Hi, guys. Hey.

Hello. Welcome to our recording. We haven't seen each other in what, three weeks?

It's been way too long.

Yeah.

Withdrawals, Honestly.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, that's nice. Where your drug?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll take it.

I mean, that says something about how often I get out of the house, but it just. I was like, I am ready.

It's true. It's true. We're going to talk about 1983 today. Just confirming.

Oh, my God, you creeped me out.

Don't do that.

I was like, oh, no, I've done it. I finally done it.

Finally done it. If we ever accidentally do that, I say we just go ahead with the episode. Two of us will be talking about 1983, you'll be talking about 1996.

It'll be great. Yes. Because the assumption is correct. If that happened, it will be me that has done the wrong year. It will be. I'll be like, what?

What?

Yeah.

Heath, do you want to start us off with some gull?

Sure.

I mean, I've complained about people on the Internet before. Oh, but let's do so much to complain.

It's a wise verse.

Yeah.

Have you. You've heard of a TV show called and Just like that, Correct?

Yes, yes.

It is the continuation of the Sex and the City saga, which you watch.

And you've update us on the plot before. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's. It's kind of a ludicrous show. You know, I think, as I said before, I think Sex and the City was ludicrous when it was on the air. I just think our paradigm has shifted. I think. I think that show has kind of remained consistently ludicrous. I just think we're, as a. People have different expectations for HBO these days than we did back in the day.

We do. You're right.

And you know, yeah, it's silly, you know, whatever. I mean, it's kind of funny. But I still watch it anyway. I'm a little bit the Internet and I don't want this. This is not a Britney Spears moment for me. This is not a leave Britney alone moment for me.

Okay. Okay. I mean, we can make it one if you want.

Just leave and just like that, alone.

Okay.

If you don't want to watch it, don't watch it. If you don't like it, don't like it. That's your God given right. But when these people, these quote unquote influencers, like kind of make content bitching about it, it's like, well, if you don't like it, don't try to make content about it. Just don't talk about it. Like, I don't like what it. Like.

Yeah.

What are they not liking?

A TV show is not a personality.

True. Some people have made it that way.

Oh, man, that's so true. But there's so many. That is, yeah, a thing.

There was a woman who was just one on this. She thought she was being funny. She wanted hbo, Max, to take it out the air. Just, you know, just stop showing it. And it was like, come on. Sarah Jessica Parker's really given us a lot, you guys, like, over the time. You know, she was Annie at one point. She's married to Ferris Bueller.

Leave her alone.

Leave her alone.

Yeah, let her and Ferris live in peace. Are they just saying overall that it's just bad or they. I know there's lots of picking things about, like, queer representation and stuff like that.

Right. And they just, you know, they pick things that, you know, people. Carrie makes bad decisions and, you know, and just all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's. What.

Don't we all. I mean, look around.

Open your. Open your blinds. Look outside. You'll see someone making a bad decision. It's all over the place.

Yeah, true.

And also in the original show, she notoriously made bad decisions.

And I hate to break it to you, but people are watching it or they wouldn't have come back with a second season. I mean, HBO is, after all, a business, so I'm sure they did that. Roi.

This is like the third or fourth.

This is the third one.

Oh, my gosh. It's the third one. See, I'm so far behind. So, like, taking it off is. That's. We're done. That's over.

And. Yeah, I mean, when you open up the app on Apple tv, like, it's consistently the top rated show on the app that day. Like, it's the most popular show. They have, like, the top 10 for the day, and it's consistently the. The most popular one. And I don't, you know, I mean, I was in New York recently. The New York she lives in is not the one I visited. And I was in Midtown. I was around. I saw some things, like, you know, anyway, just, you know, if you don't like it, just like that. Don't, don't.

Yeah.

I think my goal is people who have to be the star of any gathering or any situation. I had a lunch this week, four people, one of whom I met once and the other is not. And this was a work situation, and I met one lady and Immediately clocked her as, oh, she's got to be the expert on. On everything. Every single topic that came up, she had to give some. She knew something and knew something about this and knew someone. And, oh, when I did this and when I did this, and when I did this. And as she kept talking, I realized, you don't know what the. You're talking about. Because then every once in a while, she would say something. Well, in my experience. And I'd be like, well, I was in, you know, advertising, too. And she'd be like, oh, really? And then it would shut her up. So it's like, so you're just expounding on things that you just don't even.

She was trying. She was taking advantage of her thinking nobody knew what she was talking about, so she could just make up whatever.

Exactly.

And then as the lunch went on and increasing, you could tell she was getting more and more desperate. So some of the ideas that came out of her mouth was just like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, so I think I'm sick of people who just in any gathering have to establish themselves as the focal point and as the expert upon everything. This happens a lot in the workplace, as you know, but sometimes in social gatherings, sometimes you get blindsided. I got blindsided by this, this week. And as soon as I realized, oh, there's two more hours of this lunch left, it was. It was. I had to go home and take a shower, both because I was very sweaty and also because I had to wash it off of me. Wash off that filth.

Well, it's especially shocking, I think, because sometimes we expect. I think I at least fall back into where I expect people to follow the same protocol I do. Like, I. Even though I know that people don't do that and people are insane, every once in a while, you forget that when you go out and you get completely shocked by an interaction because you're like, whoa. Oh, that is how you move. Like, that's an crazy thing to do.

So, yeah, they can all suck it.

I agree.

Yeah.

Aaron, my goal this week is. Listen. Okay?

She's working up to it.

Yeah, I know. Like, there's probably people that are going to be like, we'll just do the thing all right here. So listen, I have good intentions on a lot of things, all right? And I've been learning about myself over the last couple years, and sometimes the execution just isn't there. One of those things is fucking reusable grocery bags. Every time I get into the store, I'm like, I left them in the car and. No, no, I know what you're thinking. I don't walk back out to the car because I'm already have a cart half full. And I hate grocery shopping. So, no, I don't. So this week I go. The person bags my groceries. The grocery store that we have where I live, they are required to walk you out to your car, which is also a thing that I hate, which.

Is why I don't go to that grocery store. Yes, I like the store, but I.

Don'T like only one in Norwalk. Yeah.

Why?

I don't know. They bag and then they take it. Yeah. And they don't take no for an answer.

They're not open on Sundays. And the teenager who's bagging her groceries walks it, pushes your cart out to the car and loads them for you.

Dear God.

We also have an elderly population that works there that takes your. And there's a couple of them that are very sweet. Like, there's a couple that are like, I always have a conversation with, great. But I got this guy this week. We get to my car and I open up the back and he's like, oh, so you do have reusable bags. Whoa, sir, when I tell you, you know when you have like that one moment where you're like. That just hit me really fucking wrong. Like, of all the things today, that's what I need to hear. I said, sure do. And I'm now taking the bags and putting them in. And he's like, yeah, they're right there in your trunk.

You're gonna be right there in my trunk too, buddy. Shut the fuck up.

I thought, are you fucking kidding me? And I. When I tell you that I turned my entire body and I very rarely use a mom look, and I turned my entire body and just made direct eye contact and stared at him and said nothing, but mentally was sending like, mind bullets of. Are you fucking doing this right now? Do you know how close I am to losing it?

Was this a teen or a senior citizen?

Senior citizen.

Oh, even worse.

And I was like. I just looked at him and kept putting the groceries in. So we were just making eye contact while I was angrily putting the bags in. And he take gets the cart and says, have a good day. And I just went and got in my car because I thought, you know what? I just don't need it. I get it.

Have a terrible day.

Don't you fucking tell me what to do. I'll have a day I feel like having.

Yes. Oh, my God. I was so frustrated. I got home, I was still flustered. I'm trying to explain to Mike, and he's like. He said what I was like. He pointed out that I had reusable. Like, I need that in my life. It was a whole thing. So, listen, I get it, but I just don't think that's something we need to comment on.

No, I would think, basically, when you're bringing the groceries to the car, you don't comment on anything in the car.

Yeah.

You just drop those groceries off and you say, boop, I'm out.

Unless there's a person tied up in that trunk.

Exactly.

You keep your mouth shut, and even.

Then, maybe think about what you're gonna say, you know? Cause she had a bad day, so. Yeah.

Also, listen, I'm not trying to bring it out.

Maybe that person's tied up in their trunk for a good reason.

A good reason.

Maybe it's sex play. All right? Just leave them alone.

Let it. I was like, you don't know me. Yeah.

You don't know my life.

And I thought, you know what? Where's Walt when you need him? He's my favorite guy. He always brings everything out. We have pleasant conversations. He's so sweet. He always asks about my grandkids, and I always ask about his. And we just load it up together. We make the quick work out of it.

Well, who the was this guy then?

Not Walt. And he didn't get the same training, clearly.

No, no.

So the gall of you not to be Walt also. Come on.

Come on. So, anyway, sorry. I know. I know. I should be better about the reusable grocery bags. I get it.

That's not the point here. He invaded your space and commented on it. I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

Very frustrating.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that happened. Hey, how's your armpits?

Oh, my gosh. Update. Oh, so that's a good point.

That's a question you don't ask very often. No, your armpits.

No. You know, I mean, that might be a HIPAA viol, but whatever.

It's true. Yeah. You know, only if you feel comfortable sharing.

I very. I mean, I already said what was wrong with them, so I might as well tell you that we're working magically towards the solution. So I got this stuff that I ordered online, and it came as. You could get it as a stick and as a lotion. I do not like their stick at all. It's very, like, scratchy or something. But the lotion you put like a little amount on your finger and you rub it in to your armpit. I know that sounds weird, but number one, great doesn't get on your clothes. Number two, best sweat control I've ever had.

Really?

It is working like a charm. I. I have tried it now. I think I'm on my second or third week and I. I mean, I've been in some situations. I had to take Evan to orientation and it was very hot that day. We walked around campus. Beautiful.

What's the name of it?

Lume L U M E. And it's like they have full body ones too. Like you can technically use that lotion like, you know, anywhere you want. Under boobs, back and knees, that type of stuff. Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate that.

They're monetizing a whores bath. I appreciate that.

Because, you know, a horse bath is.

Yeah, it's worth it.

When your skin is dry. Sometimes you need to take some time off.

You do, you really do. Yeah, I know, that's.

Well, I'm glad we updated everything.

Yeah, I meant to start that as an update. I also have another update that I'd like to reserve for the end just in case.

Okay.

Oh, it comes up during. Because if it does, I don't want to steal anyone's thunder, but okay. If not. If it doesn't, I'll let you know at the end. Great, we can have an update.

We're looking forward to that. Well, 1983 is our topic for today. So let's first recap what we've already talked about. Previously on Fuzzy Memories. I talked about Return of the Jedi, probably at length. That was upsetting to non Star wars fans.

I'm still upset.

I talked about Sally Ride and I talked about the spelling bee and we had our own little spelling bee. And you really were not a fan of that. You.

You really. I felt very put on.

Yeah. Sorry about that.

For someone who doesn't like games, it felt a little.

Yeah, it was maybe my 4th and 5th grade self coming out and be like, look at the wicked eye.

No, I get it. I mean, it was kind of fun. Yeah.

Aaron, you talked about Fraggle Rock.

Great show.

You talked about Wacky Wall Walkers.

Love those.

And you talked about Mr. Rogers nuclear war episode, which was something.

Where's Mr. Rogers when you need him Now? Can you imagine some of the episodes?

Oh, good.

Heath, you talked about he man. You talked about Risky Business. And then I just have on our list notable TV events. I don't remember what that was.

Me neither.

Okay. All right. So you talked about some TV stuff. Yeah, some stuff.

Probably some very special episodes.

I think that's what it was. Yeah. Because I remember putting that together.

Wait, was it also the one where, like, there was a sex offender? It was a different stroke.

I think it was different strokes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which, you know, interesting.

Arnold and Dudley and. Yeah, they ended up in some dude's apartment.

Yeah. So that's fun.

Okay.

Anyway. 1983. All right, so, Heath, you want to start us off?

I do, yeah. In 1983, there was a movie that came out and it was called National Lampoon's Vacation.

Oh, yes, the original.

Yep. The one that started it all. And I didn't realize I went through it. I mean, everyone knows about the original one and the European vacation and Christmas vacation and then the less well received Vegas vacation.

The one that you talked about. Yeah, yeah.

And then. But there was apparently Christmas vacation 2 that just had Cousin Eddie in it.

Oh, no, I do remember that. Yeah.

Does anyone want to see that?

Oh, but then they did a remake a few years ago with Ed Helms. He played an adult. Rusty.

Yes.

And Christina Applegate was in it. And the commercials. The trailer was really funny. And I went and saw the movie, and it was all the funny stuff in the trailer.

Yeah, we saw it, too. Yeah. And wasn't Chevy Chase his dad in the movie?

Yeah, him and Chevy Chase and Beverly d' Angelo showed up at the end.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Anywho.

Anywho.

The original one.

Yeah.

1983. And we know the Griswolds are driving cross country from Chicago to California to visit Wally World. Ellen suggests they fly, but Clark doesn't want to do that because he wants to spend time in the car. He thinks it'll, you know, be fun to get to spend time together. Kids are grown up.

What an idiot.

What an idiot.

Yeah.

Absolutely stupid.

Yeah.

Clark even bought a new car for the trip, but when he shows up at the dealership to pick it up, he finds out that it won't be ready for another six weeks. So the car salesman sells him something called a Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

Which is apparently another name for an extremely ugly station wagon.

Yeah, yeah.

With the wood paneling and all that jazz on it.

Rough.

And so the rest of the trip goes about as well as Clark's visit to the car dealership. The family takes a wrong turn in St. Louis, setting up a pretty problematic scene where Clark is asking for directions. Yes, we're not going to get into the details yet. Something that in Dodge City, Kansas. Clark interacts with a bartender who does not go to the trouble of hiding the fact that he doesn't like Clark. And Christie Brinkley keeps showing up and making eyes at Clark while he's driving down the road. And it's, I mean, the whole Christie Brinkley thing was just sort of, I think so the dads of America would feel like.

Cause she was like, this was peak Christie Brinkley time.

Yeah. Next stop for the Grizzly Waltz, it's Cousin Eddie's farm in rural Kansas. And where we find out Eddie's secret for a hamburger helper is to not make it with hamburger. That's a secret recipe for that.

Uh huh. Uh huh.

That whole Cousin Eddie visit is tough.

Yeah, yeah. And then they make him into this comic character, but they like, they kind of allude to.

Well, yeah, his daughter brags that, you know, she's the best at French kissing because her dad confirmed it that she is.

Yep. So cool.

This is also when we meet Aunt Edna and her mean dog, Dinky. Edna has been staying with Eddie and he's convinced Clark and Ellen to give her a ride to Phoenix, Arizona where her son lives on their way to California. So after leaving Eddie's farm, the girls are called to drive through Colorado. They spend the night at a campground. And when packed up to leave the campground, Clark ties a dinky leash to the back bumper of the car and forgets about the dog before driving away. So.

So he did a Mitt Romney, right? Wasn't it Mitt Romney that did that?

I think Mitt Romney put the car that put the dog in a cage on the top of the car.

Right. There was a whole thing about him killing the family dog because he like did it on purpose or forgot he.

Didn'T want the dog in the car.

What?

Yeah, it was probably one of the many news blips that occurred and you know, the fire hose of terrible information.

