#127 Crossing The Streams Has Solved the Crime (Bonus Ep20)

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, everyone, it's Jeff Dwoskin. Great to be here. Thanks for joining me for this amazing bonus episode where we dive deep into some amazing segments from our live show crossing the streams where you ask and we answer the universal question. What should I be watching on TV next, I just finished blah, blah, blah. Now I need to watch something else. Well, you've come to the right place. crossing the streams is a live show that I do with a bunch of my buddies every Wednesday at 9:30pm. Eastern Time Live. You can join us live for an hour of goodness on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. You can comment along with us or if you don't have time for that type of commitment. You can just sit wait for one of these bonus episodes. Just feed it right into your ears. You don't have to get up or nothin. We also have a YouTube channel. Search the Jeff Dwoskin show for that. And there's over 70 hours of crossing the streams Full Episodes waiting for you. Today we got an amazing collection of shows to discuss. We're talking Columbo with our guest, Mike White, who is the host of the long running the projection booth podcast and also his brand new podcast, the shabby detective which covers Guess what? Columbo so he's gonna talk about Columbo, you're gonna love that. Brian Greene, friends of the show is going to discuss Kath and Kim. And I'm going to take us through the super Bob Einstein movie. Three great shows for you coming up. Let's kick it off with Kath and Kim. Take it away Brian Greene of the commercial break podcast. And let's discuss cat and Kim. This is him Catherine can Brian take it away?

Bryan Green 2:19

Yeah, so I'm on this kick on Netflix or on on really all the platforms that I've been watching. I get very little time to watch TV with two very young children a podcast and and a business. But one of the things that I do enjoy doing late at night and when I have time to myself in my corner of the bed is I like watching situational comedies with accents. So British accents, Australian accents, I don't know why I'm on this kick. But I've been on it for about a year and I'm going through the list so man down The IT Crowd is okay. It's not really my favorite. But you know, the dairy girls people, people just do nothing. I don't know if you've seen this one. But Katherine Kim is the latest one that I'm watching. It's got about five seasons Scott no stars that you would ever recognize because they're all stars and Australia. So if they've done something if they've done something notable then I don't know about it because I don't live in Australia, but the show to me the humor is dry, which is it's dry, but then they use they use their it's they use physical comedy to add in laughs like splashes and laughs and they also have their own language that they start to develop over the five seasons. So the first season you know, it's they're still you know, it's an ensemble trying to you know, get their sea legs under them. But by episode by season number three, they're hitting on all cylinders, these characters and basically what it is, is it's Mom living with her then you know, boyfriend or soon to be fiance and then the adult daughter who breaks up with her husband moves into the house with mom. And it's kind of the back and forth between Katherine Kim, the mom and the daughter that really drives the conversation but then the husband, the husband of the daughter who moved in and the soon to be husband of Kath who lives in the house, the mother also come into play here and they're just all brilliant comic actors and actresses and I think it's I think it's just a brilliant show. I really do I think it's I think it's so funny and I really enjoy watching it I don't know what else to say it's a it's a great show like a lot of British comedies are there are these comedy are these half hour shows or 30 minutes 30 minutes 30 minutes shows five seasons a couple of specials that are not worth watching. They're absolute trash but as a lot of the special you know the after series ends specials are they try to turn them into two hour movies with actual plot lines and they turn into just you know, robbery shit after 15 minutes. And they go back to hitting the same old notes they hit you know, season number three, you know, calf makes, you know, one of the running gags is the outfits that they wear. So Kath wears workout clothes in almost every show and the workout clothes that she wears are absolutely ridiculous, but to the point of just being hilarious and her husband her fiance boyfriend at the beginning of the show, he wears 70s leisure outfits and so the way it's just too funny. There's a fifth character in the ensemble And that is a rotund young lady. And I wish I could remember her name the actual actresses name Majida something but she plays this kind of clumsy friend of the, of the daughter, who's also friends with the mother. And she's always she's, she's got to weigh 280 pounds, and she's always playing some kind of sport. She's into sports, and with every episode comes a new injury. So she'll stick a pencil through her hand, she'll shift. She'll come in with like, you know, shards of glass in her hair or something. I don't know why this is so funny to me. But it's, it's just so fun. I don't know if anybody else get has that kind of anything with an accent that is, and comedic, ends up being funny. But

Jeff Dwoskin 5:42

in college in college, I really thought I'd end up marrying someone with an accent. I didn't. But I just I loved tax. That's true. But I'll tell you the interesting thing about what if you watch, there's a great way to watch TV, when there's accents and I'm talking like the crown or anything like that. And close caption. You've said this before, Jeff is the greatest thing ever to have on while you're watching it. Because it even helps you kind of tune into like the what the music is intended for. And all that kind of stuff and things that you wouldn't necessarily know because it comes from the script that it would you'd never really maybe catch if you're just kind of mostly watching, but it helps with accents and helps us access things

Howard Rosner 6:25

about the Apple TV is the ability to just hold the microphone and go subtitles on. Subtitles are just to change on the fly. We did them with Game of Thrones when my wife watched the entire series in 10 days. And it was a huge help. You just helped me out. I didn't know I have Apple TV. I didn't even know you could do that. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's huge. The other thing we do is, you know, if we're watching, if we're watching like in bed, and we don't want the volume up as loud and the TVs a little further away, it helps so that you can keep the volume down a little bit still here it fills in the blanks for you the

Bryan Green 7:04

is Venezuelan. So she and you know, she's a very good English speaker. Like it's perfect English, right? And but but but Spanish is her native language. And so when we get into British television shows with British accents, or Australian accents, or really any kind of accent, she loses it like she can't get English with an accent is you know, like anybody who speaks a second language, you throw in a twist and all of a sudden it's it can be difficult. So we started watching some of these situational comedies about four years ago at night and I would turn on the subtitles for her so that she or when she was watching a Spanish show so I could read the Spanish you know, I could read it instead of hearing it because I was just learning and I have never turned the subtitles off. yet. I watch everything with subtitles. I think life is better with subtitles. When you're mad

Jeff Dwoskin 7:49

at your wife. Do you just talk with a little accent so she can understand you? Alright, that was Brian Greene and Kath and Kim. plus a bonus conversation about the beauty of using closed caption while watching TV at home. I am a huge advocate. Once you go closed captions you don't go back. All right. Our next show is presented by Mike White host of the shabby detective podcast and the projection booth podcast knocks it out of the park with his discussion of Colombo. Take it away, Mike. i We got we're gonna turn it over to Mike White, who's going to take us through one of the greatest shows ever all

Bob Phillips 8:33

about this. Jeff joked earlier that I was an extra on the set.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:40

Do you watch that first run?

Bryan Green 8:44

So yeah, you played Colombo's? Father's I think is what exactly?

Mike White 8:49

Yeah, the only relative that they ever showed.

Bryan Green 8:52

Was that true? No.

Mike White 8:55

Along with doing the projection booth, because you know, what else are you going to do? I also have started a new podcast venture, which is called the shabby detective yet another Colombo podcast because there are a lot of them out there. I think we're like number six or seven at least, but trying to do a little bit of a different thing. It's that typical thing where you've got the person who's watched every episode, and then you've got the guy who hasn't seen any of them. So that's my buddy Chris, and I'm taking him by the hand. It's very romantic and taking him through the entire run of Colombo. We are only up to the third episode we just recorded about the one it was. It was directed by this kid. It felt like he was going places, but I don't think he ever did anything else. Steven Spielberg.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:44

Oh, I've heard of them. Yeah. Oh,

Mike White 9:47

you've heard about that guy. Okay. I thought he was a little too obscure.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:51

He only does remakes. I think he just did Wes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're

