Episode 23: Man of the House (1995)

M weird weah. After his mom started dating Carusist. Pretty girl, you know what. I mean, I'm a lovely girl. Ben had this show who was really Man of the House?

Yes, excuse me, I mean it's someone cooler. Did you really actually, Jess? Then my advice to you is to. Get rid of this guy. Yeah?

But how do I do this? The Indian Guides, the shooting guide thing could be the solution of my problem. How are you Jack? Fine? Thanks?

How are you picking Indian names for each other? It's one of the most important Indian guide Richards. How about squatting dog? Just make sure they're the same height. The San Francisco Chronicle says it's loads of laps and tons of fun.

Well, it doesn't get much better than this. It's the story of a father to be and the son who doesn't want him to be Chevy Chase, Barah Fawcett, George wam and Home Improvements Jonathan Taylor, Thomas Man of the House rated PG. Squatting that's the best you could come up with. I had a squall m numb note. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast.

I'm one of your hosts. Christasher from the Culture Cast and I'm joined all the way from San Francisco, the City by the Bay, Cambridge, gen with Shawn's Mark Begley, Hey, how are ya? And all the way from the Midwest somewhere your friend and mine the Projection booths own Mike White. Why do you ask? Two dogs, fucking.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Apparently this name of this podcast is too long for some people. Well guess what. I don't care, and neither did the two other co hosts of this show. And on this episode of the Chasing chevy Chase podcast, we are talking about nineteen ninety five's Man of the House, yet another Chevy Chase film.

Yes, this film stars Chevy Chase in a starring capacity I guess a co starring role opposite Home Improvements Jonathan Taylor Thomas Good Lord Boy. The nineties were a wild time. I was five years old when this movie came out. Wow, I want to fucking die. Film also stars fair Fawcett, George went Ron Ron Canada who has one of the greatest one of the great names, and Richard port Now who is in The Sopranos hilariously enough, and Art Lafleur, who plays Babe Ruth in the Sandlot, which that's you know, when I think of Art Lafleur, that's what I think.

Oh, I think of him as being the boss from Trancers, Jack Death's boss from the Future. I'd like to point out once again, I was five years old and this movie came It's. Never too late to watch Trancers. I was twenty five when this movie came out. Let's see, I would have been twenty.

Three, so Mark Begley, since you were the oldest amongst us when this film came out, and undoubtedly you saw this in theaters lined up the line of one, what did you think of Man of the House? Well, I saw this opening day five times, opening day eight, just stayed in my seat, had a catheter put in, and was rare to go. Just drink pepsi all day long and sat there and peede in my Ostamy bag and watched it and loved it ever since. I was saying, I think at some point you might just if you didn't get up, you might just be drinking your own piss. My bipads act as a recycling unit.

Guys, I have never seen this film before, and I had I don't even know if I knew this thing existed before we started this show. I knew that Jonathan Taylor Thomas had been in a few Disney films, Tom and Hook and whatever else he was in when he was super hot in the nineties because of Home Improvement aforementioned Home Improvement. But yeah, no clue. I was absolutely surprised that Farah Fawcett was in this film. I don't know why.

It just seemed like an odd pairing. And I didn't really know that she was still doing movie acting in the nineties, So was. She really in this film? Though? Yeah, yeah, I mean Home Improvements Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Farah Fawcett.

According to the movie trailer, Guy her Boy. Her name is mentioned by his voice in the trailer. I mean one of the many issues of this film. But yeah, I had no idea what to expect other than I'm probably not gonna like it all that much, and it was a whole lot on nothing. That was my main complaint, very insipid and just like a blank.

But just I'll I have my memories are slipping already as we talk about it, so mostly if I remember anything by the end of the show. That's it for me? What about you, Mike? Like Mark, I was there first day. I only saw it four times because it started a little bit later in the day because of the running time.

No, this was the first time. I saw this on Friday on Disney Plus and this was the. Best thing you could say, By the way, is this fucking thing's available? And Disney Plus if you are so inclined. Yeah, this was one of Chevy Chase's biggest hits in the nineteen nineties, which is unbelievable.

This is one of the first movies that he was in in the nineties that actually made money. And I think that was all because of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He was the star of the show. He's the Shirley Temple of the nineteen nineties, making all these movies and actually getting a lot of people in the box, you know, through the box office into the theater. I was pretty unfamiliar with JTT.

I really never watched Home Improvement, even though it starred Detroit's own Tim Allen, who is now hiding for his life in the Hollywood Hills, or at least he was a few years ago because of the wolf mob that is always after him. You sure it wasn't those cocaine dealers out? Yeah? Read it out? Yeah, he did right out de LUSI Yeah, I mostly knew Jonathan Taylor Thomas because I had a friend who was in a movie called The Tennis Ball Massacre three I believe it was called, and he played a pedophile who was obsessed with Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

So he had like pictures that he was in a car and he would flip down hit the sun visor and he had all of these JTT pictures up there, and he would like kiss his hand then kiss the pictures, just like, oh, I love you JTT. And it was so creepy, played it so well, but in a comic way. That was my experience with Jonathan Taylor Thomas seeing this. I mean I really wanted to murder him for so much of this film. He's just the most obnoxious little prick in the world in this movie.

And yeah, once once it turns into Daniel Stearn's bush whacked at the end, I was okay with it. But until then, I was just like, oh my god, what a slog this is? Because I hate Jonathan Taylor Thomas's character and I don't give a shit about chevy Chase's character because it's played by chevy Chase, and I just know he's going to be so obnoxious. And of course he does this whole thing with you know, the breakfast and doesn't put the lid on the blender, and then the thing's on fire and he can't just stop the blender and go over and turn off the frying pan. It's like you're a man child, just like Vern from the or Sorry, Ernest from the Earnest films is more capable of having a life than any chevy Chase character.

