Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - The Penguin, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Bad News Bears

Welcome back, midnight viewers to Father Malone's weekly round up. I'm Father alone and with me overseeing all that streaming, all that streaming, neth a pallid bust of palace. Just beneath my chamber door is miss Ripley Jean, say hi to the folks. You tiny raven Ed Grallan Poe was born in Boston. You know.

William Butler Yeats called him the jingle Man. It was not a compliment. Salutations have been made. Let's get to that streaming, and there's not a damn thing newer than what's going on over at HBO Max or Max. Maybe they should stop leaning into brevity and call it Maximilian and use that robot from the black Hole as their logo.

They could have that sound as headmade when it turned as their jingle. Oh so good. I love a bit of truth in advertising. When the Treasure Island Casino was still under construction, their electronic billboard would flash the very piraty sentiment you're either with us or against us. Yes, that is a segue, because we're talking about planes speaking villains.

This week, We've got one hell of an example with the penguin. Kimber they can help you. Why is the dream you promise me as a wolf? I deserted that, like stop, I'm working on it. Well, they set up for the honest man to succeed.

That should be the American dream right there? You know, beautiful story, what happyend me. But that ain't the way it work works there because of a hustle. Not that I'm complaining, Anguin you baltzing in here like you mean something. We're in the middle of a gang war.

Comrade, Fuck's dead if we don't protect what's ours. We just looked weak. The streets are talking again. You know there's only one man big enough around this seading. Oh ding them a Comin's door.

Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt. So yeah, I told you was still let uh. Arkham. No, I've been rehabilitated. You're playing a dangerous game with this family aunts.

You think I want so feafl Cone knocking on my door. She is the ammien? What is that? You really have to us gonna tear down lampire from the inside out. Whoever controls the drug business controls the streets.

I'll be running the whole damn trade. I got ambition. I can help you, hike feel alive, Vic, huh, you feel a heart eaten, the city's need to be your sweetheart? What are you gonna do together? Trust me, it's just the beginning.

I was against recently on the Culture Cast discussing Tim Burton's Batman Returns, and I made this point there and I'm gonna make it here too. There hasn't been a bad version of the Penguin, and there have been a lot. Just the voice actors Stephen Root, Ted Knight, Dana Snyder, Tom Kenny, Nolan North he's that Cockney one in the Arkham Games, David Ogden Steers, Robert fucking Morse, and of course the best of all the voiced versions of the Penguin, mister Paul Williams hands or flippers down. He's the best voice of the penguin. But on screen we've had Burgess Meredith.

He was hard to unseat. But then Danny DeVito's grotesque fairytale version shows up. Can't beat that, right, well, Robin Lord Taylor does just that with his portrayal on Gotham. We got to spend more time on screen with him than any of the others, and he was a delight, a simpering, rage filled angular, tall, lean version of the Penguin. Oh Man, I fucking loved it.

I love him, Robin, Lord Taylor, everybody, which brings us to Matt Reeves, The Batman, and the minor character a captain in the Falcone crime family, Oswald Cobb, played completely anonymously by Colin Farrell. I'm assuming most of you have seen The Batman. If not, go ahead, We'll wait. We'll just pause it here. Are you back?

Great? Right? This is a situation where I wish they'd never told us who it was or there was makeup involved at all. Andy Kaufman was fooling zero people as Tony Clifton. But Colin Farrell in this makeup, with this performance wholly unrecognizable Batman and wholly unrecognizable the makeup is not only just gorgeous, but it allows a performance to come through it.

I don't even have to tell you. I probably will again though. Yes, that's Colin Farrell. I thought you knew that. Yes, he's the Dad and Dumbo.

That's your reference. And since you've seen the movie, you'll know. It ends with Carmine Falcone dead and Gotham in ruins thanks to the Riddler's plot to flood the city. The Penguin takes place a few weeks later, and my god, the continuity. This is ruined Gotham and it is beautiful.

A couple of episodes ago, I praised the Crow City of Angels for lighting the nights entirely with sodium arc lamps, giving it that golden tinged hue. They go even further here. Gotham is always a glow night or day. It is a permanent golden hour, a dirty, gross golden hour, interrupted only by periods of rain. My anthologies At Tack, co host Antonio Lapour lamented the lack of umbrella as part of the Penguin's look, which I assume they'll get to.