Mike White 9:55

right. Yeah,

Bryan Green 9:56

he's living in Austin, Texas. Yeah, we

Mike White 9:58

started off actually by I talking about crime and punishment because the inspector and that was very much an inspiration for Lincoln Levinson, the two guys who put together Colombo, people thought we were crazy where you started in Colombo podcast and talking about crime and punishment, but I think it was a really good foundation. And then we since have talked about the first pilot, which was really more of a TV movie that they were kind of using as a pilot. And then the proper pilot, which guy that was the first pilot, I want to say was 68. The second pilot was 70, I want to say was early 71. And then the first episode was late 71. They're trying to really make sure that they could get Peter Falk on this. And our first guest on the podcast, David coning wrote a book about, about the shooting of Colombo, and he really dug up a lot of great stories, especially about just how cantankerous and what a perfectionist Peter Falk was, and that he did not want to do a TV show because he had done another one previously, that failed after a season 22 episodes and he's just like, I don't want to do that ever again. So that's why when the wheel came up, you know, with your bandit checks and McLeod's and Macmillan, and then wives and those things, it was like, okay, Peter, you can do six episodes, not 22 episodes, he was finally on board.

Bob Phillips 11:21

I didn't know that. So that's why the we only got a little bit of Colombo everything out,

Mike White 11:27

okay. And that's also why at the end of almost every single season, it's like, well, maybe I won't be back, because he would just always like trying to get more money in between the seasons and just fight and argue about that. It was always pulling teeth trying to get Peter back into the role. But he was so great at it. And that's the thing is now taking somebody who's never seen Colombo and saying this is what what I love and why I love it and hearing my partner in this just like oh my god, this is fantastic. It's just been such a joy to me to bring Colombo into somebody else's life. That's awesome.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:01

All right. So that explains why there's 13 seasons, but only 68 episodes. Right?

Unknown Speaker 12:07

Right. Where they were, I can't remember were they an hour? Or were they an hour and a half?

Mike White 12:11

They went from without commercials. You had a lot of 7876 minute episodes. And then they actually did some. And this is so backwards, where it's like, you know, we're going to be going up against this show. So we really need a two hour episode instead of an hour and a half. And they would add to these episodes, which was nuts. So like the one with Cassavetes, I think that's what is that that's not a to them. I think that is a to them black neck, or John. John. Yeah, they tacked on another like without commercials, like another 1520 minutes. And it's so much of Peter Falk and Cassavetes, who had obviously worked together a ton like with Cassavetes own films, as well as Mikey and Nicki, and they just said, Okay, guys, improvise. And that's where you get a lot of the greatest moments in that episode is just Cassavetes and Falk going at it in probing and coming up with their lines on the spot. It's just amazing.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:15

So they were that strategic with the schedule guy. No, yeah, we're gonna be up against other things.

Mike White 13:22

Yeah, it's like, oh, well, we're going up against James Bond film. You know, the, the Man with the Golden Gun. We really need something to pop here, fellas.

Unknown Speaker 13:31

So in the in the they were on two different networks. It was on 2g networks.

Mike White 13:36

The Original Series was all I want to say NBC Universal. And then when they came back in the what was that late 80s, early 90s. I think it ran all the way up to 2003. That was all NBC stuff. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:50

89 to 2003. They

Bryan Green 13:52

did say I'm just reading from the lucky

Unknown Speaker 13:56

that law. I didn't need a 2003 Huh. Yeah.

Bryan Green 14:01

May 9 of 2003. Yeah.

Mike White 14:03

And those, those ABC episodes. You know, your mileage may vary.

Bob Phillips 14:10

Didn't they sit have some awful? Something like a Mrs. Colombo? Yeah. Kate Mack Rue or something who was

Mike White 14:19

two seasons? You're absolutely right. And it started out as Mrs. Colombo. And then it changed to Oh God, what was it was like Kate Colombo, a third title and then it ended up as Kate loves and mystery was the name of the show.

Howard Rosner 14:39

About wringing it out, you know, it's like, Stop already.

Unknown Speaker 14:41

Embarrassing yourselves.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:44

Well, that's what they did in the 70s. It was a spin off and

Bob Phillips 14:49

but I think that one I think the Mrs. Colombo was like in the 90s Wasn't it?

Mike White 14:54

No, it was like 79 All right. I

Bob Phillips 14:58

I'm missed the boat on that because she wound up being captain of one of my favorite TV shows Voyager. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:06

that's right. And she's in Orange is the New Black. Oh, that's right. Is that right? Yeah. She was great in that. Yeah. So Mike, what what do you think makes this show so endearing after decades? I'm it's been off the air for decades. But I mean, it's been around for 50 years,

Mike White 15:21

right? I think Well, one thing I think is the inverted mystery style really captures people's interests. This whole idea of seeing the murderer happen and then Colombo walking in the door, and immediately focusing in on those details that are going to trip that person up usually a man but sometimes a woman and just being so frickin smart in always, like three, four or five steps ahead of the other person but pretending that he is a complete schlub. Just like oh, there's just this one little thing that's bothering me. Um, it's not me. It's my captain, you know, just all that stuff that he's doing. I just love that. And it's so captivating. I think false performance is 95% of it. And then the other is that inverted mystery style. And you're just like, Okay, once you're going to do it once you're gonna close that trap. What's it gonna take to get this person to either confess, or just have iron clad proof to say, you know, you made the big mistake. You, you, you that wine got up to 106 degrees. And that's the wine that was served tonight at dinner. And that's how we know that your brother was in that cellar. And then the power went out while you were over in France.

Bob Phillips 16:39

is one of my favorites. Did you ever see a Wings of Desire?

Mike White 16:42

Oh, god. Yeah, that was so good. He played himself. Yeah, that is such a great movie. I love that everybody recognizes them as Columbo. Yeah. So good. Yeah. And hearing his thoughts I love that's one of the things I love about Wings of desires just hear the thoughts in him when he's drawing and he's just like, Yeah, I don't know if I can. I'm not a very good artists. You know, I love that man's hat.

Unknown Speaker 17:07

Yeah, it's one of my favorite movies.

Mike White 17:09

It's so good. Yeah, not a big city of angels fan the remain

Bob Phillips 17:12

I love City of Angels this Oh, wow. We're kind of going off on a tangent here. But yeah, I love City of Angels. One of Nick cages best movies I think and and one in which why can I never remember her name? Meg Ryan, Meg Ryan isn't insufferable. Yeah, you know, she's, she's she's I can watch her in this. Yeah, but we're kind of going off.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:35

The views of Bob Phillips on Meg Ryan did not reflect those across.

Bob Phillips 17:40

I thought Nora Ephron was feeding her lines in a couple of movies. And it was just so awful. I couldn't. I literally left the theater in who's got mail? I had I couldn't stand it anymore. The dialogue was so

Mike White 17:57

a bookstore one. Yes. Yeah. Make of shop around the corner. Yeah, shop around the corner. So when she's

Bob Phillips 18:06

sitting there, and she's talking to Tom Hanks, who she doesn't know she's talking to and she say, Oh, my mother whenever I would feel upset, she would make me a cup of hot cocoa. I'm like, I need to vomit. I need to leave. I ran from the theater. I never went back.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:22

That's one of those movies that I remember watching with my wife. She made me and but like that has a lot of Godfather references in it as a real like Godfather is one of those movies you have to watch because if you don't you miss so much even like Stuart Little like a movie.

Unknown Speaker 18:42

That's true.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:43

That one bit that one does a lot about going to the mattresses. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But all right. Well, that was a great review. Mike. Yeah, it really was. Yeah, thank you. First time on the show knocked it out of the park. Whoa, whoa, job. All right, Mike White and Colombo that was from Episode 66. By the way, Catherine Kim was from Episode 23. And from Episode 56, we're gonna round it off with a super Bob Einstein movie led by yours truly take it away me. The Super Bob Einstein. Yes. Movie. Growing up. I was a big fan of Bob Einstein. And he was he is Super Dave Osborne. Most people not a lot of people know him as Super Dave Osborne, which is a character that he created, I think originally on the bizarre show on Showtime, which he helped create, which actually was the first show I ever on one series series ever created for a paycheck. Correct. Oh, Bob Einstein is a hilarious Comedian. But just to give you an idea what this movie is the super Bob Einstein Movie. A Bob Einstein died 2019 76 years old of cancer. This movie is like I would say, a love letter to him from his friends just kind of honoring him. It's it's a tribute. It's if you've died, this is what you would want everyone you know, to get together and put together in one way or another. Like this is what that is. It's a documentary eulogy. It really is not. Yeah, but it's not sad. It's not about his life getting cut short. It's not about any of those things. It's just it's people remembering him and telling stories. And he's in it a lot to from footage and he's great. It was just great. He was so it's really interesting. His entire style, which I love is very deadpan is that and guy who never, never broke, and he would just maintain the character the entire time, which was the beauty, and the hilarity of it. Sarah Silverman kind of described it as most people have a straight man and a What's the opposite of a straight man? Yeah,

Howard Rosner 21:11

he was his own man to bounce jokes off of you

Jeff Dwoskin 21:14

use his own straight man, but he was too straight man. And you're not that funny. There's so many funny stories and things that kind of go into this 90 minutes and John biners in it. He was the star of bizarre with him and he talks and Larry David Susie Essman. Jeff Garlin, Jimmy Kimmel, Steve Barton, Sarah Silverman, David Letterman, just to name a few. You know, these people are just raving about him and talking about how funny he is. Even if you don't know who Bob Weinstein is. And likely, if you started to watch it, you'd be like, Oh, I know that is it's worth it to watch it because you'll definitely, oh, either I need to rewatch a lot of this stuff, or I need to discover a lot of this stuff. He's also most recently known as Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I'll let Howard talk a little bit about, but he has been on that for seasons four through nine. But here's a guy that just went on a show did a bit like a dead pan bit. I think it was Tommy smothers it was watching one of this. I mean, some others is watching finds it to be the most hilarious thing ever hire Sam to write for the Smothers Brothers. It becomes, was I think first it was the Glen Campbell show which became the Smothers Brothers show. And then it becomes Steve Martin's writing partner like for years they were inseparable Steve Martin talks about it. But I mean, he was part of this Rob Reiner crew this next writers room was crazy saying writers room Carl Gottlieb, who actually was on my podcast, but went on to write the jerk with Steve Martin and the screenwriter for JAWS. And but I mean, there's just so much hilarity in this room. It's just insane. So I guess I'm just gonna tell one story from the thing because I think it was Well, to me, I think it's so funny and I think it's indicative so I'm not gonna tell well, so you'll go watch the movie after and you'll hear him do it. And it's much better but Jimmy Kimmel is telling the story where he's Bob Einstein is on the man show with Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel. And Bob Einstein's father was a very famous comedian of his time. And actually, he was he was known and he had this character Parque de Arcus that I said right but it was a character that he did, which kind of I think molded by by Weinstein who later you know, became very synonymous with Super Dave Osborne like creating a character where you could be you but you're this character, a different person. So his father was doing a roast of Lucy and Desi Arnaz and died like right after like dropped dead right after. And so you had to be pretty big to be at that Lucie arnaz thing. So he dies right after so flash forward by by and stands on the man show, and they're doing this shots they're doing they're all doing these shots are playing some kind of game and Adam Carolla goes, well, at least your father died doing something he loved five eyes and goes that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in Adam Carolla tries to back out of it and goes that it's a stupid What is your age? Bob Einstein says that what is your father love to do? What is your father? He loves to play the trumpet. And Bob Einstein says, Well, you know, I hope he's playing the trumpet swallows on it chokes to death falls over and dies. People can say a die doing what he loves. I guess something like that. I didn't do it as well, but like, but it was just but but this is all straight. Right? He tells us you know, it's that his tone is very he's not like he's telling a joke. It's like he's like Oh, he's like a serious sort of anger. And it's like, it's so funny, but everything he did was like that. Super Dave Osborne is the funniest Super Dave Osborne, for people don't know. He's like, he's an accident prone Evil Knievel character. He never

Howard Rosner 25:15

was really what he was based off of right.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:20

And he never could get those out. They always went horribly wrong. But it was so funny. I mean, he always be and it was, it's physical humor, like you wouldn't believe physical humor. And it never gets old. I can watch the same clips over and over again. And it's so funny because he plays it so straight.

Howard Rosner 25:44

Yeah, every time straight. I was a huge fan of bizarre and I remember the Super Dave Osborne shot and I forgot how funny like I remembered it being funny. But I remember I forgot how detailed funny those clips were the setup were like they go through the walkthrough the entire setup like they would with the Evil Knievel, like showing you this thing is going to have 5000 pounds of torque and like setting it all up. And you know what's gonna go wrong? You see what's coming. Like there's the one where he's in the yo yo, the huge Yo yo, you're like, you know, somebody's gonna have and the rope snaps onto a highway or into a ravine. Like my wife had never seen some of those she was watching with me and she was cracking up. Like the one where he's like, it's like a hammer or something. And it just smashes into the ground in front of me. But then the other part that made it hysterical was hearing him go Oh, no, like as it's about to happen. And then the announcer coming over going Super Dave, he's like, you're standing on my nuts, you pots. deadpanned, after the stunt had gone absolutely wrong was so funny. And Marty Funkhouser was such a good character. They were just the one they talked about was the famous one where he was Jerry Seinfeld, where he meets Larry introduces them to Jerry Seinfeld. And he does I won't do the joke, but it's a hysterical, off color joke. And I didn't realize until they talk with Larry and Jerry talk about it. That was not scripted. He literally goes and says, Do you want to hear a joke? Is Jerry's like, Larry's like? No. And he's like, I had to tell you a joke. That was unscripted. And he just launched into it, and it was hysterical. And then the other the other couple of scenes, they show a couple of things that Marty Funkhouser is where Larry stole the flowers from the roadside Memorial. And then the one that I love, which might be my all time favorite, Curb Your Enthusiasm episode was from Palestinian chicken where he becomes super Orthodox and he won't take off the yarmulke and Larry chases him off and all the the people in the Palestinian restaurant chair Larry. It's good delivery was so good. Just so good. And and just so funny, just hysterical. They showed he had done some of those routines more than once like they showed in the Kimmel, the episode they did for Kimmel, where they set up a drive thru restaurant, and then had a car drive straight through the drive thru. They did that exact scene exactly that way per his instruction. 25 years prior on the Super Dave Show, or something like it was exactly the same. They showed footage of it. And it just brilliant. It didn't matter. Nobody cares.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:36

And here's the beauty of it. It's on HBO Max. It's called the Super Bob Einstein movie. It's only like 90 minutes long. It's a perfect amount. There's no no fluff. It's just it's all really really great. Really, really great clips. Lots of funny stuff. So I definitely highly recommend

Unknown Speaker 28:54

going to watch that tomorrow. Yeah, it's a good pick me up laughter

Jeff Dwoskin 29:00

one Yeah. This super Bob Einstein movie everyone. And thanks to Howard Rosner for really caring half the weight on that review with me actually. So definitely check that out super Bob Einstein movie Katherine Kim Colombo, that has a lot of homework for you, don't you thank three great binge watching suggestions. Now lay at your fingertips. So go grab your favorite spot on the couch, secure the remote cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 29:33

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.

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