an effective way of like his joy at just simply being like alive again even with a huge amount of debt. Was like, I don't know, it felt heartening to me. I mean it felt heartening to me.

Yeah, yeah, So one thing I was looking into is that the FBI did have their eye on under j Edgar Hoover.

Yes, I mean I have to assume like the fact that it was it's been an American classic, like you know, since you know a few years after it came out, once it started like rerunning, I think so like it was it was on TV during the Red Scare.

Yeah, so this is what happened at quote This is from Smithsonian Mac. An unnamed FBI agent who watched the film as part of a larger FBI program aimed at detecting and neutralizing common influences in Hollywood. Hoover said it was quote very entertaining However, writes scholar Johnny Noakes, that the agent quote also identified that they considered a malignant undercurrent in the film. As a result of this report, the film underwent further industry probes that uncovered that quote.

And the FBI and the people with all the money proceeded to win that battle, to use those suspicions to make it so that now you look back and you're like, man, it's weird, how like decent the values are, and how instinctively anti capital. The people are in this mood, you know. Now, We're just like, huh, this seems seems weird that they got away with that. How can you make a movie so iconoclastic and you know, anti establishment as it's a wonderful life right now, right.

I really recommend a Face in the Crowd by Elia Kazand to anybody in terms of like another movie that I wrote off because it was black and white and has a really heavy message that's applicable to now and also makes you feel better because you realize this shit is.

There's an interesting thing though, that a copyright lapse enabled royalty free repeats of the film, which is why it was played so much.

Yeah, it was just an accidents out of.

This fucking jag Hoover dropped the ball on that, Yeah, you should have jacked up those rights costs.

Because other people were just pointing out to some people were saying, it's actually too capitalists with different visions of capitalism. So it wasn't because apparently Hoover's whole thing was it had it was a black or white thing, like is it subversive or is it not? And I think there was enough nuance that he didn't send it to the Unamerican Activities Commission, basically, but this was the like sort of beginnings of the Hollywood witch hunts, and.

Was it ordered everybody who made it followed for the rest of their lives and probably gas lit and to things they're crazy.

And Elia Kazan actually did. I think Ilia Kazan did end up naming names, which ruined his reputation in front of the committee, the Joe McCarthy Hollywood hearings, he reported on people because he was a communist. But it's just so funny the communist turns out to be the good guy, you know, I mean, not the communists like in the cartoon way that they try and scare us, but the idea that of just like one person can have all the resources, just simple.

Just the idea of being slightly suspicious of the institution of capital. Chris crofton, thank you so much for showing us this Christmas classic, because I truly, had this not been for an assignment, I don't know that I would have gotten through it. But then I was rewarded. I

And be like, hey, man, could you get me out of this? Damn dude. Men would rather be haunted by an angel on Christmas Eve than say that they need help. So that's that's that was very American. He's like, well, I'm not going to share this without anyone.

Yeah, but overall, you know, a plus ending, well done.

I get it.

I get why people love this movie. I enjoyed it too, And you.

Know, same about if I can watch it again.

I feel the same about Home Alone. I mean I thought for a long time I thought it was you know, uh, I didn't really get it, like I thought it was just like I was like just consumed with how much stuff this kid had. But then then by the end I was like, oh, I get it. Like it's sort of it's just a thing you can go watch and feel like a sense of place when you watch it, and that's that's that's the best art really is somewhere where you can go visit, you know, and feel like better.

Yeah, they do nail like just the you know where every room in that house is, and like the geography, and you kind of do in this town too a little bit like you kind of know where everything is.

And I feel like it was Arcaves r KO Studios in Sino, California and Laka YadA, Flint Bridge. I think really the main shoot here.

You go, Well, thank you for joining us, Chris, thank you guys for joining us. Merry Christmas to all, unto all good night, or you.

Got to keep an eye on Miles. That's about to say he's gonna say he's this is gonna spill over all regular Daily Zeite guy.

Funked up off the Jimmy Stowar and everyone. I'm brung off that Jimmy. All right, I can face an l right now outside.

Yeah, this isn't gonna stop.

No no, it's not no, no no, I'm bye bye, bye bye. The Daily Zeite guys his executive produced by Catherine Law.

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Jimmy