Episode 5: Dirty Work (1998)

Weird way. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Christashi, and I'm joined by the two other hosts of this show all the way from the Projection boost like why. Are you telling me that you bet on the fight in Rocky three? And that you bet against Rocky.

And also joining us all the way from Cambridge and with Sean, which is an intersection somewhere in the town that they live in. I believe your friend and mine, the host of Wake Up Heavy, Mark Begley. It rhymes with cock. Are you telling me that Cambridge and Sean is not the name of a cop duol from the nineteen seventies. Ah, could be this whole time, this whole time be pretty good, though it was.

Hey, I'm gonna have to start writing some songs for that. And on this bonus episode of the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast, we're talking about a movie that features Chevy Chase in a minor role. So that's why it's a bonus episode. But it's a movie that's very near and dear to my heart. So it's going to be kind of hard to be h objective.

Well, it's not going to be that hard because we do this all the time. But it's gonna be hard to talk about a movie that's a comedy because we're talking about nineteen ninety eight. Norm McDonald led Bob Saget directed Dirty Work ever since he. Was a kid and over the milk money you pretty campty that, Derek. I'm just not sure you'll spend.

It on milk. Mitch was only good at one thing. You are the king of revenge. Now he's making it a business. That was really funny, sticking the cops on us like that.

I've thought a respine, but I'm surprised you guys did. So if you need revenge, let us do your dirty work. Call the professionals. They'll give you their shirt off their back. Dirty Work Braded, PG thirteen starts Friday, June twelfth.

So yeah, the film is written by uh Norm McDonald, Fred Wark, then Norm m MacDonald, Fred Wolf, and Frank Sebastiano. It is, like I mentioned, directed by Bob Sagett and its stars Norm McDonald And on the poster it's three names, Norm MacDonald, Jack Warden, and Chevy Chase. It's almost like ARTI Lang isn't even in this movie. Which is which is odd, but yes, it is a movie all about Norm MacDonald and Artie Lang, two friends who get get it up there, up their ass to open a dirty work business, which is a revenge for higher business, which is totally not illegal, and they're all they're doing this for the singular reason of saving Artie Lang's father, who plot twist for a movie from nineteen ninety eight is also Norm McDonald's fun.

Oh spoilers, Yeah, sorry, spoilers. Sorry spoilers, folks. But yeah, Mike, I'm gonna kick it to you. First, what did you think of Dirty Work? I thought it was pretty awful.

Oh shit, okay, yeah. I just thought that. I the line that I quoted was to me a example of just how poorly written this movie is. I mean, first off, we've already seen or heard that joke on The Simpsons with Krusty Clown betting against the Harlem Globetrotters, But just the whole it takes so long to get to the punchline. You're telling me that you bet on the fight in Rocky three, and that you bet against Rocky.

It's like too many steps to get there. And that's what this whole movie feels like is there's just too many steps to to the jokes and just not funny jokes. I just I was really disappointed because I like Norm MacDonald and I liked the concept of doing a revenge for higher business, but this was just so poorly executed for me, and it just feels like it's not even a Happy Madison picture, but it feels like subpar Happy Madison. What about you Bagley? That was actually going to be my Yeah, I was going to say that it felt like a lower tier Adam Sandler vehicle from the nineties, and I was kind of hyped at the We were laughing out loud.

I watched it with my family last night and we were laughing at a bunch of the crude stuff at the beginning, especially Jack Warden and the second Chevy Chase shows up. His scene, his first scene just absolutely killed any momentum that the movie was leading up to. It just went completely flat. That scene in the office, right after Norm finds out that he's also so Pop's son and I don't know, it like killed killed the vibe completely of the movie. And then after that it was like trying to pick itself back up, and we did laugh quite a bit during the film that will I be watching this again anytime soon?

Probably not so, Chris, Why is this one of your beloved treasured movies? Yes, good question. Stop stop already he's already dead. Jesus crusts cuts. Oh boy.

I mean look, And here's the thing, Like, like I joked about, it's it's not gonna be hard to be objective about this movie because this is not a good movie. I understand that. And then frankly watching it this time and being a lot more objective than I have in the past, because this is a movie that a close friend and I will put on sometimes when we're gaming, just because again, like it has, it has its moments, and again I understand if they're not going to land for everybody because it's comedy. And again, if you don't find it funny, sometimes it just isn't funny, which I can one hundred percent concede is probably parts of this movie and sometimes it's just not for you. And I'm not saying that's what this is for either one of you.

I'm just saying that that could be the case for certain comedic films. I think this movie is trying to be, like you've already mentioned both of you Happy Madison adjacent, which, as far as I'm concerned, and having recently done an episode for a forthcoming podcast project about Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler in a lot of ways is like the and this is not meant to be a aspersion cast in his direction. It's more of a positive because I think that's allowed him to be successful. He has an everyman quality to him that appeals to everyone. One might say he is the lowest common denominator level of comedy, and that's not a bad thing.

I mean again, movies like Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, The Water Boy, The Wedding Singer are beloved for a reason, and that's because they kind of are for everybody. Because Adam Sandler's kind of the everyman. Nor MacDonald, on the other hand, is not the everyman, and in a lot of ways this movie doesn't. I don't think this movie really suits Norm MacDonald either. I mean, if you know what Norm MacDonald's comedy stylings are, which are very specific, to put it, mild uh, his comedic stilings, as far as I'm concerned, are even more divisive.