I do, in fact know what you mean. Vern. That's that's the when Ernest really becomes self aware of. Distinguished Earnest, Yes, yes, Earnest through the Earnest, Earnest through the Fourth Wall. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was anybody bigger in the nineties Jesus age Christ.

His first film role, do you guys know what his first film role was the Lion King? Oh yeah, which they pay a little homage to in here where he's no, no, I'm good, h chevy Chase, you do your thing with the Indian guides, who I kept thinking there was Indian guys through the whole time. A couple of the Indian guys. Yeah, how you doing with the Indian guys? I mean, what a what a strange mix of hilarious father son comedy and mob witness tampering, Like yes, what a fucking what a fucking strange combination.

And also again, you know, speaking to the nineties of it all, what a nineties is them? Like again, you know, we had Cops and Roberson's where Chevy Chase is a man with a house and here come the cops. And in this it's Chevy Chase is a lawyer and here come the bad guys. Like what what was it with the nineties? And just like casual mobsters walking around committing just light felonies and or attempted aggravated manslaughter.

Uh I think of Also, oh god, uh I guys remember Simbad in House Guest. That's the one. That's another one where it's like just casual, like I believe he's like a like a low like it was like in Debt to the Mob or something. There's all these weird nineties movies that have like hints of like crime to them, and this is there's a children's film, there's a Disney film. Jonathan Taylor Thomas in this film, if his last name wasn't Dahmer, I'm a little disappointed.

He's like a fucking socio path in this film. He's like, Haha, I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt. I'm gonna hurt this guy because some other man hurt me. Like whoa, oh yeah, are you gay? Like a lot of.

Actually, I mean, Jonathan Taylor Thomas isn't gay, is he? Yes? He is? No, he's not. Yeah, he came out oh man, yeah, which was I was so surprised that that Tim Allen would even have anything to do with him, because I thought he was that big of a piece of shit.

All right, this is news to me. That's Tim Allan's response. By the way, Mike is not to shun him, it's just that the Tim Allan noise, the surprised Tim Allan noise. Uh. You know.

I think what's funny is the child in this film that Jonathan Dailor Domins plays is meant to be precocious, but he comes off as rain and like a lunatic. And if you knew a kid like this, you would fucking run the other way. Like he's insane, the way he treats adults is wild. The way he's like being like intentionally manipulative is pretty horrified. And the fact that we're meant to like empathize with him as a character, I feel like is I don't know, there's this thing where you know, he's doing like the Deadpool Ryan Reynolds of it all, like the oh Me of it all, and it's like, you're fucking fifteen.

It doesn't work when you're this age because it just it would work if you were an adult, but as like a twelve to thirteen year old kid, you just kind of come off as like manipulative and insane and be like you're being written by an adult. I don't know if there's a Bechdel test for children being written in a movie, but if there isn't, maybe it's the Jonathan Taylor Thomas test, because this is like a child written by an adult, so clearly, like you know, I can't resist a pretty girl. Ah, I don't like girls. Like, yeah, eleven years old, I. Don't like girls.

I think I had eleven years old, I was very into girls. But I just. If you're not into girls, we know why now. So I just googled and it looks like there have just been rumors of him being gay forever. So I apologize.

I really thought that he came out back in the late nineties, early two thousands, so I apologize out. I'll just cut this part out, Just cut this. Out, so then it looks like I'm just calling him gay. What the hell, No, they'll cut all of it out. Oh okay, all right.

I'll just cut it around, just cut around it, so it sounds like you're saying, Jonathan Taylor Thomas gay, he's so gay, so gay. I just I was trying to think about these, like other precocious children movies that came out in the nineties, like this one, where the kids are written so adult like, and it's just it's grating because a kid written like a kid works, a kid written like an adult or like again, like a small Ryan Reynolds just doesn't work. And yeah, this like sly fucking grin that Jonathan Taylor Thomas has in every scene is it's a lot. He's just too much as a character. And yeah, I don't.

All I want is for Chevy Chase to like snuff him out with a fucking pillow halfway through the movies, be like this kid's not worth you know, far Foss is not worth it. Man, Come on, oh yeah, I think it's our lafleur at one point says oh if that if you were my kid, I'd take him out to the wood shed, Like when Chevy Chase is doing that whole third person thing explaining their relationship and it's just like, oh yeah, I beat that kid. Basically, it's like, well, okay, maybe that's where the director got it. What an awkward thing to do as well, where you're telling the story of your life in front of a group of adult in. Front of everybody.

Yes, yeah, oh god, well those guys are tight. Now, those guys are real tight. George Went, George Went is very tight, and his son Norm. And David Shiner, who another nineties is like having a character who in no U universe would they actually be able to exist this way without saying anything because he's not a mute. He's just like a he's a former circus performer.

Like this guy's a real method actively. Oh yeah, he's. Not giving it up, guys, he's gone full made, he's gone native Like what why? Like it's such a ninetiess And there was always a character in these like nineties movies where it's like they're in there's one weird thing about them, Like in the Litwer Rascals movie, there was a kid that also didn't talk. It's like, why is this a thing, like a character that just doesn't talk and everybody acknowledges that is normal, Like that's not normal, that's really not normal.

And then at the end of the movie he does talk and he talks about how he's been chasing aim in this whole time. Is it right, that's the only thing I think of his fucking silent Bob. It's like, that's the only time it may be made. When when it comes to this whole thing of him the kid and just this empowerment, I mean they had the whole I don't know, it's like kid's power movement kind of thing, not like a political movement, but it was just so many movies where it's like the kid that are in charge and the adults are the fools. I mean, you know, like I think the last time I really saw that was like the Frankie Munez years with like what was that Big Baby or Big Boss, The one where Big Big Liar, Big Liar, Fat Lie, Big fat liar.

There we go. Yeah, but like back in the nineties, you had like your well Mcaulay Culkin kind of really kicked it off a lot with Home Home Alone. I almost had Home Improvement. And then you had things like you know, Three Ninjas or Don't Tell Mom, the Babysitters Dead, like those kind of things where the kids are the ones that are smarter than the adults. And this one is right there and Chivy Chase plays a buffoon so much and so well you would think it would be a natural relationship.

But no, not at all. Remember big girls don't cry. They get even Mike, you remember that movie we watched together with Griffin Dunn and David Brahirn. Yeah, wow, another like kid is Well, that was I saw the preview for that movie and Suburban Commando on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret of the Ooze vhs. And that's another one of those like precocious shithead kid movie because it's like, you know, hey, my family's crazy, aren't they, Like I Yeah, mixed families of the nineties man crazy.

And what I mean the whole thing of the first half of the movie is just JTT being a cock blocker. I'm like, that's not endearing at all, Like you cannot be in charge of the relationship that your mom has. I'm so sorry. He isn't the point woh jtt or. It's like that's the whole thing.

It's like, why are you like in your mom's business? Yeah, are you fucking your mom? Like, Okay, you're not fucking your mom, so stop being weird. It's like, like you said that weird like child empowerment thing that just doesn't make any sense. Like he doesn't have any money, he doesn't have a way to pay for things.

He can't even get around, so why the fuck is this kid acting like a little asshole Like I just it's so bizarre to me because. Because he was traumatized, anytime anybody puts her hand out of a window in waves, he has massive flashbacks. You get that that ironsides noise from uh kill Bill and there. I mean, it's the you know what it reminded me of that that that trope reminded me of Angels in the outfield. I'll come back with it when they win the Penn And when the Angels win the Penn and I'll be back.

It's that same thing, where's again? Like or free Isn't Free Willie the same thing? I think free Willie? Michael Madsen's like the step dad character in that movie, which is fucking insane that Michael madd Like crazy that Michael Madson and Chevy Chase and a lot of these actors at Farah fawst Are and children's movies in the nineties like holding on to their relevance if some of them were ever relevant at all. In Chevy Chase's case as a film actor in the nineties, like it's crazy that this movie made him money.

That's how low the bar, but also how popular. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is like, good god, if you're Chimpy Chase, how if you're Jemvy Chase. I wouldn't say. How emasculating is this? But what do you call this?

Like being in the movie that's successful and the child actor being the one that moves the needle because you can't anymore? Hey, how about that Ryan O'Neil cameo. That was nice? I enjoyed that, Like what that was one of the two chuckles that the movie got out of me? Like I thought I thought that he well, he and Farah Fawcet.

Were they still dating or they had dated because the director was also going out with Farafauset. Yeah, I don't know if they were still together or if he was just being a good guy and was like, yeah, I'll do the cameo of the loser guy that falls on the beach or whatever. I don't know. I don't know if they were still together at that time. It seemed to me like that was quite a bit earlier.

But I don't know. I didn't even bother to look it up, and I don't know. Also if that relationship between Farah Fawcet and the director was happening during the time of the movie or not. I'm right kind of after yeah, yeah. The director and the writer, So Jim James or the director and Jim Crikshank, the writer, they were were They were partners for a long time.

They all they both worked on What Tough Guys was their first movie, that one with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Do you remember that one? And then they did they wrote the screenplay for Three Men and a Baby I think, and then the TV movie fourteen Going on thirty, which sounds like an age swap. Movie. It is.

So there's a film called thirteen going on thirty with Jennifer Garner. Oh maybe we're gonna have to is a body swap movie? Or Oh nice, I'm gonna have to watch that one now because I'm a big fan of those. They worked nice. They worked on Mister Destiny, the one with James Belushi.

Is that right? Or is that Destiny turns on the Radio? Or was he in both of those? Jim Belushi? That is?

Yeah, it's Jim Belushi and mister Destiny. And what else did they do together? Sister act two? And then they did this and then I don't know if they can continued on after this one. I think they did.

They worked on one called Blowing Smoke. I guess so. Well Kris Shank had to work with or given that Crookshank was not a human and was a cat, because I swear to God when you said Jim Crookshank, I thought that was just a pen name for a cat that typed, because it's what the last name, like crooks shit? Come on? Yeah, well yeah, they's Seally Crookshank.

The she the animator, she made Quasi at the Quackadero. And she you have scrimble shanks. So oh okay, yeah, god, mister crookshank. Yeah. So and and you know you're doing the research and reading about this movie, this is not a kid's movie.

Correct, I don't know. There was a lot of sex. Talk and weird like boiling heads in acid and shit. That's just like, this is not a kid's movie. And and I'm asking because again, like I'm just trying to figure out the you know, the the or and the krookshank of it.

Only the idea behind the script is what we have the world's most popular, profitable child actor, and we're gonna place him opposite aging Hollywood relevant stars. Yeah, and it was as it weren't getting people through the door at this point. That's what I'm saying, Like this a kid's movie or was it trying to be like a kid and adult facing movie? Because it it doesn't succeed in the latter. It succeeds in being a kid's movie because Jonathan Taylor Thomas is for as much as his character is a precocious little shit, he is a good child actor.

Beyond being a good child actor, I don't really know, because he didn't do a lot of acting past being a child actor. But as a child actor, he's pretty good. It's just he's not his character's not written very well in. Yeah, I think it definitely was set to be a kid's movie and then just you know, just we're going to cast two adults, and it really didn't matter exactly who they were, you know, like, I don't know, and they could have had other people without a problem, I think. And she's supposed to be thirty something in this is that What I'm gathering from his comment about her is like, I know women reached their sexual prime in their thirties, and I'm like, she's nowhere near thirty something in the in the early nineties.

I mean, at least she was appropriately aged for Chevy Chase, that's true. I thought she was supposed to be older, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean that could have just been an offhand comment from him. But I'm like, are we setting her age here, because there ain't no way she's in her thirties. But I mean that would kind of make sense with his age, because he's preteen or whatever.

