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! 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.
And I'm Nic. 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. Kids that grew up. There's a little Craig T. Nelson in here, whatever.
But mostly this is a Shelley Long vehicle. It is. 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? 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? Yeah. 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? Yeah. 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? 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. Should be real PGs, right? Right. We did a lot of
ones where they were just like, I guess I'll give it a PG. 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.
Absolutely. 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. Jeff, turn your head into a canoe. 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— That seems like
the lowest by a lot, right? 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.
For sure. 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. So $7 million less than Tombstone. 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. Yeah. 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. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for
me. There you go. Tape at my grandma's house. 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. Yeah, definitely. Um, why don't you
kick us off? 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. It does. 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. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. Except for
Cookie Time, which is a fucking banger. Well, yeah, I mean, I listened to that
twice on the drive down here. It's on my indie rock playlist. 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. Kissing a bejeweled frog like a brooch or something. 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. 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. You could Cruella
it up a little bit. There you go. And then Phyllis has a sick Rolls-Royce
convertible. Yes, she does. 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.
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. And which
is bigger than Steve and my house put together, plus this building that we're in
right now. 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. Yes. 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. Totally. I don't think it's not a scenario— It's not like pure vitriol
between the two of them from the beginning. Exactly. There's a tenderness that exists like
throughout kind of whatever's happened. 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. They never
define that for us. No, they don't make it explicit. Yeah. 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. 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.
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. Just clothes. 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. Yep. Um, you know, this is great, by the
way, just for the cars. Oh yeah. 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. I mean, really every kind of angle. 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. 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. No, they weren't. They weren't because
I was trying to do flag identification there. It's the red and black stripes and
the green writing in the middle. I'm like, that's the Iraqi flag. 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. And his daughter's got all the attitude.
Yeah. So I wrote down here that regardless of what happens from here,
half a point just for the little car montage. I really like— no, that's good
stuff. Um, let's see here. So, uh, they gotta
deal with uniforms, I think, right? Oh yes, first thing. Yes. 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. Right, right.
So they go out and they're doing their like outfit shop. 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. Yeah. 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. Because we
had— what movie was it? Oh, in The Rock, we had that really bad one
that was the hairstylist. Ridiculous. Yeah. So this guy, I honestly wanted more
of this. Yeah. I want more of this character in the movies. 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. Oh, yes,
yes, yes. From those. He had a— he was very Frunk vibe. Totally.
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— 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. No.
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— 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. Yeah, yeah. 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— 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? What's her name?
Herman. 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. '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.
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.
Anyway, so so moving on. So back home and and she's kind of spying on
her husband. Yeah. His action, like who's coming in and out of the guest house.
Right. And she she spots this nice looking lady. And the
the way you can tell she's hot is that saxophone music starts. That's right.
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. Good night,
Phyllis. So we've got our first, uh, camping trip. The first assignment
basically is we're doing a wilderness, like a weekend away camping. Overnight. One overnight.
One night camp, right? She's way overpacking. Yep. Uh, another— 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. 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. Yes. 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. Which, like, I, I don't know
that much about that area. Can you even go there? Like, I thought that was
kind of— I think it's just hills with nothing. Yeah, I have no idea.
Anyway, so yeah. So yeah, we start the camp out here. 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. Fondue, chocolate fondue, yeah. Strawberries and chocolate fondue and whatever,
but then it starts raining. Yep. 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. Yes. 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. Yeah. Makeup running, everything's wet. Her fur
coat is soaked and all the girls are like, oh my God, are you okay?
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? Yeah. 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. Yeah. And leaves scot-free. 100%. That coat is— that coat
is getting scathed. Yeah. Well, so instead of Chekhov's gun, it'll be Knefler's coat.
Netflix cult. There we go.
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. Yeah, I— that was weird.
That's like 3 times in this movie they sing that song. And it's even like
a remix of it. 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. 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. I got— yeah, so it's hard to tell. I gotta be honest,
I don't think I have the right, uh, frame of reference for the time to
really know. 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. A bungalow. 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. 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. Yeah, I know. 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. My mom had a perm too. All power
to the perms, you know? Like I said, I think very, very blue-collar hairstyle.
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. Love it. We get a lot of
shots of Pee-wee's Playhouse. It doesn't just show it once, it shows several times.
Oh, over and over again. He's got the big thing of underwear, massive piece of
underwear. He's wearing it on his head. 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. 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. Yeah, especially when you're saying, I'll raise you a
wiener. Yeah, right. Not okay. Not okay with this.
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? 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. Yeah. 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.
Totally. That's a good white wine drinking couch. Yeah. Like you spill it
and it doesn't matter. Yeah. Slight discoloration. It will just look like it's part of
the pattern. Yeah. Yeah. 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. That's right. 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? Yeah, right, here we go.
Like, don't count on it. 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. 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.
Tori Spelling, yeah. 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— Bad for survival, but good engineering. 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? Yeah. So I don't know.
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. There is that, yeah. Um, but yeah, definitely not,
like, as much, uh, eat the rich type vibes in the '80s. 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? Like— Herman,
uh, gets assigned, yeah, by Plunder as like the assistant leader
to Troop Beverly Hills. To like spy. She's like, keep an eye on her.
Yeah. 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. Yeah, yeah. So we see that a couple times. She's got a microphone and
everything. Yep. It's just like tape, like a huge tape recorder to her waist,
'cause it's 1989 and there's nothing small. So there's a quick scene where Phyllis is
in her kitchen. Oh, that's right. And she's like watching the Jane Fonda workout video.
That's right. 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. 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. 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. But we gotta earn patches somehow. Can we do this?
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. 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. Yes. 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—
In front of your kid too. 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. Yeah. 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. 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.
Small town Beverly Hills. Uh, we get white woman in
headdress alert. White woman in feather headdress alert. Yeah, not good.
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. Yep.
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. Oh yeah, like what? What you can explain about society, why they don't
help them, or explain maybe why they should.
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. 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. Right. Like, that's really stressful
and crazy. This is an extreme example. It's fucking crazy. 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. And it's a kids movie. And I think it's giving
a dollar amount that a kid could conceptualize. Yeah,
there's that too. Yeah. 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— Wild.
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. 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. Yeah, right.
Like, not at all. Bring me around. But no, 'cause she's— but she hates kids
and it's like— 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. Well, that's true.
No, it does seem like that. One of the patches that they had, uh,
was a sushi appreciation patch. Which I really enjoy. That's very '80s. My daughter can
get that one. That's a good one. Reminds me of Breakfast Club. There's some
sushi appreciation there too. Right. We're in the sushi is for snobs
era. Yes, for sure. Absolutely.
So Freddie's girlfriend, it's just kind of a weird scene of
she just manages to fall off the boat. 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. I think that the
whole awkward fall off the boat was there to set that joke up. To do
that joke, yes. I mean, 100%. Not worth it. And for
'89, I don't know when Lifesavers dropped, but that might have been like, yo,
I never thought of that. Very topical. Because it's funny because it's like, yeah,
they're called that because they're shaped like the real thing. The little booties.
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. That's right. Yeah. Again, crazy levels of obsession.
Yeah. 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. 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. 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.
Chica. Okay, what's Chica? Carla Gugino's character is— yeah,
Chica. 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— what? I don't know. What is it? I couldn't tell.
I couldn't tell either. 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. Yeah,
it's either a coffee cake or a lasagna, but they have it for her birthday.
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. It's something that the wife from The Ref would have made
for their Christmas dinner, right? 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? Between how many kids in a troop?
Every troop's like, what, 12, 15 kids? 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. Yeah. 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— 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. 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. 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. That's right.
At one of the doors, it is answered by Milwaukee Bucks
and LA Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Lou Alcindor answers
the door, and it's not even a David Zucker movie. 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. 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. You're right, we haven't seen him.
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. Right? We really got to up our
game and and and stop leaning into Kareem. And it's not like he's in a
thousand movies. I mean, we're doing a very high percentage of the stuff.
That's true. 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.
Yeah. If you see him, even if you're not a basketball fan, you're just like
that's a guy. 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?
The— yeah. It's shady as hell.
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.
It's just, it's just ugly. 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? 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. Right. 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. 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. 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. Yeah.
Yeah, uh, we've got a song here. I think
it's an original song. I don't know. Cookie Time. It is original. It's a
fucking banger, man. 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. Lovely. Easy, low-hanging fruit. 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.
Oh man! Oh, Dr. Joyce. Oh, Dr. Joyce Brothers. That's right. Other '80s
people we have in this scene: we've got Cheech Marin. Yep. Cheech Marin is a
guest. Not. '80s person, but just a guy. Uh, Ted McGinley, very '80s guy.
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. 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? Really killing it. Yeah.
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. 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. Funny. 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. He had such like a Michael Buffer style career.
Oh yeah. Where you just get known as being like a guy who says certain
stuff and then they could plop him in anywhere. 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. 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. Which feels
very unfair. Unless he's trying to fuck with her. Exactly. It feels very unfair.
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. 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?
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. Milk crate coffee
table or whatever. Like, yeah. 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.
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— 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. 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. Yeah. 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. Oh, nice. 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. 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. Maybe. Yeah.
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. 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. We're having fun with this. 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. 20 little girls, you're not gonna have fun today.
Exactly. Perfect. Thanks to my hard work. That's how it should go. 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. 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. 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. Yeah, this should have been zero. It's one.
Guns firing far more bullets than they ought to. Yeah, and this one would
count. Yeah. Um, there's some nice— so the Troop Beverly Hills, they've got
their kind of like beach-looking backpacks and stuff. Yeah, it's kind of like from the
craft fair sort of almost. 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. 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— You're such a big
Indiana Jones guy and you guys still made it work. Yeah, you know,
it's like, what are you gonna do? She's your Indiana Jones. She is. She's my
Indy. She doesn't like snakes. I like it. 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— That's
right. 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. Yeah, yeah. I just like by default
get away from any snake. That's honestly safe. That's the safer move.
Um, yeah, so they encounter, they encounter this snake and then as they're running they
see a skunk. Oh, that's right. 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.
Yes. 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. 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. It's a gland
in the body. 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. Right. So then not only— so then she,
cuts down a fucking rope bridge to,
to keep people from crossing. Crazy. It's the most psychotic of
all the psychotic things she's done. I mean, and I— look,
I love a scene of a suspension bridge getting cut.
Sure, it's always fun. Speaking of Indiana Jones, it's— yeah, it's wonderful.
Temple of Doom. But come on, man,
you can't do this shit. It's horrific. What's her endgame? Like, she has no— she
wants these girls to die. Yeah, I mean, she would not be happy. She would
be most happy for of skeletons. 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. Yeah.
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. Right. 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. 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. No. 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. 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— 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— 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— you could have saved it. 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.
It would have been insane. 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.
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. Yeah, yeah. You know, in addition to
knowing the entire route and sabotaging everybody on their way, doing a
shortcut on top of that. 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. Yes, I like bimbesses. I kind of dig it, but also
like, that is a tortured construction.
Crazy. And yeah,
like the most treeless area, like if you could see the bridge from where
they were, whatever. Exactly. But so Velda
falls into a hole. Right, a little ditch thing. 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.
Her own daughter. Yeah. Sorry, we're gonna leave now. I learned from
you, Mom. That's right. I learned it from watching you!
So they take off, and then of course the
Beverly Hills troop comes upon her. 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. 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?
Good, good analogy. 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. It's amazing. 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?
Right. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. 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. How horrific. 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. Yes, it is. I will,
uh, I'll go first. Go for it, man. 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.
Yep. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. I think that's absolutely right. 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. 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. 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— 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. By budget, $18 million. Where is the
$18 million? I mean, that does not show up on screen. I really feel like
they fucked up and forgot to rent some of those cars and accidentally bought them.
Something like that. I don't— yeah, I don't get it. 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. Yeah. 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? 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. Nice. 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. 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.
Yeah. 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. Hell yeah! 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. I'm Nic. Thank you so much
for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks,