#197 Crossing The Streams is Too Funny To Fail (Bonus Ep45) – 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 0:29

Hey, oh, it is I Jeff Dwoskin your host of classic conversations and your guide through this bonus episode of crossing the streams what is crossing the streams? It answers a universal question. I just binge watch something and now I got to watch something else. What should that be? Well, you've come to the right place. crossing the streams is chock full of TV binge watching suggestions. We do a live show every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time you can join us there are over 100 episodes of crossing the streams our live show is on our YouTube channel. You can devour whole episodes or you can wait for the bonus episodes and we'll feed a few suggestions right into your ears and that's where you are right now. Today's segments come from Live episode 1444 and 75 Too funny to fail Swamp Thing and squid game we're gonna kick things off with Swamp Thing take it away may classic Swamp Thing I do love this movie and so I let's put this in the same category is like when I did my review of Sharknado I think there's there's these type of movies I just I really really enjoy though I do think that Swamp Thing that as well background are quick to set the tempo. This is a 1982 So this is when movie studios really other than like Superman didn't really know was how to make cartoon movies. So there would be like a lot of them and most of them are completely unwatchable till Tim Burton's Batman came around and kind of set a new tone and all that kind of stuff however, that all being said Swamp Thing 19 82x People don't know that you know, it was a comic book before was a movie 11 years after the comic book was created Swamp Thing The movie jumped onto the big screen and came to life. So this was written and directed by little unknown Fowler named Wes Craven. So Wes Craven This was his a fifth movie he had already done Hill says Hills Have Eyes. Last house on the left were some of the big ones that he had done. So this this movie was a little different studio, if you will, he wrote and directed swampthing I was mentioning earlier. I think what was originally drew people to this movie, the actors that were involved with that was that the script was damn good. It was a damn good script. However, ultimately, they only gave him $2.5 million budget to make this movie so $2.5 million. I don't even think one of the Spider Man costumes in no way home probably cost 2.5 million. Yeah, Swamp Thing was sort of West Craven kind of whittled it down and he sort of a guy in a rubber suit the Swamp Thing and but I think ultimately what he pulled off, and I rewatched it recently, and I found it just as enjoyable as my 19 at Emory had for me. I think it's a fun movie. It's a fun, quirky kind of movie campy, and I think it works. If the story is you have Alec Holland and he's in the swamp and he's doing these kinds of experiments and then the bad guy comes right arcane who's played by Louis Jordan and chorus those who wants to steal the formula. And all the bad guys are like these AD AD is like campy, right. And so which I think if they just had not done that it's all in a swamp. It's all filmed in a swamp must have been miserable. But it's Swamp Thing. The guy Ray wise who plays Alec Cullen, the brilliant scientist, ever. There's a huge explosion and his formula he was working on covers him and he was transformed into the swamp thing. So one of the interesting things about the swamp the dick Jurak I hope I said his name right? Who's actually swamping in the costume? Interestingly enough, was originally just the stuntman in the costume. And so Ray wise the actor who played the actual character Alec Colin to become swampthing Wes Craven actually filmed every scene with both of them because Dick Jurek look so different. They didn't look anything alike. In costume, they had to just go with the director. They both got dressed up in a costume, and then they ended up ultimately not using any of the other footage. Deke Dirac went on to be Swamp Thing in the 1989 classic sequel with Heather Locklear and and the recent Swamp Thing TV series. He actually played Swamp Thing as well. The darker the thing the 899 sequel was a little cambier with Heather Locklear and Louis Jordan plays arcane again even though he died in the first movie, what the hell? So it's it's one of those movies where the arcane and oh Adrienne Barbeau of course, is in this and I remember having such a crush on Adrienne Barbeau watching this movie. So interesting thing I learned is in the US version, there's kind of a tantalizing scene with her but in the UK version is full on full on blatant nudity scene, they accidentally released the UK version in the US so families were going to Blockbuster and coming home with full on Adrienne Barbeau nudity, and then they kind of fixed it at some point Adrienne Barbeau, of course, famous from Maude and other things as well. So interest she was great in this she was great. And in the same exactly the same time period I think was like Escape from New York and creep show which early 80s was was Frasier and Barbara it was interesting because I read like Wes Craven didn't work for years after this movie, I think and Adrienne Barbeau and they saw it because of what they felt it could have been what it ended up being. I think there was such disappointment. But then people like Roger Ebert though saw the brilliance of the campiness of it gave it three out of four stars. They called it a called classic. And I think ultimately, that's how it's looked upon as sort of a cult classic from the 80s one of the early comic book come to life movies that I think still is fun and holds up today. I would I would say go watch it don't don't put your 2020 brain into the special effects or anything like that. Because that's one of the things like when the characters at the end the bad characters turn into take this CRM or whatever and they they transform into the same thing it turns Alec into the swamp thing they have not as good results and so as bad as the Swamp Thing is I still always thought the Swamp Thing robber monsters. It was cool. There's a certain coolness to it. The other ones weren't as good they looked more like you went to one of those Halloween stores a pop off yeah,