I lament it because it's always raining in Gotham. You think they'd hand them out on the street corners or figuring out some clip on accessory thing, so everyone constantly has an umbrella with them Anyway, There's a whole lot of turmoil in Gotham's underground now that Falcone is dead and his drug addicted sun has ascended. Also, Falcone's psychopath daughter Sophia has been released from Arkham and is reasserting herself within the organization, and there's the organization itself, which is looking to reduce Oz's contribution to the family. Now we've only gotten the pilot here. It's called After Hours.

Boido. I love when a writer actually names the goddamn show instead of just pilot. Fuck the tradition on that one. So when I recommend this show as highly as anything I've seen this year, you'll forgive me if it goes south. But I doubt it's going to do that.

Even if it does, even if this was the only episode we got this one shot day in a Life of the Penguin, it would be worth it. In fact, basically it's structured that way. A Day in the Life. We follow the penguin as he makes horrible decisions, takes on new talent, navigates his way in and amongst the various deceivers that surround him, discuss the importance of air fresheners and in general, just try and stay ahead of every other obstacle put in his way. And what fucking obstacles.

First, we get Michael Ziegan as Alberto Falcone. You might know him as Joel Mazel, the mister to the marvelous Missus Mazel. He's sweet and understated there, but I would encourage you to check out his turn in Terrence Winter's show Boardwalk Empire. He played a young Benny Siegel there and made real that nickname the man hated so much, Bugsy like crazy. He is fantastic Here.

Three quarters of the way through the show, were introduced to the Falcone family's biggest nemesis, Salvator Moroni, imprisoned head of the Marony crime family, played by Clancy Brown. Because I wasn't in love with the show enough, just throw the Kurgan into the mix. But the show's true asset, and really anything that casts her is receiving a massive gift, is Kristin Milioti as Sophia Falcone. Good Lord, is she good? As fine as any performance is on the show.

They all kind of pale next to Farrell's penguin. I didn't think they could find anyone who could steal that spotlight, and then Kristin Miliode walked off with it as soon as she appeared, and continues to do so every time she shows up. She's fucking terrifying. If you've seen that time loop extravaganza Palm Springs with Andy Samberg, and if you haven't go watch it. We'll pause.

Are you back? It was a delight right? Okay, So now you've seen her in that. If you go to Netflix, go to thirty Rock right now, season five, episode sixteen, it's called TGS Hates Women. The fucking Range on Miss Milodi.

She's a wonder and I cannot wait to see what she does throughout the season. For you comic book fans, if you were ever hoping to see Matt Reeves adapt The Long Halloween, I doubt that's gonna happen. Just watch this episode. You'll know why. Oh I keep saying Matt Reeves and he is the executive producer, and no doubt has plenty of notes and guidance.

But I'd like to point out that this show is created and run and this pilot was written by Lauren Lefrank. This is her first as a showrunner, and good God, keep up the good work. Okay, I'm now going to shut about the Penguin, but I will be watching every Thursday and you will be too. No, I don't think Colin Farrell's gonna suddenly appear without the makeup. Fine, you're officially counted out.

Okay, listen, I gotta talk a little inside baseball, a little behind the curtain, behind the scenes. You're at the roundup. Every week Ripley has pick, and just between you and me, I picked the movies for her. She's a dog. But this week, no joke.

This is one hundred percent miss Ripley Jean's choice. I've never seen her so riveted to a piece of entertainment. Let's go HP, It's time for Ripspicks. Jam. I thank you all enough for listening to this podcast.

If not, thank you, I know the importance of distraction and entertainment. A podcast that's been keeping me endlessly entertained lately is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal podcast. I listen nearly every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. And if there's one thing mister Gonfried was, it was a monster kid, just absolutely addicted to the classic Universal Monsters. And on the show, he and Frank Santo Padre, his co host, frequently wax rapsodic about Abbott and Costello, meet Frankenstein.

Count Dracula sleeps in this coffin that rises every night at sunset. Chick is right, this is awful silly stuff. Come on it all out come the nation's top comics. Abd and Costello petrified but hilariously must the Dane, terious and terrifying wolf Man played by Lawn Cheney, plus that fiend out of a nightmare, the vampire batman, Count Dracula played by Baylor Lucosi, plus the most dreaded creature of them all, the Frankenstein Monster played by Glenn Strange, plus a couple of lushes but designing females in the spookiest lap best on record. I love that movie when I'm as a kid, but that is probably the last time i'd seen it.

Your mileage may vary on Abbott and Costello, above the Ritz Brothers, but below the Stooges. So I figured i'd put the movie on for a few minutes and reassess, and if it got to corny, I'd at least have seen the animated credit sequence with the skeletons and the monsters. So I put it on and lu Costello comes on screen, and Ripley is I'll say she's interested, right, She's paying a lot of attention to Luke Costello, and his antics are pretty great. Luke Costello was a star for a reason. I hated when he did that baby talk shit, But overall he was charming and a deft physical comedian and apparently much loved by young Ripley.

Here but it gets better because she stays locked in. She's sitting beside me throughout. The whole thing. And then the monsters showed up, and this mighty pug crawls all the way to the edge of the bed as close as she can get to the TV and remains mesmerized for the rest. And yes, there was a lot of barking during the Flaming finale.

By the time they came to film this, Abbott and Costello, known in France as the two Simpletons and in Italy as Jeanni and Pinoto, we're already on a downward trajectory. Within a few years they'd be banished at television and eventual obscurity. But they still had years of vitality left in them. It's just that they hated each other. By now, neither relished working with each other again, nor did they relish the product itself.

Luke Costello remarked on this script, no way I'll do that crap. My little girl could write something better than this. Nevertheless, I think this flick is a high point. It's got the recycled gags that seem to be slowly strangling their features, and it's got a lot of the same paper thin characters as the other films. But this has monsters.

Man, not just that it's Lon Cheney Junior and it's Bella fucking Lagosi. It's a Bella Lagosi playing Dracula, and not in a joky way. It's really like Dracula was shipped in from his film. And it has Glenn Strange as the monster. Anyone but Boris Karlov is going to be a drag so Sumi except Beef from Phantom of the Paradise.

Now there's a Frankenstein monster. Anyway, the monsters are here, what could be wrong with hanging out with them for seventy minutes? I realized this film has been criticized as having put the final nail, so to speak, in the Universal Monster's coffin, But they'd be revitalized in the Hammer films in just a decade or so, And lately I've been digging different flavors of the same product, like Colin Farrell as the Penguin. So why not a bumbling bunch of antics wrapped in the Cerements of the Grave. This one's streaming for free.

In I sense, I know what ripspicks are going to be over the next few weeks. After all, this movie was a success, so Jeana and Pinoto would also face the Invisible Man, Boris Karlov, Doctor Jenkol, and mister Hyde and the Mummy. They would tangle with the creature from the Black Lagoon on their TV show. But we are not watching those, No, I don't care, Okay, it's kind of hard to wrangle a theme for this episode based on those choices. The Penguin, Abbitt, Costello, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and to Things Scooby Doo met nearly everyone but Budenloo.

They hung with the Stooges and Laurel and Hardy. They hang out with Mama Cass remember that, But no time for baseball jokes on the Mystery Machine, I guess. In honor of Budd and Leew's most famous routine, I'm gonna present tonight's final selection. Do you have a favorite sports film? Actually, do you have a favorite baseball film?

There have been some greats. The Natural Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, for the Love of the Game, Jesus, those last three are all Kevin Costner. Everyone loves Major League, everyone loves the Sandlot. Those are great choices, but they're the wrong choices. I don't know what I call them bad choices.

Maybe they're bad, but they're not the Bad News Bears. There is no limit to what some men will do for money, especially a man like Marris Buttermaker. No, I really appreciate this. It's just a damn shame that none of the fathers at the time. For God knows if I wasn't so busy down city my check white one, even if it meant coaching an unlikely group called all the Bad News Bears.

It was a team of superstars like Mike Engelbern, Rudy Stein, Reggie Tower, Amad abdul Wahim, the Incomfortable Ogovie, Timmy Lupis, Kelly Leek, the Aguilar Brothers. With a team like this, there is only one way you can go. Cups and supporters gotta be won at all times. Well give that one, Edi Wham, or you don't play. Walter matthow Is Marris Buttermaker, a man so desperate to make a buck that he did the unforgivable.

He put a girl on the team. Why i'd like get to meet your no pitcher, Amanda Whirlicher us fixed Niggers and now a girl rabbit punk. Tatum O'Neill is Amanda. But Amanda is no ordinary girl, and with her help, the Bad News Bears went from totally terrible to just plain bad. And once you do this league of favorite feeling, the Bears just dropped out.

Amanda knew what the Bad News Bears needed. She also knew how to get it. If I win, you play baseball for the Bears. And if I win, name it? What if he tries something I know eleven year old girls already on the pill don't ever say that word again.

Oh well, well, if. It isn't a puke cowdjoin me. Stick to that. Turn. But a little success is a strange thing.

Once you taste it, you want more. And from just playing bad, the Bad News Bears climbed up the ladder to become the team that played baseball like it has never been played before. Academy Award winner Walter Mathow is the coach. Academy Award winner Tatum O'Neill is a secret weapon. Together they turned the Bad News Bears into a team of superstars.

You will never forget the Bad Newsbears, the incredible story of how a disaster combined with a catastrophe and somehow became the greatest champs who ever played ball? Buttermaker, Kelly Leak, Engelberg, Timmy Lupis and Tanner fucking boyle Oh and everyone's first crush Tatum O'Neill. Everyone loved Tatum O'Neill. Hit someone in their fifties and they will squawk out her name. I was a leather Tusk Darrow fan, Pinky too.

You know. This whole ex generation love to post on social media about here, how irresponsibly we were raised, how the seventies just seemed to be some weird freefall where clearhitded thinking was kind of out the window. Kids are always up to trouble, and I'm sure in the coming years, these current youthful generations will tell us all the horrible things that they were doing that we could never conceive of. But I think if you want a clear idea of what was going on in the seventies for our generation, this is more than a fair, maybe even mild representation. The story's been told a hundred times reluctant coach, misfit players.

They all learn or relearn what it is to be a team. Yep, we'll never be free of that premise, and that's fine. Feel free to innovate on the theme future baseball filmmakers. Just know it has been perfected because the reluctant coach here is frequently drunk former pro ball player now pool cleaner in the form of Walter Mathou. This movie works like it does because of Walter Mathow want proof see that awful remake with Billy Bob Thornton.

Mathou is so good because you can buy the nastiness and the narcissism and the redemption. Walter Mathou is world weary, persona fined and just the kind of parental substitute you want for these fuck ups from every stripe and social strata. People bitch about people bitching about lack of representation in media, they can fuck themselves. If the seventies did one thing right, it was give us more representation on screen. This is a perfect example.

Muslims and Mexicans, Jews and Wasps, rich, poor, thin, fat, good Kelly Leak. What a villain here rides a motorbike? Watch out for him. Oh yeah, you know what, watch this just for tiny Jackie. Earl Hayley.

This would make a good double feature with Watchmen, where he plays rorshak Oh, baby, we're gonna do that. Yes, the giant blue dong is distracting? What is wrong with you? Bad News Bears written by Bill Lancaster. That's the son of Bert Lancaster.

If that's not a cool enough legacy for young Bill. He's also the writer of John Carpenter's The Thing. Ooh, that might be a good double feature Bad News Bears. The Thing contrast the character dynamics. Maybe we just watched The Thing and you can hear it on a previous episode.

Go ahead, pause the show. We'll wait. I'm kidding, but you're right. We did just watch The Thing though. Who needs a reason to rewatch?

Am I right? No? You know what we should do is make a triple feature Bad News Bears, Bad News Bears in Breaking Trains. That's got William Devane replacing math out and he almost pulls it off. And then let's watch them all go to Japan.

Wait, Tony Curtis, what do you say, kid? You're ready for all the Bears, all the news, all the bad No, they're quite good. Actually, Breaking Training has a weird, shaggy quality that I like a lot. I think, in fact, I've seen it way more than the first film. Maybe I should have recommended that.

No, then all of the Tatum O'Neal fans would be up in arms us Missus McEnroe. They'd scream and cry and Hugh, you cry in here. All right, folks, thank you again for taking some time and rounding the week up with us. We've got a new anthology's attack on Friday. I think we might be taking a trip to Italy.

Tune in to find out. If you want to give us a hand, head over to patreon dot com slash fatherm alone subscribers get episodes early and commercial free, and we've got some Patreon only bonus episodes cooking right now which are going to be cool. Or if money is tight, you can do us the biggest favor and go to Apple Podcasts and just give us five stars. It's incredibly helpful and doesn't cost a dime. Neither is just telling a friend they're weird like you.

You should share. For Ripley Jean and myself, we'll say syonara until next week. Gonna leave you with the line from coach Morris, Buttermaker, no, get back to the stands before I shave off half your mustache and shove it up your left nostril. I might have been more WC Fields than Mathol, but I'm going with it.