Pre Christy Gnome, we had another dog killer.

Yeah. Wow.

Okay. You blew my mind. Sorry.

Yeah.

Later that same day, the family makes a stop and Ellen leaves her purse on the roof of the car, losing her ID and all of her credit cards. So now they're just, you know, out in the Southwest with, with some issues. Clark mistakenly drives into some road construction and launches. The family trucks are 50ft in the air in the middle of the desert. So it takes all of the money they have left on them to pay for the repairs. And it's around now that he realizes that when he reported Ellen's credit cards have been lost, the bank Shut his off, too. So he does what any of us would do. He robs a hotel at the Grand Canyon because they wouldn't cash his personal check.

Yep.

In his defense, he did leave a personal check when he emptied the cash register.

Yes.

Which also kind of seems like. I mean, I'm not a big, like, bank robber person. I don't think I would leave a check with all my personal information on it.

Interesting. I want to follow up on that at some point and wonder what you would do as a bank robber, but.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think that's a good point.

We can bypass that now, but.

After leaving the Grand Canyon, Aunt Edna dies while taking a nap in the backseat of the family truckster. Not knowing what to do with the body, they wrap her in a tarp and tie her to the roof of the car like Mitt Romney's dog. So when they get to Phoenix, where it's somehow. It's raining.

Yeah.

Which at the time, you know, when I was a kid, didn't seem weird. But now knowing it, I mean, it's odd for it to rain in Phoenix. It's odd for it to rain as hard as it was raining in Phoenix, but I suppose it's happened. They find out Edna's son is not at home like he said he would be, so they leave Edna in the backyard with a note. So at this point, that's why I.

Like my bodies delivered. It's just, you know, in the backyard with a note.

Oh, my God. Can you imagine? They are never coming to the family reunion again.

You just go in the backyard.

Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. Oh.

I'm used to seeing raccoons and cats, not dead bodies.

If someone left a dead body in your backyard, you wouldn't know, but the cats and raccoons would take them before you ever found it.

Did I tell you I saw a beaver walking by my window?

And then we had two walking down our street.

Geez.

So the beaver would have done something with it too.

For sure.

Yeah.

At this point, everyone except for Clark has vacationed out and wants to go home. So Clark gives an impassioned speech where he basically threatens everyone with a good time.

Yeah.

And then the family continues on to Wally World after a rough encounter with a vibrating bed and some skinny dipping, first with Christie Brinkley, and then later his wife. Clark and family finally arrive at Wally World. And when they arrive, they find that Wally World has closed for repairs, which seems like a real broad reason.

All of it. All of it at once.

And as one does, Clark buys a BB gun and threatens a security guard with it to get him to let the family into the park.

That's John Candy.

Yep.

Yeah.

And after enjoying several rides, the police show up ready to arrest the Griswolds. But the park owner, Roy Wally, also shows up. And after Clark explains everything that's happened and why he did what he did, Roy Wally lets him stay and enjoy the park.

Which is how that would go, I think.

Totally how that would go.

The original ending of the film had the Griswolds taking Roy Wally hostage, but test audience didn't like that. So the ending was reshot and John Candy's security guard character was added. He was not even part of the original.

Really?

Yeah. And since the new ending was shot several months after filming had arrived, apparently, if you watch closely, you'll notice that Rusty is noticeably taller than he was in the rest of the movie. Cause he was a teenager. He just had grown up.

It was Anthony Michael hall, wasn't it? Yeah.

Oh, my God.

So, yeah, there's lots of, you know, well known actors who were kind of sprinkled throughout the movie. Eugene Levy was the car salesman at the beginning of it. You mentioned John Candy was the security guard. And Anthony Michael hall, who was Farmer Ted and Sixteen Candles.

Sorry I stole your thunder with all the guest stars. Yeah.

Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock and Unbreakable. Kimmy Schmidt. She was Cousin Eddie's daughter.

That's right. Okay, okay.

The movie was directed by Harold Ramis and He. Who is Egon in the first two Ghostbusters movies. Lots of famous people in it, but it's still, you know, I mean, outside there's a couple, obviously, scenes that didn't age well, but it's still a funny movie.

It's still funny.

I love that. Test audiences didn't like the part about getting taken hostage. And on the refine, we're good with that.

And there's a whole prolonged thing where he has to explain to a cop about how the dog died.

Right.

And that wasn't cut. That was fun. Okay.

At the part where they're eating sandwiches. I mean, this was legitimately funny to me, especially as a kid when they. When they can't figure out why the picnic basket's all wet and they're all eating sandwiches that the dog is pissed at.

Yes. Just eat your sandwich, Clark. I remember that part because he's complaining about what was on it. And then.

Yeah, yeah. Then they say that everyone else is grossed out at night. I just shrugged and takes another bite.

I don't Know if it was, like, watching that. But I have as a kid, but I have never had a desire to drive cross country.

I mean, I was gonna say that's the most relatable part, is when he does that whole, like, threatening speech about we're gonna have fun. Because if you've ever taken, you know, children on vacation, there becomes that point where you're like, oh, my God, we are doing this for you. If you don't ship, shape up, I swear to God, I will kill Mickey in front of you. Like, what are we doing? And we've had that. Like, we've driven a couple times. Like, we drove the kids to Florida. Most recently, we drove to Tennessee on spring break. And there is something, I don't know that we enjoy, like, the nostalgia of it or something of them. But it has to be the right people, right situation. Yeah.

Well, it's in 2020. Towards the end of 2020, Michael and I drove to Palm Springs and back.

In a. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

That was more fun on the way out than it was on the way back. But that was because I was given some questionable directions.

Sure, sure. That sounds right. Guess what? I have a sort of tie in, because this is about a moose, in a way. On February 22nd of 1983, Moose Murders opened and closed on the same night. Whoa. In Broadway.

Oh. For some reason, when you started saying, I thought it was a restaurant or something, I was like.

I thought it was, like a purge situation, that they were, like, letting people kill moose for, like, one night. I was like, what? It's a Broadway.

That story. Better. That's way better. Because this is. This was proclaimed by the New York Times to be the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway flops are judged. Oh. So this was the biggest flop of all time, Apparently.

Wow.

So Arthur Arthur Bicknell, he had previously written two off Broadway productions. He wrote Moose Murders, and he said it was intended to be a farcical, melodramatic murder mystery. So apparently the convoluted plot revolved around a wealthy family vacationing in an Adirondack lodge. There was a man eating moose, a wheelchair bound quadriplegic person bandaged like a mummy.

Wait.

And a caretaker wearing Indian war paint, but speaking with an Irish accent. Ultimately, like a problem. But ultimately, when you think about it, like, many Tony Award winners have had real weird plots when you think about it. But apparently the behind the scenes made this so much more chaotic and so bad. So the director, John Roach, cast his wife, Lily Robertson, in one of the leading roles. As you do.

Yeah, you do. Y.

She was not an actor, but she made up for it in cash. She was an heiress to a Texas oil fortune. Fortune. So she bankrolled the production.

That's like one of those things you hear, but you never think is real. I'm the heiress to Texas oil fortune.

So Eve Arden, who was an aging star from Hollywood, was cast as the other leading lady. And apparently she was struggling. Struggling hard to memorize her lines and follow stage directions during previews. So she left the production and was replaced with Holland Taylor. Oh, well known now.

Yeah.

Sarah Paulson's beloved.

Yeah.

So previews for mouse murders. Mouse murders. Moose murders. Mouse might as well.

Yeah, that one did well.

That one was fine. Yeah. They were so chaotic and sparsely attended that producers had to pull people off the streets to get in for the audience, including one man who critics said was covered in vomit.

Oh, I'm sorry, What now? He was covered in vomit when they went in, or he vomited on himself.

