Transcript

Intro Clip

Come on, Mrs. Neffler, it's your turn. A scary story? Yeah, come on. Yes. Okay. All right. It was a cold and rainy day in March. I went to Christophe's where I usually get my hair done, but Kristoff had mysteriously disappeared, and in his place was a stranger named... Ronaldo. I'll never forget him. His eyes were steely gray, very cold, and his hands were like ice. He said, I'll streak your hair and I'll give you a body wave. He worked very fast, and then as he turned my chair around to face the mirror, I saw it. He permed me!

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast 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 talking about the 1989 comedy classic Troop Beverly Hills, starring Shelley Long and not very many other people right now. But you know, there's some kids that got bigger and stuff.

Nic

Kids that grew up.

Steve

There's a little Craig T. Nelson in here, whatever. But mostly this is a Shelley Long vehicle.

Nic

It is.

Steve

We can admit to that. In her, you know, Cheers fame days. And so she was a movie star by this point. But yeah, Troop Beverly Hills, this was one, Nic, that you picked for us. So why don't you tell us first, like, what's your history with it? Why'd you bring it to the table?

Nic

Yeah, I thought, you know, like I said before, uh, something that really mixes it up. Like, we do a lot of certain types of movies, then there's certain ones that we don't really do. And just in the interest of, like, you know, showing the world how diverse and amazing our podcast is, we really got to get out there and, and, uh, and show our stuff, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, this is one that my wife— I had never seen until like the pandemic, and my wife introduced to my daughter and I, where you're just kind of like, oh, what is something that's old? You know, the thing we've talked about, like what's something from our era that we could show our kids that they might get something out of?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and it's very fun. Like we watched it a couple times during COVID and it's just like, it's good for— there's kids in it, but it's not really like a kiddie kiddie movie, but it's not— there's not really intensity or like adult themes or anything that would push kids away from it. Uh, and there's There's some really good visual gags in this movie that I got a kick out of. And then just some amazing '80s. Just the '80s hits you hard in this film. True. So I thought, yeah, this will be a fun one to chat about. How about you, Steve? You seen this one before?

Steve

I absolutely have. This is one I remember seeing as a kid. I don't know that I would've gotten taken to this in the theaters by my parents, but I might've. This is absolutely the kind of movie in the late '80s my parents would've taken my brother and I to. Came out when we were 9. My little brother would've been 7, probably about right. So yeah, I definitely saw it quite a bit. I think we owned a copy on VHS at my house. I probably saw it, You know, a half dozen times in my childhood. Now, I don't think I've seen it before watching it this week for the podcast. I don't think I had seen it in probably at least 30, maybe even 35 years. It's been a long time. And so, you know, was very excited to get back to it. My sort of going into it, my recollection or sort of what I was expecting was like not a particularly fine piece of cinema, but like a fun time for an hour and a half. That's what I was expecting. And I'll be honest, just to wrap it up, not to like give everything away, but I think, but I think it mostly delivers on that. If you're looking for a good time and you're not too worried about character arcs or plot holes or realistic situations whatsoever. This is a very enjoyable movie. So, so yeah, that's, that's sort of where I'm coming from on it. And, you know, yeah, it's one of those kind of fun, easy ones. And I'll say we have done very, very few PG movies on this podcast. That's very true. And some of the ones we've done really shouldn't have been PG.

Nic

Should be real PGs, right?

Steve

Right.

Nic

We did a lot of ones where they were just like, I guess I'll give it a PG.

Steve

Spaceballs was a PG. Yeah, give me a break. There's a bunch like that. But this is like a legit 4-quadrant family-friendly PG movie, and we've only done a few of those. So this is good. Definitely good to kind of mix up our kind of R-rated leanings for the most part.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

Cool. Let's jump into the facts on Troop Beverly Hills. The movie Troop Beverly Hills was released on March 24th, 1989, with a PG rating and a running time of 105 minutes. It was directed by Jeff Kanew from a script by Pamela Norris and Margaret Oberman.

Nic

Jeff, turn your head into a canoe.

Steve

Yeah, that's right. Starring Shelley Long, Betty Thomas, and Craig T. Nelson. Scores. The lowest Rotten Tomatoes score we've yet seen on the podcast at 14%, which—.

Nic

That seems like the lowest by a lot, right?

Steve

Yeah, 'cause Sleeping with the Enemy was like 27 or 29, and that was the lowest. So yeah, significant drop from our previous low. Not the lowest IMDb though. Halloween III: Season of the Witch still holds that at 5.4. But this is a 6.0, which is pretty abysmally low for IMDb. The reality of IMDb scores is they really only go between 5 and 9. There's just nothing outside of those ratings. So there's that. And we get a pair of thumbs down from Siskel and Ebert, which is just not surprising given the kind of movie this is. You know, it's not up their alley either.

Nic

For sure.

Steve

They're looking for films. This is not a film. This is a movie. No awards stuff that I could find. And a lot of times, let me just put this way, a lot of times when I say there's no awards stuff to talk about, there's like some local, the St. Louis Critics Association or like, you know, the Association of Wisconsin-Based Filmmakers might have given an award to something or nominated. No, literally not. There is no awards page on IMDb. For Troop Beverly Hills, which means it neither received anything like those little tiny awards, but also didn't get a Razzie or a Stinkers or anything like that. It just flew completely under the radar in both directions. On an $18 million budget, 1989, $18 million. Yeah.

Nic

So $7 million less than Tombstone.

Steve

I mean, good Lord. That's pretty wild that it was $18 million. But on an $18 million budget, it only earned $8.5 million for a 0.2% 4 or 7 times what it cost. Didn't make its money back. Massive box office flop. Not really any other way to look at it, you know, from that perspective.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But it is what it is. Not every movie's a success. I don't know that this one ended up with any kind of real cult following either. This is the kind of movie, and this is the thing I think about it. This was very prevalent in the '80s, or maybe I only think this is true because of how old we were in the '80s. We were kids under 10. There are movies that you, and I say you, I mean every one of you listening individually and uniquely from each other. There are movies you love just 'Cause your parents had like a copy of the VHS or whatever, and you ended up watching it a ton. And there's no right or wrong, good or bad. It's not a good movie, bad movie, whatever, but you love it. Like, I feel that way about movies like Summer Rental. Yeah. Uh, and The Great Outdoors.

Nic

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for me.

Steve

There you go.

Nic

Tape at my grandma's house.

Steve

And it's like, that's a fine movie. There's nothing wrong with it. I don't have much of a connection. I've seen that movie 2 or 3 times, but like, whatever, don't care about it. But for you, it's like, no, no, no, like, this was a Hallmark moment in my childhood was watching this movie over and over again. And True Beverly Hills, while not that movie for me, 100%, this is the kind of movie that is. I'm sure for a lot of people that's it. Yeah.

Nic

Yeah, definitely.

Steve

Um, why don't you kick us off?

Nic

Well, yeah, let's get into it. So one thing that delighted me from the beginning is we have our classic animated intro. We always enjoy this. And, and it caught my eye for a minute. I was like, this looks very Ren and Stimpy-ish.

Steve

It does.

Nic

Yeah. And I looked it up and, uh, John K. Yeah, he was the designer of the opening animation. So that was cool to see.

Steve

So real quick on that topic too, I wanna point out just how quintessentially 1989, in particular, the cartoon opening credits to a live-action movie that has no other animation in it after the opening credits. 'Cause in 1989 alone, this movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Christmas Vacation all came out and all had cartoon opening credit sequences to an otherwise wholly live-action movie. I don't think it was that common outside of 1989.

Nic

It's really wild to look into because I do love it. It's like such a cool way to set the tone, especially for a funny, goofy movie where you don't have access to like show all the crazy shit you can show with animation.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So yeah, we, we got this and a pretty subpar '80s songs. I think a lot of the songs in this movie are very '80s sounding, but generally dogshit.

Steve

Except for Cookie Time, which is a fucking banger.

Nic

Well, yeah, I mean, I listened to that twice on the drive down here.

Steve

It's on my indie rock playlist.

Nic

Uh, so when we open the human action, we're at the, uh, at the Wilderness Girls headquarters. And this is, you know, a Girl Scouts type thing. And, uh, they're talking about, you know, their standards that they have for the different troops of Wilderness Girls. And there's one in particular that they want to get out of here. Yeah, because we don't like them. They don't do the Wilderness Girls stuff. And this is the Beverly Hills troop, the poor, poor, poor children of, uh, of Beverly Hills. Um, but what they're saying is that, you know, their troop leader's, uh, quit or been let go, and we have somebody else who's applied to be a troop leader. And they're kind of reading her resume that she has, you know, and it's Phyllis, our lead character, Shelley Long. And it's like, you know, she loves animals, and then she's got a fur coat on, and she, you know, this and that.

Steve

Kissing a bejeweled frog like a brooch or something.

Nic

Yeah, she's got all this like very— like it's a very Women Be Shopping type montage of her intro. And she has this wonderful cigarette holder, which makes me want to start smoking cigarettes because I think that it filters the cancer out.

