The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

With special -- and returning! -- guest Owen Croak, Anna and Derek celebrate the final episode of season two with discussions of protagonists without character arcs, the morality of dating your dead spouse's twin sister and so much more during their exploration of the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984).

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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.  

Owen Croak is one of those screenwriters who thought he was too responsible to be a “real” writer. Then he had emergency surgery, got fired, and decided he’d rather spend his time writing about time-travelers, aliens, and superheroes. In addition to being published in the Los Angeles Times, his work has placed in the 2022 Creative Screenwriting Unique Voices competition and in the Austin Film Festival Script competition for the last three years in a row.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey, let's go. Okay, oh fine, good, fine. Thanks, Dave. Congratulations. You drove through a month. I did it. You drove right through a month the other day. You didn't react to less with the operation. You hadn't even said anything about it. Didn't you mention you were going to donate it to my friends? My colleague, Dr. Sidney Duabel, old medical friend from OneB. Howdy, howdy there.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hello and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek.

SPEAKER_06 0:33

And this is Anna.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

And if that intro was confusing, that's okay. It didn't make any sense to us either.

SPEAKER_06 0:41

It's perhaps indicative of the film as a whole. I mean, look, I'm not trying to. This is not, this is this is gonna be a good, fun, final podcast of season two.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah. And of course it is the adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai across the eighth dimension. Well done. And that was Jeff Goldbloom, a brain surgeon who Buckaroo was working with in the beginning of the film. And as Jeff Goldblum's character mentioned, immediately after the surgery, he went to go test drive a vehicle that drove through a mountain by way of the eighth dimension.

SPEAKER_06 1:21

Yes. Well, I mean, again, again, well done.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

It turns out it all does make sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:28

Well, I don't know if I'd go that far, but this uh, you know, we we mentioned this on the last episode that this was, I think I called it a banger.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, you did.

SPEAKER_06 1:42

And I stick by that. It was totally crazy and bizarre and off the wall, and I can see why it has achieved cult status.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

I can see that. Yeah. Because it's like it's like this movie was made for cult status. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

I mean, I it's I and I say this with the utmost respect. I can see exactly like the crowd that this movie appeals to. And that's great. Like it's it is a fun movie, it's a totally wacky, ridiculous movie. You gotta accept it for what it is, though. Yeah. I mean, I like I like those kinds of movies. Like, I often have gone on my soapbox about how movies don't have to have this like crazy deep meaning that movies can can just be fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:33

And they're for entertainment value. And I think this sod solidly fits into that category.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

So I mean, John Lipgow was having a blast.

SPEAKER_06 2:41

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

He was having the time of his life.

SPEAKER_06 2:44

All right, so let's jump in because there's there's a lot, and we actually had truly an amazing conversation with our guest Owen. He The authority. The author very much so, the authority.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

An authority. An authority, the authority, which I don't know if he would if he would say that he's the authority, but he's certainly an authority.

SPEAKER_06 3:05

He he is a very modest person, so I don't think he would say he's the authority. However, when we were speaking to him about the movie, it's very clear that he is very knowledgeable about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

His buckaroo knowledge went several dimensions deep.

SPEAKER_06 3:21

Oh man. Okay. So but I'm just gonna, I am not saying the full title every single time I reference it.

unknown 3:28

No.

SPEAKER_06 3:29

I'm just gonna say buckaro bonsai. So 1984 is when it came out.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

And a lot of drugs that year.

SPEAKER_06 3:36

A lot of drugs that year.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I don't know, just because of this movie.

SPEAKER_06 3:42

I thought you were like doing some kind of callback to Dare, the Dare program, or something like that. I wonder when the Dare program came out. It certainly was the 80s, because it was the whole Nancy Reagan thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Dare your kids to not make buckaroo bansa. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 3:56

Aw. Well, okay, so I mean, maybe there was some drug usage going on with one or all parts of this movie getting made. Anyway, okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

More drugs involved with this or the blues brothers.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Oh, well, okay, so but that's not fair because different kind of drugs, maybe. Different kind of drugs, and you know, everybody involved with the blues brothers has been like surprisingly candid about the usage of drugs and the fact that it was even worked into their budget. And in any case.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Well, and to be to be completely fair, I am not suggesting that any person or group of persons were doing drugs in any portion of the filming this movie.

SPEAKER_06 4:38

Well well done with the disclaimer. Get yourself off the hook legally. Okay. So written by gentleman uh by the name of Earl Mack Roush. And this was, I believe, like adapted from he he was a novelist. He was a writer. And so not necessarily a writer for the screen. He was um a more traditional, I guess I would you would say, writer. So as far as like his credits go for screenwriting, he does have a couple beyond this, but it it appears like that he had a very brief screenwriting career, but that's only because this isn't what he was doing full-time. So but among some of his other credits, we have New York, New York, A Stranger Is Watching, and Wired.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 5:28

So the writer behind this film. Now, what's really interesting is that the person who directed this film, W.D. Richter, if you went to his IMDB, you would see far more writing credits.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

I'm doing that right now.

SPEAKER_06 5:45

Okay. So he does have another directing credit, Late for Dinner, but he the bulk of his career has been in writing. So we have like the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dracula. Um, he did the adaptation, A Big Trouble in Little China. Needful Things, Home for the Holidays.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

He did Needful Things. That was a pretty solid Stephen King book.

SPEAKER_06 6:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:13

Alright, well, cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Max Von Saddow, I think, in the uh film version. Alright.

SPEAKER_06 6:19

So, I mean, and we do a little bit talk about it with Owen in terms of why was his directing career so brief. I mean, I don't think any of us can definitively say why.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

No.

SPEAKER_06 6:32

Um, given the fact that this film did not initially perform well, it's possible that he just was never given another chance. It's possible that he just decided directing's not for me. You know, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

But he could have said, like, that was my masterpiece. I'm going to-be.

SPEAKER_06 6:48

Maybe he's like, I'm going out on top. So, okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

So next we have cinematography, the person who shot this film. I mean, here's the thing. As we get through some of these other people who contributed behind the scenes, we have Oscar nominees and Oscar winners.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

The cast is insane.

SPEAKER_06 7:16

I'm talking about the people behind the camera.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Everyone involved in this movie. Insane.

SPEAKER_06 7:23

Don't worry, we'll get to the actors. But for cinematography, so this was shot by an uh man, name of Fred J. Konencamp. And I think that's the right pronunciation. That's what I'm gonna say. So among some of his credits, uh primarily film. However, he starts off in TV. Uh, one of his early credits is a TV series called The Lieutenant. Among some of his film credits, uh, this was a series, it so it seems. He shot The Spy with My Face, One Spy Too Many, and The Spy in the Green Hat.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

These are all these are all related, I assume.

SPEAKER_06 8:05

And One of Our Spies is missing. So, yeah. From a very quick cursory look at these films, they're all connected.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

How because One of Our Spies is missing.

SPEAKER_06 8:18

Because they all tie back to what eventually becomes the TV series The Man from Uncle. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. That's cool. He also shot Doctor, you've got to be kidding.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I like it.

SPEAKER_06 8:30

I like these titles.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah, I like the delivery.

SPEAKER_06 8:32

He thank you. He gets an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography because this guy also shot the movie Patton, which actually won Best Picture 1970.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

There you go.

SPEAKER_06 8:43

So he does that. He does Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Magnificent Seven Ride. He gets an Oscar win for Best Cinematography for The Towering Inferno. He shoots the 1977 version of Fun with Dick and Jane. And he gets another Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography for a film called Islands in the Stream. He does, we like watching this one because it's like kind of ridiculous. The Amityville Horror.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

The 1979 Amityville Horror, based on that book that was kind of presented as something that was like an actual like this happened. It it was kind of terrifying when I saw it as a kid, and I told you about how awesome it was, and then we watched it and we were just laughing. Because there are some moments that are just a little over the top.

SPEAKER_06 9:30

It's not scary at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_06 9:35

I enjoy watching it. It's not not what I would consider a horror film, not even like a psychological. It's fun. Okay. So he also shot Welcome Home, and his final film credit was Flight of the Intruder.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Oh, Flight of the Intruder.

SPEAKER_06 9:53

Was that uh not Flight of the Navigator?

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Damn. Thinking of something totally different.

SPEAKER_06 9:59

Gotcha. Okay. So moving on to the person who did the music for this movie, Michael Bodiker.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Yeah, I like that. Okay. I think that is an accurate pronunciation.

SPEAKER_06 10:13

So kind of similar to the director on this one, like if you actually just go strictly to his composing credits, there's not a ton. We have Get Crazy, Horizons, the US version of The Adventures of Milo and Otis, and Whitewater Summer are some of those composing credits. However, if you jump to just like music department credits, holy cow, he has close to 300. Okay. And most are as a musician. So like performance, more performance than composing. So um so definitely he knows his stuff. Uh just didn't do a ton of strictly composing work uh over the course of his career.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

So okay, he he some of these additional music credits even include as like engineering for the 2021 Dune.

SPEAKER_06 11:03

Yeah. Oh yeah, no, still working. Yeah, yep. I'm sorry if I did not make that clear. So okay, moving on to film editing. We actually have two gentlemen who edited on this film.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

And if you'd told me eight people, I would have been like, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

Well, you know, we've had we've had both scenarios at this point. Like sometimes we have, you know, an editing team. Like I think we've had like a couple father and son teams. Um and then, you know, every once in a while you do just have two people who both are put on a project, really don't know the circumstances around why they had to have two. Almost uh, well, I'd say the majority of the time, it's a single editor. You have one person who's like leading that part of the film. So I don't know why they had two, but the two that they had, the first one, George Bowers. So among some of his work, uh, this is all strictly film work. We have the Pom-Pom Girls, okay, Shoot to Kill, Harlem Knights, yeah, exactly. Sleeping with the Enemy, one of my favorites, A League of Their Own.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:18

So good, so so so good. The Good Son, The Preacher's Wife, How Stella Got a Groove Back, Deuce Bigelow Male Jiggolo, that's like come up, I think, twice in two episodes now.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, that's crazy, right? That's surprising.

SPEAKER_06 12:35

From Hell, and then his final credit, Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins. So, okay, the other gentleman. And now we actually have brought him up before because I'm gonna say his name. Yeah. And I'm very curious how you're gonna respond to me saying his name. What's his name? Richard Marks. Oh my god, not that Richard Marks. You did that last time.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

I'll do it every time.

SPEAKER_06 13:05

I mean, we actually will almost certainly have other films that we cover that he cut on.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I very much look forward to it.