He's he's eleven. I'm eleven. I'n't not just sit in girls. Oh that's right, Yeah, yeah, I was surprised there was no they're just like together all of a sudden. We don't get a meet cute or anything.

It's one of those like they're already together before the movie started. This is they are in relationship with Ress. You know they are, though. Well, becausecause you see her as she's a courtroom artist, and you see her drawing the younger version of Japathan Taylor Thomas, who isn't even played by him, you know, somebody else, another kid. You see her sketching him, and then you see her in the courtroom I guess years later, or sketching Chevy Chase while he's convicting the mobster.

That just throws that whole thing into it. But they're already, they're already together. It feels like they're together, but they're not living together. But it feels also like you don't just move in together, like he should have known all of these things that are already going on, things like oh, we have this breakfast ritual, which I guess is another thing that I mean, it's like you're walking on eggs around Jonathan Taylor Thomas because it's just like, oh, well, we already had this whole thing for breakfast, and you ruined it by cooking this nice meal. And it's like, oh geez, you know, like, first off, fuck off, I'm trying to do a nice thing.

Second off, if he were around more, I guess he would have known that already. I don't know. It feels like he hasn't even ever spent the night and then all of a sudden he's driving in. Yeah, that's I mean, that's part of what I'm saying is they're in the middle of a relationship. She's already tried some or whatever.

He you know, the voiceover explains that, and that's the whole Ryan O'Neil. Gang or whatever. And but then they're together. But we don't. I think we needed to see them beginning their relationship because that's what it feels like.

But they're already in a relationship, and I'm you know, we talk about missed opportunities sometimes or how would you do this? It could have been you know, she keeps turning in these courtroom drawings. Why are these all of the prosecuting attorney or whatever, he's all cute or whatever in her drawings and explain what the appeal is, or do something with that and not just all of a sudden she's obviously been dating him for a while, but okay, we don't. That's why I said, movie, is this movie for kids or for adults? Because if if it were more for adults, it would have had something like that.

That's why I was asking, because it's like, you have Farir Faucet and Chevy Chase. They're not nobody actors. They're even at this point, they're not like especially at this point, they're not like they're may be what like less than a decade removed from relevancy for both of them, and like relevancy in quotations as subjective as it is. So that's why I'm asking, Like, I just like it's it seems like it could have been less a kid facing movie and more of a adult facing me and I think it would have benefited a little bit more where It's not like I'm not saying it didn't need to be a Disney movie, but like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, yes, Home Improvement is an ABC show, but it was not a broadly a Disney show.

It wasn't specifically a Disney show. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe it was like Disney branded. No, I don't think so now, but it was an ABC show like it was yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean kids movies in the in the past, we're way different than kids movies now, and you have a lot of more adult type stuff in there, like fucking mobsters and stuff like that. I don't know, I don't actually have any issue with it.

I'm saying like I would actually just prefer if it leaned further away from the kids stuff and more just like, he's a let's acknowledge the fact that he's a teenager and not act like he's a child. You know, that's and you know, I don't know. I feel like the movie. The movie has some interesting like ideas, but it's just never really executes on them very well. And you know, we really haven't talked about chevy Chase a whole lot.

But he's fine. He's believable as this character I don't like he plays. He's like really frustrated with Jonathan Tama Thomas, and I like that energy that he brings to that relationship because that's believable. That's more the kind of like parental figure I would believe chevy Chase would be able to pull off less the like loving Clark Griswold, father of it all. That makes me a lot to hear are so stuffed on that.

They keep putting Chevy Chase as dad's and he's goddamn movie they keep they keep doing it. It's not well me like, you know, and now he's at like the whole point of this movie is that he is a step dad to this kid. Like that's the entire premise of this movie. They're not, but he's not. It's believable.

He's a living boyfriend. He's a living boyfriend, but he's supposed to point right. Yeah, but but why even go with that angle? That was what these of the movie. You're not stepdad.

You don't need to fuck him, don't try and win this kid over fuck him. Just live your life. He'll either end up liking you or won't. And it's the kid over, you know. I mean, this is a very similar situation to what I had when I was growing up, because my dad died when I was you know, two in something, and my mom ended up finding the guy that would be my stepdad when I was about five, and then yeah, it was very much like him trying to bond with me.

Basically to show my mom like he's an okay guy kind of a thing. Well, five year old is different than an one year old. That's true, That's what I'm saying. Like, I think this is an asshole. This Eider needed to be like more he's a little bit older and more of a teenager thing, or he's a kid, because if he's a precocious kid, I don't think it's as creepy and weird.

But when he's like this teenager but like teenager but not a teenager enough where he's not John Connor. If he was like Edward Furlong's age and like that age him being an asshole and at the arcade and kind of you know, just being flipping' with Chevy Chase, like purely believable. But he's still a little too young to be believably flippant with adults, Like fucking shut up, Like you have no ability to get around on your own, you have no money, If you have nothing of your own right now, you literally can't even go work. So anything that you're going and doing is being provided for by your mom, kid, Like, chill the fuck out that, Like that's the problem with this movie in my mind, is is just you're in this weird age gap area where he is not a believable kid and he's too smart for his own good.

And then with chevy Chase, chevy Chase has to be written as such a fucking moron that the old that Jonathan Taylor Thomas has his number the entire movie, the entire movie, and it's like, how does chevy Chase exist? Then if this eleven year old kid can have his number from the get go, he's an adult. I don't think he has his number for the entire movie because there is the moment where JTT has ruined what's going on, like basically tortured chevy Chase enough that he's giving up on this whole Indian Guide's thing. And then jtt's upstairs and he's on the phone, I guess with his African American friend talking about like, oh yeah, I've broken him basically and I did all these things and now he thinks I'm so sad and YadA, YadA, YadA, and chevy Chase overhears that and he's just like, oh, now I have the upper hand, and I'm just glad that Farah Fawcet doesn't say no, you didn't hear that or doesn't believe the sun over Chevy Chase because it feels like she must know then what's going on.

It feels like they must have had that conversation. Again, a scene like that would have been nice, but as it is, Yeah, he finally gets that upper hand, but he's still trying his best. And then when he gets run off the road or the break line's cut, I don't know why. Well, I guess because he doesn't want to. Yeah, that explain you kind of get loaded caught.

I'm caught. I'm gonna go and say that the reason he doesn't tell his family or the Fhara facet and the kid is so convoluted it makes no sense. No, Yeah, it makes absolutely it's fucking defensible plot choices in this movie. Yeah, that that was another one. Missing out on meet cute was another one in my head.

But that whole thing drove me nuts. You tell them what happened. If even if you don't know if the break line breaks out, Yes, my breaks went out and I crashed into the fucking bay instead. Of going head car trouble and just fueling the fire of oh he's he's unreliable, he's just like dad blah blah blah. Yeah, but that brings up the point of the mob guys, and how they should have been in there way more, causing way more trouble.

That would then put Chevy like up against Phara Fawcet like constantly causing problems to where she's now going. Hmmm, maybe he isn't, you. Know, reliable. Maybe this is the same kind of situation that we had before and constantly causing him to break promises. This is the only promise he breaks is not getting to the canoe the kayak trip, right, and then they that was the other thing.

They just leave or we're just gonna go. I mean you can come with. They invite Jonathan Taylor Thomas with them to the kayak trip and he declines, and then they just leave them there. Yeah right, yeah, city, you guys are adults. You need to take care of the child.

You can't just go on your trip. Yes, I do. Like how why it's in San Francisco is made readily apparent? And is it San Francisco or sal oh is it Seattle? Because like I guess, yeah, okay, no, you're right, because they're sending him up to Portland.

I just assumed San Francisco because of the hills of it all, and because I was like, well, they had to edit somewhere where there was hilly because that's the only way there. The like the like premise of what this movie I'm sure is considering it's climax because you know what, I'll tell you, like that chase, you know, not not terribly shot, not terribly conceive honestly, like you know, I just think, yeah, it's such a fucking plot contrivance when they're like and then he doesn't tell his family like wait, yeah, wait, fuck no, I talk with you like it's it's indefensible. And I'm not saying that this is a good movie, but I don't. I didn't. I didn't dislike this movie as much as you did.

But I I will not defend those kinds of plot contrivances because that's I mean again, look, this is nineteen ninety five, so there's no cell phones. They didn't do like the he didn't call, which I would have been like, Okay, this is a nineteen ninety five is them. But they were still cell phones. Yes they were you know, bulky and cumbersome, but they still existed. But this is just a fucking yeah, it's a complete and utter idiotic plot.

I'm trying to protect you by not telling me where's the car? Ask the question, where's the motherfucking car? Why are you drenched from head to toe? Did you, by chance go into the fucking Pacific Ocean? Uh?

Where's the car? But I it's yeah, it's idiot, idiot. It is. It's one of the worst plot contrivances we've seen in the run of this show. Absolutely nuts.

Yeah, well, and it's it's it's it's such a contrivance too, because then all of a sudden, Jonathan Taylor Thomas's character turns on him because it's like, you know, because it's the bad dad jingle all the way, You're never there of it all. It's like, but he's not your fucking dad. Yay, right, and then and and then be again, you know, the Meet the Deedles of it all. Like you said, Mark, there should have been the gangsters getting involved more often, and they get involved all of two three times, and one of the times is so horrific that chevy Chase doesn't tell his family and Meet the Deedles. Robert England and one of the other characters cuts the break lines of the main characters and they go off a cliff and they go back over the cliff in the car and it's like downhilling.

There's no breaks and it's the same thing. But those characters are getting involved throughout the movie trying to kill them over and over again. That should have been a plot, like a plot, another contrivance here, and it wouldn't have seemed so I don't know. Again, like if it had been throughout the movie, there would have been no need for there to be a contrivant. Yeah, and I don't understand like the easy that they actually made this harder on themselves.

They didn't take the easy route here, which is surprising. Rarely, I mean rarely are people who are writing films making it harder on themselves intentionally or kind of less logical rational storytelling. But they really went out of their way here to like just really make it a real lazy. Contriving well because he has to end up hating him right and thinking that he's been proved right. So that's why they do this.

But no person in their right mind would not tell them at least a version of the crit I mean, I've got a police report, right, you know. Well he says as much. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is like, I acknowledges that when he tells him, he's like, yeah, if you had told me, I wouldn't have been up sadly, you know, And again we have him. It also prolongs him finding out about the mobsters. It pushes that to the third act as well, because the moment he would have to tell him about the is when that that that kind of moment moves back in the movie too, because it's essentially in like the last ten minutes.

But yeah, but based on just the synopsis of the movie alone, I thought, oh, these guys are going to be popping up all the time because the synopsis of the film, right, he's he's not that he's on the run, but kind of he's on the run from them. You notice in the trailer it didn't say anything about the mob guys at all. Yeah, right, they had the bee high falling on the guy's head. But I was like, Okay, who are they? Who are they?

Yeah? Yeah, that's completely out of context in the trailer. Yeah, I mean we see the mob guys kind of hanging out and they're comparing their guns and stuff while Chevy Chase and the rest of the Indian guys are doing that whole thing with the grapefruit, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas is painting into his face with that paint that won't come off, and then that embarrasses him in front of the just happens to be going up against a Native American attorney the next day, so way to go, but like putting his livelihood in jeopardy because of that, And I do love it's nineteen ninety five. They do bring up political correctness, so I was like, all right, okay, good, nice, very appropriate to the times. I really like the guy.

I've said, the Native American of it all is also very present. Yes, though they say Indian like crazy he do. Yeah, So that was a little like, oh yeah, we're still saying Indian here. Oh okay, but yeah, I mean we just see like little glimpses of the gangsters. They don't do anything.

They're just talking to each other in a car. I'm like, all right, are you going to do something about this guy or you just gonna hang out while he's having a grapefruit race and having a fairly good heart to heart with George went. I thought George Went was actually really good in this movie, and if maybe he and chevy Chase had swapped spots, it would have been a lot more interesting. Yeah. I actually I like George Went and Chevy Chase's chemistry together.

They're actually, I. Don't know, they play an odd couple fairly well. There's a little a little like John not John Candy, like not John Candy specifically, but that kind of like paring Chevy with like a shorter, fatter actor of it. David Spade and Chris Farley kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they went.

Also like that they did the fucking Carson tomahawk gag in a movie. Oh that was nice. Yeah. I remember watching those Carson vhs is with my grandma back in the day and seeing the thing with the tomahawk and the nuts, and I was like, oh my god, they're just gonna do it in a movie, like who is this for? Why is Ryan O'Neill in this movie?

Who is this for? Asking the question? The other thing that drem me nuts with the mob guys were when they when he crashes into the water and they get they follow all the way up to the thing and then they get out of a little car car when we failed, and I'm like what, And then he goes, let's get out of here before anybody sees us. I'm like, all these people have seen you right talking about and plan. Of nobody's watching.

Shoot the guy in the fucking head. Well, and then their big thing is it needs to look like an accident until they get to the forest and he's got a long range rifle. I mean, they don't use the guns, but I'm like, that's what it's set up, Like, Oh, I'm going to shoot him from here. I could blow him away, but I guess their plan all along was to kidnap them and put him in an abandoned mine that happened to be there and blown How is that an accident? Though?

How does that look accidental? Getting blown up? What are you talking about? Look, everybody dance now, Okay, you know what's n ninety five when everybody is dancing? Now?

Yeah, the music is my. Life, the CS Music Factory. And I'd like to point out it wasn't just a needle drop. They played the whole fucking song. Well, it's quite a montage because to get the arrow firing, you get the rain dance that's going on.

Everybody has to dance. That's where the tomahawk to the nuts is. Mm hmm. Oh, it's fantastic. I love Jonathan Taylor Thomas's black friend, who is just like, look at all these stupid white people is essentially his old character.

Look at them co opting another culture. Yeah, it's honestly fucking hilarious like that. That's probably my favorite character in the movie. It's just just like this bemused black friend who's just like, what the fuck is this? And by the end of the movie he's passed the ceremonial headdress by Win.

One character a little kid, yeah, who I thought was a girl for the longest time. I thought there was like one of those characters from Bad News Bears where I was like, oh, no, this is the girl who looks like a boy who's coming in to pitch the game and save everybody. No, Zachary Brown stopped acting at the age of fourteen and probably went on to lead an exceedingly normal life after being in such classic says Man of the House. I will say, I'm surprised, Mike, you know, because we're going to be talking about a remake of a French film here pretty soon that this was not somehow a remake of a French film. It feels like a yeah, because Jungle to Jungle is a remake of a French film starring Home Improvements own Tim Allen opposite Sam Hunting of All, and it is a remake of a French film.

So I'm surprised that this is not a French film, you know, like a Francis Weber film that Gerard depart Due didn't play the Chevy Chase role, like or not, No, no, not George Deberdue. Who's the other guy? The guy looked like, yeah, the guy. I could see him. Yeah, actually he would be really good as the silent guy as well.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, Father's Day isn't that the name of one of those movies, Thoseber films. And it was remade with, of all people, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, So one of the few I didn't make us watch, but I did watch at least the French version, which I thought was Le Chevre the Goats or something like that, something like that. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, this does feel almost like a French film, French remake of a film, and especially just with those because the relationships don't feel culturally correct for. Our our country, culturally incorrect relationships brought to you by the Disney Channel. A lot of the disconnect and it was because I felt disconnected the whole time.

Things aren't adding up. It's just weird to have a child being possessive of his pin up model mother. Yeah, it's something I had literally only no fair faucet from being in the red swimsuit on that poster. I mean, I've never seen Charlie's Angels, the original show, and. She famously left Charlie's Angels at the height of her popularity because she was going to go off and do all kinds of big things, kind of like how Chevy Chase left yep SNL at the height of his popularities.

Yeah, it's very true. Going to go off and do all of these important things. And we've been talking about him since then, So. Telling me nineteen ninety five's Man of the House is not important. Of course, it's important.

It's a very culturally significant film. I'm surprised that it hasn't been inducted into the Library of Congress Film Library. You know me too, I mean, you know, and I was joking about the Native American of it. All or the Indian guys of it all return to Innocence. Is there a more nineties song that plays with the creditor returned to Innocence?

Hey? Yeah, yeah, Oh my god. Yeah, the nineties were like when white people reappropriated Native American culture. Every like thirty years they do it, and we're probably like right on the cusp again of it happening. Uh.

But my god, I remember in the X Files you had all Anasazi and all the stuff in the with Oh my god. Oh there's like a whole thing with the Albert hosting and like like co talkers and shit like, and it was Chris. It was like all the rage in the nineties, and here you got Returned to Innocence, which was like a club song on top of everything else. But man, the co opting of Native American culture in this film is off, just off the charts, just so much, so much. Man.

I watched those end credits for the longest time because they do that pull out and they just keep going and going, and I'm like, is something gonna happen? Yeah, no, nothing ever had. I think our brains have been melted by all the end credit things of recent memory. But I stick stuck with it too, because I thought there's gonna be something at the end of this stupid thing. The other chuckle I mentioned that Ryan O'Neill got a chuckle out of me, But the other chuckle was actually when they hard cut to the Native American attorney.

Oh my god, it just had that just had to be what happens, right, And I didn't even have to see Chivy Chase's face to know what was going on. That was beautiful. Yeah. I really liked that actor, and I liked the playing of things, you know, just when he shows up how I was like, oh boy, and then that he turns it into a joke. It's like, okay, good, thank you.

Well I and guys was a real thing. Yeah. I was gonna say the Native American of it all, like Jonathan Taylor Thomas showing up to his school with that Indian vest on, Like I don't feel like that was out of place in the nineties. Like like you said, Indian guys. Brickling like the other thing.

Sorry, I know they're Indian guides, but I just didn't hear dice. Well, that's I mean, you know, Indidian guys. The other thing that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Was so you've got that whole sequence where U chivy cha just try to put up the TP with the silent dude and he says, let's make him laugh, And so by him saying that it's obvious that they're putting on an act with all of this stuff going on, I'm like, okay, you know, so it's not just them being stupid, they're actually like doing this whole thing. But then hard cut to Chevy Chase the next morning and the TP hasn't been fixed, Like well, yeah, that's the fuck, Like that doesn't make any sense, Like you put up this piece of shit thing.

No, No, later on you tear it back down and you put up put it up the right way, Like that was crazy, and just yeah, Jonathan Taylor Thomas there being like no, I'm not gonna help, No, No, I'm good. It's like, fuck, you can't get off your fucking ass and get over help me with this thing. And then if I'm gonna do it on my own, I'm gonna do it right, you know, and put it together directly. I mean yeah, start to make him laughing, and then the kids should come over and be like no, no, here, I'll help out something like that, but instead he like suffers for a bit. Yeah.

I guess Chevy Jays just so committed to the bit. Hey, we do get a Chevy p Probably one of the worst pratfalls of all of these movies when he slips on the skateboard. Yeah true. Oh man, that was awful. That looks bad.

Yeah. Uh, we can't believe that he's still We're still trafficking in pratfalls in nineteen ninety five. Oh yeah, I'm twenty years on. There, and apparently this movie opened. I know that he got I think he had problems with pain killers and stuff because of all those pratfalls he did.

But this the opening weekend that this movie came out. Arrested for DUI Yeah, the oops, yep, oops. He's driving in Seattle. That his breaks is probably his excuse. Yeah, these skuksters breaks, these gangsters who like to go into the river wearing their complete clothes and that's fish with their bear han hands.

What yeah, bearon that's pretty funny. R e beat. It's funny, Mike, Okay, but he's wearing his I mean he's even got his holster on. I think he's probably took his gun underwater. It's funny.

Nineties mobsters were not a threat. They weren't a real threat. That's true. This was the good Fellaw's effect. I think you mentioned all that all those movies earlier.

I think it was a good Fellow's effect. Mobsters fund these guys are Yeah. Well was ninety, wasn't it? They amuse you? Yeah it was.

Yeah. So there you go. That's very good over the time. Yeah, that's very apropos Bagley to think about it. Yeah, I mean there's I mean.

Collected six heads in a Duffel bag around this point. Six heads. There was a ten heads, seven heads. Okay, I was sorry, I'm almost a head short. Isn't there fucking mobsters and gone fishing?

I think there are? Good Night? And who is it that Danny Stern goes against in Bushwhack, which this movie liberally takes from. I have no idea. I've never seen it.

Oh that's a classic, is it? Is it? Is it? Actually it's the same year, nineteen ninety five. And yeah, I'm trying to remember who he goes up against because I'm well, he is a criminal if memory serves Danny Stern Daniels Sorry, sorry, Yeah, so, uh, that's right.

He delivers a package to Anthony Held, the guy that played Doctor Chilton. And I think it has something to do with FBI because John Pallito plays an FBI agent and so there's this whole thing of like I think Pallito might actually be working for the MOB or something. But yeah, so there's this whole thing over at Devil's Peak that goes on. So I watched it recently because they were covering it on We Hate Movies, and I said, this actually sounds pretty good and it actually made me laugh a few times. I mean, Coirky Remond seen as a good fans effect film.

Oh totally, Yeah, it's got the fulk folkster god the nineties when dads went away for cigarettes and never came back. Yeah, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, I was, I was honestly expecting his dad to come back in the third act, you know like that, you know, like Waterboy style, like right at the end, like I don't know, I again like put it wouldn't put it past this movie. I forgot that his dad comes back on water Boy. Yeah, isn't it like Robert Smigel? I think it might be ha ah, Bobby, have you daddy.

Yeah, he's Robert Smigel. Good lord God. I mean that's the thing though, when you had like that's I guess maybe my point is like Adam Sandler did those man child movies better than the Children. That was kind of always. The thing about Adam Sandler's like as an actor was he was essentially playing the character that these Jonathan Taylor Thomas's character is kind of edging at, which is like an asshole teenager.

Adam Sandler was just playing an asshole man like Billy Madison. He's playing like essentially like a man child. In Little Nicky he's a man child and happy Gilmour, he has the temper of a man child. Uh you know like those it's those are the things I'm talking about. Like this movie just it can't pick what it wants to do, and and not picking what it wants to do, I just I don't know.

This shouldn't have been a Disney movie. That's my issue, Like Disney shouldn't have been making this movie because the trailer leaves out the parts of this movie that are the parts that kind of maybe that they don't work, but they're the weird parts of this movie that feel like nineties anachronistic. We like, they don't put mobsters in movies anymore like this, that's like not a thing. And if they did, you'd be like, what is this a nineties movie? But that's that's how like weirdly anachronistic it is, And especially like a kid's movie, because these are real mobsters.

They would just show up to their house and kill them, you know, like in Jungle to Joke. Fuck, that movie has mobsters too. Those are Russian mobsters. Jesus Christ, Oh my god, and that Oh god. I forget what the actor is, but he's like a it's like a bigger actor, and he plays like a Russian mobster in the movie.

And he's like gonna threaten to cut off Martin Short's fingers. Speaking of Martin Short being in fucking French remakes, Oh my god, what is it with that guy? Why isn't he in this movie? Why isn't Martin Short? Yeah, you could have had Martin Short in the Silent thunder h role.

Well, I was very surprised when it came to his boss, the Chevy Chase's boss. I was just like, well, Clarence Williams a third naturally, it's gotta be right. But no, no, it was a David Ogden Steers who plays the Russian mobster in Jungle to Jungle of all people. Oh nice, Yeah, so I don't know. The nineties really was just like something about the nineties and mobsters.

But these are real mobsters. They'd show up, blow you away and just move on. It had to be an accident, though, Chris. It had to look like an accident. Why now if they're willing to kill him, they're willing to kill him like they're walking man in a public like a giant rifle, like what.

Chevy Chase is so accident prone anyway, Just take that whole driftwood sculpture off the wall and throw it on him. God lord, oh my god. Can we talk about the other nineties? Is of it all fair, faucet? It's just a an artist, Yeah, sure, welding together shovels on a fucking bike wheel and we're calling that art like another nineties is like Jesus, you can't just have like you're an inventor.

You can't just have a normal job. You think of tails from the dark Side. All these inventors running are like, what would you ever made a living? Doing that. Come on.

Her courtroom sketches are legit though they look way better than like the who is a puff Daddy that just got convicted, but a lot better than Oh my gosh, some of those are like the guy that killed the that that health health exect. You know, that's how awful he looks in those courtroom sketches. Yeah, the famous one of Chun Travolta where it looks like an animal. If you're listening to this, google John Travolta's courtroom sketch and you will have a good time with that. Don't you love how you can also tell the relevancy of actors given how willing and early they're either willing and early in their care to be in a kid's movie or late in their career willing to be in a kids movie because John travo It took John Travolta a lot longer than it did for Chevy Chase to be in a big kids movie Old Dogs, But chevy Chase is doing it here in the nineties.

Just like again, I thought, maybe, uh, what's that cool? Look who's talking? Yes? Yeah, but that but is that a kid's movie? Though?

Like see what I mean? Like That's what I'm getting at. That's what this movie should have been, Like, Look, it's got a kid in it, but it's not a kid's movie, like you know, that's you know, like three men in a baby's have really a kid's movie, Like no, yeah, but as a kid in it, you know, this should have been one of those kinds of movies, like it's a movie that has kids in it, but it's not necessarily kids movie. So Disney. It's Disney, though, So when you slap Disney on something in the nineties, like you haven't exactly know what your expectations are going to start angling towards.

You want. You want all those kids whose dads have left them to have somebody to look up to or something. I don't know, Fucking chick Chase is the wrong direction to go. Jonathan Taylor. Are Thomas is who they would be looking up to?

I guess yeah, a kid. Who's the same age as you. I also do love that the mobsters are effectively just like right behind them the whole time mm hmm in the woods like they're they're they're you think that they're following far behind, but it looks like the mobsters are like ten feet behind them, and then the mobsters are only like maybe fifty feet away from them, like they would hear them this whole time. It's just contrivances after contrivances after contrivances. Like the movie just I don't know.

It seems like they had a first two acts and then the third act they were just like, what what's hot now? Like, I don't know, people being out in the woods is never boring, and we can go film this in like British Columbia and it'll look fine. Pretty sure they probably were sharing similar sets with the X Files at this point. Oh, definitely, because this is like. Literally film probably like right up the road from where they're Yeah, Vancouver.

Yeah, Jesus, was there anywhere hotter in the mid nineties than Vancouver, British Columbia to film. My god, So, on the pen ultimate episode of The Chasing Chevy Jay's podcast, we're going to be taking a look at vay this Vacation, Yeah, the final Griswold vehicle starring Chevy Chase in the lead role. I have to give a lot of qualifiers because we technically already talked about Vacation, which is the last Griswold movie. But Chevy Chase only a cameo in that one. This is the last one where he is build on the poster, as it were.

So I'm excited because that one is the one I've seen the most, probably of all of them, and it's the one that nobody talks about. So I will be you ever seen it? Yeah, I'm curious what you guys are gonna think because I was actually coincidentally just in Vegas. So to see the Vegas of the nineties in Chevy Chases through Chevy Chase's eyes should be fun. But I know you guys haven't seen it, so I'm looking forward to it.

So and yeah, that'll be the penultimate episode of the show and then we'll round it out with the Last Laugh and that'll be our final episode. So we get two episodes left if we do something else, We're not sure, but thank you for joining us this far, and please join us for the next two episodes. Until then, we're Can people find you and the things you work on, Mark Begley, you. Can find my two shows Cambridge and with Sean and Wake Up Heavy over on Wordingwaymedia dot Com. About you, Mike White.

Incidentally enough, everything that I work on is available at wirdingwaymedia dot com. How about you, Chris, same answer for me, wordingwaymedia dot com, where you can go to find all the things that I work on, like and rate this show on iTunes and then rate this show on Spotify as well. And if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review on iTunes, that would help, and a nice review would be helpful. But you know, you know what, whatever, if you vibe with us cool, if you don't cool, you're not offending us either way. And guess what, we're not stop it.

And we're also not going to just have you on because you have the Blu ray of a movie. So is that if that's if I. Owned the Blu Ray, you should bring me on. Wow, I boy, you read it in the voice that I heard. So just gonna alienate all our listeners, that's fine, all two of them, all ten.

Of them, all fifteen of them. No, but thank you for listening, and thank you for joining us as always, and we'll catch you on the penultimate episode of The Chase and Chriva J's podcast. Thank