Transcript

Intro Clip

I had a rough day. Tell me about it, man. Ugh. Ooh, I gotta wake my ass up at 6:00 AM every day this week. Drag up to Las Galindas. Yeah, I'm doing the drywall up there at the new McDonald's. Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays? No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying something like that, man. Huh. We still going fishing this weekend? Uh, Lumbergh's gonna have me come in on Saturday. I just know it. Well, you can get out of that easily. Yeah? How? Well, when a boss wants you to work on Saturday, he generally asks you at the end of the day, right? Yeah? So all you gotta do is avoid 'em. That's all right, I've got it. Only last few hours on Friday. Duck out early, turn off your answering machine. You should be home free, man. That's a really good idea. Fuckin' A, man. Lawrence, what would you do if you had $1 million? I'll tell you what I'd do, man. 2 chicks at the same time, man. That's it? You had a million dollars, you'd do 2 chicks at the same time? Damn straight. Always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire, I could hook that up too, 'cause chicks dig dudes with money. Well, not all chicks. Well, the type of chicks that double up on a dude like me do. Good point. Well, what about you now? What would you do? Besides 2 chicks at the same time? Well, yeah. Nothing. Nothing, huh? I would relax. I would sit on my ass all day. I would do nothing. Well, you don't need $1 million to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He's broke, don't do shit.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads, 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are wrapping up our march through the decades that we've been calling 2 Dads, 2 Decades, which we started 20 weeks ago with Airplane in 1980. It is now 1999. And we are— we watched Office Space from Mike Judge. And Nic, kick it off first, man. This is a movie you brought to us. So why did you bring us Office Space? What did— What's your history with it?

Nic

Yeah, I think, you know, like many people of our generation, this one was very, uh, it was very important to us. Uh, it gave us a lot of terminology. Uh, and then, you know, specifically for me and, and a lot of my friends and us, we were like, we weren't in the business world yet, right, when we saw this and started to love it. So our first jobs, the second there's any mention of like a memo or fucking whatever, we're like, oh shit. Um, so it was just very quotable, uh, very rewatchable. This again was the put it on before you go out movie, right? The early parts of this are ultra familiar to me, and then there's certain parts towards the end that aren't. But, uh, just a fun movie, and I think a great way to wrap up the 2 Dads 2 Decades in the true spirit of like what we're trying to go for with this show.

Steve

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and I think this is one that, um, definitely benefited from Comedy Central. I feel like this was on Comedy Central like constantly for a few years, and so it was just almost impossible, you know, if you were coming home— I remember being in college, you come home drunk from the bars or whatever, you throw on the TV before you go to bed, and if you happen to throw on Comedy Central, you had like a a 1 in 4 chance that this is the movie that was playing some random night at, you know, 1 AM or something.

Nic

Also, this was a classic, you pass out and just the DVD menu screen is just looping and looping and looping as you're falling asleep.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah, for myself, like very similar to you, I caught it in college, didn't see it in the theater, but would've seen it pretty soon after, you know, DVD. I was, you know, the guy kind of similar to last week's where Baseball, you know, I would've seen it originally 'cause somebody said, oh, the guys who made South Park did this. Similar with this would've been, oh, the guy who made Beavis and Butt-Head did this movie.

Nic

Right.

Steve

All right, well, we'll check it out. And I think that that's, you know, You know, we'll talk about the facts in a minute, but I think that's one of the reasons the movie didn't do that well in the theaters is because they tried to market it as like from the guy from with Beavis and Butt-Head kind of thing. And it was like, that's so got nothing to do with like the humor's not the same. Like Mike Judge has massive range as a creator and this just isn't in the Beavis and Butt-Head King of the Hill kind of register. This is a very different kind of vibe. But yeah, like a lot of very fun movie, one that yeah, quote all the time. So much stuff that comes out of this movie is just now like in my vernacular. PC load letter, what the fuck does that mean? Like, I mean, all this stuff. And then, you know, and then I spent, I have spent over 20 years working in software. Luckily for me, never in an office environment that was this stodgy. When I worked in offices, I've been remote for the last like 7 years, but like when I worked in offices, it was always at startups. I spent a little time at Google, but even Google acts like a startup. Like nobody at Google is wearing like ties, you know what I mean?

Nic

Well, the way startups operate almost seems like a reaction to this type of culture, right? In a lot of ways, the ping pong tables and the,.

Steve

Free coffee and like, you know, like the come as you are.

Nic

You still have to come in on Saturday and Sunday, but hey, you're, you're wearing shorts.

Steve

Hey, these days 996 has become a real popular thing in tech, which is ridiculous. Just working 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week. Luckily not any company I work at, but that has become a thing, which is gross. Anyway, let's jump into the facts on the movie Office Space. Uh, it came out on February 19th, 1999, right after Valentine's Day. Would have been a fun date movie, uh, with an R rating and a running time of a brisk 89 minutes.

Nic

Maybe.

Steve

Within the 4 fastest movies I think we've watched. I think Army of Darkness was like 84. Spinal Tap's real short. Army of Darkness is real short. And this one at 89. You don't see a lot of sub-90-minute features. So directed and written for the screen by Mike Judge, and of course adapted from Judge's animated shorts called Milton, which is the character Stephen Root plays.

Nic

Is this— if— would this be an adapted screenplay even though he wrote— it's adapted off what he wrote originally?

Steve

Just like Cameron Crowe getting nominated for adapted screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. High based off of the book Fast Times at Ridgemont High by Cameron Crowe. It's still written for screen, is the credit. So yeah, is what it is. It's the way the WGA rules work. Uh, the movie stars Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, and David Herman. Uh, Ron, of course, we saw in Swingers. Uh, Jennifer Aniston, of course, the most famous person in the cast at this point. Um, and David Herman, who plays the Michael Bolton character. Uh, scores: Rotten Tomatoes, 82%, pretty healthy, dig it. IMDb, 7.6, very highly respected. Strong. Very strong, especially for a comedy. Gene Siskel was getting sick by the time this movie came out, so he did not give a thumbs up or down on this movie. Instead, we get just one thumbs up from Roger Ebert for Office Space.

Nic

It's kind of sad when it just becomes one.

Steve

Yeah, it's, it's— I think anything in the second half of '98 or throughout '99, we're not going to get a Siskel rating on. So yeah, no awards to speak of. A couple of critics nominate— Critics Award nominations, nothing really interesting on a $10 million budget, which like Again, last week we watched Basketball for $25 million and what they were able to do there. This movie for $10 is like in many ways more impressive. But again, I think a big part of that is not having to build sets, right? They clearly— yeah, right location for the shoots. Um, anyway, it pulled in just $12.8 million at the box office, 1.28 times what it cost, uh, which is definitely a disappointment. There's no— there's no way to spin that that isn't disappointing.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

Um, but you know, I wish we.

Nic

Had home video numbers because I know this is like gone fucking crazy with merchandising and all that.

Steve

It's a movie that, that definitely benefited from DVD sales and rentals and then also So again, from just being one of those kind of like staples that basic cable would, you know, play the edited version of just on repeat, basically. So yeah, that's how it became. I mean, it has become an absolute cult classic for sure. This is one of those movies we've seen several already in our run, but this is one of those movies that like box office flop, but got such a second life in home video, which really isn't a thing anymore. Now it's like there's streaming. So if you're gonna come out in the theaters and you're gonna, but if you're gonna flop, the streamers don't even tend to wanna pick you up. So it's not like a standard thing like it used to be where even the flops got put out on DVD or VHS. Or whatever. Uh, nowadays it's a little funkier. I think you've either got to be a streaming movie or you've got to be a theatrical movie that does well enough that the streamers give a shit about, about buying the rights to you.

Intro Clip

Yeah.

Steve

Um, so yeah, but, uh, but yeah, Office Space definitely benefited from that, uh, that system that used to exist for sure. All right, Nic, kick us off, man. How does Office Space start?

Nic

All right, Office Space. We've got, we've got a cold open and we've got, uh, an introduction to our main characters stuck in traffic on their way to work. Great scene. So we've got Peter Gibbons, played by Ron Livingston. Yeah. And he's, you know, stuck there in stop-and-go traffic. Obviously every frustrating thing you could imagine. He's seeing how slow he's going. He looks out his window and sees an old man in a walker passing him. You know, the lane next to him, of course, is moving just fine. And then when he can finally get into the other lane, that lane stops and his previous lane goes. So, so that's happening to Peter.

Steve

I will say this movie 100% continues to affect the way I drive.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Because, because of Office Space, I don't try to like, if I'm in shitty traffic, I stay in the lane I'm in.

Nic

Mm-hmm.

Steve

And I just, I'm like, I think to myself, it'll all work out. It'll all even out eventually.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Everybody's trying to go the same place.

Nic

And it's literally— Can't chase that dragon.

Steve

It's literally because of this movie that I won't cut over to the other lane. I swear to God.

Nic

Yeah. So, so he's, Peter's in the car and then we've got Michael Bolton who's played by David Herman.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And he's singing loudly along with this rap song, you know, just really getting down and he's coming up to like an intersection or whatever. And there's a guy outside of his window who's like selling flowers.

Steve

Right, yeah.

Nic

And it's like the most like benign figure you could imagine, but it's a guy who happens to be Black.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

So Michael Bolton like turns his music way down and locks his door and everything, is like, starts singing it, you know, quietly. And then the second that guy leaves, he bumps it back up.

Steve

I got the feeling up inside me.

Nic

If I can't talk to my mama, then I'll talk to my diary. And he's singing along with it. So, um, very funny. And I, I'm one of those guys. I'm not a, I'm not a lock my door and turn it down guy, but I'm a blast my ass off when I'm driving by myself.

Steve

I will say, how many movies do we have before Office Space with a, let's call it a predominantly white crowd, uh, cast? No major character who's, who's Black, although we do have Sameer, who's, uh, uh, I think he's supposed to be like Pakistani or, or, you know, Saudi or something like that, right?

Nic

Saudi, because they, yeah.

Steve

Oh, he makes a comment at Riyadh. Yeah.

Nic

So, so— He might just be a comedian in 2026. There you go.

Steve

But outside of him and a very brief appearance late by Orlando Jones, like, this is an all-white cast. That has an all hip-hop soundtrack. I feel like that's got to be until— off, you know, before Office Space, I don't know that that existed anywhere. I'm not sure.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, unless it was being done ironic, because the thing about the hip-hop in this movie, it's believable that this is what the characters listen to, because this is what I listen to, this is what we listen to, our friends, you know. So it's not done in a parody way.

Steve

So maybe Malibu's Most Wanted or something.

Nic

So I was thinking about something like that, but even that kind of shit didn't start getting made till the mid-2000s. So yeah, I think you're right, and that's a great point.

Steve

Yeah, it's very interesting.

Nic

So and then Samir in his car, we get Samir briefly, and he's just like furious and punching his wheel and going crazy, right?

Steve

Samir Nainanaja, not that hard to say actually. Not at all. Not hard to say at all. But everybody seems to deal with it. Maybe it's written really funny. Maybe it's not written phonetically at all. But yeah, we also briefly see Milton, the Stephen Root character, the bad skin, the enormous eyeglasses. But he's not driving to work; he's sitting at a bus stop. Waiting for, for his bus to come. When Peter arrives at Initech, he parks, has to walk kind of a ways to get to the office, and he comes inside and he reaches for the doorknob, and you can tell he knows this is gonna happen before it does, but he gets such a big static shock that you can see it, like it jumps like a lightning bolt off of the handle onto his hand. And I hate that. Like, the number of times, like, a carpeted office, you know, when you're wearing, you know, if it's not rubber-soled shoes, if you've got like leather-soled shoes,.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, those like the dress shoes, you're just going to get shocked everywhere.

Nic

It's the worst feeling. Have you ever been to one of those science museums where they have the thing where you can experience different levels of shock? I hate that shit so much. Why does that exist? I hate that stuff.

Steve

I remember— I don't remember his name, but it was like Henze or Herman. It was our physics teacher senior year of high school.

Intro Clip

Herrich.

Steve

Herrich. Thank you. I knew it was an H. He had this crank machine and you would have— you would go student to student and hold the 2 ends of the connectors or the wires. And then the student in front of you would turn the crank to feel it. And the idea was like, they're gonna do it to you next, so be gentle.

Nic

Oh, man.

Steve

And every once in a while, some of the guys in class would just crank that thing super hard. I mean, it was never enough to, like, hurt you.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

But it hurt, you know what I mean?

Nic

Like, everyone's going Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, just maximizing your shock there.

Steve

Oh, my God.

Nic

Uh, but relatable. So, so far, like, we've established all this relatable stuff that has nothing to do with the actual job.

Steve

No, no.

Nic

It just has to do with fucking getting there in the first place, right?

Steve

Just getting to work.

Nic

Uh, so, you know, Peter's— he's shocked by the door, and he goes down, he sits at his desk, and he starts typing.

Steve

You know, he's got a shitty little cubicle, you know, although, although honestly, I would kill for a cubicle in the 20-teens because like back when I was in offices, then it's all open floor plan. Everybody's sneezing on everyone else. Like, yeah, cubicle walls were a luxury. Yeah. Like by the time I was working.

Nic

In offices and I've been lucky, like in my whole career, my first job out of college, I've been at small firms the whole time and I've had my own office. I had to share with another person for a couple of years. But other than that, I've had my own like full-ass office. So I never lived that cubicle life.

Steve

Yeah. And most of the companies I've worked at, the CEO doesn't have an office.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

They just sit out in the bullpen with everybody else.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had zero ping pong tables though.

Steve

Yeah, there you go, right? I had a lot of ramen available to me.

Nic

So Peter's approached by his boss, Bill Lumbergh, played by Gary Cole.

Steve

The wonderful Gary Cole.

Nic

So fucking funny. Love Gary Cole. When we were watching this, my wife and I were talking about Gary Cole. His performance in The Brady Bunch movie as Mike Brady is one of the funniest things ever. The degree of difficulty to be so perfect And then so funny on top of that impression. He's just so great. I wish he was listed instead of David Herman, to be honest with you.

Steve

That's fair. I probably could have put Gary Cole on.

Nic

Oh, it's not on you. It's whoever does the fact sheet.

Steve

Yeah, right. Whoever that is. I'll have to, I'll have to flog that intern later. Um, no, have you ever seen— do you ever watch Entourage?

Nic

Uh, I saw— yeah, I saw like the first season.

Steve

No, see, by the end of the movie, or by the end of the series, Cole is like, uh, also an agent working with Ari, with the Jeremy Piven character, and he The two of them together are an absolute riot. Like Gary Cole as a as a fucking agent in LA is so funny, and he's like season five six or I think is that ballpark.

Nic

But that guy has so much range. I love him.

Steve

He's really great.

Nic

So he approaches Peter, and like of course very quotable. Hey Peter, what's happening? So I heard you had a. So the issue is like Peter didn't put the proper cover page on his memo on his TPS report, right? Did you get the memo? And there's all this stuff. So he's approached by Bill Lumbergh, Gary Cole, his boss. He's approached by another guy. So everyone he encounters is mentioning, oh, I heard you're not putting cover sheets.

Steve

Gets a phone call from another person to remind him, like, call me.

Nic

And he's just like, yeah, sorry, I forgot. I'll do it. And they won't accept that. They're like, yeah, because we're trying to do— and it's such a grating, shitty thing. And again, I've only worked at small companies. I haven't had to deal with too much of that. But this boiled my blood, dude. And his, his, his neighbor in the neighboring cube is Milton, who we saw earlier. Who's playing the radio, which is loud enough that it would drive you insane, right?

Steve

It's not a reasonable volume at all.

Nic

Milton keeps saying he was told that I could play in a reasonable volume. Kind of, kind of Anchorman syndrome with this movie a bit. Like, I heard too many Milton impressions that weren't very good that tainted it a bit.

Steve

Is that a fucking message? Is that a message, Nick?

Nic

No, yours was perfect.

Steve

I thought you were just playing a.

Nic

Recording from the film. No, you know what I mean. You're a voice pro here. But yeah, so Milton— so we've kind of set like Peter's situation. He's just like miserable.

Steve

And he can hear Mina in the cubicle over here. Corporate accounts payable, Mina speaking.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Just a moment. And she repeats that over and over again, which like—.

Nic

Here's the thing. Heidi's look is so funny.

Steve

It's so perfect. So much makeup, the bright red hair. I did not have that situation, but I do remember one of the early startups I worked in. It was kind of— it had cubicle walls still because this was like 2005 maybe. So it was like early. But it was this big warehouse, converted warehouse in Emeryville. So it was like the acoustics were god-awful, right? Yeah. Reverberated off everything else. And I happened to have— I was working in customer support, so I was like on the phones with like my headset on. And I had these asshole sales guys like 2 cubicles over who would do conference calls over speaker. So they were doing speakerphone calls while I'm trying to like take like a basically a pissed-off customer like complaining about something and trying to help them out, right? It's my first job in tech. And, and yeah, it was like just absolute nightmare to have these guys just talking super loud and like 2 cubicles over. And we couldn't say anything to them because they were the sales guys. So the second you try to like change the way they do anything, yeah, all they got to go is, yeah, but I'm like, you know, bringing in like a $50,000 deal. So sorry, you know, and it's like, and the company's not gonna side with the stupid-ass customer service kid. So yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, it is so tough managing. Just, you need a— everyone needs a certain environment to be able to work and to be able to focus, and it's so disrespected in these kind of places.

Steve

Oh my God, it's so bad. Yeah, thank God for working from home.

Nic

Samir, one of the coworkers who we saw in the car earlier, and he's standing there at the printer, which is one of our recurring characters.

Steve

Yeah, basically a character in the movie.

Nic

Kind of like our fax machine and swingers and different inanimate recurring characters. And we get a, why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam? And he's hitting it and doing all this stuff, right? I love it, and we've all experienced it. And again, I'm a very tech-frustrated person, so I'm gonna flip out on a machine before I troubleshoot.

Steve

Well, that's fair. I have the the the right way to troubleshoot most of these machines is the three Rs, which is retry, reboot, and reinstall. Those are your ten that tends to solve a lot of your problems.

Nic

But there is the other was rage.

Steve

Exactly. To say the other R potentially is rage out, and that's that's you know if that's the fourth R, then that's you know just maybe just don't make it your first stop. Maybe that's all on your troubleshooting journey.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So there's a mail being delivered by this woman, and so she can't pronounce Samir's last name. She's like "Nagana," and he says his name is Naina Naja. Which is like a mouthful, don't get me wrong, but it also doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to understand unless it's written really funny. So I don't know how they spelled his name. I should've probably tried to look that up, but I didn't.

Nic

And it's funny 'cause you're assuming it's the same person handing out paychecks all the time. So they're doing this every 2 weeks to them.

Steve

Right. Well, it's not even paychecks. I think they're delivering a memo 'cause I think it's the memo Tom talks about later about the consultants. But then she turns to Michael and is like, Michael Bolton? Oh, and it's like, and then people keep asking me if he's related to the guy. Like, no. Like, how many people who you're related to have your exact name? Zero. A grand total of zero. Unless you're talking about like a grandparent that you're named after. Yeah. Not somebody within a generation of your age. Like, there are no other Steve Paulos in my family. There are other Paulos.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right? There's no other Steve Paulos. It's so stupid. Like, I don't know.

Nic

Like, it's— It's a version of people being like, oh, you went to UCLA?

Steve

Do you know— yeah.

Nic

Do you know my cousin?

Steve

It's like, yeah, I graduated in 2003. Oh, my cousin was there in 2006. Awesome. Nope. Missed him. Like, you know?

Nic

Michael and Sameer share a cubicle.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Right? And Michael and Sameer and Peter stops by. He's like, hey, like, I— my day is already fucking ruined. Do you want to go get some coffee next door? And they're kind of bantering back and forth, and Michael's talking about like how much he hates the Michael Bolton thing.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

For any— and he introduces— this is the first time I heard the phrase, that no-talent ass clown. So good. Which is still in the vernacular everywhere.

Steve

And here's the thing, we were talking in the Clerks episode, you mentioned Kevin Smith using the snowball term and explaining it. Yeah, like that definitely existed pre that. Yeah, like, like American Pie and talking about a MILF, right? Like that existed for the movie. But no talent ass clown. I think we can give that to Mike Judge. I think that is a coined phrase because I did not see that before. And it's like specific enough.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

That I feel like it really should be. That's a Judgeism.

Nic

You know, I love those, those insults where it's just like you're stuck on.

Steve

What word to throw it.

Nic

So you just think of something. No ass clown. Like, just think of something that, that sounds hurtful.

Steve

It's like an insult ad-lib. Just Mad Lib. Put it, put in whatever you want. So this is when— so the woman who was passing out the handles was like, you know, sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays, which is not cool. But But yeah, so they go over to Tchotchkes, which is, you know, a Chili's, TGI Friday's style shit on the walls. Makes me think of, if you've seen the movie, I'm sure you have, Super Troopers. They talk about, hey, Farva, what's that restaurant you like with the mozzarella sticks and all the shit on the walls? Shenanigans? We going to Shenanigans? It's that kind of thing. So this is their, one of the couple that they make fun of.

Nic

Uncle Moe's Family Feedback.

Steve

Yes, exactly, the whole deal, exactly. So they go over there and they just have a couple of coffees. Uh, I think Brian is the waiter that helps them who's like too cheery and too chipper and like whatever.

Nic

The menu items he offers them are, oh yeah, could I interest you in some pizza shooters, shrimp poppers, or extreme fajitas? It's just like they nailed like that type of restaurant. I mean, Mike Judge is so astute at the way he can point out these different things in society, and like he just crumbled that entire type of business model between—.

Steve

Between this and Idiocracy. The amount of his Observational Silicon Valley. The amount of his observational understanding of the world around him is like really impressive. Judge is I think a very underrated creator and auteur. For sure. But yeah, so so this is also then when we see Joanna. This is Jennifer Aniston's character. Peter notices her from across the restaurant, and it's like, oh, there she is. And you know, Samir's like, you know, Peter, if you're so obsessed with this girl, why don't you go ask her out? You know, and he's like, dude, I'd be some asshole customer. And he's right. Like you can't just like walk up to a waitress and be like. Hi, you want to go out with me? Like you're just some jerk who's like in the restaurant. I get that. Like I definitely get that. And so then they say, oh, you should come by by playing play poker, right? Isn't they're gonna play poker?

Nic

Yeah, they were gonna play poker on Friday.

Steve

You should come over and play poker. Oh no, and this is Peter talking about his girlfriend. And convinced me to go to an occupational hypnotherapist, which is like I have family members who are occupational therapists. Like and that job is to prepare people coming off of like surgeries or other things to get back into their lives and be able to like do major functions. You know that you need to do. Like literally like they remind they teach people how to like tie their shoes again. Yeah, different like that. So like that. But an occupational hypnotherapist to me is hilariously funny because it's like already hypnotherapy is like kind of like silly. So then you're going to try to take the most like the version of therapy that's the most like bare bones functional, the occupational therapies, and we're going to make this like put these together. To me, it's like such a funny juxtaposition.

Nic

And it's like occupational hypnotherapist, the phrase, it's like they're using it with different interpretations. So it's almost like a hypnotherapist that is about your occupation, right? They do. They talk to what's his name?

Steve

They come back.

Nic

Tom Smikowski.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

They come back and they talk to Tom Sinkowski. Smikowski. Whatever. However you pronounce his name. But yeah, on their way back from Chotchkes, he catches them kind of in the parking lot, and he's like a.

Nic

Paranoid coworker who's a good, good stereo or good fucking archetype here.

Steve

Yes, exactly. And he's this is the actor also who played one of the the the the prison guard guys. The fugitive. Exactly. The fugitive. He's the one that survived and claimed that you know oh the guy got away or whatever. Whatever, you know. Uh, but yeah, so— or no, he— no, that's right, he said that the doctor died, right? But yeah, so he's that guy and he's just freaking out because he's like, have you seen this memo? Like, they're bringing in consultants. Like, this happened at Intertrode last year and they laid off everybody and all this stuff. And they're like, Tom, you've been, you know, saying you're gonna lose your job every day for 30 years. Like, you're still here, you know. But yeah, he's freaking out. So they're— now they're back in Samir and Michael's sort of cubicle and they're all chatting. And Tom's like, you know, there are people that don't have to worry about this. There are people that like make a million What you got to do is invent something really great like the Pet Rock.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And he, and he explains to them how he came up with a great idea like that once before. And he said it was called the Jump to Conclusions Mat. It's a mat you would lay on the floor with a bunch of conclusions on it that you would jump to. And like, and he's, and he's looking at them for like reassurance and support. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael's like, that's the stupidest fucking idea I've ever seen or ever heard in my life. It's just a terrible idea.

Nic

Yeah, this is a good conversation. Kind of all like, what would you do with $1 million?

Steve

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

And, and Samir, he's like the very sensible one. Oh yeah. Well, I'd invest half in mutual funds and all this stuff. And Peter's like, I would do nothing. Like, I would do absolutely nothing.

Steve

Well, you say this way, at this point he says, I never had an answer. Oh, that's because they're kind of framing it like, oh, when your guidance counselor in high school said, what would you do for $1 million? That would tell you what you should do. So if you would fix up old cars, you should be a mechanic. And Michael points out to him, that's fucking stupid because, you know, nobody would be a janitor because nobody would clean up shit if they had $1 million. They wouldn't choose to do that. But that's when the printer distracts him. And it's like, and he goes, PC load letter? What the fuck does that mean? Which is like, I love that.

Nic

The PC load letter is so good. Inside their cubicle, uh, and, and also in his apartment, Michael Bolton has a Navy SEALs poster, which I feel like that's got to be a clerk. I, I— here's the thing though, not the movie. I know, I know.

Steve

But it's so funny to me, it's almost like a recruitment poster for the Navy SEALs, like in his, uh, in his cubicle. And then in his apartment home, it's like a huge flag.

Nic

And he seems like the least would-be-into-the-Navy-SEALs guy.

Steve

Well, except that he definitely thinks he's cool, and so he'd be into generically cool stuff.

Nic

And I guess the guy who loved the military in '99 would be aesthetically different than the guy who loves the military now, you know?

Steve

Pre-post-9/11.

Nic

Like, operator-looking, grunt-style fucking black rifle coffee.

Steve

Shirt guy or whatever. It's definitely evolved over the last 25 years or 27 years, yeah.

Nic

But you are right that he does, and he sees himself as kind of like a badass, kind of like a.

Steve

Tough guy or whatever. For sure.

Nic

Yeah, so let's see. Is Peter back home now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, and he has a neighbor Lawrence played by Diedrich Bader.

Steve

Love Diedrich Bader.

Nic

Underutilized. I feel like he's really funny in this, and he's not in enough stuff.

Steve

Between this character and Rex Quandt, like the Rex character from Napoleon Dynamite. Like I adore Diedrich Bader. Those two roles alone like work for me, but he's done a bunch of other great stuff too.

Nic

Yeah, no, I mean that Napoleon Dynamite thing is so funny though, and and he. I like the relationship where you can just yell through the wall to somebody. And when you see, like, everyone's apartment, there's, like, barely any decoration. It's very depressing. And when I watched this at the time, 'cause I was still, like, in college roommate situation, so I was like, oh, dude, it would be so sick.

Steve

To just have my own blank apartment.

Nic

I could put my milk crates anywhere. And watching it now, it's like, oh,.

Steve

God, that fucking sucks. But very similarly, the apartments in Swingers. We see Sue's apartment and we see Mike's apartment, and they're both very sparsely decorated and sort of sparsely apportioned or appointed rather. And so, yeah, but yeah, so Lawrence yells through the thing, hey, Peter, man, check out Channel 9, it's Breast Exam. So Lawrence comes over because Peter's like, dude, don't yell through the wall, just come over and hang out. So he changes to like this, you know, it's an instructional video on like women to check themselves for lumps, but he's like, oh yeah, this is hot, you know, kind of thing. So they're chatting for a while and, and Peter brings up the same question they talked about at work, which is like, if you, you know, what would you do if you had a million dollars kind of thing. And so Lawrence, deadpan, straight face, looks at him and goes, you know what I'd do if I had a million dollars, man? 2 chicks at the same time. And it's like, yeah, all right, like a fair answer.

Nic

I love it. And he's like, uh, he's like, well, chicks dig dudes with money. And Peter's like, well, not all chicks. He's like, the type of chicks that double up on a dude like me. One, uh, one Lawrence thing I, I love and we would always repeat, and it's just such a throwaway line, when Peter hands him his beer and he goes to like open it for him and Lawrence is like, that's okay, I got it, pulls his own opener out, his own shirt key, is so like that's such a guy. Like, that character would never let somebody open his beer, or he'd do the shit where he like opens it with his wedding ring or like a fucking lighter.

Steve

Side of the counter. Into the counter.

Nic

Yeah, respect to those guys. I've never been one of those. I don't want to damage my table.

Steve

This reminds me of a, of a quick story. Like, so when I was in college, I was back home for the summer, and my friend Greg, his older sister was getting, uh, married. And we, my friend Sean and I, were hanging out in Walnut Creek, and we ran into them at, uh, The old Pyramid Ale House on like Locust, I think.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

And so they were there doing like they'd done the rehearsal and they were doing the like party after the rehearsal dinner. So it's like, oh yeah, come hang out with us. So we hung out with them for a while because we, you know, I grew up with these people for the most part, but they were all a few years older than us. And so we all end up going back to somebody's parents' house in Alamo, right? Like whatever these are, you know, or mid-twenties. I think I was like 20, 21. And, and we're back there and they're looking around for somebody's looking around for like a church key for bottle opener and looks over to me and goes, you're still in college, right? I go, yeah. He goes, So you've got a bottle opener on your keychain, don't you? And I'm like, yeah. And I give him my keys to the bottle, because sure enough, I had a church key on my key ring. So yeah, I just thought that was funny. But yeah, so he's got his own. And then the other line that Lawrence says that I've just absolutely found ways to sneak into conversation over the years is, yeah, I gotta take my ass up to Las Colinas every day this week. Just like when you're just tired of the things you have to do.

Nic

Yeah. And he talks to Lawrence a little bit about his work, because Lawrence works at construction, you know? Yeah.

Intro Clip

And Peter's like,.

Nic

Do people at your work say things like, you have a case of the Mondays? He's like, oh, God, no. I believe you'd get your ass kicked for saying something like that.

Steve

Yeah, that's very funny. But Lawrence gives him a good idea. He's like, if your boss is gonna ask you to work the weekend, he's probably gonna ask you late on Friday. So you just avoid him, you know, duck out a little early, turn off your answering machine, and don't worry about it kind of thing. So Peter, you know, tries to do that. So the next day at work, it's like Friday now, and we get a brief introduction to Bob Slidell, played by one of our absolute favorites, It's, uh, John C. McGinley. And, uh, you know, Lumbergh is introducing him like, Bob's gonna hang out and help us out, you know, with some efficiency and like whatever. But this is clearly, yeah, the consultants that Tom was upset about or whatever, right? This is—.

Nic

He's here interviewing everyone for their own job.

Steve

Exactly. And so then, uh, they're trying, you know, basically, uh, Peter's now near the end of the day and he wants to avoid Lumbergh so they can get out and like not get asked to come in on Saturday. So he starts shutting down his computer, but there's all these like files that have to be saved or whatever before they can close. Yes. And this thing that says rebuilding index or whatever just keeps going all the way full over and over and over again to the point that he's like freaked out. So he thinks he's in the clear and he turns and sure enough, Lumbergh's right there. Hey Peter, what's happening? And he's gotta not only ask him to come in on Saturday but on Sunday too. And he says it's because we let— we lost some people this week and we're sort of playing a little catch-up. It's like, oh, so you fired people? Yeah. And now there's too goddamn much work, right?

Nic

Exactly. And he doesn't ask him, he just says, I'm gonna need you to go ahead. Oh. Yeah, on both days. And he asked him— he tells him both days.

Steve

Yeah, both, both Saturday and Sunday. Oh, terrible.

Nic

So now Peter is at the occupational hypnotherapist, uh, with his girlfriend Anne. And I don't know who the other people are there.

Steve

It doesn't matter. There's 2 other random people there. I guess they're Anne's friends. It doesn't really make sense why they would be there for Peter's session.

Nic

But yeah, this therapist, I recognize the guy. I don't know what he's—.

Steve

He's been in a ton of stuff. Yeah, I can't remember his name, but.

Nic

Yeah, such a funny look. Yes, most ridiculous toupee ever, right? He's got this crazy hairpiece on. And he's asking Peter about like, you know, what's going on? And Peter's just like, well, every day you see me, that's the worst day of my life. And the therapist's like, well, what about today? Is today the worst day of your life? And Peter's like, yeah. And he's like, that's messed up.

Steve

So 2 things. One, this actor, the thing I most know him from besides this, he played Friar Tuck in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman version. He's Friar Tuck in that.

Nic

But no hairpiece famous.

Steve

No. Yes. For not in the front for that one. But also the line about, you know, every day you see me, that's worse. Like, There's Something About Mary did almost the same thing when Chris Elliott says to Ben Stiller, every day is better than the next. So it's like, it's like a more subtle version of the same joke. But yeah, so basically he's like, okay, well, I'm gonna put you into hypnosis. You'll be totally relaxed until after I'm done snapping my— you know, I'll count from 3 down to 1 and you'll be totally relaxed and you'll remain that way until I snap my fingers, is what he says. Yep. So he does the whole countdown, but as he starts counting down, he's like, like sweating and like finding it hard to breathe and like squeezing his left fist, you know, kind of left hand. And sure enough, as he gets to 1 and he says 1, which is the final thing to put Peter into the hypnosis, the doctor keels over having a heart attack and dies. And Peter is just sitting there totally blissful, unaware, doesn't care, chilling out. That's Peter is good. But what he's asking for, like before we get too far, you realize what he's asking for is basically the plot of the television show Severance. Yeah. Because he asked for, can you just like make it so I'm not aware that I'm even at work during the day? He's asking for Severance. So I don't know if like—.

Nic

I, I haven't seen Severance. Oh dude, you've got to see Severance. But I love the concept of it, and I fucking wish I could have this done so much. My life would be good. It would be wonderful.

Steve

Watch Severance and you'll think differently.

Nic

Have you, have you ever had someone try to hypnotize you? Have you ever like sat—.

Steve

I have not. I've never even— because I don't— here's the thing, I don't believe that it's possible, so I don't think I'm susceptible in the way I think I I would— yeah, I don't think it would work at all on me because I don't want it to, basically.

Nic

I went— my daughter wanted to do it a few years ago, and they had the hypnotist at the county fair. Okay. And they have a stage, you can get up there, and they'll sit like 10 people in a row and do all this stuff. And then they start, you know, getting you to do things once you're hypnotized. But he'll dismiss people if he decides it's like not working on them, right? So my daughter really wanted to do it, and I'm like, fuck it, dude, I'll go up there with her. I'm gonna ham it up. I'm going along with everything the guy says.

Steve

All right.

Nic

So I go along and I'm falling asleep and I'm doing all the shit and everything. And I'm making a fool of my— like, doing stuff I would never do in front of all these strangers at the fair. And then at the end, I'm like, that didn't work. And it's like, wait, you did all this shit?

Steve

Yeah, it worked exactly. Absolutely worked.

Nic

That's exactly what it did. It zonked you out so you didn't feel stupid about doing this stuff, and then you did this stuff. So yeah, I'm on the fence. We'll see if the guy's back there next year.

Steve

I was gonna say, I, I would do— I would do it, but I feel like it would be— I would just get dismissed. So it's sort of, you know, yeah,.

Nic

You gotta, you gotta commit to the bit, I guess.

Steve

Uh, which then, then what's the point? Then you haven't actually been hypnotized, you've just decided to go along with it.

Nic

Just to see what he says. I mean, if he was able to zonk me out so I wouldn't, uh, know I was at work, then it would have been, uh, worth it. But so Peter's, he's in like a permanent chilled-out state, right? And he's home and he's fucking sleeping. He's supposed to work on Saturday and he's sleeping in. So it shows the clock, you know, his answering machine's going off and it's Lumbergh. Yeah, hi, this is Bill Lumbergh. It's just—.

Steve

And when he finally does wake up, it's like 3 o'clock. He's got like 17 messages on his machine and it's almost all Lumbergh and he's skipping. But then Anne, his girlfriend, calls and it's like, Peter, what's going on? Like, why aren't you at work? Like, what happened? Like, what happened last night? All this stuff. And he goes, I didn't feel like going. What are you talking about? And she's like getting super pissed. He just hangs up on her. Yeah, she immediately calls back and is like, nobody hangs up on me, we're through. Oh, and by the way, I've been cheating on you. And when she yells cheating on you, The fucking answering machine vibrates.

Nic

Physically moves. Yeah, really funny.

Steve

I love that moment. Yeah, basically that's done. So Anne is no longer in the picture. And Peter had said to a couple people— he'd said it to Michael, he'd said it to Lawrence— sometimes I get the feeling that Anne's cheating on me. And in both cases they were like, yeah man, I know what you're talking about. It's like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, yeah, but turns out they were all correct.

Nic

That's like a go-to name for a bad girlfriend. And shout out to all the real-life Annes out there. There are many lovely ones. But Arrested Development, you know. Oh yeah, Michael, uh, George Michael's Girlfriend. So Peter, he doesn't go into work. Nope. And he just goes into Tchotchkes, and he goes to find Joanna. That's right. Very cool. And he goes in to kind of like say, "Hey, do you want to? You want to meet me for lunch? I want to take you to lunch.".

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, "What am I supposed to eat here?

Nic

Eat here." He's like, "I'll tell you what. I'm gonna get a table next door if you want to join me. No big deal. And if not, that's cool too.".

Steve

Like just so laid back.

Nic

Super breezy, man. And the way that he's dressed now, you know, like unbuttoned shirt.

Steve

Yeah. Jeans.

Nic

Chill guy. And then as he's leaving, she's like, uh, by next door, do you mean Chili's or Flingers?

Steve

Yeah, Flingers. So of course I gotta use the fictional one, that way they can make it look however they want. Um, at the same time, we're seeing some scenes from inside Initech. We see Tom talking to the 2 Bobs, Bob Parsons and Bob Slidell. Uh, and you know, they're basically asking him, so what are you doing? So it sounds like you take the specs from the customers and take them to the software people. He goes, yeah. So why can't the customers go straight to the software people? Like, oh, well, Because, you know, software engineers aren't good at talking to people. Okay, so you physically take them? Well, they're faxed, or my secretary does that. Okay, so then you physically take them to the software people?

Nic

No.

Steve

And Bob, the great line goes, what is it that you say you do here? You know, it's very funny.

Nic

Yeah. And, and, uh, Tom just melting down during this is really good. I mean, this is a, a great collection of character actors in Like the main roles in this movie are not the best actors. Right. The main three guys.

Steve

Yeah, they're fine.

Nic

Ron Livingston's fine.

Steve

I still wonder why Ron Livingston between this and swingers and Saving Private Ryan. Like I don't know why he wasn't a bigger star.

Nic

Yeah, I don't get it either. But these other people that they plug in here are so good.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

The Bob's just fantastic. And then the Bobs are talking to Michael Bolton, right? Yes. And the way that John C. McGinley is absolutely tickled, like he can't contain himself, right? He's just like. Michael Bolton. Bolton. Any relation to the pop singer?

Steve

I love the way he says that. Any relation to the pop singer? No, it's just a coincidence because I love that guy. It's so good. I don't know for my money there's anything better than what he does when a man loves a woman.

Nic

Like, so, uh, what's your favorite song? And he's like, uh, I guess I sort of like them all. And then again, I celebrate his entire catalog. And that's another thing we would say. I celebrate his entire catalog.

Steve

100%. Yes, that is in the vernacular.

Nic

This is the only way I've— the only place I've heard it.

Steve

So, uh, now I will say, by the way, Michael Bolton, I have come around on a bit since this movie came out. When this movie came out, I was also of the mind that he was a no-talent-ass clown and like I hated whatever. I have since come around. There are a handful of Michael Bolton songs and none of them are When a Man Loves a Woman as a cover anyway. But like Time, Love and Tenderness is a banger. It is an absolute banger. If you like vocal pop music at all, that song kills. Like there is absolutely 3 or 4 Michael Bolton songs worth going back and going, oh, Like, his range is ridiculous. Like, they're good jazzy pop songs. You just gotta be in the mood for that shit.

Nic

His voice is crazy unique too. Uh, his collaborations with The Lonely Island, also very funny.

Steve

Oh, very funny. Yes, very funny. I think that's what turned me around on him, when I realized that he's one of those guys willing to kind of make fun of himself. And he did the movie with the Pirates of the Caribbean song with Lonely Island. It was so funny. And I was like, well, if he's got that good a sense of humor, I wonder if like he's really kind of this, you know, whatever. So I went back and listened to his earlier stuff and I was like, okay, there's a couple songs here that are like Much in the same way that like How You Remind Me is Nickelback, but it's still a great song. It's the only one Nickelback has, in my opinion, but it is still a great song. Like there are a handful of good songs.

Nic

Not represent the opinions of the two dads.

Steve

One movie. How You Remind Me is a good song, man. I'm sorry. I will stand by that. The only one Nickelback ever made. But yeah, anyway.

Nic

So we're back at Flingers now, right? Yes, right. So so Peter and Joanna are sitting there, and he's looking. She's still in her uniform from Chosh. Which is a TGI Friday's, very, you know, covered in pins and all this stuff, which the manager, you know, she explains to him, these are pieces of flair. Yes. He's like, what are all these buttons? He reads off one of her buttons, which calls back to a previous film that we had, Swingers, where he says, we're not in Kansas anymore, reading her button, which I think, once again, direct shout-out to Swingers. And she explains to him, well, you know, they make us put this on,.

Steve

You know, to make our uniform more fun.

Nic

And they're kind of both talking about how shitty their job is. She's like, well, what do you do? Yeah, he's like, I sit in a cubicle and update bank software for the 2000 switch. And he goes through like a few sentences trying to explain it to her, and he's just like, you know what,.

Steve

Never mind, not worth talking about this. I'm not gonna do it.

Nic

I'm not gonna go anymore.

Steve

Yeah, that's right.

Nic

I'm not gonna— like, you're gonna quit? He's like, no, I'm just not gonna go.

Steve

Yeah, job abandonment, that's a thing. Quiet quitting, I believe they said.

Nic

That's right, that's right, more recently. But he closes by saying, you know what I want to do? I want to take you out to dinner. Then I want to go to my apartment and watch kung fu. Do you watch kung fu? And she's just like, I love kung fu.

Steve

She's so starstruck about it. He's lucky, lucky guy that she happens to be way into kung fu.

Nic

The ladies were all into karate back then. So let's see, we're back at the office now. Milton is going on about his stapler. He has a red Swingline stapler. Staple of like— staple, no pun intended— of every fucking office white elephant party of the early 2000s. The red Swingline. That, like, Office Space-related swag garbage. I think I have a fucking bobblehead of somebody in this office somewhere.

Steve

It's everywhere. Hopefully of Lumbergh. So yeah, the best bobblehead.

Nic

Great. Um, yeah, so Milton's red stapler is kind of a thing, and he's always talking under his breath. So Lumbergh comes and takes it from him and walks away, and Milton's like, I'm gonna set the building on fire.

Steve

You took my stapler. Yeah.

Nic

Uh, so Peter's in, he's gonna go.

Steve

Meet with the Bobs now. Well, no, so Peter comes to the office to get his address book because he wants to write down Joanna's number, and Michael sees him and reminds him, dude, you're supposed to be Meeting with the consultants, with the Bobs, whatever. He goes, "Oh, all right, I'll go in." He's like, "No, no, no, dude. You gotta like postpone. Look at you. You can't go in there like that." No, no, man. I'm fine. I feel great. And he goes in and he's chatting with them.

Nic

And I like that he pours himself a glass of water first before even sitting down.

Steve

And they're asking him to like explain his day. And he's like, "Well, I come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side entrance so Lumber can't see me. Then I pretty much zone out for an hour." And like, "Bye.".

Nic

Right away, he jumps in there. Space out.

Steve

Space out. Yeah, I sort of just sit and stare at my screen. Looks like I'm working though. I do that again for another hour after lunch. I'd say in a given week, I don't do any more than 15 minutes of actual work. And there's a great moment here where John C. McGinley, Bob Slidell, goes, Peter, would you mind doing us a favor and just expanding on that a little bit? And the way he like uses— I can't do it because it's a podcast, it's an audio medium. But he's pulling taffy apart. Yeah, he's spreading his fingers. We could just elaborate a little bit. And it's just very funny. But he's basically like, let me tell you something about about TPS reports.

Nic

Yeah, so he goes to them. It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. Yeah, I work my ass off in it, I don't make another dime.

Steve

Exactly. Like, and he's right. And so they say, well, you know, what if you talk— there's like profit sharing? Yeah, I don't know, fine. And basically he has, he has won these guys over. Like, he has completely won them over. They are super excited. And, and, uh, and he says, that was a real pleasure. All the pleasure's all on this side of the table, believe me. I hope you guys have a great day. I hope you're— I hope your layoffs go really well. Yeah, good luck with all your firings. And then as Lumbergh is— as Peter leaves, Lumbergh tries to stop him. He's like, Peter, I guess we should talk about this weekend.

Nic

Yeah, he just steps by him and walks right through. Um, Joanna is, uh, being kind of talked to by her boss. She's played by Mike Judge. That's right.

Intro Clip

Yep.

Steve

Uh, Stan.

Nic

Yeah, he's really funny in small bits. Yes. Uh, part like good actor.

Steve

You notice how little he moves his mouth when talking as this character? His lips barely separate as he talks. It's very funny.

Nic

It's like you could tell he has a specific person in mind when he's doing this character. Absolutely. Yes.

Steve

This person, whoever it is.

Nic

Yeah, and and it's showing that working at Chotchkes is just like working at Initech with the same kind of bullshit. And he's like, "Well, you know, let me talk to you about your flair." She's like, "Well, I have 15 pieces of flair." He's like, "Well, 15's the minimum. You know, we just maybe like." She's like, "So I should put more?" Yeah. And he's like, "Well, we want you to do what you want you to do. But look at Brian. He has 37 pieces of flair and a great smile.

Steve

People can get a cheeseburger anywhere.".

Nic

It's bullshit where they want. Yeah, come out and tell you what they need you to do. Yep. And it's so irritating and so frustrating.

Steve

So she's like, it's like you— they— if they should just make the policy minimum is 15 and we expect you to go higher than that. Yeah. And then just put— let's put it— somebody put a 16th piece on and then everybody shut up about it.

Nic

Or have like a button bin when you walk in there. Yeah, fucking load up.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. It's just ridiculous.

Nic

So we're back with the, the Bobs now, I think, are talking to Lumbergh and the other kind of boss guy. Yeah. Right? And they're going through the people that they've talked to, right? So who's next? Tom, or I don't know if Samir was first.

Steve

No, no, Tom said we definitely lose Tom Sienkowski. He's worthless. He's useless. They are useless. Gone.

Nic

Gone. Milton, they say, you know, Milton Wadhams, for some reason we find out he was laid off 5 years ago, but through some glitch in the payroll system, he still receives a check. So we went ahead and Fix the glitch.

Steve

So Milton has been fired then? No, no, hold on there, Professor.

Nic

We fixed the glitch, so things will work each other out again. The most like pussy-ass, no accountability, like bullshit corporate consultant kind of move.

Steve

And the good—the one good joke on on Samir's name here is is when Bob the non-Bob Slidel is looking at goes, "We can leave Samir." Not gonna work here anymore anyway. He was just like, "Okay, that's funny. If you're gonna mispronounce a guy's name, at least make it a good." And then Mike Bolton, you know, we'll miss him. Like, they're just super pissed about Mike.

Nic

Oh, because he.

Steve

Has to be called Mike. Because he has to be called Mike at the end. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Uh, and then they get to Peter, and they're like, oh, this is— he's a straight shooter with upper management written all over him. And Lumbergh is like, yeah, I'm not sure I disagree. And John McGinley is getting so furious. Like, I love his choice there to just get over the top.

Steve

His face getting red.

Nic

Like, I— he's like, what's in the box? Like, furious, man. He is just shaking. It is so fucking funny.

Steve

And then the other Bob's gonna be like, he's gonna like chill him out. Yeah, like he's gonna pop out of his seat. I got this, I got this. And, uh, and they, they flip over a, a sheet for, for, uh, Lumbergh, like the same kind of, you know, evaluation sheet they have everybody else and go, so Bill, tell me, uh, how much time would you say you spend each week on these TPS reports? I was like, ooh. So then we get, uh, the Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster montage basically of— so Peter comes back to the office to get something, and instead of getting shocked by the handle He uses the drill to like take it off the door completely. Yeah, we see little bits of like he and Joanna watching kung fu at his place, him and Joanna and Lawrence all going fishing. Looks like in the middle of the day. Yeah, he brings the fish to the office to like clean it, guts it in his.

Nic

Cubicle. Yeah, cubicle on top of a.

Steve

Bunch of TPS reports. Yeah, exactly. And so it's just like kind of thing. And then, and then, you know, he and Joanna like kissing at one point. So we're seeing that their relationship's like evolving and moving on.

Nic

And then Peter takes down the wall of.

Steve

That's right, he unscrews the cubicle.

Nic

And just lets it flop on the ground.

Steve

It's very, very, uh, uh, when Steve quit in Singles and his cubicle just fell apart.

Nic

Oh yeah.

Steve

Similar kind of thing. Um, but yeah, so then he's playing Tetris and eating Cheetos, uh, and Bill Lumbergh walks up and goes, why, Peter, what's happening? Uh, I think we need to talk about your TPS reports or whatever. And he's like, not now, Lumbergh, I'm busy. I gotta meet with the Bobs anyway.

Nic

Yeah, really funny. Uh, damn, it feels good to be a gangster. Think is a probably top 3 all-time rap song for people that don't otherwise like rap. Okay, like if you find a playlist of somebody who doesn't listen to rap, they've got Damn Feels Good to Be a Gangsta, they got fucking Diddy by Paper Boi. Okay, they got some Nelly on there, you know, that kind of borderline, like nobody who's really into rap. But, but Ghetto Boys, Scarface, very good, right? So interesting choices. And I wasn't sure if Mike Judge was from Houston or if that was just like the scene that he identified with. Yeah, but yeah, it was interesting choice to have a lot of like Ghetto Boys and Scarface, and there's some Ice Cube too.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But great montage. And that song, I mean, we listened to that song a million times.

Steve

I chase bitches like Tom chases Jerry. It's.

Nic

A great.

Steve

Line.

Nic

It spawned so many crappy social media posts.

Steve

Oh, okay.

Nic

Where there'd just be a person doing a very normal thing, wearing the shittiest sunglasses you've ever seen, and it just says, damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

Steve

So yeah, so Peter goes in to talk to the Bobs, and the first thing they say when he walks in is, it looks like you've been missing work, missing a little bit of work lately. Peter? Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob, which is another thing.

Nic

And they love his shit. That's the funniest thing is they just— there's nothing he could say that they do not love.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So they let him know. This is where the plot kind of kicks back in, right? So we've had, we've had the, the opening scenes of like, this is Peter's world and like his job sucks, whatever. Then we get the hypnosis and this kind of like other, you know, he moves into this other part of his, of his like relationship with his job where it's just like he doesn't give a shit, whatever. And he meets Joanna. Of. But now like the plot kind of has to kick back in because we got to have a challenge for him, right? Like a character isn't gonna— like, we're not just gonna watch him just hate his job for another, you know, 40 minutes. Something's got to happen. So they get— they bring him in, they let him know that Michael and Samir are being let go. I don't know why they would tell him that, but they do. And that they want to put 4 people under him in like a leadership position. So it's like a big promotion kind of thing. And he's kind of like, so you're gonna fire Samir and Michael and you're gonna give me more money? And they're like, Yeah, what do you think? And he's like, okay. So he goes to talk to Michael, and this is again, like, Michael, I think, is wrestling with the printer again and dealing with that. But he's basically just like—.

Nic

Is that where Michael says, do that, do exactly.

Steve

That? Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Another one we would put on the show.

Steve

But he's basically just like, hey, what are you doing tonight? Like, let's, let's go chat, you know? So they go over to Michael's apartment, and this is the, the other apartment we see is Michael Bolton's. It's got the big Navy SEALs flag over the couch and stuff, and they're getting beers. And he's basically like, hey, like, you made this virus you said you could make rip off the big company Like, how does it work? And it's basically like it's a thing that that did was in Superman three, and it's basically like yeah, the round when you have all these bank transactions that result in you know rounding decimal places past a penny, they normally like I think they normally like round them left you know up and down, and it all evens out at the end of the day or whatever it might be. So instead, they will always round them down and put those fractions of a penny into an account, right? That's the idea behind it. And he's like, well, they check for yeah, but with all this stuff we're doing with the two thousand switch, like nobody would notice. Like there's just too much shit going on in the tech right now. Nobody would notice, and the money would leave.

Nic

At a slow enough pace. 'Cause they're talking about this would net us a couple hundred grand over the course of 5 years, 10 years, whatever.

Steve

So it's like, it's a thing where, yeah, they'd have money, but it wouldn't be something that would be easy to notice over long enough time. And so, you know, he's like, why don't you do it? He's like, well, I got a good job. I don't wanna take the risk. What if you didn't have a good job? And we get like a smash cut to a bar where now they're drinking. And the first thing Michael says is, cock gobblers.

Nic

Cock gobblers. Oh man. You.

Steve

Get to keep your job. They're giving me a promotion. What?

Nic

And he's saying that he doesn't have enough like full understanding of, of how to do this. They need Samir.

Steve

To help as well. Exactly. Whatever credit union software. Yeah,.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. Because Samir is also without a job, also.

Steve

Getting shitcanned.

Nic

Yeah. And, uh, and you know, when Peter's trying to explain, he's like, look, the worst thing that could ever happen to us is we get sent to a white-collar resort prison, you know, for a couple years. We should be so lucky.

Steve

They have conjugal visits in there. I'm a— Michael, I'm a free man. I haven't had a conjugal visit in 6 months. And so they're like, you know, talking about— and Samir basically finally kind of comes around and is like, okay, I'll do it. And then because he says, in these conjugal visits, you can have sex with women? Yes, you can. Okay, I'll do it.

Nic

So, and then we get the montage of them.

Steve

Yes, exactly. So then they have to load the virus. They've got like the little 3.5-inch floppy disk and it gets passed between them. And then, you know, it's actually Peter that ends up actually putting it into a particular computer. It's like, I think the idea is Michael wrote the virus, Samir was able to put the right wrapper around it so the software would recognize it and use it. And then Peter actually does the delivery. And when he gets back to their cubicle, He goes, well, that wasn't hard at all. Like, that was really easy.

Nic

Yeah, it was like a montage that seemed like it was gonna be super long.

Steve

Exactly, and like really crazy. Or like there'd be like a risky moment, like a thriller moment. No, none of that. And then this new character we haven't seen before, Drew, walks up and basically asks them if they heard what happened to Tom. And they're like, no, what happened to Tom? Well, Tom finds out he's getting laid off, which apparently he found out from like a letter, which is interesting. But he basically decides he doesn't wanna live anymore. So he gets into his car, closes his garage door, like windows down, turn the car on, the exhaust, right? Well, his wife comes home from work early. Finds him there, opens everything up, and he, you know, when he decides— he's looking at her, looking at her, he decides he does want to live. Maybe he's okay. But as he pulls out of his driveway, he gets just absolutely T-boned by like this speeding pickup truck, like a big dually. Yeah. Uh, and he broke like both legs, his back, his neck, like all kinds of stuff. And he's been in the hospital and he's getting out this weekend, right?

Nic

And he's looking at a party. He's.

Steve

Gonna get a big settlement. Yeah, 7 figures. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Um, this guy Drew, this guy fucking sucks. He's not funny. I, I don't know what at the time I thought Thought this guy was funny because was he like.

Steve

A stand-up that like had a small career or something? I have.

Nic

Seen him in so few things. There's a very small part, and I can't even think of what it was now. But he's been in so little that I haven't even. But it's just not that good. And he's doing this oh face. Oh, maybe this girl's gonna be at the party. I'll show him my oh face. Oh oh. Sorry, buddy. Doesn't hold up. It's not funny. Yeah. Um. So they're leaving the office, right? And so Samir and Michael have been fired. Peter's driving. Yeah. Yeah. And they're just like, oh, last day at the office, you know, I kind of wish we stole something. And Peter's like, oh, I stole something. And they're like, well, yeah, in a way we all did. He's like, nope, I stole something.

Steve

Else. Yep. And that's when he brings out the printer and then into an open field and they just start bashing the hell out of it.

Nic

And we get this back up in your ass with the resurrection. So this great song is they're beating the shit out of the printer. We did make a video in college of us beating up my friend, my roommate PJ's printer. Printer. He had a printer and it was like, you know, classic piece of shit, but it was the only printer we had. And then we got access to a new one and we made a video and we put this song on it. The video is on VHS, so if anybody.

Steve

Has a.

Nic

VHS player, I'll see if I can find it. But it does exist somewhere and it was really fun to do. But yeah, so funny to watch them just in, you know, they're giving the pesci Billy Bass beatdown to this thing.

Steve

And they got a baseball bat going. And then at one point Michael actually gets down to with his fists punching the printer. I'm.

Nic

Like, that.

Steve

Is not— you're gonna rip yourself apart doing that.

Nic

And they pull him off it, and he like rips away from them and comes back and starts beating it up more. So yeah, great, great scene and great kind of resolution of that fucking printer thing.

Steve

Yeah, and so then they show them all kind of partying back at Peter's apartment for a little bit. And Samir's got moves. He's all of a sudden doing breakdancing, b-boy moves. He does, I love Samir.

Nic

He should have danced more in this movie.

Steve

That was crazy. While Michael and Peter are just sort of like barely bobbing side to side like the good white.

Nic

Guys.

Steve

Just doing the white guy wobble. Exactly. And so they go and they leave, and Peter's like, oh, you know, you guys gotta go, Joanna's coming over later, but don't worry about it. You're worrying. Everything's gonna be fine. Don't worry, kind of thing. So the next morning, there's all this, you know, stuff all over, the beer bottles and whatever. And so Joanna's there just wearing a t-shirt, looking good, frankly, and, uh, sipping coffee. And Peter comes out, goes, so what were you guys celebrating last night? He goes, oh, I'm not at liberty to say. She just looks at him, no, no, I, I really can't say anything. Cut to them in the car and him explaining the entire thing to her. It's a whole thing. Because like, she's not about to take that. And he's going on and on about like you know, she's like, isn't that stealing? He's like, no, it's not stealing. Like, Initech's an evil corporation, whatever. Initech's the problem. Chotchkes is the problem. You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews wear. And she rightly looks at him like he's insane.

Nic

Uh, they, uh, they get to Tom's party, and of course Tom is like in a wheelchair, full body cast, right?

Steve

With the halo and everything.

Nic

Crazy. And he's got his attorney there with him, uh, who's at the party, who's You know, gonna get his settlement. And there's a scene of Michael and Samir talking to this lawyer outside, and it's just the lawyer saying, resort? I don't think so. The trick is kick somebody's ass the first day or become somebody's bitch, which again, we said that a million times. 100%. Well, that's.

Steve

Become like— I just accept that that's actual truth about going to prison. Yeah, that's, that's literally how it works. I guess so. Yeah, yeah. So then Drew comes up to Peter, uh, Joanne is off talking to some people, and Drew is like, hey Peter, how's it going? Oh hey, like, isn't that girl from Tchotchkes? Who's she here with? And Peter Peter's like, oh, she's with me. And he goes, nice, make sure you wear a rubber, dude. He's like, uh, why? Oh dude, she gets around. He's like, what do you mean? He's like, oh, let me think, like, well, Lumbergh fucked her. And that just starts ringing in Peter's ears. Lumbergh fucked her. Lumbergh fucked her. Like the whole thing. And he's super freaking.

Nic

Out about it. He really is. Peter feels like he's gonna go out like Willy Lump Lump. Um, yeah, and they're, uh, so on the, on the way home, yeah, they're kind of having an argument, Joanne and Peter, where she's not down With his scheme. Well, no, no,.

Steve

That's like it really. Yeah, there's that. But but yeah, he's he's she's also pissed.

Nic

That he's like. Well,.

Steve

She says something like uh uh you know maybe you shouldn't do this or maybe you shouldn't have done that. Well, maybe you shouldn't have fucked Lumberg and just like and she's like what are we talking about? But then she like goes oh Lumberg right. And so it's like she doesn't deny it. She's just like whatever. And he loses his shit. Like he's.

Nic

Just like Dante. All perks.

Steve

Like just freaks the fuck out and she's just like let me out. The car. Let me out of the fucking car. He just pulls over and lets it— and I love this because it's like, you know, he tries to yell after her like, you know, why don't you go fuck Lumbergh? But like she slams the door while he's yelling and it really cuts the audio in a very funny way where it just like takes all the air out of his like insult, you know? It's like—.

Nic

And Peter's having a nightmare and it's just Lumbergh with just a bare leg up on his shoulder and he has his suspenders on but no shirt and he's still holding his coffee mug like, you know, wearing the glasses, making the humping motions like, hey Peter. Like, his nightmares are really funny. Yep. Um, so Peter goes to check the bank account that they had the, the money going in.

Steve

Well, first Joanna quits. Like, so Joanna's in Chotchkes and she gets confronted by her boss again about the flair and is finally like, here's me expressing myself, and she flips him off.

Nic

And I love him trying to block her middle finger so no one can see it. It's such a store manager, like, weenie ass,.

Steve

Like, oh, we gotta be careful, there are children here. So she quits, and then yes, Peter goes to like an ATM to check the balance. This is, you know, Monday morning, I think, is what we're told. So it's like 3 days after the virus was planted.

Nic

So they should have like $10, right?

Steve

Maybe $100 or something, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's like, like if you think about like what they were talking about numbers, it's like a couple hundred bucks at the absolute most. No, no, over $300,000 is in the account. So they know they fucked up because if they take $100 grand a day, that's gonna get noticed. Like, there's no way. So he goes to tell— to get Samir and Michael, and they're talking about it in the car, and Michael is like, I must have put the decimal point in the wrong place. I always Missed some mundane detail. Oh, this is not a mundane detail, Michael. Like.

Nic

Everybody's losing their shit. I love Samir.

Steve

Saying, "This is a fuck." You see, say fuck. So back at the.

Nic

Office now, it's Lumbergh's birthday, right? We got the cake out. We're all singing happy birthday. Just perfect lame birthday.

Steve

Party. Pisses me off, by the way, that in this moment Bill Lumbergh is younger than I am now because I still think of him as like older, but he's like his 41st birthday. Very upsetting to me. Goddamn.

Nic

Because, because later on they say, oh, the other Lumbergh, the young guy.

Steve

The young guy. Yeah.

Nic

41 is young as hell. Um, and it's very funny when they're singing Happy Birthday because when they get to the Happy Birthday, dear, it's like some people just kind of say Bill, some say Mr. Lumbergh. They don't know what to say and everything. Um, so Milton is very concerned. He's like, oh, last time there was cake, I did not get a piece. And let me get a piece of cake. So he gets one. They're like, hey, Milton, come on, keep passing it around. And he obviously doesn't get his cake.

Steve

Nope. He gets— he's the only one who gets no cake because, of course, because everyone Everybody hates Milton. And then I think after that, Bill comes down. Lumbergh, or Milton rather, has been moved to Storage B in the basement. But he comes down there. Something.

Nic

Else we would refer to.

Steve

A lot.

Nic

Yeah,.

Steve

Exactly. Down in Storage B. He's like, you know, we've got a cockroach problem down here. So if you could just get yourself a can of Raid and, you know, just crawl in there and get those. It's not really my job. No, thank you. I just still want my stapler back.

Nic

And Milton this whole time is like, I still haven't.

Steve

Received my paycheck.

Nic

Not saying anything to him except, you're going to talk to HR.

Steve

Yeah, go talk to payroll about it.

Nic

So these fucking cowards that are running the company, right? Yeah. Um, uh, so, so Peter then finds out that the Lumbergh that Joanna slept with—.

Steve

Basically, Peter and Michael and, and Samir are hanging out, I think, back at Peter's house again and talking about what they can do about this. And like, well, maybe we can launder money or whatever. And then he's like, I can't believe this happened. And like, and then Peter's like, I can't believe Joanna fucked Lumbergh. And Michael Yeah, you didn't know about that? He goes, what? Yeah, yeah, like, like 2 years ago before he moved to Florida. You talking about Gary or Greg? I don't know what he says. Ron, whatever that was. The young guy, the in a trode guy? Yeah, what do you think I meant, Bill? Or children that have fucking hooves? Like, you know, so he now realizes he got freaked out about the wrong guy. Although, to be honest, 2 guys named Lumbergh unrelated to each other in the same town, like, that seems unlikely to me. But it's not a very common name. But anyway,.

Nic

There's. That. Where are we in this movie, by the way?

Steve

We're near, we're at the point where they are—.

Nic

I mean, like, physically, Like, geographically.

Steve

Oh, so, okay, so that's interesting. So I think it's, I think it's really supposed to be like it's in Silicon Valley, like it's in like Palo Alto, Cupertino, etc. But the license plates all specifically are not state license plates. Okay, so we are in any state USA.

Nic

I know, I was just curious if it was like, uh,.

Steve

That all the license plates— no, all the license plates on all the cars just have like a US flag with no state name on them. So they're deliberately not saying a name. But like, if you look at the way the office parks look, the way the freeway looks. It looks like it absolutely could be the South Bay, in my opinion. You know, some— not so much San Jose, but like Cupertino, Mountain View, you know, Palo Alto, that kind of area. Yeah. But yeah, but it's— I think he's very deliberately— Judge does not say anything about it. But yeah, so we're in Peter's apartment.

Nic

What to do? They get a knock at the door,.

Steve

Right? Well, they're trying to figure out how to launder money. Yes. And they're like, they look it up in the dictionary. It's like, to launder is to conceal by way of routing through an intermediate. It's like, I can't believe what nerds we are. We're looking up money laundering in the dictionary. But they're like, we don't know how to do this. Like, if we knew a drug dealer, maybe they would know and we could ask them for tips on how to launder money.

Nic

He's like, my cousin's a cokehead.

Steve

Cokehead. Yeah. So ringing the doorbell and it's this— it's the actor Orlando Jones and he's, uh, playing a guy selling magazine subscriptions door to door. And he's kind of like got this stilted speech and he's like waving my voice like, hi, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack, but now I'm not. And I am selling magazine subscriptions. So They're like, oh, come on in. Come on in. Come on in.

Nic

Did you say crack? Yeah. You say crack. They bring him inside and they're asking about money laundering and he's just kind of like, I don't know anything about any money laundering. And they finally get to the point and he's just like, look, man, just goes and dips into his normal voice. Right. He's like, I just do this to sell.

Steve

More magazines. Yeah. Like I make more money selling magazines than I used to as a software engineer. Wait, software engineer? Like where I was at Inotrode. Inotrode. You know, some of the same people we know. You're not going to say anything, are you? And he goes, well, now that depends. And then as he leaves, Peter's like, what am I going to do with 40 subscriptions to Vibe?

Nic

Orlando Jones, also a guy I didn't see a whole lot. This whole like Mad TV generation, like hit or miss, you know?

Steve

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's sort of like, I feel like they're sort of akin to some of the Second City TV people from, you know, 15, 20 years prior where it's like many of them made out like bandits and really became stars. And then several sort of just—they were in things and you'd recognize them, but they never really got the name recognition or like really the longevity. You know that that some of the the other folks in their group did, and this is very.

Nic

Similar concept. He's living off that make.

Steve

Seven up yours. Yeah, that's good shit, dude. That was a funny shirt. Still wish I had one of those.

Nic

So the friends are this leaves, and the friends are like, "Peter fucked.

Steve

You. You fucked us." Yeah, so bad. We're.

Nic

We're in trouble. They keep referring, you know, to federal pound me in the ass prison, right? Uh, this is a rape joke, by the way. We're talking about rape jokes or not rape jokes. That is absolutely a rape joke, and it's throughout this movie. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so they're— and Peter's just like, you know what, like, I'll try to take the.

Steve

Blame. But they're fucking done with it. They're super pissed. And so then they leave, and he like calls through the, the wall. He goes, Lawrence, you up? Yeah. You want to come over? Oh man, I don't want you fucking up my life too.

Nic

I love Lawrence. Yeah, and he's just picking up all this.

Steve

From over here. Yeah, so Peter decides— he writes out a confession, you know, and he puts— he's got like, uh, like traveler's checks or cashier's checks, whatever they are, of like the amount of money, puts it all in an envelope, decides, I'm gonna go do this. He goes to see Joanna. She's working at Flinger's now, so she just went next door to the other, you know, fast casual restaurant. But basically he's like telling her, you know, hey, I'm gonna— I'm gonna go away for a while because I'm gonna admit to this, uh, and, you know, I'm really sorry. I should never have judged you. Like, I was not one of the right Lumbergh anyway. Like I'm just an idiot. So you know, I hope you you know you sort of like accept my apology and everything. But like you know this they can't be thinking in this moment that they're staying together. Like she's not gonna they haven't been together long enough that she's gonna like wait for him. Yeah, going away.

Nic

For years. Yeah, right. She's not gonna be his conjugal visit.

Steve

But he goes they hug or whatever, and then Brian who you know the 37 pieces of flare guy comes out like flipping him off. Whatever.

Nic

And she's like, get a room, you.

Steve

Two. Yeah, that guy. Yeah.

Nic

Um, let's. Let's see, we've got Milton, who's now—.

Steve

Well, first, no, first Peter goes before anybody's at the office. He goes and he slides the envelope under Lumbergh's door to his office and then decides he wants it back. So he goes to try to get it out from underneath. Never even tries the door, if you'll notice. Never even tries the knob, just gives it up. 'Cause then, yeah, basically Milton comes back for the day or whatever, and Lumbergh's not there yet, but Milton is like still trying to figure out where his paycheck is basically and wants his stapler back. And so he's asking The the secretary in front of Lumber's office is like, Mr. Lumber, whatever. And so she tells him, "Go sit in your seat. Go whatever." And he walks in. He's well, I'm going to get my stapler. And then so he goes in, and he we see him like step on the envelope and kind of notice it. And then we cut away. And so now Peter is gonna leave his apartment and go to the office to basically be there to be arrested. I guess the idea. I love another great Lawrence. Like, "Hey, Peter, man, watch out for your cornhole,.

Nic

Bud." Yeah, you know. Yeah, he says goodbyes to Lawrence and everything. Exactly. And then when he gets there, uh, he sees that the building is on fire.

Steve

Big time on fire. Not like a little.

Nic

Fire. Yeah, there's not a fire inside the building. Every bit of that building is on fire.

Steve

There's like a big sculpture out front that's falling over because it's like all of its connective tissue is burning and everything. And so, you know, Peter just starts chuckling about the whole thing, and we still see Milton sort of wandering off. Um, and it's funny because I think the way— I like the way they decided to indicate to us that Milton took the envelope, took the money. Well, there's 2, but the first one We then cut ahead a few months, and Peter is part of the demolition crew tearing down what's left of him and Lawrence. He's basically joined Lawrence's crew, and he's got a shovel, or Lawrence does, and he picks up the red Swingline stapler from the ashes. So clearly Milton got distracted away from the stapler in Bill Lumbergh's office and took the envelope. We later see Milton at a resort or whatever as well. Yeah. But basically, like, the idea that the coda here is that Peter has taken a job in construction, being outside, working with his hands, getting exercise, Working with Lawrence. He feels good about it because Michael and Samir show up and are like, hey, man, how you doing? Like, hey, we got jobs at Intertrode. It's fine. We could probably help you get one there. He's like, nah, I'm good. Yeah. And which is great. Peter's figured out—.

Nic

Yeah. And Peter's like, look, I'm outside. I'm making some money. I'm getting some exercise. Like, I'm not having people ask me if I have a case of the Mondays and everything. Like, this works for me. So yeah, he finds like a solution, like something that's good enough for him to, uh, do for a living.

Steve

Exactly. And that's, uh— and then we— yeah, and then we close on Milton at a resort And he asks the the guy for something. He's like, "Oh, there was salt so much salt on the rim." I asked for no salt and whatever. And the guy's like, "Pinche gringo," and.

Nic

Like walks. And Milton's like, "I could take my traveler's checks to a competing resort." He is a funny guy. How old was Stephen Root when this was made? I gotta look into that because he's still currently in so much shit,.

Steve

Right? I gotta say thirties, like maybe.

Nic

Maybe late thirties. It's one of those things where you always think of him as being like mid-fifties, right? But then as you're seeing him now, you're like, "Well, he couldn't have been that old, right?".

Steve

He's in his 60s now. Like, you know, yeah. So that is— yeah, that's Office Space, man.

Nic

So yeah, yeah. All right, well, this was my pick to close out, uh, 2 Dads 2 Decades. Yeah, there's been quite a run here all the way from Airplane to Office Space. Um, yeah, so I hadn't watched— I'd seen this probably maybe as much as I've seen anything in my life. Interesting. Okay, uh, pretty high up there because this was like, you know, for a while in college it was like 40 days in a row we put this on every single All day. Um, and I haven't seen it about 10 years or so. I think it is still funny. It's still relevant. It's a great snapshot of like that time and like working during that time. Um, most of the jokes are still pretty good. Uh, the soundtrack I think is good. Like, I like it. It's not for everyone, so there's certain people it's not going to work for, but I think it's— the choices are better than they were in like Basketball or something.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Nic

Uh, there was like a, a cohesiveness to the soundtrack and everything. As much as I love Michael and Samir, I don't think they're that great as sidekick actors. I think Ron Livingston's fine. I think Jennifer Aniston is extremely underutilized. She is such a funny comedic actress. And I never watched Friends when it was on. I never watched Friends at all until the pandemic. My wife and daughter would watch it. But even without that, like her in Wanderlust and all these different movies, she is really funny.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And I wish they gave her more to doing this, because she's more just like the chick from Leprechaun in this movie. Like, they.

Steve

Don't give her a whole lot, right? Well, this was definitely a time when like TV actors didn't generally move over to movies. Yeah. So she really— she was the first of the, of the like Friends people to really make— well, I guess not the first to make the move, but like, because, because Courteney Cox did Scream, you know, and then Jennifer Aniston did this and a couple other things. But it's like, there would— you couldn't demand the kind of like, you know, the fact that you were a hit TV star did not get you great roles, right? Right, right, right.

Nic

When you get into like a level below— yeah, you go today and.

Steve

And it's like, it's all interchangeable now, you know? So it's like, that was a thing where she was still considered by, by the film world in Hollywood to be, well, just a TV person. So I'm sure she just didn't get a meaty role, but she looked at it and went, I want— I got to get into this somehow. I do these. And eventually she can do stuff like, you know, whatever, like Meet the Millers or whatever. Very funny stuff. But right. So yeah.

Nic

And that is a good point. I mean, like during the era that we're covering, there was such a difference and TV and film didn't mix all that much.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Um, this was an enjoyable watch. It was an hour 30. I felt like it was kind of a long hour 30.

Steve

Fair.

Nic

A little bit. Yeah. Um, there were parts of it that weren't, like, super exciting. The overall message I think that's important to take away from this is your loyalty to your job should be exactly limited to what it's doing for you. It is fucking insane to go above and beyond for these companies that do not give a fuck about you. You. So just always keep that in mind. Like, nothing is worth your sanity. Nothing is worth your fucking freedom. So like, you know, Peter, if we have those hypnotherapists in real life, find one of those, or just find something you want to do. Because I like Peter's resolution here at the end. This was, this was still pretty fun for me. And I would definitely recommend this. I'd be surprised if there's people in our demo who haven't seen it.

Steve

Yeah, I know,.

Nic

Right? But if you haven't, check it out. Like, if you missed it for some reason, I think it's worth watching for I'm gonna give Office Space a 3.5 out of 5.

Steve

All right, yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty much right in the same ballpark you're in. I think it's interesting, 1999 was an interesting year for movies in that if you think about it, this movie and then 2 of the biggest movies of the year were all somehow based around a white man dissatisfied with his office job, with his comfortable office job. Because you have this, The Matrix, and Fight Club all deal with a guy, a white guy who hates his office job.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right? And it's like when we look back at like the stability of the late '90s economy, versus today, you know, it's like, dude, you were— we were all lucky to have those kinds of jobs in some way back then because you had time and money potentially for hobbies and shit, right? You know, you weren't struggling or worrying about survival. But in these movies, there's so much sentiment around that soul-crushing, you know, kind of thing. It's— I feel like it's very much in the same way. It's such a product of the late '90s. Just like the concept of being a sellout, like, isn't a thing anymore. Like, everybody sells out constantly.

Nic

Everything's been sufficiently financialized that that's dropped from them.

Steve

So that's not a thing. Like, there are no posers or sellouts anymore. Anymore. Like, that was a purely '90s construct, right? And this whole thing about being— hating your office job, I feel like, is very much like, uh, like that as well, and it is very uniquely '90s. Um, yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I had a lot of fun watching it. It's not great. It's, it's not like some spectacular comedy that holds up great. You're right, the federal pound me in the ass prison, that's shitty. I don't like it. It's just kind of not that funny to begin with. And there are other elements that just kind of fall a little bit flat, but then there's some jokes that just absolutely kill.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it's almost all the supporting people that really are hilarious. Diedrich Bader and John C. McGinley make this movie. Their characters are hilarious. There's not a wasted line in between either of them. Very, very funny people. I'm also a 3.5 out of 5 on Office Space. So we're a 7 out of 10 altogether, which I think is right about where we should be with this. Yeah. So 7 out of 10 on Office Space. And that wraps up 2 Dads, 2 Decades.

Nic

So we have— what are we going to do?

Steve

Yeah, we've got no guiding light, no North Star for now until I'll let you know, folks, from now until October.

Nic

Now we're doing 2 Dads. Chaos.

Steve

We'll bring back Shocktoberfest this October, but until then, it's kind of like whatever we want to.

Nic

Watch. I like it. I like it. I don't like being so restrained.

Steve

Yeah. So now we've got the whole pair of decades. The whole 20 years is before us and available to us. It's my pick. And I decided coming out of this, I really wanted to nail it with something that I feel like is one of the best movies, period, of all time. Definitely, definitely one of the best movies of the era. And for a while was in my like little top 4 movies in Letterboxd on my Letterboxd account. This was one of my top 4 for a while. So we are going— the movie came out in 1993. So that's the era that we're going back to. But the movie takes place in the late 19th century in the Arizona Territory. So this is an Old West. This is a Western. It is one of the best Westerns. Best Westerns. It is one of the finest Westerns ever made. Starring Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, and Sam Elliott. This is the story of the shootout at the O.K. Corral and the Earp brothers. We're gonna watch Tombstone.

Intro Clip

Damn.

Steve

Which is just one of the best movies, one of the best westerns of all time.

Nic

I, I am super excited because this movie is definitely in my top 5 of movies people would yell at me for not having seen.

Steve

Perfect.

Nic

And I don't know why I haven't seen it. I have no reason. Like, I'm fucking psyched about this. This could be another The Thing. You're introducing me to a Kurt Russell movie I haven't seen. Dude, I'm, I'm really excited to watch this one.

Steve

This is much more The Thing than it is like The Last Starfighter. I'll tell you that. It's definitely closer to The Thing, uh, than The Last Starfighter. So yeah, so next week we will watch Tombstone. That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodadsonemovie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been Office Space, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic. Thank.

Steve

You so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks,. Everyone.