Steve

Well, I will say one of the worst things about smoking cigarettes is how nasty it makes your fingers smell. And you would avoid that with a holder like that. But you also have to look like the fucking— one of the rich people from Gilligan's Island in order to do it. It's true.

Nic

You could Cruella it up a little bit. There you go. And then Phyllis has a sick Rolls-Royce convertible.

Steve

Yes, she does.

Nic

Which we love to see. Kind of see what her life is like. She's in this very fancy house in Beverly Hills. And then Craig T. Nelson is playing Freddie, who's like her separate— her husband she's separated from.

Steve

Yeah, they are going through a divorce, but it's not final yet or anything like that. He's living in the guest house, like the pool house sort of.

Nic

And which is bigger than Steve and my house put together, plus this building that we're in right now.

Steve

It's really crazy. Uh, it's all, it's all very, uh, Clueless coded. Uh, a lot of the like, you know, houses and the— and everything is, uh, everything's terracotta pink. It's really kind of wild throughout this entire movie. Um, But yeah, basically Freddie and Phyllis are arguing and talking about the divorce, and their daughter is Hannah, played by Jenny Lewis in her first screen credit. But she would go on to not only do lots of other movies, but also to front the band Rilo Kiley, which is a great indie rock band from the '90s and early 2000s. But yeah, so they're talking, you know, kind of fighting, and she's there, and Rosa, their housekeeper, is also getting upset.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Because, you know, basically it's— I think they do a good job of setting the tone with these two early where they are not happy with each other. They are getting a divorce and they both are like, this is what we should do. But also there's this like, what happened to us kind of element.

Nic

Totally.

Steve

I don't think it's not a scenario—.

Nic

It's not like pure vitriol between the two of them from the beginning.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

There's a tenderness that exists like throughout kind of whatever's happened.

Steve

It feels like nobody like cheated on each other or anything like that. It's just they fell apart, fell apart, fell apart. And, you know, whether it does feel a bit like Freddie initiated the divorce potentially, it's the way they talk about it. But it was more just frustrating.

Nic

They never define that for us.

Steve

No, they don't make it explicit.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So, but they're, they're sort of— we get a good sense that they're doing this. And basically she says, yeah, I'm doing this Wilderness Girls thing to lead Hannah's troop. And Freddie's like, yeah, right, you know, that'll last 2 weeks and you'll quit it like you quit everything else. Which, how many movies have we done where the husband berates the wife for like having short-lived hobbies? Yeah, that seems to be quite a— I know The Ref did it. I'm sure there's at least a couple others.

Nic

I know, it is so funny. Yeah, so he's, he's really like, uh, he's— and he's saying that he's— he misses what she used to be, right? So they're in this fight and he's like, She's like, "Is this about another woman?" And he's like, "It is about another woman." She kind of gets this devastated look. He's like, "Yeah, she used to be like this." And she realizes he's describing how she used to be. I missed your spirit and your creativity and your joie de vivre. He wouldn't say that, but as his character in Action Jackson, he would say that. Esprit de corps, actually. And yeah, so you know, great, great fight. And he totally came over there just as an excuse to talk to her because he said he came over to get his dumbbells, and he grabbed these two like. 8-Pound dumbbell weights from their sick gym room. Yeah, nice workout room. And went back to his little pool house.

Steve

But leaves the other like 20, you know, he's got like a big set of like 20 dumbbells. He just needs these 2, you know? And then she decides to help him pack. And so she starts throwing his clothes out onto the lawn, which is funny 'cause they've got like a gardener out there with one of the leaf blowers, the backpack ones. And it's just the clothes are flying on him and he's just blowing the clothes.

Nic

Just clothes.

Steve

Very funny. So we get like a, there's an orientation sort of happening, a little picnic that the girls are showing up to for the Troop Beverly Hills thing that Phyllis is gonna sort of like do this intro for all of them. So it's Hannah and her friends, and we get a brief little moment introducing us to each of the girls and like their parents or their situation a little bit.

Nic

Yep. Um, you know, this is great, by the way, just for the cars.

Steve

Oh yeah.

Nic

If you like cars in the '80s, I mean, this is just such a fun scene of seeing all the different cars, from Lamborghinis to Rolls-Royces to limousines to like a cool Jeep with the doors taken off.

Steve

I mean, really every kind of angle.

Nic

That Excalibur, when I was in 6th grade, uh, there was this kid in my school who lived like outside everyone's neighborhood because his house was so big named Matt Spasek, and he had the sickest house, but he had an Excalibur in their garage. He'd like show us when we go to his house, like, look at this shit, uh, the black Lamborghini. Yeah. And then the parents are all these different archetypes, right? You've got the kid who just gets dropped off alone, her absentee parents. And then you've got the girl whose dad is trying to pretend that he's more successful than he really is. Uh, you have the kind of like Ferdinand Marcos type character who's like a dictator, you know, quote unquote. It's got to be She calls him Bong Bong.

Steve

Well, the Bong Bong is his name. He says he asks her that, but she calls him dictator and Mrs. Dictator. Yes, it's very funny. I notice— yeah, I think this is clearly a Ferdinand Marcos Philippines thing, right? They're there. They look Pacific Islander or Southeast Asian, so it's like that style. But I swear to God that the flags on the front of their car were the Iraqi flag. Yeah, they're definitely not the Philippines.

Nic

No, they weren't. They weren't because I was trying to do flag identification there.

Steve

It's the red and black stripes and the green writing in the middle. I'm like, that's the Iraqi flag.

Nic

I gotta say, you're doing '80s bad guy identified by flag. Libya is just Green. It's very easy. You can't mess up. Just do that one. Um, and then there's like a boxing champ, you know, kind of like a Muhammad Ali type guy who's in the, uh, Excalibur.

Steve

And his daughter's got all the attitude. Yeah.

Nic

So I wrote down here that regardless of what happens from here, half a point just for the little car montage. I really like—.

Steve

No, that's good stuff.

Nic

Um, let's see here.

Steve

So, uh, they gotta deal with uniforms, I think, right?

Nic

Oh yes, first thing.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So, so this is the thing. Oh, they've never even gotten to the point with their troops. She's like, why are you guys all just wearing street clothes? What is this, GI Joe? Was everyone just gets to wear their own outfit? Uh, and they said, no one's ever even gotten us to the store, right? Or gotten us to the fitting to get the uniform. And she's like, you know, I might not be a good, uh, wilderness person, but I have a black belt in shopping.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

So they go out and they're doing their like outfit shop.

Steve

Definitely something she can handle. Um, but yeah, so they— she tries on the uniform and she hates it, right? The cut's terrible, the collar, everything, whatever. Yeah. So she takes it to her, uh, tailor friend and is like, what can you do with this? You know? And he's like, besides burn it? You know, it's just like— like, look, and I'll say for the '80s, Good restraint on the clearly flamboyantly gay character. They didn't lean too hard into it, I feel like.

Intro Clip

Yeah.

Steve

You know what I mean? Like, there was definitely an easier joke in there they could have done that, like, would have been very '80s appropriate, and they didn't. And kudos.

Nic

Because we had— what movie was it? Oh, in The Rock, we had that really bad one that was the hairstylist.

Steve

Ridiculous.

Nic

Yeah. So this guy, I honestly wanted more of this.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

I want more of this character in the movies.

Steve

Very funny. He reminded me, actually, of the— I don't know if you've ever seen the Father of the Bride movies with Steve Martin, but Martin Short's character, Frunk.

Nic

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Steve

From those. He had a— he was very Frunk vibe. Totally.

Nic

Um, so she ends up, you know, she gets it set up. So she has this like Marge Simpson'd out, like tailored, uh, tailored wilderness girls outfit, and she shows up to the meeting of all the other like—.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, right. And they're all matching exactly. They obviously have the normal uniform. Hers has got a nice cape and it's like lined in green silk, and it's just like— I mean, it looks, it looks good. And she, you know, she looks great.

Nic

And she rolls in, she's got her cigarette holder, and they're talking about like, oh, we gotta raise money, we're selling cookies or whatever. She's like, hey, wouldn't it be easier if we just did a celebrity telethon maybe and get Merv Griffin to host it or Johnny Carson and just And of course, that's Merv and Johnny.

Steve

Yeah, Johnny or Merv, you gotta, you know, you gotta just first name these people, otherwise it doesn't look like you're in, you know.

Nic

Like, really good. Um, let's see, so, uh, she's kind of spying on her husband. So this meeting happens and they're kind of like, all right, well, you have a troop, but we're against you, you know. Just know we're all working against you and you're never gonna succeed.

Steve

We need to mention real quick because we haven't talked about her yet, but she's been in a couple scenes. The main antagonist in this movie, Betty Thomas's character, is named Velda Plunder. Which first off is just a fucking bonkers ass name. Like, and, and if you wanted to name her like Evil McBitch Woman, like it would have been even like the same. Like this really makes her sound evil. And she is cartoonishly snidely whiplash evil. I mean, it is so— she has no reason to be this antagonistic against a group of fucking children, which is like wild. Uh, and she is just sneering through the whole movie and plotting and like you know, has absolutely zero moral compass of her own.

Nic

No.

Steve

And, and, and, you know, is only foiled because there is a woman higher up in the organization who seems to actually be a normal person who is running a child's— or a child-oriented, essentially, charity. I mean, these organizations are not generally totally for-profit, right? They're kind of there for the kids, and she seems to get it. But this Velda Plunder is just the most evil—.

Nic

It's a funny character. And again, like, with the kind of lack of explanation and character development in this movie, it's just like, Well, you know, Phyllis and Freddie are just getting divorced.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Velda Plunder is just kind of an evil troupe leader, but it doesn't get too much into, back when I was a troupe leader, someone just like you who did— like, there's no— there's none of that growth in that character, which is fine. This is a cartoony kind of—.

Steve

100%. And we do get a little bit of like the, the bad guy character arc with, uh, uh, was it, uh, Annie, um, was it Herman?

Nic

What's her name? Herman.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. She at least has some kind of a change. There's like an arc to her. And Phyllis herself obviously goes through a real sort of transformation as a character. But yeah, but most of the movie does not, and that's fine. These are meant to be caricatures, and this kind of movie, it's totally fine if they're just caricatures. But it is wildly funny at different points in this movie to me just how horrifically evil Velda is, to the point where I'm like, bitch, please.

Nic

'Cause even some of the stuff where it's like, you know, it doesn't actually happen, but it's like, oh, you could have gotten multiple children killed for this thing to be destroyed.

Steve

I mean, it's like absolutely putting him in horrible danger and like, you know, Good God! There's there's literally like there's water moccasins. Yeah. Good God.

Nic

Anyway, so so moving on. So back home and and she's kind of spying on her husband.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

His action, like who's coming in and out of the guest house.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And she she spots this nice looking lady. And the the way you can tell she's hot is that saxophone music starts.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And I mean, I know you and I both talked about this when we met our wives. Like we heard that music and that's how we knew to talk to them in the first place. Oh my God, dude. Jerry Rafferty lives in my head rent-free constantly. Um, yeah, so, so that, that was really funny. And she ends up like falling out of the window because she's bouncing so hard.

Steve

Good night, Phyllis.

Nic

So we've got our first, uh, camping trip. The first assignment basically is we're doing a wilderness, like a weekend away camping.

Steve

Overnight. One overnight.

Nic

One night camp, right? She's way overpacking.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Uh, another—.

Steve

To be fair, the entire troop is overpacked, right? They've all got crazy amount— crazy amounts of luggage and Party rentals and shit. Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. That they use like a professional, like, set up tent for a wedding type company to set up their tents. And they have camping gear strapped to the top of this, like, uh, this motorcade of limos.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Um, which is nice. Again, visual gags in this movie, I think, are really funny. I think the written jokes in this movie kind of stink at a lot of parts, but there's a lot of really good visual stuff. And another thing is when they arrive at their campsite, they're like in the footprint of the Hollywood sign.

Steve

Which, like, I, I don't know that much about that area. Can you even go there? Like, I thought that was kind of—.

Nic

I think it's just hills with nothing. Yeah, I have no idea. Anyway, so yeah. So yeah, we start the camp out here.

Steve

Yeah, and they're just hanging out, and unfortunately everybody's bored because even the girls are saying like, well, we were supposed to set up the tents, like that's what you do on these things, but you know, the party rental people set all that up, and Phyllis is like, whatever, she's reading a magazine, smoking her cigarettes in the shade on a chaise lounge, but the girls are getting kind of bored, so she like gets them together and they decide to do like s'mores, I think, or they roast some marshmallows, or, oh no, fondue.

Nic

Fondue, chocolate fondue, yeah.

Steve

Strawberries and chocolate fondue and whatever, but then it starts raining.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

So the girls rush off to the tent, But Phyllis is like, well, I'll save the fondue. And she's wearing this like white mink coat.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And slips and falls 'cause she's wearing heels and now walking in mud in heels. Uh, and she falls in, gets everything destroyed. And it's like the, yeah, the, the kind of sight gag of her fondue pot hanging from her mouth.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Makeup running, everything's wet. Her fur coat is soaked and all the girls are like, oh my God, are you okay?

Nic

Like, but yeah. It's a good first, first night camping, right? So I, uh, something about her coat and I have a new, I have a new theory. And then tell me if, if we're, uh, if this if there's legs to this here. So we talked about the Chekhov's gun, right? Okay, gun appears and then that tells you that the gun's gonna be used at some point, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Chekhov's laundry. Okay, there's too pristine of a piece of clothing and you know that it's gonna get stained or ruined before the end of the scene. Like, there's no way that coat shows up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And leaves scot-free.

Steve

100%.

Nic

That coat is— that coat is getting scathed. Yeah.

Steve

Well, so instead of Chekhov's gun, it'll be Knefler's coat. Netflix cult. There we go.

Nic

And the other— so when they're singing and, you know, have you ever heard Kumbaya sung non-ironically? I feel like it's always just a joke.

Steve

Yeah, I— that was weird. That's like 3 times in this movie they sing that song.

Nic

And it's even like a remix of it.

Steve

It's so bizarre because, yeah, I'd never— I've never really— look, I was only very briefly a Cub Scout. I think I was a Boy Scout for A month or two, did like one outing and went. You know, this is not fucking for me, and that's fine. Like whatever. But like I don't remember ever camping as a kid doing Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, whatever, and people actually singing Kumbaya. Like that's just not a thing. Yeah. The only time I ever remember hearing it is in movies like this, or I think like you know on The Simpsons or something. You know what I mean? Like that's the kind of place you'd encounter it. So it just I don't know. It was weird. I'm not really sure how to feel about it. I'm like, is is this vaguely religious? I can't tell if it's religious or not.

Nic

Or is it like like a Hare Krishna kind of thing or something like that? Like that kind of new wave. Yeah, I wasn't sure if they were doing that as a joke or if they were doing that as, oh, this is what you sing when you camp.

Steve

I got—.

Nic

Yeah, so it's hard to tell.

Steve

I gotta be honest, I don't think I have the right, uh, frame of reference for the time to really know.

Nic

Um, regardless, Phyllis and the girls have had it. Their camping's been wrecked and stuff. She's like, you know what, screw this, let's do what I do, and we're going to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Steve

A bungalow.

Nic

Amazing place to stay at that hotel, right? Uh, and it is funny that they're sitting in front of the fireplace in their little bungalow there and telling ghost stories. And one of the child who's telling the ghost story, it's like, you know, ooh, who has my golden arm? And she's like, and he looked in the foyer, and he looked in the maid's rooms.

Steve

It's like, it can't just be normal rooms in a normal house, right? It's like only in a mansion. Um, and then, and then Phyllis tells a scary story about going to Christophe's, her hairdresser's. Christophe's not there, it's a different man. And he's talking about this, and, you know, kind of builds and builds, like, and then he turns around And he turned me around in the chair, and I looked in the mirror, and he'd permed me! And all the girls scream in terror. And here's the funny thing for me is that my mother had a perm most of the late '80s into the early '90s. I think longer than the early '90s as well. But like, so I was kind of like, is that bad? Like, you know, watching this as a child, it's like, is that scary? 'Cause that's what my mom's hair looks like.

Nic

Yeah, I know.

Steve

Like, I don't know, is that bad? But apparently it's not. It wasn't rich person fashionable. I think it was a very working class thing.

Nic

My mom had a perm too. All power to the perms, you know?

Steve

Like I said, I think very, very blue-collar hairstyle.

Nic

Uh, but by the end of the night, it seems like she's given these kids like kind of a version of a fun, you know, like a good gateway fun experience. And they're sleeping and she's kind of like, you know, very kindergarten cop. Well, the kids are asleep and I'm gonna go back to bed. Uh, in the morning, uh, they're all watching Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Steve

Love it.

Nic

We get a lot of shots of Pee-wee's Playhouse. It doesn't just show it once, it shows several times.

Steve

Oh, over and over again. He's got the big thing of underwear, massive piece of underwear. He's wearing it on his head.

Nic

Uh, and the leaders, uh, kind of show up because they're like, hey, these kids are supposed to be on a camping trip. What are you doing? We heard they're at the hotel. And the girls are playing, uh, poker for marshmallows and uncooked hot dogs with like one of the bellmen or just one of the guys who works at the hotel.

Steve

Who is on notice, by the way, because you're sus if you're just hanging out with a bunch of like early teenage girls as like an early 20s bellhop. Go back to work.

Nic

Yeah, especially when you're saying, I'll raise you a wiener.

Steve

Yeah, right. Not okay. Not okay with this.

Nic

Uh, so, uh, so the, the leaders come and they're like, you know, you're not teaching these girls anything. Like, you're supposed to be roughing it. And then Shelley Long's like, roughing it? Well, one bedroom for 9 people feels like roughing it, you know. Uh, but they get, you know, they're gonna get kicked out of the organization, right?

Steve

That's basically saying like, you know, you should just quit. Like, you're clearly not built for this. Like, whatever. Um, we cut to another scene back at Phyllis's house, I think, where Phyllis and Hannah are chatting. Um, and I just had to mention this at the time. The couches, the upholstery on her couches is just absolutely wild. It's very late '80s, early '90s.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But like these splotches of bright colors and again, a lot of like terracotta, kind of that dusty pink color is everywhere. It's just really— I saw that and it was— it very much took me back, you know, to the late '80s. Like as far as just the aesthetic, it's very much perfect for that time.

Nic

Totally. That's a good white wine drinking couch.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Like you spill it and it doesn't matter.

Steve

Yeah. Slight discoloration. It will just look like it's part of the pattern.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so we've got— oh, she makes a funny comment. So they're watching again. Freddie is leaving with this other woman who's like comes to pick him up in a Porsche, and, uh, he's taking her to the Dodgers game.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And she's like, oh, I can't believe he's taking her to the Dodger game. And the daughter says, I know, and it's batting helmet day, and she's not even under 14. And then Phyllis is like, oh, wanna bet?

Steve

Yeah, right, here we go. Like, don't count on it.

Nic

Oh yeah, God. Um, so it's craft day. So it's kind of like a school science fair type craft fair for all the Wilderness Girls groups, and we're showing off like what they all made.

Steve

And this is what we get, our first look at the Red Feathers, a good look at this other troop, the Culver City Red Feathers. It's, it's Velda's daughter's troop, although it doesn't seem like Velda is the troop leader for them. It's very odd. It's like they have— because she's in the like, uh, you know, the more the organizational level for, for Southern California Wilderness Girls. But it's her daughter's group, and the daughter has got this very, like, a smoker's voice at 16, which is, like, pretty amazing. But she's got a friend who's a little taller with brown hair who is Tori Spelling.

Nic

Tori Spelling, yeah.

Steve

Which I thought was interesting. But she makes a comment 'cause the True Beverly Hills girls have created these backpacks that you can sort of, like, fling up and they can actually hold dresses, like a little wardrobe thing, which actually looks pretty cool if that's what was important to bring, which it wouldn't be on camping. But it looks neat for—.

Nic

Bad for survival, but good engineering.

Steve

Good for just general travel too, like, whatever, very cool. But they say like, where are you from, Mars? That's Tori Spelling says that. And it's like, no, worse, they're from Beverly Hills. It's just like, I don't, I don't remember the '80s being this, uh, aggressive against rich people. And I don't know if it's got to do with like where I grew up, 'cause at this point you were still East Coast, right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So I don't know.

Nic

Like there'd be kind of like, 'cause you go to a school and the school's made up from like, you know, a third kids from this neighborhood, a third from this, a third. So there would be, just in the same way that, like, college boy or whatever was a thing, you'd probably have a reputation of being a snob, or like the Beverly Hills kids maybe historically have that. But I do also see them just finding any reason that someone is an other to, like, shit on.

Steve

There is that, yeah.

Nic

Um, but yeah, definitely not, like, as much, uh, eat the rich type vibes in the '80s.

Steve

Yeah, and then all of the adults laugh at the joke making fun of the children, which is also, like, a standard movie thing that never quite sits right with me. Like, really? A bunch of adults are, like, busting up laughing at these kids? Like, when does that happen?

Nic

Like—. Herman, uh, gets assigned, yeah, by Plunder as like the assistant leader to Troop Beverly Hills.

Steve

To like spy.

Nic

She's like, keep an eye on her.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, I need a man on the inside here. And she gives her this ridiculous, uh, secret film camera that's built inside of a Wilderness Girl survival book.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

So we see that a couple times. She's got a microphone and everything.

Steve

Yep. It's just like tape, like a huge tape recorder to her waist, 'cause it's 1989 and there's nothing small.

Nic

So there's a quick scene where Phyllis is in her kitchen.

Steve

Oh, that's right.

Nic

And she's like watching the Jane Fonda workout video.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And you hear her like struggling, shows she's like trying to open a mayonnaise jar, making a dogshit-looking sandwich, and she only covers like, I don't know, 40% of the bread. It looks terrible. Uh, but then she sees, uh, Freddie through the window of the guest house, and he's doing tai chi or whatever, like Dalton from Road House. And then she walks in and has him open the jar. So it's a little more, you know, connection between the two.

Steve

Little different physique on Craig T. Nelson than on, uh, Patrick Swayze as Dalton. But, you know, like, uh, but there's a little flirting here. It's another thing where it's like You know, does she actually want to be done with him? It seems like she does not, right? He's at least, you know, there and not, and not staying away kind of thing, you know? So yeah, yeah.

Nic

Um, so, so Phyllis now says with the girls, she's like, okay, well, I can't— the girls are unhappy. Like, we're not learning any of the stuff we should learn. She's like, well, I can't teach you guys how to survive.

Steve

But we gotta earn patches somehow. Can we do this?

Nic

Yeah, she's like, so I guess there's some provision in the book that you could like create your own patches, you can figure out your own activities. And she says I'm gonna show you how to survive on the streets of Beverly Hills. So we got a little montage of them doing their, like, you know, mani-pedi and their waxing and all that stuff. Someone gets their mustache waxed. Herman gets her mustache waxed, of course. And then they have these patches that are kind of funny. They've got patches for, like, dancing and, like, jewelry appraisal and, yeah, so it's kind of a funny, like, montage.

Steve

They do a CPR one with an attractive, like, EMT or cop or whatever he is, you know, and then community service is one of them, uh, and then, uh, she brings all of the girls to the divorce court proceeding.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And creates a divorce court patch for them all for being there. But this is when, uh, basically, you know, Freddie's lawyer asks for a faster sort of— because she said like, we'll come back in 6 weeks or whatever the judge does to like finish this up. And he's like, well, actually my client would prefer a faster resolution. And like, what's the hurry? And he says he's considering remarriage, which is Holy shit, dude, like really? Like you're not even—.

Nic

In front of your kid too.

Steve

Plus like you're not even fully divorced yet and you're already looking to remarry the woman you're dating. That just seems wild. But that gets dropped, which is like a huge, you know, obviously bummer because we just had Phyllis sort of interact with Freddie in a way that leads us to believe she'd still like to stick together.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And she even says kind of leaving the court, like, I did guess before now I didn't really think we were gonna be done. Like I thought that we'd figure this out.

Nic

Yeah, it didn't feel real until then. So, um, yeah, and when they showed up to the court, of course Hannah says hi to Freddie. Yeah, hi Dad. And then one of the other girls says hi Dad, and it's Freddie's lawyer's kids.

Steve

Small town Beverly Hills.

Nic

Uh, we get white woman in headdress alert. White woman in feather headdress alert.

Steve

Yeah, not good.

Nic

Uh, which is talking about turquoise jewelry. Um, but basically with the kids, they're like, all right, we're gonna have a patch ceremony. You guys are getting your patches. I'm very proud of you. Uh, all I need from you is $7.50 for the patches and then we'll do this. And of course, Emily, who we saw earlier, she was being dropped off, uh, not in the front of the event but a little further away by her dad, who seems like a maybe a washed-up actor type guy, you know, definitely like, uh, struggling financially. And she runs off because she can't afford the $7.50.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Right. So far in this movie, we've had money mentioned like 3 times, and one was that, um, on a whim, Phyllis was just buying a $5,000 dress and all this stuff. So this is a good time when your kid's watching the movie where the kid will definitely say to you, why don't they just help her with the money? And this is a good time to teach your kids some stuff.

Steve

Oh yeah, like what?

Nic

What you can explain about society, why they don't help them, or explain maybe why they should.

Steve

So what I love too, it's one of the other kids comes up and hands her a $10 bill to like cover the cost, and it's like so clueless, like ridiculous.

Nic

And I mean, throughout the movie and whatever, it's a fantasy thing, but it's funny that they're doing things where it's like like, okay, to get the word out about this $4,000 we need to raise— I don't know how much per box they put these on— but, uh, we're gonna have a $50,000 gala. And then to celebrate that we raised $8,000, we're gonna have a $200,000 black-tie thing. It's— I mean, it's very in line from what I— what you know about how this stuff works sometimes. So it's really funny. But poor Emily, you know? Yeah. I mean, it is a weird situation. Like, we grew up in an area where, you know, it was a pretty affluent suburb and there would definitely be kids in Emily's position where it's like, well, I'm on the soccer team, I'm on this and that with all these kids, and I have to keep up with their parents' ability to spend.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Like, that's really stressful and crazy. This is an extreme example. It's fucking crazy.

Steve

But yeah, I mean, it is because you're talking about such a low dollar amount as well, but it's for effect and it works.

Nic

And it's a kids movie. And I think it's giving a dollar amount that a kid could conceptualize.

Steve

Yeah, there's that too.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But so we go to the patch ceremony, it's on a boat at the marina or whatever. And of course, totally makes sense, divorce isn't final yet, but Freddie brings his girlfriend to his daughter's fucking Girl Scout ceremony, which is like the—.

Nic

Wild.

Steve

The most indefensible choice by any character in this movie. And I'm including everything Velda does in that statement, is Freddie bringing his girlfriend to this ceremony. That makes no sense whatsoever. You're better off not going. Than bringing the girlfriend when you're not fully divorced. It's just— I just— it's amazing to me.

Nic

And I mean, ultimately it was Freddie's call to make because it was his girlfriend's thing. It seems from her personality, she definitely, uh, she definitely really wanted him to bring her to this thing.

Steve

Yeah, right. Like, not at all.

Nic

Bring me around.

Steve

But no, 'cause she's— but she hates kids and it's like—.

Nic

I know, but I think she's also— she's like, I hate everyone, but if you go without me, I'm gonna fucking kill you.

Steve

Well, that's true. No, it does seem like that.

Nic

One of the patches that they had, uh, was a sushi appreciation patch. Which I really enjoy.

Steve

That's very '80s.

Nic

My daughter can get that one. That's a good one.

Steve

Reminds me of Breakfast Club. There's some sushi appreciation there too.

Nic

Right. We're in the sushi is for snobs era.

Steve

Yes, for sure. Absolutely.

Nic

So Freddie's girlfriend, it's just kind of a weird scene of she just manages to fall off the boat.

Steve

She gets bumped lightly and falls completely off the boat into the water. And worst joke in the movie, but I still kind of chuckled. He's like, throw me a lifesaver. And Phyllis goes to her purse and says, butterscotch or mint or wintergreen or whatever. And it's like, oh, come on.

Nic

I think that the whole awkward fall off the boat was there to set that joke up.

Steve

To do that joke, yes.

Nic

I mean, 100%.

Steve

Not worth it.

Nic

And for '89, I don't know when Lifesavers dropped, but that might have been like, yo, I never thought of that.

Steve

Very topical.

Nic

Because it's funny because it's like, yeah, they're called that because they're shaped like the real thing.

Steve

The little booties.

Nic

Yeah. It's funny when people are like, oh, he puts the urban in suburban. It's like, no, they're the same fucking root. You're not making up a new thing. Oh my God. So, uh, so yeah, that scene could have been a little bit better. But, you know, uh, Plunder now— or Plunder has— Herman's not doing enough just like being the assistant scout leader. She's like, I need you to move in with Phyllis.

Steve

That's right. Yeah.

Nic

Again, crazy levels of obsession.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Because all they've managed to do is award themselves a bunch of invalid patches so far, and she's so threatened by this. She's like, okay, I need my Peppermint Patty now to go move in with, uh, Phyllis.

Steve

Well, before that happens, they show Velda brings the, uh, photos that Herman has taken so far to the, like, that older woman who's like the head wilderness girl, whatever. And like, look at all these horrible things they're doing, and they do patches about this, and there's like you know gluttony and and consumerism and da da da whatever. And she's like, it looks like she's engaging them and has them interested in things, and they're learning. Like, what is wrong with you? And that's when Velda's like, well, we gotta up it. I need more ammunition, so you gotta move in with her. And so yeah, it's something like Herman says something like, getting her apartment fumigated and needs to be you know not in there for weeks or something, whatever excuse she gives. But she moves in with. With Phyllis. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And she, you know, it's kind of like Phyllis is very, you know, she's very cool with her, although she didn't immediately think like, I'm not even gonna mention the $750, I'll just cover it. But whatever. So one of the girls, I wrote down Chica.

Steve

Chica. Okay, what's Chica? Carla Gugino's character is— yeah, Chica.

Nic

And she's the one who was dropped off alone in a limo to start everything off. And it turns out, you know, her parents are in Monte Carlo or something, and it's her birthday. They've forgotten her birthday, and they kind of get together— like Phyllis and the housekeeper and Hannah get together, and they like whip up a quick— a little birthday—.

Steve

What?

Nic

I don't know.

Steve

What is it? I couldn't tell.

Nic

I couldn't tell either.

Steve

I have no idea. I don't know if that was a pastry, if that was like an enormous empanada, if that was— I have no clue what that was. It's something either candles in it.

Nic

Yeah, it's either a coffee cake or a lasagna, but they have it for her birthday.

Steve

Was it a yule log? What was that? It literally looks like a— like, like the bouche de Noël from French class. Yeah, it's very strange. It might have been a piece of candles stuck into it. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

It's something that the wife from The Ref would have made for their Christmas dinner, right?

Steve

Very Scandinavian. Um, so yeah, so then we go to cookie distribution day. So all of the troops for the SoCal Wilderness Girls are there, uh, and Velda's talking about, uh, You know, well, how many boxes are you gonna take? 'Cause you gotta take a certain number and then you gotta sell them. And if you sell 1,000 boxes, you get to go to the jamboree. And the jamboree is the big, like, sort of competition at the end of the year or something, whatever it is, or in the summer. And so the first group is like, we'll take 48 boxes, which is like, why? Why even bother if the goal thing is 1,000?

Nic

Between how many kids in a troop? Every troop's like, what, 12, 15 kids?

Steve

And they're not talking cases. They're talking about the boxes in the cases. And I think they sell for $2 apiece. So they're talking about $96 worth of cookies is what they were gonna take, which is insane. So then the Red Feathers, who are, you know, again, Velda's daughters' group, I think they asked for $2,000, right? 'Cause $1,000's the goal to get to the jamboree. So we'll take $2,000. And, you know, Phyllis is not gonna be undone. She goes up to talk to Velda, and Velda's like, you're gonna give back all your patches 'cause they're not real. You're gonna blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, Phyllis is like, I'm so sorry, girls. Like, whatever. And the girls are super fucking cool about it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Look, we're having fun. We got to do all this stuff. I don't care about it. One of them says something about like, too many accessories clutters an outfit. It's like, you know, so they got their own vibe on it, which is great. But yeah, they're super cool about it. And they give back the patches. And then Phyllis is like, we'll take 4,000 boxes. And Feld is like, yeah, right. Like, no, we'll take 4,000 boxes, bitch. Like—.

Nic

Yeah. No, it was good that they— although the movie is kind of celebrating how like the rich kid troupe is always gonna outsell boxes, you know, no matter what, because their dads own some insurance company and they'd be like, hey, you're fired if you don't come buy a box It's cookies for my dog.

Steve

There's a weird combination of both, uh, making rich people the butt of the joke and then also like applauding everything that the rich people do in this movie that is like weird and kind of very '80s, like, you know, but it's very strange.

Nic

It's the fundraising mentality. It's all screwed up. Um, so the girls are starting to go, uh, starting to go door to door in the neighborhood, uh, to sell, and we see a familiar face.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

At one of the doors, it is answered by Milwaukee Bucks and LA Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Steve

Lou Alcindor answers the door, and it's not even a David Zucker movie.

Nic

And I did want to point out, Steve, and I'm sure you had the same prediction, we're now— this is our 68th episode, right, 2 Dads 1 Movie, which strictly covers the films of the '80s and '90s. 68 episodes in, we have seen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4 times. We have seen Tom Cruise 0 times. We have seen Tom Hanks zero times. We've seen Dustin Hoffman zero times. We've seen Jack Nicholson zero times. Yeah, so I think we have our priorities right. We got to get more Jabbar in this thing.

Steve

Yeah, that's, that's— we got to get more Kareem. It's like Kareem, Kareem, Kareem. And you know, I mean, I mean, geez, like, have we even seen— I'm trying to think who else, but like, you know, like, we did see— we've seen Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves. We've got a few of the major ones covered. Yeah, but yeah, those— the, the Toms in particular.

Nic

You're right, we haven't seen him.

Steve

Have we not seen Kevin Costner? Oh geez, see, that's just not accept— no, wait, No, that was a bacon. Different Kevin. Yes, we've seen it go one Kevin but not the other. Man, it's not cool.

Nic

Right?

Steve

We really got to up our game and and and stop leaning into Kareem.

Nic

And it's not like he's in a thousand movies. I mean, we're doing a very high percentage of the stuff.

Steve

That's true.

Nic

That's really true. So Kareem again must be like well liked in those circles. It seems like he's a cameo in all this stuff and good shit. Very like visually like easy to identify too.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

If you see him, even if you're not a basketball fan, you're just like that's a guy.

Steve

Well, he also generally aged because we've seen him from you know airplane. In 1980 to basketball in 1998, he looked basically the same. Yeah, which is pretty amazing. And we saw him in Fletch and in this kind of in between those two, but like pretty wild. Uh, so good, good for him, at least at that time. But basically the crux of this scene is that every person they go up to, including Kareem and a couple of their neighbors, they've already bought boxes from your friends with the little feathers in their hats or whatever, right? So the Red Feather troop is going around the neighborhood in Beverly Hills just to try to sell to those people first, which is totally within the spirit of all of this and makes a lot of sense, and it's definitely not foul play. It's just like, why is this happening?

Nic

The— yeah.

Steve

It's shady as hell.

Nic

Um, and yeah, they're scooping, they're scooping the neighborhood. I mean, they could have the Beverly Hills kids going to the, uh, non-Beverly Hills neighborhoods to sell, but why would they do that? It's, you know, can't do that.

Steve

It's just, it's just ugly.

Nic

Um, so, so Fred is telling his girlfriend, uh, like, now I think they're having the ceremony to see like how many cookies they sold, right?

Steve

Well, it's— no, so now it's like she's got all the— To promote the sale. Yeah, Phyllis has brought all the other parents over to have like a meeting, and it's basically like, hey, we couldn't go door-to-door, so we got to think of some other stuff to do. So we want to do like a concert, we want to do like a thing. She's got these ideas, and the parents all kind of come together. And because even one of them says, why don't we just buy them? And to Phyllis's credit, she says, that's not the point. Like, they're supposed to like do stuff to try to sell these. They're supposed to like, you know, do this themselves. So we could obviously just buy them, but like, that's missing the point. Which is like, kudos. Like, so many rich parents in that moment would just be like, yeah, let me just cut a check for $5,000. Here you go.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Boxes or whatever. And so that's cool. Um, but Freddy shows up, drops off Hannah— apparently she was spending time with him— uh, and then goes back. His girlfriend is honking the car horn just incessantly, like, what's going on? That took long enough. Like, she's so horrible. And, and he's like, hey, it's for Hannah. Like, you know, you know, she'll always be my wife. And she's like, what? She'll always be my daughter. It's like, you said wife. Like, which is like, I get what they're doing with the slip, that, that he meant Phyllis, but it does mean he actually said Hannah will always be my wife, which is like another entirely weird Yeah. But the idea is that he still thinks of Phyllis as his wife in some subconscious way, and the girlfriend clocks it. And you get the sense that they're not lasting very long at this point. Yeah.

Nic

And yeah, I mean, the girlfriend has done nothing positive the entire time except for look good and have a Porsche. Which honestly, if I had those 2 things going for me, my life would be a lot better.

Steve

She's got about as much dimension to her as the cutout of the owner of the Indians in Major League. Not the actual character, just the cutout.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah, uh, we've got a song here. I think it's an original song. I don't know.

Steve

Cookie Time. It is original. It's a fucking banger, man.

Nic

We got the great, uh, performance here with the kids doing this performance of their Cookie Time song. Uh, one girl in a Tina Turner wig just really belting it out, just doing a fantastic job. And there's a good montage here where we're selling cookies and they're setting up different places. One place they set up outside the Jane Fonda workout place Again, a joke, a rough joke, but a very '80s joke. So of course all the women who are into fitness walk right by it, but the second they set up the cookie thing, all these fat ladies in their workout clothes run up and buy the cookies.

Steve

Lovely.

Nic

Easy, low-hanging fruit.

Steve

I mean, that joke today would be outside a dispensary, right? That's— you do that joke and it would be a little less offensive, but you do it right outside of every dispensary today and that would still hit. There's a point where they're walking around like those like old like cigarette You know trays of cigars, cigarettes, cookies, and it's like I really hope you don't have children selling cigars and cigarettes. That seems bad, but you know the '80s. What are you gonna do? And then they do a fashion show, and Robin Leach is hosting. Yep. Pia Zador is like one of the models, and then who's the second one? Gosh darn it! Before Phyllis and after Pia, there's somebody else.

Nic

Oh man! Oh, Dr. Joyce.

Steve

Oh, Dr. Joyce Brothers. That's right.

Nic

Other '80s people we have in this scene: we've got Cheech Marin.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Cheech Marin is a guest. Not. '80S person, but just a guy. Uh, Ted McGinley, very '80s guy.

Steve

Love Ted McGinley though. But here's the thing, yes, very '80s guy, but very right now too. Derek on Shrinking, like one of the best characters on television.

Nic

Like, uh, what a run that guy's had. Oh my God. Like, it was a joke about him being added to failing TV shows in like the mid-'90s. That was like a running joke. And he's like, look at me 30 years later still being in something constantly. Right. Like, and just killing it, right?

Steve

Really killing it. Yeah.

Nic

And let's see, so we are— we have the fashion show, and again, they end up selling a lot of boxes of cookies. And I think they announce, you know, how many boxes everyone sells.

Steve

So they sold 4,732 boxes. But before that, I noticed the string quartet or whatever at the fashion show is playing an instrumental version of that Cookie Time song. It's the exact same tune and melody. It's really great.

Nic

Funny.

Steve

And then Robin Leach does the sign-off at the fashion show. With khaki wishes and cookie dreams, which is like chef's kiss, Robin, way to go.

Nic

He had such like a Michael Buffer style career.

Steve

Oh yeah.

Nic

Where you just get known as being like a guy who says certain stuff and then they could plop him in anywhere.

Steve

Exactly. But yeah, but Velda is there to collect the check that represents these over almost 5,000 boxes, uh, are, are there. And, and, you know, Freddie is, uh, Freddie shows up and is— and wants to talk to Phyllis about something. And we get the sense that like, you know, Does he want to get back together? He even says he's not with Lisa anymore. You know, that's done. Um, but instead he really just wants to talk about Hannah, you know, having joint custody, basically. It's very deflating to Phyllis, and she falls into the pool, I believe.

Nic

And it's weird, like, the way he'd been acting with her the whole time. Yeah, I mean, as a viewer, it's supposed to be misleading to you because you have to be surprised by the movie, but it also doesn't feel like that would happen that way in real life.

Steve

Which feels very unfair.

Nic

Unless he's trying to fuck with her.

Steve

Exactly. It feels very unfair.

Nic

Um, so yeah, he's, you know, just brings up custody and she falls into the water. And immediately, you know, like when she said, who gives a shit, when his girl fell in the water, she's like, oh, I'm drowning, and then realizes it's like 2 feet of water.

Steve

Exactly. Uh, so she, she tries to get out of the pool with some sense of dignity left. Um, we cut to Hannah is now hanging out at her dad's. She, you know, leaves and goes to her dad's. They're playing Nintendo in like a bachelor pad on the beach sort of thing is what it looks like, you know?

Nic

Yeah, it's like, um, Um, what is it? It's like the fake, uh, beachside trailer that the fake Mel Gibson lives in in National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, where it's like the most amazing, uh, place. Yeah, I really love it. And it's total dad stuff, except that I'm in a $5 million condo, but also like I can't afford furniture. I don't have furniture.

Steve

Milk crate coffee table or whatever. Like, yeah.

Nic

Uh, and he's just like, you know, it seems like Hannah's Like, you're just trying too hard. Like, you don't have to entertain me all the time. And it shows the difference, like what she's getting from Phyllis now, who's like exposing her to things that she's unfamiliar with, instead of Dad who's just trying to shower her with things that he knows she likes.

Steve

Exactly. Like, hey, this is how I can— you can tell I can— I still care. I still care because I'm buying this stuff and I'm playing with you or doing it. And it's like—.

Nic

And shows that he doesn't know what to do. So at some point he's gonna need a wife to help him learn how to parent this kid.

Steve

Seems like it. Uh, meanwhile, Velda has come to visit Phyllis and basically tell her that, you know, you're worthless and you need to quit and the jamboree is no joke. And so, you know, like, don't show up, basically. And Phyllis, for whatever reason, like, is getting sunken enough in her depression between Freddie and then Hannah being gone. She's like watching home movies and crying.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then Velda comes and talks shit and all this kind of stuff. And so Phyllis is now in bed with bottles of Avion strewn left and right, which you'll notice for today.

Nic

Oh, nice.

Steve

Yeah, I got my own bottle of Avion for today. Um, but yeah, like as if it were bottles of liquor, like she's getting drunk off of.

Nic

It's a funny gag and it's a nice— it's a nice thing that keeps this PG while also improving the movie. Um, again, in the '80s it was a trope like, oh, water bottle, what are you, a rich person? What are you, a wimp? Nobody drinks, uh, water out of a bottle. And they got made fun of for Evian enough that they were like, you know what, now I own all the municipal water and I bottle it and sell it to your bitch ass. What do you think of that? So that's the situation we live in now. So maybe we have to be nicer to Evian. To these people.

Steve

Maybe. Yeah.

Nic

Um, yeah, so Phyllis— Phyllis is— she wants to quit, but the kids, they want her back. And the kids are actually kind of getting together like, hey, we're a team. Yeah, we can win this. And the thing at the jamboree, it's kind of like a hiking race, or I don't know.

Steve

It's essentially the way it works is like there's a spot you have to hike to, and then you have to set up camp and stay overnight, and then you have to hike back to this other spot. And it's like this pathway marked with these little flags that in each, uh, uh, troop has their own route, um, which of course immediately seems unfair. Somebody's gonna have an easier time and somebody's gonna have a harder time, but that's how it works. And so everybody's got like colored armbands or whatever and these little flags they follow. But yeah, the girls, before all that starts, the girls are basically just like, no, like, you know, you've gotten us this far. Like, we have no reason to stop. Like, why would we stop? Like, let's just keep going. Let's just try. Like, you know, yeah, so maybe we're not the most outdoorsy or the most whatever, but like, fuck it, let's try.

Nic

We're having fun with this.

Steve

Yeah, we're having a good time. And you've shown us that you can't succeed if you don't show up and try. Like, you know, to Phyllis's credit, right, from the first moment she took them to get the uniforms. None of the leaders had ever even taken them to get the uniforms. By trying, they got somewhere. And it's a simple message, but it's a very good one. And so they convince her to stick it out. And so we cut to the actual jamboree, and everybody but the Beverly Hills troupe is there, and Velda's screaming instructions to everybody. And, you know, of course, the Red Feathers have, like, red armbands, and then the blue armbands for the Beverly Hills team are just there 'cause they didn't show up. And Velda, of course, very, very proud of herself that she got an entire group of children to not participate in the thing that they earned their way to. Very important that they don't get to do that.

Nic

20 little girls, you're not gonna have fun today. Exactly.

Steve

Perfect.

Nic

Thanks to my hard work.

Steve

That's how it should go.

Nic

And she ends up calling— so as they're kind of like, the Troop Beverly Hills is like, no, wait, wait, we're here, you know. And they got a couple of Rolls-Royces pulling up, but the race just starts anyway. And Velda shoots the firing pistol in the air and totally Randy Johnsons a fucking bird with it.

Steve

But it's a starter pistol. Clearly a starter pistol with like no barrel at all. Like, you could see that it's not a barrel.

Nic

Like, and yet, you know what, fits a hashtag which I think we should add to the last film. Too many bullets. Too many bullets.

Steve

Yeah, this should have been zero.

Nic

It's one.

Steve

Guns firing far more bullets than they ought to. Yeah, and this one would count.

Nic

Yeah. Um, there's some nice— so the Troop Beverly Hills, they've got their kind of like beach-looking backpacks and stuff.

Steve

Yeah, it's kind of like from the craft fair sort of almost.

Nic

Yeah, that's the thing that they had earlier. And, uh, there's some fun gags of them like using a tennis racket as a machete. Yeah, yeah, through the woods and everything. But the Red Feathers, as they're getting ahead of them, they're turning the flags to the other direction. So they're being pointed in the wrong direction. And they end up lost. And there's like a big swamp that they're in. There's a water moccasin that they come across.

Steve

It's actually a really funny kind of scene where I would have to skip forward if I was watching with my wife because she is horrifically afraid of snakes. So we skip things in media where there are snakes. But there's a funny scene—.

Nic

You're such a big Indiana Jones guy and you guys still made it work.

Steve

Yeah, you know, it's like, what are you gonna do?

Nic

She's your Indiana Jones. She is.

Steve

She's my Indy. She doesn't like snakes.

Nic

I like it.

Steve

Why did it have to be snakes? So, but no, so Andy, Annie Herman, you know, who, who, by the way, I don't know if we ever mentioned like earlier, like she threw away the spy stuff. There was a point in, in, I think when the Red Feathers were—.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

Were going around Beverly Hills and kind of cheating that way. She threw away the spy stuff and dug in with Phyllis basically. Um, and, but she is, is removed from helping, right? Phyllis says like only the troop leader, no assistant troop leaders, whatever. So you can, but they've got walkie-talkies and she's trying to help them out. Like she's up on a high, you know, hill somewhere so that she, you know, hopefully she'll be able to get reception wherever she is. And she's like, and So Phyllis is able to call her and go, um, because she sees a snake, she goes, are there rattlesnakes in swamps? And he's like, oh no, no, rattlesnakes hate the water, which is totally accurate. That's a desert snake basically, right? She goes, but water moccasins are in swamps. And they run off. And I think that's funny when it's like almost you're okay and then no, you're very much not okay.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. I just like by default get away from any snake.

Steve

That's honestly safe. That's the safer move.

Nic

Um, yeah, so they encounter, they encounter this snake and then as they're running they see a skunk.

Steve

Oh, that's right.

Nic

And they start running from the skunk, right? So as they're running from the skunk, and we're— and, uh, Velda is there kind of at the finish line of the first half of the, the campsite there, and she sees the Red Feathers off in the distance. Ha, there they come, they're gonna win by a mile. But then Troop Beverly Hills, like screaming, busts into the scene from the woods on the side, running from the skunk.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So Velda, like, looks at the skunk, she's like, I picks it up, I'm gonna get revenge on And then the next scene she's wearing like a skunk skin cap, and there's a little a little rodent on a spit over the fire as well.

Steve

So she's cooked and it's eating and is wearing the skunk, which like what do you think skunk tastes like? Good Christ, it probably tastes like how it smells is is what what my guess would be because there's no way the meat wouldn't involve something. It would have to get affected by that.

Nic

It's a gland in the body.

Steve

Like yeah, disgusting. I'm sure it's horrible. But yeah, they won by thirty seconds. They came in thirty seconds ahead of the Red Feathers, and then there was some. And so, so then she tells— Velda tells the actual troop leader for the Red Feathers, you're very sick and are gonna have to go home, and I'll have to take over. So she takes over directly leading the Red Feathers, which one of the Beverly Hills girls points out, like, she mapped out the whole thing. Like, she knows every inch of this space. That's totally unfair. It's not how this is supposed to work. But of course, Velda doesn't actually care about fair. She cares about winning and embarrassing people and whatever.

Nic

Right.

Steve

So then not only— so then she, cuts down a fucking rope bridge to, to keep people from crossing.

Nic

Crazy.

Steve

It's the most psychotic of all the psychotic things she's done.

Nic

I mean, and I— look, I love a scene of a suspension bridge getting cut. Sure, it's always fun.

Steve

Speaking of Indiana Jones, it's— yeah, it's wonderful.

Nic

Temple of Doom. But come on, man, you can't do this shit.

Steve

It's horrific.

Nic

What's her endgame? Like, she has no—.

Steve

She wants these girls to die. Yeah, I mean, she would not be happy.

Nic

She would be most happy for of skeletons.

Steve

If she— she would be most happy if all of these girls went missing and were never found. That would make her happier than any other possible outcome. So the Beverly Hills girls, the whole troupe shows up and finds the bridge cut down, are kind of like, what do we do? And somebody points out— I think it's Hannah points out— there's a log down there.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And, and it's like the balance beam. The first time we saw Hannah was in their house, she was on a balance beam. So we've got a little foreshadow of like Hannah is a gymnast. So the idea— she says, Mom, it's just like the balance beam. To be— to her credit, it's much wider than the balance beam, so Yeah, she's not wrong, I think. But Phyllis is like, I can't let you do this. I'm an adult, you're a child. I'm responsible for you. It would be incredibly irresponsible of me to let you do it, so I'll go. Which, like, yeah, I mean, good call. Also, you probably shouldn't go, but certainly better than letting a kid go.

Nic

Right.

Steve

It's the right move there. So she tries to go across and she gets, like, scared and stops. And so Hannah tries to come across to help her, but then Hannah's foot gets stuck. Phyllis has to go back Let Hannah— get Hannah free. Yeah, then they both cross over. And here's the part I don't get: they tell everybody else to go back down to the bridge.

Nic

Okay, the, the bridge plan is the most insane thing. How did they restore the bridge? They say tie rocks to the end of the bridge that fell and throw it across to us.

Steve

No.

Nic

And then we can retie. It's like, I'm sorry, everyone come over the fallen tree. Seriously. It's such— I'm gonna trust my knot tying skills. I didn't see a knot tying badge in any of that stuff. Also, what are you fucking talking about? There's—. Okay, tie a rock to something that has like a bunch of boards on it. There's no way a kid can throw that. Yeah.

Steve

If we had established— and this would have been possible— if we had established that any of these children knew how to dock a yacht and do the like the grounding lines, I mean, you could have potentially played up—.

Nic

There's the scene to add at the drop-off. So then, yeah, before— so you have the kids arriving in cars, right? But then there's the super rich. Yeah, who arrives in a yacht first and then takes a helicopter there. But it shows them very clearly like—.

Steve

Yeah, like even throwing the rope, even having an argument with their parents like, well, we've got a deck crew to do that, dear. Oh, Dad, I like doing it myself. And then she throws the grounding line or something. So, you know, you could have done it. There was available—.

Nic

You could have saved it.

Steve

Instead, there's just this insane thing where the bridge is just bad. Yeah, and it— like, that log was huge. And you know, you didn't have to walk across it foot by foot. You could have crawled. You could have gotten down on your hands and knees. It would have been fine. And it would have made way more sense. But no, we had to have this bizarre bridge reconstruction off screen as well. None of that actually happens on screen because they know how ludicrous it would look.

Nic

It would have been insane.

Steve

It never would have worked. So I mean, look, I'm not trying to hold this movie to like, you know, M. Night Shyamalan levels of plot consistency, but like, this was pretty fucking bad.

Nic

Yeah, this was, this was, uh, this was a little rough. Oh. Um, so, uh, so Velda is now— she's leading the girls and she's like, oh, I know a shortcut.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

You know, in addition to knowing the entire route and sabotaging everybody on their way, doing a shortcut on top of that.

Steve

But because she's looked through binoculars and seen that they've fixed the bridge and gone across it, there's apparently clear line of sight from wherever she is to wherever it is. And she refers to them as little bimbesses.

Nic

Yes, I like bimbesses.

Steve

I kind of dig it, but also like, that is a tortured construction. Crazy.

Nic

And yeah, like the most treeless area, like if you could see the bridge from where they were, whatever.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

But so Velda falls into a hole.

Steve

Right, a little ditch thing.

Nic

Which is great. Which is critical. And she injures her ankle, and the girls in her squad are like, yeah, you're gonna slow us down, you're dead weight at this point.

Steve

Her own daughter.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Sorry, we're gonna leave now.

Nic

I learned from you, Mom.

Steve

That's right. I learned it from watching you!

Nic

So they take off, and then of course the Beverly Hills troop comes upon her.

Steve

Well, here's the thing, actually they hear her, 'cause she screams, you little bitches! They hear her and go look for her. So they not only like curse word in the movie, I think. Oh no, there's a couple of shits. There's one or one. There's like two utterances of shit in the movie, but that's it. But yeah, like they they go out of their way to go find the person who sounds like they need help. I mean, this is a very clear economy, and the entire time that they're trying to help, Velda is continuing to just bitch and complain about them and talk about them horribly while they're dragging her on a stretcher. You know, kind of thing because they kind of you know attach together a bunch of those crazy packs they have. And they've got those racks on the back, so they're able to make like a little, like, whatever you'd call it, like something to drag her along with. She still continues to just complain about them. It's amazing.

Nic

She, she's having like a, like an Eric from Billy Madison type meltdown where she's just beyond reasoning with in any way, right?

Steve

Good, good analogy.

Nic

Yeah, she is crazy and she's flipping out, right? She doesn't want— she's, she's trying to heckle them as they're helping her and dragging her through the woods and everything.

Steve

It's amazing.

Nic

Uh, so in the meantime, the whole family, like all the families and stuff have gathered at the finish line to watch the girls come across and finish their jamboree. So all the parents are there and stuff. They're like, oh, where's Troupe Beverly Hills? And they see them emerge dragging the thing. They've already, you know, the Red Feathers have already crossed the finish line, right?

Steve

Right.

Nic

But then they're saying, you know, the Beverly Hills crossed, and they say, well, they crossed with their leader. Red Feathers came without their leader. That's an incomplete team. Yep, they're disqualified. Beverly Hills wins.

Steve

But of course Tori Spelling and Velda's daughter have already run off with the trophy. Yeah, somewhere. We don't even know where, but they took the trophy and ran. So they even say sorry We don't have a trophy for you. And all the girls are like, we're from Beverly Hills, we can afford all kinds of shiny shit. We don't actually care. We won.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like, you know, that's the thing. Uh, Freddie shows up and sort of reconnects with, with, uh, Phyllis. And, you know, we get a sense that they're back together and that's sweet. And then Velda continues to lose her shit, hops around off her broken ankle, gets into her Jeep and like drives off or whatever, um, because she's been fired. The older woman fires her. Uh, and I think the coda at the very end here is, is Velda at Kmart because she had threatened Annie Herman Over and over again with firing her and sending her back to working at Kmart. So now she's got a blue light special on cookies. So bad.

Nic

Yeah, so that's the worst thing that can happen to you is you end up with a, with a regular job working at Kmart.

Steve

How horrific.

Nic

Yeah, so, you know, Freddie and Phyllis are gonna be back together and everything's happy and everything ties up nicely, just like the remnants of the rope bridge being tied to the tree after it was cut. So yeah, that is Troop Beverly Hills.

Steve

Yes, it is.

Nic

I will, uh, I'll go first.

Steve

Go for it, man.

Nic

You know, like we said, like all the, the critical panning of it, like I definitely can understand points about that, you know, where it's like, yeah, the character development isn't really there, they don't give good reasons for a lot of stuff, you have to make leaps in logic. But kind of like I feel about, uh, Rocky IV, which is a completely different movie, but it was just kind of like a collection of stuff I enjoyed seeing, and in the aggregate worked out being like an enjoyable experience. I thought this was like that. I like the, you know, the car montage I talked about. Yeah, some of the '80s Beverly Hills stuff is really fun to see.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

The visual gags are fun, and there's nothing that really drags in this movie. It moves pretty quickly. Yeah. So Troop Beverly Hills, I think, is fun. I think it's a light recommend for me, and especially if you have kids. I'm gonna give it a 3 out of 5.

Steve

3 out of 5, not bad. Yeah, so my, my take on it is it's not quite as generous as yours. I think I think, you know, it was enjoyable to an extent. You know, it is fun, it's cute. It's definitely something I wanna show my daughter. She's 8 and I think she'll really enjoy it. And that's great. And movies like that certainly have their place. But like, if I'm being honest about it as a movie and like trying to kind of hold it up to the way I look at the other movies that we've done.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, I have regretted a few of our, of my ratings over, you know, the months we've been doing this. Most specifically, I think probably both They Live and Thief, I gave too low of ratings for. And, you know, I'll live with that. But like, I'm looking at it going, yeah, how do I compare this to other movies that we've seen and how I've rated them? And I think very much like Rocky IV, I gave that a lower rating than you did. And I'm kind of in the same ballpark here where I, it's, I guess I would call it like a light don't bother. Where it's kind of like, if you have any nostalgia for this movie at all, if you have any nostalgia just in general for Shelley Long, go for it, 'cause she really is delightful in this movie. But like overall, it's not a very good movie, and I don't think anyone should go out of their way to go see it. I'm a 2 out of 5 on Troop Beverly Hills, which makes us 5 out of 10 from the 2 dads. It sounds about right. That's about where it lands.

Nic

I think that's absolutely right.

Steve

Right in the middle of the scale. So, um, yeah, so I mean, you know, look, if you're really into it, certainly if you've got any nostalgia for it, check it out again if you haven't seen it in ages. Um, but you know, on its face, it is, uh, it is, it is fine.

Nic

Yeah, definitely. Look, we've been through some epics recently, you know, with Goodfellas and Tombstone and Boogie Nights and all this stuff. So it is funny that this is considered the same type of thing as those things are, and it's really hard to hold them up against each other.

Steve

It really is. It really is a whole different— it We should someday maybe think about having completely different rating scales for this as a film and this as a movie and think of them differently or something, because that potentially would be—.

Nic

Because you can weight things by, so, like budget and like all these other things you can weight. So yeah, we'll work on a big like Saber metrics for movies.

Steve

By budget, $18 million. Where is the $18 million? I mean, that does not show up on screen.

Nic

I really feel like they fucked up and forgot to rent some of those cars and accidentally bought them.

Steve

Something like that.

Nic

I don't— yeah, I don't get it.

Steve

Okay, so, uh, next week gonna be my pick. And again, kind of just, just going off vibes. I'm trying at this point to introduce, uh, uh, the audience to as many of my favorite movies of all time as I can, because so many of my favorite movies of all time are from this era.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Uh, you know, it's just like there was something about movies, I think especially for me in the '90s— a lot of great movies from the '80s as well, but movies in the '90s, there was a particular flavor to them. Um, there's a particular, uh, way that they approached social issues and things, and a lot of it doesn't hold up over the years. You know, you look back at stuff now and you cringe hard about the way certain topics were treated. This is not one of those movies. This is a movie that from a like social commentary standpoint is only more relevant today, I believe, than it was when it came out, which I think I don't have the year in front of me. I think it was 1996, but it's in the mid-'90s for sure. This movie has an absolutely star-studded cast. One of those casts that like top to bottom, it's people you know and love. And so it's we've got Robin Williams. We've got We've got Nathan Lane, we've got Gene Hackman, we've got Dianne Wiest, we've got, uh, Christine Baranski, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria. I mean, really, the cast is just absolutely loaded. Yeah, we're gonna go to South Beach, Miami, and we are going to hang out with, uh, Armand and Starina, and, uh, we're going to the drag show at the Birdcage. All right, have you seen the Birdcage?

Nic

I have never seen it. I'm excited about this one. Like I told you before we recorded, A lot. Like your success rate for introducing me to movies for the first time is incredibly high.

Steve

Nice.

Nic

And this has a bunch of people I like, and I don't know why I just missed this one, but I'd love to see it. I can't wait.

Steve

This was like a particular. I feel like theater kids in the '90s really watched this movie. First of all, it is an adaptation of a play, La Cage aux Folles. It's a French play, and so it's. And I think that was made into movies as well in French before it was kind of turned into this American version. Version. Um, but it felt this very theater kid coded, this movie. And so I feel like that's why I first saw it, was because I was in drama in high school and theater. And I think it was one of those, you know, somebody in that social group introduced me to it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And there was just an element where certainly at this time I would watch literally anything Robin Williams was in, uh, whether he'd even— Patch Adams and shit, I did end up liking. But like, you know, there was like in the '90s I'd watch anything Robin Williams was in. He's fantastic. Nathan Lane is just absolutely glorious in this movie. This is another one of those movies that my wife and I quote to each other all the time. So it'll definitely be a lot of fun to go through The Birdcage, and I can't wait to, to hear what you think about it.

Nic

Hell yeah!

Steve

Which is great. 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 twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been Troop Beverly Hills, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

I'm Nic.

Steve

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

Nic

Thanks, everyone.