I mean, it's a lot of dry delivery it's a there's some anti humor and anti climaxes, which you know, an anti punch, you know, anti punchline. However, you want to view the taking away of the opportunity, you know, fuck the audience jokes as the Simpson would call the Simpsons would call them, There's none of that here, and that, for me watching it this time objectively, was the biggest failure of the movie is that where's Norm MacDonald in this movie? He is just a vehicle through which they tell admittedly crude and sometimes funny jokes. But I would say most of the jokes in this movie are low brow at best, but some of the high brow stuff lands. I mean, look, Don Rickles shows up and he fucking steals the movie, I think.

I mean, he's doing his stick. He's doing his stick like I mean against It's like, hey, Don Rickles come insult already laying in Norm MacDonald for five minutes, like okay, he calls one of them tall and he calls the other one fat. Wows ricing right, I mean again, like, but it's Don Rickles, which is why I appreciate it. And Don Rickles is a comedian that again I'm partial to, but at the same time, like I said, the thing for me as i've gotten older and I've enjoyed more of Norm McDonald's stuff outside of this is liking what Norm MacDonald brings to the things that he does, and he's just lost in this movie, and that I think is the biggest shame for me, because again, as someone who's appreciated Norm McDonald, the more I get older, this movie it's not less funnier the more I watch it.

It's just I wish it were a different kind of funny and less funny for everybody with Norm MacDonald. Like you guys said, I'm not saying Alan Colvert could have been the lead in this movie, but that's. Really Rob Schneider or David Spade could have easily. Right, right, And you know what, I'm just gonna come out and say it. And I think that this might be a controversial opinion.

Grandma's Boy is my favorite Happy Madison movie period, and that's over everything else. I mean, Water Boy and Happy Gilmore aren't considered Happy Madison. I don't think I think those are pre Happy Madison, but post the production company coming into being and all those people starting to work together and doing things like Grandma's Boy is the funniest thing. It doesn't even have Adam Sandler in it, and this is what this could have been a adjacent to that, And it's just I don't know. Also, can I just put this out here?

And again it's it's just kind of me. I really don't like Artie Lang, Like I don't find him funny, and I think what the energy that he brings to things is very disinterested. He seems very disinterested in this movie, which also doesn't help with Norm McDonald kind of being atypical of what he would be doing and doing a lot of like physical comedy, which is not what I think of when I think of Norm MacDonald. No, No, we just never get these characters defined very well at all. Like is the Ardy Lane character.

Is he like the sortive friend, the eager friend, the whatever friend? Like he just seems to be standing there most of the time. He doesn't seem to get angry or sad or happy. He just is like almost stonefaced, but not in a Buster Keaton type of way. Just he's like, yeah, I'm standing here.

He's just yeah, I've never been an Arti Lang fan. And then I mean the guy just so sad. It's so pathetic and just how he's ruined his life continuously over and over and over again. It's hard to feel sympathy for the guy. And that's the thing.

It's like, you know again, like obviously Artie Lang has struggled with addiction and other things, and he snorted broken glass at one point, which is literally fucking insane. But yeah, it's in a lot of ways, like when you sit and watch this movie, it's like, why is he even in this film? Like he adds nothing other than allowing Don Rickles to call him a baby gorilla in one scene, which is a term that is still used by me to describe people that I really have a problem with. Is you fucking baby girls. But it's but like again, like that's the one time in the movie I can think of where Arty Lang is part of anything funny, and that's someone else just pointing out the fact that you're just standing there looking fat.

He even says it like you're swelling up as I talked like that. I think that would describe Arty Lang in this movie. Is he's just kind of there, Which for a buddy comedy about two friends going into a revenge business, like to not have two leads that are fifty to fifty seems like a missed opportunity. It's almost like it's almost more Norm McDonald and Jack Warden's movie than it is already Lang and Norm McDonald's movie. One hundred percent.

Yeah, I have to say I was surprised at how decently he came off in the film, having really only experienced him via the Howard Stern Show. I was like, oh, he can actually portray a character. Whether it was all that successful or not is up to to debate, but I was surprised that he performed as well as he did, plus with all the other extra stuff that's already been mentioned. But apparently then the next year they were both on The Norm Show. So I'm assuming they were maybe pals in real life, and that's why he's in this.

I don't know. I mean, I guess opposites a tract. It's just again, maybe Norm MacDonald's comedy stylings worked better in a function where the two of them were together and Norm was able to write more of the jokes. But Norm McDonald's name is on the script. I mean he didn't direct it.

Bob Saggitt did. I will say in terms of direction. It's not good or bad or anything. It's competently directed. It's not like Bob Saggott added some sort of scorsesean flair to the first seedings.

It looks rather set bound a lot of the times, especially when they're at the hospital. It's like, where did they shoot this on the set of General Hospital when they weren't there? I mean, you know, but it looks like a early nineties comedy. It doesn't even look like a late nineties comedy at all. There's some weird long, sort of mid distance establishing shots that get stayed on an awful lot, like there's no cuts to close ups.

Guys were talking about the jail scene. Please gags, And. When Norm comes back and he's just standing there talking, I guess to the other prisoners that just anally raped him and I supposedly she's it's just that long shot the whole time of him delivering those lines. There's no reaction shots from anybody, no inserts, no nothing. It's just a static shot.

And it's like, uh, I need something to distract me from his kind of poor monologue in here. And you're missing the punchline, Like after he gives this big speech. There needs to be a button, There needs to be a reaction or a reverse shot of the guys on the other side of the wall, the guys that he's talking to, And I'm just like, where is it? They just cut right away. And I don't know if that was because of the PG thirteen versus the R rating or something, but I'm just like, well, this joke doesn't land, and it took me forever to get to what should have been the punchline, and there is no punchline.

And just like the punchlines that they do have in this sometimes they work, but sometimes they're just a dog fucking a puppet, you know, or a puppet fucking a dog, you know. And I'm just like, Okay, well, aintal rapist is? You know? It's hilarious, as we all know, but it's not as funny as this movie. Thanks.

I love how many times we've said, ain'tal rape and puppet fucking in the last minute and a half it is. This is truly the reason why we do this, folks. As speaking of those are the repeating jokes. You know, Yeah, I know, And that's the thing. Like again, when I sit and watch the movie subjectively, I just kind of they just go by, but sitting and watching it objectively, it's like, it's not funny, and the repeated gag for me that works, And again it's it's the part of the movie that shows the person who might have actually been in this had this movie come out a couple of years earlier.

Is when Adam Sandler plays the Devil and they go to eat the brownies and they're taste testing the brownies and already lines like I feel a slight itch and Norm MacDonald disc hallucinating Gary Coleman and the Devil, which yes, which that always makes me laugh. But again, like this time, I watched it and all I could think to myself was they're going to do this again later in the movie and they're going to devalue how funny it is now by having Gary Coleman show up again. And apparently later on when it's the ballet stuff, it was supposed to actually be Fred Rerun Barry was in the dream sequence rather than having Gary Coleman in there. So yet another seventies African American actor. So bizarre.

Yeah, yeah, there we Right before we went on air, you mentioned John Goodman and apparently there was supposed to be more with John Goodman as well, more of his So. Yeah, it was bizarre. That was absolutely bizarre that he's just on screen for just a few minutes. Even Don Rickles, like at least Don Rickles comes back via the voicemail or the answering machine later on. And I don't know why they're destroying the phone rather than the answering machine, but whatever.

Yeah, so, how dear the answering machine was instructible. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, too bad the popcorn machine wasn't made out of the same stuff the answering machine was made out of. So here's the thing. And like, like we've kind of been talking about with just when this movie came out, I'm gonna mention a couple other movies that came out in nineteen ninety eight, comedies that did better than this movie, both critically and financially.

I mean, this movie, I think has been re embraced down the road as something and I've looked and apparently people have re embraced this movie. And there was apparently going to be a sequel at some point until Norm MacDonald unfortunately passed away and Bob Saggott, Yeah, that's right, now, Yeah, Jesus Christ are dropping like flies yet already Lang persists. Yeah, Chris Farley, I'm gonna people are in this movie. Oh yeah. The Truman Show came out in nineteen ninety eight.

Basketball came out in nineteen ninety eight. Speaking of Adam Sandler of the Water Boy came out in nineteen ninety eight. I mean, there are again to mention something a little bit more kind of middle of the road, something like You've Got Mail, or again to mention comedies again the Wedding Singer, And like this movie it's not even attempting to verge on the level of high concept that those movies have, but it does because here's the thing we haven't even fucking talked about. This is a movie about a revenge business that these two friends start, and we literally, we literally haven't mentioned it yet at all. We haven't mentioned any of their scheming or the things that they do.

And I think that's because they're not It's not that they're not funny, it's again, there don't seem to be any stakes to it, and all of a sudden, the movie becomes a vignette fest, like a montage fest, and like if that was your original idea, Maybe build it out better, because like, if the three of us sat here for an hour and rainstormed, what would a revenge business look like? And make ourselves really have to do the constraints of like the late ninety We could come up with a better funt of your script that puts that high concept idea to good use. Because it's like the movie realizes that's the point halfway through it. Yeah, Which it's funny because that gets brought up in a conversation that they are having around jack Ward and it's like, oh, you did that really well, that you're natural at this, and I'm like, okay, yeah, So next step is the revenge for High and Noe.

It takes forever. We're gonna have to put Pops in the hospital, and there's gonna have to be the fifty thousand dollars thing. Why can't it just be about these two losers who go through a whole series of jobs, which it should have been more than just like the movie theater thing. It should have been like a whole series of jobs, and then they get the idea for the revenge business and then it becomes a whole series of revenge I don't mind the vignette thing, but they needed more, like it just couldn't be I remember what the bearded lady with the little person. So here we go to we've got little people last month and this month that we're talking about, and then like I'm trying to remember if there's any there's the the of course, the stuff that introduces Chris McDonald with the popcorn and the bulldozer bulldozer, which we already had that with the driving instructor earlier in the film.

So and it's like, why are you repeating these jokes, like, come up with new jokes, guys. Well, then there's the big one that kind of is their first one, which is the scene with David Keckner at the right mode, which is like how many times can they say the word hohore and people not laugh at it? Because thank god I And again I'm not saying that like we're not sitting here like Sjw's or anything. It's just like it's it's like the way that they use the word isn't funny. Like I have no problem with the usage of the word whore, like I understand its usage.

I would prefer they use the term sex worker. But they're also trying to elicit a laugh, So you're not gonna say sex worker if you're trying to listit a laugh. But just saying the word horror a bunch of times also doesn't make me laugh, and that is essentially Chris Farley's character. Yes, if you said Vietnamese horror, h god, then it's Sigon horr. Then it's much funnier then it is.

Then it is funny. Yeah. Yeah, Well, and they have the the I don't know if they're supposed to be mafia. That house that they break into with a fish. I mean that bit is that bit's inspired, but again it seems like it seems like an extended SNL sketch, Like that's I love that scene.

But I love that scene because of everything that they put into it to make everything going on in that other room seem atrocious. And then they have them walk out and the guide comes in. I didn't expect you to do this. That shit's hilarious. But again, like that's like the one funny revenge thing that they do, and again, like in a movie about a revenge business.

First off, I think I'd like to point something out here that seems like the biggest oversight here. If you were in theory to have a revenge business, there is literally no way you would have a fucking storefront because the cops the cops with literally there's a scene in this movie where the cops go, this is either a trap or these guys are the biggest fucking idiots we've ever seen, and then they get and then Norm McDonald gets raped in jail because of it. So there you go, movie, like you can't just hang a lantern on it, Like it makes no fucking sense, Like you would not have a storefront for your revenge business, not in nineteen ninety eight, not in twenty twenty four. Like if you're doing this in your small town of wherever the fuck this is supposed to be said, people are gonna know.

They're gonna be like, oh, look, it's those guys. Let me just go beat the shit out of them. Like it's kind of bizarre. It almost makes no sense. Like a lot of the problems with this movie that just it's not taking place in reality, that's for sure.

Is there an R rated version of this? Because I've I'm looking at IMDb and they talk about some scenes that were in the R rated version but I'm unable to find that. I have never seen the R rated version. I have only heard about it like you did doing the research to talk about it. I was like, oh, okay, I mean that makes sense.

Yeah, because I've read about the thing with the donuts a couple times that they leave a box of donuts on the doorstep for the frack guys and then they have photos of them with the donuts on their dicks. So it's like on h Ardy and Norms dicks and it's like, oh, hey, you ate this donut that was on my dick, and it's like, all right, that's somewhat funny. And I guess that might have come before the whole thing with the cops, how they call the cops and Hello real cops. That is a good one. Hello, totally real cops.

That's a sad thing. Like anytime Norm McDonald delivers a line in his very Canadian. Oh delivery that yeah, my nose hairs, he said it. He says it in like two back to back scenes too, which is really funny because he doesn't let it slip for a while and then all of a sudden he's like, sorry, sore, and it's like, oh sorry, yourself there, mister Canadian. But that but that is the thing, like even I mean to think about because this was around before my time, but I know you you would know what I'm talking about, given we just have a minor age difference.

Nor McDonald was on SNL and. Yeah, owned weekend edition. He was fantastic at that. Don't put him in skits. You can put him behind that news desk, just like his old friend Champy Chase.

But yeah, just like his Yeah, do not put this guy in skits. And in a lot it's Jeopardy. Oh, he was fantastic. Jeopardy s and he's playing. I believe ferguson we Hat.

Yeah, when he forced s Tbeck to call him turd ferguson that ship. Yeah, but that's the thing, like the Norman, the Norm MacDonald that I remember is more akin to John Stewart. I don't think of John Stewart as someone who is necessarily an actor. I think of him as someone who is a comedian. But is is more insightful than that, I know.

You know again, like John Stewart's just now come back to the Daily Show, ruffling some feathers. And that's the thing like when to bring up SNL and Norm McDonald like that's what he was doing on Weekend Update was like just like you said with Chase, like he was ruffling people's feathers. But that's the point, Like, Norm McDonald's comedy is not for everybody. His favorite joke that I've ever heard him tell is about his book. He was on Conan and he goes, uh, you know, I just want everybody to know that I'm a deeply closeted gay man, and Conan just goes, what I don't want.

He's like, oh, I don't and it sells the joke perfectly because you can't tell. And that's that's the quality of Norm McDonald is is the deadpan, dry delivery. And when this movie embraces it, it's good, but it just doesn't enough. Yeah. Yeah, it's a real shame that he was one of the co writers and couldn't own this material because it just feels it feels like, yes, when he's on, he's on, and it really works out well, but there are so many times there it's just like anybody could be in this role.

Right. Well, you mentioned David Spade earlier, and that kind of clicked in my head, like yeah. This sort of feels like his Tommy Boy character. Or oh yeah, what's the other one. Oh Joe dirt but oh black sheep.

Yeah yeah, the dry sardonic versus the you know, bumbling idiot, which and which Artie Lang isn't really in this either. He's not bumbling idiot. He's not the Chris Farley character. He's not. He's just there because you've got to have another guy.

You've got to have a foot, you know, you've got to have a partner when you're doing this stuff. The the you know, when you keep mentioning high concept and the idea of a revenge for higher business is the concept. But the reason, the reason that they have to get the money also seems really forced and weird, like why isn't it just that's how much it costs, Not we're doing this so we can pay off doctor Farthing's you know, bookie gambling debts, so that he bumps him up on a heart Transa's like it's too it's unnecessarily convoluted. Yet it keeps coming back as jokes with doctor Farthing showing up with more broken limbs and blah blah blah, and I don't know, I like the idea of, yeah, this is just something they're good at.

The you mentioned having a series of bad jobs or getting fire from jobs, and that just makes me think of step Brothers and just them going through the interview process, just bomb bombing interviews and not even be able to get a normal job that would have worked, Like, but you know, we can't we can't even get hired anywhere because we're such losers step brothers. You had two very distinct characters too. Yeah, even though they were pretty similar, you knew enough that they were two different people. Right, And we don't need to see them necessarily failing at jobs, just not failing and even being able to get a job, and then well, what are we good at? Which is I mean, that's kind of the concept of stepbrothers, what are they good at?

And falling into that and then just doing it on the slide. This whole store front thing is just bizarre, And like Mike we talked about prior to recording, because that I did write my five lines of notes that I have from the movie. That was the first instance. I'm like, how did they get a storefront? Which they do answer, not satisfactorily, but they do answer it.

Shortly after, Oh, it's the money from his sister and the two thousand that she loaned. That was their kind of seed money. But then it seems like which they also mention that they're spending more money on the revenge aspect than they're getting. We never really find out how much they're getting from people. But you know, they've got to buy a big, huge box of dead fish for the one gag they you know, all the stuff they used to destroy that corn baby, all the popcorn whatever they buy to destroy that apartment complex.

I mean they hire all those sex workers too. They hire the sex workers. Yeah, yeah, I guess you're not. Supposed to ask these questions. Twenty dollars per more, I believe it's not.

Oh, except for the Sygon horse, she only gets fifteen. Oh okay, god. Yeah, this movie's relationship with sexuality is bizarre again. The yeah, the thing with NORMI yeah, the thing with Norm McDonald. A lot of the not gaze, Yeah, we gotta, we gotta have a lot of them not gaze.

Don't don't look at the movie that's playing in the movie theater. Yeah. Oh yeah, turn around. Oh he looked, Oh such. Gay panic stuff.

Yeah, oh boy, oh, boy. I know, but to be fair, that alien looks like a hot guy. Yeah, we should have sex with it. That I mean, I mean, if that's what Men in Black was, I think I might be interested in anything past the. F Oh it's got to be better than the second one.

I'll tell you that's yeah. Yeah, the sequel that Men in Black is just Men in Black who have sex with aliens. Yeah, give me that, rather than that horrible Johnny Knoxville character. Whatever the fuck Lara Flynn Boyle was doing. Oh, I will say the thing for me that that does crack me up, other than the fact that Christopher McDonald in the nineties was just making a name for himself playing the same character, but a lot less interesting in this movie than in Happy gilmour Is And I mentioned this before we started recording, how like how nineties this movie looks, and how much Norm McDonald just looks like a grown child with what he's wearing, like.

Yeah outfits, it's his huge shirts, yeah, down to his knees, man. Yeah, he looks like that picture of Kevin Smith with those giant jeans on. It's like, this isn't the giant jeordans. Yeah, that's what This reminded me of like Norm mc donald. I don't know, like there's nothing endearing about his character.

And that's the thing I think about other movies, because y'all have mentioned step brothers some other things that I think are kind of in this same vein uh, similarly as Horrible Bosses, which I think does this movie ten times better Horrible Bosses. This is actually a pretty funny movie. That is that's a good Yeah, that's. A good comparison. Actually, yeah, And the leads are funny and they're all very distinct characters.

And I don't know if you guys have seen it recently, but Jason Sudeikus beats the shit out of Charlie Day in that movie, like hits him, is hitting him constantly. It was shocking to me. I was surprised how much abuse he was ted Lasso was doling out to this poor man. But it is a much funnier movie, and it takes that similar idea of like how can I get back at someone who has wronged me? This is specifically in the work world, and this should have been that it should have picked a specific late.

It should have been like, well, we're at an office together, and this is like a dead end job, and we're entertaining ourselves by pulling these dumb fucking pranks in the office building, Like do that make Norm MacDonald literally the kind of character that he works as, which is a deadpan, dry human being who is delivering the jokes and he may not even laugh at them, that's the point, but he expects you too. There's none of that here. It's just Oh, our dad, who's my dad too? Needs money? Like it's it almost reminds me of a like a children's movie from the nineties in terms of like the it's like we need fifty It's like the Little Rascals, we need fifty thousand dollars to rebuild our car.

It's like that works in a kid's film, but in a movie like this, all it does is make the character that injects that into the plot the least interesting character in the movie. And you mentioned it at the top, Begley, I think it's time to finally broach the issue of why we're talking about this movie. Chevy Chase in this movie is awful. Yeah, so compared to where we just were, it's like scale of ten too negative. It's so bad.

He's so bad in this movie. It kills any momentum that the film had been building. It just dies right there. And I'm like, is it just me? Am I being hypercritical because I know this is why we're talking about this, But man oh Man talk about phoning it in, which we have mentioned in the past, it's like he's paging it in.

He's not even phoning it in. When there's that weird thing, and I know, it's like, it's actually funny how he just shows up at the movie or the theater later on and I'm like, okay, it just happens to be there and just walks right in and they're like, I mean, it's that was a laugh. But then as soon as he opens his mouth, it's like okay, and then you know, and he got beaten to death by the mob at the end. I mean, that's the funniest joke. That is the funniest joke.

Yes, the funniest joke of his character in the entire movie is that he dies at the end. Nor McDonald says, oh, yeah, he died. What okay, bye, yeah, okay, yeah, it's right. It's again, like I mentioned at the top of this with the poster, it's norm McDonald, Jack Warden, and Chevy Chase on the poster. Chevy Chase is a fucking glorified cameo.

Yes, you can't bill him on this movie. And I don't even understand in what universe nineteen ninety eight chevy Chase was, Like nineteen ninety eight was worth billing chevy Chase as someone because like at that point, the year before, he had done Vegas Vacation, which we will get to and I actually think he's good in Vegas Vacation compared to this, But then after this he essentially is always doing this, which is like a bit part in somebody else's movie, like in snow Day where he plays a dad, or in Orange County where he. Plays hot time machine. Yeah, it's like and and in those movies he is not. It's not that he's good or bad.

He doesn't get in the way of the movie in this movie, yet it is histe And the fact that they come back to him like two or three times is really the problem. It's not that it's once, it's there were just once. I don't think I'd have a as big of a problem, But they come back to it way too many times for the same thing. Oh, he's just gonna show up more beaten up. It's like okay, but like, what to what end does this gag funny?

I've been looking at the one of the writers reread Wolf, and he's behind. He's written some of the worst movies out there, like Yeah, Dicky Roberts former child star without a Paddle, Uh, grown Ups Grew. Up to Without a Paddle is better than anything you've mentioned so far, including this movie. He wrote the original Joe Dirt, which actually liked, but he also wrote jodrt Io and then Yeah He So Funny, Yeah He, which was decent. But he was also one of the writers on the infamous Chevy Chase and Pat say Jack talk shows.

And he also wrote the movie that I have often classified as five actors getting together to film them going on vacation, Grown Ups One and Somehow because it exists, Grown Ups two. Two movies I've seen that I don't think actually have plot lines at all. They don't even attempt to. He just watched the first one and that was so bad. It's not funny, right, it's as it's as unfunny as funny.

People got him, double got him. But that's it. But that's the thing like when I like, even this movie's funnier than grownups, but it feels like again, like it feels like if this movie had gone through a couple more drafts or I don't know if it being rated R would have fixed anything, but it might have made the problems a little less obvious. At least they're saying fuck half the time. I don't know.

I'm not saying Norm McDonald's comedy requires a more adult lean to it, but I don't classify Norm McDonald as like someone that kids are gonna like like Adam Sandler is for kids, like Holy Shit, Hotel Transylvania, Bedtime Stories, like all of those movies are for children. Like Norm McDonald wasn't going and making animated movies where he was doing voices for you know, Dracula or whatever the hell Adam Sandler does. It's weird how miscast Nor McDonald is in this movie every night now that I've sat and watched it, because it honestly bugs me now because like even a movie, and again, this movie has gotten critically reappraised in the last couple of years. If only this movie had allowed it Norm McDonald to be Norm McDonald, it may be more akin to Freddy Got Fingered, where it's like, this is a representative of the person who's making it for good and for bad.

If you don't like it and don't resonate with it, that's fine. But Freddy Got Fingered as unabashedly Tom Green's movie, and this movie should have been that. And I think one of the reasons it doesn't succeed is because it really feels like if this had been a Norm McDonald movie, it it might have yielded a sequel, It might have yielded a Norm McDonald comedic vehicle, I guess timeline. But again, I don't think Nor McDonald ever was gonna be that. He's just not that kind of comedian.

Being what voice work he was doing. He was Lucky, Oh yeah, and Doctor Doolittle. And also while he did he was a character on The Orville. He did a voice in there which was actually a pretty funny character. A pigeon on Mike Tyson Mysteries.

Oh boy, really, but the pigeon, he's just. Norm McDonald being Norm McDonald, delivering Norm m MacDonald lines and commenting on the absurdity of the scenario. And like, again, like I don't it's just Norm McDonald being Norm McDonald, So it doesn't feel like a character. And that's the thing with Norm MacDonald. His comedy is so specific.

You really have to tailor the things that he's doing to him. Adam Sandler can just be a guy who puts on shoes and becomes people, and he can play a hockey player who plays golf now, or a childish football player who was a water boy like and you know what Adam Sandler. Ships for his own twin sister. Yeah, an astronaut apparently, yeah yeah. Or a serious actor all of a sudden in post twenty nineteen.

So I'm good for him. But at the same time, I think the every madness of Adam Sandler is lost on someone like Nora McDonald. Yeah, you're not really going to put yourself in his place in this film. You're not going to imagine yourself as him. But I think we talked about the cutting of crude humor last time on Under the Rainbow on how would that have helped that?

And I think it would have helped at least in making things not seem so abrupt and unfinished, like the anal rape joke in the Jail, not that it would have been any funnier, but it would have at least not felt like, oh, something's missing here, something either reaction shots or further dialogue or something to give it the punch at the end is missing. And that's probably true for a lot of the scenes that Jack Wardon is in. I mean, he gets away with most of the raunchy stuff in the film that according to those little tidbits, it was much raunchier. And he's watching porn, not aerobicize and things like that. So I mean he gets to say cock at the end of the movies.

I guess that was their their you know, PG thirteen level stop point rhymes with cock. That's one of the movie's best jokes. You know, good lord, I'm in Horror Heaven. I mean, hey, if you just have Jack Wardon say horror a bunch of times, you're gonna get a lot of lass in the audience. That's just the way it goes.

I just felt bad for him, you know, because I love Jack Wardon so much and just for him to prid me. I mean, one of the things when the car commercial is happening, I was thinking, oh, this reminds me a little bit of used cars. And then how much I love used cars and he's fantastic and used cars and it's like, such a better movie, And don't remind me of better movies while I'm watching this movie, even Christopher McDonald, I would just like I'd rather be watching Happy Gilmour right now. And that doesn't that happen to me very often. I was I do not say those words.

And his boss character, he reminded me a lot of the boss. He reminded me of Kevin McCartney from McCarthy from UHF. And like some of the jokes there don't pay off, Like he fires the one guy and I think he says that he wants him shaved, and then the next time we see him, he's not shaved. He's just there the James character. And again, whenever he talks, I'm just like thinking of him and Billy Madison, Yeah, and I'm like, oh, much better role, and just like, Okay, these three guys, including the writer Fred Wolf, show up as these homely guys, and those jokes just don't pay off either the whole like them going back and forth in the audience at the opera and like, oh, I'm sorry I smell and oh I farted.

Oh did you fart? Oh no, that was me from earlier. I'm just like these this is not funny stuff, Like you guys could have disrupted this opera so better than what you're doing. Just yeah, was that the point they're they're just ruining the show because I was waiting for them to plant something, or I was. Waiting for them to at least play the whole tape of him admitting that he owns the building and stuff like you know, where's that moment?

Because instead it's oh, it's the wrong thing that he's playing. Oh, well, she's queuing up the right thing, but he never plays it. He ends up ruining the tape. I'm just like, what what Okay? But then yeah, he had another recording of it, so they're about to play that, but I don't think they ever play it for the audience, and that audience probably doesn't care about any of that stuff.

The audience is gone by the time she gets the tape to play. So right, you're right, and the mayor. The love interests, why do we have a love interest for him? Oh she's terrible. She's given nothing to do.

And that's too bad because the next in two thousand she would be in Me, Myself and Irene, where she's pretty funny. She I think she's a woman who leaves Jim Carrey like right at the beginning of the movie, but like and it's a smaller role, but at least they give her something to do here. It's like, what, why do we want this kind of unlikable guy to fly to a woman who fightsming right, doesn't make any sense. I only know her from Monk, so I don't know that. I was surprised to see her in the cast list as I was looking at it before we hit play, and that's why I was surprised.

I actually forgot that John Goodman was in it. I saw him in the cast list along with Gary Coleman and all these other people, and then I totally forgot about it until he showed up for two seconds and I was like, oh shit, Yeah, he was supposed to be in this, or he is. I mean, he's in this, but he probably had a scene. Yeah, and he doesn't even do anything sing John Goodman esque. No, that could have been anybody.

That could have been Larry Budden Melman up there. That would have been funnier. I always forget that he's in this movie. But that's because, like you both have mentioned, there's no point, like literally no point, and. He had to have had another scene.

He had to have. It doesn't make any sense to have him as the mayor. I feel like a lot of this movie must be on the cutting room floor, because there are scenes that don't feel like they make any sense in this movie unless they're trying to cover up for the fact that there is a joke that has been cut short or a scene that has been cut short. Like there's one point where Norm MacDonald's car is broken into while he's sleeping in it. Right, it's like why what I mean?

I guess that's the kind of the payoff from earlier on in the movie where he doesn't have anywhere to sleep. But again, it's like all of this just seems like a lot of choices being made to just divert attention away from the fact that this movie should have been rated are And again, given that now having done the research about it, we know that there's plenty of stuff apparently left out or changed. For me, does feel like a real big missed opportunity with this movie, because I'm again we're not saying it would have made the movie marginally better, but it maybe would have made the tone work a little bit better than it, kind of seeming like it can't make up its mind if it even wants to be PG thirteen.

They don't even say fuck once in this and this is this is still you can say fuck once and get a PG thirteen. I mean, that's still the way it is now. But I mean comedians and comedy writers have been embracing that forever because they're the ones who know that they can do it and not you know, an action movies too, but MCU doesn't always flex that. But plenty of comedies have fuck at least once, and this movie doesn't even have one F bomb dropped, Like come on now, Yeah, this is this Unfortunately for me, watching movies and then talking about them that I like can be a double edged sword, and this is one of those times, unfortunately, because yeah, going into this episode, I was I knew that I knew that y'all were gonna resonate with it a whole lot, because again, like it's even I know it's not great, but I was not expecting to dislike it as much this time as I have, because again, it just i'd rather watch a movie in a universe where Norm MacDonald got to do more on the script, and maybe that was the case before they toned it down, but you shouldn't tone it down a movie just to get a PG thirteen rating.

Basketball was fucking are can you imagine basketball? PG thirteen? Yikes? Yikes, because again Trey Parker and Matt Stone, those two guys are crass and over the top, and they know how to write funny. But they're funny that they write is it's pretty, it's high brow, lowbra but they use a lot of pejoratives as adults who want to tear down people who use curse words call them and there's nothing wrong with it.

But don't expect, you know, Trey Stone and Matt Parker to fucking make a PG thirteen movie and it be very funny, because even Book of Mormon, which is a musical, is pretty crass and it's the most crass thing I think I've ever seen on stage. But again that makes sense given who wrote it. Well, it doesn't make sense that they would the studio, the producers whoever are behind trying to get that PG thirteen. They were trying to get that to get a wider audience. And obviously, but Norm McDonald himself as a personality isn't geared toward younger people.

It would make more sense for people in their twenties or whoever at the time watched him on Saturday Night Live go oh yeah, I remember him on there. I like his sense of humor. It seems like an R rating would appeal more to that crowd. A thirteen year old isn't going to go, oh, hey, Norm McDonald's in this new movie and I can go see it because it's PG thirteen. So that whole idea of them gearing it towards that is completely misguided.

They didn't obviously know what his audience was, if he even really had one. Well, they must have believed he did enough to give him his own show, like we've mentioned like What You're a year or two later. But again, it's not like that show was a big hit that ran for thirteen seasons. It ran for what two well three three seasons, fifty four episodes, so not even getting into syndication. So yeah, I don't know.

Norm McDonald's just a weird case because I love him as a comedian, but I just don't understand what the point of what the point of him being a comedian in this kind of role is, because it's miss you miss the point of what makes this guy funny. And I don't know what makes Arty Lang funny, and this movie definitely doesn't clue me in as to what it is. Maybe just giving commentary while talking with Howard Stern is enough, and that could be the case. I mean, maybe Arti Lang is just really funny on the fly, and he's really good at coming up with quippy, funny things to say while sitting in Howard Stern's studio. I've listened to all of like one hour of Howard Stern Come.

By, So yeah, I used to listen all tin but after Jackie the joke Man left, I was done with the show because I really think that he was the one that was giving a lot of great material to Howard through the entire thing. And then once he left, just the whole show went on hill for me, and then Arty was part of that. I listened to a couple of Lardy episodes. I was just like, no, he just does not have it. He just I mean, Howard loved having him there because he could tell all kinds of great stories about just how fucked up his own life is you know when he did he fucking like stab himself to try to kill himself at one point.

I mean it's a he's a sad sad man. Yeah, he's definitely a mess. He's not part of the whack pack, is what you're saying. He's whack for a different reasons. Yes, yes, that's a Yeah, that whole Howard Stern world, Like it's so foreign to me that again, like ARTI Lang's time in this movie kind of feels like that weird, like why are you here?

I don't get it, Like I've never seen private parts either. But it's not a movie that I'm like going out of my way to watch because I just don't get Howard Stern. Maybe it's maybe it's not that I don't get it, it's just I missed the chance to be part of it, to get it now, and people got it then are still in, you know, invested now. But yeah, this is just it bums me out how much I don't like this movie now having sat and talked about it objectively, because it's not. I mean, it's okay though, because at the same time, like in a lot of ways, I can still enjoy it for its flaws, but it does bum me out that there is a much better movie here, like underneath a lot of real weird choices that don't serve anything other than making this a less funny movie than it would have been other anything else we want to talk about with Dirty Worker?

Have we beaten it into a pulp enough to turn it into hamburger? Yeah? Throw it on the fryar. We peschied it and we're bearing it in a cornfield in Iowa somewhere. Keep your distance there, Liberacchi.

There was another line, Oh funny. Oh man, I mean again, you know, Bob Saggett is funnier in the one scene that he's in in Half Baked than most of the scenes that Ardi Lang is in in this movie. You were suck dick for Kochman is a funnier line that Arty Lang says in this entire movie. Ah so yeah, and again, Bob Sagga directed this movie. And that's the thing I wonder, like Bob Sagga read this script.

He's a funny guy. Wouldn't he have been, like you know when we let Norm McDonald like, I just Bob Sagga directing a PG thirteen movie is also kind. Of odd today. Yeah, yeah, Like, I don't know, I've seen Bob saggon The Aristocrats. That guy was not filtered.

He was filtered for TV because he was on Full House. That guy had a melt like a fucking sailor and then some and was pretty pretty crass. But yeah, this is this is not that unfortunately, So so on that note, the next time you hear the three of us talking about a Chevy Chase movie, we'll be talking about a proper Chevy Chase movie, but one that well, quality may vary, and we're gonna be talking about nineteen eight We're going back to the golden age of Chevy Chase to talk about nineteen eighty ones. Chevy Chase has modern. Uploads and so excited.

I never seen it. I've seen the preview a million times, but I have not so. I've seen it twice in my life. I used to watch it all all the time. So I am sure to be like, what the hell were you thinking, Mike.

You're gonna you're gonna have the same thing next time that happened to me. This time we're just like, oh no, yeah, great. It's wacky, but it's wacky. That's what I remember. Yeah, I just remember a lot of cocaine.

Yeah, yeah, that I remember that from the trailer. So until then, where can people find you and the things that you work on? Mark Begley, you can find my two shows, wake Up Heavy and Cambridgemashawan over on Weardway Media dot com, uh on speaker or wherever you listen to podcasts about you. Mike White, I'm getting your website Mark if it's the wake Up Breevy one. Yeah, but if I go to wakeupeavy dot com, it tells me that it's not available.

But if I go to h G. T P S colon slash slash www dot wakeupeavy dot com, it works. It's probably something to do with your shirts. Your cookies, boy clear your cook Yeah, it. Is for me.

You can't find me at http colon slash slash www dot wake updat heavy dot com, but you can find me over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Actually you can find me on Wakeup Heavy dot com as well. Mark s had me on the show a few times, much to his chagrin. But you know, I'll stop coming back if he asked me. If he still't, I don't know.

So, yeah, those are my lowest rated shows. I'm sure that they are. They just take even close close. No one wants to hear me talk about. What do we talk about?

We talked about Angel Heart and Murdered by Death and. We show for that one. Yeah, we had a whole show too. I don't know if you guys remember from the files of Police Squad in Color. I do know it was a year ago.

That was a long time ago. That's what this show spawned from. I don't why did we why are we here doing Chevy. Chase again because of the foul Play episode? Yes, well why did we watch foul Play?

So we already did it. I don't remember why we did foul Play at all. I think because Mark wanted to talk about it. Oh yeah, because that's one of my favorite films. Yeah, and that started to sound this path and it came up on Murder.

By Death and just think foul Play escaped this podcast rather unscathed, if not elevated even more Unlike. How about you, Chris, You can. Find me at weirdingwaymedia dot com, like like these two fine gentlemen, I do all my audio work over there. Yeah, Weirdingwaymedia dot com talking about a lot of seventies TV shows, primarily cop shows for whatever reason. Uh, and some anthology, horror and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, Weirdingway media as where you can find those and this show so yeah, like great review, wherever you get it, and we'll catch on the next episode.