Transcript

Intro Clip

So I didn't bone her.

Intro Clip

So he didn't bone me. So you guys didn't bone? Oh, now.

Intro Clip

Wait a minute. You can't really believe— Now you wait a minute. I gotta tell you, Travis, it really tweaks my melon to see a buff bro like Carl here get wheezed on by a greasy scumbag like you. So you just chill.

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. And I'm Nic. And today we continue our march through November and our journey on the Thanksgiving movie wheel we're calling Feast Mode. I swear to God, like, I don't think we should do Thanksgiving again. There's so few movies that really hit. It's tough, man. It's not easy, but here we are. We're doing it.

Nic

Hey, time-traveling filmmakers, go back to the '80s and '90s, make some Thanksgiving movies so next year we can do this again. Please.

Steve

Please, it would be nice. But we are today talking about a Thanksgiving movie. The movie is Son-in-Law. It stars Pauly Shore, a handful of other people. We'll get into the facts in a minute. But this is actually a legit Thanksgiving movie. It's based entirely around going home from college on Thanksgiving break and the things that you deal with when you're going home to a small town in South Dakota somewhere, which we can all relate to, obviously. This was my pick for us for Feast Mode. And this is like a movie I probably watched this movie a dozen times throughout high school. Like, for some reason, this movie just hit for me at the right time. You know, I think I was like, what, 13? We were 13 when this came out, and it was just the right— it was PG-13, so it was like just edgy enough that it felt like cool, but my parents were also fine with me watching it. Yeah, the Tiffany Amber Thiessen dance in the one scene, oh, that was perfect. Just absolute perfection for 13-year-old Steve. And, uh, I really enjoyed this, and I feel like of the Pauly Shore movies, this was like one of the maybe like slightly more approachable ones. So it's one I came back to over and over again. Uh, like this and Encino Man, basically. For sure. But yeah. Uh, so Nic, what about you? What's your history with Son-in-Law?

Nic

I, I didn't see this until much later. Like, I knew about it, and I just had like an anti-Paulie Shore thing in my head for, for a stretch, you know? Gotcha. Fair, actually. Me and 78% of America. But like, uh, but I saw this, and you know, I'd never seen the movie, but obviously was a big fan of the novel. Um, I just start saying this about like really shitty movies, and people would be like, have you seen that? I'd be like, no, but I, I love the novel.

Steve

Did you? But are you— was it the adaptation of the film, or was it the original novel you're talking about? Because there's a—.

Nic

One time, one time we were, uh, we were traveling, my family and I, and my brother went to go get a book at the airport, and the book that he got was the novelization of the movie The Patriot starring Mel Gibson.

Steve

Oh, that is perfection. That is, that is, you know, the only movie I can think of I'd rather have a novelization of. The only movie I think I'd rather have the novelization of on an airplane would be like Air Force One. That seems like a much better, you know, more apropos. But other than that, Patriot hits all the buttons.

Nic

Uh, so yeah, I, I had not seen this until a few years ago, but my wife Jeannie, huge fan, and made sure that it was one of the early ones that we watched together. And, um, yeah, this one, it's, it's very fun. And my daughter now likes it a lot.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

My daughter's 14. She really gets a kick out of Pauly Shore. She loves his shit. Nice. And she was like stopping to try to like remember stuff that he said and like write it down so that she could like repeat it back to us. So, um, yeah, I didn't catch this until a little later, but I'd been aware of it. And, uh, yeah, I'm fucking excited to talk about this.

Steve

Very cool, very cool. All right, let's jump into the facts on Son-in-Law. The film Son-in-Law was released on July 12th, 1993 with a PG-13 rating and a running time of 95 minutes. It was directed by Steve Rash and written by, among other people, Fax Barr, Adam Small, and Shawn Schepps. It stars Pauly Shore, as we mentioned, the beautiful Carla Gugino, and the legendary Lane Smith. Big Lane Smith stans over here. Mm-hmm. Scores, Rotten Tomatoes, 33% of critics found this movie worth watching. Pretty low. On IMDb, a 6.0. Definitely not up there with the greats that we watch a lot of the times. And this is not a surprise, but Siskel and Ebert were 2 thumbs down. I don't— if either Siskel or Ebert ever gave any Pauly Shore movie a thumbs up, I'd love to hear about it. Because I doubt that that's the case.

Nic

It would be funny to find out that like Gene Siskel's soft spot is that he loved Pauly Shore.

Steve

No, no, that's the thing. It would be— I gotta be more specific. It's like Gene Siskel is like, Pauly Shore is terrible, whatever. But In the Army Now is a work of art. You know, something like that.

Nic

But I love war movies. So In the Army Now.

Steve

A little bit of awards activity though. Not a win, but a nomination at, no surprise, the 1994 MTV Movie Awards. Pauly Shore was nominated for Best Comedic Performance. Fits perfectly.

Nic

I mean, he was nominated for best podcaster for the company I worked for too.

Steve

Exactly. Pauly Shore and MTV, uh, they go together like peanut butter and weasel. I don't know. Anyway, on an $8 million budget, pretty modest actually, uh, given that we just saw, uh, Grumpy Old Men last week, uh, was made the same at the same time and cost like $30 million or whatever the heck it was, right?

Nic

Right. A little more, uh, acting power.

Steve

And they had to destroy that. They had to destroy that. Fish shanty too. That's right. The ice shanty. This was a hit at the box office. Like, there's no way to cut it any other way. It pulled in $36.5 million at the box office, 4.5 times what it cost. There is no way to look at this other than, hey, this was a minor hit. Definitely in the wheelhouse of Pauly Shore's kind of height. You know, he was doing— he'd done Encino Man already. He was actually contractually obligated to do 2 more movies for Disney, and this was one of them. And I think In the Army Now was the other one. Later on, we'd get Bio-Dome and stuff, which was definitely the tail end of Shore's popularity. But man, there was a time when this country was, for whatever reason, just absolutely enamored with Pauly Shore, or we were being told we should be. I'm not actually sure which one it is.

Nic

Yeah. Were we experiencing Pauly Shore fever, or were we being told to prepare for Pauly Shore fever?

Steve

Were we being injected with Pauly Shore bacteria and going Pauly Shore septic? That's maybe—.

Nic

I wish I'd gotten my Pauly Shore vaccination back in the '90s.

Steve

Oh man, that would've been good, yeah. Okay, let's open up Son-in-Law. Let's take a look. So this movie starts off with a high school graduation. And this is Lincoln High in, I don't remember what the hell, Wasco, South Dakota. Wasco, South Dakota. Right, so fictional town. And this is a tiny high school class.

Nic

Yeah, it was like what, 50 kids, 80 kids? Maybe.

Steve

Like if that, like it really, if you told me it was 35, I'd be like, yeah, that looks about right. Very small group of graduating seniors. The school you and I went to, of course, we had over 400 graduating in our senior class. So that was, anytime I see something way smaller, I go, that's weird. Has mentioned, you know, that there were like 300 total kids at the private high school she went to when she was growing up. So I'm like, it's so funny to me that my graduating class was like significantly larger than her entire school. Yeah. So, and obviously a town like this is not gonna have a ton of people, therefore not a ton of kids, even though I'm sure every one of these families— this is probably the only family in town with only 2 kids. I gotta figure the rest.

Nic

Yeah, seriously.

Steve

They're all quiverful.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But our valedictorian is one Rebecca Warner, played by Carla Gugino. She is our protagonist. She's our lead character. And I love the way, real quickly, how they do the kind of opening, credits where they show the people who are in it, you know, including like Cindy Pickett and Lane Smith and Patrick Renna, the family, they do it where as they're just panning between them in the seats watching Rebecca give her valedictorian speech, they put that person's name up. And I think it's really clever because like sometimes, you know, you see those, the names pop at the beginning and it's like, you may not know who Cindy Pickett is, you may not know who Patrick Renna is, but like now it's like, oh right, the kid from Sandlot. Oh right.

Nic

Honestly, super helpful. And that should be in more movies. Yeah. Great job there.

Steve

If you can work it out, it works out great. Um, but yeah.

Nic

Yeah. Um, so, so she gives her graduation speech and, uh,.

Steve

Very inspiring.

Nic

And her, uh, her kind of boyfriend Steve there, and he's goofing off, and— or Travis, whatever. He just looks like a Steve, and I hate that because— no, no, you're, you're not a stereotypical Steve when I think of a movie Steve.

Steve

No, no, I knew a lot of movie-style Steves growing up. We went to school with several, several movies who can remain last name nameless but were kind of dicks. Uh, yeah, I know, I've met a lot of Steves, and, and I, I don't really ascribe to the Steveism in general. And that includes The Tao of Steve, which I did watch when I was younger.

Nic

Oh yeah, Donald Logue.

Steve

Donald Logue, love him, don't love that movie. But yeah.

Nic

Well, Travis is in the, in the crowd, and one of the things that he does that cracks me up is he's like jacking off his diploma. It's like classic move there. Gotta show that he's dumb. He's not the valedictorian. And that's what she has in her small town.

Steve

And sitting next to him is Tracy, played by Tiffany Amber Thiessen, who's like another friend there. In town, and they have a little moment. They kind of whisper to each other about like last night or whatever, and we get a hint that like, ooh, maybe there's a little something on the side going on between Travis and Tracy. Travis and Tracy, good God, they're destined to be together with those names. They are. Yeah.

Nic

So we've got now Becca's dad is kind of having like a little chat with her, like, well, you know, before you go off to college kind of thing. Becca is— and you know, there's a reason that they do this to show that the change is more drastic, but her pajamas that she's wearing, Look like the pajamas that a ghost would be wearing if you were staying in an old bed and breakfast and it was haunted. Like, it's really funny.

Steve

So a couple of weeks ago, we watched Scream, and I had a very similar thought to myself about Sidney's sort of nightgown thing she wears at the beginning. It's like cotton. It's very innocent looking, very whatever, but it is sleeveless. So this is a sleeved version of the, the not sexy sleepwear that Sidney wears in Scream at the beginning.

Nic

Oh, and real quick, we got a teen bedroom. So a couple of posters that we noticed here. We got a Garth Brooks. I don't know if there's a Chris Gaines. It might have been pre-Chris Gaines.

Steve

I think this is pre, yeah.

Nic

We got Travis Tritt. And then there's also a Billy Ray Cyrus that appears with another photo of Garth Brooks. So big country music fan. Not really, you know, not necessarily in the Pauly Shore wheelhouse, but we'll see if he adapts to it.

Steve

Right. I will say there was a time when country— I actually enjoyed country music quite a bit. And it was a little bit after the sort of like this part, but like, there's some songs from like Brooks and Dunn, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, those types that came before 9/11 really fucked country music up and turned it into this like jingoistic bullshit. Yeah. That was slightly enjoyable. So like, this is sort of like a country era where it's like, okay, this is like, I mean, you know, you may not like it musically, but at least it's like, I don't have to feel bad for listening to it.

Nic

Well, not every song is about like violently grabbing anybody darker than a brown paper bag and beating the shit out of them, you know?

Steve

Oh my God. Toby Keith.

Nic

Yeah, exactly. So, hey, rest in peace to, uh, hey, also a wonderful restaurateur. I've been stuck in a rut in many Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill at various shitty airports around the country. So he was really a jack of two trades.

Steve

One and a half, really. The music, we can give him half a trade there. I should also want to say, this is like we were— I was saying at the top here, we're both big Lane Smith fans and I've loved this guy forever. I've only been able to memorize his name over the last maybe 5 years. But like, this guy is in so many movies, especially from like the early to mid-'90s that I absolutely love that aren't necessarily like hits. My Cousin Vinny obviously is huge and he's great in that and everybody loves My Cousin Vinny, whatever. But like, I love the movie, The Distinguished Gentleman, the Eddie Murphy movie where he runs for Congress and Lane Smith plays Chairman Dodge of what, some committee, Ways and Means or something, whatever, Power and Industry, like some kind of big Capitol Hill committee. And he's like, takes Eddie Murphy's character under his wing and stuff. And it's just this Foghorn Leghorn accent that he's got. And it's down home while also being snarky and kind of shitty at times. I fucking love Lane Smith. He's so good. And he's so good in this.

Nic

He really, I mean, He's like a way better actor than they needed for this movie. Uh, 100% in a lot of places. Yeah, he's fantastic.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so Becca and Travis are like kind of hanging out in the barn. They're making out in the hay of Mice and Men style, just rolling around in there. Um, but you know, we get to the same conversation that we saw in Scream. We've seen in so many movies where the boyfriend's kind of trying to— hey, like, oh, you're leaving for college? We're gonna finally do it? She's like, no, I gotta go to college and then we'll get married. And then, you know, or You know, we'll get married at some point and then we can have sex. But he's really pushing it.

Steve

He's pushing it, and she's basically saying, no, wait 4 years. Yeah. And we'll bang. It's like, look, dude, don't have sex if you're not ready, obviously. But also, you know, he may not be all that willing to wait quite that long. We'll have to see. Uh, as it turns out, he's really, really not willing to wait that long. Um, but yeah, so she's going to school in California, and now it's time, you know, like, they— she makes out with Travis a little bit, whatever. They're not gonna bang. She wants him to wait for him. Uh, and so the next day, they're loading up this F-350, enormous truck. Yeah. Which, I mean, These days, I feel like these huge pickups are a lot more common. You see them around, especially kind of where we live. But back then, this was shockingly large.

Nic

Yeah, and that was what a farmer would drive.

Steve

Yeah, a real industrial vehicle kind of thing. Yeah. You got to—.

Nic

Yeah, I was trying to estimate the trip here. And that F-350 is probably— the fuel economy for a gas version gets about 9.5 miles to the gallon.

Steve

I was going to guess 8, but yeah, I'm going to ballpark it.

Nic

Diesel gets about 12.5.

Steve

OK.

Nic

All right. At today's prices, I mean, it's about the same, you know, the diff— because the, the better gas mileage with the diesel would make up for the higher price. So we're talking in 2026, it's like $1,500 round trip, assuming that they're not really stopping or doing anything just to drive that thing out there, which is like— a plane ticket should cost a lot less than that, but they got to bring the whole fam.

Steve

Well, here's the thing, they don't. They, they could have left the kid at home with Pappy and Theo or whatever, so they could have done it with just 3 plane tickets. Yeah, I will say she's bringing kind of a lot of stuff, so maybe, you know, that's sort of part of it. You either ship that stuff or you gotta check a ton of bags or whatever. Like, and but, you know, I think back then checking bags was free. Nobody charged for that shit in the early '90s, you know what I mean? Like, um, but they are driving. They're driving all the way to California, to Los Angeles. Yeah, California.

Nic

Cal State Northridge, I think, is where this, uh, was filmed, the college scenes.

Steve

That's right. Yep, filmed it, filmed at Northridge. And then, uh, actually funny enough, the, the scenes in South Dakota are all filmed on a farm in Visalia, so only, only a couple hours, uh, north of not even a couple hours, probably an hour and a half north of LA.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

Uh, so there's that. Um, I do love here, Zack, uh, Patrick Renna, who played Ham in The Sandlot the same year, I think '93 as well, is the little brother. And he's got a t-shirt on as they're dropping off Becca at school that says, seduce me, please. And for some reason, I always loved that.

Nic

This kid is like medically horny and needs to be addressed. It's so— I mean, this was like a common trope around this time is you have like the way too sexually aware younger brother.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Uh, and he's nailing it, and he cannot contain himself in any situation. This.

Steve

Is sort of like in The Last Starfighter where the little brother had the Playboys or whatever.

Nic

You're like, that kid's like 10. Yes, he's for sure that kid. And it's funny that the parents are so like conservative about what their daughter should be doing and everything. Yeah, yeah. And then the, the son is just like oozing jizz everywhere he goes, and they're just like, oh son, are you gonna wear your, uh, let me grab— let me see your tits t-shirt today? Like,.

Steve

Oh, he's just boy being boy. That's a boy. That's a boy being a boy. That's all that is.

Nic

But when they get there to the college, right, so this is a good kind of shock of these South Dakota of people finally getting to the hallway of her dorm, and it's just chaos. Yes. There's people that are dressed funny and all this stuff, you know. So watching the parents react to it, and Mom is a little bit more kind of amused by it. She seems like a little like, oh, this is kind of fun. And Dad is just like horrified by all this.

Steve

Well, like, Guy is like walking down the hallway with a towel around his waist, and somebody snatches the towel from him, so then he's walking naked. And Walter, the dad, is like, dear God. Like, uh, we should mention too, by the way, if, if you think you recognize the mom here, Connie, uh, played by Cindy Pickett, you probably do. Ferris Bueller's mom a few years before this.

Nic

Oh, okay.

Steve

So there's that. Yeah, so now we meet Becca's roommate, her freshman dorm roommate, and it's this very kind of like initially kind of very looks like her, you know, wearing like a sweater and like kind of like conservative-ish clothing, whatever. Patrick— Patrick— Zack has gone through her underwear drawer already, which is pretty messed up. So she comes in, introduces herself, and then like leaves and comes back later. She gets a phone call or something, and she comes back with another girl with her, basically. And it's like, oh, this is my girlfriend, you know, Lindsay, or whatever she says. And then they kiss goodbye, and the whole family— well, the whole family except Zack is sort of scandalized. Zack starts asking his dad for his camera, which would be, you know, a little, a little on the nose, pal. Like, you're not just gonna sit there, you know, snapping pictures with like— what would it— what would be like, right? This is 1993, so an enormous, you know, like, like single lens, like, like, right?

Nic

You're not discreetly snapping a photo here.

Steve

No, exactly.

Nic

Um, yeah, so they can't— they can't deal with with the fact that, oh, her roommate's a lesbian. What is this? California is going crazy. So they're trying to help her get settled in. She has this big old trunk and it's locked. The brother was supposed to have the key, doesn't have the key.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

So they're trying to get it open and—.

Steve

Like, left it at home, I think. Like, full-on left it in South Dakota.

Nic

Um, so Dad's like, all right, I gotta find a screwdriver or something. And he's looking, he saw that there was a sign right across the hall from her dorm room, which made him feel better at first, is the resident advisor. Is.