Mike White 7:27

the little Bruno looks fantastic. Yeah, I

Jeff Dwoskin 7:30

would I read something funny that he shrinks but then it's close. shrank.

Mike White 7:34

Right? turtleneck sweater, whatever we're wearing. Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:39

Oh, funny. I don't have much more to say about this. Other than that. It's I wanted to bring up this what I consider a classic from the early 80s that if you are a comic book fan, especially a DC fan, I think this is totally worth checking out. It's a fun it's a fun Adrienne Barbeau is great Louis Jordan is is great as a campy over the top villain Swamp Thing super cool. You know, and there's a couple of side characters that are fun as well. So

Mike White 8:07

what's funny that this was this came out what a b two and I think Alan wars run started right around that same time, maybe a little bit afterwards. But Alan Moore's run on the Swamp Thing is one of those like classic taking comics to a whole different level introducing all these characters, I think, I don't know if Constantine was introduced there. But for sure he and swampthing were contemporaries inside of that series. And I mean, it's just kind of rewrote a lot of what comics could be. And it's funny that it's like right on the tail end of the Swamp Thing movie, which a lot of people were just like, oh, that's trash, but I agree with you. I think that the movie is a lot of fun. I rewatched it a few months ago, and yeah, it was great. I still love the scene when when he's gotten his arm chopped off, but he's like reaching for the light and he's got that little tiny hand and it starts to grow when

Jeff Dwoskin 9:01

it's Deadpool took that from Yeah, Deadpool does that exact scene and I Swamp Thing, ladies and gentlemen, of course Adrienne Barbeau is my guest on classic conversations episode 196. You can hear a full interview with her thanks to Mike White from the projection booth podcast and Tony Berardo. The Berardo project are helping me out there. All right up next to funny to fail all the way back from Live episode 14. Howard Rosner take it away Rhys? We got a great one too funny to fail the story about the Dana Carvey Show.

Howard Rosner 9:40

So for those who don't know, it's a documentary that's been out a couple of years now. I think 2017 Maybe I just rewatched it again and I was reminded of how absolutely hysterical This documentary is. The gist of the story for those who don't know is in 1996 after Dana Carvey left Saturday Night Live, he was huge Just a movie star. He was approached to do his own show on various various networks. HBO wanted him and one of the networks that approached them and said, We want you absolutely we want a sketch comedy show was ABC and they said, We're gonna put you in primetime following home improvement. They went about putting the show together. And so the first person he hired was Robert Smigel, who most people know is the voice of triumph, the comic dog and various characters. The superfans he wrote on Saturday Night Live amongst other skits and hysterical so he was the first hire his first year. Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:37

You mean the duo, the ambiguously gay dude in Vegas? Yeah.

Howard Rosner 10:41

Well, and yeah, so his first hire was kind of a little known comic at the time to be head writer Louie CK. Their first two cast member hires were a guy from Second City and his understudy, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. John Glaser, who's a Michigan guy, one of the writers and performers, some other really good performers and fantastic writers. So they put the show together, and they went about creating a show. That was insane. The skits were insane. And if you watch them now, it's just so cutting edge funny. The problem is, it was on ABC and primetime following Home Improvement and it didn't mix at all. The other funny thing was, Dana had this idea to do the show, like college football bowl games, where every episode would be sponsored, and they would rotate sponsors each week. So it was the mug root beer, Dana Carvey Show and long story short, they only recorded eight episodes of the show, seven of which aired the final episode didn't air it went so crazy that by the end of it, their final sponsor on the show that didn't air was a Chinese restaurant. But just them talking. It's just a great documentary. It's hysterical. Some of the skits that they did, and again, you're watching Cole bear and chorale like there's a skit I made a couple of skits. There's there's one called grandmother clown, where they got this old lady who wasn't an actor who was dressed as a clown, and she was playing a kid's birthday party like lazily honking your horn adding the kids to rubber. It's so stupid, but it's so out there. There's another skate with corral or Kobe. I can't remember which one and Dana Carvey that its main, like main Nazis from Maine, where they're just sitting there during deep main accents wheeling on a porch with pipes going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the Jews are bad. Yeah. It's just it's so out there. The best take of the show and I won't ruin it. But like about three quarters of the way in Roberts, Michael talks about how he got six episodes into it and hadn't watched didn't know anything about home improvement. So he sat down to watch home improvement. And in his words, after we watch this, we realized what we had foisted on the American public there is a take a jump take after an announcer comment that Dana Carvey Carell and Colbert laugh. So hysterically Colbert is literally crying for a minute in the documentary. It's one of the funniest takes I've ever seen. So it is beginning to end. Fascinating, hysterical as super fast, doesn't draw any conclusions other than the show was crazy. So

Ron Lippitt 13:40

Howard, what was ABC thinking putting this on after him? Like why didn't they put this on late night competing with a SNL or something like that?

Howard Rosner 13:48

I think they didn't know what they were getting. They thought they were getting they thought they were getting charged late. They talked about that. They thought they were getting church lady. They thought they were getting Dana Carvey impressions. And the first skit in the first show, Bill Clinton breastfeeding

Jeff Dwoskin 14:08

but not just breastfeeding. He had like eight teats. Yeah.

Howard Rosner 14:12

Breastfeeding kittens and puppies that just have escaped was Hillary's away. So he's got to be not only the Father but the mother to the country. I'm watching working working.

Ron Lippitt 14:25

I am honestly watching the talk

Howard Rosner 14:26

SAS for some.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:29

It's not great, but it's but the interesting thing is the ambiguously gay duo, which most people just think was from 75 actually is from this show.

Howard Rosner 14:39

Yeah. And if you didn't know the ambiguously gay duo, the Batman character is called bear and eight the sidekick is Steve Carell, which I never knew until this documentary. You hear it now and you're like, holy shit, that's them. That's where it came from. And then speical went back to Saturday Night Live, please. You know, Michael that used to be a writer, obviously poor and used to hate Have you used to not always get along with Lauren talks about how after the fact he went to Lauren and said, I totally get it now, I totally get what you go through executive producing that show because it's just chaos. The quality of talent was just great. John Glaser who was one of the writers I mentioned he, Councilman Jimmy Jam from Parks and Rec, if you watch that, just a great collection of people that were doing something ridiculous. And in the totally wrong setting, you probably would have been a good show on HBO, you know, would have been like Mr. Show with Bob Odenkirk. It would have been more like that, because it's that level of humor, The Ben Stiller Show which was around for a little while on Fox, but it was totally wrong place. It is a great watch. I highly recommend it.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:47

So John Glazer story, John, I worked at Tamarack right and John Glaser worked at Brighton before me just realizing and but he still knew that people that work there when I was there. So he was doing comedy. I think the very first comedian I ever saw was John Glaser came to this camp and for the staff did a a comedy routine. And one of the things that I'd never forgot because I actually afterwards actually drew a picture of this and put it on the on the thing we had this bit about he's celebrate man, no powers, just celery. I don't know. It's all I remember. But like it was, it was just so I thought it was just so funny. It was just so funny. And anyway, so that's cool. That's awesome. All right. Yeah, I've seen this too. It's totally worth if you haven't seen it is totally worth checking out.

Howard Rosner 16:37

And Jeff, you know, the quick take that leads to the crying laughing. Yes, yes. Yes. I had to rewind three times to watch that take so yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:50

All right, all the way back from live show 14 Just did episode 100. Not too long ago. Crazy. How time flies Howard Rosner, too funny to fail. We talk about John Glaser. You can hear a full interview on classic conversations with John Glaser. That is episode 68 of the podcast. And finally, we're going to cover the global phenomenon, squid game from Episode 44. Ron lipid is going to take us through that if you have seen it. You're gonna love it. If you haven't seen it, you're going to be convinced. Take it away, Ron. We're going to talk about squid game with squid game, we gotta jump right into it. Because there's just so much to go. And there's so many levels.

Ron Lippitt 17:32

It's exactly right, Jeff, there's so many levels very quickly, a an organization that seems dark and mysterious, selects down and out. People typically in terrible debts or personal circumstances puts them in a situation where they can earn millions, or in their case billions of one, which is the Korean currency. It's about a million Americans in exchange for playing for playing a series of games competing against all these other contestants in a series of games. And it's not giving anything away. I think everyone knows basically that that they become hunger, what Hunger Games like games were being up being eliminated from the game instead of being eliminated from life. And so when I heard about this show, and when it was first reviewed on crossing streams, I hadn't seen it. And I kind of assumed it was going to be a foreign knockoff of Hunger Games, and how wrong I was about this. And then Jeff, I'm so glad you agree that there are so many levels to this literally levels to this to this story. And to this show. And the thing I have not watched it if you can imagine this, I've watched this three times. Now nine episodes, I've watched the reread times. I watched it twice just for the pure fun of it. And then I watched it a third time to catch all of the easter eggs and hidden things that you can find on YouTube that helped to round out the story of either way. That is That is a thing now about stories within stories that can be with all these reviewers on YouTube now that can point out things that you never noticed the first or even second time it is amazing how intricate

Unknown Speaker 19:05

everyone just I never knew about this. Oh man. Oh, movies.

Ron Lippitt 19:11

So listen, I you know, the thing that had bothered me after the first time and then second time when when it started creating such a buzz and momentum to it. And keep in mind guys, this is the fastest, most watched show in Netflix history. It's the biggest show in Asian history. It is the number one show around the world right now it's out of Korea. They're already in pre production for season two. I mean, this show is a monster you have not heard the last of of this show. And so I was really stunned by like, what is it about this show that makes people love it so much. Is it is it the acting is it and the acting by the way is superb. You haven't heard of any of the actors. They're all they're all Korean actors, except for there's one episode with some completely unnecessary American actors, but the show itself is all Korean actors, the production values are stellar. They spent a ton of money on this. This was all produced by Netflix itself. Netflix pumped a ton of money into this this. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And that's the other thing about it that I think is fascinating. Almost no CGI in the show, because it take place in Korea, or is it sort of like it takes place in Korea? But your question is an excellent one that if you watch the show, you'll understand why your question is an excellent one. Because it turns out that it's the game is not exclusively a Korean thing. So what the question stands, why is this so compelling? And I think it's because of what Jeff spoke of a moment ago that this is a very layered story. Certainly the games itself are fascinated watching the way they produce each of these games. If you just watch it just for the gains, you would come away feeling this was a valuable watch. If you go a level deeper or even a couple levels deeper, you'll recognize that this is a parable, a society study of how the poor are at the call of the rich and the value of human life and frankly entertainment. So there's that element to it. There is a number of interpersonal stories that I think this show takes a tremendous risks with and they all somehow pay off. And then lastly, I'm just going to say the plot twists in this thing are fantastic, like so fantastic. You would have never seen it coming and it creates one of these situations where you have to rethink the whole show through a new lens. Once you learn some of the plot twists with us and that was the exercise

Unknown Speaker 21:39

man mask isn't giving anything away to say what is what does it mean? What is squid game? Why is it

Howard Rosner 21:44

squeaking?