Because it was so bad. Great question. I don't know the answer.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know the.

Timeline of the vomit.

If I was in the show, I think I'd rather perform to an empty chair than someone covered in vomit.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

I really need to know if he vomited on himself during the play.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was probably during the play that we're just like, no, we actually need you in here. We're not going to ask you to leave.

We're not going to stay people in the seats.

So at the close of the performance, the curtain failed to fall on the final scene, and the characters were just stranded on stage. These were. This was all during. All during previews. Okay, so this is a hot mess during previews. So on opening night, everything went as it was supposed to go, but at the end, there was no applause.

Oh, that's right. Right.

One member. One member of the cast said later, I don't think there was ever a show in the history of Broadway where you took a bow to silence. So apparently, they suffered through the silence. And they were like, yeah, we're. We get this isn't gonna work. Because then the reviews came out, and they were not good. The New Yorker said that it would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas.

To which the amoeba said, yeah, the.

Amoebas were like, I don't want that.

Yeah, leave us alone. What did we do?

Why are you bringing us into this?

Yeah, we obviously wouldn't go to Moose Murders.

And we definitely wouldn't vomit while we were there. The New York Post described it as so indescribably bad that I do not intend to waste anyone's time by describing it.

That was the whole review?

Yeah.

Wow.

That's a toughie.

Yeah.

So the. The writer of this poor young Arthur Bicknell, he never staged another play?

I would guess not.

But he did write a memoir published in 2013, called Moose Murdered How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb.

That feels like an inside thought.

What I love is that, like, Holland Taylor apparently survived. So I don't know if she just distanced herself from it or, like, I knew about this.

I bet it helps that it was just one night.

Yes.

Yeah.

If they would have been stuck doing this for. For a long time, I feel like people would have. It would have been.

And maybe that was part of it. Maybe at the end, they were just like, let's cut our losses. Let's just pretend like this never happened.

I mean, if it's opening night and nobody. I mean, those are people that wanted to be there.

Right?

Right.

I mean, family or someone that knows the people that maybe would have tried to start a clap. So if your own family was like, we can't even clap for this.

Yeah, That's. Or maybe going in, like, the actors and everyone knew it was such a train wreck that they told their family, don't.

That could be too.

Yeah.

Don't come.

Yeah.

Don't even watch this.

Or maybe they. It was all the people they hauled in off the streets. They were too busy like. Like, you know, trying not to get sick. And so they didn't want to clap. It happened because if I clap, I'm gonna jostle myself, and I might get sick.

I'm gonna jostle the gentleman next to me who's covered in vomit.

Yeah. So I had never heard of Moose Murders, but apparently that in the Broadway world is the. The lore of the worst bomb ever to bomb. And it's given Moose a bad name, you know?

Yeah. And amoebas.

And amoebas.

Anamoebas. That is something.

Yeah.

Well, 1983, really.

Just building up to it.

Yeah. I don't know why, because my mind was still on the vomit guy, just thinking about. Yeah. There were so many questions I had there about why. How that happened. Anyway, 1983 saw the start of a cartoon that I still use phrases from whether I should or not called Inspector Gadget.

Oh, yeah.

I often refer to my arm as a Go Go Gadget Go.

Go Gadget Arm.

Yeah, absolutely. So this cartoon ran from 1983 to 1985, and when I was.

That's it.

Yeah.

Wow.

I would have thought it was on for a lot longer.

Me too. It ran. That was. Yeah, yeah. It was in syndication forever. Like, they kept reshowing it, but it reminded me, when I was doing the research of it, a lot of what you said about Mr. Wrong in the last episode of like, hey, women, just in case you wanted to know, we still hate you.

Hey, gals.

What Inspector Gadget was doing. Because the whole premise is that he's a world famous cyborg police inspector who works for a secret police organization that combats crime across the globe. And each of his missions is focused on the criminal schemes of mad, which stands for Mean and Dirty, a criminal organization led by nefarious Dr. Claude. Yeah.

That'S two D's.

That's double D's.

And mean and Dirty doesn't sound. Yeah, that's that bad. No, like Mean and Dirty.

You need a more menacing name.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. So missions that he would go on, they often occurred in foreign locales or within the fictional city of Metro City, which we did a really good job with the writing in the show.

Metro City.

Metro City, yeah.

He.

So despite the fact that Inspector Gadget is equipped with numerous gadgets, including a personal vehicle that can morph between a family minivan to a combat compact police car that's handy, he's ultimately incompetent and clueless and comes up with crazy theories, mistakes the MAD agents for friendly locals. He's always getting in trouble. He often uses a gadget that's not called for. He causes trouble inadvertently for those around him. There's a. There was a running gag about that, like a self destruct message. He would get the message from his boss, Chief Quimbley, who would hand it to him while he was in disguise, only to accidentally have him return it to Chief Quimbley before it detonated. Like he was lucky enough to hand it off, but he didn't really understand it was a message. So ultimately, who was behind Inspector Gadget was his niece, Penny, who is a gifted sleuthing mind despite her young age, and would actually thwart the plots behind the scenes and ensure that her uncle remained out of harm's way. She would often be. Yeah, so I kept thinking of what he said because I was like, oh, okay. So the idiot gets the show and gets all the gadgets and his poor niece has to work behind the scenes.

With no gadgets and Meanwhile, she's a parentified kid. She's doing way more than. She's dealing with trauma these days.

So much trauma. She kinda had to save her uncle from getting killed and thwart huge plots to take down Metro City.

It's too much for a little girl.

It is too much. He also had a family dog named Brain, who Penny could use sometimes to help, but. And usually shadowed Inspector Gadget in a disguise. But then Inspector Gadget would often mistake him for an agent and chase him and.

God, I don't remember him being such a dumbass.

Did he write Moose Murders?

He might have. Inspector Gadget might have been the main character.

Yeah.

And like you just mentioned, poor Penny, she usually remains in contact with Brain during her own investigations, but she's also often placed in danger by Inspector Gadget because he doesn't follow along what's going on. So Brain has to help her, or she uses her own technology that she's developed because they give all the gadgets to the guy who doesn't know how to use them.

So the girl and the dog doing all the gadgets. God damn work.

And to top it all off, Inspector Gadget always gets the credit at the end. Chief Quimbley's always like, you did it again, Gadget. You stopped it. And Penny's just in the background like, yeah, yeah, that's what happened. Also, I didn't really remember this part from watching it, but they said that most of the episodes ended with a public service announcement advising how to handle a situation such as, like, not talking to strangers or something like that. Even though basically the whole show was the opposite of whatever they were saying. You know, he was dealing with MAD agents and that. I also found a list of some of the gadgets. Oh, and this is where I had some questions for some of the writers. Okay, we know about Gadget arms. Go go Gadget arms. His arm would shoot out and it was long. He had a gadget hand. Go go Gadget hand. He had a gadget hat, which included a spring in case he fell.

Okay.

Yep. He had gadget legs, which were giant springs. He had a gadget Brella, which is what it sounds like. It pops out of a hat. Basically an umbrella hat. He had a gadget copter, which just meant that a blade popped out of his hat. So I don't know why that wasn't just part of the hat. That's why we didn't just have a gadget hat. Gadget roller skates, which.

Oh, are those just roller skates?

Yeah.

And I cannot think Of a time. I think they popped out of his shoes. Oh, I think the wheels. So wheelies like those became popular later. And I can't think of a situation where I would be in a precarious situation and think what I need to add is roller skate.

I'm a roller skate my way out of this. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I'm gonna channel Xanadu and, yeah, act like I'm listening to some hot, hot clarinet and get on out of here.

Now I want him to have a gadget clarinet and he just takes off. He had a gadget coat that just inflated. Yeah, I remember that. And then he had other things which were just to me, like, they weren't special. Like they're just tools, like a gadget laser flashlight, lasso, screwdriver, dome light skis, ice skates, a mallet, a phone, a pen, whistle, binoculars.

So he basically just had a bunch of stuff. Yeah.

Light magnet, scissors and a swatter.

Good. You're MacGyver, but you suck at it.

But you're terrible. You have so many gadgets and you can't use a single one. Literally. Your niece has to save you. Retire. We are done. Inspector Gadget. So all that to say. Yeah. I still use the phrase Go Go Gadget arm.

I do.

And I remember, really, I, like, watched that show. I enjoyed it, but I had no recollection.

Inspector Gadget.

Yeah. It was not well written, but a terrific entertaining time.

But now as adults, looking back, like, damn. Okay, so it showed us what we were going to be as girls. Yeah, just the behind the scenes.

Let's have a woman or a, you know, young child be behind him that's actually really smart, can do this stuff, but he'll get all the credit.

It's a good lesson for kids.

Yeah, it's a good, good reminder.

Yeah.

They made that into a movie with Matthew Broderick speaking. I mentioned Ferris Bueller earlier, but they made a live action.

That's true. I forgot about that.

I don't think it was a big hit.

I don't.

Yeah, no, man, I don't know if.

I ever saw that. I imagine looking at that thinking like, no, thanks.

I remember seeing the previews for it, but I don't know that I ever saw it either. If I did, I blocked it.

If he was such a dummy in the movie as he was in the show.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah. To bring Penny in and have her be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should reboot the show with just Penny and have him be, you know, just the uncle she gave A job to like nepotism. But she runs the whole thing.

It's like Nancy Drew.

Yeah.

Without. Yeah. With a shitty uncle.

Yeah.

All right, what's up next for you, Heath?

I want to talk about Cujo.

Oh, shit.

The film version of Cujo came out in the summer of 1983, and it was based on the Stephen King book that had come out a couple years earlier. In the film, Cujo is a Saint Bernard whose only interest is chasing rabbits and having a nice.

Having a nice time.

While chasing one of those rabbits, Cujo puts his nose into a hole and gets bitten on the nose by a bat that turns out has rabies, which leads to some definitely not nice times for Cujo.

Wait, that was the whole thing is that he had rabies?

Yeah.

That was so much more terrifying in my head when I. I don't know.

What I was tant.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cujo's owner is Joe C. A M B R. Camber is. I guess I use. I don't remember how it is.

She was the woman from E.T. right?

No, that's not the owner. This is. She was a different character.

Okay.

All right, so kudos. Owner is Joe Camber. He's an auto mechanic who is also an asshole, but apparently not a big enough asshole for the Trenton family, Vic, Donna, and their son Tad to go find another auto mechanic.

Oh, okay. All right.

Joe Kammer's shop is at his home, and the Trenton family meet Kudos and they bring their Ford Pinto in for repairs.

So Cujo lives at the shop.

Right.

Okay.

And at this point, Cujo hasn't lost his shit from rabies yet, so everyone's fine.

Okay.

Vic isn't fine when he finds out that Donna is having an affair with her high school boyfriend. And to be clear, he was her boyfriend when they were both in high school. He is not currently in high school.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Yeah. Yeah.

And really, I guess I don't know what that has to do with the rest the of the movie like that, doesn't it? I don't know if, like we're supposed to think she deserves what happens with her and Cujo later.

She's such a slut. So she deserves to get rabies.

She deserves to be bitten by a rabid dog.

So by now Cujo has gone full maniac and has killed both the asshole mechanic and his alcoholic neighbor. Oh, so this dog is just fucking murdering people left and right.

Go, go. Rabies.

Yeah. Yeah. Vic leaves town for a business trip and his wife takes a break from sleeping with her old boyfriend to take their son and their Ford Pinto back to the mechanics place for more repairs. When they arrive, Cujo tries to attack them, but they take shelter in their Ford Pinto. And the idea of a Ford Pinto being the only thing keeping you alive is some really legitimately scary shit.

It is. And also what's wrong with the car that it keeps needing repairs.

The Ford Pinto was a deeply shitty car. Very, very shitty.

Yeah.

The car was prone to exploding and rear end collisions and led to lots of lawsuits and questions about product safety for Ford.

So good job, Ford.

Yep.

They also named it a Pinto.

Yeah. After a bean. What are you doing?

Yeah.

I remember my dad's stepdad drove a Ford Pinto.

Yeah.

And I remember my old. I think it was. I don't know, it was either me or my older brother. I don't know which one of us did it. Broke the antenna off of the car. It was parked in our driveway and it wasn't hard to do. Like, just like a child just snapped it off the car. He wasn't very happy about it.

Oh, well.

So. So, yeah. Back to Donna and Tad. They were stuck in this Ford Pinto. She tries to drive home, but the car won't start because of its deep shittiness. You know, that we just talked about.

Yeah.

So they're just stuck in this Ford Pinto on a hot day, not knowing what's going to get a him first, the heat or the rabid dog.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

This is. I mean, that's a no win situation.

Nope.

Because I one time as a child spent an hour on top of a slide in a park after being chased by a dog.

Oh.

And it was one of those slides, you know, that was meant to burn children when it went down.

Yeah.

It was like silver and just the.

Sun was 10,000 degrees.

Yeah. And my only saving grace is that my best friend at the time was up there with me as well. But the dog sat at the day end, the of. Of the slide and just waited until finally the owner realized that it wasn't out there. I. That's probably still, to this day. Why I'm not a huge. Like, I don't have a dog. I'm always a little afraid of big dogs.

That makes total sense.

I mean, we literally got down off the slide, ran, and just stayed under her bed until her mom got home. We were so traumatized. It was terrifying.

That makes sense.

So inside, a Pinto car is definitely worse than on top of a slide. And that was horrendous.

Did that dog get bitten by a.

Bat too, I'm assuming.

Yeah. Had to happen. Yeah.

My dog at least. Sounds sexist. It was just chasing girls. At the very least, it was sexist.

And it was one of those, like, we're both running and she was far more athletic than I was and she's trying to be nice and I was like, save yourself. So she was running so much faster, and I was like, oh, it's fine. We're racing up the back of the slide. Oh, my God, it was bad.

Donna tries to escape to get her son some water because again, it's real hot. But Cujo bites her and she ends up back in the car. So by this point, Vic gets home from his business trip and finds that Donna and Tad aren't home and that their house has been vandalized by the boyfriend she's sleeping with. Oh, I guess. I don't know. I guess he was mad. I mean, Donna's having a shitty day.

I would say, what the fuck are you doing?

Adding to her problems. High school boyfriend, right?

Wait, did she miss a date? And he's like, oh, that's not gonna stand. Like, calm down.

Vic calls the sheriff and they correctly assume that Donna and Tad are at the mechanic's place. So the sheriff goes there, where he is promptly mauled to death by Cujo.

Oh, that tracks.

Okay.

Yep. Feeling like she has no choice but to try again to get to the house, Donna leaves the Fort Pinto and fights Cujo with a baseball bat that she found.

Oh, okay.

Cujo breaks the bat in half because apparently rabies makes you a fucking killing machine. And it's just the strongest thing in the world. Right? Donna uses that bat to impale Cujo and she was gonna use the sheriff's gun to shoot the dog because the dead sheriff still laying there, but decides it's more important to get her some water. This is, of course, when Kujo wakes up and attacks her again before she does finally shoot him.

So this is like super powered rabies. Like, this has made him a super soldier level.

Yes.

Okay. All right.

Feels like more than rabies. That's why we were all surprised there was rabies. Yeah, yeah, it feels a little more.

I think Cujo had some anger issues.

The rabies really fully thought it was a possession.

Me too.

Yeah. I don't remember ever understanding the rabies part.

Yeah.

Okay. All right.

Well, kujo was released two weeks after Jaws 3, so it was a real summer of animals killing people. Stephen King has never said as much, but I kind of feel like the idea of Cujo sort Of came from Jaws. Like, the idea of like, you know, animals going after people and people being in peril.

And also, this feels like a real flimsy story for Stephen King. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Like, he got. Like his other stories are way more.

Yeah. It just doesn't feel like it has that same excuse, the pun, but enough tea.

Look at you. The word play, as Heath says, is on point. Yeah.

The easiest metaphor for a rabid dog. I use teeth.

Reviews for the movie weren't great. Siskel, Niebert, who we all know hates to see a good time coming.

They sure do.

I hate to see a good time.

They called it, quote, one of the dumbest flimsiest excuses for a movie that I've ever seen. And also called it dreadful.

Okay. I mean, I don't disagree.

Yeah.

Tad, who's the son of the movie, was played by Danny Pintoro, who would later go on to star as Angela's son, who's the boss. And there's currently a remake of Cujo in the works. Works at Netflix, but there are no writers or directors attached to it.

Okay.

So I'm not sure is it.

It's gonna be AI. They're just gonna put that through chat GPT and see what comes out. It's gonna be great.

Okay. All right. All right.

But, yeah, I mean, apparently I had a real thing for dogs this week because Dinky mean dog and national entrance. Cujo mean dog.

Yeah, you.

Dog that chased you up. A sexist dog that chased you up a lot.

Damn misogynist dog.

I know. Scarred me for life. Life.

Well, my next one is continuing my constant Soviet beat. I love it. This was the year that Soviet leader Yuri Andropov struck up a friendship with a fifth grade American girl.

Oh, that's problematic.

Yep. Was it you? It's supposed to be an uncreepy story. Getting to that. So in December of 1982, so before this, Samantha Smith from Maine wrote Andrew. Yeah. Sammy asked if the Soviets were planning to start a nuclear war, which if I had known I could do this, I would have done this.

Okay. All right. There it is.

Yeah. I would have written and asked, what the are you doing with nuclear war? Yeah. Okay.

So I don't. Okay. Yeah.

Samantha Smith got to it first. So In April of 1983, the Soviet Union released a letter that Andrew Pove wrote back to Samantha. So context wise, this is around the time Reagan is calling the USSR the evil empire. Like, things are heating up. And the hardliner Brezhnev had left in 1982. And this new guy was going for a more like folksy, grandfathery kind of approach. Right? So Samantha's original note says this. Dear Mr. Andropov, my name is Samantha Smith. I am 10 years old. First off, this is a stupid letter. You're not writing it. Well, congratulations.

Grow the up, Samantha.

Yeah. Geez, Samantha, congratulations on your new job.

I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't, please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer. But I would like to know why you want to. Why you want to conquer the world, or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight. Come on, Samantha.

Jesus Christ, do better.

First off, leave God out of it.

This is some real white girl savior.

It is. And also get more. And get into radiation, get into nuclear winter. Do the work. What the are you doing?

No research before?

No research.

I don't even know why we brought God into it.

Jesus. It's not. It's like you're not even scouring your elementary school library for all things, you know, nuclear war. What the are you doing?

Well, then she also says, why are you gonna vote to have this? Like, I don't think there was voting.

There's no voting going on. You don't even know how.

You don't even know how it works.

Jesus.

Also, where'd she send this? USSR and just put a stamp on it? Like, how did she get an address?

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. Does she look that up in the phone book?

Like, Soviet Union, North Pole, ussr Got my letters done. Mom send them off?

Yep. So Andrew Pove wrote back, and it's a very long note, but summarized he in a few points. He says, yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are trying to do everything so there will not be war on earth. And in a great passive aggressive move, he says, in America and in our country, there are nuclear weapons, terrible weapons that can kill millions of people in an instant. So getting in that America's not doing so great. But then Andrew Post says, I invite you, if your parents will let you, to come to our country.

Read that as a parent. The you're going there.

You will find out about our country, meet with your contemporaries, visit an international children's camp and where you will live forever.

International children's camp.

And see for yourself that in the Soviet Union everyone is for peace and friendship.

Oh, well, that's not true.

So that's just not true. No matter what you want. This isn't Care Bear. No one's on. Not everyone's for peace and friends.

The USSR is not in the forest of feelings.

No.

So the USSR releases this letter to the world, and Samantha and her family accept.

Oh, my God.

Also didn't know this could happen.

Like a horror movie and everyone's dumb.

So Samantha and her family go and they spend two weeks in Russia.

Real quick, though.

Yeah.

The. The United States government had nothing. Didn't weigh in on this at all.

It's a great question, actually. In all the research I did, I didn't say anything about what the Americans, they must have like tailed them or something.

Yes.

And when they were there, they must have had like KGB people following them everywhere. So Samantha and her family spend two weeks there. They're treated as VIPs. They're giving a carefully arranged tour.

Of course.

Is a VIP in Russia at the time, like, you get a new potato every day. Is that more.

It's like you actually get food when you go to the grocery store. Yeah, yeah. She got to go to a kids camp and she was treated like a superstar because none of the kids had ever seen or met an American. There's a great quote from Lena Nelson, who grew up in the Soviet Union and she's a journalist, and she remembers being there when she was a kid. And she says, for my generation of the Soviet children growing up in the early 1980s, the word American meant only one thing, an enemy. Me. Seeing Samantha and her parents on my TV that summer and realizing that they looked and acted just like us was an eye opening experience. So for her part, Samantha charmed everybody. Everybody thought she was just this sweet little girl and she became a famous figure overnight. So they come back to the U.S. and she, you know, like total white savior. She's like, the Soviets don't want any harm to the world. Just like us. They're just like us. When asked whether she would like to live in Russia, which who the are these journalists saying?

Like, would you like to live there?

You want to go over there now? She says, no, I'd rather live in my own country. She became an international celebrity and peace ambassador. She was on Johnny Carson, wrote a book with her dad, and guest starred on Charles in Charge. Oh, God, again, you could do this. Not a great ending because in 1985, she and her dad died in a plane crash at age 13. And around the same time, Yuri Andropov died from kidney failure. Were they Cursed, I don't know. But I brought some visual aids.

Oh, no. That's very sad that she died.

I know.

With her dad. That's terrible.

Okay, so there's the letter on one side, both her letter and then their letter back. And then on the other side, there's pictures of Samantha and her family and her at the camp.

Was she on a Russian stamp?

Yeah, put her on a Russian stamp in 1985. So she became sort of a Russian hero as well.

Are these her parents?

Yeah, those are her parents. And those are probably some KGB entourage behind them, I would guess.

Yeah. This guy back in the right corner with the trench coat is particularly.

Yep.

He seems to be carrying a thermos, but I don't trust.

I don't trust it at all. And there were a ton of pictures of her at that camp where she's wearing the cult clothes, and she, like. Yeah, every. All the kids are, like, so excited around her. I'm sure there was language barrier, but it was. Yeah.

I think that this was set up by the US Government.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's why you didn't find any research about why they weighed in. I think they orchestrated it because I just can't get over how she got a letter to him.

How. Yeah.

How's that go? How's that happen? He's that hard up for letters, and he was like, oh, look at this. I got a 10. I got a letter from.

You think, yeah, somebody like a. No, an admin or something would have read it ahead of time. They're like, yeah, whatever, Sammy. Yeah, just toss that in the garbage.

That's what.

And maybe it was a situation where, like, you know, obviously they get mail at the Kremlin or whatever, and maybe they were looking for an opportunity.

Yeah, that could be. They.

They were looking for an opportunity, and they saw, like, oh, this is a great opportunity to again, passively, aggressively show Reagan we're not an evil empire kind of thing.

