Strange Brew (1983)

For their 50th episode, the dads crack open a 24-pack of nostalgia with Strange Brew (1983), the Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas comedy that somehow became every kid's unofficial guide to Canadian culture. Nic picked this one as a palate cleanser after the heavier terrain of Thief and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and both dads went in carrying the same memory: this was the movie that taught an entire generation of American kids to say "hoser," "take off," and "eh" with unearned confidence. Nic admits the film basically served as his "mental Canadian embassy" well into college. Steve grew up quoting it with his friends and bonding over hockey culture. Neither had watched it in roughly twenty years.

What they found is a cheerfully absurd 90-minute romp about two beer-obsessed brothers who stumble into a Hamlet-flavored murder conspiracy involving mind-control lager, a synthesizer-wielding villain with unexplained superhuman strength, an asylum full of hockey-playing inmates in Stormtrooper gear, and a ghost communicating through an arcade cabinet. Max von Sydow plays Brewmeister Smith with the intensity of a man who negotiated ass-kicking privileges into his contract. There's a lawyer who does full-contact karate on a gaggle of reporters. There's a dog named Hosehead who, without any prior foreshadowing whatsoever, flies. The currency system runs entirely on donuts and loose beer. And the movie holds the distinction of being the first film on the show that actually lost money at the box office, pulling in just $1.9 million against a $4 million budget, which prompts Nic to compare it to The Velvet Underground: nobody saw it, but everyone who did started a movie podcast.

Both dads agree this is the clear ancestor of Wayne's World and wish the film had pulled in more SCTV talent for cameos. They rediscover the slang gem they somehow missed as kids: calling everything "beauty." And while the McKenzie brothers' delivery starts to wear a little thin by the final act, the affection is real. Happy 50th, hosers. Beauty episode, eh.