(upbeat music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. – And I’m Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we’re gonna get a little spooky, we’re gonna get a little hairy, we’re gonna go through puberty. – Wow. – We’re gonna relive puberty a little bit, perhaps via the question, does Teen Wolf the movie suck? – Now, how this came about just to give you a little brief background is as you know, Link has not seen, lots of movies from the 80s. – You had to take a breath there because it was like, it’s such a big thing. – It happens whenever we’re in a group of people and people will start talking about movies that everyone our age has seen. – Like name a ubiquitous movie from the 80s. – E.T. – I’ve seen that one, ha! – Yeah, but you’ve seen it, when? – I think I saw that one as a kid or, you know what? I might of been too creeped out. – Back to the Future. – I did not see it when it came out. – Right and when did you see it? – Ah, a couple of years ago. – Right, so, there are just– – Top Gun. – Goonies? – I’ve never seen Top Gun. I saw Goonies a couple of years ago. – Right, well you started seeing these movies a couple of years ago for two– – Dirty Dancing, I never saw because that’s a girl movie. – But you started seeing these movies because you’ve got kids but also because we’re in these conversations and people don’t believe it. – Name another one. I just wanna prove the point. – Ghostbusters. – Ghostbusters I did not see it, but as a kid. – [Producer] Jaws. – Jaws I’ve never seen Jaws. – Okay, there we go, see, this– – I’ve seen the poster. I know what happens in Jaws. – It’s not about knowing what happens, it’s about experiencing the cultural phenomenon. – You know, Richard Dreyfuss and a shark. About, I’ve been on the Universal ride, I understand, I get it. – And so because it’s not like, there’s not anything particular about Link’s childhood like he wasn’t you know, there’s not some crazy story about Link being in a cave through all of the 80s. – I was busy man. – I wish there was, but I mean– – I was like a kid businessman. – But I didn’t know any of this was happening, I was your friend the whole time. I mean from age– – I was like Ben Stiller in The Royal Tennebaums, as kid, which I did see that movie, but of course not as a kid. – And so because of this phenomenon of him not seeing classic movies from the 80s, we thought that, something we could do on the show, is talk about a movie, or have him watch a classic movie, that he never saw, and then talk about it. And why not start with Teen Wolf? Because it was a 1985 special, one year after we had been friends. – Oh! – And I watched it at the time, and then I watched it again recently, so we could have a more informed conversation, and then you watched it not too long ago as well. – Yeah. – So we’re gonna have a discussion about Teen Wolf, if you want to pause the podcast right now, and go watch the movie, if you’ve never seen it, we encourage you to do that, but we think that you could benefit from this conversation, even if you don’t know anything about the movie, even if all you thought it was was the television show. We’re not talking about the television show, we’re just taking about the movie, that started it all. – Though we did spend some quality time with MTV Teen Wolf himself, Tyler Posey. – We did. – At the, fundraiser event called Stand Up to Cancer. – Super nice guy. – A month or so back, he hosted the livestream, which we were featured in, thanks to all of you who donated. – And our very own Miss Perfect, Jill Wagner, was a– – I wouldn’t call her our very own. – Was a series regular on Teen Wolf. – But talk about, so we are talking about the MTV show right now ‘cuz– – But that’s all we’re gonna talk about. – Tyler was a cool guy. – Right now. – He was very nice, there was like some outdoor food truck party and we hung out with him for a good half hour, just having some quality time. He may come on the show, ‘cuz we hit it off so, we invited him on Good Mythical Morning, that may happen. – Yes hopefully it will. – I like him, he was not, he didn’t seem too wolfish to me, but I’ve never seen the show, but I could imagine that he could turn into a wolf, a la Michael J. Fox, so yeah, I’ve seen the movie. The 1985 movie, and I’ve got some thoughts, I’ve got some observations, and I’ll verbally process the rest to see, if we can arrive at, does it suck? I mean, and I’m gonna say by, today’s standards, I mean is it worth watching? So if you haven’t watched it, we’ll help you come a conclusion of if and when you should. – But before that, Halloween is right around the corner– – By the way, as of the time of recording this, I don’t know what my kids are gonna be. – Well in my family, my family has quite a tradition– – Oh you guys are big into– – Of dressing up, now we haven’t done it, there was a series of years before Locke got too old to be too cool to be a part of a family costume, where we did some incredible things, things I probably posted to my incredible Instagram, RhettMC, shoutout to RhettMC, it’s a really, relatively active Instagram, compared to Link’s, but (laughs) – I can’t argue with that. – So the highlights are, we did, Lord of the Rings, back in its last year of true cultural relevance, like the Hobbit was still happening, and… – Your entire family, the four of you. – Yeah so Shepherd was Gollum, Jessie was– – He was a baby at the time, so he like didn’t have much hair, I’m not gonna say he looked like Golem, but, it was your I– – No, no, he wasn’t a baby. – I can’t remember how old he was. – It was out here, he wasn’t a baby. – Oh it was out here. – But he had, she put like a– – Bald cap. – Rubber bald cap on him, Jessie was– – Okay I’m sorry for insinuating that as a baby he did look like Gollum but uh. – Liv Tyler played, what’s? – Maybe like right when he was born he did. – What’s her name? Liv Tyler played, Ariel? – I can’t remember, I’m drawing a blank. – That’s The Little Mermaid. Ah, I was Gandalf. – Arial. – And Locke was Bilbo Baggins. – ‘Cuz he had curly hair. – He wasn’t Frodo he was Bilbo. – He had curly hair. – I think, maybe he was Frodo. – So it worked out. – I can’t remember who he was. Anyway, we did that and then we did Guardians of the Galaxy, because I had that incredible Groot costume. – [Link] Yeah that we did– – [Rhett] That we did for the show. – [Link] When I was Rocket. – And so Jessie was Gamora, with the green makeup, Locke was the Star Lord and then Shepard was the, Arwen, Arwen, that’s who she played. And then Shepard was, Bradley Cooper’s character, Rocket? What is he? – Yeah which I also was Rocket on the show. – Yeah. But anyway, but then your kids get to a certain point where you can’t do this incredible thing, so there was one year where Locke was just like a weird like Scream character and then Jessie and I were, like bat, I was Robin, she was Batman, and then Shepard was the Joker, but then. – Alright. – I distinctly have a memory of dressing up like a werewolf but it was simply a mask, it was just a rubber mask. – As a young kid– – Smell your own breath. – I would do the, just, the mask with the rubber band, and then it would, the plastic suit, you know, that you would get at like Rose’s, or Sky City, Walmart didn’t exist. – Right. – And there would just be aisles, just reams of these things and now you’ve got, it’s amazing how, these Halloweeentown stores, it’s in LA this happened, but I guess it happens everywhere, it’s like, these huge empty lots, where there used to be like a Toys ‘R Us or something, will just get, overrun for a month with Halloween costumes, there’s so much business in it, it’s crazy. – Well and then you’ve got Halloweentown which– – Halloweentown, Halloween– – Which is open year round. – I don’t get it man. – Oh, it’s always Halloween in my heart. – I’ve never been too, I mean as an adult, Christy and I, you know, we’re just, we just don’t– – To much trouble. – We don’t like to have fun in that way, it’s too much trouble. – [Rhett] Yeah. – You know it’s like trying to get your costume together and everything and then you’re– – Well let me say I wouldn’t do it if my wife was not the kind of person who, talked me into it. – Going to, but the thing is, you would then go trick-or-treating with your kids and it’s kind of a let down but if it were like, a cool party, where, like a masquerade party or something where, then there’s like a… – What do you know about masquerade parties? – Or like a costume– – Have you been to a masquerade party and you didn’t tell me? – No, I’m just imagining– – That’s like an Eyes Wide Shut kinda situation. You gotta share that kind of stuff. – I haven’t seen, is that an 80s movie? – Were you completely naked except for a mask? – I haven’t seen that one. – Was someone scarified? – I don’t know what you’re talking about. – Kubrick man. – Top Gun 2? – It’s not an 80s movie, but I did hear that Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise actually made love. (background laughing) For the scene. – For the scene? – Yeah. – I can neither confirm nor deny it. – No, no they were married at the time, they were like, why are we gonna act like we’re making love when we can just make love. – Is that a question, for me? (laughing) Anyway, I would think about going through the trouble to have like a couples costume type thing if we were going to, a Halloween party, for adults that was like cool and fun and maybe you could win a prize. – Prizes yeah, prizes. – But we always just go with our kids and kids are starting to get old enough where they can go trick-or-treating without us. Even in LA County I think. – I’m gonna be, my wife’s gonna be out of the country and I’m gonna just be taking care of my own kids, and so I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta do the thing that she normally does which is make sure that their costume fits and they have one, they probably, we probably will just skip Halloween. – There’s always a lot of last minute scramble for you guys. – Yeah, I would say switch clothes boys, you go as Shepard and you go as Locke. (laughing) – Well I asked Lincoln, I do remember Lincoln said, I’m gonna be, and I think, let me get the name wrong, he said, I’m gonna be Jacob Sartorius. – Oh! (laughs) – And I’m like who is that? And he said, it’s the kid on musical.ly that I can make my hair look like. – Yeah, he’s like, he lives in the, up in the hills. There’s um– – What do you know about this kid? – No, Locke knows kids that go to school with him, so I knew about him because he’s like, he’s an influence, but then, oh yeah he goes to so and so’s school, that’s where, how do you say his last name, Sagittarius? – Sartorius. – Jacob Sagittarius yeah. – So I’m like, Lincoln you’re just gonna kind of look like yourself, I mean… That’s an easy way to get– – The only rule of Halloween costumes is, they should not require a verbal explanation. Just take it from me. – I would caveat that with in the majority of interactions. Like in 51% of the interactions you shouldn’t have to explain yourself. – 51? – I mean I’m trying to– – That’s a lot of explaining. – I’m trying to be, well 49 explaining. – I think, okay. – 49% explaining. – I think the only acceptable– – I’m just making a point that a lot of people don’t understand pop culture stuff and they still gonna give out candy. – Well the only acceptable explanation in my book is you have to say, well you wait until the other guy gets here and you’ll understand what I am, you know I’m saying like when you’ve done, like there was one year in which I was Albert Einstein and Jessie was EMC squared, the thought bubble, and she had a wand that she would touch to my head as if it were a thought bubble coming out of my head. (Link laughing) So I kind of looked like Einstein, but she just looked like E=MC squared, with a wand, so– – But together you were. – We were, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and it was pretty epic. – Did you win a prize? – Ah, no, just you know, just felt great about ourselves. – But with Instagram, that may be reason enough to, phew, start working on it. – Is Instagram giving out prizes now? – No I think that a lot of celebrities are breaking out their, you know, their, they do it all just for the photo. – What of you think about that concept though? Instagram giving out prizes, picture of the day, and so people win like 1000 bucks. – It’s a good idea, that’s why I need to get back on. – Why is that not, prizes, we need more prizes. Especially on Halloween, Instagram should award somebody the best costume, and again they’ll be like, well how do we know that you’re the one that uploaded it? Doesn’t matter. Whoever’s account has the thing on it first, and it’s obviously a picture they meant to take, they win $1000, divvy it up however you want to. Just give people money. They got plenty of it. – Instagram’s got plenty of money? – Yeah. – Facebook money. – Facebook money. – Backed up by Facebook. – Alright, well let’s get into Teen Wolf man. Because I watched it, and that doesn’t happen a lot so. – We will. – I wanna talk about it. – But first we want to let you know that you can grab this shirt, which is a little bit Halloweenish, Halloweeny, because it’s the mythical beasts shirt. – Show it to the peeps. – Featuring nine, count ’em, nine different mythical beasts. – One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. – There’s a thing called multiplication where you can just count the edges and, you know, do it that way. – The thing I love about this one, is the closer you get to the shirt the more information you find out about each mythical beast, the details go… – Yeah. – Go far. – And the only way to get really close to it is to buy it. At mythical.store. – Thank you for supporting Mythical entertainment, we got lots of, lots of ways you can rep it, and I always enjoy hearing stories of Mythical Beasts who meet in the wild, because one or both of them are wearing merch, like oh my barista saw my Mythical Beasts shirt and said, hey be your mythical best and we had a connection, and didn’t get a discount on my latte but, hey I feel connected societally. – Societally. – Mythical.store – Okay, first of all, spoiler alert. I mean I know the movie is from 1985, but if you haven’t seen it, we are going to spoil things, right from the top here. I’m about to spoil it, so go ahead and watch it if you want to. – Here goes, Michael J. Fox turns into a wolf y’all. (Rhett laughing) I mean I hate to break it to you. – I mean that is on the poster. – And he’s teenaged. He’s supposably 17 years old, I don’t know how old Michael J. Fox was when he actually did that. – I think he was 23, at the time. In fact, none of the people playing teenagers in Teen Wolf were teens, which is not a surprise, that’s typically how this stuff is done in Hollywood, because you can’t trust teen actors, you know you give them direction, and then they’re shifty, they’re shifty. – Yeah and a lot of regulation. – They gotta be tutored. – I didn’t watch Teen Wolf as a kid. – I did. – What do you remember about seeing it then, because I can certainly tell you what I remember watching it a few weeks ago. – Ah, well, so I had the opportunity to watch it, I don’t think I watched it in the theater but I watched it in the 80s. – Okay, yeah. – Probably VCR, maybe in the theater, I dunno, so I saw it in the 80s and then I recently watched it again with my kids and the reason I watched it is because I was like, I remember loving this movie, right? – [Link] Okay. – I remember thinking it was so cool, and now you also have to keep in mind that, in a given year– – You were less than 10 years old. – In the 80s. – When you saw it certainly. – How many movies was I seeing right? I mean I was probably going to three or four movies in the movie theater, a year, and then my dad maybe literally renting the VCR from Coates Family Video and then renting the movies, you rented the machine and the movies altogether, and brought it home, and we would do that once a month, and so, doing that math really quickly, I probably saw 15 movies on the high end in a year. – But once you got a VCR boy, you were trucking. – All that to say that you really remember– – I wasn’t, but you were. – You remember the stuff that you saw, and there’s something so iconic about, I mean it’s got a great name, it’s got, not only does he turn into a wolf but he plays basketball and when he’s a wolf playing basketball, let me tell you right now, wolves are great at basketball. – Turns out. – Say what you will about the wolf pack of NC State University, but in this movie. – We, as out alma matar, will always say positive things. – That’s right, they are absolutely incredible. – He can, well, specifically, he can effortlessly dunk. – Effortlessly dunk man. – I cannot effortlessly say the world effortlessly, but he can effortlessly dunk. – So all the things that would make a 10 year old– – Dribble through his legs. – Think a movie is great, it had. – It had– – So I wasn’t thinking about any of the cheesiness. – Risque moments, with a blonde chick. – Yeah, can’t get enough of those. But let me just– – Strategically cropped shots of toplessness I will say. – Oh say it man. – So you don’t, it’s cropped, tastefully. – But when watching this movie with my children, I heard things such as, this movie starts in a weird place. (laughing) That was the first comment that I heard, they felt like we had started watching a movie at the wrong place in the plot. (Link laughing) We’ll get into that in a little bit. The music is horrible. – Yeah. – The acting is horrible, the makeup is horrible, the basketball scenes are horrible, and what’s a dicknose dad? (Link laughing) – Yeah, I was like, you had re-watched it with your kids, and in spite of everything you just listed off, you were encouraging me to watch it with my kids and I guess it was for this moment, even though you didn’t tell me. (Rhett laughing) Because– – Do your kids know what a dicknose is? – You didn’t tell me, okay well first of all clarify why you’re bringing up dicknose. – Did they figure it out? Well because– – You’re talking about Stiles’ t-shirt. – Stiles, his best friend in the movie, he was just your absolute classic 80s friend. – I’ve gotta talk to you about something because it’s making me nuts. – Yeah well I hear you but if it’s that intense I’ll need a solid buzz to think clearly. – This particular character– – Super, super cool guy. – Shows up in so many 80s movies, not just this guy as an actor– – Comic relief kind of guy. – Yeah. It’s an 80s movie trope is your cool, in style, friend. – Gets you in trouble, hey man I wanna get a keg of beer. – And he has a shirt that he wears for not an insignificant portion of the movie that says, “what are you looking at dicknose”. (laughing) Yeah, so uh yeah, we had to talk about that. – You seemed to really, really like that. – I mean how could you not like that shirt? I mean, you win, the moment somebody reads it you’ve won, you know what I’m saying? If somebody has to read it, they know it’s directed at them, and arg I can’t say anything to that guy. – I don’t know this but I betcha they made it for the movie. – Uh yeah but then they probably sold it at Myrtle Beach and other places, and probably sold them like hot cakes. – You can, of course you can buy that shirt. – Can probably sell one. – And incidentally, once he becomes teen wolf and he’s all popular, Stiles is also creating merch and a marketing scheme for the teen wolf, you know? I mean, what’s her name, Pamela? – Pamela is Mick’s girlfriend, Mick is like the classic bully. – [Link] Yep. – Who ah– – Evil, bad guy. – And even though he was obviously not a teenage playing a teenager, in the movie he’s supposed to be 19, or older than that maybe because he “did time” so I don’t know if you picked up on that detail but– – No. – They referenced the fact that he was in prison at some point, and that’s why he’s still in high school and he looks a little bit older. But, controversially– – I was saying Pamela was wearing a teen wolf t-shirt, which Stiles created and was selling, out of his, teen wolf mobile truck. – Well I’ll get into the more details about like, specifically because lots of questions about Mick, and like where he actually goes to school. – Well I will say that my kids immediately started to echo a lot of what your kids were concerned about. Which was, many they were like, what’s wrong with this music, I mean there’s like– – Is the there something wrong. – Very, like distracting, musical interludes, and like, overlays, very forward, with the 80s music. It was like someone got a hold of a synth and it just wouldn’t go away, it was incessant. – Well I think there are something things that help to explain why the movie has some of the characteristics that it does, so interestingly this movie was made, so this movie came out in 1985, another Michael J. Fox that you might of heard of, a Michael J. Fox movie that you may of heard of came out in 1985 called Back to the Future and uh– – Didn’t see it but I have heard of it. I have seen it since then, and like I said. – And Back to the Future was filmed after, Teen Wolf, but came out before. – Oh, really? – Yeah, so Michael J. Fox was in demand already. – Because he was on– – He was on Family Ties. – Family Ties the television show. Which incidentally Teen Wolf Too, t-o-o the squeal, featured his Family Ties older brother, what’s his name? – Jason Bateman – Jason Bateman. – He was a– – He was his sister’s– – Jason Bateman wasn’t on Family Ties, Justine Bateman was his sister on the show. – His real life sister. – But that’s the real life sister, of– – Yes, what show was Jason Bateman on? – Ozark. (Rhett laughing) Silver Spoons. – Silver Spoons? (Link laughing) – Yeah. – I’ll be damned. – But they obviously tried to get Michael J. Fox to come back for Teen Wolf Too. – What a tangled web we weave. – Teen Wolf Too. – We got back to the 80s man. – Yeah well I think you’re the only one who wove that particular weave. – Yeah I could have sworn he was only Family Ties but yeah, it was just the female version of him. – Yeah, right. – So anyway, they filmed it before Back to the Future, Back to the Future then and they filmed, I did read that, his mom on Family Ties got pregnant so, they had to take a hiatus and then that’s why he all of a sudden was in on Teen Wolf, but I did not know that then they shot Back to the Future afterward and it came out like a month and a half before Teen Wolf was released, correct? – Yes. And just, interesting parallels between Back to the Future, actually they shared filming locations. So there’s a street in South Pasadena that is, so the Howard family home for the movie, is located on the same block as the 1955 George McFly house and the 1955 Lorraine Baines houses from Back to the Future and not only that but the Howard house, is the exact same house as Marty McFly’s mom’s house. – Really? – All in South Pasadena. Now, if you’re wondering why, there’s bunch of things in this movie that seem, interestingly they came out at the same time, but Back to the Future is a perfect movie, okay? It is a perfect movie, it is, you know. – Yeah, there’s many people who make all types of movie arguments that will make up one while and down the other that it is the perfect movie. I’m not gonna make the argument, I loved the movie. I loved the t-shirts more than the movie for a long time. – Well here’s one of the big differences between the two movies. So the budget of Back to the Future, in 1985, was $19 million. – And how much did it make? – It made $389.1 million at the box office. – Wow. – And I’m sure it’s made a lot more than that since then. Now what do you think the budget of Teen Wolf was? – $1.1 million? – Oh, you saw this as well? (laughing) – I looked on the Wiki yeah. – $1.2 million and it made $80 million at the box office, so tit for tat, it actually did better, you know? In terms of return on investment, ROI. (Rhett laughing) But not– – I think you’re just talking percentage. – The percentage– – It’s not tit for tat. – Of the original budget percentage it was, ballooned, like 8000% or whatever, that is 800000%? 8000%, anyway, all I’m saying is it made a bunch of money but it was like a 20th or a 19th of the actual cost and that’s why it seems that way. There’s a bunch of people online who have like pointed out things– – Make it seem cheap. – That make it seem so cheap. It was filmed really, really quickly, like there’s a scene where he’s walking down the street in front of the hardware store and Boof, his girlfriend who’s not his girlfriend, at first she’s not, which incidentally we now know that boof means fart, means flatulence, but that just happened to be her name in the show– – What do you mean we now know that? – From the Kavanaugh hearings. – Oh. – He was asked what boof meant and he said flatulence. – Ah! – But then there are, there’s a scene where he’s walking down the street and you can clearly see the dolly track, in the reflection, the kind of stuff that would have been seen and taken out, or corrected, they just did, there’s a bunch, when he’s on top of the van, he goes by the Jack in the Box and then he goes by the same Jack in the Box again. – Yes, from a different camera angle. – And you can see these things and, I couldn’t see it in the 80s, and no one cared about it that much. I’m sure there were like critics who cared about it at the time but the average movie goer didn’t care about it but my kids have just grown up in this, world where, movies have just gotten better and they care about stuff like that and the nature of the realism of the basketball scenes and all that, they can’t enjoy it. – But here’s the thing though, I mean okay, low budget, maybe I can forgive that, yeah the makeup’s not great in the first, where he’s wolfing out for the first time, and he’s in front of the bathroom mirror and they’re showing close ups of him starting to transform, the makeup is just painfully obvious. (80s instrumental music) I mean it’s just, it’s just cringy. And then they don’t have time to you know, to fix errors in shooting and continuity and things like that that you’re talking about but to me the problem is the story, and then a lot of the direction is just, mindless and cheap man, I mean, it’s odd. It’s just so bad. – Well– – I mean I can give you a few examples. The whole story is weird like, once he becomes the wolf okay, so he transforms in his bathroom. – What a scene. – And– – What a moment. – The best moment of the movie, so I’m gonna say something, absolutely positive, that blew my mind, because I hadn’t seen the trailer, never seen any of this, there’s this whole build up of him transforming, and that was kind of like okay I can forgive the visual effects and the makeup, but then he’s like having a conversation with his dad outside of the door, and his dad’s like, you let me in there son, I’m your father, I wanna know what’s going on in there. And he’s like, okay dad, if you say so, I’m a let you in, and he goes over there and there’s like a build up, build up and he opens the door, and then it’s, the best reveal shot, the most shocking shot, I’ve ever seen, and reacted to, maybe in any movie, is it reveals his dad is also a werewolf. – And the first– – And he is amazing looking. – You mentioned the makeup– – And I busted out laughing when that door opened, and I have to rewind the movie because I had a sustained belly laugh for like minute and a half. – Okay and do you know that the producer– – Awesome. – One of the executive producers of the movie, was interviewed, for the 30th anniversary I think it was and, well maybe it was– – Best reveal I’ve ever seen in a movie. – Specifically I’m talking about this reveal. – Yes. – So, they interviewed him, because apparently they re-released the movie and it came along with like a three hours behind the scenes thing, with talking to all the people involved in the movie, I’m sure– – I bet it’s not as good as this. – I’m sure Michael J. was not involved. – Okay. – Well maybe he was. – Maybe he was. – But the producer, I don’t remember the guys name, was basically saying he was so nervous in watching the film and they definitely saw it as a comedy and he said he remembered one of the first laughs was at, a joke, that was intended for people to laugh, but he said when the dad opens the door and reveals himself the theater uproared, it was uproarious laughter. And it is, it’s crazy because his makeup is nuts, I mean, we’re looking at it right now, it’s like, if you were to take a weed, like a leaf blower and spay it directly at cousin It’s face, and you would hope that all the, hair would part and it would reveal a face in the middle. – [Link] Yeah. – It’s just unreal. – The glasses really bring it all together. – And if you had never seen anything about Teen Wolf and you saw this, picture, would you say, and I said, what is this guy supposed to be, would werewolf be one of the things that you would, would it be in the top ten things on your list? It would definitely not be in the top things on my list. – Like an amazing friendly monkey. – A monkey, they look like monkeys. – Like a, like a bonobo. – And look at Michael J. Fox, look at his makeup. It’s Planet of the freaking Apes man. – [Link] Yeah. – [Rhett] It’s like that’s what they were inspired by, it’s not– – A wolf. – It’s not a wolf. – But let me tell you, because I just can’t lavish– – But I think it’s great. – I can’t lavish enough praise on, I wanna go back to, I wanna look at that picture while I’m talking for the rest of my life. I can’t lavish enough praise on that reveal scene, and I know I set it up with a negative, and I was gonna say negative crap but like. – I was going to. – This, moment, redeemed the entire movie for me. I laughed so hard. And before we came in here I watched the trailer, from 1985, for the movie, and it has this scene in it. They did not, it’s in the trailer. Which is a horribly wrong thing to do. – That’s why it made 80 mil man. Because sometimes you gotta, you know? – So I’m really sad that anyone who saw the trailer, before they saw the movie, it would have spoiled the most definitive reveal scene I’ve ever experienced and I, as an adult man, in 2018, I experienced it fresh, like I’m so glad I got to do that. There were so many opportunities for this to be spoilt for me and somehow it wasn’t. – Well it’s not just how amazing it is visually, it’s the fact that his dad’s a werewolf as well. – Yeah, yeah. – It’s the perfect reveal. – Yeah and I, my guard was down, I was like, this movie sucks, man and my expectations were so low and then they soared, the change in experience in a movie is also something that I’ve never experienced. Going from like, this is, I don’t know if I can keep watching this to, this is my favorite thing I’ve ever experienced on a screen. – Did it sustain itself for the rest of the movie? – I rode the wave and it, again the crescendo was so high that even through it was a downward, even I’ll say spiral from there, it, I never got back down to the low point before that. I was like, this is a cool movie. – Did you pick up on the fact that, his dad said, during the movie, quote, “when you want it, you’re gonna have great power, and with great power goes a greater responsibility”. – [Link] Yeah. – Which is what Uncle Ben says to Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider Man. – Well the, I mean I just think its– – They lifted the line man. – From the comic? – No, Spiderman lifted the line from Teen Wolf. – Oh! (laughs) – That’s my theory. – I’d like to think that it was in the comic before that because, as poorly as this movie’s written, I’d hate to say, I’d hate to think that anything came from it. I mean, it, and the direction is just odd. Here’s the thing that I was getting at. Okay so that’s the transformation scene, the amazing reveal moment, but then, that’s just to his dad. The first time, anyone else knows that he’s a werewolf, the second time he transforms, he’s in the middle of a basketball game, he’s in a tussle, you know, they’re scrumming for the ball, and all of a sudden you can’t see him any more, you can’t see Scott, and they’re like, all of a sudden you hear, oh you hear some rumblings of somebody turning into a werewolf in that pile, and then boom! He emerges, and everybody’s just in a stupor, they’re just standing there and he’s a wolf in his full glory and then, he looks around and he starts dribbling that basketball and then he makes a beeline and slam dunks it. – Arg! – And then, okay. A human being just turned into a werewolf, and slam dunked a basketball, and then, what? The game continues and very quickly he’s the most popular person on the planet. – Yeah. – Like there’s no questioning of how, how the heck, what the crap? Who, are you a werewolf, are you are a planet of the ape-er? What’s going on here? – But is it, there’s something– – And nobody cares! – It’s there something beautiful about that? – Nobody cares. – There was a time, in what we would watch a movie and a guy would turn into a werewolf and we wouldn’t stop and ask the annoying question, or make the annoying observation, oh that would never happen! – [Link] He’s constantly– – Who cares it’s a movie. – He’s popular and then he’s constantly the wolf. And he’s like– – Wouldn’t you? – He’s going– (laughs) – But didn’t you love it? Didn’t you love that moment? – I thought it was stupid. – It was beautifully stupid though. I’m just saying, when I saw that, and I remember as he was dribbling around and the music– – So unrealistic. – Once he starts dribbling around and the music comes on. – Well I know that turning into a wolf is unrealistic but I mean, the way the movie is. – And what makes you good at basketball? Are wolves, is this part of werewolf folklore? – Oh yeah, that’s realistic. – Are they good at sports? Is there any other evidence that werewolves are good at sports, or is he the only one? Because that’s an original thing. – But you know what I’m saying right? I mean it’s, you can’t have a movie now where– – You couldn’t do it now. – You suspend your disbelief so much– – Unless that was part of the bit. – And maybe we’ll come back and make an argument that that’s just part of it and we’re just going to embrace it but I just think, it’s fact, you cannot get away with those types of choices now, you know? Even with something outlandish, you’ve gotta, people have to, if they’re normal humans in normal society they gotta react in a way that is at least believable. – Well as it was happening, I told my kids, I actually paused it and I was like, guys, just so you understand, because they were like shaking their heads in disbelief while he was dribbling around the court, first of all, it was a lot like when the Fresh Prince of Bel Air would play basketball and it was obviously like– – Right. – A set. It wasn’t quite that bad but the ridiculous nature of how quickly he would get to places and the way they would put the shots together, it’s just all so. – Yeah, but that’s just– – Ham-fisted together. – It’s cheap, it’s a cheap movie. – But I had to pause it and I was like, kids you need to understand, when I saw this when I was your age, I thought it was awesome, there was no like, this is dumb in any way. I could not, I don’t know what it is but I didn’t have the ability to look at this guy playing basketball, and then go and watch television and see guys actually playing basketball, and see a real difference, you know what I’m saying? – No, no here’s what it was. It was a, you approached movies differently. There wasn’t this criteria of it reflecting. – It wasn’t a docu-fricking-mentary man. – It wasn’t, it didn’t have to reflect, any level of reality. It was still so special, I mean, we weren’t years from having to rent the VCR, to bring the tape home, and be able to watch it. I mean, in the theater, the movie theater it was just so magical that there wasn’t, you didn’t apply anything from the real world to it, we were just grateful to have it. – Yeah we were just so happy that we were, in our real lives were on pause for a second. You weren’t constantly being exposed to media and you weren’t judging it against each other, we had no idea– – There’s a dolly in that shot! You didn’t know what a dolly was. – And we, critics, I’m gonna read you the New York Times official review, but, just let me say, people in Buies Creek at the time, were not reading the New York Times period, but also not reading the New York Times reviews of movies. We made our decisions about movies based on the poster and the title and who was in it, and when we went to see it. – This movie. – You were gonna have to suck so hard for us to not have a good time. – Even in college, we would determine what movies we saw based on the poster. – Oh yeah. – I totally remember walking– – That’s how you rented DVDs. – That’s why posters existed in movie theaters, because you were there to watch a movie, and you would see the other movies, I mean, it was just like a trailer, and that’s what you would decide. – And then when you started renting movies, you would choose movies based on how many sleeves were up there, it was like, oh there’s 12 of that one, that one must be good, you know what I’m saying? There’s only one of that, must suck. Let me tell you something interesting about the basketball scenes because I found this fascinating. – Okay. – As you might have guessed that was not Michael J. Fox playing basketball when he turns into the wolf, one clue is that he can play basketball, another clue is that it doesn’t look anything like the other Michael, the other wolf in the film, who is played by Michael J. Fox. – It wasn’t that bad, they only showed wide shots. – It’s pretty bad. – They didn’t show close ups of another guy’s face. – Yeah they didn’t make that mistake. – I was fine with that, I’m not gonna crap on that. – So interesting stories, so Michael J. Fox is only five foot four, and they needed somebody to basically stand in for him to play basketball, and they only made one suit, they only made one of the wolf suits and it was a hand-stitched thing that you had to get into. And so, they had to go, they actually had a guy lined up, apparently very short man who was good at basketball, and he backed out at the last minute and they had to go– – Oh whoa, whoa you want me to be a wolf, uh uh. – And there was dude who was a scout for the Dallas Mavericks who was also involved in Hollywood in some way and was involved with the movie that they got and they found this guy Jeff Glosser who was a basketball player from Loyola, I can never say that, Loyola, Loyola, Loyola, Loyola, Loyola Marymount University, and he was like, a college basketball player and he’d never been in a movie and they were like, you’re short, you’re good at basketball, and you can fit in this suit, can you come and play basketball like a Globetrotter (laughs) for us and he was like, sure, and he did it. And that’s the only thing he’s ever done in entertainment. – He did great man. Dribbled between his legs, dunked the basketball. – Yeah, I was super impressed. – He was awesome. There was some weird direction. At one point, you know, once the wolf is so popular, by the way, he’s like montaging around campus, being everybody’s friend like, break dancing with a dude. – Which incidentally, that was, I specifically recall that moment because this is the case with a lot of 80s movies, but super whitewashed right, I mean we’re talking everybody at the school, all of his friends, all of his teachers, everybody’s white, and then there’s one black guy that shows up and he break dancers with him. – Oh gosh, you’re right. – It’s like, that was, they made these decisions, and no one was like whoa whoa whoa, maybe we should think about representation a little bit. – Yeah– – They were not thinking about representation, in any shape or form. – And Stiles, had specific, homophobic and racist jokes. Like, overtly. – Right. – But I mean offensive, I had to, I had to pause, and I had to say– – To explain, pause and explain? – I had to make absolutely sure to my kids that okay, the reason why you don’t hear that term, is because, everyone knows not to say that term. – Right. – So that particular f-word is in the movie. – Yes I remember, I remember that. – But what was I getting at? Oh, the weird direction. So he’s break dancing, he’s montaging his way through life, as the wolf, nobody’s blinking an eye, he’s the most popular guy, now he’s not with the girl that you want him to be with, he’s with the most popular girl who’s like the dramatic actress with the blonde hair. And he’s, decimating the opponents of all the basketball squads so much so that all of his teammates are bored, so it cuts to a shot of, them playing a basketball game, at some point, and the wolf’s going around and taking on the whole team by himself so all of his teammates, one of his teammates is on the court, eating an apple. (Rhett laughing) Like, I mean, that’s just a funny directive, you know? I mean the director’s literally saying, someone on the set is saying, okay you know, I want you guys, you’re not playing basketball, give him an apple. And I’m on the fence about that, because that’s either genius– – I think it’s genius. – But because it’s– – But why an apple? – And again, you can’t do that now, you could do that in like a, I mean, you gotta have a really, the movie’s gotta be really dumb, it’s gotta be like, I don’t know, to make directorial choices like that, this is a really stupid joke and it’s like silly, silly. – Yeah. – Again it just doesn’t fit, this type of movie doesn’t exist where you can make directorial choices like that, that’s like– – And I think it did exist at the time. – I think that was an 80s thing. – It was very clearly a comedy. – But the kid’s on the court, eating the apple. – Yeah, well we should shoot a basketball scene and there should be an apple being eaten. – I’d like to, so I mean, I can really, except for the reveal scene, I can really start to poo-poo this thing, as like, it’s just, it just doesn’t make enough sense, and it’s just stupid but– – Well, before you, if you’re planning on redeeming it, before you, I wanna take you– – I’d like to explore something that might redeem it. – Okay, because I want to read for you, word for word, because it’s not very long, the New York Times review from August 23rd 1985. – Okay yeah. – Written by Vincent Canby, fancy New York Times film critic. – Do it. – “Teen Wolf, which opens today at Loews State and other theaters, is a high-school comedy about a young man, a sweet-natured nonentity, nonentity, who gains small-town celebrity and power when he discovers that he’s a werewolf. For Scott Howard, Michael J. Fox, being a werewolf doesn’t mean baying at the moon and chewing on the necks of former friends, it means that, when he wills it, he can turn into a werewolf who’s a star basketball player and much in demand as a prom escort. The uplifting point of all this comes when Scott must decide whether or not he’s willing simply to be his nonentity self and thus forfeit the fame that comes with his other, hairier identity. For a film that’s so innocuous, Teen Wolf is aggressively boring. It doesn’t even know much about high school life, since the members of the basketball team that Scott’s team must play for the big championship attend his high school. Is there such a thing as an intramural, all-state championship?” Which is something I said, it seems like Mick goes to his school, ‘cuz he’s at his school, he’s at his prom, he’s on the other team, during the state-championship. – Oh and I gotta interject though– – How does this happen? – I was baffled by that and I was like, yeah the evil guy from the other team, because I was so confused, and then another, just aside, directorial choice, in that same basketball game, in the final one, where he chooses to not become the werewolf but to be his Michael J. Fox self, and he wins the game at the free throw line. – Yeah. – But before– – Nothing like a free throw scene. – Before he, it all comes down to that sweaty free throw. – So sweaty, unbelievably sweaty. – His arch nemesis is standing, under the basket. (Rhett laughing) Facing him, I’m like– – That’s a lane violation, possibly. – It’s just like, the director’s like, give that man an apple, and I want him to stand right there, when he throws that orange, circular thing into the laundry basket. – And can we get another bucket of sweat. (laughing) – He’s so sweaty. – I mean, they literally– – I love the sweat man. – They just doused him, it was almost unpleasant. – How can you– – It was almost unpleasant amount of sweat. – How can you put the kid underneath the basket? – It’s, that’s not– – Ah because. – It’s not how it works. – Because isn’t that better than him not being under the basket? Like if you have a choice? Like if basketball could work that way, if you could put the bad guy on the other team, underneath the basket, would basketball be more entertaining? Yes. – Yes. – The director was like, I wanna make the entertaining choice, can we eat food on the basketball court? – Yes. – Yes we can because it’s more entertaining. Can we put the villain underneath the basket, yes we can. Can we sweat profusely, and not have people wipe it up? Yes we can. – All because a kid turns into a wolf and nobody cares, they love it. – Let me read the last paragraph – Give me a keg of beer! (Rhett laughing) – Yes we’ll talk about that scene. “The film is overacted by everybody except Mr. Fox, who is seen to far better advantage in Back to the Future. The special effects aren’t super, but the movie isn’t important enough to damage the classic werewolf myth.” Ooh! “No silver bullet is needed to dispatch this movie. It dies a natural death as one looks on.” Woo! That was a rough review. – But he’s the problem– – Still made 80 mil. – This guy, apparently, did not go through puberty. – Oh, okay, here we go. – I think… – Metaphor huh? – I think we got, I mean obviously, you know, he’s a teenager, he’s in the bathroom trying to deal with himself, and figure out who he is and, what happens with wigs. – What are you doing son? I’m trying to deal with myself dad. (laughing) Leave me alone, I’m turning the music up. – He’s getting hairy, he’s getting hairy. – Yeah. – ‘nough said, I mean his dad says, you got to get a hold on it son. – Oh gosh, that’s very direct. – That’s a quote, that’s a quote. (Rhett laughing) I mean, it’s a time in your life where everything’s changing and you’re just, you’re scrambling, through the ravages of hormones to just get a hold of yourself, emotionally, physically– – Why do you think it didn’t happen in middle school though? If it’s film about puberty, why is it a senior in high school? Because you gotta– – He’s a late bloomer dude. – Because you wanna get Michael J. Fox basically. – He’s a late bloomer. – Ah what can he do, he can play a high schooler. He would have been an 8th grader if he looked a little younger. – I had to fast forward through the fully bloomed scene, where, she gets, she takes her top of and says, what, what makes you wolf out? – You fast forwarded huh? – Well I mean I had my whole family there and I’m not– – It’s educational. – And you never know what they’re gonna show in like a PG movie in the 80s. – I mean I had to– – This could be a birds and the bees lesson. – I had to watch a woman give birth in biology class. You know? – Well I watched it later on YouTube. (Rhett laughing) It was severely disappointing. – Um, so you think it’s about puberty, which is a very, I think that’s the consensus, it’s about the changes, that you undergo as a teenager that you feel like you can’t control. But what’s the moral of the story? – But it’s also, I mean I think he was on to that which is are you, you know, the question was, is he going to change who he is in his core being just because outwardly he’s different, and like, date someone based on, questionable motives, questionable criteria, or is he going to, be true to his true self, that doesn’t change just because you get hairy, and get more talented at basketball I guess. – Yeah because I don’t know how– – And got o the prom as yourself, versus going to the prom as– – Yourself that went through puberty? I don’t understand the analogy, because you go through puberty and then you’re through puberty. – But he– – He can’t go back. – Okay that is weird yeah. (Rhett laughing) But I think even though– – A little weird! – I’m trying to make this work. – Okay, alright. – But he had the choice to go to the prom as himself with Boof or he went alone as the wolf man hey look at me but then he ends up with her, the girl that he should be with, as himself. But yeah, he could choose to go back, it’s kind of a mixed metaphor here. – Well cuz it’s like, okay, with great power– – It’s not written well, there was such an opportunity, so I will say that– – Lee me explain all this. So if with great power comes great responsibility, if that’s, a message, that’s a theme in the movie, but then the application of that theme is, and with that great power, you don’t need to use that great power, you know what I’m saying? It’s like he had great power, but when was he actually supposed to use it? You know his dad comes in, during the prom scene, when he’s being picked on by the Principle, the Vice Principle, it’s always the Vice Principle, for some reason. – They can’t afford the Principle. (Rhett laughing) – Yeah you gotta pay that guy more to act? – 1.2 million. – And his dad comes in and just grows at the guy, and doesn’t he pee himself? – He pees his pants yeah. – So, maybe you should just use the power of the wolf very sparingly? Is that the? Because, he actually– – Well I also think, when he was making out with Boof at the party, like, he like clawed her back and like, I don’t know, maybe I’m projecting too much of what we’ve now in a good way are sensitive to, it’s like be in control of yourself and respect other people, especially someone that you’re making out with or potentially, you know? It’s like, that was a weird moment when it was like, but I think that was their way of trying to say, well you gotta be, you’re changing but you’ve got to stay in control of yourself, man – Right. – Dude. – But this– – That’s a very good message. – This analogy would have worked, if it was more of the classic superhero plot, which is, you find out that you have a super power, you learn how to deal with that, and then you use the superpower for explicit good, right? But he gets the super power, and then decides not to use it to win a basketball game. You know what I’m saying? It’s just a, it’s an odd, maybe that makes it great? – He didn’t let his hairiness define who he was. – But he still is a werewolf, it is who he is. It’s not something that he’s not. – No, it’s part of who he is, but it’s not all of who he is. It is an outward manifestation, it’s an outward aspect of who he is, that the only reason, that girl dated him, and he was popular was because of something that wasn’t ultimately the core of who he was. And so was he going to go through life, just leaning on the things that people like about him and that made him popular and got him laid? No, he went back to who he actually was with people who knew him and cared about him for who he was and got hairy only when he needed it, when he needed beer. – Right, we he demands the keg of beer from the ah, the liquor store. – Give me a keg of beer. – Okay, well that is definitely one take on it. – If you, I mean you played basketball. – And I went through puberty, and I got a lot better when I went through puberty and I’m glad I stayed. – What if Triton, you were playing Triton Harness Central Gym, and all of a sudden you were in a scrum with a guy, or you were on the bench, of course, you were like, so you’re watching, I don’t want you to be in the scrum, I want you to be in a place where you’re watching. – But I wasn’t on the bench, what are you talking about? Jut in this analogy? – You were resting. Whatever, don’t get sidetracked. – Oh, you made me think, of course you were on the bench, oh no I started man. (Link laughing) Started, I was very hairy too. – You were an observer at this particular moment. – Hairy legs. – And then a werewolf pops out, I mean the whole place would clear out. – Yeah. – I don’t mean to go back to this. – We wouldn’t care that he scored. It’s like oh! – We would not be there to see him him dunk. – As soon as yeah, by the time he got to the basket everyone would be gone. He’d just be doing a shoot around by himself. – Well what, is that true though, am I actually wrong, would everybody pull out their phones and film it. – Of course that would happen. – I mean it’s like– – If he didn’t seem threatening– – That woman that got hi by the golf ball man, and her eye exploded. – Mm hmm. – Everybody just started filming it instead of helping her. – I think first of all they wouldn’t say– – Of course she didn’t turn into a werewolf. – I think first of all they wouldn’t say he turned into a werewolf, they’d be like, look at that guy that turned into a monkey. (laughing) You know what I’m saying, look at that guy that looks more like a monkey now. (Link laughing) – An orangutan. – Yeah, yeah. – It’s very long hair. – Look at that guy that looks like he’s in bad monkey makeup. How did he, where did he come from? Man he’s good, is that legal? – I could see, if it were football, I could see that happening. And you know like, they have trick plays in football. – [Rhett] Yeah. – You don’t have trick plays like that in basketball. Especially on a high school level. – You could though, if somebody’s gonna dress up in a suit, its like the mascot suddenly getting in the game and was like, I don’t know is this cool, can we do this? – Of course, the one thing I didn’t mention. – It’s actually just like the mascot getting in the game. – Tying it into puberty, you know who the mascot was? Speaking of puberty, the beavers. – Oh, wow. – The mascot was the beavers. I’ll leave it at that. – Yeah what does that mean? – So, I’ll leave it to beaver. Phil is over there feeding me lines. (Rhett laughing) Leave it to beaver, you say that. (laughing) So where are we landing on this? I mean– – Well the question was– – First of all, I have established– – Does it suck? – For me, I’ve seen Teen Wolf, I can talk about it, I don’t have to like, bow my head or no longer make eye contact when it comes up in conversation, with other cool people who lived lives in the 80s. – Now you say, I did a whole podcast on it, did a whole pod on it. (laughing) You should listen it’s called Ear Biscuits. – I mean the reveal scene, highlight of my life, highlight of my cinematic life. – You wanna get that guy tattooed on your back? (laughing) That would be amazing. – Hairy back, I have a tattoo hairy back. – Oh man, if you got that, I would give you– – I’d put him on my butt cheeks. – If you get that tattooed somewhere on your body– – That’s awesome. – I will get something that you suggest tattooed on my body. – Yeah, that’s the dad from Teen Wolf. (laughing) – I mean it’s so good. – That would look luscious on one butt check. – Maybe one pec. – One pec. – One pec, yeah. Think about it. – So that’s my takeaway, so– – But does it suck, that was the question. – By today’s standards, of course. But is that even fair? Like, everything we’ve been doing, I’ve started to feel dirty, with our modern day assessment, it’s not fair. – But that’s why I talked about Back to the Future. – Yeah, that’s true. – A contemporary film with it, that was the perfect movie– – You’re right. – That was incredible. – They hacked their way through the script. To me, I’ll even forgive the directing, the script is hacky and that’s the death nail, it’s not anything else. I mean everything else could be endearing, but it’s like we’re trying to make sense of it and there’s so many pieces and they could of brought it together better, I mean, we’re forcing it together to like, have some redeeming quality and I feel like I put together a life lesson from it but I did a lot of heavy lifting. – So you say– – In spite of the script. – It sucks, Teen Wolf sucks. Is that where you’re landing? – Yes. – I’m saying that Teen Wolf sucks as well but you know what? It doesn’t matter that it sucks, you should still watch it. And it’s still great, in it’s own way. But does it suck? Yeah it sucks, you knew that before we started this, why did we even do this? (laughing) (Rhett laughing) Yeah you should watch it though, you should have already watched it, this would have been that much better, but go watch it now and then listen again. – Alright there it is. – Give us another listen. – If there’s any other, movie, a ubiquitous movie from the 80s, #EarBiscuits me, I’ll let you know if I’ve seen it, maybe we should do this again, let us know. – I think we need to do Top Gun, personally. I really think Top Gun. – They’re making a new one. – Yeah, because they’re making a new one. – I haven’t even seen snippets, it’s gonna be so fresh to me. – Yeah, there’s a great reveal scene, you can get it tattooed on your other pec. (laughing) You’re gonna be fully tatted by the time we stop talking about movies. – Okay, alright, it’s got what’s his name in it. – Goose? – Yeah what’s, Van um. I wanna call him van what’s his name but I don’t know why I’m saying that. Val Kilmer! – Yeah, it’s got Batman in it. – It’s got Val Kilmer in it. Alright, but any other movies like that, let me know and let use know what you thought about Teen Wolf #EarBiscuits. This was fun, I learnt so much. – Yeah I had fun. – I’m so hip. – Happy Halloween. To hear this Ear Biscuit in it’s entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the links in the description to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show, Good Mythical Morning, click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your mythical best.