Steve

Somebody in charge.

Nic

So there's some kind of authority figure, and he pops into that door, you know, to see if he can get a screwdriver. And we're introduced to Krawl.

Steve

Krawl, yes.

Nic

And Krawl is, uh, is Pauly Shore. And at this point, he is hanging upside down by the fire sprinkler, uh, pipe. And, um, I had a problem with this because we've seen this a couple times in recent movies, right? I'd say The Fly, he was swinging from some sort of fire sprinkler pipe, this one. And I was like, I don't— this can't fly. I don't know if this is right or not. So I contacted a fire sprinkler company.

Steve

This is perfect. This is the kind of in-depth analysis you can only get on 2 Dads 1 Movie.

Nic

I'm doing a Room 237 but for son-in-law. Yeah, so we're going deep here. So, so I asked, I said, hey, you know, I've seen a lot of fictional portrayals of people hanging or swinging from fire sprinkler pipes. I feel like that might either set the sprinklers off or cause some kind of damage. What do you think? Yeah. Here's the answer. The pipe supporters are set to hold the weight of the water and can withstand an additional 250 pounds in case of an accident, like someone falling off a ladder and needing to hang on. Huh. So the answer is yes, you can hang on it if you're less than 250 pounds.

Steve

And Paulie Shore weighs what, a buck 20 or something?

Nic

Yeah. Skinny dude. Seth Brundle, for sure, less than, less than 250. Yeah, less than 250. So, wow, good to know. So I'm trying to get down to hanging on fire sprinkler weight, folks. This is gonna be my goal for, uh, 2027.

Steve

I can just lose 50 or 60 pounds, I'll be right there, man. That's fantastic, good to know.

Nic

Uh, but I love that. Hey, shout out to Peter from Superior Automatic Sprinkler. I really appreciate the answer and your expertise, and I hope that I can consult on future matters. There you go.

Steve

So there we go, Peter. Wonderful. Uh, so she is kind of freaking out, ends up calling, uh, Travis, and there's this moment where her boyfriend, you know, is like— answers the phone, he's like, I said I'd be right there, whatever. And he clearly thinks it's somebody else calling, but it's Becca. And, you know, she's basically just nervous and she doesn't really you know, she's feeling overwhelmed. And look, I'll be honest with you, I went to 4 different colleges in my college career, including a JC for a while to try to figure out where I— what I wanted to do. And the first time I went away to school, I got homesick and I got strep throat and like homesick the first quarter. And I left and I went back home and then kind of repositioned and, you know, it all worked out in the end. But I totally understand this concept of like, man, that first time can be so overwhelming. Yeah. You don't feel like you have some kind of an anchor or something to hold on to. And I didn't know anybody. I mean, I met my roommate at Southern Oregon because he, he grew up in Danville— I mean, excuse me, Pleasanton— when we were in Danville. And, uh, you know, I met him like 2 weeks before we moved in, so like I like knew of him, whatever. We weren't friends,.

Nic

But you don't have like a level of comfort at all.

Steve

We actually ended up— he and I both ended up at Chico State years later and reconnected, which was crazy.

Nic

Oh nice.

Steve

But at that time I just felt like, you know, very, very rudderless. So I totally get that she's just kind of freaking out.

Nic

Um, so when she's on the phone with Travis here, uh, very quickly in the background, again, we're, we're looking at the background, we're room 237 in There's these bags of feed, uh, behind him. Yeah, in this closet. And the brand of the feed, or what it says on the bag, is Hog Grower.

Steve

Okay, I get it.

Nic

Anyone who works for the company that makes Hog Grower, I would love a promotional hat, a promotional t-shirt, a fucking bomber jacket. I want something that says Hog Grower on it. Thank you in advance.

Steve

It's dirty. It sounds dirty.

Nic

Um, a couple of things that Kroll's doing here, right? So he's, he's walking around with the camera, like the big camera like you mentioned before, right in everybody's face. The camcorder. Like, he has a camera and a camcorder around his neck. He's like Mr. T with like photo equipment. Oh my God, just got it draped all over him. And, uh, the things that he's saying, like, again, I guess because he's not like a big jock guy, people aren't as offended by him just being like, oh, prime USDA Choice teriyaki.

Steve

That's super gross.

Nic

Fellas, go out and try that one and say report back.

Steve

To be fair, 1993 is not 2026. Thank God. That's true.

Nic

People actually respected the USDA back then.

Steve

That's a good point. The FDA held sway with the public at that time. Maybe not so much anyway. But yeah, so he, he basically is— he's kind of— he's doing his thing, whatever he's filming, but then he quickly gets distracted. There's some other girl to chase, but she's— this is just adding to her uncomfort, right? And her discomfort, I guess, is the word I'm looking for. And so there's that. We then get a little bit of a flash forward, right? 'Cause we kind of wanna get through this first, most of this first semester quickly. We get to Halloween and she's not dressed up for Halloween. She isn't, I don't know if she like is super religious or something, whatever. Yeah. She doesn't dress up for Halloween, but the entire dorm floor, everybody's like costumed and partying and there's a party going on in her room and like that her roommate's throwing. And actually her roommate's girlfriend has the coolest costume I think I've ever seen. It's like a split down the middle, half and half, A man in like a tuxedo with a mustache and a woman in like a dress, and it's so cool looking. Hair different on both sides.

Nic

Half costume.

Steve

The makeup's different on both sides. Like it's really like really awesome, freaking cool costume. But somebody sat down on her desk, Becca's desk, and she had this little whittled horse that her pappy whittled for her. We we've learned pappy played by Mason Adams, the grandpa. He whittles wood, and this is like something she brought with her that's like super super super important. And this was like the last straw for her. Yeah. So somebody sat on it, broke, you know, they apologized, but it's like, you can't glue this back together. The whole point was whittled out of like a single piece of wood, you know what I mean? Which would've been an enormous piece of wood, given how tall the horse was.

Nic

Plus, gluing a horse together is like using a horse to repair a horse, kind of indirectly, right?

Steve

I feel like that's a sin.

Nic

It's like cannibalism, kind of like adjacent in some way, right?

Steve

It just feels wrong. Very, very wrong. So she's like, I'm outta here. She goes to the payphone down the hall. I'm going home. And Carl dressed up as Carmen Miranda, basically, I guess. He's got like fruit on his head. Yeah. Fake boobs or whatever, is like, wait a minute, let me, let me talk to you, like, on this thing. And he gives her this speech, and it's actually like a really good speech to give a college freshman who's homesick, which is basically like, if you don't go out, leave campus, and try to see what's going on around you, you're never gonna feel like you belong here.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And that's accurate. Like, I know, like I said, I had trouble fitting in at a couple different schools until I got to to Chico State and spent time with people outside of my dorm, outside of class, and it became something that I really enjoyed, and I loved being there. And if you're not willing to, like, put yourself out at all, yeah, you're never gonna feel like it's home in any way ever. And, you know—.

Nic

Yeah, he's actually, like— when we kind of first see him, we're like, oh, this creep is gonna try to, like, bang her immediately. But he's actually, like, doing a good job of his actual job as an RA.

Steve

Right, as an RA, yeah.

Nic

You know? So it's funny that he seems so crazy and irresponsible, but it's like, like, oh, he's good at what he does, at least like in this moment here. Like, he can recognize somebody who's in crisis and, and talk them off the ledge, you know.

Steve

And, and this is a theme that runs through this whole movie with this character, is that we are not supposed to be judging him by how he looks and how he talks, right? Like, the whole idea of the Krawl character is that he contains multitudes. He, he is a different, you know, he has more depth to him than we initially think and that the Warners initially think, uh, and all this stuff. And this is the first sign of it where it's like, yeah, he's dressed crazily. Like, even for Halloween, this is kind of a crazy-looking costume. Yeah, he's been creepy and weird from moment one, and, and— but now he's like being, you know, actually helpful. So we get a little montage of like him like showing her around town.

Nic

Yeah, well, real quick before the montage is— so when he brings her in the room, he's like, he's like, oh yeah, this— and he hands her a photo and she's like, what? And it's clearly a photo of him, you know, several years before, looking very like, you know, nerdy and conservative and stuff. And he says, uh, I tossed the spectacles, grew the 'do, guzzled some brew. That's one that my daughter likes. Shout out to you, Renny. Um, but some of these things that he says about how he— so, you know, let yourself go, let yourself be free and everything. And now.

Steve

He also— But real quick, that picture is a very '90s attitude of what nerdy looks like because he looks GQ as fuck. Like, he actually looks great. He just has spectacles. He has glasses. Yeah. So therefore Fuck you, nerd.

Nic

This was in the, in the nerd glasses. Yeah, right before you had the, the cool glasses come out.

Steve

That's true. We did, we did break that mold, didn't we?

Nic

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve

But yeah, so now we get this montage and they're going around, he's showing her around town, uh, and they go in and they go to like a clothing store and like she gets kind of new digs that look a little more California, a little bit more early '90s California anyway. And then somebody walks by her who's got like this short bob with like bleach blonde hair and she's like, oh my God, I want her hair. So they go to a barbershop, and this guy— I don't know how to feel about this. It is a man with at least some melanin in his skin. He's got a darker skin tone. If he's Hispanic, if he's Native American, I don't know. But he cuts off her ponytail and then raises it above his head and makes like a war cry. And I'm like, I don't know how to feel about this. Like, if that dude's like a legit, like, Miwok or something, like, then okay, this is probably fine. That's just, you know, but like— Yeah. It feels wrong. It's— I don't know.

Nic

Yeah, that's funny. And then during this montage, what song are we getting? One of our favorites.

Steve

This is the best needle drop of Little Miss Can't Be Wrong ever. I honestly, I like the Spin Doctors. I didn't so much actually back then. I always liked the use of this song in this movie, even when I was like, oh, the Spin Doctors suck. And the Spin Doctors is one of those bands that like over time I've like thought more positively of them as I kind of get distance from their popularity and just think about how they were kind of everywhere in the '90s. And you just heard the songs all the time. And yeah, I've come around on like Hootie and the Blowfish and a bunch of other bands. In the same— Matchbox Twenty, in the same kind of vein. Um, this is like a really fantastic use of this. Oh yeah. Because it, it is, it is, it is a fun song for the moment where it's like they're rollerblading and they're doing this and they're going around and she's changing like all this stuff. It's like a fun song that just does that, but it also is like really indicative of Rebecca's character and the way that she treats everybody around her later on. It's like she, she's, she's right, and everybody that isn't following her game and playing along with her is like hurting her. And that's her attitude towards it. And I feel like it's really— I don't even know if that was intentional, like, by the choice of the song, or if it was just a popular upbeat, you know, sort of hippie-sounding song. Let's do this, you know.

Nic

It's a good jam. It hits well though. And the music is, is pretty decent. There's a couple really good needle drops, a couple good places here.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Um, yeah, so she's going through all this stuff. They're rollerblading on Venice Beach and seeing some kind of LA sights. And then she goes into the tattoo parlor. The tattoo artist, played by Flea.

Steve

Speaking of music.

Nic

Who we just saw in Big Lebowski.

Steve

That's right, yep, yep.

Nic

And she gets like, you know, the classic butterfly tattoo that you have to go get. You have to show that I am a transformed being. I am coming out of my cocoon, which I will celebrate by a butterfly tattoo.

Steve

There's an interesting exchange here between Kroll and the tattoo artist played by Flea where, you know, Rebecca looks to Kroll and goes, what do you think? She goes, it's permanent, like, I don't know. And the guy, like, you know, Flea, he looks a little crazy like he always does, right? I can't remember exactly what he says, but Kroll goes, look, see? Like, it's the ink soaks into the brain and makes them all mess up. And Flea just goes like, yeah, good point.

Nic

Yes, 'cause Flea, they make him look— he looks crazy. Really crazy. He looks like a guy that would be like a, um, like a white supremacist gang henchman kinda guy. Like, he has this psycho kinda look. Yeah, and, uh, and Kroll disarms him.

Steve

He learned how to tattoo in cell block 2. Like, he did not— like, this was inside prison where he learned to ink people.

Nic

His first 30 tattoos were swastikas. Yeah.

Steve

Or teardrops. Um, but yeah, she gets the little, uh, little butterfly on her ankle, sort of. Um, we cut to a quick scene at the beach just to kind of show— again, this is really more than anything, it's just showing Rebecca feeling more and more comfortable, like, in California, right, with this sort of thing and with Kroll. But they're, like, not romantic, they're just friends.

Nic

Because now they're my friend harassing women at the beach.

Steve

Because now they're both, yeah, looking through binoculars, which— I'm sorry, if you bring binoculars to the beach, you've already lost. This is a terrible idea. Yes, it's bad.

Nic

100%. Okay, I will say yes, 100%. And And today, if you're wearing Meta glasses at the beach, someone can throw you into the fucking ocean.

Steve

Well, hopefully break your fucking glasses.

Nic

Or throw your glasses into the ocean. Because fuck you. Yeah, the binoculars, the camcorder back then, you would have been immediately identified as a creep. Now people are discreetly recording you all the time, and they should have the same fucking scrutiny. You should look at them the same way.

Steve

There are some disability reasons for the Meta glasses that I recently learned about, people who are not fully blind but very, very hard of seeing can, can be helped out by them. But that is absolutely not the reason to bring them to the beach.

Nic

That's fine. I mean, it's like if everyone decided it's easier to be in a wheelchair and then— and I was like, hey, there's too many wheelchairs on the road. It's like, yeah, of course there's people who actually need them.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Uh, it's like with, uh, DoorDash and stuff where people are like, hey, everyone's kind of being a piece of shit by not just going to the store for themselves. And then everyone's like, well, you know, people with disabilities need it, which is true, but it's like I was like, that's not why you're doing.

Steve

It. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

So then they go to one of our favorite venues. We got these all over town. I think there's like more in this town. The Women's Mud Wrestling Bar.

Steve

Classic, classic. With the most disgusting looking mud.

Nic

It looks worse than anything.

Steve

It looks— okay, this is— there was a time, this is gonna be not fun at all. There was a time that I was on like a diet thing back in like, I wanna say 2008 or '09, 2010, something in that ballpark. And it was like this food that was all prepackaged and you just had to like, you know, add hot water or whatever and like make it. And it was like supposed to be like chili. NutriSystem? It might have been, I can't remember. But yeah, it was like, came in like little cups on the stuff. It was awful. But I thought, oh, this is how I'm gonna lose weight, whatever. And when you like microwaved or whatever, put the water into the chili and microwaved it, like the whole deal, it looked like this stuff. And it was horrific and it tasted like cardboard and it was awful. But like, it looked like this mud. Yeah. And it was just the grossest thing ever. And there's like a color to this mud.

Nic

It's too light. It needs to be— I don't know what it was.

Steve

Green almost? It looks like shit. It looks like like feces, right, filling this fucking ring. It's horrific. But basically Becca pays the DJ or the MC, whatever he is, to call up Krawl, the resident advisor, and he gets to get in thinking he's gonna wrestle some busty beauty sort of thing. And this, you know, 6-foot-2, you know, 300-pound woman in a bunny suit comes and just starts throwing him around the ring. And.

Nic

Classic, like, lady wrestler of the early '80s, like the Fabulous Moolah type wrestler. Yeah.

Steve

And it's just like, this is This is by far the least interesting scene in the movie, in my opinion, because it does nothing to advance any plot or any character. We learn nothing new about anyone. It is like, absolutely, this movie should have been like 92 minutes long, not 95 or whatever it was. And, and just like, we didn't need this scene at all. It's so dumb.

Nic

It's one of those things that, uh, that would get people who don't know what it is excited, you know? You'd be like, ladies mud wrestling! They'd be like, yeah! And then you see it and you're like, ugh, that shit. What about no mud on these people?

Steve

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I can— I— that's one reason I can understand, not that I've but the Jell-O wrestling concept doesn't seem as gross. And also, like, you can still see the people under the Jell-O. Like, I get it a little bit more. Still pretty nasty. But yeah, so now we flash a little bit ahead again. This was kind of speeding through this semester. It's now Thanksgiving break. People are starting to leave. There's phone calls being made, like all this stuff. And this time Travis calls Becca on this communal phone. It's like a payphone, it looks like, in the middle of the hallway. Was this something you ever experienced in college? I don't remember this kind of thing at all.

Nic

I think— I know, I think we had a phone in our dorm room. I'm pretty sure I had a phone in my room.

Steve

Yeah, anyway. So, but it's Travis calling, and Rebecca's like very distracted, and like talking to people, is like whatever. And he's like surprised that, you know, he's not instantly the most important thing to her in the moment, right? Right. And he's kind of like, whoa, what's going on? You know? And he kind of hints at like, oh, this, I'm really excited to see you. Can't wait. We got a lot to talk about. Big deal. Da da da da. All this kind of stuff. And she gets seemingly a little bit nervous. Yes. She goes in and she sees Kroll in like a PJs and like a little like pilgrim hat, like already starting to heat up his Thanksgiving dinner. Hungry Man dinner, even though it's like Thanksgiving's in like 5 days. Yeah, this is like Sunday or Monday of like Thanksgiving week kind of thing. And and she invites him to South Dakota. He's like, "I got nowhere to go." Like like Vegas fell through. His mom, we learned, was living lives in Vegas.

Nic

I love that backstory that his mom was a pit boss. That's such a funny like it's great funny job.

Steve

Not a dealer, not a showgirl. No, a pit boss, not a waitress.

Nic

Yeah. And crawl is in is he in these like cheetah pattern pajamas? Yeah, they're like one dancing around saying. Steven Tyler PJ.

Steve

I'm.

Nic

Like,.

Steve

It's so dumb.

Nic

I don't get that though. Are there scarves on it? I thought it was a scarf rather than a pattern thing.

Steve

It is, but I think that often the scarves are animal patterned, I think, is maybe the reference. I don't know. Or there's something where he specifically wore something like that and that's just been lost to time. Like, that's entirely possible too.

Nic

I do like his pilgrim hat. Uh, one time, uh, I had a friend, uh, in Santa Barbara. We went down, they had like a pilgrim and Indian party for their birthday.

Steve

Interesting.

Nic

I was a pilgrim, so ain't my problem. But, um, but I had this pilgrim costume and it was like this shitty, like, spirit store pilgrim costume. It was like $15. And I'm like, what am I ever gonna do with this again? And then Thanksgiving, uh, was at my parents' house and I was like, I'm just gonna wear the pilgrim costume for Thanksgiving. I think it was like the hardest my dad has ever laughed when I walked in the door in the pilgrim costume.

Steve

So it's good stuff.

Nic

It is fun wearing that hat.

Steve

You have a little white collar, everything.

Nic

Yeah, everything. The hat and the buckle, everything. I remember making those.

Steve

Hats out of construction paper in elementary school, right? Yeah.

Nic

Um, so they fly back and, uh, and it's one of those cool, you know, you go down the stairs instead of through the jetway.

Steve

Off the tarmac. Oh.

Nic

Yeah, good stuff. Um, Becca, the way that she— when she arrives, she's immediately talking like Krawl,.

Steve

Right? Talking about Weaselware and stuff.

Nic

She's like, look, check it, Weaselware! And like, oh my God.

Steve

And like, look, I get it. She's been changed. California gets ahold of people. I understand. But she's been gone like 2 months, right? Like, like maybe 3, maybe August, September, October. Now we're into like November. Okay, fine. So like less than a quarter, less than a fiscal quarter, and she's already willing to go back home and in front of her parents wear like a sheer top with a colorful bra underneath. Yeah. Like, I don't buy it. You know what I mean? Like, there are other things she wears that are like far more kind of reasonable, but this particular outfit she gets off the plane with, She must have decided maybe this was the idea. I'm gonna wear the thing that's gonna make them the maddest or freak them out the most. Like, let's go all the way with the first outfit and then we'll dial it back to like a cheetah print fur coat or whatever the hell she has. Like, you know,.

Nic

I'm going full weasel on day one. Yeah.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so, you know, she tells the family and of course like she's not greeting Travis in the way that he expects to be greeted and everything. And she's like, oh, by the way, I brought a friend with me.

Steve

Here he is.

Nic

Here he is. And Lane Smith, who are.

Steve

You? And he's got his camera and he's like, you know, Warners, what's going on? You know, we don't— blah, blah, blah, all his shit. Um, and, uh, but then he goes up to, to Lane Smith, to Walter, and he goes like, hey, we've been acquainted. But wait, don't worry, as soon as you left, I popped your daughter's trunk. And I always love that line. I really do. I think it's very funny. Oh, dear God.

Nic

So for the drive from the airport back to the farm, uh, Kroll is just like, like standing in the back of the truck and he's singing the, you know, classic '90s— dude, me and my friends were always doing this shit, singing the Green Acres theme song.

Steve

So weird.

Nic

This is totally a movie that was written by a guy who was 50 at the time.

Steve

I'm sure. Well, being like 3 or 4 of them, apparently, like up to 6 of them.

Nic

Combined age of the writers was 408.

Steve

Um, exactly. But yeah, so he's singing the Green Acres song, they get to the farm, it's a beautiful farmhouse and everything, and, and he gets out and he Like, he's doing stuff like, film me while I touch the ground, and like all this kind of stuff. It's very strange.

Nic

He's like pretending to like paddle on the ground like he's surfing. He's like, Middle America, ripping the fields. It's like, fucking turn this down a little bit. You just got here. Like, you have to have met other people before. You know this doesn't go over.

Steve

And now he says he's never been on a farm before. That seems legit. Like, that's fine, you know? Um, but he hears chickens clucking and he's like, I love chickens! And he goes off and he's like chasing these chickens with the camera, and they run into a pen. And so he goes to like undo the chain of the pen, and then that's when we meet Theo. I don't think we've— maybe Theo was at graduation, but he's this big huge farmhand guy, way, way, way big, big fat guy. And, um, you know, he says—.

Nic

Could not hang from the fire sprinkler.

Steve

No, no, no, no, no, this, this man is 300 plus. Like, so, but he, he goes like, you know, I wouldn't do that if I were you. You know, he's like, oh, what, man, chickens, no big deal. He goes, no, there's a bull in there. So Krawl just gets an immediate sort of introduction to like not every animal that you're gonna run into on the farm is one you necessarily want to get close to.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Which is a good lesson to learn, I feel like, right away when you're on a farm.

Nic

So Travis is trying to like pull Becca aside, like, hey, I need to talk to you, right? So he pulls her into the barn, immediately plops his Reebok Pump right into a big old, big old pile of poop.

Steve

Huge cow patty.

Nic

Which is great. I don't like to see Reebok Pumps destroyed, but I think for comedic effect it's okay.

Steve

I do think in general we need to protect Them.

Nic

Yeah, protect the pumps. They're a UNESCO World Heritage Site, every Reebok pump. Um, and then we've got Krawlik continuing again doing jokes that are, are not hitting with today's youth. So he sees, uh, Grandpa Mason Adams sitting on the porch and whittling. He's like, whoa! He's like, which one are you, Bartles or James? We love your stuff, you know.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Again, even that guy would be like, what? What the fuck is this?

Steve

Well, and here's the thing, like, the joke doesn't need to be explained. Like, which one of you Bartles and James is funny-ish? Like, that's the joke. But then he goes, Pete, we love your wine cooler. It's like, okay, so now you've explained the joke to us. Like, I.

Nic

Think that's 6-writer syndrome.

Steve

That might be, yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. That or how many notes did the executives give? Yeah. Um, but so then, uh, we find out that, uh, not a surprise, like, Kroll is not gonna be staying in Rebecca's room. He's gonna be staying in Zack's room. Zack's not happy about this. Um, but you know, they bring a cot upstairs, uh, and they start getting it set up. And so when, when Carl gets in, Zach starts telling— Carl makes a couple sandwiches, brings one to Zach.

Nic

Very lettuce-forward sandwiches. Way too much lettuce. They have like a whole half a head of lettuce sticking out of each of them. It's crazy.

Steve

Really crazy. I am not a big lettuce fan on sandwiches to begin with, but it's like one slice or a little pile of shred and you're done, you know? Um, and so he, uh, he gets up there and Zach is kind of like, well, these are the rules of my, of my room. Rule number 1, don't touch anything. And Carl's like, what's rule number 2? There is no rule number 2. Don't touch anything. Yeah. And that's when Carl looks at me and goes, you ever meet the Tooth Fairy? And I'm like, this is the darkest fucking moment of this entire movie. In a movie where 2 people are drugged later on. Yeah, seriously, right? This is the darkest moment. Because when you— I am not sure where he's going with this. And finally Zach starts screaming and he's like, no, no, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But it's like, dude, you just met this boy like less than an hour ago. You are an adult man. Like, he's in his 6th year of college. He's like 24 years old and you just threatened this child. Have you ever met the Tooth Fairy? Like, that's fucked up, dude.

Nic

Right. Well, you threaten this child who has like, you know, 90 Hustlers stacked up on his bookshelf and stuff.

Steve

He can be advanced and still a child. That's the thing.

Nic

Yeah, that's right.

Steve

He's very advanced.

Nic

I could still be scared of the dark, but I have a subscription to Juggs. Um, so, uh, so Travis obviously is kind of pissed about Krawl being here. Um, and when they're there at dinner, again, Travis Travis jumping the gun. Like, dude, you gotta pick a better moment than this.

Steve

Oh, well, no, before dinner, still in the barn, he goes to get down on one knee. Oh, that's right. And Rebecca goes like, oh, I'm feeling sick or something, whatever. And she kind of like— and he's like, oh, okay, no big deal, no big deal. So they go and, and they leave. And this is— and then, um, Kroll tells Rebecca when she gets back to the house, and Travis just, I think, just goes like, I'll see you later, whatever. He's like, I don't feel like I'm dressed, I need some rustic wear. And so they go to like, you know, the Western store or whatever. And pick him out. And of course, you know, we don't get to see what he actually picks. You know, he's like pulling a bunch of stuff off, like whatever, trying a few things on. But the whole point is that there's dinner at their local country club that night, right? And, you know, everybody there is wearing either like sport coat and slacks or a suit or whatever. Like, you know, they're not dressed like farmers. They're dressed like they're at a country club. Like, it's different. But he shows up with Rebecca and he is wearing the most ridiculous— it's like bike shorts under Daisy Dukes. Thank God for the bike shorts.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Crazy-looking shoes, like bright red, Low-cut cowboy boots.

Nic

Yeah, I didn't understand those shoes.

Steve

Leg warmers. Like, I don't know what's going on.

Nic

Everything is crazy. Yeah. And when they were going to like look for the Rustic Wear, there's kind of like a small— they ran into, uh, Tracy.

Steve

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. The store there.

Nic

Yes. Um, but when Kroll's walking up, he still has his video camera, and there's 2 guys like sitting on the bench outside of the store, and he goes, inbreeders! And just shows them like— again, Kroll, not cool, man.

Steve

Like, yeah, seriously, why are you not getting punched?

