Ep. 196: scurvy & gremlore

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Beautiful. Listen, before you start, I know I've been off for a week, so. Great to be back. Hello. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:11] Speaker A: And I think it's your turn to bring us in. It's your turn to open us up. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Yes, well, I think it technically was supposed to be your turn, but I had something to say, so it's me today. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Right. So just before we kick off, I really, really hope. I'm in the mood for this to be. I want this to be nasty. I'm really hoping you've got something nasty up your. You don't have sleeves. You'd never have sleeves. [00:00:32] Speaker B: I don't have sleeves. I don't like things on my skin. But. But I'm hoping somewhere in here, probably, like, maybe in my cleavage, like, where I keep pencils, that there's something nasty. [00:00:41] Speaker A: I hope you got something nasty between your teeth for us. [00:00:45] Speaker B: I think I'm gonna deliver this fine day. I think you're gonna. You're gonna enjoy this one. It's. It's not necessarily new to you, per se, but details, I think, are gonna be new. [00:00:56] Speaker A: So fucking give it to me. Come on. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Mark. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:02] Speaker B: This is becoming a common refrain here, but I was reading another maritime history book. This time it was. [00:01:13] Speaker A: That was the horn of a boat. [00:01:17] Speaker B: So they sound. Get away. [00:01:20] Speaker A: As it kind of drifts into some rocks. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Nailed it. That's exactly what it sounds like. This time it was about Captain Cook, whom you might remember from my story about his very gnarly death at the hands of some fed up Hawaiians in 1779. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yes. Which some people took umbrage at. [00:01:39] Speaker B: Yes. On YouTube. [00:01:41] Speaker A: How dare you? [00:01:42] Speaker B: How dare you? [00:01:42] Speaker A: How is British Europe the name of. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Can you imagine being offended that someone made a YouTube video about some guy who's been dead for 300 years? Like, come on, you need a hobby. You need to get out more. Right? But anyways, the book, the wide, wide sea by Hampton sides, is a pretty interesting and in depth look at Cook's voyages, his virtues, his shortcomings, the whole deal. The guy's, like, basically in the beginning of it, like, I'm not here to lionize him. I'm not here to demonize him. I'm just here to tell you what he did, what was going on, you know? And you decide to. [00:02:25] Speaker A: For those of us who can't remember me just in a couple of sentences, what particularly. Why was he such a shipbag? [00:02:34] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I'll talk a little bit about this here, but the sort of long story short is that on his final voyage, he was known for being. In fact, I said this here in episode 75. For an explorer, for the vast majority of his career, he was quite upright. Obviously. There's no, like, unproblematic kings of exploration. All of them are problematic. You know, he was a man who was doing this for empire, all that kind of stuff. So, like, we're not gonna let him off the hook for anything like that. But generally, he. He was, you know, he wasn't trying to christianize anybody. He wasn't really trying to change anybody. He largely sort of respected, affected natives and things like that as he was traveling around and had fairly good relationships with most of the people that he encountered until his final voyage, at which point people basically reported that he had a huge change in personality and started becoming extremely strict and angry and ragey towards both the natives and his own crew. So he started doling out really harsh punishments, including, like, someone stole something. I think it. I think it was a goat. Someone stole a goat. One of the natives. And nobody would say who did it, and all of that stuff. And so he just had his men burn down the entire village, which was a thing in his earlier voyages, he never would have done. But for whatever reason, flip. Well, switch flipped. [00:04:15] Speaker A: For whatever reason. Doesn't sound like something, you know, you would say, why? What do we attribute that to? [00:04:20] Speaker B: I'll get there. [00:04:21] Speaker A: That's a me thing. I. That's what I say. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I will get there. And nobody knows for sure. That's why I say, for whatever reason, because we can only postulate, speculate on what the hell happened. It's not like he had a psychiatrist. And, in fact, an interesting thing about Captain Cook that this book noted is that he obviously wrote down a lot. He was prolific in his journaling of what was going on, but he never talked about his feelings. So we have so many journals of the things that he did and experienced and stuff like that, but no picture of who the guy was in his head. [00:04:59] Speaker A: That's a red flag. If you're gonna journal to that extent and not once offer any insight into your own state of mind, that is. [00:05:06] Speaker B: What'S going on in there. That feels on purpose. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:11] Speaker B: So, yeah, we can't fully know what the hell happened on that, but I will talk a little bit about at least one hypothesis about that in here. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Wonderful. [00:05:22] Speaker B: So we won't do that. So that's basically. And then, of course, the. He was killed in Hawaii by the natives there after sort of overstaying their welcome on the island. And I. Riling up some hostilities with the folks. [00:05:38] Speaker A: There and just sum up for us again how he was killed, how he was dispatched, because it is all coming back to me, much like seeing lean Dion. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, the story. And as I said, again, this is an episode 75 if you want to go more in depth. [00:05:54] Speaker A: 75? [00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Two years ago, we talked about this. It doesn't feel like that long ago, but it was two years ago. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Maybe it's because you talk about boats all the time. [00:06:04] Speaker B: I was gonna say it's probably just because I talk about boats so much that it's like, oh, it was like yesterday, but it was somebody else. So we, again, are sort of piecing together what happened from various narratives of what became of Captain cook. But amongst the stories, essentially, is that the natives more or less overtook him in the water, potentially. He might not have been able to swim, so he couldn't get back to his boat, and they hacked him to bits. Well, supposedly again, also, he kind of gave them the, like, gave his men, like, don't hurt them. Like, you know, he was in the water. They were. Yeah, they chopped him to bits, and they, like, gave bits to, you know, various people in the tribe. There's, like, a thing about, like, how someone on the ship, like, solemnly came back with, like, a chunk of, like, his leg or something like that. Like, this is all we have left of him. [00:07:06] Speaker A: Did they eat any of him? [00:07:08] Speaker B: I don't think that they ate him from my recollection. They definitely. In this book, they talk about the cook's crew coming across various cannibalistic tribes here and there, and some of the men indulging, actually trying human at these various rituals and things like that, and then claiming, like, we spat it back out. Of course, we didn't defile ourselves by actually. Yeah, we didn't inhale pretty much. [00:07:37] Speaker A: So you're telling me I don't get to say, was Captain cooked? Oh, no, I don't even give me that. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Unfortunately, no. Boo just hacked up and handed around to various people as a result of his sins. Right. But like I said, this book is about his journeys and all of that kind of stuff that happened. One of the things that I found fascinating in this book that did not come up when I was researching his death was that one of Captain Cook's hugest concerns was preventing his men from spreading STD's to natives everywhere that they went. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Oh, well, good. I mean, all you're doing is, you know, you're just telling me that he was a stand up guy. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, again, like I said, this is why it's so kind of weird that cook, like, turned so much in the end, because, like, he's a. Obviously thought of people as lower than him and things like that. And again, he's doing the stuff in the service of empire. We're not, you know, absolving him of any of that kind of stuff. But for an explorer, he was more concerned with people than you thought, like, than most would have been. So obviously, he got a bunch of dudes on ships for months to years at a time. And while there's plenty of literature out there to let us know that they would absolutely go to town on each other in a pinch, they were stoked when they hit dry land and would find some fine island honeys waiting for them. Especially since the women that they were encountering usually didn't have all the european Christian hang ups about sex that they were used to. In some places, the men would, like, pay for sex in various forms of trades, you know, obviously not in money. Cause people had no use for that. But in things like that. Oldest profession in the world, right, exactly. Anywhere you go, people realize, you can trade in this. Guys are gonna want it. So sometimes they did that. Other times, tribal leaders would sort of offer up women as kind of a good faith deal. Like, hey, we're getting along. You and me, we're buds. How about, do you want to sleep with some of our women just to say, hey, we're all cool here, right? [00:10:04] Speaker A: Move things over. Yeah. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Gesture of good faith, right? In other places, it seemed that women were just, like, literally super eager for, like, the novelty of having sex with these, like, weird dudes that turned up. Like, they were just like, holy shit. Like, this is new. Why don't we give this a whirl? The men wrote about meeting women who were just, like, outrageously good at sex, doing stuff they'd never even dreamed of before. There were some cultures discussed in the book in which girls were basically raised from an early age, being taught by their mothers and aunties about how to give and receive pleasure. So a lot of these places just didn't have huge taboos around sex. It was just something he did. They walked around naked, you know, they didn't have shame about their bodies the way that Europeans were obviously taught to. But, of course, let's keep in mind that we only have the writings of the crew on all this. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:01] Speaker B: So we don't know to what degree they coerced or worse, any of the women that they encountered. There's no doubt that many were willing and eager. Like, for sure. Historians seem to agree on that. That, like I said, they weren't the sexual taboos, so some would absolutely have been down a clown. But also these guys were, like, unwashed and unfamiliar and probably really unappealing to many of the women that they encountered. So, you know, there's like, it's unlikely that never did anything coercive happened here. The idea that they just traveled the world being super chill about consent and never took advantage of anybody. Come on. They just weren't writing in their journals, like, had a great time sexually assaulting a girl. Can't wait to do it again, I am reminded. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Right. You know how sometimes when you look. Look at. When you recall memories through adult eyes, they can seem, you know, things. Things occur to you which maybe wouldn't have at the time. Right. I have a memory of singing some fucking song in school. Right? [00:12:17] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:12:18] Speaker A: About sailors. [00:12:19] Speaker B: Uh huh. [00:12:21] Speaker A: And I can't remember what context this was in, but it was definitely in junior school. And it went something like, all the nice girls love a sailor. All the nice girls love a tar. But there's something about a sailor. Well, you know what? Sailors are bright and breezy, free and easy. They're the ladies pride and joy. And I can't remember when I would sing that song, but they were talking about fucking sailors, weren't they? That's what that song is all about. [00:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, and I'm sure that that's like, probably like a. Like a world War two or that kind of thing, but for sure, that's like a sly little song about the sailors coming to shore and taking advantage of their shore leave. Junior school. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Junior school. So you would leave junior school in year six. So eleven, up to eleven. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Amazing. Just little kids out there singing about sailor sex. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:30] Speaker B: Incredible stuff. Anyway, anyway you slice it, these sailors were traveling all over the world, hitting it left and right, and they were all carrying the junk gunk. And Captain Cook would go to great lengths to try to keep dudes away from native women wherever they went, specifically because he thought it was cruel to give unsuspecting people painful lifelong infections in the name of a good time. [00:13:55] Speaker A: And where was contraceptive science at this? [00:13:59] Speaker B: That I don't know. I did think about that, but wherever it was, certainly these guys weren't using anything hacking. I mean, I think I remember there was a video on YouTube that I watched, like, a decade ago, talking about contraceptive science and things like that. You know, things like sheepskin condoms and stuff like that have been around, right? They've been around for like, centuries. So technically, this kind of stuff existed, but it's not like they were supplying them with a whole bunch of them when they left for sea, which they probably do now. I bet you anything that, like, you know, even though they're discouraged from, you know, having sex while on duty, I'm sure that they're probably prophylactics available to a modern sailor. But even the crew kind of understood. The book talks of one occasion in which they very clearly did spread some sort of terrible disease to the people they encountered. And the crew were absolutely horrified watching them suffer from something that they could not have possibly understood, but which the sailors knew they could pass on. This is a total aside, though, because that's not even the disease I want to talk about in this. I just. I thought that was fascinating that, you know, I was. Yeah. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Busily in the background here, putting two and two together and wondering, was Captain Cook's rage syphilitic in nature? [00:15:24] Speaker B: No, from all accounts, except one. Yeah, he never partook. He was very well. Like, this guy was so straight and narrow. He, like, didn't really drink, didn't, like, go party with the natives. Like, he would go to things he was invited to and stuff like that. But he was not like, pretty much every sailor said he never slept with anybody except on one voyage that they say that. There are various accounts that say that this one girl stayed with him overnight, and that's the only time this has ever recorded. So it is unlikely that it's. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Did he have, like, a steady partner back home? [00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah, he had a wife and, like, four kids, something like that. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Who he did not see much of because he was out at sea, but, yeah, he wasn't out there philandering. He was, you know, it seems like he didn't have those kinds. Like, he was very single minded with things like exploration. [00:16:26] Speaker A: His mistress was the sea. [00:16:28] Speaker B: Right. And he didn't want to exploit people. So, you know, I think that he. He refrained for those reasons. [00:16:38] Speaker A: His mistress was the sea. [00:16:39] Speaker B: His mistress was absolutely the sea. What a nerd. But, yeah, for some major, major flaws, especially on his final journey, it's very interesting that he was like, guys, just like, please don't give the natives gonorrhea. And it's been said that James Kirk was based on Captain Cook. And in a way, you can kind of see that he had, like, a prime directive sort of thing going on. Don't christianize the natives, don't tell them what to do, don't interfere with their societies, and, hey, don't give them the clap. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Like, that was James Kirk's mistress, was space and his mistresses. [00:17:17] Speaker B: And also mistresses. Yes. Well, but, you know, he never settled down so he could do what he wants. But another thing that came up in the book was that Captain Cook sort of accidentally cured the absolute scourge of the sea. Scurvy. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Yes. Do you know much about scurvy, Mark? [00:17:42] Speaker A: Right, so vitamin deficiency and causes weakening of connective tissues, weakening of your soft tissues, like your gums and your palate. Lots of bleeding, lots of. Just turns you to mush, basically. Turns your liquid. [00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll get to some very graphic descriptions of that. But, yeah, that is. That's the basic, basic idea here. And because Captain Cook didn't, like, cure it on purpose, it didn't all the way cure it, but it wasn't really repeatable, in fact, and this is wild, we didn't fully know how to prevent scurvy until the 1920s. We're talking about. [00:18:30] Speaker A: Great name, isn't it? It's a great name for diseases. Yes. [00:18:35] Speaker B: And the word for people having scurvy is very good. It'll come in here. But. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Does it have scurvy in the name? [00:18:46] Speaker B: No, not quite. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Okay. No, I'll get there. [00:18:51] Speaker B: I'll point it out. But, yes, this disease was an unfair, unfathomably huge problem. According to National Geographic, more than three times as many sailors died of scurvy in the age of exploration than died in the American Civil War, which famously killed off 8% of all white men in the United States. Between the ages of 13 and 43, 2% of our entire population died during the civil war. And this scurvy killed three times as many people as that some. Christ, 2 million people died of scurvy. According to Atlas Obscura. Some people told tales of spanish galleons, quote, found floating, staffed only by the dead. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Good God. Well, look, it makes. That makes perfect sense to me because, I mean, what are the kind of long lasting, long life foods that you're gonna have on a boat? You're gonna have cured meats. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we'll get to this. Sure. So scurvy was just one of several nutritional deficiencies sailors would get as a result of the fact that they lived on preserved food. I don't know if this is still the case, but I don't think it is. But at the time, preserved food had no vitamins in it, so they would get a disease called beriberi berry. [00:20:13] Speaker A: Berry. Another one of my favorites. Yes. [00:20:14] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Yeah. From a lack of vitamin b one, pellagra from vitamin b three deficiency, and scurvy, which, as we now know, is because they were missing out on vitamin C. Rickets. Yeah, possibly. I'm not entirely sure. [00:20:30] Speaker A: Ricketts. I imagine Ricketts was probably big too. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Probably. But we don't hear a lot about beriberi or Pellagra because scurvy was so horrendous. But there are no walk in the park either. One of the symptoms of beriberi was fluid buildup in the legs, which sounds miserable. And both beriberi and fat legs. Fat, watery legs. And both beriberi and Pellagra could cause mental instability and personality changes, which is a frightening thought. Hey. Oh. Much like how we discussed that people thought lead might have screwed with people's brains on the Franklin expedition, it's terrifying to imagine people in close quarters with each other losing their minds due to some form of toxin or nutritional deficiency. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Journal entry 612. My legs have become watery. I fear I've succumbed to beriberi. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Rough stuff. But in fact, as I think you gleaned, Captain Cook, like I said, was said to have been hugely out of character on his final voyage. And apparently it has been suggested that he could have been suffering from Pellagra, which would have caused that kind of weird 180 in the guy that he'd been for all these years. But there was no maybe about it. When someone had scurvy, you knew, even though many people tried to hide that they were afflicted with it. I'm gonna read you the description of Scurvy's effects that Jonathan Lamb, author of Scurvy the Disease of Discovery, gave in an interview with National Geographic. You ready? [00:22:16] Speaker A: And this was a book or an article. [00:22:18] Speaker B: So this came from an article, an interview with the author of the book. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Great. Okay. He wrote a book just about scurvy. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah. There's plenty scurvology to learn about it. This is definitely on my maritime history books to read list. But here's his description of scurvy. The main physical symptom of scurvy is the disintegration of the body. The skin begins to break. It starts with little blood blisters and develops into full scale ulcers. The gums begin to putrefy and become black. This part really gets me. Bones that had previously broken re break. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Old wounds open up. [00:23:03] Speaker A: This is because that is collagen. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Mm hmm. One of the major effects of scurvy is that the body can no longer produce collagen. The glue of the body cells, the cartilage, especially around the thorax, begins to disappear. That's why people who had scurvy creaked and rattled. That was thorax. [00:23:23] Speaker A: That's your. Where's that? That's your midsection. [00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah, your midsection, right. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Or like your chest section. Yeah. When we were like, you know, in school and learning the anatomy of bugs. Yeah. Thorax. Abdomen. Abdomen. Thorax. Abdomen. And so I was just singing that to myself in my head. So I think it's like your chest cavity ish area. So that was on the outside. In terms of the body scaffold, in terms of the insides, the hydraulics. What happened was that the arteries and capillaries began to decay. Blood began to leak into the muscle and coagulated inside arteries, causing terrible cardiovascular damage. The effect of this on the brain was that you could have seizures or aneurysms at any moment, which is my nightmare. But wait, there's more. Scurvy also wreaks havoc on the mind. The psychological facts were caused by the disintegration of the nervous structure of the brain. The function of vitamin C is to scavenge free radicals, which are what you could call the waste matter of neuronal activity in the brain, which causes oxidation. Oxidative stress occurs when there isnt enough vitamin C to get rid of the free radicals, which are, in effect, blocking the synapses, destroying the effectiveness of the neurotransmitters or causing them to operate in intermittent and explosive ways. And when the neurotransmitters, serotonin and dopamine don't function properly, the brain starts producing hallucinations. Dreams become very vivid. And what these dreams produce is an image so exact and brilliant of what the body needs, namely food. When you wake up or when the hallucination disappears and you find that the food is not there, you are totally devastated. Thomas Willis, an expert on scurvy in the 17th century, called it a falling down of the whole soul. There are numerous accounts of hardened naval officer officers just sitting down and crying because the food they expected to find wasn't there. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Because they dreamed of a nice pile of oranges. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Well, not oranges, because they didn't know that did anything got you just food. They just wanted food and it wasn't there. And so it would caused them breakdowns, which is relatable. I would have a breakdown if I. If I was dreaming of food and it was not available. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Well, yeah, particularly if my fucking thorax was creaking, right? [00:25:52] Speaker B: My gums had liquified an account from 1217 during the crusades in Egypt described, quote, soldiers with violent pains in the feet and ankles. Their gums became swollen, their teeth loose and useless, while their hips and shin bones first turned black and putrefied. Finally, an easy and peaceful death, like a gentle sleep, put an end to their suffering. And I think you'll love this description. Jonathan Lamb gives of a scene from the rhyme of the ancient mariner. As soon as I read this, I was like, I think Mark might actually, if you could recover, I think you would want scurvy just to have. Just to experience this. So, quote, the highlight for me is a scene in the ancient mariner where the ancient mariner is looking over the side of the ship and sees water snakes. He can't believe how repulsive they are. Oh, Christ, that this should be for things with slimy legs did walk upon a slimy sea. He says he's paralyzed with horror, yet a couple stanzas later, he's looking at the same water snakes and thinking they are marvelous creatures shedding elf and foam as they fight in the water. His heart goes out to them. He loves them. This alternation between horror and delight is typical of scurvy, and it's what seems to organize the literature of scurvy. You're in a terrible state of privation, ignorance, and smell when suddenly something happens to pull you out of it. That's usually the arrival of food or liquid in some form, and all of your joys come together in one ecstatic blast. He goes on to explain that. The other side of the coin, though, is the profound isolation scurvy causes one to feel despite obviously being surrounded by others. Journals showed that sailors felt profoundly alone through their afflictions and were lost for a way to explain the feelings to others. Reading all of that, I was like, oh, yeah, Mark would love to have this if he could get over it. [00:27:47] Speaker A: I wonder. I would enjoy it if there was perhaps a synthetic kind of way of. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Inducing scurvy symptoms without putrefying from the inside out. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But you're right. I do love that. You know how fucking. How much of a boner I've got for this crazy interplay of the body and the mind? [00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:07] Speaker A: How, you know, the fucking bonkers shit that it can convince you is going on as a symptom of a physical ailment. Whoa. [00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And these, like, extremes here of like, just like the worst kinds of, like, pain and loneliness and isolation than to this extreme, you know, ecstatic blast, as he calls it, like, you know, have. [00:28:30] Speaker A: There ever been any depictions of scurvy in film, I wonder? [00:28:35] Speaker B: I'm sure there must be. I've watched fewer. I mean, I've watched plenty of c movies, but fewer than you would think. I don't know, though. Cause I feel like it's so horrifying that the sort of swashbucklers from, like, the early, like, the middle, early and mid 20th century would not have approached this at all. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Was it in the terror? Maybe. Was it in that first movie? [00:29:00] Speaker B: I didn't watch it. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Somebody must have come down the scooby. And why didn't you watch that again? Surely that would have been right up your street. [00:29:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I started it, and I was just kind it. I don't like dramas, and it just kind of bored me. That was the issue. It's too slow. And I talked about this in the episode where we talked about Franklin's expedition, too. I read the book, and I didn't like that either. And it was 900 pages long. I read that whole thing. I was like, God, I hate this. The real story is interesting enough without. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. [00:29:35] Speaker B: Fictionalizing, all that. [00:29:39] Speaker A: So, yeah, and, oh, and I'm right in saying that nobody had any idea even why this was fucking happening to them, right? [00:29:47] Speaker B: Like, I mean, they had theories, and I'll get into that in a second. But I. This was the issue was that, like, no one was pinpointing what exactly it was that was causing this. So they tried all kinds of different things, and I will get into that. But all of that, you know, happening, no one was spared, whether you were the lowliest crewman on the ship or an esteemed and famous explorer like Vasco da Gama, who died from scurvy. So, given that this is a disease that ravages pretty much every system you've got going on in your body, and it was a constant presence for seafarers for centuries. Everyone was desperate to figure out what they could do to eradicate it. But frankly, as you were just alluding to, they had no clue what they were doing. For example. [00:30:40] Speaker A: I feel as though they could fucking work it out, though. [00:30:43] Speaker B: For fuck sake, ladsen, you're all on this is. Oh, they. [00:30:48] Speaker A: You're all on a boat for months on end eating nothing but fucking pickled cows foot. [00:30:53] Speaker B: You know, we've talked recently as well about, like, the fact that the field of medicine is, you know, a hundred years old. It's not something that really existed for. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Cow'S foot is hoof, isn't it? So what, rather than going with pickled cows foot, I had, like, had my time again, I would have said hooves. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Okay. Yes, yes, sure. Um, talking about distracted by the field. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Of medicine, very young. [00:31:28] Speaker B: Oh. So they, like, they would kind of be so close, as I will discuss, but they'd be, like, on the cusp, but just interpret something so slightly wrong and fuck it up. So one of the things people thought was that the smell of the earth and the feeling of being on land could help with scurvy. This is not one of their closer guesses, according to Joyce Chaplin. And thus they would do a thing called earth bathing, where they would literally ship dirt from England out on the boats. And as someone was getting all scorbutic. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Nice, they would put. [00:32:04] Speaker B: That's the word. Having. If you have scurvy, you're scorbutic. I like it. But they would put them in the dirt box and cover them in it. As you can imagine, it did not work. That's far more effective for transporting Draculas across the sea than solving skirts. [00:32:25] Speaker A: That's the only way that putting you in a dirt box is the only thing it's useful for. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Only thing. [00:32:29] Speaker A: It's good for shipping Draculas. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Another thing they thought caused scurvy was physical misery. And trying to avoid that is actually how Captain Cook unintentionally minimized it. On his voyages, he kept his ships clean, warm, and dry, and as often as possible, would go ashore and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish from the natives on the islands they came upon. So reducing physical misery meant that he was actually getting his sailors the vitamins they needed to prevent disease causing nutritional deficiencies. They're obviously gonna be happier if they're eating fresh food than if they're eating hardtack. So Chaplin points out that that didn't mean that there was no scurvy on his ships. A lot of times, people report that they're like, oh, he eradicated it. There wasn't any on his ships. There was, apparently, especially on his second voyage. And, in fact, Cook subscribed to the theory that something called malt wort might be a scurvy preventative. A man named Doctor David McBride had theorized that it was not citrus, but concentrated malt that would keep people from getting the disease, basically getting it completely wrong. So Cook was giving his men this malt that did absolutely fuck all to stifle the disease. But because there was so little of it, they thought it was working, not realizing it was the fresh fruit and vegetables that he was getting from the natives doing this malt. And so not only was he wrong. [00:34:03] Speaker A: That's really funny to me. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Well, unfortunately, he's got an orange in. [00:34:10] Speaker A: One hand, he's got a sheaf of malt in the other. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Like, this is the one. This is what's so close. [00:34:16] Speaker A: So goddamn close. [00:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So while some people attribute finding a cure for scurvy to cook, he not only just happened to be giving his sailors stuff that minimized it, that he didn't know that he was doing it meant that he also ended up spreading misinformation about what did solve scurvy, ultimately impeding progress and stopping it, because everybody was like, oh, Captain Cook is using malt and his guys aren't getting the scurves, so that must be doing it. [00:34:45] Speaker A: What were they called? Scorp. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Scorpio. I lost it again. Scorbutive. Scorb. Scorb. It'll come up again. Anyways, so. Because there were. Oh, sorry, I lost my place here. But what did ultimately, okay. There were those who thought citrus had something to do with solving scurvy, or at least some kind of acid did. In 1593, Admiral Richard Hawkins was recommending that sailors get some citrus in them. 1593. In 1614, the East India Company said sailors should have fresh food, citrus and sulfuric acid, to stave off scurvy. [00:35:31] Speaker A: All right. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, they're just like, according to its own issues. Right? Yeah. But they're like, they're getting that something is happening here. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:41] Speaker B: And they're just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. In 1747, a scottish physician named James Lind tested various cures on scorbutic sailors, including cider, sulfuric acid, vinegar, seawater, oranges and lemons and spices and barley water. [00:35:59] Speaker A: And they would ingest the sulfuric acid? Yes, yes. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Not like shooters or anything. They would ingest it. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Surely that's bad for you in itself. That's not gonna. [00:36:09] Speaker B: I guess it probably depends on the dose. Right? Dose makes the poison. I don't know enough about sulfuric acid to tell you that one way or another, but I wouldn't want to be ingesting it for various reasons. But during the tests, they ran out of fruit in six days. But the results were already crystal clear. The oranges and lemons were far more effective than any of the other cures. He published those findings in 1753, but they didn't grab hold just yet. It was in 1794 that the Suffolk officially doled out rations of lemon juice to its crew. And lo and behold, zero scurvy. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Excellent. [00:36:52] Speaker B: So I'm sure you're thinking, but Corriganhornen. That was 1794, and you said they didn't officially find the cure for scurvy till the 20th century. I was thinking, that sounds like you've scotched yourself, Corrigan. [00:37:07] Speaker A: Alas, into a corner. Into a robotic corner. [00:37:12] Speaker B: Well, the Brits had finally found a cure. They then proceeded to unfind it, as I'm sure you know, a nickname for Brits is limeys. Limeys, exactly. Yeah. A thing. I imagine most folks who use it have no idea where it came from. Did you? [00:37:35] Speaker A: None at all. [00:37:36] Speaker B: None at all. [00:37:37] Speaker A: Well, listen, is. Is that still common parlance, then? [00:37:40] Speaker B: Limeys? Yeah, I mean, common parlance in, like, a joking way. Yeah, I think people, like, we know that. Like, I think any American would know. You be like, oh, those limey bastards, or whatever. But, like, I don't. I don't think anyone, like, genuinely has any clue where it comes from or would use it in a serious way. No, it'd be like fucking limey's. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, because the closest equivalent I can think of is Yanks. We would call Americans Yanks, but I think that's still quite common. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's true. A lot of Brits do call us Yanks. I don't think a lot of Americans, in, like, a normal way, would call a Brit a limey because it, like, it is derogatory. Right. Like, it's not like a. It's not a cute little thing to call someone. [00:38:30] Speaker A: I bet when I'm out there, because I'll start swinging. [00:38:35] Speaker B: Should be hilarious to see. But, yeah, I mean, Yank, obviously is not a positive thing either. But I don't carries the venom at this point. It may have at another point in time, but, yeah, it came from the Brits substituting limes for lemons and oranges as a scurvy countermeasure. Limes are not as effective as oranges and lemons when it comes to curing or preventing scurvy. And on top of that, they then boiled the limes in copper vessels, which pretty much drained all of the vitamin C out of them. Since the sailors started getting scurvy again, everyone was like, you know what? Maybe the citrus thing doesn't work after all. So the practice fell out of favor as a result of that. Luckily, though. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Look. [00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Talk about giving me just fucking knowledge that I'm never, ever gonna use. Thank you so much. [00:39:36] Speaker B: I don't know. Somebody at some point is going to use the word limeye and you're gonna be able to be like, you know where that's true comes from. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you watch your fucking mouth. Let me tell you about something, and then I'll proceed to get the entire story. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:39:52] Speaker A: Yep. [00:39:53] Speaker B: Yes. So the tl doctor is, you know, the Brits figured out a cure for scurvy and then went on to use limes because it was cheaper and then boiled them and thus made it completely useless in fighting scurvy. And so luckily, at this point, steam engines had become a thing. So people were rarely going on voyages that lasted for over six weeks. And scurvy tends to, like, hit around six weeks. So if you are out, like, I mean, if I didn't eat anything with vitamin C in it for a couple weeks, like, I'd probably be a little weak, but I'd be fine. And so, yeah, people were okay going out like that. Aside, of course, from our friends like Franklin and Scott on expeditions to reach the poles. As we know, the terror and the Erebus were out there for three years before Lady Franklin was like, hey, guys, I think my husband's lost. Can we go find him? Or. And Scurvy is one of the likely causes for the demise of most of the people on board those ships. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Well, you might reasonably like to think that scurvy was, you know, completely a. [00:41:14] Speaker B: Thing of the past, but I'm getting there. Don't get ahead of me. [00:41:17] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Stop googling while I'm talking. [00:41:20] Speaker A: I'm not, but. Right, you've, you've, you've kind of surfaced something that I remember reading a while back in the press over here that, you know, victorian era maritime diseases were very much alive and well in Britain in 2024. [00:41:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there's various reasons why all kinds of old diseases are back. The reason for scurvy is probably the most depressing of them. But I will get there. But, yeah. So these polar expeditions were undertaken with tinned food, pemmican, hardtack, tea and whiskey. [00:41:56] Speaker A: Pelican. What is that? [00:41:57] Speaker B: Pemmican. It is a mix of tallow, dried meat and berries. [00:42:04] Speaker A: It's nice. Okay. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds horrible. [00:42:08] Speaker A: Put it in like, a bird feeder. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I mean, it kind of looks like that too, with, like, just like a puck of, like, who knows what that. Yeah. Mystery meat and. And berries. No, thank you. But anyways, so. And if I recall correctly, also like, a shit ton of pickles in the case of Franklin's expedition, just like an unhinged amount of pickles on that voyage. And none of this stuff prevented scurvy. These 19th century sailors were getting struck down by a disease that should have been eradicated by the end of the 18th if it weren't for the Brits being cheap about fruit. So people continued to die from scurvy until 1927, when a hungarian biochemist named Shenta Georgi figured out it was ascorbic acid, aka vitamin C, that prevented the disease. As a result, weve almost gotten rid of scurvy altogether. Except, of course, that the world is terrible. And in places like Americas, inner cities, or developing nations, poor children in particular still get it from lack of access to proper nutrition. And because it is so rare, it's often mistaken for something else. Because who the fuck gets scurvy in the 21st century? So often those problems are not addressed because when doctors look at them, they're like, I don't know. I don't know why this is happening. It's cause these kids aren't getting enough food, that's why. But if we put the effort in to make sure every child everywhere has access to nutritious food, dear Marco, we will likely see the backside of the scurvy scourge forever. And what's more, those pioneering studies in vitamin C that caused us to find this solution are actually being built upon today. And we're still finding new things that ascorbic acid can cure. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Cool. [00:44:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a nice little silver lining. Took centuries to figure out that you just needed to eat a fucking orange, but now you can, like, cure certain elements of diabetes, and I stuff with it. [00:44:21] Speaker A: Well, as I think we've, we've spoken before, it's. That's just one more indicator of how fucking wrong we have it, isn't it? You know, of just how heinously fucking ass backwards we have things at the minute, you know, in a. In a world where everything you need is, you know, given to you, right, readily available. And I. And I'm. And I'm not being like, hey, let's just get back to nature and fucking, you know, weave a yurt and fucking cultivate yoghurt and shit. That's not what I'm saying at all. But, you know, scurvy and diabetes and such like are still rampant, right? All he got to do is just eat what's around. What's there but money, right? [00:45:08] Speaker B: You know, and. And living in a food desert myself, you know, you become very aware of how difficult it can be for people to get stuff like that. You know, everyone's like, oh, people need to put down the McDonald's and blah, blah, blah. But, like, there's closer fast food to me than there is a grocery store. And, you know, the inflation or greedflation on groceries has gone super high up. So you see, like, returns to stuff like this happening simply because. Yeah, we don't. We don't have access to that kind of stuff. And there are places that, like, actively plant things, like edible fruit trees and stuff like that outside so that people can, like, pick them as they walk through, which is, you know, the kind of thing, I think, like you said, not to be all, get back to nature or whatever, but there are things that can be provided for us without it being, like, expensive to do completely. [00:46:07] Speaker A: I mean, super recently, like, just before we went on holes, like a week before last, Laura and the boys and I were walking, which we do, and we came across a lady picking berries. Right. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Was it Alicia Silver? Silverstone? [00:46:25] Speaker A: It was not Alicia Silverstone. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:46:28] Speaker A: Why would it be? [00:46:30] Speaker B: Oh, that Richard Silver stone. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Oh, right. Yeah. Okay, fine. [00:46:34] Speaker B: For those who didn't know, Alicia Silverstone ate, like, a mildly poisonous fruit of somebody's tree in England. [00:46:41] Speaker A: No, it wasn't her. Um, but, uh, she was picking berries. Picking blackberries or gooseberries or where it was putting in a bag. She obviously had designs on making some sort of tart or pie. [00:46:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:52] Speaker A: And it was. And the boys were stunned by this. [00:46:55] Speaker B: Uh huh. [00:46:56] Speaker A: Like, blown away, like. Right, yeah. Did she not have any food at home? You know, that kind of thing. Right, yeah. Mad shit. [00:47:05] Speaker B: And there's. Look, yeah, there's been a comeback of foraging these days. You know, people going out and learning what you can go and eat just around. [00:47:13] Speaker A: Yes. But it's. Yeah. All this does is just reinforces to me how fucking wrong what we're doing currently is. The way we live currently is. And again, you know, not to want to plow this fucking same old furrow that I've plowed time and time again, right. But again, the week before I left, there was news of this, fucking, properly for the first time, groundbreaking Alzheimer's drug, right, which has had kind of approval for use in the NA. Medically here in the UK. It's got side effects and it's expensive and it requires, like, fortnightly infusions, but it's not being offered at all on the NHS because it costs too goddamn much. [00:48:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:48:01] Speaker A: And it can, you know, it can slow the onset of Alzheimer's and extend life, improve the quality of life for people who get it diagnosed early enough. Yeah. Just today I was listening to a phone in a radio four and the topic was energy and about how, you know, the. The most common reason given for not pivoting nationally towards wind, towards nuclear, towards forms of energy which might have a chance of making a dent or changing the course that we're on by a couple of degrees is the cost. It costs too much to do it. That's fucking mad. [00:48:40] Speaker B: How do we have prices on our ability to live? [00:48:43] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, yes. [00:48:45] Speaker B: The world is dying. How. How is that less expensive than solar panels on shit? [00:48:53] Speaker A: Yes. [00:48:53] Speaker B: Come on. [00:48:53] Speaker A: And it is. And it is cheaper to buy huge bags of frozen shite to feed your family with than it is to give them something which will prevent scurvy. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Exactly. Fucking hell. Get it together, world. [00:49:09] Speaker A: All fucked up. All fucked up. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:49:15] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:49:19] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said measles said in such a horny way before. [00:49:24] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal receiver. [00:49:26] Speaker B: Worst comes to worse, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm fucking. I'm gonna leg it. [00:49:36] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:49:39] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. [00:49:43] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. You okay there? [00:49:45] Speaker A: Yes, I am. Thank you. Well, I'm not actually. [00:49:48] Speaker B: Ooh, okay. [00:49:49] Speaker A: Right. I'm beaten up. Lovely to be back. Yeah, I'm. I. Do you have the phrase, oh, you've been in the wars in the States? [00:49:58] Speaker B: No, I don't think so. I've never heard that one. [00:50:00] Speaker A: So let's say maybe your kid is off school and they've got a tummy ache, or they've kind of. Oh, they're nursing, like a broken arm or something. Oh, someone's been in the wars. That's. That's something that a parent or a grandparent would say. [00:50:13] Speaker B: You guys are real weird about that. Wars. Let's be. [00:50:15] Speaker A: Ah, yeah, that's true still. But, yes, I've been in the wars. [00:50:20] Speaker B: But wearing your little flowers around and whatnot. [00:50:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, I will talk about next. Next. Independence Day. No, sorry, next. Um, remembrance day. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about. We'll talk about the fucking poppy fuckers. [00:50:34] Speaker B: But, yes, but it's been in the. [00:50:35] Speaker A: Wars to be back. But I'll. I'll first. I'll first just say that it is great to be back, and I want to thank Anna and Steve for what I assume was a great episode last week. [00:50:43] Speaker B: You should watch it. It was a really good one. Made a really good time. [00:50:46] Speaker A: But I don't need to because I know that it would. Because I know that it was excellent. There'll be no surprises there for me because I know that it'll be a high quality installment. [00:50:55] Speaker B: When you come around and tell their cold open in three weeks, I'm gonna be very upset with you for not having watched it. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Let me see. What was I about to say? [00:51:11] Speaker B: Wars. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Yeah. A lovely holiday. Thank you. A lovely holiday. But I am. It doesn't ruin international travel for me, right? Doesn't ruin it because the experience of going abroad with family and taking in a new land is always wonderful. I love it so goddamn much. But it's. It's. It's become depressingly frequent that not only will I get fucking mangled by mosquitoes. [00:51:45] Speaker B: Yep. [00:51:46] Speaker A: My body will always react really violently to them. It isn't the bites that get me. [00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:53] Speaker A: In such distress. It's how my body reacts. My fucking histamine response goes absolutely batshit. And I. You can't see on my webcam right now, but I. My webcam. But if I were to get my. [00:52:11] Speaker B: Cyberspace right now, my webcam. [00:52:16] Speaker A: But if I were to show you my legs right now, you'd go like that. Because just, like, not even mildly raised, like, you might think a mosquito bite would be, but like a hillock of just tighten hot kind of with like this red corona extending around the outside of the bite. And it's fucking itching and burning like hell. And it isn't just the itch, it's the. It burns in my skin. It burns. Ah, man. It's horrible. [00:52:46] Speaker B: But I really hope. I really hope that mosquito season is over by the time that you get here so that you don't go through this again. [00:52:53] Speaker A: I'm dreading it. Because in three weeks, you've told me that you've got lots in your garden, haven't you? [00:52:57] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, yeah. Big time. We have a ton of spray, you know, to try to keep them away. And they should be. As long as it cools down, they should be gone. But I am very concerned that you're going to come on another holiday and then just end up eating up again. [00:53:18] Speaker A: How hot is it currently? Because we've got three weeks to go. Three weeks to go. How long. How hot is it currently? [00:53:24] Speaker B: It is. It's only 78 today. It's not that bad. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Right. And what is that in an actual temperature? Figure that I can understand. [00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm out of practice trying to transfer Fahrenheit to Celsius. [00:53:38] Speaker A: Let's try that 25. Oh, that's fine. That's cooler than it is here. [00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not bad. You know, it's kind of been back and forth or whatever, but I feel like we're going into fall, hopefully, so if that's the case. You know, normally the end of September is, like, low seventies, and it's, like, really beautiful. So that crossing perfect. [00:53:58] Speaker A: Today's been 26 and 78 is 25.5. So right now, between us, it's exactly the same temperature. [00:54:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's kind of fun. [00:54:07] Speaker A: It is. It's really cool. And if it's going to get cooler, then I am all for that. [00:54:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And if it gets cooler, the mosquitoes won't go out. Come out, so. [00:54:15] Speaker A: No, they won't. And add onto all that. Literally, the morning after I got back, I went back to the fucking eye doctor to get another pustule. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:54:29] Speaker B: That's what it is. It's a pustule. You just got, like, a little nubbin full of pus in your eyeball. [00:54:35] Speaker A: No, it's on my eyelid. And pustule is a bit. A bit of a grimmer tomb than I think it deserves. It's not really grim at all. You can't really see anything, but it's the second one I've had removed a motherfucker. This one hurt like a some bitch. The last one was tame compared to this. The doctor went fucking. The guy was a sadist. [00:54:59] Speaker B: It's like the dentist and little cars. [00:55:03] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. I was not Bill Murray. I was getting nothing from the transaction at all. But it's done. I've got a lovely kind of shine now. Got a lovely bit of bruising around the eyelid. A lovely black eye. So that's really cool. So that hurts. And my skin is burning and itching, but at least I don't have scurvy. I have ready access to fruit juices. [00:55:25] Speaker B: Love that. When they did this little procedure on your eye, like, what do they do? Like, is your eye opening open? [00:55:37] Speaker A: Right. Would you like me to talk you through it? I can. I'm sensing you like a walk through. [00:55:41] Speaker B: You see the curiosity. [00:55:43] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. So I went in, chatted with the consultant, a lovely guy, who. [00:55:52] Speaker B: I do want you to stop touching it, though. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Okay? What I'm doing, because you can palpate it readily, and you can feel that it's under the skin. And I'm just making sure that he's got it all. So I went in, talk to the guy, and he very helpfully, kind of drew around it so we knew where to aim for. Walks me into the nurse's office where they assist. Lies me down on the little. On the little gurney, I guess you'd say. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Sure. I don't know if that's what I always think of a gurney as, like, something more emergency, but. Yeah. Like the little bed. Operating table. Operating table. I don't know. [00:56:31] Speaker A: Let's go with that. Okay. And injected me three fucking times in the lower eyelid. Like, with lidocaine, I believe. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Okay. Lidocaine. [00:56:42] Speaker A: Like, injected my fucking eyelid, man. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Weird. [00:56:45] Speaker A: Horrible. [00:56:46] Speaker B: Could you. When you, like, once they injected you with all that, could you, like, move it at all? Or was it like, now you have no control over the. [00:56:54] Speaker A: It seemed to do nothing. Oh, nothing. It had no effect. I could feel everything. What he then does. You know how when you're a kid, you would sometimes try and gross your friends out by turning your eyelid inside out? Sure, yeah, yeah. He did that on my bottom eyelid and attached a clamp to it. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [00:57:15] Speaker A: To keep it pulled down. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Clockwork orange. [00:57:19] Speaker A: Exactly. This. The Ludovico techniqued me and screwed this clamp down super fucking tight. Like I felt like it was gonna fucking cut my eyelid and then got to work. Exactly. Got a little blade and chatting to me throughout the entire thing, and I could feel him cutting the inside of my eyelid, talking, giving me a full on director's commentary throughout the whole thing. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Are you blinking with your upper eyelid while this is happening? [00:57:50] Speaker A: I'm just desperately trying not to. Desperately. [00:57:53] Speaker B: So you could blink? [00:57:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:56] Speaker B: Okay. [00:57:57] Speaker A: Meanwhile, my other eye is just streaming tears down into my ear. My fucking tears soaked with my own fucking, you know, saline that I'd secreted. So he's talking to me throughout the entire things. A lot of discharge coming out of this one. And. [00:58:19] Speaker B: Yes, yes, no. [00:58:21] Speaker A: And he then followed that up with. It's actually very satisfying. [00:58:24] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:58:25] Speaker A: That's what he said. That's what he said. I was like, haha. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, Christ. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Clean me up, patch me up, sent me on my way. But it hurt like fucking. It's been. It's bruised and I hate it. And the rest of me itches and burns. But all that said, right? Not to want to complain. [00:58:45] Speaker B: Sure. [00:58:45] Speaker A: It is fucking great to be back. Good fucking great to be back. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Very glad you're back. [00:58:51] Speaker A: Listen, we are now in our fifth year, right? Jack, of all graves, now entering its. [00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yesterday was our fourth anniversary, literally, technically. [00:59:01] Speaker A: In our fifth year. [00:59:02] Speaker B: It's true. [00:59:03] Speaker A: And first day of our fifth year, yeah, yeah, yeah. And missing a week, it puts me at ease. I don't like it. [00:59:10] Speaker B: I know. You're supposed to be here. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:59:14] Speaker B: Well, I think everyone is happy to have you again. Such big thanks to Anna and Steve for wonderful episode last week in which we discussed butt stabbing and other such things. Cryptids. [00:59:25] Speaker A: Aren't they great? [00:59:26] Speaker B: They're so great. They're so much fun, and we're so excited to get to see them again in just three and a half weeks here in my home. It's gonna be such a good time. [00:59:37] Speaker A: And home with your dog. [00:59:39] Speaker B: With my dog. Yeah. Kia will be here as well. He's considering the Saturday staying home with the dog, but he will be partying with us Friday at least. [00:59:51] Speaker A: Wicked. Really good news. [00:59:52] Speaker B: Yes. So if you're still thinking about it, if you're in the area or things like that, make sure to go on our discord, and I will send you an info packet about it. It's gonna be a good turnout whether. [01:00:04] Speaker A: You fucking want it or not. [01:00:05] Speaker B: Read the packet, because read the goddamn packet. [01:00:09] Speaker A: Super spiky at people who don't read the packet after, like, a third or. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Fourth time asking package. Not that, you know, from experience. [01:00:23] Speaker A: So we've just had our fourth birthday. If Joag was a human child, would you like to know what it would be capable of doing right now? [01:00:29] Speaker B: Oh, yes, please. [01:00:30] Speaker A: All right. So happy birthday, baby. Joag, you are four. Were you a human child, you would be able to show sympathy to friends when hurt or upset. [01:00:39] Speaker B: Okay. It takes till you're four. Jeez. [01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's what you should be doing at the time you're for. You would be able to recognize big and small items, Joag. [01:00:50] Speaker B: Okay. [01:00:51] Speaker A: You'd be able to understand. [01:00:53] Speaker B: We can. [01:00:54] Speaker A: Instructions such as go and get your shoes. [01:00:57] Speaker B: Nice. These are, like. What's really surprising about this is that it takes kids that long to figure any of that out. Like, I feel like my dog is, like, this close to learning how to do all of those things. [01:01:13] Speaker A: Let me see. What else? Sit still or listen to a story for five to ten minutes and name. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Five different colors at age four. Yeah, five colors. [01:01:27] Speaker A: If you. I'd say five colors at least. [01:01:32] Speaker B: Geez Louise. Okay. [01:01:35] Speaker A: You can't name five different colors by the time you're four. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Okay, then that might be an issue, a developmental issue. Vitamin C. Exactly. Well, interesting. Listen, I think we've passed the four year test, and I'm very happy about it. As you put out our Covid distraction that just kept going. [01:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:57] Speaker B: And so happy that we're here. And, I mean, four years in, you're coming to America. That's pretty wonderful. [01:02:06] Speaker A: It's a big. Well, that's. Talk about a milestone. That's a developmental milestone right there. [01:02:11] Speaker B: Milestone. [01:02:14] Speaker A: And in the background, just worth mentioning, by the side, I've got another New York movie on in the background. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Ooh, what is it? [01:02:21] Speaker A: Sony's Madame Webb. [01:02:23] Speaker B: Oh, God. Right? That movie doesn't even take place on this planet, let alone fucking hell. [01:02:30] Speaker A: Even though this, I don't need the sound on to figure out that it's a fucking massive piece of shit. Why is. [01:02:38] Speaker B: Have you not watched it? [01:02:39] Speaker A: Why is it? Nah, why would I? But why is it. Why is the grit the color grade like that? Why? [01:02:45] Speaker B: Don't know. I don't know. It's the whole thing. Every decision is baffling. The. The thing that I just want you to see in this movie, like, on it is just shit from beginning to end. But the craziest thing about this movie is the villain who they clearly decided to completely get rid of whatever storyline they had for him and redo it after the movie was already done. And so you never see, like, him head on talking because all of his lines are ADR. And it is so bizarre to watch, like, the whole time, you're like, did he speak English? Like, why is he dubbed this whole movie? Why do you never see, like, his face talking? What's going on here? [01:03:35] Speaker A: That is incredible. [01:03:36] Speaker B: So bizarre. It's so bizarre. I've never seen anything like it, short. [01:03:40] Speaker A: Of any kind of audio input into the film. Or, I mean, just looking at it, it looks as though, like somebody's put, like, a New York filter on it on Instagram. The color is fucking awful, man. It's vital. And they were just in a taxi. And you know how, you know when you're filming somebody in a car, they're never in it. They're never on a road, you know? [01:04:03] Speaker B: Right. It's got, like, a background. Yeah. [01:04:06] Speaker A: But, like, the. The car and the background were just moving independently. [01:04:10] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:04:11] Speaker A: Just, like, subtly. It's fucking terrible. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Oh, no. That's truly horrific. Yeah. Metemweb is not a movie I recommend, except that there's a bit of a, you have to see it to believe it kind of element to that movie. But we're gonna get into what we watched today, and particularly that's gonna lead us into our discussion for this week because we had a watch along. We watched Gremlins two. A thing that everyone requested while we watched this movie was that bark take us through some Gremlins lore as well as, like, some of his theories. You know, there's. There's a lot. Mark is a studied Gremlins fan. [01:05:00] Speaker A: Fucking. I f love gremlins. Right. I'm only ever reminded at how much I love gremlins. When I watch gremlins, it doesn't really seep into my daily life. [01:05:09] Speaker B: It's not like, your personality. [01:05:12] Speaker A: No, no, not at all. Not at all. In fact, I don't even own a t shirt, and I would think about it. I think I would love a Gremlin. [01:05:18] Speaker B: You need that one. That I can't remember who it was. Was it John Benfield who posted the picture today of Robert Picardo in the sexy Gremlin shirt? I feel like you need. [01:05:29] Speaker A: She is sexy. [01:05:30] Speaker B: That one. You need that shirt in particular. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. [01:05:37] Speaker B: But whenever I. Oh, go ahead. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Watch either gremlins or Gremlins two, I'm reminded of just how much fucking. Just joy I get out of the creatures and their, you know, their. Their life cycle and their. Their kind of their physiology. [01:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:56] Speaker A: Love them. Love them. Love them. [01:05:58] Speaker B: So we're gonna. That's what we're gonna talk about today. Once we get done talking about our watches, we're gonna get a little bit of into Gremlore. And I'm looking forward to that. As we mentioned, this whole idea of not making it our personality or whatever, we both, at least in our younger days, kind of did, because I have an extensive gremlin to trading card collection. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And this was a phrase I wrote in the chat that I completed the Gremlins Panini sticker album when I was a kid. And nobody seems to know what that is, do you? Panini sticker books? No. [01:06:31] Speaker B: No. I know what a sticker book is, but I don't know what a panini sticker book is. [01:06:36] Speaker A: So Panini were. And I guess were because I don't think they exist anymore. But Panini were the eminent name in sticker books. Movie and sport tie in sticker books. Okay, so you would commonly get the blank sticker book for free. Maybe with an issue of a weekly comic that you would buy the dandy or the Beano or whatever. You'd get the sticker book for free in a little polythene bag. And it would tell the story of the film over, like, 2030 pages, but with blank spaces for the stick. For you to buy the sticker packs at the newsagent for, like, 30, 40 p or whatever. That would contain five stickers, and you would peel them off and stick them in the book to complete the sticker album and visually tell you the story of the film. Right? [01:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we definitely had stuff like that, but the sticker books were not free yet to buy. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:30] Speaker B: You had to buy the stickers and the book. [01:07:32] Speaker A: And, you know, one of the. One of the. One of the ways that they were so that they made such a cultural impact among kids was because obviously, you would then take your piles of stickers into school and trade your doubles, right? [01:07:44] Speaker B: Yep. Sure. Yeah. [01:07:46] Speaker A: Need it, got it, need it, got it. And you would, you know, whether it was Gremlins or fucking Ninja Turtles or Star wars or whatever, you would. And it was such a rare. I never. And I did. I don't really know anybody else who ever really regularly completed panini sticker albums. It was a lot, you know, a lot of big under. [01:08:05] Speaker B: Did you complete more than that one? [01:08:07] Speaker A: Nope. Gremlins was one. The Gremlins was the only panini sticker album that I ever completed starting to finish, and I was proud as fuck of it. [01:08:16] Speaker B: You should be. Do you still have it somewhere now? [01:08:19] Speaker A: Fuck, no. [01:08:20] Speaker B: That's too bad. [01:08:22] Speaker A: The only other collector collecting kind of thing that I finished was. What were they given away with? There was a series of ninja Turtles coins. [01:08:38] Speaker B: Ooh. Okay. [01:08:39] Speaker A: That you could buy and swap with your mates, and they would clip into this really nice little cardboard display sheet. A lot, man. Adam, fucking, I had all of them. [01:08:55] Speaker B: What did you get them from? Like, what? What did they come in? [01:08:59] Speaker A: I can't recall where. I think they were just sold at the tills in Woolworths. [01:09:04] Speaker B: Okay. [01:09:07] Speaker A: But I had all the hero turtles. Sorry. As they were. [01:09:11] Speaker B: I know, as you said, ninja, like, two or three times there, so. Whoa, hold on. [01:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the ninja turtles again. Now where you. Whitehouse is fucking dead, you know. But, yes, I had all the hero turtles coins, and I completed the Gremlins to come, which is. Which is to say, and of course, as you will not be shocked to hear, I read the Gremlins two movie tie in novelization. Yes. And, yeah, I love and continue to love Gremlins. They're great. [01:09:37] Speaker B: It was about time that we returned to it, because we have discussed that you had this tie in book, and, you know, some of the elements of that on this show before, but never really deep dived into a lot of your ideas about gremlins that I think people have wanted to hear. So I'm excited to hear a little bit about that. [01:09:56] Speaker A: Well, let's do it. Yeah, there's another angle as well. With another movie that we're going to discuss shortly, which equally, I adore thinking about, which, you know, we'll reveal shortly, but there's another fictional movie monster life cycle that I'm fucking super into as well. [01:10:15] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah. [01:10:17] Speaker A: So all that to come, you lucky, lucky people. [01:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's coming. Also, a thing that is coming is mail for our top tier of subscribers on the Arkofi. I gathered various things, little postcards and things. Like I said, I'm now sending flat things so that people don't get empty envelopes because I learned my lesson about sending things that are textured and items and stuff like that in the mail. So I'm sending flat things now. But I collected various things in my travels through Europe a couple months ago, and so I'm excited to send those maybe some cool facts along with them. Last month or last mailer I did facts about the naked mole rat after going to the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC. So we'll see what happens this time. I don't know, maybe some Belgium facts, I don't know. But excited to send those out though. So within the next week or two we are coming up on my birthday, but I don't have a ton of plans, so I will hopefully get to it sometime very shortly. But they'll be with you soon. [01:11:36] Speaker A: Awesome. What other podcast sends you stuff, right? [01:11:40] Speaker B: Seriously? [01:11:40] Speaker A: None. Other podcast? [01:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you should be subscribing to our ko fi, especially since for a measly $3 a month you don't get mail. But you do get to listen to me scare Kristen every month on the Joag fan cave. This month we are watching disturbing behavior, which I am super stoked on. I think Kristen is gonna really enjoy this one and I owe her after terrifying her with it. Chapter one last month, I know that Anna talked on hellrankers about watching disturbing behavior for the first time in preparation for this Joag fan cave and really liked it. And yeah, I always love watching disturbing behavior. And if you haven't started it and you are subscribing, make sure that you watch it before we talk about it. Yeah, I need to hear that. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Or even hear of it. [01:12:28] Speaker B: Is it disturbing behavior really like early, it's late nineties or early two thousands? I want to say early two thousands horror movie about like kind of a Stepford ish town where like all the bad teenagers all of a sudden start coming to school and being like very perfect. And then they start sort of harassing the people who are not as perfect as them. And you come to find some sort of very sinister thing that is going on under the surface that, yeah, causes death and destruction and all kinds of things like that. [01:13:05] Speaker A: What is it about that movie which made you pick it for Kristen? [01:13:08] Speaker B: So I've actually figured picked all of the ones for the rest of the year, which I'm excited about because I love to do like thematic things. So like, I picked it last month because it's like it's a summertime movie. Right. And before that I did. I know what you did last summer because it's the 4 July movie. And so it's back to school time and disturbing behavior circles around high school. So I was like, let's do disturbing behavior for this month as our back to school watch. And I'm feeling pretty great about it. [01:13:40] Speaker A: Beautiful. I hope she is too. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Yes. I think she's gonna. Cause she loved. I know what you did last summer. So I think if she loved that, she's gonna love the two thousands vibe of this. James Marsden, Katie Holmes, like AJ Buckley briefly, Ethan Embry. Like it's a who's who of two thousand's teen heartthrobs. It's a good time. [01:14:04] Speaker A: There's a career that took a odd left turn, isn't it? James Marsden. [01:14:12] Speaker B: James Marsden is interesting because I mean, I think he. Yeah, he's weird because he was in stuff like that, like kind of off brand things, but he was always too handsome for that. And then x men sort of made him leading man material. Now he's like comedy. Leading comedy. He's not really a leading. He's more of a character actor and plays a lot of comedic roles. He's a very handsome second fiddle to. [01:14:42] Speaker A: Animated animals now is what he is. [01:14:45] Speaker B: What's it. What is he in with anime? [01:14:47] Speaker A: Well, he's Sonic's best friend. [01:14:49] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yep. [01:14:52] Speaker A: And I think it's called hop. [01:14:55] Speaker B: Oh, I've heard of that but I have not seen it. [01:14:57] Speaker A: I know I have. And it's fucking terrible. I think the rabbit is James Corden or somebody. [01:15:02] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's right. Yep. [01:15:04] Speaker A: Repugnant. And when I think of James Marsden now, I don't think of Cyclops, I think of him, you know, looking at. [01:15:13] Speaker B: A funny having probably has something to do with that. But he still appears and like a lot of stuff just pops up as like these little comedic roles in various things. I think the thing that now I think of him, I mean, obviously I think of like enchanted and stuff like that. But when I think of him, I think of. He's Liz Lemon's husband on 30 Rock, and so I kind of think of him as Chris from 30 Rock a good chunk of the time. But, yeah, he's, like, around. But, yeah, as a parent, I can see why that is what you associate him with. [01:15:48] Speaker A: In a similar vein, an actor who lost and has now regained my love is one Joel Kinnaman. [01:15:59] Speaker B: Oh, was it Robocop that lost it? [01:16:02] Speaker A: It was Robocop. Fuck the dog with me completely. When it comes to, you know, it. [01:16:07] Speaker B: Wasn'T his fault, per se. [01:16:09] Speaker A: No. Of all of the many things wrong with that film, he and the cast actually are not the problem. [01:16:15] Speaker B: Not the problem. [01:16:16] Speaker A: Michael fucking Keaton came out of retirement for that movie, for fuck's sake. [01:16:20] Speaker B: That's pretty wild. [01:16:21] Speaker A: Wild. But since the Suicide Squad and for all mankind is well and truly in my cool books again. [01:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I told you in, like, our group chat or whatever that I can confirm from Cynthia that he's also, like, a super stand up cool guy as well. So you can feel good about liking Joel Kinnaman because he's actually excellent legit. So let's talk about what we watched then, shall we? [01:16:48] Speaker A: Super briefly. You know how Owen likes low effort american sitcoms? [01:16:55] Speaker B: Yes. [01:16:56] Speaker A: So he's currently properly deep into that nineties show. Yeah. Awful fucking dog shit. But I'm. I'm enjoying how both he and I now are very, very different. We both have a very different Kurtwood Smith in our head. [01:17:17] Speaker B: That's true. That is very true. I'm assuming he hasn't seen Robocop yet. [01:17:25] Speaker A: He's ten. [01:17:27] Speaker B: I'd probably seen it by ten, but we come from different eras. Obviously. [01:17:32] Speaker A: It was the eighties. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Ten year olds now. Yeah. Okay. Probably not so much. [01:17:37] Speaker A: He is mad to come and see Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice with me this week. [01:17:41] Speaker B: Good. Yes. I cannot wait to see that. I was thinking of waiting until my birthday because I'm not actually doing anything on my birthday. And I was gonna be like, maybe, but I don't know if I can wait that long. I think. Gonna have to see it one day. It comes out. [01:17:55] Speaker A: Yep. [01:17:56] Speaker B: And I'll just eating. [01:17:58] Speaker A: Lots to talk about here. [01:18:00] Speaker B: Yes, indeed, I will. I'll start. Since we're, you know, since you're looking at your letterboxd. I watched. There's not much that needs to be said about this, but I watched a found footage movie called Mister Creep the other day that. Yeah. And this movie is, you know. Oh, man. It's like a creepypasta. Right. You know, there's, like, this serial killer that everyone's heard of that supposedly has killed, like, 200 people. And he has, like, this clown mask that he wears that's really terrifying. And you can see him through, like, an analog television. Right. Like, with Bunny ears. If you're tuned to the right channel, you can see these broadcasts with him on it. [01:18:55] Speaker A: Okay, nice idea. [01:18:57] Speaker B: They call this mark. There is a scene in the movie where they're talking about this Mister creep guy. [01:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:07] Speaker B: And one of the characters completely, seriously goes, yeah, but that's just like a creepy noodle. That's not a real thing. [01:19:14] Speaker A: Oh, fuck off. [01:19:16] Speaker B: A creepy noodle. Creepy noodle. Why? Creepypasta's not copyrighted. That's not true. [01:19:24] Speaker A: Nobody owns that. [01:19:26] Speaker B: Nobody owns creep. That's just. That's a word. That's, like, just a type of thing. [01:19:32] Speaker A: Why would you change based on copy paste, isn't it? Sure. [01:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, a copy pasta is when you copy and paste something over and over and play off of that. But, like, there's no reason to change that. And I just, like, I couldn't stop thinking about it for, like, several days. It's been, like, almost a week now. And obviously I'm still not over the fact that he called it a creepy noodle on you. Yeah, that is the most. That this movie made a mark on me. Otherwise completely forgettable waste of time. [01:20:03] Speaker A: Is it recent? [01:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's this year. It's either this year or last year. I'd seen other people watching it, and I was like, yeah, sure, why not? In fact, it might have been on your plex. Maybe I'll download it. [01:20:15] Speaker A: Oh, right. Yes, I have seen it there yet. [01:20:18] Speaker B: But, yeah, you won't like it. [01:20:20] Speaker A: Don't watch it, Mister creep. So we can finally talk about Romulus, can't we? [01:20:30] Speaker B: Did you want to talk about it now or closer to gremlins? To talk about the life cycle thing? [01:20:36] Speaker A: All right, sure. Let's do inside out, too. [01:20:38] Speaker B: I'm actually very curious. I mean, I saw you gave this five stars, and I've been meaning to watch it, but haven't gotten around to it, so. [01:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I adore it. I adore it. [01:20:48] Speaker B: Great. [01:20:49] Speaker A: As well as inside out. I adore them. [01:20:51] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, inside out is great. [01:20:55] Speaker A: Right? It's kind of become Pixar's stock in trade, hasn't it? How they're able to contextualize abstract concepts. [01:21:05] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [01:21:06] Speaker A: Right. Be it grief or the fucking, you know, the everlasting soul or, you know, emotions, aging. [01:21:17] Speaker B: Right. [01:21:17] Speaker A: The space between, you know, the space before birth and the space after death. Pixar. Really fucking good at taking that stuff and making it tangible and making it relatable and putting. Putting word and form behind abstract concepts and inside out does that unbelievably well. And it's got the cheat code to my tear ducts. Yeah, I know everyone says they ugly cried it inside out, too, but I think I started crying at the opening credits. Just so relatable. So fucking relatable. The characters are bang on the. You've not seen inside of two of you? [01:22:02] Speaker B: No, not yet. [01:22:05] Speaker A: There's some. There's a couple of running jokes through that movie that are just so fucking good because they're so. I hate how the term random has come to be used. [01:22:21] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. [01:22:23] Speaker A: Right. Not like. Not like random as in Family Guy, right. But they will just randomize in something that shouldn't at all be funny. [01:22:34] Speaker B: Right. [01:22:35] Speaker A: Will just be treated in such an offhand, cursory way and will just be hilarious as fuck. Random is the wrong word. Unexpected. Unheralded is what I'm saying. Stuff that makes sense perfectly in the context of the joke, but that you couldn't, in a zillion years have predicted. Right? Super funny. And it's just so well observed, so relatable and just perfect. Just five fucking perfect stars inside. [01:23:02] Speaker B: Maybe tonight I will watch inside out, too. [01:23:04] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:23:06] Speaker B: Why not? [01:23:07] Speaker A: So good. So goddamn good. [01:23:11] Speaker B: I, last night was just in, like, a TCM mood, and so I watched a couple of things that I had recorded off of TCM and. [01:23:21] Speaker A: Leatherface. Yes, leatherface and the boys. [01:23:23] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. [01:23:25] Speaker A: Of course, I know. [01:23:26] Speaker B: I know. [01:23:27] Speaker A: Whenever I see TCM, I don't go. [01:23:30] Speaker B: To turn the classic movie, and it's the exact opposite for me. Someone else posted something earlier about Texas Chainsaw massacre and said they weren't a TCM fan. And I was like, who the fuck's not a TCM fan? And I was like, oh, okay, I see. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I hate that channel that plays old movies and tells you the history of them. What a bunch of assholes. But I had recorded a couple of Sidney Poitier movies off of there months ago that I just hadn't gotten around to watching. I tend to do that because they do. Like, they'll do blocks of actors. And so then I'll just, like, record everything if I'm into that actor. So I recorded a couple of Sidney Poitier movies. [01:24:13] Speaker A: Is that what you did with Robert Shaw? Did you watch them all on TCM. [01:24:16] Speaker B: I didn't know those. I had to find elsewhere because it's like they're not on demand, you know, it's just like you have to catch them when they're on. So that summer that I spent watching Robert Shaw things was finding them from all over the place. There's probably some of them that now that I know you and you have plex that I couldn't find, maybe I can watch that. They weren't streaming anywhere, but anyway. [01:24:37] Speaker A: Rustle something up for you. [01:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I watched Edge of the city and in the heat of the night, both Sidney Poitier movies dealing with racism. And by that look, I'm guessing you've seen in the heat of the night. [01:24:50] Speaker A: I have indeed seen in the heat. [01:24:52] Speaker B: Of the night, yes. I'd never seen it before. First time watched. Absolutely fucking loved it. In the heat of the night is a story of a murder committed in this southern town that Sidney Poitier is sort of accused of at the beginning of the movie just for being a black man hanging out in the vicinity of where it happened. And then soon we find out that he is in fact, a homicide detective. And the best in, you know, Philadelphia, I think, is where he's from. [01:25:21] Speaker A: Yes. [01:25:21] Speaker B: And he is called upon to then help solve this homicide with a bunch of racist white policemen. And it's fantastic. I love everything about it. I love the music choices. CNN. Poitier is amazing. That classic line that I've heard a million times, but no context for. You know, they call me Mister Tibbs. [01:25:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:43] Speaker B: Which in the context is incredible. Is that a sequel? I think there is a sequel that is then called. They call me Mister Tibbs. You know, when he says it in this, you're like, jesus Christ. Yeah, get him. Yeah. Fantastic movie. Super. Recommended in the heat of the night is a classic for a reason. Edge of the city is sort of a mixed bag. It's a fascinating movie because I've talked on here about the Hays code, right. And how, you know, for a period in America, movies were like, kind of had to strictly operate under this code of conduct that forbid a lot of stuff from being explicitly portrayed on screen. Right. And even like, things like mixed race relationships or anything like that, like, could not be portrayed on screen naturally. Homosexuality could not be shown on screen at this point. And edge of the city is really interesting because John Cassavetes character is definitely gay coded in this. And he is running away from something, you know, that he's in trouble with the law for some reason and ends up working at like a shipyard where he meets Sidney Poitier, who is one of the, like, bosses there, which deeply irritates one of his white co workers, who's on the same level as him. And that guy doesn't think that he should have power over other people and whatnot. And so there's this tension between those two. As John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier become best friends, basically. And again, there's this undercurrent that John Cassavetes is kind of in love with him. As Sidney Poitier is trying to set him up with this other girl and is really trying to force him. He never takes any initiative on his own. You're like, what's happening here? And yeah, the chemistry between those two actors is incredible. And a lot of it is really just. It's a great movie on many levels. I think where it ends up going. Ends up kind of the sacrificing a black man for a white man's personal growth kind of thing. That when you're looking at a movie that was made, it's like 1957, we're mid civil rights movement. The Civil Rights act of 1964 act has not been passed. We're still in the thick of all of this kind of stuff. And so you're speaking to an audience. He's still alive, Poitier. [01:28:14] Speaker A: Yes. [01:28:15] Speaker B: No, he died like a year, maybe like three or four years ago now. [01:28:19] Speaker A: Okay. [01:28:20] Speaker B: But yeah, you're speaking to an audience that like, you're trying to persuade in some way. Right? So having this like, white guy go on a journey and of acceptance and all these kinds of things with this black guy is kind of like there to, you know, for us to be not afraid of. And, you know, all that kind of is like, okay, yeah, I get what they were doing. From a modern look. You're like, don't love where it went. But I think edge of the city is still a worthwhile watch. I mean, again, to watch John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier in this is just like a masterclass super worth watching. [01:28:58] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. There are. There are moments like that on there that, again, we only tend to appreciate now we've got a few years behind us that it's such a rare fucking thing to see. [01:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:29:13] Speaker A: Performers of that caliber on. In the same fucking frame at the same time. Yeah, lovely when it happens. [01:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Powerhouse stuff right there. [01:29:21] Speaker A: Mister Tibbs could have found Madeline McGann. [01:29:25] Speaker B: I'm sure he could. You know what? You're right. [01:29:30] Speaker A: Only reason I say that is because there was no tv on holidays. Right. Fucking no tv at all. So Pete spent some evenings with his head in Netflix, and for some fucking God knows why. What reason? He was super into, like, a Netflix documentary about the Madeleine McCann case. 13. [01:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the kind of shit I was into at that age, too. Yeah, completely. [01:29:59] Speaker A: So I got thinking of fictional detectives who could have found Madeline McGahn. I think Mister Tim's would have done a great job. [01:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah. My dog is biting me. [01:30:07] Speaker A: Oh, Walter, stop it, will you? [01:30:10] Speaker B: I'm not a puppy, Walter. Yeah. I also. I mean, I rewatched. I still know what you did last summer, which is. That is a trashed your piece to me. It is so stupid and over the top and ridiculous. And I still know what you did last summer is always a great time to me. I watch it. [01:30:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And what a great title. [01:30:33] Speaker B: I know, right? It was like my friend had, for whatever reason, had it on his plex, and I was like, yeah, I'll watch that. And I saw Anna watched. I'll always know what you did last summer, which I know she hates, and I have no idea why she rewatched this. So I'm very curious about that. But I've never seen that one. But I still know what you did last summer. [01:30:57] Speaker A: We know that quality of the movie is not a factor on whether or not Anna watches a movie. We know this. [01:31:04] Speaker B: This is true. Yeah. I can only assume. I don't know. She's seen it before, though. So maybe this is. Maybe this is gonna be a Hellranker. I don't know. We'll see. [01:31:15] Speaker A: Possibly. Yes. It feels like it, doesn't it? So I will talk briefly about zombie creeping flesh. [01:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [01:31:25] Speaker A: So, um, I caught. I saw this one. I was scrolling through shadow, right? [01:31:33] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [01:31:34] Speaker A: Wanted to. I know I wanted to watch a horror movie and knew I was in front of shudder. I knew I. Something. There had to be something there. And I came across zombie creeping flesh. And I was hearkened back to the. My, you know, my fangoria days, my dark side magazine days. And it was one of those that I'd always wanted to get, you know, a bootleg vhs of. It was one of the ones that fell under the video nasties list and one that I'd. Never mind. Never quite got my head around to seeing. And it was right there in shutter. So I thought, right, yes. Let's go for it. It's Bruno, mate. And it's a waffle, man. It's just. [01:32:21] Speaker B: I mean, this is kind of the thing about the video nasties is it's like, you know, all this excitement about watching them and everything, and then you watch them, we're like, Jesus, these are all so bad. Not all of them, but most are pretty bad. [01:32:32] Speaker A: Just a flagrant lifting of dawn of the dead themes. [01:32:40] Speaker B: Sorry, the dog. Yeah, I'm here. The dog is just chewing on my chair. So I apologize for any weird background noise, but the puppy is being a puppy. [01:32:49] Speaker A: I did see, you would have seen me a minute or two ago checking my mic, because I was wondering if that was me. [01:32:55] Speaker B: Oh, nope, it's Walter Groggins. [01:32:58] Speaker A: Fine, fine, fine, fine. Because usually it's me. [01:33:01] Speaker B: It is usually you. No, this time it's on my end. [01:33:04] Speaker A: So not only does it lift just merrily from dawn of the dead, it also helps itself to bits of cannibal Holocaust in that some of the movie takes place with, like, ooh, a. An exotic tribe. Ooh. And I think those are real dead animals in there. You know, it is liberally peppered with the most hilarious stock footage inserts. [01:33:31] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:33:32] Speaker A: Just for no reason at all, you'll get, like, stock footage of just, you know, birds of prey swooping into, you know, into water to steal food or, like, wildebeest or animals just roaming on the hillside for a couple of seconds. Wildebeest animals. [01:33:53] Speaker B: Does it take place in Africa? [01:33:56] Speaker A: Some of it does. I'm not sure if it's Africa, but it's. It's like some exotic. [01:34:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Unnamed exotic location. [01:34:05] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. When the. The movie starts and it says soundtrack by goblin. Oh, you think? Oh, hello. [01:34:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey. [01:34:14] Speaker A: A little bit credibility. No, no. It's literally the soundtrack from dawn of the dead. [01:34:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:34:24] Speaker A: Cheeky, cheeky. [01:34:25] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:34:27] Speaker A: This is a movie of very little merit. There, there. Hang on. Some of the. Some of the undead makeup is excellent. [01:34:34] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [01:34:35] Speaker A: Right. Let's not take that away from it. You can see what got it its slot on the video nasties list. Some of the kills are great, even though. Even though the way that some of the kills are first staged is, again, just lifted from better movies. So, yeah, not great if you're a completist, if, you know, if that. That kind of area of horror, the canon of horror appeals to you. Yeah, seek it out. But it's nothing more than a curiosity. There's nothing there really to recommend it. [01:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I've figured out at this point that, you know, I. I had it in me that was like, oh, it'd be fun to watch all the video nasties. And then after watching, like, three or four of them, I'm like, you know what? Unless someone explicitly recommends one to me, not touching him. [01:35:22] Speaker A: Listen, it's like the fourth time that, you know, they've been mentioned in this podcast. But that's a challenge I would put in front of Anna. [01:35:31] Speaker B: All the video nasties. [01:35:32] Speaker A: Polish off the video nasties list. [01:35:34] Speaker B: Wow, that should be a Patreon thing. Anna and Steve, do the video nasties for your Patreon. [01:35:40] Speaker A: All of them. [01:35:41] Speaker B: You busy and miserable. [01:35:43] Speaker A: Another holiday Netflix treat was source code. You seen that recently? [01:35:48] Speaker B: I've never actually seen it. [01:35:50] Speaker A: Hey, fun. [01:35:53] Speaker B: I actually heard good things about it. [01:35:56] Speaker A: Fun ass movie. Great cast. Jake. Ellen Hole is always great. Geoffrey Wright is always great in everything but name. This is Quantum Leap, the movie. [01:36:13] Speaker B: Oh, okay, that's. Listen, that is the pitch I need right there. [01:36:17] Speaker A: I'm telling you. Imagine if Quantum Leap were to be rebooted with big names in a big budget. It would be source code. [01:36:27] Speaker B: Okay, right. I'm in. [01:36:30] Speaker A: I've net. I've never been more sure of the fact that you'll enjoy source code. Right? He said. [01:36:37] Speaker B: Rot ro. No, I will. I will give it a look. I've heard good things about it. And the quantum. [01:36:45] Speaker A: Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier who, for reasons that become clear during the course of the film, finds himself reliving the same couple of minutes even, not even the same day, but he finds himself reliving the same couple of minutes to put right what once written wrong. And it's. It's fantastic. Keeps you guessing. Twisty. Twisty, twisty. Great movie. Great fun. Lot of fun. Oh, man, so many randoms. Beast. [01:37:13] Speaker B: Beast. That looked terrible. [01:37:16] Speaker A: And it is, right? And it is. But, okay, so what do we got here? We've got Idris Elba delivering what will surely rank in the canon of all time. Shit, american accents. [01:37:32] Speaker B: Oh, he does an american accent. [01:37:35] Speaker A: It is appalling, this accent. [01:37:37] Speaker B: Oh, amazing. [01:37:38] Speaker A: Fucking awful. Comes and goes from scene to scene. Listen, I know enough about the states to know that there is no american accent, right? [01:37:48] Speaker B: Yep. Sure. [01:37:50] Speaker A: Idris Elba does not know this. And what it feels to me is always borrowing from a few different states. [01:37:57] Speaker B: Sure. [01:38:00] Speaker A: Awful. But what you do have, it's like. [01:38:02] Speaker B: Daisy, Edgar Jones and twisters just kind of like whatever, you know, I feel like at this given moment, whichever american. [01:38:10] Speaker A: You listen to last. [01:38:11] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [01:38:14] Speaker A: But what you do have is shalt Oakley in. In what is becoming an ever rarer sight to see shalt Oakley popping up in a movie, particularly in a leading, kind of a co leading role like he does this time. And he. I love the guy, man. [01:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah, he's great. [01:38:32] Speaker A: He really is. And, ah, he. I don't know whether this is a deserved or not, but I feel he. He elevates content. He elevates material. He's really fucking good. [01:38:48] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Yeah. No, I absolutely agree. [01:38:50] Speaker A: He always. He always turns up the work. The plot is ridiculous. Right? Just ridiculous. Idris Elba is a doctor who's returned to Africa where he studied to help his mate fight off poachers, and they fall afoul of a lion who's got, like, cujo syndrome. [01:39:07] Speaker B: Uh huh. What? [01:39:09] Speaker A: It's. In fact, that's what this is. It's Cujo with a fucking lion in Africa. [01:39:12] Speaker B: Right, sure. [01:39:14] Speaker A: However, how ever do you remember the gray starring Liam Neeson? [01:39:20] Speaker B: Yes, I remember the gray. [01:39:23] Speaker A: Do you remember the disgust at you that you felt having watched the grey after seeing the trailer for the grey? [01:39:30] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [01:39:31] Speaker A: Right. [01:39:31] Speaker B: Yes. [01:39:32] Speaker A: And realizing that at no point does Liam Neeson fiste fight. [01:39:36] Speaker B: Uh, right. [01:39:37] Speaker A: Fucking pack of wolves. Right? That's one thing that beast delivers on. [01:39:46] Speaker B: Oh, okay. You get the bonkers. [01:39:49] Speaker A: Fucking hell. Idris El. Idris. This is. This is a spoiler for those who haven't seen beast, but Idris Elba fist battles a fucking rabid lion in an extended and ridiculous sequence. [01:40:03] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:40:05] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Obviously, it's a CG lion. [01:40:09] Speaker B: Sure. [01:40:10] Speaker A: And Idris Elba is flailing about like a madman. He's got a shiv. [01:40:14] Speaker B: Come on. [01:40:15] Speaker A: And he fights the fuck out of this special effect lion. And I'm for that unsheltered Copley. I'm gonna give it two and a half stars, because you don't see that every day. [01:40:24] Speaker B: All right, that seems fair. [01:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Any more for you? [01:40:28] Speaker B: Um, the only other thing that I watched was the slumber party massacre. That was Joe Bob this week. I mean, they did six movies on the last drive in. I obviously was not awake that long. I only watched the first one with the screamin chat the other night. And slumber party massacre is just, like, a solid good time. You know, it was interesting to get some background on it from Jobob on there where, like, the screenplay, I guess, was, like, written by, like, a very famous feminist woman as sort of a parody of slashers. [01:41:04] Speaker A: And then that comes across. [01:41:07] Speaker B: Well, no, the studio changed that and kind of made it more straightforward. [01:41:13] Speaker A: I remember it being very knowing it. [01:41:17] Speaker B: Like, that's the thing, is, like, it is. It is self aware to an extent. I mean, it is self aware. Let me get that straight. But I don't think it's feminist. It definitely plays as, like, a parody. And one of the things Joe Bog was talking about is, like, a movie doesn't really have to be feminist or not feminist or anything like that. You know, it's just that it started as something that was explicitly meant to be, like, a feminist movie. And then it's it's neutral as an actual movie. I mean, there are so many just extremely prolonged nude shots of people. Including just one that is so funny of, like, just a woman in a shower. And it's just, like, slowly panning to her ass. And then just stays there for, like, half the conversation. You know, like, it's, you know, not necessarily something that you think of as, like, being a huge win for women or anything like that. But the movie is, like, very funny and self aware. And it's just like, yeah, it's a fun time every time you watch it. It's nothing groundbreaking or anything. But there's some great, like, eating pizza on a dead body and things like that. Just, like, very good. Stupid. I. Funny things that happen in slumber party massacre. [01:42:23] Speaker A: Talk to me super quickly about the last drive in. [01:42:27] Speaker B: The last drive in. It's. Yeah, how is that. [01:42:31] Speaker A: I know. I know the premise, but how is that. How is that broadcast? Is that on tv? [01:42:37] Speaker B: It's on shutter. So you know how shutter has, like, the tv channels on it? Yeah, it's the. I can't remember what the channel is called. But it's like the one that when you turn on shutter, it automatically is on. Yeah, they do that. [01:42:50] Speaker A: Was it ever on tv, or was it always so. [01:42:52] Speaker B: No, it was always on there. But, like, Joe Bob was the host of at least one show that, like, I used to watch when I was a kid that was on tv. That was basically the same idea. There were a couple sort of competing shows back in the nineties. Of, like, on Friday or Saturday night. They would air, like, old. I think a lot of it was. They were like public domain monster movies. So it was very cheap. And they would have a charismatic host that would talk during them. And Joe Bob was one of those. [01:43:23] Speaker A: Which is what Elvira used to do. [01:43:24] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Yeah, Elvira was one of those people as well. [01:43:28] Speaker A: Because I was just unrelated to Joey completely. But I was, as you often do, you're going about your day, doop de do. And I was thinking to myself about how I lament the complete lack of any kind of movie dialogue in british tv at the minute. Because we used to have it, man. We used in fits and starts across different channels. There was a place on british tv for film dialogue and film discussion and people who enjoyed film for film sake. And that's completely absent now. There was all through the eighties and nineties, there was Barry Norman doing the film program on BBC. There was Alex Cox doing video dome on BBC Two. There was, there was Saturday night at the movies, which was a really short lived film discussion program with Tony Slattery on ITV. And that is all completely absent now. There is no, there's no space on british tv at all for cinema and those who enjoy it. And I, I don't like that at all. [01:44:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of a, like, I mean, obviously, like the nineties were like a big heyday for that kind of thing. And like Siskel and Ebert being on tv and there being all kinds of shows like this, I do think there's less of that in general, but I kind of seeing a resurgence in some ways. Like you. Well, you don't see this because you watch on Triller or whatever, but during dynamite, they show a lot of commercials for, like, this one that I think it's Jason Biggs and his wife that host it. And it's like every week they show a movie and, like, they talk about it and have guests on and things like that, you know? And there's like, I think, yeah, people obviously is what we do, and what a lot of podcasts do is talk about movies. People like to think about movies and talk about movies. One of the reasons I love TCM, because they don't just show you a movie, usually they introduce it and they tell you stuff about it. It's like, for people who love movies. [01:45:32] Speaker A: That'S what I'm missing. That's where I'm missing. I mean, I saw, you know, my first exposure to Cronenberg, to James Cameron came from this, this slot on BBC two called Videodome, where Alex Cox would introduce a movie and spend five minutes at the start talking about the, you know, the kind of cultural relevance of it, kind of the, the time with the time was released, the context of which it was released. And it sparked something in me. You know what I mean? It kind of led me down this path, I guess. And I hate that that's missing now. [01:46:07] Speaker B: Hear, hear. Amen. [01:46:10] Speaker A: All right. Romulus. [01:46:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, did you want to talk about oddity or no? [01:46:15] Speaker A: Oh, God, yeah, of course. Oddity. [01:46:19] Speaker B: Oddity. [01:46:20] Speaker A: So what we have here is an irish, very indie feeling movie from this year, which deals with a doctor and his recently deceased wife and the kind of the bumpy and twisted road by which the killer is brought to justice through his interactions with his wife's identical twin sister, who is blind and a psychic who is able to read the history of objects merely by touching them. And this is a movie that I really fucking enjoyed, man. It is intimate, it's low. A cast of maybe, what, five, six characters, right? [01:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah, if that. [01:47:15] Speaker A: Yep, if that. But, you know, it's obviously seen plenty of a 24. It's obviously seen plenty of horror movies in and of itself. But it's super spooky and super eerie. Excellent scares. But you're conflicted, aren't you? [01:47:34] Speaker B: I am conflicted on this. There's a lot that I do like about this movie. I mean, like you said, it is very spooky. I like, like you said when we were talking about this before, I love something that, like, the ghosts are ghosts. You know, the ghost isn't trauma or whatever. Like, yes, there are themes of that kind of thing in this, but the ghost is a ghost. The evil entity is an evil entity. I love that about it. [01:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah. It builds a world where ghosts exist and lives in that world. [01:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:03] Speaker A: Which I absolutely love. [01:48:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm a big fan of that. In it, the creepy sort of, I don't know, talismanic mannequin thing that is brought into the home is very creepy. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff I like about it. My central thing that makes it hard for me to like is how much I hate every single character in the movie except the sort of barrier. Yeah, the deceased wife is all right because we don't see too much of her. And when she's just sort of, like, scared, so she's fine. But everyone else in it is like that very, you know, rich white people type thing where it's like every problem is your own goddamn fault. You know, just like the whole time I'm just like. Just like a. People talk to each other. B talk like a normal person. Like. Like, these are. None of these things are real issues. And everything that happens in this is because, like, these people are idiots. And that is always a hard sell for me. Yeah. Just deeply hated. Hated the characters in this. [01:49:12] Speaker A: Well, that's a shame because I don't necessarily agree. I can't really with any degree of certainty say what people who live in a world where ghosts exist and where one of them has been murdered would talk like, you know, sure. [01:49:32] Speaker B: But the problems raised are very much of their own making. And I don't know, it feels like. And to be clear, like, ghosts exist, but not everyone thinks they exist. There's only one character who thinks they exist in this movie, and she does nothing to help herself in conveying that to people because she insists on just being very, very weird all the fucking time and imposing herself upon people who don't want her there and not reading any rooms. And, you know, all of that is. It's just so annoying that it's hard to have any attachment to this character. [01:50:14] Speaker A: Well, I guess I would extend my previous point in that if I was someone who had to wear fucking gloves all the time because every object I touched gave me the spookiest, maybe I would too be weird. [01:50:27] Speaker B: Right. But, like, would you be the kind of weird where, like, you don't understand it's, like, strange to come into someone's house uninvited and then be like, hey, can you make me dinner? [01:50:37] Speaker A: If I was there with an agenda? Yes. Like, she was. I mean, that wasn't. I. You know, I got the impression that that wasn't just how she behaved. She was there to expose her twin sister's murder, for fuck's sake. [01:50:50] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah, of course. I don't know, but because we don't know anything of her otherwise, it doesn't seem like the husband is surprised that she is this way. So that indicates to me that this is just her personality. And so, yeah, it's like one of those things where it's, like, story wise, I like it. I think it's really effective in being spooky and things like that. It's just, it was very hard to watch because I was like, every time anyone was on screen, I was like, I could punch them. Wouldn't mind punching them. [01:51:21] Speaker A: I can see why you would think that. I I don't know if you. If you agree, but I I picked up a kind of a weird Agatha Christie type of vibe to it, which I loved. [01:51:31] Speaker B: Okay. [01:51:32] Speaker A: It. It had this kind of unfolding mystery to me. [01:51:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:51:37] Speaker A: That was based around the people and their role in events as opposed to. It wasn't just about ghosts and spooky murders. It was also about kind of crimes of the heart and fucking murders gone awry. And it had this kind of pieces falling into place bit. [01:51:56] Speaker B: Right. [01:51:56] Speaker A: That. That I, that gives me this old school kind of british detective kind of horror thriller vibe. Hammer almost. There was Hammer horror. [01:52:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I remember thinking that while watching it. Yeah. [01:52:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I liked oddity a great deal. And the. The. It isn't too much of a spoiler to say that the. The same performer plays both the murdered sister and her identical twin, and I had no idea they were the same character until. [01:52:24] Speaker B: No. Yeah. That took me a very long time to figure out. It's like. It was, like, basically, once, like, I realized they were twins, then I was, like, staring, like. So is that. Yeah, they look very different. It's amazing what, like, a haircut and, like, a demeanor can do. That woman was very good at playing those two roles, and that, in itself, different ways. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Again, it's like, all the pieces are like. It's one of those things where it's like, the characters are acting the way they're supposed to be. So, like, there's nothing I can critique in the actors in oddity. It's, you know, just what they're like that I don't like. But everything about it, it feels like it was. [01:53:10] Speaker A: Maybe you. You didn't like it, but it wasn't the film's fault. [01:53:13] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, exactly. It's like it's doing a thing that, like, irritates me more than it is like that. I think it's a bad movie or anything like that. And I love where. How it ends. Yeah. So, like, I would say, watch oddity. It's. For me, it just happens to hit on a giant pet peeve for me more than anything else. Okay. Now talk about Romulus. [01:53:37] Speaker A: Now talk about. Yay. Finally. Finally. Fucking finally. [01:53:41] Speaker B: Maybe in brief, though, even though it was, you know, Jesus. Yeah. [01:53:47] Speaker A: Right? Um, surely you've all seen Romulus by now. Can we talk about it? Can we spoil it? Can we talk spoiler? [01:53:54] Speaker B: I don't want to, like, super. I will timestamp it. So jump forward now to the next timestamp if you don't want anything at all spoiled for you. We're gonna. Let's keep it kind of minimal. But, like, I mean, there's stuff that we want to talk about. [01:54:10] Speaker A: We have. Yeah. By nature of discussing it, we have to talk about things, right? All I'll say is. And you know how big this is. This was so close to being five stars. [01:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Right? I mean, I five started. I was like, you know what? Fucking loved it. [01:54:27] Speaker A: And that in itself is massive praise, right? Because as everybody knows, the Marco fucking star system is those last. That last two half stars are there for the very, very fucking best films, right? So the fact that this is a four and a half star film, there is no faint praise here at all. [01:54:46] Speaker B: I'm so glad you felt that way. I was like, the whole time we're at the movie, I was like, I hope he's loving it. [01:54:50] Speaker A: I hope he's loving it again. Fetty, you uruguayan mad lad is the real deal. And he can make the shit out of a film. He can direct the fuck out of a movie. And this is just perfect evidence of that. It is claustrophobic. It is beautiful. It is such a fucking gorgeous movie to look at. [01:55:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [01:55:10] Speaker A: It gets. See the alien, the xenomorph is the other, is my other favorite fictional creature with a well fleshed out life cycle. I fucking love it. And all of that is right up there. Basically everything I love about Aliena mined and exploited and twisted beautifully and given its own fucking unique little take. [01:55:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. This is like basically a teen slasher. [01:55:37] Speaker A: Version in the alien universe. Yes. [01:55:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's like, as I was watching this, I was like, holy shit, this is, you know, it's not trying to do the same thing as. Even though there's plenty of like fan service and things like that, like references back to things, it's not necessarily trying to do the same thing. It is the teen slasher take on alien. [01:55:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Which. Which we haven't seen yet. Right. I think there. I think there are some performances in there that you could. That won't, obviously, but that could credibly get talked about at academy season. [01:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah. The Android. [01:56:13] Speaker A: Yes. Andy, fucking brilliant. Brilliant performance. [01:56:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It's incredible. [01:56:18] Speaker A: Transcendent. Better than you would see. You would expect to see in a movie like this. Yeah. But it was, it was, unfortunately, it was the fan service that you talk about that made me. I could not with. I couldn't with a clear conscience do it right. And it wasn't even all the fan service because 90% of it. And there is a lot. [01:56:37] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [01:56:39] Speaker A: But the vast majority of it had really fine, compelling, believable reasons to be there in universe. [01:56:45] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [01:56:46] Speaker A: And rookhood was beautifully realized. [01:56:50] Speaker B: Yeah. People keep on, like, complaining about that and I do not understand that at all. I thought that was brilliant. [01:56:56] Speaker A: It was absolutely perfect. It was perfect as an animatronic and it was perfect to CGI. Yeah. [01:57:01] Speaker B: And work great in the story. [01:57:04] Speaker A: It was brilliant. I gasped when it became. When. When they revealed what. On what rook was. The model was great. Yeah, it was. It was stunning. But the. That, the. The line. [01:57:20] Speaker B: Mm hmm. The line. Yes. [01:57:22] Speaker A: No reason for it to be there. None at all. There was no. No contextual reason for it. There was no, there was no. [01:57:29] Speaker B: Chronologically, it doesn't make sense. You know that because people have said, like, well, he would have heard it. No, wrong order. He couldn't have no chance. [01:57:39] Speaker A: It was. It was almost a fourth wall break, right? It took me right out of the film. That line, being in that film, just acknowledged that it was a movie. And, look, here's a thing, you know, from a different movie. And it. For the. For a few seconds after it, I was no longer in the film. I was out. I was like, I rolled my fucking eyes, and I cannot give that film five stars because of it. It was a bad choice in an otherwise fucking stunning film. [01:58:05] Speaker B: Right. I get that. 100% get that. And that did cross my mind when I was reading it. I was like, oh, that. It's the one line that is, you know, even though, I mean, I laughed, I'm not gonna lie. But, like, it does. It takes you out for sure. But I ultimately was like, I loved this too much to not give. [01:58:24] Speaker A: It was almost like product placement for the fucking franchise, even though, you know, the artificial pause. [01:58:32] Speaker B: Yeah, this is just very funny that, like, my signal messages came up, and we got in our group chat, a message from Richard saying, has anyone watched Madam Webb? [01:58:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Well, no, I haven't, but I watched it, you know, however fucking much I'm gonna watch it. So listen, what a perfect watch along film, eh? [01:58:54] Speaker B: Yes. Gremlins. [01:58:57] Speaker A: Perfect watch along. Just a. God, the. The choice of movie. And you said this to me right afterwards, had. Had we gone with Jason takes Manhattan, which was the other fucking half of the dead heat. [01:59:10] Speaker B: Yes. We ended up with a tie on our pole. [01:59:14] Speaker A: Um, it would have been a totally different vibe. Yeah. And Gremlins two was just perfect. [01:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I really loved people, like, realizing, like, xander, like, realizing as he watched it, like, oh, my God, this is, like, going in, like, my top five favorite movies. I'm loving this. And, like, Ryan, who thought she hated it, was like, you know what? This is better this time around, watching with friends. Like, yeah, Gremlins two is so. [01:59:39] Speaker A: If you think this is crazy. Right? But, you know, tonally, do you know what I was most minded of whilst watching Gremlins two? In the tone of the humorous? [01:59:51] Speaker B: What? [01:59:51] Speaker A: I think it's way closer when you think Gremlins minions want to be gremlins. Right. That kind of anarchy, that kind of. That kind of chaos. But the tone of Gremlins two felt far similar to me to be. To something like Deadpool. [02:00:13] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly got that self awareness to it. [02:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah. In that it obliterates the fourth wall and reminds you at every step that you're watching a movie. [02:00:26] Speaker B: Mm hmm. And even answering criticisms of the first movie within this movie. [02:00:34] Speaker A: Exactly. And dismissing them. [02:00:37] Speaker B: Yes. [02:00:37] Speaker A: Right. [02:00:38] Speaker B: Shut up and watch the movie. Have fun. [02:00:41] Speaker A: The guy who dazed. And to fucking question the rules. Well, what if you fucking eat something while crossing over time zone, gets cut off by being punched in the face by a gremlin? That's fucking brilliant. It feels properly risky. Properly risky. Stuff like, stuff I wouldn't have expected a movie from 1990 to even try, let alone get away with. Right. And, yeah, you know, every now and again, somebody will cry out, where's Gremlins three? I don't want it, man. I hope it never happens, because it would. I fear it would be sanitized and toned down because Gremlins two doesn't fuck about. [02:01:21] Speaker B: No, I mean, Gremlins two is such a funny sort of anti capitalist meta narrative with, you know, like, it doesn't. Doesn't hold back at all. And I don't think. Yeah, I don't think you would. A third one would not do that. It would be Ghostbusters, whatever. This was ice frozen king. [02:01:43] Speaker A: Frozen ice empire. Yes, it would. It would. Yeah, it would. It would be fan. It would be nothing but fan service again, wouldn't it? And, you know, then you would. I would dread to think that it would just have Gremlins on TikTok. [02:01:56] Speaker B: That's weird timing. [02:01:57] Speaker A: Oh, what's up? [02:01:58] Speaker B: Oh, there we go. Okay. That was a excellent timing of talking about frozen empire or whatever. And then, wasn't it froze? [02:02:07] Speaker A: Yes. [02:02:08] Speaker B: What were you gonna say? [02:02:10] Speaker A: I would dread to think that a third one would just. It would stoop to Gremlins on TikTok. [02:02:16] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [02:02:18] Speaker A: Oh, here's an influencer. Gremlin. Fuck off. That's. That's what I fear would. Would end up getting served to us. But. But what it did remind me of is my undying, fucking absolute fascination with just how and possibly unintentionally, so maybe I'm reading more into this than there is on the screen, but how fucking beautifully fleshed out and fascinatingly idiosyncratic is the Gremlin life cycle? The Mogwai to Gremlin metamorphosis is so full of quirks, and it's so interesting to me to ask these questions. And then also alien, you know, the alien life cycle as well, the different phases of life of the xenomorph, is also fascinating to me. I don't think there are any others. Can you think of any other gribliest. [02:03:20] Speaker B: Where you like this? [02:03:23] Speaker A: So you could write. You could imagine David Attenborough narrating a. [02:03:27] Speaker B: Mogwai documentary oh, totally. Yeah. You know, absolutely. [02:03:31] Speaker A: And. And going through all of the various stages as it moves into its pupil phase, you can see. You can see that. And I can't think of any other beasts that get that same scrutiny on there, you know, on their. I. Their processes and this. [02:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I've watched a fair amount of creature features, but I can't really think of anything else that does this. [02:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And I love it. I fucking love it. And the questions it poses me. Right. The fucking. [02:03:57] Speaker B: Ugh. [02:03:58] Speaker A: See, the first and the biggest and most fascinating question to me about the Mogwai to Gremlin life cycle is Gizmo is the protagonist of both movies, right? He's the hero of the films, but he is the only mogwai, the only one that we ever see in these two movies that doesn't actively seek its own reproduction and metamorphosis. Every other mogwai tries to get itself wet. It wants to reproduce, and they actively try to feed after midnight, deceiving humans, causing chaos and mayhem, and to actively try to get themselves into that next phase of their life cycle. [02:04:42] Speaker B: Right? [02:04:44] Speaker A: Only Gizmo doesn't do this. Which leads me to ask, among his species, is Gizmo the outlier? Is he the freak? [02:04:54] Speaker B: Right? [02:04:55] Speaker A: If Giz. If. If Mogwai and. And, you know, here for gremlins, if they are by nature of fucking a species of chaos and bad natured, why is gizmo the only one who isn't? And that. Does that make him the wrong un. [02:05:14] Speaker B: Oh, sure, yeah. Right. Like, obviously, you can't propagate the species like that. [02:05:20] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. [02:05:23] Speaker B: Do you have a theory on this? Or is this like, this is just right. It's always been this gap that is in your understanding here. [02:05:31] Speaker A: As far as I'm aware, no caterpillar tries to delay its own pupil phase. [02:05:36] Speaker B: Sure. [02:05:37] Speaker A: You know what I'm saying? No. No fucking lava tries to delay its own growth into its next phase of life. [02:05:45] Speaker B: Right? [02:05:45] Speaker A: So Gizmo is the only one that does that. And why? I basically, I want to ask the only person who I think can tell me this is Joe Dante, and I need to ask him. [02:05:52] Speaker B: This should be amazing. If you have. If anyone has a connection to Joe Dante, please point in our direction or. [02:05:59] Speaker A: If anyone knows that he. Has he been asked this before? Has he come out and spoken of this before? Because I would love to know. And the other thing that fascinates me that I only kind of started to twig onto during the watchalong is why do Mogwai and Gremlin seem to covet the trappings of human culture so much because they want to be us. They want to be us. The brain Gremlin says it himself, we want to be you. And they do. Even before that, in Gremlins one, they want to go to bars. They want to watch movies, they want to sing our songs. They want. They want what we have. [02:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:41] Speaker A: And I love that, too. That's incredible. [02:06:44] Speaker B: Do we know where they came from. [02:06:49] Speaker A: As far as the movies tell us? No. I think the cartoon goes into depth on where they came from, their culture. You know what Mogwai society is like. I haven't seen it. I didn't even think it had been released. But apparently it has been snuck on. [02:07:03] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Someone said, yeah. Which. Yeah, I'm very curious about. [02:07:09] Speaker A: Yes. [02:07:10] Speaker B: So, yeah, I guess where they come from. Like, are they from space or are they industrial? Because I feel like, you know, they're. If they're, like, from somewhere. Well, that's the thing. I feel like, you know, obviously this. The movies, we just get that somehow they are eastern things, or oriental, as is constantly used in these movies. But, like, is that their origin? Are they genuinely, like, just some species that, like, came out of a cave in Nepal or something? Like. Or did they land there from somewhere else? Because then if they were, like, aliens, then, you know, maybe there's something to them coming here and being like, oh, we want to be like the people. [02:07:57] Speaker A: And look, now I know I'm going off the deep end and overthinking it and fucking head cannon this whole thing. Right. But what you've also got is one of the. One of the fan favorite moments from gremlins one is the island. Billy's mom fucking pushing the Gremlin into the microwave. [02:08:15] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [02:08:17] Speaker A: Right. Now, in gremlins two, a microwave is prominently featured in a particular scene, and one of the gremlins recognizes this and says, microwave. He has no reason to recognize that device or to know what it's called, but yet he does. [02:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:37] Speaker A: Now, this suggests, at least to me, the possibility of race memory. [02:08:46] Speaker B: Like. Yeah. Genetic memory. [02:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah. What did I. How did I phrase it? Species level generational trauma manifestation in gremlins. [02:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:57] Speaker A: Are they able to kind of recall the experiences of past generations? Ah, this makes way more sense. They all came from Gizmo. [02:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:09:12] Speaker A: And Gizmo was in the house when that microwaving incident happened. [02:09:15] Speaker B: Right. [02:09:16] Speaker A: Is the mogwai. [02:09:18] Speaker B: He's like the mothership for the hive mind. [02:09:21] Speaker A: Indeed, indeed, indeed. Is he passing down his past experiences in some way, shape, or form to his progeny. [02:09:29] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [02:09:30] Speaker A: Very interesting. [02:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like that is somehow implied in here. [02:09:37] Speaker A: Very interesting to me. And see, you can enjoy the movie without thinking of any of this shit. [02:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:09:43] Speaker A: Um, but it's. It's, to me, a commentary on just how fucking smart both of those films are that you can go in. You can. You can fucking. You can think of the Gremlin life cycle in the. As much detail as you'd like, and it is so rewarding. So goddamn rewarding. And the. The idea of gremlins two to mix in fucking genetic manipulation to make them even fucking weirder is it gives you even more fertile ground to think of, because the fact that those changes are genetic implies that they could pass that on. So would future generations of Gremlin that came from those ones also have those mutations. [02:10:30] Speaker B: Right. [02:10:32] Speaker A: We know that Robert Picardo has copulated with a true gender altered gremlin. [02:10:38] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [02:10:39] Speaker A: Are they capable of reproducing sexual reproduction? [02:10:44] Speaker B: Mmm. [02:10:45] Speaker A: You know, yeah. [02:10:46] Speaker B: Because they. We know that they do asexual reproduction, but there certainly are animals that do both. [02:10:53] Speaker A: Yes, yes, indeed. [02:10:55] Speaker B: Which. Yeah, I mean, if that gremlin has the parts to get it on with a human, that suggests that they might. [02:11:06] Speaker A: That's a big assumption, isn't it? What do we think? [02:11:10] Speaker B: We don't know what they did, so, you know. [02:11:12] Speaker A: Well, I think we can. I think we can fill in the blanks there. We know that. And. Well, put it like this. Every other gremlin and mogwai that we've seen on screen is male. Yes. They. If not. If not, you know, physically male, they don't have a dick and balls. [02:11:32] Speaker B: Right. But they present their gender presentation as male. [02:11:36] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So with the first female gremlin that we've seen, apart from those external kind of signifiers, red lips, titties, does that extend elsewhere anatomically? And if so, that, you know, with a vulva, that would indicate that that has the, you know, the ability to sexually reproduce. Right. What might that look like? [02:12:04] Speaker B: That's a good question. [02:12:05] Speaker A: And look, I'm sorry to pull on this thread, but even if that female gremlin lacks female genitalia, would. Would getting it wet in other ways lead to traditional Gremlin reproduction? Okay, and how might that look? [02:12:31] Speaker B: It's a weird but valid question as well. [02:12:36] Speaker A: Look, if a movie poses these questions, we must. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the text of the movie to answer, to posit our own theories. [02:12:48] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's the thing. That makes it so interesting, because to. To think about your question earlier of, like, are there other movies besides alien and this that do the Griblies life cycle the way that these do? I think that's what's kind of interesting about it, is that in most things, you would just kind of take it for granted, okay, this thing exists. You know, it's born, it died, whatever. And they've created a movie that both invites you to question this because it gives you this life cycle, but also then says, don't overthink it when it comes to the second one. So it's, you know, it is very smart in what it's done with this, but also invites all of these questions that, like, most of creature features, don't it makes. It. Makes it fun for you to sit there and go like, but wait, now, hold on. How does this work? That adds just like. Yeah. Another element to the movie. [02:13:48] Speaker A: Now, when it comes to alien, right up to Prometheus, I felt like I had a real solid handle on the xenomorph life cycle. So the facehugger puts its ovipositor down into your fucking sternum, lays a single egg, which hatches into a fucking drone, which has the ability to lay a queen egg, which then has the ability to spawn thousands of aliens. Right. But the introduction of the fucking strange goop. [02:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:21] Speaker A: The Prometheus fluid, that completely fucking threw me for a loop. And now I have no clue about what the xenomorph actually is. Mm hmm. And the climax of Prometheus, which I. Sorry. The climax of Romulus, which I adored. I had loved it. That fucking guy, man. [02:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah, dude. [02:14:42] Speaker A: And it's a guy. [02:14:44] Speaker B: And it's a guy. Holy shit. That is what is so great. Like, there was no part of me that thought that was a man while watching it, of course, is what makes it so terrifying. It's, like, very uncanny. Humanoid, but not human. [02:15:01] Speaker A: Retchy fucking fellow. [02:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I finally saw, like, pictures of the guy and was like, jesus Christ. [02:15:10] Speaker A: Fucking brilliant. [02:15:11] Speaker B: Just a guy in a suit. Which, you know, adds to that horror. You know, it's always gonna be better when it's a guy in a suit. [02:15:19] Speaker A: The questions for me about the alien life cycle, right. That I have yet to find a satisfying head cannon, for sure. How does it create the kind of. That residue, that silicon kind of residue around places where it's building a nest, you know? You know what I'm saying that about the alien walls where it keeps people to impregnate. [02:15:45] Speaker B: It's. Yeah. [02:15:46] Speaker A: Where does. How is that generated? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How is that generated? Um, I adore how. And this is all pre Prometheus. I adore how the drone takes the characteristics of its host. Fucking love that. The dog. Alien from Alien three, which, by the way, the movie tie in novelization fleshes out beautifully. Alien three. Oh, it's great. It gives you. It gives you a lot more kind of context about the prisoners on the planet and about how a lot of them are religious zealots. Mm hmm. It gives you a lot more about. [02:16:21] Speaker B: How, I guess, gives you some context for Covenant, which. That's, like, got a lot of religious shit in it. [02:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. It does, it does, it does. [02:16:32] Speaker B: Especially the captain or whatever on that, who is, like, a religious zealot. [02:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah. But, yes. Which. All of which is to say that, yet post Prometheus, I'm completely thrown for a loop on, you know, what that species was originally and how much is the goop and how much is alien. I don't really know. [02:16:56] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I can't answer that, but it would be something worth diving into more. I'm sure there are people who have actually, especially with alien. I don't know that a lot of people have dedicated as much time to the, like, gremlin life cycle as you have. Although I'm sure many stoned conversations have revolved around this. But I am certain there are people who take the alien life cycle deadly serious and have absolutely dissected every element. [02:17:27] Speaker A: It feels like I need to take this to Reddit. [02:17:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, 100%. [02:17:32] Speaker A: That's where I need to go. [02:17:33] Speaker B: I would be interested. I don't know if there's a Gremlins Reddit. There might be. This seems to be a subreddit for everything, but, yeah, it'd be interesting to talk through. But credit. Yeah. This should be our, like, our goal someday to find Joe Dante and actually ask him your questions. Be like, listen, buddy, like, we get that. [02:17:57] Speaker A: Has he got a website? Can I send him a message? Is he on socials? [02:18:02] Speaker B: Right. I think he was on Twitter. But, you know, obviously we're not. [02:18:08] Speaker A: We're not on that, so never will be. [02:18:10] Speaker B: It never will be. But I would be very interested to find out that, oh, there was something you pointed out too, before we. We close out here that you mentioned was in the movie tie in book that wasn't fleshed out in the movie. [02:18:27] Speaker A: A big divergence, a point where I. The Mogwai of Gremlins two and Gremlins one split apart is Gizmo's progeny and Gremlins two are way more unhinged than the first bunch. Are they? What? They. The gremlins of the original movie all seem to be kind of drones of a similar cast, for want of a better word. They're all. They all have the same personality. They're little bastards. They will attack on sight. They. They are rowdy. They cause destruction. They fuck with humans. But the gremlins and Mogwai of Gremlins two all have. There's a fucking idiot. [02:19:03] Speaker B: There's. [02:19:04] Speaker A: There's one who's, you know, just hyper as fuck. There's, you know, they all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They all have their own personalities. And the. The Gremlins two movie tie in novelization makes it quite clear that that's because we see when gizmo gets soaked by that water cooler going awry, I. The water kind of trickles down a painting that Billy recently completed, which was still wet, and the water mixes with paint, and that gives rise to these fucked up weird. [02:19:40] Speaker B: So they're, like, poisoned. Like, there is, like, a poison that. [02:19:45] Speaker A: Isn'T made clear, but the water is adulterated somehow with different colors. You know? [02:19:50] Speaker B: So that's interesting, because that suggests that, like, the substance that they are wet by makes a difference in what they spawn. And thinking, what if it was Kool Aid? [02:20:04] Speaker A: Exactly. Or what if it, you know, in the case of Robert Picardo. But more questions arise. Gremlins one, I seem to remember them spending quite a bit of time at the end in snow. [02:20:24] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [02:20:25] Speaker A: Which doesn't cause them to reproduce. [02:20:28] Speaker B: So the form of the liquid also makes a difference. [02:20:31] Speaker A: Yes. Its state, or even, can a gremlin, much like a Time Lord, can choose to defer his regeneration? Can a gremlin make the choice to hold it back? Because snow is water. [02:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:20:51] Speaker A: And it wouldn't stay for, you know, gremlins have blood. They have a vascular system, so obviously, you know, they're warm. [02:20:57] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [02:21:00] Speaker A: Snow would. Would liquefy to water on a gremlin skin, and that did not. That did not cause them to reproduce. So can they. Can they defer the reproductive process? Is it something that they have agency over? [02:21:15] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [02:21:16] Speaker A: You know, when they seek out reproduction, like when stripe climbs on the fountain or when he falls in the swimming pool. Bang. Immediately. Yeah, but not in snow. [02:21:28] Speaker B: Hmm. Interesting. If they could defer it, you'd think gizmo would. [02:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah. See, this is it. Exactly. How does. How does he get wet in the first one? [02:21:40] Speaker B: Uh. [02:21:44] Speaker A: Because in the second one, it's. It's by surprise. He doesn't see it coming. [02:21:47] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, the thing spills. It does spill down the painting, but we don't hear that. That makes a difference. I can't remember how it gets. [02:21:58] Speaker A: Causes him to get wet in the. [02:21:59] Speaker B: First one is a spring. No, I don't. I can't remember. [02:22:04] Speaker A: What I'm saying is, if it's something that you're prepared for, if it's something that Mogwai is prepared for. Can he? Can he. [02:22:10] Speaker B: Right. No, no, no. No. Babies. Yeah. Right. Power through it. I don't know. You raise some really interesting questions here. [02:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah, they've, again, super smart. It gives you a really nice kind of. You know, it gives you a nice kind of basis of a life cycle to work from. And you can impose a lot more on it. You can head cannon the fuck out of that stuff. Yeah, I love it. Maybe it's. Maybe I am neurodivergent. Who knows? [02:22:46] Speaker B: Maybe a tiny bit. Listen, if you're reading tie in novelizations of movies, probably not a neurogenic like. [02:22:58] Speaker A: A lot of them. [02:22:58] Speaker B: Like a lot of them. If more than once on this show, you've said, you know, when the movie tie in novelization this episode, you might be a neurodivergent. Neurodivergent. Friends, do you have further questions about Gremlor, obviously marketing? [02:23:19] Speaker A: If you do, then I'm your guide. [02:23:21] Speaker B: For any of them. Please do let us know. [02:23:23] Speaker A: In particular. Yeah, in particular, if you can think of any other examples of movies where the gribbly has a really nicely fleshed out circle of life, if you can. If you can come to me with that and give me something else to think about except these goddamn gremlins, I would love that. In fact, maybe don't. I got shit to do. [02:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Maybe. Maybe that's actually a bad idea. But, you know, we want to hear it anyway, and we want to hear your theories. If you have any. Your questions, maybe Mark will be able to answer them. We are always happy to think about gremlins. [02:23:57] Speaker A: Yes, anytime, day or night. And we love you deeply. Have a great week. Thanks for listening. You absolute gluttons for punishment. And any words of advice, Corrie, for this upcoming week? [02:24:12] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, in preparation for the huge meetup that we're having at the end of the month, it's more important now than ever that everyone stays spooky. And there's my dog.