SPEAKER_06 13:13

So not the musician Richard Marks M-A-R-X, but M-A-R-K-S. Okay. So we talked about him about halfway through this season because he also cut on Say Anything. So that's when he first came up. But uh, it's been a minute since he's come up. So I'm gonna go quickly through some of his credits. And again, these are all film credits, and again, we have somebody who got some Oscar love. So among those credits, we have Bang the Drum Slowly, Serbico. He cut a little movie called Godfather Part 2, which actually I'm kind of shocked. Yeah, right. I'm I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

If you had told me that there's a goddamn godfather connection to Buckaroo Bonsai, I would have not believed it.

SPEAKER_06 14:04

What's shocking is that he didn't like I think that that is a beautifully edited film. Yeah. And no no Oscar Nom for that one.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

There, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:18

When you switch between uh, you know, like the eras that yeah, exactly, exactly. So he was part of the team, so this wasn't him like as like lead editor, but he is part of the editorial department that was nominated for best editing on Apocalypse Now. He did Pennies from Heaven, he gets his own Oscar nomination for best editing on terms of endearment. He does, and here's some of the films that we will almost certainly cover at some point: St. Emma's Fire, Pretty in Pink, Broadcast News, for which he gets another Oscar nomination for best film editing. As I mentioned, he did say anything, Dick Tracy, the Steve Martin version of Father of the Bride. I put this one down because I think we have an even longer track record with this one getting mentioned in uh successive episodes, things to do in Denver when you're dead.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yeah, that's coming up all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:10

He gets uh his last Oscar nomination, so he never wins. He gets, though, in total, one, two, three, four Oscar nominations. The last one was for As Good as It Gets. Great movie. I actually really enjoy that one. You've got Male, Spanglish, Julie, and Julia, and then his final credit, how do you know?

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Alright. I mean, again, I I don't know if I can really put into words the how astonished I am when I look at the credits of some of the people who are involved in this movie. Because it's it's impressive.

SPEAKER_06 15:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

I mean, if they ever do a re-release of this movie, they got they have all these options to like kind of pump it up, right? From Oscar winning so-and-so. If you know Oscar nominated.

SPEAKER_06 16:03

I know things are still it. I feel like maybe the popularity of this has kind of waned, but you know, like once upon a time, they used to always do like midnight movies, you know, at theaters. I don't know how popular it is anymore. Probably if they do it, the one movie that they still continue to show is uh Rocky Horror Picture Show.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:23

But I feel like this could be a very popular midnight movie.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah, I mean, as we're recording this, Omicron is literally knocking on our door, I think. It's everywhere. So everywhere. I don't know if anyone's uh going, you know, rushing into the theaters. Maybe in some some places, who knows?

SPEAKER_06 16:40

We have movie tickets waiting for us.

unknown 16:42

Shh.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

It's not midnight, though.

SPEAKER_06 16:46

Not midnight. Okay, so we are up to the stars of this film. First of which, Mr. Peter Weller.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Robocop.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

And Bakaru Bonsai, the titular character.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Yeah. He did this little thing, you know. I mean, his character in Robocop did the thing with the gun because like it was his kid's western move. He did something exactly like that in this movie.

SPEAKER_06 17:13

Oh. Yeah. Did not catch it.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

But I think this came out first.

SPEAKER_06 17:16

Yes, it would have. Yep. But uh 84 versus I want to say 87.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah. He's he's very skilled with the pistol, is what I think.

SPEAKER_06 17:23

Very skilled. And yes, he also was the titular character Robocop when we covered Robocop over the summer. So if you'd like to hear what we had to say about him in that movie, uh, we welcome you to go check out the RoboCop episode. Otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

I don't know how that episode was, but that movie was great. And I choose to believe that the episode was also pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 17:46

I mean, uh, across the board, any episode, I'm always gonna give props to the guest segment of the episode because our guests are always just like knocking it out of the park, and that was no different with our guest Jeff.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

I'm mostly discounting whatever I contributed to the episode.

SPEAKER_06 18:03

Hey, fair enough, I guess. All right, among some of his credits, we have Butch and Sundance The Early Days.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:12

Uh, and again, this is these first couple credits are all film credits. So just tell me what you want.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:20

Just tell me. It's a good title.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, that's like from the notebook, I think.

SPEAKER_06 18:26

We have Robocop, Leviathan, Robocop 2, Mighty Aphrodite, and then we move into some TV work. So he was on the TV series Odyssey 5, he was on the TV series 24, as well as Dexter. All right. He was in the film Star Trek Into Darkness.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah, he was uh Dr. Carol Marcus's dad.

SPEAKER_06 18:51

Oh, okay. Yeah. I don't know Star Trek, but alright.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

So Into Darkness was kind of a reboot of The Wrath of Khan.

SPEAKER_06 18:59

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

With Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan.

SPEAKER_06 19:02

So Okay, he was Khan and um who played Spock? He was really good. I know I've seen it. You've had enough.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah, I can't I can't remember that actor's name. He was uh in Heroes.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

Yes, I believe so.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

But I don't remember his name.

SPEAKER_06 19:22

He's good.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:23

Uh okay, Peter Weller, back to Peter Weller. He is in the TV or was in the TV series Sons of Anarchy, Longmire, and most recently MacGyver.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Oh. The McGyver reboot?

SPEAKER_06 19:38

I guess it's a reboot. Yeah, the TV series.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. He was also in the uh TV show Fringe, which was kind of like an X-Files-ish kind of like sci-fi multiverse kind of uh show.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

Zachary Quinto.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

That's it. Yeah, that's him.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

Is who played Spock.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah. Um we are connecting some dots here.

SPEAKER_06 19:57

I just wanted to give due diligence, though. Okay, you brought him up earlier. It's time to talk about Mr. John Lithgow.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Man, this guy. This guy.

SPEAKER_06 20:07

This guy. Did you know that he is a two-time Oscar nominee?

SPEAKER_02 20:16

I don't know if I knew that, yet I am also not surprised to hear that.

SPEAKER_06 20:21

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people associate him with his TV work, and as they should. I mean, he's done. Yeah, he's done quite well. So, I mean, I always kind of figured in I was right on this account that he has been recognized multiple times over by the Emmys. Yeah. But I was actually surprised by um, I shouldn't be, but by his Oscar attention. So, okay. His very first credit. Here we go. This is this is the name of the film Dealing Colon or the Berkeley to Boston 40 brick lost bag blues.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Okay. There are at least four dashes in that title and one colon. It's a lot, it's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 21:10

It's a lot. It's a lot. First credit. Okay. Moving on, all that jazz. I'm dancing as fast as I can. I feel like I brought that one up before.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, that it's come up, and it's also funny that he would be in a movie called I'm Dancing as Fast as I can. He's also in Footloose, right?

SPEAKER_06 21:27

Yes. Yeah. Talk about yeah. Talk about range. Exactly. Within the dance world, though.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

I love dancing, but this is as fast as I can.

SPEAKER_06 21:37

You're not gonna dance at all.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Don't don't do it.

SPEAKER_06 21:39

You're not gonna do it. He gets his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the World, according to Garp.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

You know, for some reason, I kind of thought that's what it was. That's the one with uh Robin Williams. And oh geez, I can't remember. I can't think of her name.

SPEAKER_06 21:56

I'm shaking my head because I can't help you out on this one.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

But she is definitely in it.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

Okay. Alright. Well, I'm just gonna keep okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, Glenn Close. No, no wonder I couldn't remember the name. It's just Glenn Close.

SPEAKER_06 22:08

It's Glenn Close. On the tales of that Oscar Nom, he gets another one again for Best Supporting Actor for terms of endearment. You just mentioned Footloose. Probably. Hmm. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that of any of his films, I feel like that's still what he's most popular for. I think if you say name a John Lithgau movie, you're gonna say Footloose.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

I might say Harry and the Hendersons. And I might also say the uh movie where he co-starred with Denzel Washington, Ricochet.

SPEAKER_06 22:43

Okay. Well, let me let me get to some of these. Okay. I actually don't have Ricochet down, but um after Footloose, we have 2010, the year we made contact. He was in Santa Claus the movie, underrated holiday movie. I actually quite enjoy it. He was in the Manhattan Project, as you mentioned, Harry and the Hendersons, Raising Kane. Oh, we saw this not too long ago, Cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yes, yeah. He plays the villain a lot.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

Yes, yes. I was just gonna say he again plays kind of this wacky villain.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:14

He's kind of over the top.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

I mean, but I love him. Yeah. A little good at it.

SPEAKER_06 23:18

A little over the top. Uh he's in the Pelican Brief. We briefly mentioned, or you did, he is probably most well known as far as TV work for Third Rock from the Sun.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:30

However, if you're not a sitcom fan and you lean more towards Darker Fair, you almost certainly know him from his stint on Dexter. Which I think he got an Emmy for that. Um He was a good guy in that, right? Oh no. No, he was not. And apparently he come he's uh back for Dexter New Blood. Okay. But yeah, I mean Spoilers.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Now I now I kind of wonder what happened to him in the first one.

SPEAKER_06 23:59

It's not a spoiler, it's on IMDB. I don't know what you want me to do. Um he I people just rave, rave about him in that role and talk about villain. Like, he's not a good guy.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 24:14

Not a good guy.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

I'll take your word for it.

SPEAKER_06 24:16

Yeah. He he is in, and I remember this, um, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He's in that. He's in the TV series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. He's in the movie Interstellar. He is also in the remake, the 2019 remake, Pet Cemetery. He is in the TV series The Crown, and then also very recently, he was in the movie Bombshell. And he's still, he's, he's working. Like I said, he's in Dexter New Blood.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

And because we like fun titles, I also must mention that he was in 1998's Johnny Skidmarks. Oh, that's terrible. It is. Terrible. I didn't name it.

SPEAKER_06 24:52

I believe you. Okay. Moving on to Ellen Barkin, who plays, I guess, the love interest, kind of a weird, weird kind of love interest. She's a good thing. Penny pretty.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, she plays the identical twin of his deceased wife. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:09

Where he won't even tell her that initially, and she's going crazy.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Because she's seeing pictures of someone that looks just exactly like her all over the house.

SPEAKER_06 25:18

He sees that she is experiencing like psychological trauma because she feels like there is something missing in her life, which is this deceased twin sister that she's never gonna know. It's it's actually really, really sad. Like it's such a weird part of the story. I gotta say, like, I don't know if they needed to go that route with this character, but there's there's so much depth.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

So many layers.