Yeah.

And. And I loved in the letter that they were just like, in America, there's weapons, too.

Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty great, by the way. You're doing the same thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So. But again, I didn't know you could do this.

She knew too much. She saw some stuff.

Yeah. Speaking of the government involvement was what?

I mean, I don't want to put on my tinfoil hat, but, I mean.

She was super charming. She probably charmed her way into the Kremlin and into the Politburo and all the. All the things.

I'm really sorry. In a way for you, because I do feel like this had to feel really. You had to be very annoyed when you found this story.

Like, listen, I was obsessed, okay?

And you had the knowledge to back it up.

And my obsession was not awarded with a trip to Russia.

You could have been on a Russian stamp.

I could have been on a Russian stamp.

I also love the idea of 10 year old Amy going to Russia, then saying, here's the clothes you have to wear at the camp. And her saying, no, no, no, no, I just won't. This is where it ends. I will not be wearing the cult clothes. Thank you.

I think it would have stopped at like me saying to mom and dad, hey, can I get an international stamp? And they'd be like, no, what?

And then they don't make those. Yeah, you make that up.

And me trying to mail off my 20 page missive, you know.

Yours would have taken a different turn. They would have shown up at your house and been like, here's how I've.

Tracked the radiation clouds that will come if you hit Omaha. So here's what I'm saying.

Yeah. Could you aim it somewhere else?

Yeah.

Well, you know, as we've progressed, I think I'm just going to use my update.

Oh, great.

As my last. Okay. Okay. So over the last few weeks, for whatever reason, we had some house guests and we watched all four Jaws movies. Movies out of order. Out of order. I don't even know how this happened, but we. We watched one. And now, to be clear, I had never seen a Jaws movie prior to this.

Yeah.

So we watched one. I'm gonna. The reason I'm bringing this up is because three, as Heath mentioned, came out in 1983. So I'm gonna give you my first. I'm gonna tell you how I rank them and then we can talk about number three.

And he famously talked about jaws, the return from 1987.

Yes. That's why we watched. Because I was like, oh, wait, he talked about number this happened. You are the reason we watched them out over there. Because I don't think we had understood that we were gonna fully commit to watching all of them. So we watched one. I gotta say, once you watch the whole series, not so bad. Jaws 1 isn't terrible. Like you can get on board with it as a movie.

It's like the 50th anniversary.

It is.

Yeah. They're doing a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff. There's some interesting things in.

That started the whole summer blockbuster thing.

The shoot was plagued with problems with the mechanical shark and stuff. Somehow Steven Spielberg put it all together.

That's why you don't see it until an hour and, like, 21 minutes into the movie. Because they had so many problems with the mechanical. Yeah. So they were like, well, if we can just limit how we use it.

And that builds tension, though.

That's what they said. It kind of indirectly made it more suspenseful. So if you know Jaws 1, then you know that there's Brody, the police chief that, you know, is trying to convince the mayor, and he has Richard Dreyfuss, who's the scientist, and they're trying to, you know, explain that this is happening. So after we see that one, I said, well, we talked about Jaws 4, and I remember he's saying the plot, and I need to see it. So we jumped from one to four.

Oh, boy.

And as Heath mentioned, four is Brody's. Now widow is traveling to where her other son Michael lives because her younger son Sean, has just been eaten by a shark. The shark travels, follows her to the Bahamas. And this whole thing, she goes out. A lot of questionable decisions in that movie. Flies out on a. The whole thing. Right. So we're dying because we're like, this is the most ridiculous movie that we have ever seen. Right. So then we're like, well, now we got to go back and watch 2 and 3, because I need to know how it progressed to this. So we go back and watch two, and in two, they are. Now I'm gonna forget, because three stands out so much to me. In two, we go back to the same area, and everybody thinks Brody's crazy because he said, this is gonna happen again. It's the next summer after.

Josh stars, though.

He's the same stars. His sons are a little bit older. Michael's a teenager. He's like, you can't hold me down. I'm going sailing with the girls, whatever. And there's the shark, and he ends up taking the younger son with him at one point. And that's when the shark attacks, and they're stranded, and Brody has to save him, but he crashes a police boat into rocks. And it's a whole dramatic thing.

Okay.

So objectively, it's not terrible.

Yeah. It has not fallen off the edge yet.

Okay.

Seriously, it's okay. It's not great. It's really center.

Definitely a money grab. Like, it wasn't necessary.

There is an interesting, to me kind of writing angle in that one that they kind of really focused on Brody's mental health, like, people being like. Because there's at one point where he thinks it's happening. He runs to the beach and fires his gun into the water, and he gets suspended, basically, as sheriff. Like, they're like, you're no longer. Because you can't do that. He scares all these people off the beach. And I thought that was kind of an interesting. Like that would affect you that way.

Right. And I think the. Was it in the second one when the mayor was just like, don't tell anybody about the shark, because we want tourism. We want people here for the summer. Like, it is just. There's a lot of people in charge that are just willfully, intentionally making terrible.

Because a big whale comes up on the shore, and they bring in a scientist, and she's like, this is a shark attack. And they're like, whoa, what would attack? And then Brody's like, oh, the shark. We got another shark. It's back. Okay, this is a problem. And the mayor's like, is it the.

Same shark from the.

No, because they explode.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think this is, like, the shark's brother or cousin. Yeah.

We're assuming that it's a familial line through all of them somehow. Yeah. So that's two. We go from two to three.

Okay. Which was in 3D.

Oh, yeah. Have you seen three?

I. I haven't seen it for a long time, but it is dumb as hell.

It is the. I can say this with full confidence. The dumbest movie I have ever watched in my life. What in the actual. I can't even believe they got a four after three because this is my ranking. I go, one is my top. And then I say two just because it's not terrible. There's some interesting part four and then three.

Wow.

And I would even move four above two just because it's funny.

Right. It's entertaining to watch it. So ludicrous.

It's so ridiculous. But three is ridiculous a whole new way. It has Dennis Quaid as the main guy, and it takes who I believe.

Was very high on cocaine throughout the entire shooting of the movie.

It sounds accurate. I don't know how you couldn't be. This literally takes takes place at SeaWorld. This is the 1983 movie. I had to look it up immediately because I was like, SeaWorld okayed this. And they sure. As did. They said sure.

Was Dennis Quaid's character somehow related to everyone that we.

I think, isn't he one of the sons?

He's Michael. He's Michael before he goes to the Bahamas somehow, Even though he looks way older than the Michael in the Bahamas. It took me a long time to figure out who was who because we'd already watched four, and I'm like, wait, so he's with a. A lady in this one who is a marine biologist. Doctor who is brought. Has been brought in by the guy that's starting SeaWorld to train the dolphins and create this whole environment. And he is basically the engineer slash construction guy. Like, he's making. And this whole SeaWorld setup is that they are making underground underwater tunnels that the fish can go through and people can see. So it's supposed to be this super interactive, immersive experience. Blows my mind that SeaWorld was willing to put their mind, like, their name on this, because basically what happens is, guess what? A ginormous, angry shark gets caught inside the tunnels and then just shit breaks loose. There is so little shown of the shark attacks. It's just a lot of weird blood seeping into the water. It was supposed to be in 3D, but if you watch it, I don't know that the 3D glasses would help. But there's one point where they just show a severed arm, and it comes at you really slowly with, like, a weird background. And it is. I have seen better severed arms on Halloween cakes. I mean, it is. It is unbelievably bad. The graphics are so, so, so, so bad.

The part where that guy's head is just floating in the water and, like, one of his eyes is bugging out somehow, and I'm like, explain how this shark bit someone's shoulder and head off. Yeah, yeah, but it's still. You see what it is? And it's just floating around in the water.