Ron Lippitt 21:45

Yeah, so squid game is it's two things. It's first off, that is the sixth and final game of squid game of the six games. But the squid game itself is a game in Korean culture where you draw a squid like figure on on a blacktop like with a circle being the squids head Venice square and then a triangle underneath it's supposed to represent the shape of a squid. And the basic objective of the game is to push your adversary out of the squids body. Okay, and it becomes a violent game. I mean, that's the thing they talk about it that squid game played in the playgrounds of Korea is actually quite a violent game because you're you're basically wrestling with kids to get them out of the squid like Foursquare, it's like, kinda like force.

Unknown Speaker 22:28

But it

Ron Lippitt 22:29

is a very deep story, but it is also super exciting, extremely well produced acted incredibly, I don't know where they found these actors from then. And then the twist, man, the twist is just epic.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:42

So here's one of the things that's interesting about this show is how you watch it. So we originally watched it with English dubbing. And we got about two and I haven't read an article at the same time my friend our friend Jeff sonder was talking about how Erica sister said no no, you gotta watch it in Korean with English subtitles and oh my god, we started watching Episode Three let them speak Korean and then it was just English subtitles and we just read it it made the show 100 times better I don't know what or who in Korea thinks Americans talk the way they made the main guy talk with that they made him like this whiny Carthew just wanted to slap when you lit switched into Korean it was just English it was like all of a sudden he was it was a totally different person. He was not this one a whiny person that that the English Oh, are you why are you doing it Howard Howe I like all friends I like and then in green is I gotta get to this show, you know? And I was like the that's like, completely I mean, it was a completely different viewing experience completely. Yeah, and way better. And then then my cousin which I haven't verified this I know there's two versions of the English even subtitles and so I don't know about that but the that's one of the debates is how to actually consume it and I watch it

Ron Lippitt 24:04

it's there's no debate about it in my mind. You must watch this in Korean with the English subtitles changes it's not I didn't even give it a check that the dubbing I watched like 30 seconds of the first episode with English dubbing. It's so bad. It's like laughably bad, so don't do that. Don't make that mistake. I think we've talked about dubbing as a general rule on the show in the past anyway, never watch with anything dubbed and I think the acting is so good that it must be in the original Korean

Howard Rosner 24:32

the significance of the cookies. Everybody's talking about the squid game cookies. Yeah. So

Ron Lippitt 24:36

and this isn't giving anything away. I don't think it has. Jeff has if I had talked about the second game, so one of the games is they they bake these cookies into these tins like circular tins and they give you like a needle and the trick is you have to dig the shape. There's a shape that's dug into the cookie you have to dig the shape out without breaking the cookie and if you if you If you dig the shape out like a triangle or a circle and it comes out as a whole triangle or whole circle you pass that game but it's very difficult these are crumbly. These are crumbly things

Jeff Dwoskin 25:10

and if they break here eliminate it

Unknown Speaker 25:12

if they break your arm is asking a good question.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:16

I mean it's in the in the world that contestants are playing a series of games but no it's not like a game shelf you are watching

Ron Lippitt 25:25

and Carmen no one else sees this this is the only people that see this are the game runners who can view the game but public at large knows nothing about squeaking.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:36

So everyone watched the game and then you'll insist I'm sure watch talk about it we've talked about one more time it will just have to go check it out. It's so

Unknown Speaker 25:45

let's check it out.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:49

All right, squid game Thank you Ron lip it that was from Live episode 44 You can find the full episode on our YouTube channel. Same with episode 14 and episode 75 Or too funny to fail and Swamp Thing came from the full episodes on our YouTube channel subscribe there and get notified when we actually go live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern comment along with us we love talking to the fans while we're doing the show those segments are ripped right from the Live episode. All right, well, too funny to fail Swamp Thing squid game, you got your hands full. I want to let you go so you can start watching go jump on the couch, grab the remote cross your own streams, and I'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 26:32

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 he'll be busy for a while.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai