we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

looks like i picked the wrong way to

quit sniffing blue light

of my life we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

welcome to vintage video where we'll be

reviewing every major film release of

the 1980s in real time

i'm patrick o'reilly i'm jesse bayless

and i'm richard wells and today marks

the 40th anniversary of the release of

simon

on february 1st 1980. it was written and

directed by marshall brickman and

released by warner brothers

the movie starts as a mockumentary for

the first like 5 or 10 minutes

which is great it was really funny i

mean i really wish they had

actually stuck with that style

throughout because i thought i was like

really entertained by that

introduction i don't know if it needed

to stay in that mode the whole time but

i would have

it would have been cool to at least come

back to it sure later in the movie

sure but i just liked i mean i liked the

style of it writing to me a little bit

of the

like um man bites dog kind of thing yeah

it's also very sleeper-ish which uh

marshall brickman also wrote so that

makes sense

um for woody allen which is a connection

to our last film

because it's another frequent

collaborator of woody allen's

um but uh

so yeah it starts as a mockumentary

about this bizarre think tank

right the phoenix foundation yeah

basically uh no there's these five

loopy scientists um and they

through some like bureaucratic misstep

have been granted

unlimited funding for whatever dumb

project they yeah

come up with it's like what's that

actual like genius grant that people can

give macarthur genius

yeah it's like it's like something like

that it's like that but an unlimited one

right but it's but instead of like

actually studying

things that were supposed to help the

world become a better place they kind of

just went off on their own

yeah because they have no oversight so

they're just kind of like

let's just do elaborate pranks instead

you know what's more interesting that

solving world hunger

is you know like mixing humans and

cockroaches

but they also do seem to stay on top of

like proper science

like they seem familiar with other like

famous scientists they mention a few

over the course of like the film that

they're like oh did you read so-and-so's

new report and they're like

mentioning real world scientists um

so they're at least like aware of what's

going on in the actual world of science

but here they're doing

a bunch of silly stuff well and they

cast like the nerdiest like actors that

they could find to play

the scientists which i think is great

it's almost

like i mean as much as i do not care for

the big bang theory

it's almost like that this was like the

template sure for the big bang theory

and i i am familiar with the work of

four of these five

actors that they have the scientists um

one of them is austin pendleton

which i actually wouldn't be surprised

if that role was originally written for

woody allen

and ended up going to austin pendleton

but i think austin pendleton does a

great job

um i really like him uh and then

we have alf dad what i mean

you should tell people you'll know

austin pendleton

from the muppet movie right yes

of course short circuit oh no the muppet

movie no he's the

he's the ceo of the nova company in

short circuit he he

paid for johnny five to be alive

um but yeah so the dad from elf who was

also i think the boss on

norm did you ever watch that show i

never watched norm it's actually really

funny

um nor mcdonald's sick i know what norm

is

making sure what i like what like about

him is like that spin-off of cheers that

no one ever heard of

what i like about him is that he always

sounds like he's just about to get

caught doing something

he he's always like oh god

oh i think this is a good idea yeah his

delivery of every line

you're gonna like this um

what if a spaceship lands

an extraterrestrial steps uh

what happens what is it what happens and

what is the effect on the population

what is it panic is it hysteria

is it depression mass suicide

is it war is it the end of war

is it religious revivals you see what

i'm saying

we can find out how fake and especially

towards the end when he has a little

hissy fit

kills me he's very very funny in this um

and then we also have

obviously wallace sean who's like you

know sort of a stephen tobolowski he's

everywhere

um people probably know him best from

princess bride

inconceivable or toy story but i don't

want to use my hands

38 tardies by far the most tardies in

the class congratulations

incredibles we're supposed to help our

people

starting with our stockholders bob who's

helping them out huh

he's all over the place um

and uh william findlay the tallest who

kind of looks very uh like mid to late

70s donald southerland

here um he is a frequent collaborator

of uh brian de palmas he's been in six

or seven prime diploma movies but most

notably as the phantom of the paris

paradise and uh

so these scientists and the fifth guy i

don't really recognize

from yeah yeah that's the uh the

giant or giant giant i don't know how to

pronounce it it's a one word name

j-a-y-a-n-t oh yeah i was saying giant

but it might be james

it could be either way i don't know he

looked like our our

our token ethnic smart guy

was that the maybe the one that looks he

might be an indian

yeah it's his only movie yeah oh is it

really yeah um

uh so after the scientists after reading

that over 60 percent of people believe

in aliens decide that they're going to

basically stay stage and elaborate like

war of the worlds type situation

um and they're going to find someone who

was orphaned or

is he is he an orphan or is he abandoned

at birth

he isn't i mean what's the distinction

and orphan's parents are

dead aren't they well i think an orphan

doesn't doesn't have their parents

no doesn't know i mean yes your parents

might be dead but they might have also

just abandoned you

yeah right but you're not an orphan if

you're 40

and both of your parents die in a car

accident where you are an orphan but

you're not abandoned

that's what i'm saying that's the

difference yes i know but it's like the

it's like the

you know the square rectangle thing i

think that right

if you're abandoned you're definitely an

orphan okay but if you're an orphan

you're not necessarily abandoned okay

that's my question

yes is he a tortoise or a turtle that's

my question

that's not the same thing at all

one is a subcategory of the other is

that true i think that tortoise the type

of turtle

no one is on land and one is like uh

how does that perry grip song go a

turtle lives in water

a tortoise lives on land a turtle's not

a tortoise it's not hard to

understand yeah so they uh they go to

their super computer

doris doris who is essentially a giant

iphone

well and and i feel like like later on

this is like

and it's weird because i feel like this

movie had like a lot of interesting

things about it that

inspired other things but i also feel

like no one ever saw this movie i think

a lot of it is stuff that just didn't

make it into sleeper

yeah that he was like what other visions

of the future could i squeeze into this

weird science movie

well because doris is also very close to

gladys

as far as like a type of name sure and

and just the whole notion of this like

computer system that's pretty much in

charge

yeah because it's already made the

decisions of things for them

right um but i i i don't know why it was

shaped like a giant

phone with the the buttons or tv screens

i don't know but

it's very prescient of them to say like

oh the first ai will take the form of

an enormous phone and not only that but

like the way the buttons are lit up it

looks like

apps on a screen on the phone because it

is literally a monitor on the phone

um but yeah so doris tells them oh i

found the perfect orphan for you guys

his name is simon mendelsohn and he's uh

what is he he's an assistant

uh professor at some university

yeah and he's trying to figure out some

kind of big breakthrough that he can

some something big to give him note

right well it's weird too because i

think

he's an assistant professor of

psychology but

we cut immediately to him getting to a

classroom and talking to kids

and he has this very like wide-ranging

grandiose like lecture that seems to

have nothing to do with psychology he's

like

telling them uh about

how like different concepts came up in

the world

and and it's like a true knowledge it's

knowing that you know nothing or

whatever

yeah but it's also just like you know

you need an idea you need to

to find that that one thing to change

the world right

you need an idea he like keeps harping

on that idea

but in his free time he's obsessing over

sensory deprivation

and he's built like he's jerry-rigged a

crappy sensory deprivation tank

in his office from from the shipping

container for a coffin

yeah it was like a co-worker's uncle

died and he's like hey can i keep that

box

like and he literally just like lined it

with hefty bags and filled it with water

as a sensory deprivation chamber and

he's got like a counterweight on a rope

so yeah it's like the door open well and

it's and it's suspended so

right yeah and and his his

uh colleague and girlfriend will just

say that that's what she is um is

is very much against uh him doing any of

these crazy experiments that he's doing

because she's

had to go through several different

rounds of this like he took a bunch of

mescaline or something yeah

and she had to like sit with him and

clean up after him

um but yeah so she's like why are we

doing this

and then some other guy comes in to help

them out that he'll be hired to assist

but um because he wants to go in for 80

hours yeah he wants to break the record

of 50 hours by going in for 80 hours and

he comes out after like

45 seconds yeah he's like was i in there

for the full 80.

he's like oh you just went in and he's

like oh wow it was amazing what it did

to my brain and then like

the machine breaks down yeah i don't

even know why there's any moving parts

to this at all

yeah he's sprung a leak and he and he

gets out why is there like a running

engine on a sensory deprivation tank it

should just be a container of water

right well it might be

uh the pump that filled it with water or

maybe that's what it was and then it

sprung a leak

and and hit the electricity and as he's

getting out here like gravity

touches it and so he just gets like

electrocuted very nearly electrocutes

himself

um and then later that evening

austin pendleton's character becker

shows up at his office and it's like

i think you're a bona fide genius it

just cuts to him getting on a helicopter

like that's all he wanted

yeah he just needed someone to come and

tell him he was smart and he was like

all right i'll do whatever you say

um so they take him back to the facility

which is actually the

the bronx development center that

building did you figure out what it was

from

no no it just it just looked like a

really familiar building and like you

know i thought maybe it was nova from

short circuit

because again because i'm just looking

at austin pendleton but then

you had mentioned the manhattan project

which would have been an interesting

connection for the director brookman

also directed yeah but it wasn't that

either

okay but it was it was very similar to

both of those buildings but it wasn't

necessarily either one

um but so yeah they take him back to

that that

their think tank um and they assign him

an assistant uh dr cynthia mallory

played by madeleine kahn

who he's very judgmental of at the start

and she keeps like

listing off all of her doctorates and

all the different

yeah he was very yeah he was very

condescending and like basically

they used his profile to like pinpoint

every last thing he'd want in

you know in a woman and then beyond her

intelligence she she makes the point

that

her new book is entitled a comprehensive

history of oral sex techniques

illustrated and it's been proclaimed a

masterpiece by both norman mailer and

bess meyerson

um and i love that even even with this

information

he can't help but like judge her or

criticize her and try and figure out

like

he's like oh who's your publisher like

he's like trying to judge her on that

even after she

like explains you know it's already

people already said it's great

people who matter said it's great

already well and then he goes well we'll

try it for a week yeah see how it goes

yeah um i think it's interesting that

that

madeleine kahn is is chose or got

involved in such

such a smaller part in like the first

third of the movie and and

she had done several movies including

movies from l brooks

uh to this point this is pretty young

frankenstein though

that was 84. that'd be post blazing

saddles it's post blazing sounds those

were the same

high anxiety uh so it is post

young frankenstein then i think

frankenstein was

mid 80s early 80s no young frankenstein

and placing saddles were the same year

placement saddles was like 89 or 79

wasn't it yeah 74.

wasn't it that's 74. yeah you're right

patrick's right they're both 74.

no kidding because it was i i know

people refer to that as like

93 for spielberg because he had jurassic

park and schindler's list

same year but like even like the muppet

movie and the cheap detective like

she had she had a lot of stuff under her

belt she was no

like it just seems like i don't it

almost seems like this was like a favor

did a favor for someone that's possible

um

but yeah so i think the whole reason

that they brought her

in is because they need someone to get

close enough to her

to get samples of all of his bodily

fluids

yeah they were never totally clear on

which but

yeah he's not even sure what they do

with his bodily fluids later in the film

it's very confusing the way they set the

scene

well i i think that it well they because

they said like we need to get his

i think like they said three major

bodies three major fluids

yeah which ones are the three major

yeah uh i was trying i think there was a

consensus on two

and then we were like this is blood

sweat or tears for

number three well i would say i was

gonna go with bile

so that wasn't me that wasn't even my

list okay

seven fluids you're talking about like

the humors

like you have like you know this is a

comedy

[Laughter]

nice see it sounded like a smart joke

but i'm just stupid and i don't know

he is basically enamored with this woman

they give her like a script

of ways to talk to him about like

if you talk about death he's gonna think

about sleeping with you so

telling stories about your family and

people dying and all this other stuff

and uh they basically talk him into a

sensory deprivation tank for what he

thinks

is a test run but then they leave him in

there for like eight days

um after they've already collected all

of his fluids

um and so they're like okay these are

the three fluids and they like

put them in ice on like a tray that was

like a champagne

they're like eating off of the same tray

where the all these fluids are in vials

um but then there's like i like that

there's just kind of like a montage of

them

doing other like minutia other like

filling out reports and just having like

meetings and stuff while he's in this

tank the whole time yeah and he's just

going insane meanwhile inside the tank

they have they have the audio coming out

and he's

he's just like taking on different

characters

and like yeah he's being very strange

oh weird shoes a thousand pardons sire

i am but a humble surf

when they finally let him out of it

he's kind of like catatonic a little bit

at the start

and then he very quickly like pantomimes

the entirety of human history

and he starts he starts with just these

little fidgets and you know

you know is the audience you just think

oh yeah okay he's just coming too but

they're like

oh no he's like he's regressed through

all of evolution and so he's he's like a

single cell

right right and then and then all his

fingers start moving and yeah because

he's like one finger is like a flagella

and he's like

wiggling his fingers like he's turned

into a squid and then he like crawls out

on land

and he he does the whole 2001 a space

odyssey

yeah recognizing weapons he like

literally acts out the whole like

smashing that whatever taper what was

the

animal and well well yeah well in the he

just he like finds like a bone

yeah he's smashing us what are the

animals that the monkeys are killing

in 2001 i think it's a taper is it in my

opinion no idea

but he just smashes it and then he

throws the bone up in the air like

the monkey does in the movie and then he

lives through like

the neanderthal age but yeah but they do

like the the chart

right they do like a whole stream

straightening to homo erectus

and then for some reason you know

although we've gone through hundreds of

millions of years he does

for some reason like the last hundred

years you know like he does a bunch of

little dances

charleston or something he's just like

like you can

count out specific decades right in the

dances

um yeah and then he's like suddenly he's

like shouting speeches

but it's all gibberish he's not talking

in english and then

he gets to the present and he collapses

and then they

put him in the hospital right

um then this is where they

have to implant the memory of him having

been

an orphan and left on the planet by an

alien

they made a very elaborate diorama

convincing model i think

it's only a model yeah

but so they wheel them up to it and this

weird like

boob-like glowing glowing gelatinous

spaceship

is hovering over the street in the

middle of presumably brooklyn somewhere

and says like oh i'm leaving you here

son

you're gonna make the world a better

place and he's just like oh well what

who are you what am i like

what am i i'm basically you're telling

me i'm a toaster i'm part machine

where are you mother right in front of

you darling

the spaceship are you in

[Music]

simon i am the spaceship

you're just a machine oh thank you very

much

some gratitude from a son and she says

you're you're an exact duplicate of the

human race and you're gonna save

everyone

and uh then she floats away and they

immediately like turn him around and

turn all the lights on so that he's like

snapping into reality right

and they try and convince him no that

wasn't something that you just saw

happen that was a regressed memory that

we just accessed

as a result of your sensory deprivation

um

and then we get this really cool cover

of uh

of uh mr sandman in spanish

uh that center oh yeah i loved that

cover it was great

um and uh they're showing him all of his

fluids right oh and i don't i don't even

like

i don't know how they make what they

show him he looks into a microscope at

his blood

and there's like literally nuts and

bolts and wrenches floating around

yeah it was a very like wes anderson

kind of animation too of the

but it was like just like going back and

forth but then they do his

his sperm he goes to look at his sperm

like little heads with tails

and it's like little alan arkan faces on

every spermatozoa

and they all like swim right up to the

camera and look into it stop motion clay

animated yeah really creepy it looked

like

a celebrity death match or something and

then uh

and so they put him back in his like

little see we don't even get what what

is the third

we have we have blood and we have semen

but what is the third fluid we didn't

even get to see it there

no other than he did he does pee and uh

yeah

it's like green but but they're giving

him like cocktails of things to make

things happen

right so i'm sure that one of them like

concocted thing

if you give him this is his urinal turn

out green

give him this and his sperm will grow

faces

i don't understand what he was even

looking at in there um

but so now he's in this like

magneto-esque

plexiglas cage where they're keeping him

safe from

bacteria of the atmosphere even right

he's from earth and has been on earth

for 40 some years

and at this point they've made the

announcement right that that they have

an

alien in captivity and they're saying

like he

claims to be an alien they're saying we

haven't confirmed it yet but we're gonna

open it up to peer review and everything

and uh simon believes it full-heartedly

now

and is writing a speech that he wants to

deliver to the people

and he holds it up to like the window

and they're reading it like oh boy

we can't let you say this stuff and they

keep like

he keeps trying to talk to them and they

keep flipping his audio switch off yeah

and every time he they flip it back on

he's still talking and like

yeah but the uh what's his name that was

the dad on alpha is like

i think we should let him do it i think

it's a great idea he doesn't

see the consequences at all

but one of the like it's just like a

list of like

random like ranty suggestions yeah

ways to change the world one of them was

that everyone who's in congress should

be forced to wear little party hats

whenever they're making a public

appearance yeah

and one of them was like no more

elevator music no more elevator music

music has to go away um if you work at

like a nuclear facility

any waste that your facility produces

you have to take home with you

and like all these random things but

then we get this short clip of um

people debating whether or not this is a

true

like alien encounter on like addicted

yeah right but one of the guys is a

politician

one of them is a senator

which it's like they make it very clear

like early on that even though

what he says isn't like immediately

written into law but people are

complying with it because they're

terrified in case he is an alien

yeah they don't know what's going to

happen to him so they just go along with

everything that he says

but lisa sees this on on dick cavett and

it's like

okay i got to go down there and figure

out what's going on because

he's not an alien and i don't know how

they convinced him that

he was um so she comes to the facility

to check on him

and they want this to happen because

right they want

this interaction with her and him yeah

so she goes into his she actually gets

into his room

and stays the night with him um but

meanwhile

the scientists decide what they're gonna

do is they're gonna they're gonna flood

they have to kill him because he's gonna

start saying a bunch of weird stuff on

television

and make everything weird so they're

like we have to abort the project we

have to kill him well because he's not

he starts making demands

that they're and they start losing

control because no i've requested full

media coverage i requested it myself and

they're coming

yeah um and so they decided that what

what they're going to do is they're

going to gas him

with this chemical that brings down your

iq people stupid

by 100 points right which um is really

similar to a book that i like

called iq 83 have i talked to you about

this before no

um but it's uh these scientists develop

this like virus

that that slowly makes people dumber

and it very quickly like takes over the

entire world

but these scientists are struggling to

solve it

as they're getting dumber like actively

getting dumber

and it's just really interesting at one

point charlie kaufman was

adapting it to a movie but i don't know

if that's still happening

but iq it's called idiocracy basically

um but that when they go to put the

the gas tank up to their ventilation

system

alph dad is holding the map upside down

and realizes at the last second oh god

no that's venting to everywhere except

for the run that they're in

and uh well yeah but that they didn't

actually put it in that one they

accidentally just

broke the door it doesn't matter yeah

they broke it open and gas themselves

and everyone in the building

um which conveniently at the same time

is being

taken over by like a military coup um

uh so everyone's getting dumber

their soldiers running all over the

building and becker goes to talk to the

siri statue this yeah the doris phone

and

is like really dumb and like starts

flirting with it

and she's trying to shut him down like

no we're not doing this right now

and he just starts like molesting the

phone by like touching it

i don't think he's ever affected by the

gas oh he's not no he

no he escaped he like he like held his

breath and ran out

i remember he covered his mouth but then

i thought they said it was venting in

the whole building so

no i don't think so because it didn't

affect the soldiers he's still being a

little bit loopy but maybe that's just

the character

yeah and he he yeah but then he he

engages

in activity with doris and doris is like

resisting but then she goes there's

literal phone sex yeah then she starts

going okay okay like no okay that's good

that's good

oh no no we need to stop like the whole

like yeah she's like

being like resistant but you could tell

that like by the end of it she's

completely consented to what's happening

um

and then the the corey shows up

um general corey general corey from the

pentagon

played by herman munster yeah

who uh what did you guys say you always

think of

i i i go to my cousin vinnie first i go

to pet cemetery

oh yeah yeah yeah pet cemetery um

but yeah so he he comes in and he tells

becker like

okay so let me get this straight the

alien created this

gas that brought everyone's iq down like

he did a chemical attack on you guys

he's like oh oh that's lovely yes that's

exactly what happened

he hadn't even thought of that excuse

yet he's just like oh my god that's

wonderful

you did what release the gas yes

oh that's lovely yes he did very guess

who else it's a goddamn invasion he's

very dangerous

but lisa sees what's going on she sees

soldiers everywhere and they're still in

his room

and she's like we got to get out of here

and simon's like no no these people are

on my team

everything's fine and then the soldiers

just opened fire on them right so

they're like

okay so they literally jump off jump off

the balcony run off

it's a crazy jump too yeah like i'm sure

that the actors the sun people had

like plenty of landings well you don't

really see the landings but she just

drops off the side and she falls at

least like a floor and a half yeah

and then they run past this woman in a

big winter coat and he's like

lisa a lady is dancing with a potholder

and then they steal a van to get away

and it's a news a news van

yeah it's a news van from this think

tank though it's not like

something that someone left there um

it's not like from the film crews that

were on site

it's actually something that they built

at the at the think tank

um and they drive off to the middle of

nowhere

in like upstate new york and fall asleep

in a greenhouse for some reason

um and when they wake up like the

windows are all fogged over

but there's a bunch of people watching

them through the windows um

and they wake up to basically a hippie

commune

that it turns out is like this tv guide

cult

so they believe everything that they see

on television including

that this man is the genuine article

that well they have and they have

some weird like religious chants that

are like

they have the girls yeah campbell souped

commercials

yeah good yeah

[Music]

um but the leader of this cult

um is uh adolf greene

who was the writer of

uh singing in the rain or right of the

story and a bunch of the songs

and his imdb credits are off the charts

because

the songs from stuff that he's written

have been in thousands of tv shows

yeah so they're stuff up until like

present day because they use covers of

his songs and stuff like that

um yeah but uh so this character

uh it turns out he used to be the head

of uh programming at abc before he

founded this cult that's just obsessed

with television

well it was like he's making amends for

all he's done right right

but he's literally reading the scripture

from the tv guide

to them and he's just talking about like

and whoa

rhoda spun off of yeah and uncle milty

was

also cancelled and and thus are we all

cancelled in the in the end

um just trying to make weird like

religious implications of being canceled

um there's this quick moment that

we didn't even catch it on the first

pass but we went back through it

and when he's telling him that he used

to work for abc as the head of

programming

you notice that there's the hippies are

like burying corpses in the background

they're dragging the bodies which they

never mentioned at all like there's no

implication that

there's like a widespread cause of

people dying

right in the universe at the time so

this cult is just like a

they're suicide pacts or i just kind of

assume because they're all they all seem

like young kids like

i was kind of assuming that these are

like you know it was some sort of

you know like these kids are killing

their parents and they're just

obsessed with television and it was some

weird commentary whatever

tv never mentioned at all aside from

this one shot where in the background

you see them dragging a body through a

field and then burying it

um but yeah so uh

then suddenly some of the hippies come

up and they say hey you're never gonna

believe what we found in the van that

you stole

and they take the head of the former

head of abc over to the van

and he's like oh my god you could break

into all three

network channels with this you can like

hack the network yeah and it overpowers

all broadcasting signals right and i

assume it would be

local you couldn't do it everywhere like

it wouldn't be nationwide well no it

would be because that's why they keep

parking it next to

some big giant power lines yeah like

it's some kind of relay station oh okay

so and it and since it it overpowers the

broadcasting

power of the other networks right it's

just you can't turn him off he's on

every channel and he's getting

what the cult leader describes as more

coverage than

the president gets yeah because he's not

usually on all three networks at the

same time

um and he can't break him whenever he

wants there's a funny joke too though

where earlier they're early in the movie

the scientists were talking about one of

their experiments is how they rigged the

nielsen box

like the tissue like they i can't and i

can't remember if it was

oh this had a 60 share and it was like

the osmonds or something like that

yeah donnie marie osmond and it was like

only 1500 people watched this yeah we

made it look like it was the number one

show of the night

but but then when like he starts

broadcasting and gaining notoriety

there's like a whole thing like that he

gets like so many shares

but we already proved that that wasn't

even a real thing but it's also like

but it was 100 shares that was like well

yeah because

there was nothing else but it's also

funny because it's in the middle of a

montage of like

people saying like oh my god we've made

contact with aliens yeah like this guy

is an

alien and he's here on earth and he's

here to give us the you know the

knowledge of the universe

and all variety cares about it's like

the ratings that he got like

it's not a headline that this guy's an

alien they're just like it got a cosmic

100 share like can you believe it

um because they have to put a pun in

every headline

and it's all uh all his like it's all

his grievances with the world

right it's all just his personal

grievances around here

is where i realized that this is

basically like the premise of this movie

is

what if howard beal from network was an

idiot

like in the movie network like he's

complaining about stuff that is like

very relatable and real problems with

the world or falling down

kind of like or falling down but but in

this movie

this guy's complaining about like

minutia that doesn't matter to anyone

or even complaining about things that

some people like that he just happens to

not like

personally and so it's just like what if

an idiot had the same power of like i

could just break onto television and

complain about whatever i want

i don't know like like but my one of my

favorite tricks of that too is

how come he is and he's talking about

and there's the orange julius formula

why is that a secret i want that formula

he's really angry and he wants the

formula for orange julius

and one of the formula for orange julius

the secret white powder that makes it a

devilishly good drink

why is it a secret i want that formula

and he also like it seems like for some

of it he's just like filibustering like

he's just sitting there reading a random

book

and it's just like why are why are you

reading this to everyone

so it's important to you that this

information gets out yeah i think

because because he was talking about

before like he's like you know no one

talks about like these

authors or things like that so i think

he was just trying to

share taking advantage of his captive

audience exactly no exactly it's like

it's like when charlie kaufman

not charlie kaufman andy kaufman oh

right right read that great gatsby yeah

read the entire book born back

ceaselessly into the past

and all these people are like just get

up and walk out

um but yeah and the other uh the other

thing though is that this isn't a

captive audience because

he's just on television right you can

just turn the tv on the same people who

the first time he was on television were

like

captivated and hanging on everywhere

they sang are now like

ugh like yawning or tired one guy

literally pulls out a shotgun and just

shoots his television because he's like

this guy can just break on whenever he

wants to just talk about nonsense

why do i even have a television uh hell

he

one of his things look he can't have

mustache and mutton chops yeah one of

the other

yeah and then uh general corey sees one

of his soldiers has both he's like yeah

he's just one of those

[Laughter]

uh but yeah and everything that he

complains about we we get like some

subtle implication that it's changing in

the real world because he complained

about it

um but i feel like he's losing his his

demons yeah because he confronts he

confronts his followers

when lisa is trying to convince him that

they don't she's like they don't

believe what you believe yeah he's like

well no they listen to everything i say

on the network and it's like no they

don't know they believe everything

that's on television

it doesn't matter if it's anything

that's on tv and he's on tv so they

in theory believe him so he starts

reading them a list of oh do you believe

in this

yes do you believe in this yes do you

like junk yes like

yeah they don't if it's on the tv we

like it it has nothing to do with you

and then he's just like

you're like what's the greatest thing in

the world disco and he just was like

ugh you just was a big thing in the

early 80s for everyone to just [ __ ] on

disco like it was the worst thing ever

i'm not trying to defend it mind you i'm

just saying

sure jump on the bandwagon not as bad as

freaks and geeks would have you believe

disco is not dead disco is life

but yeah so after that uh humiliating

confrontation with his what he thought

were his followers

lisa tells him hey i'm pregnant

and he says oh okay well you know what's

gonna happen eventually

and she says you're not mad and he says

well no you could be with whoever you

want

and it's not up to me and she's like no

no no it's your

baby and he says well that's impossible

right he's an alien

but not gonna believe it it still

doesn't screw up the backstory because

the mother alien spaceship told him he

was a perfect replica right yeah right

so like

we can make sure you can make toasters

but

um but the implication is that this is

solid proof that

he's not an alien the fact that he was

able to impregnate her and she says i

just want you to tell me

look me in the eyes and tell me that

this isn't your kid and that's when she

basically cuts to the human center of

him and he realizes like

well no i love you and it probably is my

kid

and this is enough to convince him that

he's not my name yeah

and i think the way she phrased it was

that to

to look in my eyes and tell me that i

was unfaithful to you

right yeah tell me that and and he knows

that she wouldn't do that she wouldn't

do that do you really think that that's

the point where

he's like done thinking he's an alien

yes

yeah i think i think when he says you're

right i can't say that

that's when he's saying i love you and i

and i

trust that you love me so much that you

wouldn't make this up and i couldn't

impregnate you otherwise

so that's that's 100 solid proof that

i'm not an alien

and these people were screwing with me

and that's when he comes up with his

plan to get his revenge

right so he volunteers for a return

mission

so he calls the military headquarters

now in the think tank and corey hands

the phone to becker

and he says i want to go home and he's

like

he tells cory and cory's like oh yeah he

wants to go where does he live in new

york or something and he's like

no no home he wants to go back to space

so they go to an actual launch site now

which is incredible

yeah which um as much as information as

i could find was that it actually was

um a launch that was taking off in

the late 70s it was one of the

early shuttles i can't believe they

would allow cameras anywhere near

that thing like that like to film a

movie

well i mean there's not that much that

you can see from the outside i wouldn't

let film crews in my house why would you

let them near a spaceship

i think what's weirder is that they let

them in the elevator the whole way up to

the top of the spaceship because

they don't actually go inside of it it's

literally just the exterior

that you use well there is a shot inside

of it but i'm sure that was a statement

yeah

um but but they don't leave the

shuttle on the launch pad for very long

right it's their like

maximum 18 hours before launch yeah and

so this

this was a very narrow window of

opportunity for this production

yeah and i don't know again it's

probably a skeleton crew too

yeah and and there's some creative

editing here too where

the stuff in the elevator could have

been there when the the rocket's not

there

like literally all we see of the rocket

is um

establishing shots and like inserts

panning up

tilting up right and then one shot one

shot running down

away from it yeah that was the only one

that confirmed that oh this isn't stock

footage

yeah yeah some some of the footage was

clearly like shot before and some of the

when

during the launch but to be fair the guy

that we see run down the stairs

past the rocket it's not just alan

alda's head he's

wearing a mask so it could have been

literally anybody from

a skeleton crew running past the thing

because er what did i say

no not eleanor allen arkad well he

wasn't there either though

and i and i know like now they're no

longer launching maybe it was alan alta

we don't know we don't know his face was

obscured uh they no longer obviously

launch

space shuttles anymore but this is also

it's interesting because like we grew up

in a time when

the main booster of the space shuttle

was orange yeah and

it's not because it was painted orange

it's just because that's the material

they make it out of his orange

they used to paint it white yeah and in

this version it's still painted white

and

they helped me obviously they stopped

painting it because it's adding like

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of

pounds and every pound

that you send into space costs hundreds

of thousands of dollars yeah exactly so

they realized that

we could save a lot of money and put

more cargo

and have a better better load if we just

don't paint these things

yeah um so uh

becker for some reason is foolish enough

to escort him directly into the rocket

so he goes to strap him in yeah he goes

up the elevator with him and across the

bridge

and then when they get inside of the

spaceship

um uh simon basically like buckles him

into the driver's seat

straps him down gets on the on the

communications and says hey this is

going to be my last communication i'm

all ready to go and then he hangs up

turns off the machine takes the

microphone and leaves and leaves the guy

strapped in the

in the driver's seat of this rocket and

then just runs away

yeah and becker is trying to like just

give dig

dig into him any chance he get he says

like madeleine khan's character it's

like you know she was she was just an

actress she didn't

she didn't actually believe in you or

care about you at all yeah and he's like

okay

like he doesn't care because he didn't

he wasn't like in love with her or

anything he's been in love with lisa

this whole time

um and he's past being embarrassed by

what these people have put him through

um so becker is presumably launched into

space to his own death

yeah like i don't i don't know what they

pointed this rocket at they say he's

from the

orion nebula yeah which i'm assuming is

because it's a really

grand picture well i mean i also think

it's kind of strange though that they

just kind of assumed

it's like oh yeah that guy we sent up

there to strap him in like he's out of

there right like we got

we got him down and yeah they didn't

check with the guy that came back down

because he's lit there is a dude you

know like who regardless of which one it

was

there's a dude on the launch pad running

away from the thing like maybe when it

launches

give him a moment to get further away

from this space shuttle

but when when i forgot to mention when

when he first mentions that

he wants to go back on the rocket and go

home to space

and he's like um yeah i'm going to take

him to the rocket

and they're like oh can we go on the

rocket like

i want to go on the rocket and he's like

no you you can't go on the

rock this is going to launch him into

space he's going to be gone forever and

they immediately just start

bawling because they still have their iq

deficiencies

and they're just like oh i wanted to go

on the why can't i go on the rocket

i want to go on a rocket on a

rocket ship can we go no

no you have to stay here and while i'm

gone i want you to behave

[Music]

what's the matter leon

no doctor you cannot go on the rocket

ship i'm sorry

now while i'm away i want you to stay

out of trouble

uh when they launch uh it goes from

being the

space shuttle to just like a saturn v

right like a

early apollo mission or something like

that it's not even not even a close

match whatever stock but just like but i

mean presumably

they launched this rocket yeah so i'm

saying they don't have a place why

wouldn't they

shuttle they didn't get shocked the day

that they shot the rocket on the

on the i guess it would have been for

further away either way maybe they just

maybe they shot it they had some second

unit and it just didn't look good so

they were like all right we're just

gonna use some stock for this

one i think there's plenty of news

footage of spatial rocket launches

but no they're not famously photographed

or anything that's not a big thing

um but yeah so then we kind of fade to

i don't know months later who knows that

was a couple years

it's a couple years because the kids get

all the kids born and grown

and uh simon and lisa and their son

are sitting on a blanket in the middle

of a field and

simon like gets up to walk away and

on the radio lisa hears that he just won

uh the nobel peace prize for saying that

you can't replace

paper towel dispensers in bathrooms with

hand dryers

or something like that well i think the

implication is that all the little

things

all the obnoxious little things that he

was railing against that people started

to change

made the world a peaceful place and and

the guy says something to that effect

like

that it brought up morale enough that

you know oh now everyone's nice to each

other

it's like we're also ruining the planet

compared to what

we were doing with the i like i forget

uh who tweeted it but one of my favorite

tweets was like

uh one of those wind powered hand dryers

is a really fun way to waste four

minutes before drying your hands on your

pants

but those things supposedly like spray

the germs back up

oh yeah no it's much worse yeah it's not

it's not hygienic sanitary

but your hands will be dry if you want

to save the planet stop washing your

hands people

what it's just gross that is uh vintage

vintage video does not condone

the lack of hand washing you know what i

just wash your hands everyone

i i hate when a bathroom is only

partially automated it's just like oh

wait i'm sorry which parts do you want

automatically

so it's like no it's like you reach in

there and take it out yourself

like the toilet floats by itself it's

like okay the sink runs water by itself

but now i have to touch the soap

dispenser

but then some places will have the soap

dispensers automatic but i have

presumably not people touching the

dispenser are cleaner people in general

or it's like everything's automated

except that paper towel displays but

it's okay to touch the soap because

you're finishing the washing after

you've touched the sun

that's not how i do things and instead

of a door handle there's just a piece of

poop

stapled to the wall and you have to pull

i saw a thing the other day that i

thought was awesome it was instead of a

door handle and a bathroom

it was no it was just a hook and so you

just hook your arm around

the the the thing on the door so you

don't have to use your hands

see i saw one where you just run through

it it's like balsa

that's really thin you just run straight

through it see i think the hook is

worse because it's because so many times

i run into somebody coming in and out at

the same time and i have my arm

twisted up in this door hopefully

hopefully the hook isn't on a two-way

door but i'm just saying like because

the door could only go one way but that

way you just you're not using your hands

and you're not touching the

all the stuff yeah but anyway that's

where the film ends

um there's one really weird line at the

end after

announcing that he won the nobel peace

prize the announcer says simon who is

believed to be living in

uh canada or something like that yeah

somewhere in like canada or

upstate new yorker i forget what he says

exactly but it's like why do you think

that you guys put him on a rocket and

launched him into space

why do you think that he's living in

canada i don't understand

who knows they're like i guess stuff

happened

in the meantime i guess we were okay

with the fact that we just launched some

scientists into space and

simon says but what was the point of

doing the switcheroo if everyone was

going to know that you did it later

well i guess it was just his revenge

because obviously the the scientists

regain their iq

because dora said it would only last a

week right but the but corey

wanted the alien gone or captured

but but the scientists probably must

have copped up to

that it was wasn't real yeah maybe

that's i mean

we don't get an explanation because

people are still doing what he says even

though they know that yeah that's the

human

at this point but um but yeah

i mean that's that's the basic story the

the writer director we said before

marshall brickman

um this was his first time directing uh

previously he had written a bunch of

stuff so he he has written four woody

allen movies

i want you to see if you can guess the

fourth of these

uh interesting facts he wrote manhattan

he wrote manhattan project

he wrote manhattan murder mystery

and he also wrote a muppets project what

would you guess that that was

the muppet caper it's not the muppet

stick manhattan

it was like i forget what it's called

like sex and violence it was like a tv

special they did or something like that

there was a tv

muppet special called sex and violence

look it up it's on its page

i forget what it's actually called it's

definitely not that and i

and i and i do uh enjoy the manhattan

project

after that they're great i also really

enjoy mopeds to take manhattan

that's not so great damn it it's not the

worst one

what did we decide was the worst one

space is terrible it's almost as bad as

my treasure island

yeah that's oh you've crossed the line

mister

no actually okay so hold on i will take

moba treasure island

over muppets in space for sure for sure

right

oh my god i think i think it's fifth and

and muppets in space is sixth

because i think the muppet movie is

number one for me

no great muppets you put paper above it

i know but i disagree so i'll put muppet

and then caper

and then treasure island is fifth

space is sixth so take manhattan is

fourth

because it's not great and then what am

i forgetting the muppets the the reason

with jason siegel no there was another

one before that

i can't remember anyway we're talking

about muppet movies

um uh yeah ellen arkham

uh this was relatively early in his

career

yeah because uh i i don't think i've

ever seen him

so young well me and jess were talking

about it when we watched the movie that

the russians are coming the russians oh

yeah it's his very first film

that's him and carl reiner it's really

funny he's definitely see that one he's

like the uh

the head of a russian submarine that

like shows up in maine or something like

that

and at this guy's house well the whole

town thinks that the russians are

invading

and and uh and so they're trying to like

help these russian

soldiers get back to their ship and out

of town because it was a mistake like

their equipment was broken and they

crashed on accident

so they're like posing as americans and

carl reiner is like helping them blend

in

and it's really funny though i also like

the i

realize that this is actually older uh

the seven percent solution oh right yeah

uh i do really enjoy that movie

um and ellen orkin was also uh

he's too much to name really but yeah uh

yosarian

in catch 22. uh pv and the rockets here

he was the grandpa and little miss

sunshine which i think he got an oscar

nomination for

that's right he won an oscar i'm trying

to see what he wanted for a little

sunshine okay

supporting role um and apparently he

voiced jd salinger on bojack horseman i

just wanted to include that

um madeleine khan obviously only appears

in the first third of this movie

but like we said she's been in a bunch

of yeah malacanang

needs no introduction yeah a lot of mel

brooks stuff um

this movie has a lot of uh

pixar people in it so because madeleine

khan

was a gypsy moth in bugs life

um and uh austin pendleton

played gurgle in finding nemo he's one

of the fish that's in the tank at the

dentist's office oh okay yeah

and then um obviously while shawn is in

incredibles and toy story

so there's a lot of pixar characters in

this but madeleine khan i also really

like us trixie and paper moon

um and obviously she's uh

bunched up in blazing saddles elizabeth

and young frankenstein mrs white and

clue

yeah is another classic from her um

gussy

mouseheimer in american tale yes

and then going through austin pendleton

stuff he was in catch 22 with arkhan

um he played frederick in what's up doc

uh with madeline

because madeline conway's in both there

was her first two movies were what's up

doc

and paper moon which are both peter

bogdanovich movies

i think what's up doc was our first

movie

and um yeah she's great and then

like you said he was max in the muppet

movie um

sure it's serious

he also apparently okay this was another

interesting coincidence

so madeleine khan appeared in a film

called

uh for love alone the ivana trump story

all right which was like a tv movie

based on a book that ivana trump wrote

about herself

okay and what a year because madeleine

khan died a while ago

it was a while ago it was like late 80s

early 90s or something like that

austin pendleton appeared in

something called a president show

documentary the fall of donald trump

but that was like two years ago so it

was just interesting that they were both

in like

weird tv movie projects about the trump

family

um judy graubert who played lisa

um was in 780 some episodes of the

electric company yeah

um as a bunch of different characters on

this show she was also apparently in

tarzune

shame of the jungle does that sound

familiar to you

it does not okay it's a it's a french

animated movie called

tarzoon shame of the jungle and it's

supposed to be a parody of tarzan

but it's one of bill murray's earliest

credits

um he did a voice of like a reporter or

something because it's an animated movie

um and then i think we touched on all

these other

uh credits oh and there was one other

actor we haven't mentioned

uh who plays a member of the cult the tv

guide cult

that uh you're familiar with personally

not i mean

i took uh you knew him i i've

yes i took classes with uh michael earl

who apparently was one of these cult

members you know i went back

and we're not entirely sure which one he

wants i went back and rewatched all the

scenes and

i mean obviously i knew him when he was

much older than this

uh but i couldn't i couldn't pick him

out of the the crowd of

of you know tv pulp people

when did he pass it was like 2010 uh no

2014

2014 okay yeah but he um he has worked

on a bunch of muppet stuff

yeah he's done a bunch of stuff at the

time you were taking the class i think

he was saying that he was like at least

a backup or a regular snuffalo well he

had yeah he had previously been snuffy

um and you know he had he'd worked on

all the

the muppet films and you know done

sesame street and all that

and some other stuff too there were some

other cool things in his credits

yeah um he was he was a he's a great guy

yeah he is missed well that's that's

definitely the first person that

any of us has met that's been in any of

the movies that we've reviewed so far

um what do you guys think letterbox wise

where does this go in your list you know

i put it uh i put it second on my list

right after

my brilliant career uh i have to agree

um

i i'm gonna do the same thing actually

so i i'm it's

fun that we have these two movies in a

row that are on the top of the list

but um yeah well it's gonna start to get

competitive now i think if it had stayed

as

funny the whole way through it could

have had a shot at the top slot yeah it

definitely it definitely started

really strong and then kind of took a

left turn somewhere where it didn't it

didn't quite stick

with the same amount of humor yeah and

when the joke of the scene is that

alan arkin's rants aren't entertaining

and people are yawning at them

then i'm also yawning listening to it so

i think it's interesting too that that

this was before the big

alien craze i mean not like that

obviously the movie alien was before

this but

i mean e.t kind of sparked like this

whole like true

renaissance of gotta do alien stuff

alien visiting you know mac and me

all this stuff spaced invaders we gotta

aliens are everything aliens are

everything

and i feel like this was like ahead of

that curve

maybe two ahead but not so far ahead

that it wasn't in response to like the

public

like that i wouldn't doubt that that

survey was true that over 60

of americans at the time thought that

that

alien races existed like i feel like

that's something that became popular

around roswell and

people were pulled on it regularly after

that like do you think aliens exist

i think the more interesting part of

this than him

you know going off on rants and

pretending to be an alien

was the was the scientist and they kind

of lost that storyline when they made

them dumb

yeah although i really did like wallace

shauna

and alfred crying about not going to the

racket

i want to go on the rocket he was so

much like our son jack

when he was when he just immediately

started balling when he finally

take a look that was definitely a jack

line he's like no jack he can't go on

the rocket

um worth watching what do you think jess

um

oh that's a hard one it is a hard one i

mean i think

if you want to if if you want to be like

kind of complete about it i would say

yes

um but it's on the fence

yeah yeah uh you guys go first because

i'm still deciding in my head

yeah i i would say

probably a not watch for me i think

it's a no for me too maybe i i did enjoy

the film

um but it gets slower towards the end

and i

i think it's not something that i would

put on in mixed company and be like

hey this is really funny because halfway

through i would be embarrassed that i

put it on oh yeah i guess

if you put it that way i would i would

put this on as a no

but i mean that's not necessarily the

context of the question would you put

this on at a party

right right saying is this worth

watching but i feel like

if it stayed consistently funny it's a

definite would watch and i don't think

this is

is worth your time but i mean i think i

think that it has

some notable moments and some really

interesting you know like all the actors

in here it's it's a pretty incredible

cast yeah it's definitely a great

if you want if you want to you know pull

out those obscure references

to you know what these people have done

i mean that's worth watching

yeah all right i think that's about it

for this one

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vintage video podcast thank you so much

for listening and i hope you'll join us

next time

when we will be discussing american

gigolo which wikipedia describes

as a neo-noir crime drama written and

directed by paul

schrader starring richard gere and

lauren hutton

[Music]

you