SPEAKER_06 25:43

So many layers. Yeah, I think that's a way to put it. So many layers. Okay, she's a great actress. Um, I really enjoy her work. She didn't have a lot to do in this movie. Uh, I think we all agreed on that front. She did what she could with it, but uh, I mean, really well known through the years, some of her work, and almost again, exclude it's like a little bit some of these older actors, like they kind of made their name in film, but now that TV definitely in some ways even supersedes like the prestige of film. A lot of them are turning to TV. So that's kind of where her career went. So among some of her credits, we have Diner, Tender Mercies, Eddie and the Cruisers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's like one of those when I saw it, I was like, oh man, I haven't thought about that movie in a really long time. But The Big Easy, Sea of Love, Man Trouble, This Boy's Life, that's a that's a tough movie to get through. Everybody's so good in it, but it's a tough movie to get through. The Fan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I've brought it up before. Please, please, it's not an 80s movie, but please go check out Drop Dead Gorgeous. It is so good, so funny. She's amazing in it. Everybody's amazing in it.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

That comes up more than uh what to do in Denver when you're dead.

SPEAKER_06 27:02

I don't know about that, but I I just love that movie so much. It is so I I don't know if it ha if I could say it has cult status. I think some people are aware of how good it is, but it's just, it is so fucking funny. Go watch it. Okay. Someone like you, Ocean's 13, very good girls. And then, like I said, she's more recently gotten into TV work, so we have the new normal, and then she was on the show. Oh, maybe she is still is Animal Kingdom. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Did you mention Sea of Love without Pacino?

SPEAKER_06 27:34

I did.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_06 27:37

So she did Sea of Love with Pacino and then This Boy's Life with De Niro.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Ah. Alright.

SPEAKER_06 27:43

Knocking it out with the heavy hitters. Okay. Moving on to the gentleman that was uh highlighted in our clip at the beginning. Mr. Jeff Goldblum. I mean, even if you didn't know this movie at all, I would say you would almost certainly recognize his voice if we played that clip. He has such a distinct cadence. Um, no different in this movie. He plays New Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, I mean, he, yeah, it's it's like uh your first look, I guess, at what will become classic Goldblum.

SPEAKER_06 28:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would agree with that. He's had, as all the people we've mentioned so far, a tremendous career. He, I mean, among some of his credits, so his very very early in his career, this is only his third film credit. He was in the movie Nashville. Also had a smart small part in Annie Hall. He was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Big Chill, The Right Stuff, Transylvania 6500.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Man, that that movie, that movie is it it's almost as ridiculous as this as Buckaroo Bonsai. Almost? Almost.

SPEAKER_06 28:55

It's an 80s movie.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:57

So it's on the potential review list.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:00

I'm gonna say, I mean, this is really, I think, where he hit his stride, actually, because then after that was the fly.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Yeah, I think that I think that's it, kind of.

SPEAKER_06 29:11

Like that's where that's where he became an aid. Yeah. Earth Girls are easy. And then we have, of course, uh most of the Dra Jurassic Park films. So we have the original Jurassic Park, we have the Lost World Jurassic Park, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, and then just completed, he is in the upcoming Jurassic World Dominion. So has definitely become an iconic character from that franchise. Uh, as well as I mean, I don't know if they're gonna ever do a third. It took him a while to even get to the sequel, but he's also in Independence Day and Independence Day resurgence. So he is.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

He famously infected an alien spaceship with an Apple computer.

SPEAKER_06 30:02

Um he actually did you know that he's also an Oscar nominee? I don't think I knew that. Not for his acting work, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Oh, then I definitely didn't know it.

SPEAKER_06 30:12

He was uh presumably a producer because he has an Oscar nomination for best short film live action. It's a short film called Little Surprises. So he was a producer on that and has an Oscar nomination for it.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

All right, and that in is also a little surprise.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

Well done. He was in Cats and Dogs, Igbee Goes Down, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zazoo, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and one of my favorite roles of his, Thor Ragnarok.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Oh yeah. What is what is his uh character? Supreme Leader. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's great in that, and he again, like his character in Buckaroo Bonsai doesn't seem that dissimilar from what you'd see. It's just it's just fun to watch him on film, no matter what the role is. There's a there's a moment, another like fun moment in the movie where uh one of the one of the um what is what is Bakaroo's band called again?

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Oh, the Hong Kong rollers or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

We'll go with that. But they're showing him through, and there's like this giant like steel press with a watermelon in it, and Jeff Goldblum's character just said, What's the watermelon for? And the guy's like, I'll tell you later. Like, what what is happening?

SPEAKER_06 31:33

He I agree with you that he is so charismatic, even from something like this, which was just so early in his career. He's just one of those people where it's like, yeah, he was he was born to be an actor. Like he's doing exactly what he should. He's great at it, and he's only become more popular over the years. So people love him, and it's he seems like a you know, pretty cool, chill guy. I've actually seen him in person twice.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Ooh.

SPEAKER_06 32:02

Never talked to him.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Well, a a couple of our friends uh got his help to to announce that they were having a baby, I think, right? Which, you know, if if you're gonna do something to either announce the gender or announce you're having a baby, do that. Like, don't don't burn down half of California.

SPEAKER_06 32:23

Oh yes, yes, when you put it that way, sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:26

But uh yeah, no, he seems like a pretty cool guy.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:29

All right, another cool guy, Mr. Christopher Lloyd. So we have talked about him a couple times at this point. Yes. Um, actually, very, very recently, we talked about him just what, two episodes ago for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:48

So, yes, he came up just a couple weeks ago. He is phenomenal, so I don't want to skip over him, but we encourage you to go check out Who Framed Roger Rabbit if you want to hear more about him. And because he actually so recently was brought up uh on the podcast, I'm gonna kind of just quickly run through some of his credits.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

All right.

SPEAKER_06 33:08

Uh, and keep in mind he actually at this point, because he's still going strong, 238 acting credits to his name currently. I have about 16 of them. So a fraction of what he's done. Now his first credit was one flew over the cuckoo. Use my words, one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Okay. First credit there. Uh, a lot of people know him from the TV series Taxi. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Jim.

SPEAKER_06 33:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:37

Yeah. He's in Mr. Mom, Star Trek III, The Search for Spock.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

He's a big angry Klingon dude.

SPEAKER_06 33:45

He is probably most well known for being Doc in the Back to the Future movies, one, two, and three. He's in Clue, as I mentioned, who framed Roger Rabbit. Oh, by the way, like we covered Back to the Future back in season one. So we talk about him in there if you want to check out that episode. He is in Eight Men Out, The Addams Family, as well as Adam's Family Values.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

He's a great Uncle Fester.

SPEAKER_06 34:14

He is. He's great. Angels in the Outfield. He was on the TV series Deadly Games. He was in the movie BB Geniuses, also in the TV series I Kama Dream. And some of his more recent film work, Piranha 3D. Oh, Dead Before Dawn 3D.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 34:33

And we brought this up before, maybe probably because of him. I am not a serial killer.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

All right. I mean, that's exactly what a serial killer would say.

SPEAKER_06 34:41

And that's what we say every single time.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 34:45

Okay, moving on. Got a couple more people to cover. One of which is Lewis Smith, who plays these names. Perfect Tommy. So he, you know, maybe doesn't have the breadth of work as some of the people we've already covered, but he's a very familiar face. Like I feel like he kind of has popped up and he's still working among some of his credits. Mostly I'm gonna say film with a notable exception. Some of his film work includes Southern Comfort, I Ought to Be in Pictures, The Heavenly Kid. But then that exception that I just brought up 20 seconds ago, he is in uh the TV miniseries North and South. Which is a huge deal. Huge deal. Um, I mean it has and I mean it had a ton of people in it. It had Patrick Sweeze, Kirsty Alley. Uh so he is a prominent figure, and he is in both sections. So there's North and South Book One, North and South, and then there's North and South Book Two, Love and War. So he's in both. Some of his other film work, we have Wyatt Herb, Django Unchange, and then he was in the movie. Oh boy, I'm gonna see if I can pronounce this. Uh Adrenochrome. Chrome. Adrenochrome. Okay. And then he is in pre-production on Adrenochrome 2. Don't know what it's about, but he's in it.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

He was also in the uh TV series of Beauty and the Beast with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Yes, that was a thing.

SPEAKER_06 36:34

Oh yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

And that was that was like a crazy popular side of the video.

SPEAKER_06 36:38

I didn't miss that one. But yeah, no, that was worth I don't know. I'm glad thank you for bringing that up. Okay, lastly, we have Rosalind Cash who plays now it's confusing because the name is what is considered a male's name, but John Emdale, one of many, many, many Johns in this film. Yeah, they they intentionally all of the interdimensional aliens name themselves John because it's I can't I can't remember why is it to help conceal their identity or to fit in or to like I think that was supposed to be a little like wink and a nod to the fact that they really didn't understand human society or humanity, and so they all picked the name John, not I think realizing that that would be a dead giveaway to the fact that they're not human themselves, but they just didn't understand human nature enough to know like, oh, we should all have a different name.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

So did Christopher Lloyd's character name himself John Big Booty?

SPEAKER_06 37:41

Um that's a really great question.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Because he was really offended at the because his name was actually pronounced Big Bootet.

SPEAKER_06 37:50

Yeah, yeah. That's a good question. Yeah, that's not quite clear why he would give Yeah, it would seem that they each gave themselves their own last name, but then why would he pick that if it was just gonna be made fun of? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Comedy.

SPEAKER_06 38:05

Comedy. All right. Among some of her work, we have Klute, The Omega Man, Uptown Saturday Night, the class of Miss Mac Michael, from a whisper to a scream, Death Spa, she pivots to the TV show General Hospital, so she does some soap opera work. Her final film credit was Tales from the Hood, but then along the way, she had just a ton of TV appearances.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

So yeah, she's like on uh 80s greatest hits of episodes of TV shows Highway to Heaven, Kagan Lacey, The Cosby Show, Night Rider, Hill Street Blues. A lot of it. And also the movie with the title that I enjoy, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

SPEAKER_06 38:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:52

And what did I say? The Hong Kong Rollers? It's the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_06 38:58

That was close.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

Corrections and Retractions.

SPEAKER_06 39:01

Exactly. All right, Derek. And the reason why I even brought that up is because I'm looking at the film synopsis. So here we go.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Okay, let's see what uh what do we got here?

SPEAKER_06 39:13

Adventurer, brain surgeon, rock musician, Bakuru Banzai, and his crime fighting team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop evil alien invaders from the eighth dimension who are planning to conquer Earth.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

I mean, that's that seems fine. I mean, it's not clear to me that they are a band of crime fighters. I thought they were just a band of musicians who were caught up in this interdimensional plot to destroy the earth.

SPEAKER_06 39:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

But if we now that we know and we'll go into a little bit of the the potential like sequel, we know that there was going to be that like side of things. Yeah. Right? Where they are after some crime boss or something or other. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 40:00

Maybe this is just like retroactively feeling a certain way. I got the sense watching the movie that they had had some prior experience with being like the good guys needing to they seem pretty coordinated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

But you know.

SPEAKER_06 40:15

But I mean, the whole thing, like I said, so who knows? They're musicians, but they also are scientists. Um, they also are crime fight, like they're very much renaissance men. They they can kind of do it all. So as crazy as this movie is, it's not a bad synopsis. It's not a bad synopsis.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Yeah. Yeah. We've we've uh we've seen worse.

SPEAKER_06 40:41

Yes, we definitely have. Uh so yeah, I'm gonna give this one two thumbs up. So on that note, it is time to get into it with our special guest, Owen Croak. Let's do it. All right, we are so incredibly happy to have with us just one of our most beloved friends, a friend of the show. He's been on the show before. He also happens to be an amazing writer. I've read it for myself. Owen, welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Anna and Derek.

SPEAKER_06 41:24

We're we're honestly so stoked to have you with us for especially the season finale. I can't think of a better person to have with us for this one.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

And this was wrapping up the season, wrapping up 2021 right.

unknown 41:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 41:39

Exactly. That's what I'm gonna go with too. Wrapping it up right.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

So I mean, Buckaroo drove through a mountain. We just made it through 2021. I don't know which is harder.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

You made it through 2021 and you made it through the movie. And I think that's probably where we need to start because I know how I feel about this, but I want to get the level of the room here because I know this can be divisive.

SPEAKER_06 42:01

Okay, you know what? I'm willing to go off script. I mean, the very little script that I ever have when we have a guest on.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

So Anna, why don't you tell me about if you remember your first memories when you first saw this film?

SPEAKER_06 42:15

Well, I well, okay, so Owen, you said that you wanted to get the temperature of the room. Is this is this where we're going? You want to immediately go for it?

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Yeah, go, go, go.

SPEAKER_06 42:26

Okay. Um, got okay. I thought this was a wacky, wacky movie. Um, never saw it before, never even saw a clip of it before. I knew that you were a huge fan of it. We actually have had like I've had to hold off on doing this. Like, we've had other guests ask to cover this movie.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Highly sought after.

SPEAKER_06 42:57

Yes, very much so. And I've had to say no, sorry. We like we always knew that we were gonna have you back to do this one.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

This movie's deserved. I mean, podcast listeners. Um, I I I have to say that when this first came up, the you know, behind the scenes, it was like uh give them your top three 80s movies and we'll feel what we'll slot you in. And this was my number one, um, not just because I enjoy the movie, but it feels just so, so 80s.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Oh, it does so 80s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

And and I believe your initial reaction was, is that a movie? Um, okay, uh, well, we'll see if we ever get to that. And then I think one night we were having dinner and um it came up, and Derek's reaction I'll remember was Yeah, that that's a movie. Yeah. And no further comment on it ever since.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

I you know, I remembered uh I remembered the title, although to be fair, I did not remember the full title, which is in fact The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai Across the Eighth Dimension.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

So one of about a hundred different titles this movie had, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

I I'm not surprised. Probably like a different title in each dimension that he had the adventure through.

SPEAKER_06 44:10

This is not to put you on the spot, Owen. I expect that you are a well of knowledge about this movie in a way that we are like, and actually that's something that I was like really excited about because we need someone to explain what we just saw. Well, okay, so okay, I'm I'm just because I'm a creature of habit, I'm gonna go a little bit back to the way that I usually open these because it it is gonna help to inform the way that like you first responded to the film versus the way that we just did, seeing it 48 hours ago. So do you like okay, so I'm just gonna do it. So were you like a child?

SPEAKER_01 44:53

I was definitely a child.

SPEAKER_06 44:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Um, and my first I didn't see this in a theater. I'm I'm too young for that.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

But I may have mentioned this in our last podcast, but a lot of my childhood experience was molded by my weird aunt who lived with us.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

And she was an early adopter of the VCR. So early. Oh, I just remember you mentioning that. Yeah, so she had it had when you couldn't actually purchase a video tape for less than a hundred dollars in like 1980s money because the studios didn't trust it. They thought it was cutting into their bottom line. You could only rent. She used that VCR essentially just to tape everything that was ever on television, to the point that there were shelves bookshelves and bookshelves in our house just filled with blank video tapes that she had taped everything that was on television with, except for one shelf that had the movies that she had purchased and paid money for.

SPEAKER_04 45:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

And on that shelf was uh a copy of Buckaru Bon's eye across the eighth dimension. So you would have thought, as a child, this must be one of the most important documents of our culture. So, like at four or five years old, that was ha what my impression of this movie was. Um, and it was not until many years later that I realized, oh no, this is just not a thing. This is a thing that that happened and disappeared almost instantly, except for the weird cult that is behind it. Um so yeah, like I was young enough when I first watched it that it was really just an action movie to me. And I did not even get that it was a goof so much until like subsequent viewings where I realized, oh, that is just fucking hilarious, right there. Or realizing that all of the signs in like the alien yo-yo dyed factory are written in weird, misspelled English language.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Yeah, yeah, so I was commenting on that, asking, I think I asked Anna One point, what is that sign saying?

SPEAKER_06 47:07

I actually thought that that was a really clever little gimmick in the film. But this okay, so you bring up a lot of things I'm just fascinated by. So if this was actually a film that your aunt purchased, she she was a fan of the film then, yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

So this so we I have a font of knowledge on this, we can get into the whole weird history of the production here. But what I assume happened was 20th Century Fox that did the initial release had no idea how to promote this. Okay, and they gave up on it almost instantly. But the one innovation that their marketing people did have was they went around to, and it was just Star Trek conventions. There weren't even really comic book conventions except for a few in those days, and just said, Hey, you're nerds, we have this nerdy movie coming out, go see this. And that must have been how they got Ann Alice. Um this movie released on something like 200 screens, and they were all pretty much drive-ins in the South. This had like almost no release. Uh, and the rights are really weird on this, so it really didn't even get any TV play until mid to late 90s when it started to show up on Comedy Central and maybe the sci-fi channel. Okay. Uh, but beyond that, it was that VHS tape and whatever bootlegs were, and that was it.

SPEAKER_06 48:38

Well, that's why when you mentioned that you know, she was taping everything that she could off TV, that and that's that leads me back to like why I specifically asked about how old you were when you first saw this. It wasn't meant to be in any way uh a negative angled question.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

It was not an indictment of your affinity for this film.

SPEAKER_06 49:00

I just think I really am a believer that with a lot of specifically EDs films that happen to be outside of mainstream, or probably even some that are mainstream, that it's imprinted on you in a different way when you see it either within that decade or as a child versus the way that Derek and I just saw it, you know, as like several decades removed as full adults.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

So I'm still frankly processing it.

SPEAKER_06 49:32

Yeah, yeah. No, there's a lot, there's a lot. I mean, Owen's the perfect person to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

I mean, that's the right answer. And and I I don't want uh you to overbuild me up because I cannot explain this movie to you. All right, with the exception of and and why I have a love for it now, is this is people just swinging for the fences. Oh, you're not always connecting, maybe not even connecting most of the time, but they are going out of it, and it's not even one person, it is really in front of the camera and behind the camera, everyone just going all out and going 211 at all times and creating something that is not entirely successful, but certainly different from what was going on at the time, and indirectly, I think, probably influential a lot of things we see now.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah, I think you know, when I think of swinging for the front fences every single time, the first name that comes to mind for me is John Lithgow. Oh boy, literally every time he says something, he says it with this kind of evil voice, and it may have just been me, but I thought the accent went from Russian to Italian to I'm not really sure, but it didn't even matter because every time he would finish saying something, he would immediately go into this like evil, sinister face, just like this mean mug around whoever was like watching him talk. And that for me, like is is like a symbol of this film in general, where it is just batshit crazy with moments that I really loved with how how out there it was. But like I said, I'm still trying to figure out what I just saw.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Well, it is it is supposed to be always Italian, and is it? Okay, it's well because it's Italian because Lithgow decided that he was going to mimic the accent of a tailor he'd worked on at the studio named Roberto Timelli, which is why in the credits of this movie it says John Lithgau's accent coach, Roberto Timelli, just as a joke because this was a tailor that worked the studio.

SPEAKER_06 51:56

That's fantastic. I mean, that I agree with what Derek said in terms of like that's a perfect example because of what you said, Owen, full fully on board with that, that you know it wasn't always successful, but I do respect the hell out of everybody fully committing to this wacky, crazy story, science fiction, whatever whatever it is, everybody committed to it. And I also think that it's fascinating. I mean, most of the people probably had some well, they were all like pretty early in their careers because the movies were, you know, pretty early in the decade 84. But the cast is the cast is insane.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

It's insane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:48

I mean, do you know anything about how they got so many gets in terms of the actors that came on board?

SPEAKER_01 52:58

So, I mean, how they got them is is the common thread that I have heard um is is pretty much their enthusiasm was such, particularly Richter and Neil Canton, and to a lesser extent the the writer Earl Mac Rosh, because I don't think he met directly with the cast as much. But it was just uh, I don't know, I want to do this, and then they had dinner, and it's like, yeah, I guess that's going to be it. Um, Weller says that Lithgau says that you know, Lithgau really hadn't done anything this over the top in his career to that point, and he was their first choice, and it was just he had a ball with it, and they never told him to stop. Um and he's still he still talks about it um with incredible affection. There are interviews that he that he's given where he isn't really talking about bakaru bonsai, who was like, if someone's talk coming up to me on the street, it's almost always because of Bakaru Bonsai, because that's that's that's the one that seems to stick with people. Um and yeah, it was it it's really and this gets into another great thing about, and I think that is distinctive, is this is like a sci-fi action movie, not a huge budget, obviously, but certainly a lot of moving parts, and so you think in that it would be generally more restrictive in how they you know approach the actual filming of it, and there is an incredible amount of improvisation in this thing that is just wild, to the point that a lot of the stuff between Lithgau and and Christopher Lloyd is them just going and them keeping the camera going. That's amazing. Right up to that that bit at the end where Lloyd flips him off. If you watch that again.

SPEAKER_05 54:59

I love it! I love that moment.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Right. If you watch that again, you could see Lithgau's about to lose it. I mean, he he's they really they couldn't get another take of him without him just like almost breaking up. Um and it is a it is a great moment, and just like at the older I've gotten watching it, I think Christopher Lloyd speaks to all of us that have horrible managers in this world. Yeah, just like the frustration that he brings to it, which is again a lot of what he brought to the part. And I mean, again, talk about the casting, so a lot of the main parts, it was they they met and they they got along and they said, Well, I want to see where this is going. Um, like Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedea, and the late uh Vincent Scavelli. Uh, this is sort of the three yo-yo dying guys. I'm still not entirely convinced someone didn't just hijack the van pool at Paramount. Um, yeah, we're going a taxi. It's uh we're doing location this week. That's amazing. Because it's it's just like, how did that happen? And you know, Dan Hedea, who I think it's still with like semi-regular on cheers at this point, and just like doing almost nothing, but just hilarious that he's there. Um and yeah, from top to bottom, just like great odd casting choices. Yakov Smirnov is in this film. He is he's he's like the Henry Kissinger sort of secretary of defense meeting with the president.

SPEAKER_02 56:30

That makes uh I mean the fact that that you said the sentence, Yakov Smirnov is the Henry Kissinger of this movie, just so perfectly encapsulates this movie. And also, I just I wanted to point out real quick, Christopher Lloyd's character flipping off Lithgow, I think was in part a byproduct of him getting tired of being called Mr. Big Booty. Because his name was, in fact, John John Big Boot.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Right, and I that's one of the things where done well, it's so immature, but I think works so well. Um, you know, Roger Ebert used to have this thing where he said, you know, silly lame names are a sign of uh desperation on the part of a screenwriter. But just like the fact that they wrote that and realized that Big Booty would sound like Big Booty, and that would be this man suffering. Um and just like hitting it and hitting it and hitting it to the point where you know it ends with him getting shot for no reason just because he can't stand it anymore in the middle of this you know alien space monster movie.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

The big booty joke, to be fair, in the context of Buckaroo Bonsai, is one of the more subtle jokes.

SPEAKER_06 57:51

It is one of the more sophisticated jokes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

I mean, it's not Jeff Goldblum in a cowboy costume.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Oh I love that moment when he first when he first um so I guess to give some context for people that haven't maybe watched the movie, it opens with them performing brain surgery, I think, right? So Buckaroo and New Jersey, who is Jeff Goldblum characters, his character's name, and then they meet up again, and I just I love the interaction so much because he's like, Hey, you you know, yeah, the patient's fine. Also, you drove through a mountain. Good job. You didn't even tell me. You didn't tell me you're doing this.

SPEAKER_06 58:30

Well, okay. I you very briefly, Owen, brought up um a couple points ago, the writer of this movie. And so I think that that's a good place to like I definitely don't want to overlook that because that like pretty much informs everything else that we're talking about. So the gentleman, Earl Mack, is it Roush? Yes, Roush, okay. So he's the writer of this, but he, and correct me if I'm wrong, he's not he's he really wasn't so much a screenwriter as he was a novelist. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Yeah, so he was a novelist, and uh the novel that he had done that was getting a little bit of play was passed along to W.D. Richter, who liked it, and they uh got in contact, um, and it was sort of mentioned um Roush was interested in getting the screenwriting. Well, let's see what you can you know come up with. And they were pitching ideas around, and Roush said, Um, I have this character in my head called Buckaroo Bandy, and you know, pretty much again, uh sort of a renaissance man, this whole big world spanning figure. And uh Richter and his partner uh Neil Canton said, Well, that's that's interesting. Uh let's see where you go with that. And what this was in the seventies, and what preceded was about a hundred Different stops and starts from Roush. Wow. Where if they would they say that what he would do is he would write 25 pages and they would go, Okay, that's good. Um let's see what where you come with this. And he would come back and he would have rewritten the first 25 pages over again. And so when I say it's like this movie had like a hundred titles, it was you know, Buckaroo Banzai, Find the Jet Car, said the President, uh Lizard People from Saturn, all this sort of stuff. And one of the reasons why this movie is so impossible to understand if you're seeing it for the first time as an adult, is because he had generated all that material, which they ended up not using a lot of, he still approached the script, and they approached it when making it of just throwing in pieces of the lore and the world that had been built around it, wiggledy piggledy, um, without sort of explanating explaining all of it. So that's why there's so much around this and so much of a bit of a cult around this, because there's all of that, you know, weird ephemera that people can fixate on and focus on that they were just tossing in because they thought it was you know a great way to sort of fill out the details.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:22

I don't want to put you on the spot because you certainly aren't expected to be an expert on the eighth dimension and all this kind of uh everything connected to this movie, but is this in line with what Rausch would normally write? Like, was he like a sci-fi writer? Like, is this kind of in line with the type of work that he did that you know of?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

So I uh the the novel he he wrote, and then the title is escaping me right now, but it was there, it was a comedy novel that was was more about college, I I believe. And so this was an idea that he had that was sort of pulpy. I will say uh he hasn't produced a lot of work since. Um, and I do believe just this year he has released a novel that I have not read um about Buckaroo Bonsai. Oh uh, and I believe the World Crime League finally after uh 35 years. Uh but yeah, I he I think he's been doing kind of his own thing and sort of in the bonsai universe. One of the things that if you want to get into this that can be a little, and I will say this as a fan, a little exhausting, is they do sort of go along with this game that Buckaroo Bonsai is a real person and they're just doing we're doing a docudrama or a documentary. Um, so it's hard to sort of nail Roush in particular down on uh what his story is. So and I believe that from time to time he he claims to be uh one of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and oh my god, have we gotten this far into this without talking about the rock band?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:08

I mean, yeah, we're okay, don't worry. We're gonna because I I very, very much want to bring up the fact that Buckaroo is, like you said, a renaissance man.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

I didn't, I I I had no idea, I'm sorry, about how like the writing process and how that kind of contributed to, I guess, some difficulty in really grasping the the storyline through a first watching. But really what I heard was that Peacock, Netflix, Paramount Plus, if you're looking for something to expand into a full series, here you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

Oh, uh, okay, you're about to get a call from some lawyers because that has been tried. And what I what I was mentioning, like the rights to this are really uh weird because I think they they they pitched it to MGM uh to an executive who we will come back to, named David Biegelman, uh, who was then fired by MGM, took it to uh an independent production studio that he had, they produced it, and then as I mentioned, Fox uh distributed it. Um so the chain of rights on that it was already pretty messy. And Richter has since claimed that because they produced all of those different versions of it, or some like treatment of all those different versions of it, and Beagleman only said yes to what became across the Eighth Dimension, that nobody except them really has the rights to Buck Rubanzai itself, to the point that I think Amazon about five years ago announced that they were going to do a series with Kevin Smith. Oh my god. And they immediately sent a cease and desist. Oh, um Smith backed out, and they have been suing each other ever since with um MGM saying you don't really have these rights, them saying we do, and I think they haven't really resolved it since. I think that's kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

There's a deal to be made there, and if people enjoy making money, they could maybe find a way to make that deal happen.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:11

Yeah, absolutely. I I mean I I agree with you, but also it being something so culty, I mean, like we have something like no, okay, admittedly I didn't watch it, but like another kind of culty film that I would dare say has a bigger following is let's say The Dark Crystal, uh-huh, and they tried to do Age of Resistance and then they canceled that after a season.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

But that was fairly well received.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:35

That was But that's my point is that is that you know, to say there's money to be made, yeah, there's always kind of the flip side of that in terms of like, well, how big is the audience, and even if it is really well made, you still need to have the numbers. So I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Yeah, Netflix, Netflix is um an interesting yeah, Netflix maybe isn't the best example of because they they did that with Dark Crystal, and people for the most part enjoyed it, and then they stopped it. And I don't know what to to what extent that was you know a product of the pandemic, but then they also took kind of a beloved older anime cowboy Bebop, and after one season, right, everyone hated it. So that they did like cancel that because people just weren't watching it.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:20

Yeah, I mean, one one thing that I also didn't want to get away from is because I find it I find what you were explaining to us, Owen, in terms of how the story writing process happened, how Roush got in touch with Richter. I mean, what also is really interesting is so you know, you you mentioned that and well, I prompted you to, but like between the two of us, not to because I'm not trying to put you on the spot, that you know, he was more of a novelist. He wasn't really so much a screenwriter, but that he expressed an interest in doing so. And so Richter was like, okay, well, what can you do? But then what I find interesting about that is that at least according to what I am seeing on IMDb, Richter himself wasn't he he is the director of this movie, but he really wasn't a director. He himself was more of a writer. Is that correct to say that? Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

And that's why, you know, after this sort of didn't go the way uh they wanted it to, um, he uh took the writing job, uh, you know, finishing the script that became Big Trouble in Little China to sort of get that back to the swing of things. So, yeah, he was a first-time director, and um it was really a case of the the executive Beagleman saying you want to direct this and him saying yes, and him taking that opportunity. And this is the other thing about the production of this movie is this is like three-quarters of a Mel Brooks the producer's scam because Beagleman is and I it's like a cliche to say studio executive shady character scumbag. This guy is the scumbag to end all scumbags. And I I think just reading between the lines, he picked someone who hadn't directed before, knowing that he could bully him and push him around. Um, to the point where at a certain point in in shooting, after they'd already started, uh Beagleman sat him down and said, if you end up one day over the schedule on this, you're gonna forfeit your salary and you're gonna sign a binding agreement to this, and if you don't, I'm just gonna shut down the movie entirely. Um and again, I'm not slandering him. This is this is actual documented fact. Beagleman had been known for embezzlement for almost his entire Hollywood career. Famously, he was the head of Columbia, and the scam that he ran is so childish, it's like in any other town, he wouldn't have gotten away with it. Was he having Columbia write$10,000 checks to actors, uh forging their signatures on the back and then taking them to the bank and positing the money. Um and the Cliff Robertson, uh who I think most famous to people of our generation as uh Toby McGuire's Uncle Ben, yeah, and Spider-Man, uh, one day got a 1099 for$10,000 that he had to pay taxes on and realized he hadn't been paid. And then it opened up that he had uh embezzled thousands upon thousands of dollars from Columbia and kept his job. Kept his job for a few more years before they got rid of him, and it was Robertson that was blackballed to the point where he didn't really start to come back until like the 90s because he had told on the executive, and it was you know later on revealed um in I think a book, uh The End of the Rainbow by Judy Garland that that Beagleman had been her manager for a while, and one of her husbands uh seemed to have pretty good evidence that he was stealing from her. Um, in the production of this movie, they seemed to be pretty confident that the budget was supposed to be$17 million. I mean, look at this. I don't think you see$17 million in 1984 money.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Um, that he walked off with some money there. So, yeah, that it would that was just the thing. And so there's like that aspect of it, and at the same time, he seemed to very much be hoping that this was going to be another Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah. And was like trying to pitch it that way, which it was kind of never going to be, and was kind of part of why it didn't sort of connect um as much as it could have at the time. So, yeah, just a lot, you know, there are some very fun characters doing very good work and some very, very messed up people involved in this.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:03

I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned Raiders specifically because there is a connection there.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:08

Go for it, Derek.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:09

We do have the uh evil Nazi evil Nazi interrogator from Raiders of the Lost Ark is uh President Widmark in uh Buck Ru Bonsai.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

I'm so proud of you for noticing that, especially since that is not his voice. They they dubbed it. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:26

Wait, why?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

That I did not know. So this is a so I don't know how familiar you are with Citizen Kane, but I noticed on one of my later rewatches of this that the makeup that they have Ronald Lacey the actor in, which is kind of why it's hard to notice him compared to Raiders, is very similar to like old Citizen Kane. And it turns out one of his one of you know, everyone came with their own notion of this. His notion of this was he was going to do an Orson Wells, not impression, but very much inspired by Orson Wells. And so they did that. Um Richter liked it, cut print, and then Beagleman saw the dailies and said, No, I don't like that. You're gonna get somebody else to dub him in. Wow. Um so yeah, that's kind of why there's like that weird disconnect. Not that the the voice that dubs him in ruins it, and it's kind of hard to notice, but you do.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:24

No, I there was something that just wasn't totally clicking, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Um because you're immediately moving to the next thing that that you're because there's just so much, so much, so much happening in every single scene. I mean, that's okay, so this is just kind of a weird uh aside, but because you mentioned Orson Wells, the whole little storyline of how War of the Worlds was real.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:53

Yeah, I did like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

And I like that a lot, but I was curious, you know, probably my favorite part of just as you know, a little proto-writer kid. What one of the things I connected with on that was it was such a bizarre detail to build off of. Um, and I think kind of became a little bit of a trope uh for a while in some sci-fi entertainment after that. And also that, you know, this alien invasion had happened, Orson Wells was involved, um, and then the next day they all applied for Social Security cards, also sort of tickled me as a kid whose parents worked for the government.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:33

Um I love that little bit. I thought that that was such a clever addition, but was there anything I mean, Orson Wells was still alive at that point, and I mean I don't know to what degree it maybe I'm just you know too too naive about how this all works, but is there any kind of legal issue with like even bringing that into the storyline? Because that's another another work, another creative work.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Well, allow me to put on my Owen Croak uh fake lawyer hat uh for all of your legal advice podcast listener. Um no.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:14

Okay. But yeah, I mean, no, it I mean, certainly again, this is like getting off topic, but Wells was always pretty playful with that. I mean, I mean, to the point if you've read anything about that uh event, that broadcast, he made that broadcast knowing it was going to screw with people. Right. Um he he did it on purpose, so that was like part of the gag. Um so having and it's just like it's it's peppered in and gold goldblum delivers it perfectly um in in his in his particular way that I think he built upon for almost the rest of his career, like up until now what he's doing at Disney Plus show.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:58

Yes. No, I I that actually I'm so glad that you brought that up because that uh is something that I noticed in his performance because as we were watching it, I was like, oh, I'm beginning to see a little bit of Dr. Malcolm um coming through in this performance. And then also with um uh Christopher Lloyd, because the very next year yeah, the very next year was Back to the Future. I don't know, you know, maybe maybe I have nothing to ground that on because just because a film was released at a certain time doesn't mean that it actually was filmed after another film.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

So I don't know how Can I can I blow your mind for a second? Yes, please do. Yes. Um so this was definitely before uh Back to the Future was shot. This was shot in '83, released in '84, and Back to the Future was shot pretty quick between '84 and '85. But Lloyd was not the first choice for Doc Brown. The first choice for Doc Brown who turned it down, and I would suspect probably because of this movie, was John Lithgow, who I think didn't want to do the mad scientist twice.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

I would say as far as his you know potential portrayal of Doc Brown, I would tell him you can dial it back a little. You don't you don't have to go buckaroo bonsai on this.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:29

I mean that's certainly not. I do think that um I do think that look, I I absolutely think Christopher Lloyd is pitch perfect as Doc Brown and Back to the Future. There's not a smidge of, oh, I wish so and so, you know, could have done it. I do think that John Lithgow would have done a commendable job.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

Yeah, I could see it.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:51

Yeah, I could don't I could definitely see it. Um but that is so interesting. But yeah, in and likewise in this performance, I could see j just a little bit of dark brown beginning to show. And maybe that maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm looking for that kind of stuff. It's a little bit easier with Goldblum because he just has such a I mean, everything he does is just Goldblum-esque. Like and as you can tell from his earliest performances, he has a certain cadence in his voice. He has just a certain a certain way of delivery that uh it I feel like all his roles are kind of connected, and that's not a slight. Um, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have range, but I just thought it was really interesting to see them so early in their careers and uh kind of seeing the hints of what was to come. I I loved that about this movie, which actually and don't worry, I still haven't I haven't forgotten about the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:50

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:50

But before we get to the band, I'm very curious, um, Owen, what your thoughts are on the character of Penny and you know, as it was played by Ellen Barkin.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:06

So this is another thing which I think gets back to all of the different versions and things that they were throwing in to this script. Yeah. I I I think Ellen Barkin is doing great work with what she has here, but there's like almost nothing there, and there's so much nothing there that it it every time I I come back to this, it's really weird and awkward the storyline here, because they had you know this tragic story about Bakaru Bonsai's wife that was killed in their heads that they were trying to refer back to, which became in this movie, he's having a romance with the twin sister of his dead wife, which I'm sorry, no matter how comic booky you get, it's not gonna be any less skeevy. Um yeah, that's weird.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:58

Yeah, it's it. I mean, I think when it comes okay, I don't want to uh we're gonna go down a rabbit hole. I mean, I think where it gets kind of creepy and weird is that relationships should start out on equal footing, which is to say that you both come into it, you know, not knowing each other, getting to know each other, and there's inherently like this weird imbalance between them.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:26

Only because only because she was mistakenly arrested for the attempted assassination of Buckaroo when in fact she intended to kill herself.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:35

Yeah, well, there's that going on is that the woman very much, and and this is this is not me making fun of this. This is a woman who really needs therapy, who is obviously in need of some kind of mental health support.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

There's some stuff going on.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:50

There's some stuff going on. I mean, I know it's kind of explained away by her saying like she's always, you know, like she has this, you know, they have they say it's like that twin sense, you know, like she doesn't know she has a twin, but yet at the same time she's like there's something like missing in her life.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:06

Did they use that word twin sense?

SPEAKER_06 1:20:08

No, but you know what I'm saying, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:10

Not for lack of trying, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:11

Yeah, but you you know, you've heard that before. And so already it's just a weird dynamic because he clocks like what who she is, who she must be, and doesn't say anything to her. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

Yeah, he doesn't say anything for a while.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:30

If if he would have immediately said, Oh my god, like my you must you must be the twin of my wife because you look exactly like her. And she keeps looking at this picture that looks like her and saying, like, I don't understand, tell me what's going on. Like, she's begging him to tell her what the deal is. Like I just it it's an interesting part of the movie. I mean, the one thing that I really appreciate about her is that you know, she has like she has some spunk, she has a little bit of, you know, Marion Ravenwood in her, where um, you know, she is like yelling to Buck Roo like, don't tell him anything or don't give him anything, like forget about me. Like she's she's tough. She's a she's a tough chick. So I really appreciate that they imbued her with that um that attribute, but she still ultimately is kind of just a damsel in distress and has to get rescued.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:31

And everyone had to get rescued by Buckru.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:33

I mean Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:36

I mean, it has to get rescued by him from the start. Um like from the beginning at the rock show. Yes. That that uh you know, top of line here is Buck Rubata is supposed to be the most famous person in the world, um, but also famous, you know, scientist adventurer, also does rock and roll shows with his band of, you know, white guys who are also scientists and engineers, and randomly shows up unannounced at hole-in-the-wall clubs in New Jersey. Uh, and but he stops the show because some woman in the crowd is not enjoying his performance of bad 80s rock enough. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:26

I actually thought that that was hilarious, that he somehow clocks the one person in the room not having a good time.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:32

Well, it is early, like you mentioned. It's pretty early in the film, I think, and we have just gotten through the driving through the mountain bit, I think, and I'm still trying to figure out what in the world happened there. And then then we're immediately in the show. And the way that he just stopped it, I'm like, what in the world is happening in this movie?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:54

What in the world is happening? And this is uh props to to Weller, because I think he sometimes uh gets knocked for playing this too seriously when the movie was, even though the tone is kind of all over the place, not meant to be straight and serious. But I think it works even as it sometimes doesn't work, because of the sincerity in that moment where he's like, don't be mean. Yeah, yes, um, yeah, it's like so out there, and you're just like, What is this? But he commits to it 100%, and it just kind of I can't say it works. I love the movie, I can't say it works, but again, there is art that I believe is perfect or close to perfect, and you can enjoy in that way, and then there is stuff that is so fascinating in the way it's just south of the mark that I I think this has a lot of.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:58

I mean, it's so clear. I really, I really love the way that you approach this film, Owen.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

This is just like a single dimension away from being amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:08

Exactly. Yeah, that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:09

What if it was the seventh dimension?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:11

I I have honestly no problem with how straight Peter Weller plays this because everything else is so off the wall that at least for me, I can only speak for myself as a viewer. I need I need him to be kind of this calm center of the store.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:33

He's consistent. Like his character is I mean, there are a lot of things that kind of go all over the place throughout the movie, which is part of like the the the charm of the movie. Yeah, but uh his character is pretty well grounded. Like he he is this character, Bakaru Bonsai, and he's consistent throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:51

And he takes everything that happens, all of this totally off the wall stuff so sincerely that I think that is uh a positive in the film because if he's taking it at face value, then you know it's just utterly ridiculous. But you're like, okay, well, then I can I can still go along for this ride because he's taking it seriously.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

And the studio apparently wanted Michael Keaton for this, and like I could see that, but I can also see it not working, and I and I think Keaton was willing to do it, but again, because they thought this would be Raiders, they were trying to lock him into a three-picture deal, which again the hubris of that seems crazy. Um he wouldn't do it, and so they dropped him and it went to Weller.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:45

I mean, that's interesting, and I I don't normally like to do the whole like what if so-and-so was cast because it's like, well, that's not the way it worked out. So I don't know. I love doing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:56

We do that almost every time. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:58

Who you and me?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:59

I do.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:00

Maybe you do. Yeah, but here's what I think would is interesting about the the Keaton casting is that it's like, okay, well, then what Keaton would you possibly be getting? Because like if you don't juice, right, exactly. Like if you got the Beetlejuice Keaton, I don't think that works.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

Too much.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:15

Then everything's unhinged.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:17

It's like, how do you do Beetlejuice Keaton against what John Lithgow was? Yeah, right. Something's gotta give, even if they're not on the screen together that much, right? It's just too much.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:28

Excellent, excellent point. Yes, totally agree with you. So if we were say getting the Batman Keaton, Bruce Wayne, I think that could work. Yeah. So because it's actually very similar to the way that Weller plays the character. Um, he has just this kind of understated energy about him. And again, I think it works. I act I hadn't I had no problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

There were things that there were things that worked, but there are things that maybe didn't work, but uh, Weller was actually like pretty solid throughout the whole movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:57

Absolutely. And I mean, given because here's the thing about like let's dive into this whole like renaissance man business, because it um I mean it adds minutes to the movie because you're seeing him do all these different incredible things that only I guess he can do, where he's doing surgery and then he's going through a mountain and then he's on stage as a rock star, and you know, so but but does he have to be that part?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

Like yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:32

Well, okay, okay, yeah. I mean, Owen, Owen, you tell me, like, how does that work or not work for you? Like, did he have to be this guy who I guess is just good at literally everything, or could he have just been somebody who either was maybe you know your average Joe and he gets put into this uh this wacky situation, or he is like a legitimate scientist who again is put in this like what how did it work for you the way that they depicted his character?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:03

It's definitely on paper harder to make it work. Uh you know, I will say, and it hits me more every time I think about it. There is nothing about Buckaro Bonsai except for his uh uncomfortable ethnicity, supposedly. Yeah, yeah. Well, probably there's nothing about him as a character that is more ridiculous than Tony Stark, really, when you think about it, or any of this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:32

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:33

Yeah, that's a really good comparison.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:37

Yeah, just darked us. Yeah, and I do have a soft spot for the the character that is so talented, it's almost ridiculous. Like and again, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna be nerdy here and also reveal how old I am. But do you guys remember the show Quantum Leap?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:56

Oh, yeah, that show is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:00

That was a show where the central conceit was that Scott Bacula as as Sam Bedickett knew pretty much everything. It was he was a concert pianist, he was a surgeon, he was a quantum physicist, and it just so yeah, sure, why not? Um it to the point where it was like every week he would come under something, and the solution would always be, oh, you don't remember, but you're also a fabulous chef. Or uh and if he didn't know something, it was uh Dean Stockwell usually you know had had uh married somebody who knew like how to perform how to be a rabbi at at a bot mitzvah or something like that, and would tell him the Hebrew words. So that is just like a trope that existed that I think if you could make it work and just sell it every time, why not? It's no more or less believable. When you think about it, then an archaeologist named Indiana Jones also, you know, is has fantastic bull whip skills or something like that. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:12

So it's just you gotta kinda sell it. And I think as writers, we're sort of told to well, pull it back, make it believable, now you have to justify it. And you know, you can you could make people go with it if you buy them in with other things, I always think.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

For some reason, and I think this is the you know, I guess, you know, Bacchula's character was a concert pianist, but for some reason it's the rock musician, it's it's him being part is the Hong Kong Cavaliers. That's that's the one thing in my mind where I'm like, now you're getting crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:50

He was just this like amazing classical pianist or violinist or something like that. I could buy into that.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:56

But that's also like the most 80s part about it in my mind, is like this is how they're going, they're they're not really going over the top by saying he's he's not only like a test pilot in adventure and brain surgeon, he's also this amazing 80s rock band lead.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:14

Yeah, no, I think Owen, you you made a really great point. I mean, uh and I can't I can't really say this because you just brought up the comparison of Tony Stark, but I do think that that is more of an 80s thing that has overall kind of fallen out of favor only because, you know, when you were mentioning as a writer, you're told, oh, scale it back, scale it back. I think it's because, yeah, the thing that I'm hitting on is this idea is like, well, you need to have your character have a weakness, have a flaw, have a something. And if you have a character that is just, no, he's just good at everything, you know? And and I'm trying to think off of the single viewing, like what is what is Buckaroo's flaw? What's his weakness? Like, what is the thing that it doesn't work with him?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:07

So I'll I'll I'll just cut nobody has an arc in this movie. It's just like I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know who has an arc in this movie? John Big Bootet has an arc. John Big Boutet is our world entry character. Nobody else has an arc in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:27

It's great. It's true. That's great. It's true. Yeah, yeah. That's a good uh perfect response. Perfect response.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:34

Um it's definitely there's no there's no weakness. Um, I do think it's it's modeled as Indiana Jones was modeled, but it was very much trying to be sort of a serial in the Flash Gordon mold and things like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:50

That I get.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

They just didn't have that. It was this adventure to that adventure. And I even at this time, it was sort of hard to find character arcs the way we're told to think of them now, for good or for ill. Um, you know, I think there's the thing that that comes up a lot that I think about is the difference between Star Trek as it was like in this era with those movies and the JJ Abrams movies, where it, you know, people just wouldn't buy Captain Kirk, they felt in modern audiences, unless you gave him this tragic backstory about you know losing his dad before he even knew him. I don't know that I buy into that 100%, but that's just where the culture has gone at this point in time. Uh so that I think that's and it but also it's just they weren't thinking about it. And I think you could find more successful uh films from the air with that are similar. I think someone else, smarter people have pointed out, like Peter Venckman and Ghostbusters. What is his character arc? Why is he there? What is his reason for being there? It's never explained. Uh some stuff that weapons, and then it's over.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:11

Why is he not also a professional athlete?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:13

Actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:15

I'm sure if they'd done the World Crime League, it would have come up.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:18

And what so okay, so what would his sport of choice what would have been? Let's let's say that we have to limit him to one. What would he be? Baseball player, football? I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:28

Uh I think pretty easily it'd be baseball.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:31

Oh, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:32

I mean it's not it's not gonna be hockey. Um, it's he doesn't have the bulk for football.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:39

Kicker.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:40

Uh he wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

Buckroom Bonzi's not gonna be a big thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:42

He's not gonna be a kicker. Um, and he doesn't have the height for basketball.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:46

All right, okay. So maybe second baseman shortstop, something like that. Sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:50

Okay, bias, shortstop.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:51

Yeah, there you go. There you go.

unknown 1:34:54

Anyway.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:55

Okay, so and first of all, I just want to say because I didn't bring it up at I bringing it up a little too late, but I think that it's also amazing that again, going on this you know, trek of all these amazing actors that they managed to score for this movie, even though her scene was caught uh Jamie Lee Curtis on top of everybody else. Come on, it's just insanity to me. I mean, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

Jamie Lee Curtis, who is not nobody at this point. Jamie Lee Curtis, who already had a comeback with trading places.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:27

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

Um, and again, that was just one where she knew uh, I think Richter and Canton and said, You guys are doing something, sure, I'll show up for it. Uh so yeah, again, they had a great eye for who they wanted, and they were fun to work with, and they brought out the best in a lot of people working on this. Again, behind the camera, too.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:50

Well, that's just it. So, you know, I mentioned that Richter primarily, you know, has had his career in writing. So what do you think was the impact on his career with this movie? Is this the reason why he didn't really direct again? Or I mean, did he just say, Okay, I'm glad I had my shot trying this out, but I'm I'm better suited as a writer? Like what where do you think that like yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:23

I think absolutely uh etiquette. He could he could, you know, I'm sure he's he's talked more about this and I'm and I might have missed it, but this this thing missed hard uh compared to again on paper, they were they spent 17 million, it barely opened. Uh the fact that it it's it's we're supposed to have made uh six or six and a half million off of the limited release it had, it seems pretty impressive. But this was supposed to open in June 84, and they pushed it back to August when they I think when they realized it was just not gonna happen and was almost completely forgotten and was kind of a debacle. Uh so they just didn't seem like he was gonna get a shot again. And he was you know doing some good work. He you know worked with Carpenter, uh, as we mentioned, on Big Trouble Little China, and they they started this because they were doing some of their own production work. This was the first thing that they got and they they shopped around. So he continued to do that, and he's continued to try and get something Buckaroo bonsai going since then. There's the Amazon deal, which he was not part of that he spiked. Uh but you know, pretty much since the 90s, early 2000s, he's been trying to get something happening with this property, which may have been why he was a little uh annoyed by them trying to leave him out. But yeah, he's again this the cult behind this is such that they've been able to turn this into a pretty good industry in and of itself. There's the book that I mentioned, I think there's a lot of comic properties and things like that and merchandising that they've been able to put out and have fun with. Again, that they they were, you know, before COVID times they were going around and doing little shows and things like that. So, but I can also see one, this leaving a bad taste in a person's mouth for how he was treated for everything that we talked about. But also, again, the alchemy of what they were able to do here, uh, the things that are fun, even if a person didn't enjoy the movie overall, I think don't translate or doesn't translate into the way properties like this are made now. That the the kind of yeah, sure, do whatever you want, and I'll slap it on the screen, you cut it doesn't work if you're doing big studio films. And to the point of not only the actors just letting them riff and shooting and shooting it, but also we talked about the signs, uh, but even like the gag of the president reading the declaration of war, the short form was not in the script. That was a gag the prop guy put in that they ended up shooting and reading just because the first time Lacey saw it when he opened up the envelope, he started laughing because he had written that on that. The signs were like that too. Yeah, I mean Richter, it is to his credit, his talent was realizing that the people he were working with were creative and letting them run, but I think that just doesn't track in Hollywood the way maybe it should.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:59

Yeah. No, the short form uh definitely clocked that, enjoyed it. Yes, it was fun.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:04

Very much enjoyed that little that moment. Yeah, I thought that was hilarious as well. And I mean, I think what you said makes just all the sense in the world. It's too bad that um, you know, he would like you were saying, in terms of like perhaps getting bullied by uh you said, is it Beagleman? Am I saying in the name of the thing? Yes, Beagleman. Yeah, Beagleman. Um, and also just um the the final outcome of this film. I mean, I I definitely think that it shouldn't necessarily be held against somebody to be like a first-time director or to be green or whatever, whatever the case may be. But unfortunately, when something uh fails in the manner that this film did, at least by m you know, numbers, money, um, it's gonna be really challenging to try to find a second second project uh after that. So I mean, like you said, it's become its own cottage industry, uh, just in terms of being a cult film. And, you know, one thing that you said earlier that uh definitely I wanted to bring up, I mean, we're we keep talking about all these big names in terms of the actors who were part of it, but it really is just the wildest thing when you do look at some of the people behind the camera in terms of like cinematography and editing. I mean, we have like multiple Oscar winners and nominee. I mean, it's so crazy. Um, you know, the the DP on this, Fred, uh, I want to say it's Conan Camp. Is that right, Owen? You think?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

Yeah, the second one, uh, after Jordan uh Cronowith, who worked on Blade Runner and was fired again by the infamous now David Beagleman because he thought what he was shooting was too dark, like literally. Um but I think that's also another example of Richter sort of just letting people roll, was he was not forcing his own visual sense onto his cinematographers, he was letting them do what they thought best. So you can sort of see the contrast between the little footage that that Jordan Shadow Corno saw uh shot and what Fred uh Cunning Camp did. But there is like the shots where the alien spaceship has crashed and the hunters, there you can see the contrast between what what uh the first cinematographer did and the second cinematographer did, and the the brightness and then the brightness of there's a lot of very oversaturated uh mid-80s type of scenes in here that I think are more on trend.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:53

I hate to admit it, but there might have been a little bit of some justification for Beagleman's choice because actually, while we were watching it, there were a couple times where it was like, I can't see what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:06

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:07

Right. And again, that's you know, if you're doing Blade Runner and you've got a production design that's feeding into that, it's one thing. But if you don't, you don't.

unknown 1:43:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:18

If you don't, you don't. So yeah, I mean, between that and then of the two editors, Richard Marks, um Richard Marks? I you okay, you did that the last if you're gonna do it, do it right. I love the joke.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:39

I love it too.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:40

You brought it up and we didn't say anything. I'll bring it up every time.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:46

But uh, yeah, multiple Oscar noms on films like I mean, he's part of the editing team at this point in his career, but uh for Apocalypse Now, but then he gets his own nom for you know terms of endearment, broadcast news. Like, I mean, it's just wild when you think of the people associated with this film. I mean, it's in a in a way, it it does kind of it well, it makes me scratch my head because it's kind of like, well, how did this film go wrong? But I I do believe it all comes back to story um in some regard, because you do have these actors who, yes, they're for the most part very early in their careers, but already, you know, the talent's there. Um and so it's it's a shame. Again, it has this cult following. Uh Owen, it's obvious that you know, you you have a great love for this film and you're certainly not alone in that. But um, you know, I'm just curious if between Roush and Richter, if the story could have been just maybe a little bit more streamlined. I don't know. I don't know what the fix would have been to have made this a successful film.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:59

It's certainly not the first movie that both features talent in front of the camera and behind the camera. They're both really good at what they do, but for a variety of reasons, it just doesn't work out. And of course, I'm referring to cats from a couple years ago. Sometimes it just doesn't pan out.

unknown 1:45:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:23

Well, on that, I mean, I think you that's a perfect way.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:28

I I do what I do want to say on that subject, I would be lying if I said part of the appeal of this for me as a writer, and I think um for other creative people, is there is that sense, I mean, this again, I think this movie works for what it is. It is far from a train wreck, but there is that impulse, I think, to look at something and see this is just a little bit off, and God, I wonder if I changed this, could I have made it work if I had been given you know, there's that movie A Bridge Too Far about that that uh debacle uh during World War II where they get like all the stars in a room at the end of it, and they realize that the the Germans are are gonna win the battle and they've just gotta get everybody out of there, and they make the decision and they're shaking their heads, and it's like, oh, it was the it was the 12-mile march, no, it was it was it was the with the airdrop, no, it was just how long it was going to take to get reinforcements, and then the title line is like no, I think it was just a bridge too far. Um and I just feel like that I I do get that impulse a lot of times when looking at stuff is like, was it this? Was it this? Could I have done this? And maybe that's just you know my screwed-up head that I'm always thinking about what went wrong and what I could have fixed. Uh, but I think, again, I don't know that there is anything you can do that's gonna make this connect. Because even the people that were working on it and loved it, like again, Lithgau, I pull any interview you want where he's talking about this. He just loved this movie, he loved working on it, and he said I would tell my friends about it and they would say what it's about, and he would say, I don't know, but you've got to see it. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:19

That's so sweet. I feel like I could see him say like that. I just think that that's great when actors stand behind the movies that you know didn't fare so well. I think that that I don't I don't know. I just think that that's cool when you're still proud of the work that you did and you're proud of what it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:38

Let's ask Ben Affleck about Geely. See if he gives us a similar response.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:45

Yeah, I love that. Um I mean, it's it's it is a wild ride. It is an experience, and I agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:59

Uh I I well look, I want to thank you for for requesting this to be the movie that we covered because I I had heard, like I said, I've heard the title before. I had no idea what I was getting into. It was an experience unlike any other, and I didn't love all of it, but there were parts where I'm like, that was actually like amazing that that this was made. John Lithgow like made me kind of like crack up every time I saw him, even when maybe he wasn't always supposed to. But I I did have like a fun time watching it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:33

Oh no, he was supposed to make you crack up every time you saw him. Let's be clear about that. There was no go a little subtler on this one, John. None of that.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:43

I mean, what uh whatever you think of the story, personally, the thing that I came away loving the most about this movie was seeing all of these really early performances.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:55

At all. Sure. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:56

No, totally. But I mean, I love, I just I'm captivated by seeing all of these people that have gone on to have these hugely successful careers and seeing them in something so early um in their professional lives. I just I love I love getting to see those early performances. But Owen, you are the best. You are amazing. I love that you came on probably with full knowledge that we're gonna be. Like, what is this?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:31

I'm glad to be here for my last appearance on the podcast. Uh and goodbye, listeners.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:41

On that note, um, again, I mean, seriously. And all first of all, any excuse that we have to just get to hang with you, we will take because we love you and we love chatting with you about anything, but especially movies. And you made this just really a joy to be able to hash this out, this crazy, crazy movie. So thank you for that. And I would love to just know what you've been up to and what you might want to share with our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:13

So again, I'm not this is not something I'm promoting that that I think people are gonna be able to uh see. Okay. I'm gonna promote this, you know, again, swinging for the fences, calling my shot. I said, I have started work out of script with an idea that I have had, and I'm gonna say this is the one that if I'm gonna break through, it's gonna be with this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:41

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:41

So I'm calling I'm calling it right now on the podcast. You can use this to humiliate me from the end of time when it doesn't work out. We should not do that. This is the one I'm documenting.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:52

Yeah, no, but this is gonna be is like maybe in a couple years from now, people are gonna circle back to this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:00

First of all, they're just like, wow, you had this guy on twice.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:02

Yeah, they're not gonna circle back because of Derek or myself, they're gonna circle back because of you and because of this cult, cult movie that everybody loves. And they're like, oh my god, he was already talking about this project back then. So I'm super excited. Um, off the record, I'm certainly gonna be picking your brain about what what this uh story is all about. And again, just thank you so much for being on the show. We always, always love having you on it. Own Krog people. I I'm so thankful to him because we made a point of saying like we need to talk to him before we even record our own section because he's we had a feeling he'd be able to kind of give some clarity as much as one can about the movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:56

Clarity on Buckaroo bonsai is kind of a relative thing, but and also some like how do I even put it?

SPEAKER_06 1:52:04

Like even even headedness? No. That's a thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:11

Probably.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:12

Just in terms of like walking us through all the different crazy parts of this movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:19

I mean, people people uh kind of like latch onto movies for different reasons. I think Buckaro Bonsai is a lot of fun if you kind of accept it for what it is, which to be as plain as posit, it is a hot mess. Yeah, it is a it is a hot mess of a movie with a lot of pretty famous and very accomplished actors and people on the other side of the camera who are also very accomplished. And I I don't in some ways it's a really interesting movie because all their performances, like they're all doing pretty good jobs. Yeah. I I don't it it just all these pieces don't really fit together in the way that I think they wanted them to in the end. And it it one of the reasons why we wanted to be able to talk to Owen first is because I I really didn't know what his perspective of this movie was going to be. Because it could have been this movie is perfect, and I defy you to tell me otherwise. Obviously, that was not Owen's stance, and we were able to like really do a deep dive into all like kind of how how this movie was made and what happened.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:35

So on that note, would you watch this again?

SPEAKER_02 1:53:39

And I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:41

I might I might, it's possible, but but I I well the one thing that's curious to me, this has come up with a couple other movies to my recollection, I don't think I've ever like seen it on TV or anything like that. So it's kind of a movie you have to seek out.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:04

That's uh that is not in its favor.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:09

And I think it's one of those movies where if it was on television, I think I probably would keep it on.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:16

Yeah, if I saw it, if I saw it like on uh whatever, direct TV stream, give us some uh give us some endorsements, direct TV stream. Uh yeah, but if we saw it there on the on a guide or something, I I would probably consider just flipping over to it and watching it because it would be it'd be kind of fun to see like where it is, it'd be fun to see John Lithguy losing his damn mind. That'd all be fun. But am I going to like sit down and think about what I want to watch and go out of my way and find it and start it up? Hmm. I don't know. I don't know. I might maybe I I mean I think after our talk with Owen, the chances of that increase dramatically.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:00

Because getting that like other perspective and learning more about like how it was made and some of these other bits, uh, yeah, it's possible.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:08

I mean, I feel like I probably did miss a lot on the first viewing. So if anything, I'd at least give it a second try just to just to see what I didn't absorb the first time.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:23

So it's a movie that almost requires you to watch it at least twice so that you have at least a 30% understanding.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:31

So listener call to action. Now, here's here's the deal. Here's the deal here.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:36

How do you have a call for action for this?

SPEAKER_06 1:55:39

Well, if somebody wants to reach out and talk about how much they love this movie and how we might be missing something or whatever, I'm welcome. I welcome them to do so, you know? And you can reach out to us through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Same handle for all three. It is at 80smontage pod. 80s is 80S. That being said, this is the last episode of season two.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:06

Not the last episode, but the last episode of season two. Yeah. And so I just want to invite our listeners, if, say, there's a movie that you have been waiting for us to cover. I mean, we have our methods of how movies are picked, uh, largely relies on our guests. But if there's something out there that you really want us to cover, tell us.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:27

Or if there's something that you think, you know, in all these episodes, something that we might be missing, something that you think needs to be talked about, just in general, about a movie m the movies from this decade, then tell us that.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:42

Please listen to each episode and provide us a detailed list.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:47

We're we're here for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:49

So again, we will create a separate episode just correcting everything that uh that probably I have have gotten wrong.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:57

Not at all, not at all. I I mean, as I just did like 30 seconds ago, definitely I'm the one who trips up all the time. But as I mentioned, we're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Same handle for all three at 80s Montage Pod. Now we're at the very end of season two and this episode. Usually we do a sneak peek. But we are not. Okay. We're gonna keep that a secret. Oh. So that episode one of season three. Big surprise.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:31

I mean, this is exciting because I I know what it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:34

You do know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:35

I often I often don't at this time.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:38

So just want to take a moment to say thank you to everybody for listening to us. We're very grateful given just how many podcasts are out there that you are, you know, having some of your precious time uh taken up by us. So we really appreciate it. And uh, we hope to see you, not really see you, but have you follow along with us for season three as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:07

Yeah, I mean, I I I've had an excellent time working on on this, and it's been really a lot of fun to get the opportunity to talk with different people that I would have never had a chance to talk to. Uh talk about movies that are are like that have some some meaning. Yeah. You know, that are dear, near and dear to the people that we talk to, even Bakaro bonsai.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:31

Even Bakaro Bonsai.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:32

I've had a blast. Uh again, we hope that throughout what has been kind of an up and down 2021, fingers crossed for 2022, uh, hopefully it has provided some just kind of silly fun and enjoyment for everybody.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:48

All right, guys, take care. See you in 2022.