Nic

And then he put on, uh, assless chaps. Oh, that's right. As a joke, but it showed him from the front and it showed that he clearly had pants on under.

Steve

Clearly did.

Nic

And then turned around and they were assless. So are these just front-only pants, or is there— I wouldn't expect a continuity error out of a film like this, but I think we might see one.

Steve

Where's the script supervisor? This is unacceptable. We need a 7th or 8th writer to make this right. Come on now.

Nic

Yeah, so this dinner, Kroll is like insanely out of place. He's insane. Even more than he was before.

Steve

Right, and he thinks, and for whatever reason, he thinks he's fitting in. He thinks he's like more like them now. Look, I'm fitting in now. It's like, dude, bro, no. But Travis decides this is the time to propose to Rebecca. Gets up in front of this entire room of people, and I get that it's a small town, but he's like, oh, since I think of all of you as family, like, you know everybody in this room, really? Like, how small is this town? But, you know, he proposes, and Rebecca like kicks Kroll, like, do something, you know? And he goes like, oh, you know, she can't 'cause she already, I pressed her 2 weeks ago, and we're gonna get married. And it's like, so this is the way to solve this problem that Kroll comes up with in the instant, which, to his defense or whatever, it's not like he was given time. He just had to come up with something right away. Travis bolts. He runs out. Rebecca follows, whatever. Kroll follows. And then Travis just punches Kroll in the face. And Kroll does not react well to this. He kind of crumples, I guess is the best way to put it.

Nic

Yeah. And Kroll and Rebecca decide, Look, we just gotta— let's ride this out to the end of the week, and we'll deal with it then. But can we just, like, you know...

Steve

Pretend to be engaged for a house. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Um, and the parents plan to, like, forbid. They're like, oh, we're going to forbid this.

Steve

We can ground her.

Nic

Can't we? What does that do? Again, this is kinda like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy in The Office. Just 'cause you say it doesn't mean it has any effect on it.

Steve

And the mom, Connie, is smart enough to say, if we forbid this, then she'll still do it, and we'll just never see her again. So we gotta be careful here. Which is smart. That's the right move. But basically, you know, I think very reasonably, Walter Lane, he goes up to Kroll and says like, you know, how are you going to support my daughter? Like, what are you planning on doing? You know? And he goes, well, what do you do? He's like, I run this farm. And he's like, well, I'll learn to be a farmer. And they all think this is hilarious. Theo, Pappy, and Walter all laughing their asses off. Yeah. But he's like, okay, all right, you'll, you'll, you'll get up with Theo and you'll do farm work in the morning. So of course Theo wakes Kroll up before dawn, you know, like, yeah, real early, uh, and starts showing him different things. Like trying to, you know, putting feed in like all these troughs all the way down this thing with this huge bag and, uh, you know, putting slop in the pig trough. And then, you know, he tells him, oh, get on this side of the fence so you don't get trampled by these pigs. But then he lets another pig out that way and it sort of runs him over. So Carl is like not having a good time. He gets— he goes face first into a pile of manure.

Nic

Yeah, he's a whole bunch of bad stuff. And there's— and then he gets, uh, he's trying to milk a cow and it just pees directly into his face. So he's sitting right in the line of fire.

Steve

I mean, right behind the cow.

Nic

Uh, and then at the end of the farming day, he pops straight into the dinner table in the same clothes and just not rinsing pee off of himself at all.

Steve

They're having a very nice, uh, like big lunch, look like fried chicken or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good stuff.

Nic

Um, and they kind of get into a little argument there. Yeah, yeah. And Carl's like, you know, fine, like I'll get out of here, but doesn't get up to really intentionally leave. He kind of does just a, fine, I'm out of here, looking over his shoulder every 2 seconds. Like, okay guys, whatever, I guess you don't want me here. See ya.

Steve

Um, but Zach offers to help him basically, and because he says like, look, I'm gonna try— like, because I think Lane says, uh, uh, Walter says like, I guess your farming days are over. He goes, nah, I just gotta like get into my— find my groove. I gotta try. Which is like, to his credit, right, he's not just gonna give up right away after half a day. He wants to keep trying. And this inspires Zach, who we learn is like, you know, not into the stuff his dad's into. He doesn't care about farming, he doesn't care about fishing, he likes video games, He likes computers, all this stuff. But he offers to show Kroll how to actually milk the cow, which is a great little, you know, sort of moment. Oh, earlier during the thing, Kroll accidentally ran through a fence with a tractor when Theo was trying to help him hook something up. So then Kroll goes and he's like fixing the fence. Yeah. Like, you know, so we see him already sort of turning and being a little more useful than he started off with.

Nic

And then he's kind of figuring out techniques to do these things, right? Yes. So we get kind of another little montage where the feed bags, instead of like lugging the feed bag up this hill and pouring a little bit into each trough, he just like straps them to his back, puts on rollerblades, rollerblades down the hill. For some reason, the feed like shoots out sideways just enough to land in the trough instead of just falling straight down.

Steve

A tiny amount. Like, he puts a couple of kernels.

Nic

You gotta put one bag in each thing, dude. I mean, really cool that you can rollerblade, but our pigs are starving.

Steve

Right, exactly. And then he goes and Theo tries to get him with the pig trough again and get the pig to trample him. And instead he's able to like prepare for it and then sort of ride the pig. And so we, we see that he's like getting the hang of it, right? That's the whole point here. And then he sees under this, there's this huge tarp with this big machine and he crawls, you know, he gets— crawls. Crawls. He gets underneath the tarp and climbs in and he starts playing around. He finds a John Denver cassette and puts it in and figures out how to turn it all on. Like kind of, you know, there's keys and whatever, but he's like, obviously doesn't know what he's doing. He's playing with this joystick like it's a video game, but this is a combine. This is, you know, know, like, uh, Walter even says, that's a $250,000 machine. Like, you know, it's an expensive, huge piece of like, uh, farming equipment. And he ends up going— as, as, uh, Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver plays, another pretty good needle drop for this, for this movie, uh, he goes into the cornfield with the, with the combine.

Nic

Yeah, so he realizes he's moving, the tarp gets pulled off, and he's kind of like, whoa. And instead of immediately being like, let me turn this thing off, he's just like, all right, I'm driving this thing now.

Steve

And Walter and Theo are chasing him in the combine, whatever. And then he turns around at one point, although we end up seeing from like a crop dusting plane that flies over him, that he perfectly wrote crawl in cursive into the cornfield. Like, right, right. That's my Lorne Michaels impression. Right.

Nic

Yeah. And during this time, the dad, he'll call him crotch, crap. Like, he calls him different names. Names. Um, but yeah, writing his name perfectly in there, and then again just pulls right back in and stops it and hops out, just kind of like, yeah, look at that, I can drive. And it's like, you should be arrested at this point, right?

Steve

It's like grand theft. And also like, that's got to be a complicated machine you need to be trained on to like do. It's crazy. Um, so later that night, he's gotten all cleaned up, but he goes— he walking past one of the bathrooms in like the, the upstairs hall or whatever, he sees, well, a woman he thinks is Rebecca, like, wrapped in a towel, and he kind of goes up and gooses her or whatever. But it's Connie, it's the mom. At first he's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. But then he's like, you know, you look, you look good. Like, why don't you ever get dressed up? Like, get dolled up? Like, because, you know, you got a lot to work with here. Like, whatever. He's, you know, flattering her, but he's not being— in this case, he's not really being flirty.

Nic

Yeah, no, he's being— it definitely, uh, has like, oh, I didn't realize you had a sister vibe. Yeah, like, just kind of being like charming towards the mom. But yeah, not being creepy, not being too.

Steve

Creepy. I mean, but on the Kroll scale, he's low on the creepiness. Like, where he's been, he's low on it. And he basically says, like, you know, let me help you out. Give me 5 minutes. If you don't like what I'll do, you know, to kind of make you over, then we'll take it off and we'll never talk about it again. Like, whatever. But the family's going to a square dance. And so Walter calls up like, oh, we gotta get going. We're gonna be late. Like, where's everybody? And Connie calls down like, we'll be— go ahead. Kroll and I will be a few minutes behind. Which is like, that seems— I mean, from his perspective, he's like, what the fuck are you doing with that guy who's in here? Right. Like, that's crazy. But they're kind of getting her all dolled up We get to the square dance. Uh, an actual personal favorite song of mine, though I don't love this rendition, but the original Brooks and Dunn one is good. Boot Scootin' Boogie is playing. This is a good, good classic, like '90s, uh, you know, I think maybe it was like '80s, but, you know, decent country tune. Yeah. Uh, and they're all doing their square dance, and it looks very hoedown, you know, like, uh, I don't know, very the kind of shit we learned for no good reason in elementary school.

Nic

Yeah, that they still do. My daughter is doing, uh, dancing and square dancing in gym. I'm sorry. Now, yeah, it's crazy. Um, and so they walk in. Yeah, Kroll and Mom walk in.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And we see, uh, we see Dad kind of catch a glimpse of her, and man—.

Steve

Hey everyone, we had some technical difficulties with this episode, so we're gonna skip ahead in the movie a little bit, uh, to catch you up. Basically, the important stuff here is that Travis has offered to throw a bachelor party for Kroll. Uh, he has asked Tracy to do him a favor. So we are now going to join back into the action. We are at Kroll's bachelor party. I believe he's about to do some karaoke. So let's get back to the episode. Thanks. So Kroll decides it's time to do karaoke, and he's obviously— now that he's heard it once, he knows Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver. So he fires that up and gets up on stage.

Nic

Plus, they already paid for the rights for that song.

Steve

That's right. You got to use it at least twice.

Nic

Yeah, to get your money's worth out of it.

Steve

John Denver's a fucking shark, by the way.

Nic

Yeah, Kroll gets on stage and starts doing karaoke, uh, but then, uh, the more entertainment arrives.

Steve

That's right, that's right.

Nic

I gotta say, if you're planning a party and you have a fun thing happening, like, don't interrupt that with the next thing. You don't know how long the far— the party's gonna go, right?

Steve

That's true. I do, I do think, uh, you know, Tracy probably wasn't really interested in listening to Kroll sing, whatever you call that, so she shows up and is like—.

Nic

He's so offbeat with that. I mean, when he's in the— when he's in the combine, it's even worse, but it's like, come on, man, you can read. You've heard this before, right?

Steve

Apparently he hasn't. Yeah. Yeah, so Tracy shows up and he's like, hey guys, are you ready for the real entertainment? And it's like, okay. Yeah. Is this a bachelor party? Although I do think it's interesting, right? So in Travis's world, he believes Kroll and Rebecca are really engaged, right? We know different, but like he believes it's real and he's trying to like hatch a plan here. We've already talked about what he did with Kroll's drink. But like really, you're gonna pick the girl that you're having an affair with to like do that? Like it seems like dangerous.

Nic

Seems like there's plenty of random people he could have recruited for this.

Steve

There's at least 20 other girls in the graduating class.

Nic

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, interesting choice. I mean, he's trying to keep it close. I think it shows Travis's lack of imagination in general. For the most part. Yeah, so he's gonna get Tracy involved here. Uh, and of course, you know, Kroll had just been, uh, given like an entire like, uh, backhoe scoop full of pills into his beer, and he finished those. So he passes out and, uh, and Tracy's—.

Steve

Yeah, not after she basically lap dances him, right?

Nic

Yeah, so okay, we need to get to the important part for the 13-year-old versions of ourselves.

Steve

I was gonna say, this was like the most important scene in the movie, I think, for a few times.

Nic

I'm sorry to gloss that over.

Steve

Fair, but like, it was something that, you know, look, we all loved Kelly Kapowski. That was like pretty universal. I mean, you may have preferred like Lisa or Jessie or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, it's fine, but like, she was hot and we all like can at least agree on that part of it. Of it. Uh, and then to have her like act in this role that's like intended to be sexy and sensual was like such a change, even though it didn't really show more than like a bathing suit would show. Like, it's not like she was topless or anything, but oh my God.

Nic

But going from Saved by the Bell, which is a kids' Saturday morning show, you know, it wasn't— it wasn't like 90210 or The O.C. Or something like that. So it was really restricted as far as showing, you know, like anything, right? Other than the racism or Zack being like dressed in like an Indian headdress or, you know, playing wheelchair basketball when he's not in a wheelchair and various things like that. But, you know, we'll, we'll do a Saved by the Bell side podcast.

Steve

And you can do all that, but you can't say the word meth. You gotta make sure it's caffeine pills that Jessie freaks out on. It can't be meth, can't be crank.

Nic

I'm surprised they said caffeine and they didn't call them coffee pills or something even more like— Diet pills.

Steve

They're diet pills. It's Fen-Phen.

Nic

So, so Tracy is, uh, is beginning to give Krawl this little, uh, lap dance, which is wonderful. Great PG-13, uh, kind of style lap dance. And, uh, and Carl just conks out.

Steve

Just conks out. So too much drugs, too many drugs, too much beer. Although actually, you know, this guy's tolerance should be pretty high. Maybe that's why Theo had to dump like half the prescription bottle into the beer. They figured this guy's from California, he's probably got all these drugs running through his system already, we got to make sure we overpower him. Um, but of course Tracy gets the, the universal signal for no, don't do this moments later when Travis is handed another beer by Theo. We haven't seen Theo do anything with this beer, but we can make assumptions. Right? Hands it to Travis. Travis hands it to Tracy. She takes one sip and he goes, oh no, no, no, drink more, like chug it, and sort of even like tips the bottom of the glass towards her face so that she drinks faster. Never. That is— I mean, if you need a red flag, that, that's a fucking vermilion crimson. Oh my God, like every shade of red there is. Like, it's so bad. Don't do that.

Nic

Unbelievable. Never do it, especially if someone grabs the bottom of your cup and kind of tips it up towards your mouth. Like, unless Unless it's, uh, Triaminic and you're a 6-year-old with a cold, like, get the fuck out of here. That is a creep move, you know?

Steve

Commercially, they can bump the kid's chin up to make sure he like swallows it all. It's like, Jesus Christ, take your castor oil, fucko.

Nic

Oh my God. So, uh, so that's kind of, you know, Tracy's out and, uh—.

Steve

Well, yeah, we still— we don't really— we don't cut away from it, right? We kind of cut away from the party. We cut back to the house, the Warner house. It's the morning now and Theo's like, oh man, big night or whatever. And, and somebody says something about like, oh, I bet Kroll's sleeping it off, uh, up in his room, whatever. And, and Zach's like, not— he didn't come home to my room, he's not on the cot, whatever. And Theo's like, oh gee, I heard a bunch of huffing and puffing out in the barn last night, maybe you should check that out. Uh, and so Rebecca takes like water out to him or something, or I don't know what she has, like a pitcher of water, and she goes out there. But of course she doesn't find Kroll alone, she finds Kroll and Tracy sort of tangled up together, half clothed, uh, on a hay bale, which is probably the least comfortable thing to sleep on without a blanket or whatever.

Nic

Oh.

Steve

But they, you know, she wakes them up and is freaked out and pissed off. And Tracy's confused and Carl is confused. Like, nobody knows what's going on.

Nic

And she pours the water on his head, which is a great way to wake up if you're like real hungover.

Steve

She just dumps it out, I thought. Maybe she just dumps it in his mouth. It spills out and she just goes like, oops, or something like that.

Nic

Paulie Shore has a nobody's allowed to dump water on me clause.

Steve

It would fuck his hair up. Yeah, exactly. It's that wonderful wavy hair.

Nic

He spent a lot of time growing the 'do, as he mentioned earlier.

Steve

He's been guzzling some brew. So yeah, so everybody's pissed. So Carl gets up to chase after Rebecca. She kind of barges back into the house and it's just like to the whole family, like the wedding's off.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

Like no more wedding. Like we're done. And so Carl and Rebecca sort of like argue about this and like Carl's like, look, I don't know what happened, but I don't think anything really happened. Like I just, you know, I woke up here like blah blah all this stuff. And and this is when Travis shows up, I think.

Nic

Right. And in the meantime, Tracy's just kind of getting out there.

Steve

Yeah, just kind of figuring herself out.

Nic

She's is she at her car yet? She gets to her car. No, she shows up the same same. She leaves when. Travis is showing up.

Steve

Exactly. And her car, the, the front seat is like pushed like all the way back. Yeah, like she can't reach the pedals or the steering wheel, so she has to scoot her car up. But this is when Travis shows up and it's like, Tracy, like you left the bar with Kroll, you drove away with him, and what happened? Why are you here? Oh my gosh, you cheat! Like how dare you? And also like layers in like, we had something going on and now I feel betrayed by you.

Nic

The worst, the worst, man. Yeah, so, and Tracy's kind of driving away and, uh, and like, you know, just getting herself together and then finds this pill bottle in her car and kind of realizes like,.

Steve

Oh.

Nic

Shit, something's up here, right?

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Uh, and in the meantime, they're like booting Kroll out of the car.

Steve

Yeah, Kroll basically is like, fine, if this is how it's gonna be, like, fuck it, like, I'm out. And he just like gets his shit and he like puts like, you know, California on a card— piece of cardboard, and it's like walking down the highway looking to hitchhike from South Dakota to California. That'll take a while. Uh, but Tracy sees him, kind of pulls up, and is like, get in the car. And, you know, he's like, I think we've spent enough time together. Yeah, no, no, something's going on. Get in the car. And they race on back to the Warners, who have like— suddenly, here's the thing, there is a moment when Rebecca busts in to say the wedding's off, a raw turkey is on the counter.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then by the time Tracy leaves, finds Kroll, and can get back to the house, a wonderfully, beautifully cooked bird is on the table with all the fixings. Everybody's changed their clothes. Yeah, dude. It is like now fully Thanksgiving dinner, and it couldn't be more than 20 minutes. Minutes later.

Nic

No, not at all. It's like one of those, uh, one of those infomercials for like the Ronco, uh, rotisserie cooker where they have to have them at different phases of preparation already ready to show the audience. Yeah, that was really funny because it seemed in the morning it's like, this is the part where we're kind of like having coffee and starting to cook, and then when they come back they're like, oh, we're in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.

Steve

Like 8 hours later, you expect to like be eating, you know, for dinner time, whatever. But so they get back and Travis has been invited back into the home and, you know, sitting with them, and Theo's there and everything. And and Travis even says to Rebecca like, "Oh, now that that's over, you know I still love you, and I think you still love me too." Yeah. And he goes to like kneel and like propose again, and that's when Tracy comes in and goes like, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Yeah. And you know Travis is like, "Oh, you're such a whore! You should leave. You're like insulting these people by even being here." Da da da. And she kind of explains, and Crawl shows up too, and she explains like, "My seat was pushed way far back. I found these pills in my car. I don't. These are not mine." All this. And Carl's the one who comments like, I guess somebody pretty big must have been driving that car. And like Theo, you know, looking at the window. Yeah. And so he gets asked by Walter like, you know, now Theo, what do you know about this? You know? And he's like, he doesn't say anything. He's like, no, no, no. Y'all job is on the line now. Now, now, now. And finally Theo's just like, oh gee, it was just a prank. And it's like, yeah, just a prank where you drugged 2 people, like tried to break up what they thought was a legitimate engagement. Like, yeah. These two, Travis and Theo, are under the impression they're— these two are really in love and getting married, so let's break them up. Let's drug two people. Let's frame them.

Nic

With just random amounts of pills. Just like— That might kill them, that might put them to sleep. I mean, yeah.

Steve

Like, I'm glad they didn't try to tell us what the pills were.

Nic

I know, we'd be doing too much research here. We'd be calling pharmacists and everything right now.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Yeah, so Travis, you know, is hemming and hawing and stuff, and, uh, such bullshit.

Steve

Or.

Nic

Whatever. They're kind of like, all right, get this guy, get Travis out of here. And, uh, And he goes to kind of physically like push back and Kroll steps in and throws a couple martial science moves on him, right?

Steve

Martial science moves.

Nic

Oh, I majored in karate for 2 semesters, right?

Steve

Oh, there you go. But yeah, and then Theo gets kicked out basically. It's like, I'll thank you for being honest, Theo, but you're fired. You know, that whole thing. And, you know, so they're like done and they invite Tracy to stay with them for Thanksgiving.

Nic

They do. And they— oh, before that, so we gotta cut. We got some Kroll talk. I took a note here.

Steve

All right, you got it.

Nic

So we got Pappy, right? So he says to Travis, he goes, "Uh, I gotta tell you, Travis really tweaks my melon to see a buff bro like Crawl get wheezed on by a greasy scumbag like you.

Steve

So you just chill." Bravo, man! I love that you got the the little the little vibrato on scumbag. That was nice. Little Mason Adams impression. I dig it. But yeah, so so this basically the key of this all right is that the Warners are balling. Bought in. They're totally bought in on Kroll. They're, they, they're on his— they're on Team Kroll now.

Nic

Totally.

Steve

And Travis is garbage and needs to go. But I still— I do love that they invite Tracy to sit down for dinner, and it's like, does she not have a family? Seriously, like, is it not Thanksgiving?

Nic

She has to like make sure— she just went through a traumatic event. She can at least like get a nap in her own bed rather than on hay and then come back. She's like, what the fuck, it's 9:45, why are we eating dinner now? I just came back here. Yeah, I'll come later, but come on, man.

Steve

She and Kroll are the only ones wearing Like, everybody else has changed at least twice.

Nic

It's way too early for her. The Gumbles are just rubbing the sleep out of their eyes for the parade, barely. Like, we're not awake yet. Uh, yeah, so really funny ending. But we get the— we get the family all, you know, happy together. And then we've got the dad with one last little, uh—.

Steve

Walter gets in his sort of like, all right, everybody, let's munch on some grindage. And it's— I love Lane Smith saying munch on some grindage. And I have a feeling Lane Smith.

Nic

I would really enjoy so much, like, behind-the-scenes footage of the cast hanging out and, like, just random cast members talking like Pauly Shore. Because, like, just the idea that they loved him so much and it was infectious— I, I want to live in that world rather than thinking that Pauly Shore is, like, more of a— on, as the previously discussed Winkler-Seagal spectrum, if he's more on the Seagal side. I don't like that. No, I like him being a Winkler. The.

Steve

Idea that he would be this totally ludicrous, ridiculous personality, public persona, whatever, and then behind the scenes be like, yeah, like Henry Winkler, Weird Al Yankovic level of like good guy, right? It'd be awesome. I don't know if that's true or not, but that would be— that would be choice. That would be perfect. Uh, yeah, so, so yeah, so they eat, right?

Nic

And no, no epilogue. We're just, uh, it's Thanksgiving now. We have Thanksgiving. We're all happy.

Steve

A much more Thanksgiving movie than Grumpy Old Men. Maybe the Grumpy Old Men Thanksgiving scene was was like, you know, 5 minutes long. This one at least builds up to Thanksgiving, which I do like. Yeah, uh, but it is not easy to find Thanksgiving movies. So.

Nic

No, not at all, not at all. Um,.

Steve

All right, I'll give my— I'll give my rating first on Son-in-Law. So I really enjoy this movie, but I'm also very realistic about what it is and what it isn't. Um, I've got nostalgia for it. Uh, you know, Kelly Kapowski doing even a 35-second-long striptease is enough to like, you know, hold a place in my adolescent memory, right? You know, and and it's it's a fun movie. It's a lot of fun. It's sweet in parts. It's heartfelt in parts. It's goofy in a lot of it. So you get a lot of that just if you like goofy shit. Like this is a very goofy movie. That's actually a different movie. We should watch a very goofy movie someday as well. But yeah, I really enjoy Son-in-Law, but it's not fantastic. I'm going on just on the side of the thumbs up for us and say I'm gonna do gonna be a three out of five on Son-in-Law. If you haven't seen it a long time and you have any fond memories of it, check it out. It really was a fun. Trip down memory lane. I think it had been— I got at least 15 years since I've seen it. I'm not 100% sure, but it's been a while. Uh, and yeah, so I'm a 3 out of 5. Nic, what about you? What's your take on Sein Law?

Nic

Yeah, uh, and again, thanks for bringing this, and thanks for bringing a legit, uh, Thanksgiving movie, uh, to the table, no pun intended. Um, this is definitely the most rewatchable, I think, of the Pauly Shore movies. Um, and it's not even for him, like for the other movies, like Encino Man I've seen recently Yeah, and his stuff is fine, but some of the like the Sean Astin character is so detestable. It's like why are we rooting for this fucking guy? But this one is is nice. Yeah, it it doesn't seem. I mean, it's dated, but it doesn't seem like painfully dated. You know, it's still very fun. Like I mentioned before, my daughter enjoyed the movie. We had a good time with it. One thing I noticed in the credits is Crawl. Polly Shore is listed. It's not just listed as Kroll. Oh, it has his real name, which is, which is Fred Kroll. His last name is Weasel. So his name is Fred Weasel in this.

Steve

Oh my God, Kroll Weasel.

Nic

Which is— I love that. And now I want to go look back and see. I want to check out some Paulie lore. There you go. See if he's been credited as like something Weasel. Reminds me of, uh, Ben Weasel, that Screeching Weasel, that punk band.

Steve

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,.

Nic

Yeah. '90S there.

Steve

Go find your Shorelord, dude. Yeah.

Nic

But this was fun stuff. And Pauly Shore's stuff, you know, it holds up enough to get your family to sit and watch something Thanksgiving-related for an hour and a half. I'm with you, Steve. Son-in-Law is a 3 out of 5 for me. Worth checking out. And if you haven't seen it in a while, I think you'd be surprised at how much you still like it.

Steve

That's fair. I think you're definitely right there. So we're a 6 out of 10. The 2 dads are 6 out of 10 on Son-in-Law, the Pauly Shore Thanksgiving movie. And what are we going to do next week? We got a couple more weeks of Thanksgiving movies to come. Yes, sir. Hopefully something that actually actually has Thanksgiving in it. What do we think?

Nic

Yeah, we're going Thanksgiving style here. So, uh, for the next film, we are going, uh, we're beginning in New York City in 1987. We're starting with, uh, our buddy, uh, Neil Page, played by Steve Martin. And Neil needs to get home for Thanksgiving with his family, uh, and in order to get home, he's gonna have to ride a series of planes, trains, and/or automobiles to get there. We're gonna check out Steve Martin, John John Candy in the 1987 John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles. One of my all-time favorites and one of the most Thanksgiving-y movies out there.

Steve

Absolutely. Like, like this and like, what is the Holly Hunter movie, Home for the Holidays, are like the most like legitimately Thanksgiving. Yeah, like of all movies I can think of. Uh, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a classic. We, you know, we love John Hughes, we love John Candy, we love Steve Martin. There's like so much to like.

Nic

Another one of those movies when we get into it, uh, like you'd A couple weeks back where like everybody in the movie is someone. Yeah, you know, like all the bit parts, you're like, oh, like there's so much other stuff. So well, well cast, but also, you know, yeah, they just, yeah, they really nailed it.

Steve

Excellent. So next week we will watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles for week 3 of Feast Mode. That's a wrap. 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 and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been Son-in-Law, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, buddy.