It's just floating. And we. We find out that the first guy is basically killed by a shark because his, like, jilted girlfriend shows up at the park next day. And he's like, you can tell him I'm done. He didn't come home last night. And they're like, oh, you know how he is. He just sometimes gets too drunk. He'll show up like, this is Dennis Quaid making excuses for him. And she's like, I hate him. And then, like, the next scene is her being like, I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. And you're like, yeah, he got absolutely death decimated by a shark in the tunnel. Like, it is so strange. You have a guy that's the director of Sea World that keeps like. So at one point, the scientist girlfriend, the marine biologist doctor girlfriend, wants to help the shark. She's like, if we can get the Shark into captivity, we can figure out why it's doing this. This isn't normal behavior.

And is this the same shark from two or another relative?

It's another relative.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then is the shark.

I think the sharks. The sharks die at the end in every.

In every season. Yeah, or every season.

How? Ben is the fourth one. So pissed he's related to number one somehow.

We assumed that that was okay. So what they say in three is that it's a mother protecting her children.

Oh, okay.

In number three they say it's a mother protecting her children and that's why she's so crazy.

Well, that must be crazy.

Hollywood hates women.

Hollywood hates. Said she went nuts.

This is why women can't be president.

Yeah, that reason right there. Sharks. So I assumed it was one of her children in four just getting a vendetta on her, you know, going back and being like, oh, you killed my mom. I'm coming after your mom.

I'm gonna break into the travel agent's office and follow you down.

To be clear, that's my own interpretation. I don't know if that's what they intended. That's never included. I'm just assuming because it was mom.

To mom war, but got it. Okay.

Yeah. So the whole thing, they have to rush. They end up getting a whole bunch of visitors trapped in an, like, underground tunnel that the water's rising cuz they have to close it off because the sharks in the tunnels and could get the people. I mean, just a PR disaster. And at the end of it, you're like, how the hell did SeaWorld think this was a good idea before it opened to put this out there? And I'm assuming it wasn't open yet. No, it was like right around the time it was opening. They thought it was gonna be good pr.

Yeah, I think they thought it was. This is gonna be a bunch of free advertising. And it's like, no. Like people are dying.

Yeah, because at one point she. They do get the shark inside and they tranquilize it and all of a sudden the shark comes alive and they have to try and get people out of the park. It's a whole thing. And the whole time these other guys want to shoot, there's some people that are doing a documentary that show up. And he's a real arrogant asshole and he's arguing with the doctor all the time. Like, she's like, no, I want to treat the shark. And he's like, no, we need to kill the shark. And she stops them from killing it. And then finally, after it kills people, she's like, okay, we have to kill the shark. And then he gets eaten because he's an idiot. And I'm telling you, I don't even know how to explain how bad the graphics are. And I. It is still shocking to me how absolutely terrible the whole. And Sean is in this movie, his younger brother, he comes and they. He won't swim. And so that's how I found. I figured out that they were the same kids. Because Michael's like, well, when we were kids, he went through a really traumatic experience because of me on a boat. Like, I took him out, and we got attacked by a shark, and he was too young. And I'm like.

You're like, oh, okay.

That's what's so wild to me about these. It's like, what would have happened in the first one? That would have been. I would have been off water forever.

Exactly. What are they doing in store?

I wouldn't have stopped with showers. I would have just done the horse baths.

That's what.

Like, there's no. There's no way I'd get back in the ocean. I wouldn't work at Sea World. I wouldn't do. Yeah. No way.

And all these. All these people in this town have these boats that these kids are just allowed to take out during the day, like, these sailboats, and they go to these little coves and party and hang out. And it takes halfway through the movie, even for Sheriff Brody to be like, no, you can't take the boat out anymore. You need to. To stay in. Something's happening. And Michael disobeys him and takes his younger brother with him, who's like 11 at the time or something, and they get stranded on top. He watches, like, his babysitter get eaten or something. Like, it is two was rough, too, but.

Because in the second one, yeah, like, they're on a sailboat, but the boat somehow gets turned upside down, so they're on the top of it, but they can't. So the pole that has a sail on it is hitting the bottom of the ocean. So that's why they can't get.

They had, like, four sailboats together, and they all get eaten. Eaten by the shark. So they tie all the remnants together, and the one Sean's on, they can't get to pull closer because it's stuck on the bottom. So he's just out there on top of this thing, just waiting. And Brody's like, I got it. And then just immediately crashes the police boat, like, their only option.

Oh, and it was a second one. The shark eats a helicopter, too. Oh, yeah. The helicopter lands and it's got the inflatable, like.

I don't know, that's right.

Pieces on it. So it's supposed to be able to land on the water. And the shark comes up and bites it in a nice.

Pulls it into the ocean so it feels like one. You're right. Stephen King did take Cujo from this.

Yes.

2. We were real scared of super powered animals in the 70s and 80s.

Yeah. And all this to say that. I don't know if anyone else knew. And this might just be, like a PR tool. I haven't fully decided yet, but within the last couple weeks, they've been like, tracking a huge great white shark off North Carolina, very close to, like, tourist beaches.

This is a big ploy for the 50th anniversary of Jaws. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm telling you, I don't know if you got enough time, but if you just want some real weird entertainment.

I thought you were gonna say, I don't know if you have enough time before the shark attacks, but hide your.

Kids, hide your wife.

We're done up your business.

Yeah. Get your affairs in order because it's coming. It's coming, it's coming. I know that we live in an area right now that has a water ban. I got questions. I think it's a shark infestation.

I mean, so.

Just saying.

They have made their way endless.

But I. I mean, thanks to Heath, I discovered a whole library of Jaws movies I had never watched. And three is by far the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life. And it's from 1983, so that's saying.

Something, considering you're including jaws four.

Yeah. Yeah.

How did.

Better.

Well, that's a nice, you know, closing the loop kind of thing here.

Yeah.

And I'm glad that Heath was able to bring joy to your family.

I did. We watched one and then I said, you know what we got to do? We gotta watch more. Because I. We've talked about it extensively. And then it just started. How do you watch 1 and 4 and not go back and watch 2 and 3?

I mean, Heath, you're bringing joy to the masses.

Well, that's what I do. I make dreams come true.

You do? Yeah. Which is why we signed that billionaire contract. We are using that as much as we can.

I haven't seen three in a long time. I might. I might go watch it.

It's worth it. Because it's so bad. You're gonna Die.

Fuzzy Memories is a Broads and books production. It's hosted by Heath Smith, Aaron Johnston, and Amy Lee Lillard. Sign up at our Patreon for bonuses and new stuff, and be sure to follow us @fuzzymemories pod on Instagram for clips and highlights. See you next time.

Come on. And Walt and I had a whole conversation one time about why he works at Fairway. And he started five years ago because he retired, but he felt like he wasn't being very active. He gets in 10,000 steps a day. All of his numbers are great at the Doctor. Since he started working at Fairway, there's.

A lot of info.

Walt. Yeah.

Okay.

Walt drinks Diet Mountain Dew. Mike used to drink Diet Mountain Dew. So we always used to talk about when it was on sale and how much he loves it.

Okay.

Yeah. And then when I stopped buying it, he said, did he quit Diet Mountain Dew? I said, he did. And he goes, well, good for him. These are the kinds of conversations I have with Walt. And that's why I like it. Him, the other guy?

No, thanks.

No, thanks.

Did you catch the other guy's name?

No. I was, too. You didn't need a name. I know exact. I can. I could describe him in enough detail that a police could draw a sketch.

You hold on to that. You may need it. I may need it?

I may need it? I. Mike said, next time I go in there, if he's the one begging out, I should just say, no, I don't want him.

Yeah. I demand.

Walt, I will let you take my groceries out, but he will not touch them.