#135 Happy Accidents, Crossing The Streams and Betrayal (Bonus Ep22) – Great TV binge watching suggestions!

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin.

Jeff Dwoskin 0:30

It's Jeff Dwoskin, your host for this bonus episode of Classic conversations featuring crossing the streams. What is that great question. This amazing bonus episode is put together from various live segments from the live show we do every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time on YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. And you can watch live over this bonus episode we grabbed three segments from across the 70 Plus episodes we've done and we bring them right to your ears. What is crossing the streams? We answer the universal question what should I be watching next? Hey, I just finished x what should I do? No,

Jeff Dwoskin 1:16

we fill in all the blanks for you. Give me a tons of great TV watching suggestions to me. A bunch of my friends we get together week after week we bring in gas. We talked about TV shows, movies, anything that you can get on your streaming channels. So It's tons of fun. And that's why I pop it into the classic conversations feed. Sometimes you need a break from a TV film comedian interview and you just need to know some TV shows you should be watching at least I hope that's the case. Anyway, today was a great episode we got Larry Roberts talking about Teen Wolf from Episode 68. I'm going to discuss the Bob Ross documentary from Episode 39. And going all the way back to Episode 16 Howard Rosner fan favorite is talking about the last blockbuster documentary so we got a great show for you today. Lots of great segments. If you like what you hear just head on over to the YouTube channel. You can listen to the whole episode. Sometimes we reference things that if he watched the whole episode, you kind of get it. There's a lot of fun stuff that happens week after week. Anyway, but without further ado, I'm going to turn this over to Larry Roberts to talk to us about his favorite movie ever seen Wolf, take it away, Larry. Let's go back in time. It was simpler. Much simpler time when Michael J. Fox ruled the world. Teen Fox was just a feather in his cap take us through the world of Teen Wolf. Yeah, man, you know Fox, Teen Wolf team Fox people

Larry Roberts 2:55

were close. You know, it's one of those first off I want to say thank you for teaching me how to pronounce that Kanye special because I had no idea what the name of that thing was. So at least I'm gonna take one thing away from this and hopefully somebody out there also learned a little something tonight. But before we dial it back last time I was here we talked about Flash Gordon because I am a child of the 80s. And I love Flash Gordon, but cubby get a close close. Second of my all time favorite movies is Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf teaches us a variety of lessons when we watched the show. But the one I think it's the very first movie where we heard the phrase with great power comes great responsibility. Exactly. And that's exactly what the lesson was here. One of the many lessons that we learned from this awesome movie. And you know, the movie itself was was kind of a breakout hit. Michael J. Fox didn't know it was going to do anything for it. Matter of fact, he wasn't all that really on board with doing it. And if you read his latest book, he talks about it a little bit, but he has nothing good to say about the movie. He hated being in the costume. He wasn't able to eat solid foods while in makeup or anything along those lines. And although it was only a 21 day shoot, it was a very, very long three weeks for Michael J. Fox. But the movie starts off with teen angst and being 13 years old in 1985. This movie spoke to be in that regard. We see are we see Scott or Michael J Fox Scott is the character that he plays we see him suddenly start to go through some changes and there are unexpected changes. His voice gets deep and gravelly. In certain scenarios. He's finding hair in weird places, which at 13 years old, I think we probably related to that as well. So another connection point there in the movie. He has the hot chick that he's in love with and he just wants to date but he's also kind of a nerd. So of course the hot chick isn't giving him the time of day but then we have booth over here and booth is a cutie but she's also the girl next door not the type of girl that Scott wants to get with because he wants to be one of the cool kids. Well, one of the problems with Scott also is that he's not exactly an athlete, and he's on the basketball team. And by far the beavers, which was the name of the school's mascot, the beavers were the worst basketball Team you ever saw on your life in the midst of one of their horrible games were their coaches on the sidelines literally eating boiled eggs because he has no interest in coaching the game we see Scott get dog piled and lo and behold, next thing you know, boom, we have ourselves a werewolf on the basketball court. And not only is your werewolf he is a very talented ballplayer when he becomes a werewolf. So out of the blue Scott now takes over the game, he is the Harry Michael Jordan of 1985. And we see him slam dunking and stealing and making three point shots and you name it, he's doing it. He is the all around one man team. And this does a lot for him. It gives him popularity with all the cool kids with all the nerd kids. He's kind of a champion of everybody. And in a way we see that he has superpowers. But in many of the superhero movies we see these days everybody's trying to hide their identity. Well, Scott, No, not him. He wants to come out and he wants everybody to know that he is the Teen Wolf because now his life is changing. Suddenly, the hot chick has an interest in him. But Whoa, she's got a boyfriend. It's really tough and hardcore. And he's not scared of the wolf. So now we have this antagonistic relationship between Scott and the hot girls boyfriend. And of course that comes to a head at the school dance where Scott ends up Wolfing out and lashing out and actually slashing at the boyfriend. And he realizes that that time, man, I think I'm taking this team will think too far. I don't know what to do. So of course, there's a heart to heart with dad, he comes to grips with his wisdom decides that he's going to continue back playing basketball. And lo and behold, they've made it to the championships because of all the talent that Scott possesses when he's the the Harry basketball wonder app, but he decides he's going to go to the championship game as Scott not as Teen Wolf. So we see the team struggle, we see the protagonist, the hot girlfriends boyfriends on the opposing basketball team, they go at it, lo and behold, it comes down to the final foul of the game. And Scott is foul when he goes to the free throw line with they're down by one point they need two points to win. And what happens? Well, of course, as Scott, not the wolf, we see him sink both of those baskets and go on to become a champion. So there's so much awesomeness in this movie. And it just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Not only that there's this amazing soundtrack. And people say it's not really amazing. I think it was amazing. And I can still listen to it to this day and kind of get chilled up a little bit. But it's the surprise factor of the fact that it became a hit and somewhat of a cult hit after the fact. And if you look back in 1985, Michael J. Fox was on top of the world he had the number one movie with Back to the Future he had the number two movie coming out making $31 million with Teen Wolf which blew everybody's mind. Not only did he secure the number two spot on the movie charts, but it actually spawned a cartoon which failed miserably. It didn't feature Michael J. Fox. The only returning character to the cartoon was actually a gentleman that played his dad in the movie, he lent his voice talents to the cartoon, it went for a total of 21 episodes, and it was just really, really, really bad. But to top that off, as if the cartoon wasn't bad enough later on, we get a sequel to the movie called Teen Wolf to as in T wo as an also but Michael J. Fox had had enough of the Harry costume and decided he was going to pass on this one. So we snagged Jason Bateman who is now of Ozark fame. And I mean he's not just a Ozark fame. Everybody knows who Jason Bateman is. And he's just an amazing actor. But at the time he was struggling and Teen Wolf to kind of put a dent in things and really put a damper on his career because he will do wasn't nearly as as creative as fun as lighthearted and as endearing as its predecessor. Really it had none of the same qualities whatsoever. It did try to copy the format we did have a sports theme but this time Jason Bateman goes to college and he wants to be a veterinarian but he has no skills as a veterinarian he ends up Wolfing out and goes into boxing for some odd reason and he will stay out and wins the college boxing title as wolf comes to grips with the fact the same thing you know it's the same thing but it's just not that heartwarming feature that we had in the first one so I still to this day go back and watch Teen Wolf I probably should watch it at least once maybe twice a year even it's just a great movie for me it's a lot of fun and again there's a lot of very very valuable lessons and again the primary one is the one that was just reinforced in Spider Man No way home when may told us once again that with great power comes great responsibility.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:19

I read that the person who added that to the Teen Wolf movie was a writer in on the Spider Man comics

Unknown Speaker 9:27

that is correct. I think it's Joe Jim Lowe, I believe well wrote for Spider Man he wrote for Batman he wrote for the Hulk he wrote for several several comics and you know that's one of the things that they look back on and they talk about it was really a superhero movie and even if you look at the cover art that you had up just before I started my presentation here he's sitting there with the you know the jacket pulled back and he's exposing there you go the chest logo just like we see Superman do time after time. So this was essentially a superhero movie in disguise yet almost confusing genre of a film because if you think Back in the 80s horror movies were all the rage back then we had little loss boys with the vampire gigs. We had a fright night another vampire gig. We had a Nightmare on Elm Street, which came out at a similar time. And that was all the horror genre and they introduced this movie, but it wasn't. It wasn't a horror movie. It wasn't a comedy movie. It wasn't a family movie where the hell did this thinks where's it supposed to fit? It didn't really fit and that was another one of the things that made it such a surprising hit two things.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:25

You have a fan, Larry.

Unknown Speaker 10:26

Thank you, Richard. I appreciate that.

Ron Lippitt 10:31

It's my frickin brother.

Unknown Speaker 10:32

Oh, well, thank you.

Ron Lippitt 10:35

That's Richard van lippy pants. So first off, I admission I can't believe I'm gonna say this. And you know, worldwide. I've never seen it. Oh, my God for real. I've never seen seen well, you know, and I, I always hear about it. It was it's like a gap in the repertoire. I recognize it. I just haven't corrected it yet.

Unknown Speaker 10:54

We gotta go back. You gotta go back and find it.

Ron Lippitt 10:57

Is it on Netflix? Or where do you get it?

Unknown Speaker 10:59

I think you can actually watch it for free on YouTube, to be honest with you. It's interesting.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:03

It's a 21 day shoot because like a Sharknado is an 18 day shoot.

Unknown Speaker 11:07

Yeah, it was a 21 day shoot because there was a break in filming for family ties, because Meredith Meredith Baxter. I think Bernie was at the time. I think now she just Meredith Baxter. She was actually giving birth so they had a break from production, which opened up the opportunity for Michael J. Fox to do something on the side. He had three weeks to do it. So they crammed it all in.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:25

And of course, Michael J Fox worked with Justine Bateman.

Unknown Speaker 11:29

Yes, Justine Bateman where we have Jason Bateman sister, they were together on family ties. I mean, for me personally, it just kind of worked out because even when I was a teen I thought it was gonna be a stockbroker. And I think I thought that because of Michael J. Fox's Alex P. Keaton on family ties. I mean, that was just the ideal family structure that I wanted as a kid. I mean, I grew up in a trailer and my dad smoked weed and you know, beat shit on my wife on the on my wife, my mom on the rig. So I don't beat my wife. That was not a Freudian slip, but but I would see that Joe it I'd be like, Man, I would love to have a family like that. So I think I just had that tire that emotional relationship there with with Michael J. Fox, because he emulated everything that I wanted at the time.

Ron Lippitt 12:07

I'm gonna go on record, Larry, and guess that you've loved secret of my success? Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:13

It was amazing. Yeah. Coming out of the mailroom. And we go through and fallen in love with the with the executive, the

Jeff Dwoskin 12:18

one where they're having sex, and he's kind of got the thing going with. Yes.

Ron Lippitt 12:23

Yes, yes. It's

Unknown Speaker 12:25

a really bad apartment, and they're there next door doing their thing and he starts to orchestrate it. Yes, that is that's,

Ron Lippitt 12:31

I will comment though. You know, it's true. I haven't seen Teen Wolf. But you know, some of those other kinds of the genre of the time, you know, and you mentioned Fright Night. I freaking loved Fright Night.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:41

The original Friday night was amazing.

Ron Lippitt 12:44

It's such a good movie. And what was the other vampire when you mentioned, the loss? Boy, The Lost Boys. I love loss, boys. I mean, that this Teen Wolf was kind of right into that zone there. There was a lot of really great TV and movie stuff going on there. I know. It's the 80s I know the CGI was the worst makeup and crap that you've ever seen. But but it was still pretty good. So I am going to remind myself to check out to you off. I think I probably

Sal Demilio 13:12

I'm gonna watch it again, because it's been so long since I've seen it. So it's a lot of fun.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:17

Ryan and I are both watching. And we'll give a tag on next.

Ron Lippitt 13:20

We'll check it out.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:21

Cool. All right. How awesome was Larry Roberts makes you want to go watch Teen Wolf again, doesn't it? Hmm. I hear ya. I feel Yeah. All right. Next from Episode 39 of crossing the streams is Jeff Dwoskin. meself talking about Bob Ross happy accidents betrayal and greed. Sort of a combination of I liked it. But a fair warning as well. All right, take it away me. Bob Ross, happy accidents, betrayal, and greed sounds. I know right? You're like, huh, so let's break. Let's

Unknown Speaker 14:05

go.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:06

Let's break it down a little bit. One insinuates that there was something betrayal or greed maybe that Bob Ross did. And Bob Ross is a beloved person. He's died over 25 years ago, and probably just as beloved and known by as many more people than Well, hopefully that maybe we'll know any of us 25 years after our passing, but the happy at happy accidents is his thing. That's obviously his thing. But the betrayal and greed was not him. It was what was was what was painted against him. So it starts with Steve Ross, his son kind of wanting to tell the story he's always wanted to tell. And here's the thing with documentaries and why I asked Ron earlier, this is a 90 minute documentary that I think should have been 30 minutes. I'm starting to think this this show has sort of like a theme. How long was the documentary and how long should it have been? Okay, all right. So it starts off with Steve Ross. The sun man My opinion of this movie is a lot different than a lot of things that I read, or, you know, friends that have written what I think those friends saw was their emotion above Ross and not the actual movie. Alright, so this is what happens. The whole thing is like, we wanted to talk to all these people, but in that and Walt Kowalski and that and Walt Kowalski are the people that own the Bob Ross name and anything you see with Bob Ross on it, it's them and it's been that way for 25 years. They're the ones that have made all the money since his passing off the Bob Ross name, Steven Ross. I don't know if he made anything but they make it seem like he really didn't get anything and you probably did so but it's his story to tell. And everyone is afraid that the qual skis will sue them. They I mean, these qualities were at in the in the 70s I don't even know how they're still alive. And so I mean, they're old, right? And then everyone's afraid of them. And they own the Bob Ross name. And it talks about Bob Ross. And there's some nice things about Bob Ross and had this been about Bob Ross. It would have been nice but with the name of this should have been was Bob Ross didn't know how to make a business deal and screwed his family. That's the real, maybe not on purpose, but that's really the name of the movie. So let me flash forward and save everyone the time about the three quarter mark, it's revealed that when Bob Ross died and he had a he went hard, I mean, he had cancer or some real bad thing and you know, they painted he was on his deathbed in the last case we're trying to pressure him into given them him has now had you know, give them him his name, but that didn't go through that just happened and frankly, they were in business together and they probably wanted his name to keep going so Bob Ross in his will gives Bob Ross is step brother Jimmy Cox is Bob Ross is stepbrother, 51% of his name and everything. That's Bob Ross and Steve Ross, his son gets 49% Now if you've ever been in business, if you have 49% of something and someone else has 51% You might as well have 0% unless that person is of some amicable thing but in terms of decision making or anything like that you pretty much have zero right it's kind of like if you think like the Congress when Congress when the Democrats are doing it, it doesn't matter if there's a lot of of the other one, the one with the majority wins. Anyway So shortly after Bob Ross died this week, you learned this about three quarters through and up until this point is the Kowalsky screwed everybody I was my family legacy. And then about three quarters through you find out that Jimmy Cox, a half brother, who owned 51% of everything, signed everything over to the quality and then once that it comes out it's like then it kind of changes shifts. The last like bit of it shifts. Oh, no,

Unknown Speaker 17:52

I'm Stephen Ross. And I still paint and I'm still trying to get people to paint you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 17:56

they do the seminars, that was a whole Yeah, progress thing. They would go nobody cares. And it's like, it was almost as like they just tried to drag out this drama and then once they revealed what really happened, which was a bad business deal. I mean, the stepbrother basically sold that it's not like the crosskeys Screwed everyone and this is spoiler why everyone was afraid they get sued because legally everything was done the way you know I mean it look everyone's emotions are watching this is a Bob Ross 400 The Joy of Painting he touched so many people and he did his son should have gotten something he shouldn't have but like that's what happened but the lesson is though and which really should have been the lesson of this show and earlier was we were talking earlier with Nick Cage giving up all his money and losing his mind is it they should make shows where they teach rich people how not to lose all their money MC Hammer you know all these people right? Yes and like and people like Bob Ross or anyone a fame like Barry White Aretha Franklin prints Howard Hughes Pablo Picasso all these people died without wills. So let the lesson be even us non famous people everyone here and everyone listening and go make a will. You've got kids if you've got a wife and kids go make a will.

Sal Demilio 19:16

I'm gonna leave my burger king straw to Bob Phil

Jeff Dwoskin 19:27

my fate my favorite scene is When Harry Met Sally we joke about all the time is like when they're talking about possibly getting divorced. And Carrie Fisher says I will never want the Roy Rogers wagon wheel coffee. Anyway, so But the lesson of this should have been no matter how famous you are, it all comes down to what documents are left behind when you die. That should have been the message and they didn't even make that the message. They just kind of like you know, they kind of just skirted through it and then he just realized that this is how his life's gonna be and all that kind of stuff and It's like but that should have been they should take these things and teach people what they need to do to make sure that their kids don't get screwed and you know, it's just

Sal Demilio 20:10

I think the professional sports leagues do that Jeff I think the NFL NBA Major League Baseball when these guys get signed to those deals I think they haven't talked to financial people to try to keep them straight.

Ron Lippitt 20:21

My my my buddy Jason was a real estate agent for first year NFL players. And that's exactly what he would work on is making sure that they didn't buy stupid things.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:36

People do you know, the the huge Entourage is everything. It's the NBA.

Bob Phillips 20:39

This is true to the NBA has people mentoring rookies on how not to get women pregnant in all this, this is not a job, leave that stay out, you know, go to your room, do your thing. Because of the instances of the you know, these guys getting taken in by

Sal Demilio 20:57

early that guy's not rolled back up, apparently.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:03

Man, that's too funny. All right, I guess I did get a little annoyed by that documentary. But then histology that was maybe missed with Bob Ross. We make up for 100,000,000% with Howard Rosner and his discussion from Episode 16 of crossing the streams about the documentary The last blockbuster, take it away. Rozner Well, we got the last two hours. Yeah, very last,

Sal Demilio 21:36

I owe them money.

Howard Rosner 21:37

I hold this aside from loving this movie, it was special for me because I did manage at a Blockbuster Video for the better part of two years. I love this. This goes along to me with what we keep talking about every week, we seem to have one of these truly charming, feel good movies. And I thought this was a lot of that. I also thought it was a very, very interesting commentary, a social commentary just for the to summarize it. When they started doing the documentary. There were four remaining Blockbuster video stores three in Alaska, and one in Bend, Oregon. Long story short, to Google a bowl, you can find it there is now only one store remaining in Bend, Oregon. That is the last blockbuster. It's a franchised store that was originally an independent store that became a blockbuster. The most fascinating thing that I found about this movie, and I couldn't think of anything else like it was it was something that was so visceral and part and parcel of probably all of us, especially the older ones. It was such a major massive part of our lives for a long stretch of time. That's what you did. I mean, even before blockbuster, you went to the video store, you picked out a movie, you came home, you plotted holiday weekends around, we'd better go there's not going to be anything left. We better go out now. Because we need to have six movies for a long holiday weekend. It's going to snow when you're going to be locked in what the hell are we going to watch date date nights, date nights, when you were just dating with you're arguing about stuff with your girlfriend or wife. It was such a part of our lives. And then it was gone. And I could not remember anything. I couldn't put my finger on it anything else in my life that was like that, that was such a major part of life. It's now just gone. I'm not technology, obviously. But this was it was just amazing. I liked it because there's a good business story to it, too. I truly thought that the story was that they had an opportunity to buy Netflix, which they did. And that was the reason that the business folded was because they got pushed out by Netflix, which when you watch this documentary is not the case at all. There's actually more of a business a little bit of Business and Economics that goes into the story. So that's a part of it was a lot of celebrities B C list celebrities that worked at Blockbuster, Jamie Kennedy, the actor and comedian was in a his first work in Hollywood was a blockbuster commercial with Jim Gaffigan of all people. So I love that. And then the other part of the story that's amazing is the woman who's managed this last blockbuster. She has been the manager for 20 years, her entire family and their neighbors and everybody they know your kids that are nephews and nieces. They've all worked in the store and to see everything that she's gone through up to this point not knowing when or if the end would come and she's just an amazing person. It's really cool. It was just a really heartwarming movie and it was nostalgic for sure. I truly, truly after my experience working with blockbuster, if I ever make it out to the Pacific Northwest, I will go to this store. They talk in a movie about how every one of us could describe the smell of a Blockbuster Video and that's absolutely true. You know, candy, they always had good candy, their candy, a little bit of the butter from microwave popcorn packages, you know, just the smell of the plastic and the tape. Howard, did you ever do? Did you ever do

Ron Lippitt 25:12

the thing where your video was due? And then you start doing the calculation of it? Maybe I'll keep it for another day. How

Howard Rosner 25:17

much? Yeah, I'll tell you. I'll tell you a funny story. It wasn't a blockbuster. But Jeff will remember this. I mentioned this to my wife because she mentioned that she wants to have $70 in late fees. We had a we had a fraternity brother the first year we were in our fraternity house, nobody had a VCR he rented on his credit card, his a VCR and four movies and the VCR kept bouncing around the fraternity house the movies kept bouncing around and kept getting later and more overdue, and more overdue to the point where the video store ended up charging him for the VCR and the movies. I think the fraternity just decided to pay for it. Like cut him a deal to him and that became the house of Vcr for like the next four years. So yeah, it's just it was such again, I couldn't remember anything else like that. You know, other things have been proved technology wise, right. But there were not at its peak. There were 9000, blockbusters. Nine. They said the statistic they said was at one point in time a new blockbuster was opening every 17 hours and they're all gone except this

Jeff Dwoskin 26:24

one store. You have to wonder you have to wonder if like if like the rate of divorce and breakups since the blockbuster went away and the reason I say that was because the beautiful thing about a blockbuster was anytime there was what should we do? What could we what do we need to do? Let's go to Blockbuster right and there is a it was just it was just there and you could just do that and it was like and you would just go sometimes and a lot of times you will you'll move with a it's funny it's like going to a Cheesecake Factory sometimes like too many movies you decide either your your fight over what you're going to watch and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I think Zack said he worked at one I can picture the Zack Matt Zack recommendation section

Ron Lippitt 27:13

they talked about one thing about about you would if you were waiting for a movie, and it just wasn't it was supposed to be in but it wasn't in yet. And so you would do the thing where you would sit and wait by the counter for people to return. Yeah, movie. And I remember off the counter. I remember doing that. Yep. And every time a movie come into shoot, you're like, what is it? What was that movie? What's that movie?

Howard Rosner 27:33

Man? Give me some time. Yeah, yeah, crazy. So I loved it. Again. I thought it was a great combination of charming and heartwarming and pure nostalgia and great business sense, or business commentary on what the hell happened. How did that happen that fast? I highly recommend.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:53

All right. And the good news we've convinced Casey All right, great job. Howard. Rosner, I saw the last blockbuster documentary I also loved it so great. If you have any memories of Blockbuster Video, you got to track that one down. All right, so we talked about the last blockbuster Teen Wolf and Bob Ross happy accidents, greed and betrayal. You got a lot of decisions to make right now. As you head over to the couch, grab your favorite spot, secure the remote cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 28:33

Thanks for listening to this special edition of crossing the streams. Visit us on YouTube for full episodes and catch us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time. Now turn this off and go watch some TV. And don't forget to tell your family yeah, I'll be busy for a while.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai