'Munchie Strikes Back' Meets World (with Natanya Ross)

00:00:18
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, congratulations on one year of Pod Meets World.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: It's already been a Year's how fast they go.

00:00:29
Speaker 1: It's gone so quickly, and and you know what's funny is that as fast as it's gone, it's also been more. It's been like I thought we were going to have a good times. I was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be fun. We're gonna have a really good time. But it's been so it's actually been so meaningful and it's changed things in my life. And I know writers talked about it too, that like the difference in the way you interact with the public and the way people talk.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: To you about it.

00:00:54
Speaker 1: It's a it's such a nice thing to be recognized for now. Like I was, we were at a restaurant a couple of weeks ago, and the person sitting next to it next to us, I was just interacting with the kids and they had two kids, and and started saying something, you know, our kids started talking to each other, and just very casually as they were leaving, they were like, by the way, really a big fan of the pod. It's like, oh that's cool, that's so cool really, And then I was like, wait, come back, come back down.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: I want to know.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk. What are the things you like? What are the things that you have more questions about? Where do you want to see it go? Like, I'm really loving the conversation we've been able to have with our dear listeners and how they shape the things that we talk about.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's such a it's so interesting, Like how much a sense of community right like that.

00:01:41
Speaker 2: Boy Meets World engender is a sense of community, it seems like.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: And I think maybe it's a timing thing because it was the last one, you know, one of the last gasp of that era when before streaming, you know, when you could just you would get together and watch something live not you know, or if it was in reruns on Disney Channel. It just it's it really brings people together. It brings people back to a really comforting time in their lives. And then it feels like the podcast has been that for us too, you know, like for me because I spent so much on my life avoiding it the show to now like be able to watch and be like, oh, this is this is a really good childhood, a really good time we had making the show and the people around us and you know, as much as we have had a lot of you know, conversations about trauma and repressed memories and all the more dramatic stuff.

00:02:36
Speaker 2: In general, it's a very positive experience, totally is. And that's the thing is, they did.

00:02:41
Speaker 5: We live in a world where obviously the one or two things we say that maybe weren't the best thing that happened to us are the things that make the news. And nobody's listening to the other three hours we've been talking, so it's I mean, we all think it was.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: A great experience.

00:02:55
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just certain parts of it that we're being honest about, but it was overall wonderful and it brought all of us.

00:03:02
Speaker 2: Closer together too, which is which is kind of cool.

00:03:04
Speaker 5: And I mean we get to see each other way more than we did, which is great, and yeah, you know, yeah, so.

00:03:11
Speaker 2: And seeing people like again.

00:03:12
Speaker 5: I just I was on my walk the other day and I'd never listened to the live show. Yeah, so I listened to the live show from Hyundai, and it was, you know, hearing Blake and Ethan and Danny all together again, and Tony and I joking on stage, and the scene we put together. It just all felt so good. It was just I had this giant smile on my face. I probably looked like an insane person as I'm walking my dog with this joker like smile on my face.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: It's through our neighborhood, but it was, it is. It's just it's happy. It's nice to find things that are just happy again.

00:03:48
Speaker 1: The amount of joy and love and respect that was present on our set on most days amongst the cast and the crew and whatever is like, I've never I've never come across anything like it again, No, and.

00:04:05
Speaker 2: We probably won't.

00:04:06
Speaker 5: And and and that's and you know, there's credit to Michael Jacobs who used to say to us, enjoy it. This is gonna end. You may find this again. And he was right, and he was absolutely right. And it's I mean, I've done.

00:04:18
Speaker 4: Some plays that have felt kind of similar, you know, like it's that, but they're they're short lived, right experience.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: You all bond and it's like we're going to be in each other's lives forever. And then you know, months later your camp girlfriend, who's the best girlfriend you'll ever have in your life? And I think her name was Trina, I don't remember, you know exactly. It's like, what the I know, don't remember these things, so it's just no.

00:04:41
Speaker 4: But in our case because it went for so long and has lasted in the public imagination.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: For so long.

00:04:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's.

00:04:50
Speaker 2: An enduring, wonderful part of our lives.

00:04:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love my girlfriend Trina, So shout out to Trina for shout out my first name that popped in my head.

00:04:58
Speaker 2: It just instantly went Trina. I that there you go. That's another thing brought everybody together again. That's I know. This has been a cool This has been.

00:05:07
Speaker 5: A really cool year for me for a lot of different reasons, and a lot of it is based on personal relationships that I've had.

00:05:14
Speaker 2: It's we're doing a cool podcast. But it's been a cool year. It's been a cool year. What have you guys been surprised by about the podcast? We're doing the podcast. It's a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. It's true. I think it's like, oh, I'm gonna do a podcast two episodes a week. Yeah, I mean it's a lot more work.

00:05:34
Speaker 5: And and then you know when we're now doing all these live shows and we're going on tour, and you know, it's there's it's.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: A lot of work. It's yeah.

00:05:42
Speaker 5: That's the thing that surprised me the most is I didn't think it was going to be easy, but I certainly didn't think it was going to take this amount of time and energy.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: I have been surprised kind of by what I said earlier in the in the episode about just the the I've never worked even with Boy Meets World, I've never worked on anything where when somebody brings it up, I feel like, well, tell me more about tell me more about that. I want to sit and talk to you about it. But this project, this podcast, more than anything else, is something people will tell me they're a fan of. In real passing, usually at the end of a conversation doesn't open the conversation have a normal conversation, whether it's because our kids go to the same school, or because we've run into each other, you know, getting a smoothie or a coffee somewhere, or we're having a meal near each other. Somebody will just say at the end, by the way, really love the podcast, and I suddenly go, wait.

00:06:32
Speaker 3: I want to know all of your thoughts on it.

00:06:34
Speaker 1: I want to know what do you think the highlights have been what were some of the things you thought maybe we spent too long on What would you like to hear us do more about?

00:06:42
Speaker 3: Like that kind of.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Because I think the thing that I love more than anything is that it really feels like we embarked on a journey.

00:06:52
Speaker 3: We truly embarked on a journey.

00:06:54
Speaker 1: Not just the three of us together, but we said, all of you who have loved and support at us for all these years, would you.

00:07:01
Speaker 3: Like to embark on this journey with us?

00:07:03
Speaker 1: There may be some highs, there's gonna be a lot of highs, there may be some lows, but we're open to it. We're gonna be honest about it, and do you want to come along with us? And the people who said yes, the thousands of people who said yes, I now feel like every time they mention it, I'm like, tell me all your thoughts on the journey. I want to know what have been your favorite parts of this vacation or this trip we have taken. And I love that. I have never felt that way about any other project I've done.

00:07:28
Speaker 2: It's true, It's good.

00:07:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, you see a you know, we go to conventions and I see Boy meets World stuff.

00:07:34
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's awesome. I see Pod meets.

00:07:36
Speaker 5: World stuff and I'm like, sure, Pod met Shirt, Like, oh, that's like it's yeah, it's you're right, And I don't know if it's because maybe it's completely ours.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's something we created together.

00:07:48
Speaker 4: And I think when you act in a project, it feels a little out of your control, you know. Yeah, yeah, and that's just the nature of being an actor, but especially being a young actor. You know, like, we never had a sense of ownership over Boy Meets World, and I think, you know, we kind of do now.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: I was on a plane the other day with a famous basketball coach, a guy named Frank Vogel, and we sat next to each other and he started talking to me about directing and acting, and he was like, you know, what do you like more about directing than you did about acting? And I said, well, in this case, this is a I direct children's TV where I still don't at the end of the day, have tons of control. But the thing I've realized as an adult about a past acting experiences I had, is there anything else where you are so responsible for being the face of a project.

00:08:40
Speaker 3: Tell us what did you love about this? What do you think is important about this.

00:08:43
Speaker 1: You're asked about it in interviews, you have to represent the project in interviews. You're the front facing person in the project, and yet you have no control over the direction, you have no control over the editing, you have no control over, truthfully, what the story ends up being. You can I actually was talking to Ethan Sipple at the live show that we did back in April about this very thing. How you can be pitched an idea for something, start working on it, and by the time then it's done, you're like, this end result was not at.

00:09:11
Speaker 3: All the project I had agreed to.

00:09:12
Speaker 1: But yet you have to be the person front facing for it, so it's like it is totally out of your control.

00:09:19
Speaker 3: And this has felt very much ours.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, and shout out.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: To iHeart for being such a great partner really saying yeah, this is yours and do it because it was a big it was created and it was important to us when we when we had our meetings, we said, we do not want to work with someone who's going to say no, you have to say this, or you have to do this, or we have to steer the ship in this direction.

00:09:45
Speaker 3: And we have been able to do it ourselves.

00:09:48
Speaker 5: So it's because we originally went in and pitched the nine O two and oh rewatch and they're like, we have that, we already have that, maybe you should do one for your show and we're like, that's that's a great idea.

00:09:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: And also shout out to producer Jensen Carr, husband of this podcast is so great at so many ideas and flobbing suggestions to us and and then when we say yes to something actually making them come true.

00:10:12
Speaker 3: And lots of people who.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: Have lots of people who help us do this that are are absolutely vital and couldn't do it without them, but it has been, it has been remarkable.

00:10:20
Speaker 3: So thank you to you.

00:10:21
Speaker 1: Actually our most important part of this podcast, our dear listeners, because without you, we'd just be yelling into a microphone, which is I think what my my child thinks I do for a living.

00:10:31
Speaker 5: So last night, literally you know how you So you wake up in the morning and it's the dreams you just had that are the ones that are obviously the most clear and vivid in your head. Every dream I had last night. Someone said some version of strafty.

00:10:47
Speaker 4: Bright nod your dream no joke to the point where were.

00:10:55
Speaker 2: People. It's real.

00:10:56
Speaker 5: I woke up laughing because by the end my dreams this morning, we had dropped the bright and it had just become like you'd say something to somebody in the dream that they'd be like, yeah, yeah.

00:11:10
Speaker 2: So it was it. Seriously, it has it for me in my dream all night. Well, I had a terrible night.

00:11:15
Speaker 5: I was waking up and falling asleep and waking up. Every dream had a strofty bright in it life.

00:11:19
Speaker 4: It might it might have its moment people now giving the confidence that it might actually lodge into into people's brains.

00:11:26
Speaker 2: It just takes thirty years to it lodged in the mind because even in my subconscious I am now.

00:11:31
Speaker 3: Saying it, that's amazing.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: I have not had any dreams with strafty bright, and I don't even think about it in my daily life.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: Do you remember your dreams? Some people don't remember their dreams. Yeah, I definitely remember my dream I don't remember no.

00:11:45
Speaker 6: Really.

00:11:46
Speaker 1: Every now and then I'll remember one, but no, for the most part, I don't remember them, probably because even my dreams aren't.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: Fun dreams and the candle and a book. I can't wait to travel with you, Danie. I am just looking forward to this.

00:12:04
Speaker 3: I'm a laugh a minute.

00:12:06
Speaker 2: Actually traveling with you is pretty fun.

00:12:08
Speaker 5: I've already done it, and it's pretty fun because you always This is the thing about Danielle and traveling is she'll try to hide it, but she stops at every candy store you pass.

00:12:17
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

00:12:18
Speaker 1: Oh also checked out what there is to eat in every airport, and I have already decided what I'm snacking on, what I'm going to get, and then I have to weigh between what I'm going to eat in the airport versus well, I do like plain food and I'm gonna get to eat on the plane, and so like how much do I want?

00:12:33
Speaker 3: How much room do I need? Listen, guys, I'm real, I'm a real barrel of fun. Welcome to podnets World.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: I'm daniel Fisher, I'm right or strong, I'm will Ferdll.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: So we are very excited to welcome back one of our favorite guest stars, Natanya Ross. And before we get into this, we all have our own MUNCHI strikes. I wish sure you guys have seen my Kushlings commercial. We so will have some good lean acting going on.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's also grinders, grinders, which we've been threatening to do a rewatch of Yeah I.

00:13:22
Speaker 1: Did watch it, you did, I did. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to. It was actually it was very sweet and educational and fun and great.

00:13:31
Speaker 4: I liked it, but you know interesting, Yeah, it's mostly like a skate video, right, it's mostly watching people skate.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: It's watching people rollerblade and skate on the halfpipe. But then in between mixed with like, if you're interested in this, here just are some like beginning fundamentals that are important for.

00:13:47
Speaker 2: You to know.

00:13:48
Speaker 3: And yeah, it didn't. It didn't try too hard to be something it wasn't. It was actually enjoyed it. I give it all.

00:13:55
Speaker 2: It helped me. Now if I want to learn to skate, now, will it help me?

00:13:58
Speaker 3: Well, if you need to learn how to do.

00:13:59
Speaker 5: It, it's just what I need to learn.

00:14:02
Speaker 3: There you go, okay, and it'll be great.

00:14:04
Speaker 1: Well, we all have our own MUNCHI strikes back, and Natanya is just nice enough to let us.

00:14:09
Speaker 3: Review her movie.

00:14:11
Speaker 1: So when we had her come on the show, we stumbled on this credit and we all knew we needed to see it. So we've decided to make this a little excursion between season two and season three to give us a little bit of a buffer. So please welcome Natanya Ross.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: Welcome back, my friends.

00:14:30
Speaker 3: There she is.

00:14:31
Speaker 2: Hi, how's it going?

00:14:33
Speaker 3: How are you are you guys?

00:14:35
Speaker 6: I'm just getting over strep throat, So that's why I sound like Kathleen Turner. I love it, you know, I wish it would stay for a little while.

00:14:45
Speaker 2: Actually, is there only strep throat? Is strap only throat? Can you get like.

00:14:50
Speaker 5: Strap ears or strap leggs? I mean, you know what I mean is it's just strep throat? Has anybody else heard of another one?

00:14:56
Speaker 2: Will?

00:14:56
Speaker 6: I will find out for you and let you know.

00:14:59
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:15:00
Speaker 4: It probably changes names when it goes to a different part of the body, right I'm a different type of infection, or like, oh.

00:15:05
Speaker 5: Man, I've got strap chest right now, like you never hear that I got strap.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: Nose this morning.

00:15:11
Speaker 6: Just how are you guys?

00:15:14
Speaker 3: We're doing well.

00:15:15
Speaker 1: We we said in the intro to starting this episode that we all have our own munchies strikes back.

00:15:22
Speaker 3: We've over when if you're.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: Lucky enough to have a long career, or even if you're not, you probably have a movie that you go.

00:15:30
Speaker 3: That was They made some interesting choices in that and I.

00:15:33
Speaker 6: Was that was a part of it.

00:15:35
Speaker 4: Most movies are not that great, right now, that's not true. There's so many movies made all the time that nobody sees.

00:15:45
Speaker 6: Has that like on lock right, and I know we've all been in one. I think told me about like a couple of yours, and I was like, maybe I'll watch those two.

00:15:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you definitely watch some of those to make yourself feel better.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us to talk about this, Because we talked about it when you were a guest on our show and you were such an amazing guest and we had so much fun talking to you. We wanted an opportunity to talk with you again and figured this was the perfect opportunity to do it. So thank you for taking your time to come back with us.

00:16:16
Speaker 6: I'm honored to be back. Honored.

00:16:18
Speaker 1: Yes, so we watched Monkey Strikes Back, which was put out in nineteen ninety four.

00:16:24
Speaker 6: You all watched it.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, I have pages of notes. We had a lot to talk about it.

00:16:29
Speaker 6: Writ No, well, oh my god.

00:16:31
Speaker 2: No, it's great, it's great.

00:16:34
Speaker 6: Yes, here we go.

00:16:37
Speaker 1: So it was directed by Jim wy Norsky, who also directed the nineteen eighty six horror cult classic Shopping Mall, about a mall's robot security system that goes haywire and kills its young employees. Oh.

00:16:50
Speaker 4: Yes, did he do all three of the Munchy movies or did he enter with this one?

00:16:55
Speaker 2: No? I think this was his debut in Then Realm.

00:16:58
Speaker 4: This is his first monkey, I think, so, I think to go back and the other the first two because I'm.

00:17:04
Speaker 2: Just a little lost. Right at the beginning, I didn't know his backstory at all.

00:17:07
Speaker 3: So that was It's very hard.

00:17:10
Speaker 2: I'll get it.

00:17:11
Speaker 7: I mean, it was a very self contained narrative.

00:17:13
Speaker 3: It was Yeah, it was my gosh, okay.

00:17:17
Speaker 1: So it was written by Why Why Norski I can't say his name very easily for some reason, and R. J.

00:17:22
Speaker 3: Robertson. It was produced by b movie legend Roger Corman, who is considered the king of cult and credited with career exactly helping to start the careers of Jack Nicholson, William Shatner, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, and Diane Ladd.

00:17:40
Speaker 6: Don't forget it.

00:17:42
Speaker 1: And yes, by the way, I'll say right off the bat my first critique of this movie it needed more Natanya.

00:17:50
Speaker 2: And you were the best act in the film, so.

00:17:53
Speaker 1: Good in it, and I kept being like, why is there not more her? Why is why is there not more? Going back to this storyline, it truly needed more Ntania, So definitely some background. The first movie in the trilogy was nineteen eighty seven's Munchies, about a space archaeologist who discovers a new species called munchies in a Peru cave, and then the archaeologist's evil twin brother and snack food entrepreneur that's my side hustle as well, kidnaps the creature and little does he know they will multiply and they are bad little munchies.

00:18:27
Speaker 3: Everyone must then battle.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: Oh so gremlins, Yes, so gremlins.

00:18:32
Speaker 3: Exactly so gremlins.

00:18:34
Speaker 7: But that's not That was Munchi's. That was the first one.

00:18:36
Speaker 3: That was the first one where there's a bunch of monkeies.

00:18:39
Speaker 1: Then the name only sequel in nineteen ninety two, Munchie follows an out of place and bullied new kid in town who stumbles upon a friendly gremin gremlin Munchie who throws out one liners and has magical powers.

00:18:53
Speaker 2: This is the Munkey.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: This one exactly four strikes Back.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: So it starred Lonnie Anderson and was the debut of one Missus Jennifer love Hewitt. Yes she went by love Hewitt at the time. Then and legend dom Delaweze was the voice of Munchy for that one. Wow, and yes, that same monkey returns for the movie we are reviewing Monkey strikes Back, who is now voiced by TV star Howard Hessman. The greatest thing ever head of the class. I knew you were going to freak out about that, oh.

00:19:24
Speaker 5: Man, that the fact that Johnny fever is is voicing.

00:19:29
Speaker 2: What we're saying. What are we what are we talking about?

00:19:31
Speaker 5: So Johnny, So, one of the greatest shows of all time is is w KRP in Cincinnati, and he played the DJ for for years. He was the DJ and the pilot of of KRP.

00:19:41
Speaker 2: He was.

00:19:42
Speaker 5: This is how old school it was. He was fired from his old job because he said booger on the air. So the end of the pilot is literally him sitting down behind the microphone and he intos his first song and then goes, oh and by the way, bugger, it's the great And that's how the whole pilot ends.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: It's the great he is. It's such a great character. He's television royalty.

00:20:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, Natanya, do you remember watching any of the other movies that came before this one when you when you were hired for a month, She strikes back.

00:20:11
Speaker 6: I didn't. I know. I knew that love was in the one right before, because when I moved out to California, her and her mom like really kind of took me and my mom under their wing. So she was like a sister to me for a while, like just grow when I was very very young. I was like, I don't know, eight, nine, ten years old when I first came to La So I knew she had been in the one right before. I didn't watch it. I still haven't watched it. So that's kind of like all I really knew going into this movie.

00:20:42
Speaker 1: K Yeah, And that must have felt like kind of nice. You're like, Okay, someone I know who I feels like a sister to me. Also did this movie right before I'm gonna be in I'm going to be in good hands.

00:20:53
Speaker 3: That's a nice feeling.

00:20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:20:55
Speaker 4: Okay, So this is a great pitch for a movie, and if you think about it, it fits per quickly in with that. Like there was a moment in the nineties of those like wish fulfillment boy movies.

00:21:07
Speaker 7: Yeah, right, like Home Alone.

00:21:09
Speaker 4: I was just home Alone, yeah, blank check. And I would put three ninjas in this category. Yes, you know, they're like little boys who get power suddenly. Yeah, and then they still act like little boys, you know, and like they're kind of out smarting the grown ups around them at one point and like punishing bad guys.

00:21:27
Speaker 3: There's a big Home Alone moment in this movie totally.

00:21:30
Speaker 7: Yeah and yeah.

00:21:30
Speaker 4: I mean basically they were all chasing Home Alone magic, right, it was like how can we how can we make another and this is like let's make Home Alone with ET.

00:21:38
Speaker 2: Right, And that's like a great pitch on and deal with Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. It's I mean it is. It sells itself, right.

00:21:48
Speaker 7: The problem is they don't have the budget, so it doesn't look like ET.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: Some of the budget stuff with some of the stunts and the things, I'm like, is that just stock footage?

00:21:58
Speaker 3: How did they do some of this stuff?

00:22:04
Speaker 4: And I don't know how that Yeah, some of that, I mean I think it is stock footage at points.

00:22:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's got to be.

00:22:11
Speaker 2: Airplane Chase. It's so great.

00:22:12
Speaker 6: I forgot, Like, how nineties this movie was so great? Oh my god.

00:22:20
Speaker 3: Well it also stars Leslie and Dawd, best known from The Pink Panther Strikes Again and being once married to one of the greatest film directors of all time, William Friedkin.

00:22:31
Speaker 6: Wow.

00:22:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, interesting, and that was a whole scandal really what oh the whole scale was like So when she met it was I'm pretty sure it was when she either met William Friedkin or met her husband. Afterwards, there was a big they both left their spouses fi.

00:22:48
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:22:48
Speaker 5: And there was then a big thing where back in the day, if memory serves, and I could be wrong, but back in the day they each had to pay a million dollars to get out of their marriages, which was like a big thing.

00:22:59
Speaker 3: You guys.

00:23:00
Speaker 1: First husband of her first husband was the cinematographer of Monchy.

00:23:04
Speaker 5: Yes Foutleroy Motley Yes, who was also on the baseball team. You notice that they use the names of all the people when he's calling up other people to the plate. It's all people from the crew.

00:23:17
Speaker 6: Didn't realize any of that.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: This nineties Vander Pump Rules writer has no idea what I just said.

00:23:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, neither of you trying to tell me what happened with that? And I what?

00:23:29
Speaker 3: Okay?

00:23:29
Speaker 1: Well, so our friend and fellow boy meets worlder Natania Ross, who is nice enough to join us, plays the love interest Natanya.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: Do you remember anything about filming this?

00:23:43
Speaker 6: I actually do.

00:23:45
Speaker 3: Okay, I can't wait to hear everything.

00:23:46
Speaker 6: Yeah, remember I remember a lot. I made my best friend Virginia watch it with me. I was like, I don't know if I could sit here and watch Monkey Strikes back alone.

00:23:56
Speaker 2: To Scar.

00:23:58
Speaker 6: I actually dated both boys, I know, and it like I actually tapped back into the like I remember that every set I've ever been on, I had a boyfriend. I think this boy meets world like. I dated one of the other actors.

00:24:18
Speaker 3: As one does when you're a teen.

00:24:20
Speaker 4: I thought maybe you were going method like both of them. You were keeping everybody on edge, which just this love triangle.

00:24:29
Speaker 2: You were working.

00:24:30
Speaker 6: It was method acting at its time. No, I don't know how I even pulled that off. Like neither boy knew. I don't know what was.

00:24:39
Speaker 5: The guy who played Brett wasn't in as much as the other guy, so you could he was Sie.

00:24:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, exact, and he was like the boy I liked less and the boy the main boy hasnt. Yeah, I actually really liked him a lot, but I think like I very quickly noticed I was much much taller than him, which I can.

00:24:59
Speaker 1: Tall, You're a whole head taller than uncomfortable to watch it.

00:25:05
Speaker 6: I was like, why didn't they put him on an apple box?

00:25:08
Speaker 2: You?

00:25:09
Speaker 8: It's something well, I mean, there's a part of it that is that is so sweet because it's so true to life, like when you guys, when you guys first are hanging out, the first couple, it was just like, oh, you're right, because when you're twelve, some of you are like really tall and you're done growing and others haven't yet, and like it's that weird age and it's so sweet because it makes.

00:25:28
Speaker 4: The romance like, oh, this is just about they really just like each other, you know, it's not it's.

00:25:32
Speaker 7: Not like teenagery yet.

00:25:34
Speaker 4: It's like so kind of awkward and young, and that height difference just really emphasized.

00:25:40
Speaker 7: To my then it gets dis directed to my defense.

00:25:43
Speaker 6: He was also the so the main kid was also like talking to that blonde girl in the dance scene too, So it was this weird like we're all, you know, twelve years old or however. Yeah, and just like everyone liked each other because those hormones really about to kick in.

00:26:01
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I definitely remember filming.

00:26:06
Speaker 6: It was a hot.

00:26:07
Speaker 3: Set that was sexy. I mean, you put that puppet in the card.

00:26:11
Speaker 2: Again and dude after dark.

00:26:14
Speaker 6: I know, look in Little Creature. Yeah, I remember filming it. I actually I remember like the the thing I remember most. I don't know why. It was like the very first morning we were going to film. I remember waking up like really early. I put on one of those like quintessential nineties baby doll dresses like.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: A poker, and I had Patty did you have a T shirt on under it?

00:26:39
Speaker 6: I didn't, but I had hot leather doc Martin's oh yeah, And I thought I was so cool cool. My mom was like, what are we dressing up so much? Like you're literally about to go into her makeup. I was like, no, no, trust me.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, what I'm doing, I've got to make an impression.

00:26:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I was so excited. This was another This was another movie where like I I read once, but it was kind of a slam dunk for me, Like after the first they were like, just have her come in and read real quick, and and and I got it right away. So there wasn't all this kind of like build up. It was like I went in one day. The next day, my agent called three days later we were filming. Yea.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: So it's so natural.

00:27:19
Speaker 4: You're such like a great natural presence, like you're just you're just you're not putting on any errors or add it. It's like you're just so it's just a great presence to have in the movie. It's like the second you're on screen, you're like, oh, and you're so relaxed. You can see the way that you're like swinging your arms like there, you know, and I and so many kid actors are always like presenting and do anything, and you're just like there and you're just it's so it's so refreshing kind of that that.

00:27:43
Speaker 6: Is the magic I think of like being a child actor too, that there are I mean, you you just are so in there's no inhibitions right yet, because life hasn't like beaten.

00:27:56
Speaker 9: You down, beaten you down, taught you that like right in any second, you know.

00:28:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, so yeah, but yeah, I do remember filming that movie actually, and I loved that movie.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Where were you? Where was this film? I was trying to figure it out the whole time. I was California, but yeah, but where.

00:28:13
Speaker 6: It was Castaic Lake.

00:28:14
Speaker 3: Actually I was gonna say Paul Dale, but yeah.

00:28:17
Speaker 6: It was Kistaic, which we ended up later on filming. That's where we filmed Alex Mack. So, oh wow, God just like really likes me in that area.

00:28:26
Speaker 1: I think before we get too far into this, I do want to let all of our dear listeners know that they can watch this movie, and they should watch this movie for free on YouTube. So if you are interested in watching and then and then coming back to this episode and doing the little recap with us, please do recommend this highly recommend.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, doing it enjoyable experience.

00:28:46
Speaker 1: And it's also the perfect amount of time. Every movie should be an hour and twenty seven minutes. If if you cross past an.

00:28:51
Speaker 3: Hour and thirty you are doing something wrong.

00:28:54
Speaker 1: So, by the way, Natanya, I wanted to go to when you were talking about putting on your baby doll dress in your boots, if you had any idea that you were going to just be wearing a concord junior high T shirt, that's seventeen sizes too large for you.

00:29:08
Speaker 3: For eighty percent of the movie, everybody's.

00:29:10
Speaker 5: Got one shirt, one shirt, and you know the dance, everyone has one shirt.

00:29:15
Speaker 1: That's a great way to save money. Because the whole time I was like, how many days has it been? I can't tell. He sleeps in the shirt, he wakes up, he goes out in the shirt. No one's wearing this shirt the whole time. And now I needed I already said online on Anatanya's post. She made a post on Instagram, I want a Concord Junior High shirt.

00:29:33
Speaker 6: I tell you I do. I might have one for you. I'm going to keep you posted.

00:29:39
Speaker 3: Please keep me posting.

00:29:40
Speaker 6: Would you wear it?

00:29:41
Speaker 3: Yes, legit y, we would all wear it.

00:29:45
Speaker 1: We would wear it as an homage to our love for you like it is. It is our representation of true love for you. And having this conversation with us, well.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: It's it's like the Shermer High. It was at Shirmer High for all the the old school eighties movies, they all went to the same high school. And in what's his name.

00:30:06
Speaker 5: John John Universe was suirm or High. So it's like, you know, we're the Concord junior high. We're in the Roger Corman verse.

00:30:16
Speaker 1: Yea, Natanya, do you remember ever seeing the puppet in person?

00:30:22
Speaker 3: And why did he get so dirty.

00:30:26
Speaker 6: Like like physically dirty.

00:30:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like physically dirty.

00:30:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, food around.

00:30:32
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was like, dude, I don't know. He was making a lot of dream dust. You get dirty that you make young boys dreams comes true.

00:30:40
Speaker 1: I guess where he was really cleaned up, and I was like, oh, look at how look how clean munch he is.

00:30:44
Speaker 3: And then I was like, oh, he's back to be dirty.

00:30:46
Speaker 1: I figured maybe it's the same puppet through all three movies, and just because they got to three, he had just been.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: I also love that he's can only be next to a wall or in a seat.

00:30:58
Speaker 5: He's like he obviously in the middle of a room the Achilles heel of.

00:31:02
Speaker 4: When she strikes back, right, can't We can't avoid it any longer. Actually, if this is the difference between a Spielberg with et, you can't. If you can't accept that this thing is ever alive ever, then you will never buy into the rest of the movie.

00:31:21
Speaker 2: It's too big of a problem, exactly.

00:31:24
Speaker 4: It's like, even if the mouth just moved a little better, to that line.

00:31:28
Speaker 8: It's here's my question, because the script otherwise is perfect.

00:31:34
Speaker 2: It's good.

00:31:35
Speaker 5: Later on the movie he turns into a human, so why not just be a human?

00:31:42
Speaker 4: You save it, Will, We haven't even started talking about the don't know if.

00:31:46
Speaker 5: We're going to go through it the way we do an episode, and we were just going to start talking about.

00:31:49
Speaker 1: The film budget is legs.

00:31:54
Speaker 6: I never answer your question. I never saw. I mean I thought like maybe once, like in the middle of different scenes, but like very briefly, that they didn't allow me around.

00:32:12
Speaker 3: It's probably for your benefit.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: It wasn't feet of most children.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: So okay, let me let me jump into the synopsis since.

00:32:22
Speaker 2: Will just spoiler alert for the movie here.

00:32:26
Speaker 1: The synopsis is that Munchie is back and he has been throwing too many parties on Earth.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: See one. Yes, we get.

00:32:34
Speaker 4: Started with the dance party. Usually you end movies with the dance. This one starts with the dance.

00:32:39
Speaker 1: It starts with the dance, and again with the stock footage of a massive explosion.

00:32:47
Speaker 5: Nine kids at the dance, nine kids at the party, Huge explosions.

00:32:51
Speaker 1: Someone who directed a movie that was supposed to have a lot of extras, and then you get six and then spoke to writer about it and my brother about it, and never one was like, listen, if you need forty people, you better ask for one.

00:33:02
Speaker 3: Hundred and twenty because you're not gonna end up.

00:33:06
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:33:06
Speaker 1: So, as a punishment from Heaven, Munchie is forced to help a struggling family to prove his worth. Now we all watched it, you can too again. It is on YouTube for free just search Munchi strikes back. So here we go. Let's jump into the recap. The movie opens at Ronald Reagan Ronald W. Reagan High School, where a total rager is going on, and we immediately see Munchie, an animatronic creature of sorts.

00:33:42
Speaker 3: Is that how you guys would describe him?

00:33:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, a puppet.

00:33:46
Speaker 3: It's fair. Yeah, a puppet with a large head.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: He's like a Chuck E Cheese character meets a Lucky troll.

00:33:54
Speaker 4: He's basically a little person, like a little elfish person.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: And most of the movie his hands and eyes are moving for absolutely no reason. Some of my favorite shots are when they need I guess a reaction shot of Munchy and his eyes.

00:34:10
Speaker 2: Just go in circles. Yes, it's the best, ye it's so beast.

00:34:15
Speaker 1: So he appears to be conducting this out of control party that has a Ramones like band that looks like they can't be five hundred feet near a school band. And maybe there are maybe there are twenty kids there, I don't know, in flannels. They're singing the nature. Yeah, they're breaking things. They are having so much fun. Yeah, it's really crazy. There's even a dirt bike riding through the crowd. The kids are loving the anarchy, especially one student who comes up to Munchie and compliments him. MITCHI says, Monchy says, if you think this is good, wait till you hear what I did for Sodom and Gomorrah, and then instructs the boy to blow up the administration building.

00:34:53
Speaker 3: Let's let's listen in for a clim here.

00:34:56
Speaker 4: Hey, Yang, you hate school.

00:35:04
Speaker 2: I mean blew up the administration buildings.

00:35:08
Speaker 1: It is an enormous, huge, huge explosion that looks like you're watching an Armageddon budget movie.

00:35:17
Speaker 5: Okay, now I have a question because and none of us are going to know this. Unfortunately, I came in thinking that the kid that goes up to him and talks to him in the beginning.

00:35:26
Speaker 2: Like that, MM hmm, is the star of the last movie.

00:35:30
Speaker 3: I would assume that's a that was a that's true.

00:35:33
Speaker 6: I didn't even think about that, but I think you're right.

00:35:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, and this is like a wrap up to the last film to then get us into this one.

00:35:42
Speaker 2: Is how I saw it. I was like, Okay, that's what I think happened.

00:35:45
Speaker 3: You know, I'm so committed to this, I'm just going to say you're right.

00:35:48
Speaker 1: Well, sweet, I don't know that for sure, but I'm going to go out on a ledge and say I think you're absolutely right.

00:35:53
Speaker 2: So that's what I thought it was.

00:35:54
Speaker 1: The administration building explodes and Munchie wants to take it to the DMV next.

00:35:59
Speaker 3: But then and we're gonna.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: Go blow up I mean, yes, it's accessory combine storytelling as an age.

00:36:10
Speaker 6: Well, you can.

00:36:12
Speaker 4: Go blow up a DMV, Like that's that's what his bunch of kids got in with a bunch of kids and ends up being a good guy. This ends up being a very sweet, sweet movie. Actually, but this beginning was a little well.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: They really do really set you up to be like, yeah, this is a an evil puppet.

00:36:28
Speaker 3: Yes you find out Redemption star. Yeah, it's a redemption Story's.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: Story Munchy, you know, helping a little boy.

00:36:36
Speaker 3: So quite an open there, Munchy disappears. That's the end of our open.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: We pan into the skies and we find ourselves in heaven astral plane with a tribunal made up of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Abe, Lincoln, Cleopatra, and Colonel Sanders sand Chicken.

00:36:53
Speaker 2: Now this was giving me major Bill and Ted's vibes.

00:36:57
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, right, yes, yeah, absolutely absolutely.

00:37:02
Speaker 4: And it does the same sort of like hokey course sort of costumed.

00:37:05
Speaker 2: Thing that's like it could have worked.

00:37:08
Speaker 4: It's if if Munchie were a little bit you know, a different, a little more animatronic and like this, this works, This totally works.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: Chronos sits him in his chair. He comes into heaven and there's the chair because obviously you got.

00:37:24
Speaker 3: Something correct. So it's led by a god named Krona having.

00:37:27
Speaker 4: Him like a peer and disappears the way to you know, not have to show him walking exactly.

00:37:31
Speaker 1: So Munchie is in trouble for too many parties, including the Hindenburg, and he's being sent to the dullest point in the galaxy until the jury, led by Elvis, thinks he deserves a second chance. So they decide to send him back to Earth on probation because of a special request by someone. He will look after a family in need, the McClellan's mother Linda, and son Chris whose dad has passed away, and the biggest Cavia for Munchie No parties. Also worth noting, we have a fourth wall break here at the end when the tribunal Tribunal leader Kronos looks at the camera and says, have you ever had the feeling you're making a monumental mistake? It's like, oh, we're breaking the fourth wall in this movie.

00:38:19
Speaker 2: Oh, I love it.

00:38:20
Speaker 7: This is not the best one that you guys, do you guys know what the best one was?

00:38:22
Speaker 2: Did you catch the There's plenty of them? Which the best.

00:38:25
Speaker 4: Fourth wall break? When they're in the museum and he goes, who's doing this exposition? You were.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: Talked about what was happening?

00:38:35
Speaker 3: Exactly what was happening?

00:38:36
Speaker 2: You know that there's a moment like that in Gooney's Really There.

00:38:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joey Pantheloni Joey pants, Joey says when they're in the pirate ship and there's a booby trap, they really and he turns to his brother he goes, it's a movie trap, and he goes, what he's like, have you been watching the movie?

00:38:55
Speaker 2: Have you seen the movie?

00:38:58
Speaker 4: It's a weird say to the camera, but like totally and if no one catches it. But when he's just referencing the movie, it's really but yeah, I love this.

00:39:06
Speaker 2: Who's doing the sex position? You and me?

00:39:08
Speaker 1: So I know you talked about having a bit of a crush on Trenton and you really liked him. What else do you remember about him?

00:39:21
Speaker 6: Man, this is a long time ago. Uh, he was I remember he was a really sweet kid. Yeah he was, and and and he's good too.

00:39:30
Speaker 7: I mean he's great.

00:39:31
Speaker 6: He's great in the movie. And there were so many kids on certain days, like in those baseball scenes that him and I I think we just kind of like naturally bonded and stuck together because we were like the lead characters in the movie, and there were so much like energy and all with all the kids and stuff. And I loved his mom and his brother and his mom and my mom on set like became really you know, you know the moms they just hang out in the trailer stuff. Yeah, you know, our moms got really close and yeah, I just remember him being the sweetest and you know, I mean again, and we talked about this last time. It's a it's a tender age at twelve years old. That was right before Alex Mack and I was you know, that was a film where I was again, like we talked about, I was playing like the girlfriend, the pretty girl, the whatever it is, and they put makeup on me. So I think like for those reasons, I felt a little bit more comfortable, but also, like you know, when you're at that age on a movie set like that with like all these boys everywhere and there was there wasn't really another like young female, yeah yeah. And then and then also with the pressure of like playing baseball and like you know all of that kind of stuff too.

00:40:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in those days on a set are chaos when you have like, yeah, a whole bunch of kids to do like a sports still time because they because that they're all under a under eighteen, so they all have to have their parents in school. They're in school, but they're only there for a day or two. Well you're there for like maybe weeks, so you're like in with the crew. But then the crew is just inundated with this like chaos, and you have to like navigate all these social worlds of like making new friends, making sure they feel welcome. Meanwhile, some of the kids aren't even actors. They're just like producers kids who were.

00:41:26
Speaker 6: Shoved in there. And you're like, that's actually a really good point. That was like how Babysitters Club was too. It was absolute chaos because there was like a million pre pubescent teenage kids and then million little kids, and then a few adult actors and some of us.

00:41:43
Speaker 7: And if you're on location, you're all staying at the same hotel.

00:41:46
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what it was, Yeah, for.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: Each other's social life after work.

00:41:50
Speaker 6: It was crazy, crazy, crazy.

00:41:52
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:41:52
Speaker 6: I actually just talked to Larissa on the phone a couple of days ago and we were Yeah, she was like at the hotel, and because I lived in LA I was like, I felt so left out. I'm like, I want to be the hotel.

00:42:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:42:04
Speaker 6: I would just stay with Larisa at the hotel. I'm going to pretend like I'm from out of state too and just stay in the hotel. But yeah, on Munchies, it was so many kids on certain days, and then on other days it was like just us. So I think naturally. We just kind of like gravitated towards each other. Yeah, I I yeah. Actually, the more we talk about it, I did. I love doing that movie, and it was the first. It was my first like lead in a feature from what I can remember, Yeah, it was my first.

00:42:38
Speaker 3: You should love it. It's like that.

00:42:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:42:41
Speaker 6: I was in that year after I did Billy where my mom was like, well, what do you want to do. Do you want to go home to New York Manhattan and like go do Broadway again? Or do we want to stay in LA and give this a shot? And I was like, let's just give it a year and see what happened. I got Old Munchie strikes back pretty quickly, the dad, and like within three months I got Alex Mack.

00:43:06
Speaker 3: And we never Yeah.

00:43:08
Speaker 5: Can we also talk about the joy that on the astral Plane, Colonel Sanders is the same level as Cleopatra.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: I think that's awesome. That's pretty cool. It's like you're up there, Colonel Well.

00:43:20
Speaker 1: After a very long and dizzying opening credits, we are in a large office of a company's president. We know this because there is a big plate on the desk that says president.

00:43:32
Speaker 2: This is a sharp tonal shift here.

00:43:35
Speaker 1: Really big. His name is Shelby Carlyle, and he is Linda's boss. Linda enters after being summoned to his office and he says he's moving the whole company to Mexico City and he wants Linda to accompany him to set everything up, and means literally no question, no, there is no question that he is sexually assaulting.

00:43:59
Speaker 2: Her, propositioning her. Yeah, in this kid's movie, and well, the whole thing, this is.

00:44:06
Speaker 5: The whole thing that starts uncomfortable when she walks in and she's on the stairs and he's under her, underneath it, just in the giant double breasted suit. The whole thing just screamed bad guy.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: It was so.

00:44:19
Speaker 6: Uncomfortable on a chair and he's like.

00:44:22
Speaker 2: Leaning into her.

00:44:24
Speaker 4: So you just catch all the Reagan references there was.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: Already so they've already stebbed.

00:44:30
Speaker 4: So this whole movie is like a like an actual screed against Reagan. Noma and the villain is the eighties yuppie like the you know, it's a Wall Street guy.

00:44:39
Speaker 2: It just makes money and doesn't care. But it looks good in the suit.

00:44:42
Speaker 5: It's got a mustache and a wife somewhere they had to put that into He's not only sexually harassing her and assaulting her, she cheating on his wife too.

00:44:50
Speaker 6: Another great reminder of like how much we got away with in the nineties.

00:44:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, pushing the envelope everywhere you can.

00:44:58
Speaker 3: This guy is and not even.

00:44:59
Speaker 6: Like a thought, like like no one even thought, like, you know, I don't know that this is okay to like put in a movie, let alone a kid movie. Well, definitely, and watch all this stuff.

00:45:10
Speaker 1: Definitely nobody said to him. You could be a little more subtle.

00:45:16
Speaker 2: Could you? Could you go bigger with the leg swing?

00:45:19
Speaker 1: Your leg work so good, be bigger?

00:45:25
Speaker 3: Okay, so Linda, and.

00:45:29
Speaker 4: That becomes a recurring thing when you go on upside down and you know, like.

00:45:33
Speaker 2: Well that's a weird thing that happens, like four more times.

00:45:36
Speaker 3: They loved his legs, loved his leg swinging.

00:45:40
Speaker 2: You need the big comedic bad guy. It's great. Also exactly.

00:45:47
Speaker 1: Alone, if I ever go back to acting, I'm also going to ask for Linda's lighting which is only in the eye and behind.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: Three times, and because I was like, what is happening, Oh my god, sexual kind of even when she's talking to a kid she's always let me ask you something. You slept in your bed again, it was like a.

00:46:17
Speaker 4: Creepy I think it kind of was, but every time it was so funny that there's like a new light source. Every time it cuts to her angle, it's like a suddenly there's no spotlight behind her, just to get that golden hat.

00:46:30
Speaker 3: It's so gorgeous, like everywhere I go.

00:46:33
Speaker 2: It's really By the way, I am saying this right now because Danielle, you're you're okay with wanting to come back to acting writer. You said essentially never again.

00:46:41
Speaker 5: If we get a call from Roger Corman saying the three of you are going to be in a Roger Corman movie, I'm dragging you onto the set.

00:46:48
Speaker 2: You're coming, okay, good.

00:46:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, only if Tanya does it with us, four of us.

00:46:53
Speaker 6: I was just gonna tell Danielle that next time you need an extra and like you need extra, I'll come and I'll wear the Honcourt High Junior. Just be somewhere in the back.

00:47:03
Speaker 2: I'll do it with you. We'll sit in there and our little thing. Yes, okay, good, yeah, I'm dragging you both, all three of you. Did you a Roger Corman f.

00:47:18
Speaker 1: Okay, mister Carlisle says he needs team leaders, and he gets inch. He gets inches from her lips, saying his wife won't be on the trip. Linda says no, she can't find a sitter for her son, and also this isn't the way she plays.

00:47:28
Speaker 3: He eventually grabs her real clothes.

00:47:29
Speaker 1: She kicks him into his desk chair and he falls back onto the floor and then he flails. We see the first example of will you have such muscular calves? My gosh, what have you been doing, Catherine?

00:47:44
Speaker 2: That's calfworks?

00:47:45
Speaker 3: GEESEU do you do calf work while we do the podcast?

00:47:48
Speaker 2: I'm always always on my calves right now?

00:47:52
Speaker 3: Okay.

00:47:52
Speaker 1: So back at her desk, Glinda realizes that she and her deskmate have been fired. They have pink slips and is so great.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: She's like, I guess I'll be a bartender again. Aye bye, don't take.

00:48:03
Speaker 3: Anything from her desk. She just sits up and she leaves.

00:48:06
Speaker 1: She Linda also does not tell her desk mate about the sexual assault or anything, and as Linda then stares into a framed picture of her son, we end up at a little league baseball field and very.

00:48:17
Speaker 5: Quickly I'm sorry, I know we've got to buzz through this, but there was one line there that I thought was very important.

00:48:23
Speaker 2: Okay, she does say nothing I can prove.

00:48:27
Speaker 5: Anyway, right, yes, which I thought was very interesting where it's like she knew that, Okay, there's nothing I can do, which was the way it was back in the day.

00:48:36
Speaker 1: Which is exactly the way everyone felt, which is like, what's the point of this. It'll be my word against his and we all know whose word they will take, and I can't prove anything.

00:48:43
Speaker 5: So that was an interesting thing that they put in there. Her line, nothing I can prove anyway.

00:48:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, good point. Good point.

00:48:48
Speaker 1: Will So this is where we meet our adorable Natania playing first base. Natanya, had you ever played baseball before? You have the best arm in the movie.

00:48:58
Speaker 5: You're the only one who you the only one who knows how to play.

00:49:02
Speaker 6: It's interesting. I was one of those kids where my mom didn't let me do anything that could potentially stup my face.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: Oh, don't break the moneymaker. Don't break the money maker, right, Like.

00:49:14
Speaker 6: No baseball, no ice skating, no roller plating, no nothing. And I still to this day don't know how to ride a bike. And like an episode of Alex Mack. It was this really cool like BMX episode and they had to write me out of it because I had a bike. There's a rollerblading episode in Alex Mack, and like, because I'm just so behind in like knowing how to do they had like two PA's had to like hold me on a stage down a hill.

00:49:43
Speaker 2: And I had to play baseball and I've had to play basketball. Yeah, and I was horrible.

00:49:47
Speaker 7: I was already at sports.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: It's like, no, don't make me do this.

00:49:52
Speaker 6: You're always let me do anything. I was like very much in a bubble. So the answer is, no, I didn't know how to play. You were I don't even know how I pulled that out.

00:50:02
Speaker 5: Maybe can we would you let us teach you how to ride a bike, because everybody should know how to ride it.

00:50:07
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to teach Adler. We'll teach you.

00:50:09
Speaker 2: Can we teach you how to ride a bike?

00:50:11
Speaker 6: I would let you guys teach me.

00:50:12
Speaker 2: Okay, good, okay, good, we're holding you.

00:50:14
Speaker 7: That'd be a great video.

00:50:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're always looking for content, don't you know.

00:50:20
Speaker 2: There you go.

00:50:32
Speaker 1: So Linda's son Chris is clearly the worst player on the team. We meet his coach, who I kid you not is drinking from a coke bottle the entire movie movie.

00:50:44
Speaker 2: He is a legendary actor.

00:50:48
Speaker 5: He is so he was a satirist and he was an impressionist and he would do these famous impressions from back in the fifties. I mean, this guy was on the Dick Havit Show, he was on all the Tonight shows.

00:50:59
Speaker 2: I mean, he's he is, like he popped on. I was like, I think his name is.

00:51:01
Speaker 5: John Berman something, but it was like, oh man, this guy, I mean, he's been an actor for forty fifty years.

00:51:07
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask him if this movie gave him diabetes? Seriously, so much coca cola.

00:51:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:51:12
Speaker 5: I'd also like to point out again as the only one who kind of knows sports ball.

00:51:16
Speaker 2: I mean Danielle does.

00:51:17
Speaker 5: But they're talking about how bad this kid is and he's like, I had two singles in the game last week.

00:51:22
Speaker 2: And the other guy's like, we don't win with singles.

00:51:24
Speaker 5: You absolutely win with singles, you absolutely get bass hits are what wins baseball games. If it was all about home runs, no one would ever win.

00:51:33
Speaker 2: So it was like, Okay, whoever wrote this wasn't a basis.

00:51:35
Speaker 3: Will stop bringing reality into this.

00:51:37
Speaker 4: Sorry, home runs are a better story, so it's easier.

00:51:43
Speaker 2: To guess when you run, you're doing well at baseball. The bag.

00:51:49
Speaker 1: He just does this, so the whole time everyone is wearing the Concord junior high shirts.

00:51:53
Speaker 3: Let's keep that in mind. You're going to mention that many times.

00:51:56
Speaker 1: Chris strikes out and trades places with the picture star player Wilson to see if he can do any better. Also, he doesn't give the batter his helmet, thank.

00:52:05
Speaker 2: You, so helmet on. The whole time is now just.

00:52:09
Speaker 1: Pitching with the helmet on, and Wilson is batting in a hat.

00:52:14
Speaker 5: This is the start of the helmet thing, because there's a great helmet one with with Tania.

00:52:19
Speaker 1: Later okay, great, okay, So Chris, while trying to impress Natania, gives up a massive home run to Wilson, who even flirts and runs circles around Natania on his trot.

00:52:31
Speaker 5: Oh it looks like a real smile too, I know it really, Yeah it might have been.

00:52:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, now we know she was like, here's my opportunity to flirt with you because Trenton can't see.

00:52:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not in this shot.

00:52:46
Speaker 1: So Natania makes Chris feel okay about his lack of skills. And I am not just saying this because she's here. Natania, your parts are the only real movie feeling thing in the entire hour minutes so great. It feels like every time the camera is on you, every time the storyline is about you, you're like, I'm in this.

00:53:07
Speaker 2: I mean.

00:53:09
Speaker 7: It should have been should have been like a coming of age dramedy.

00:53:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, my girl, you were by far the best actor in the entire film.

00:53:18
Speaker 2: It's not even a joke.

00:53:20
Speaker 6: Am I crying over you?

00:53:22
Speaker 10: Guys are emotional over a munchie because first of all, this wasn't an important movie to you, Like, you know, it's an important time of your life, like that is exactly what you mentioned, what a tender time that age is.

00:53:33
Speaker 3: And then to have this experience and to be you know, it's it's really great. And they kept me in Los Angeles exactly and yet to Alex Mack.

00:53:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Chris tries to ask her to the school dance, but she is going with some guy named Brett. Then Chris's mom picks him up and Natanya waves goodbye when the car is long gone.

00:53:52
Speaker 2: It was gone. It was already gone cars down the street, Tala Street, and she dies. It's like, shouldn't that should that have been?

00:54:00
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing, was like I know editing wait listen. The editor was like, we I don't know. Maybe I don't know. I thought the same thing. I was like, for sure that we just saw the car already driving away.

00:54:13
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just to herself.

00:54:14
Speaker 1: So at Linda and Chris's house, Linda is clearly depressed about her job and the bills she needs to pay, and we meet a very uptight neighbor named mister Poindexter and his little white dog Killer.

00:54:29
Speaker 4: Dare I say, kind of a feenie type flowers point Dexter. He's got kind of a funny name.

00:54:38
Speaker 2: Okay. I was like, oh, this is like an alternate world. You know.

00:54:41
Speaker 7: It's that archetype the neighbor.

00:54:43
Speaker 6: You do not get that be movie Phoenie, Yes, exactly. He needs a class all the ways like a be Maybe exactly.

00:54:58
Speaker 4: But now, if we could do dream recap of this movie, suddenly you have the option of what if that was a Bill Daniels player, You could if you could recast this movie with any actors from any era, How does it change the film, Williams, what if Robin Williams is munchie.

00:55:16
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean right, you could easily do I mean, yeah, be insane, you get Robin Williams's bunchie, or I mean Howard Hessman is at the top of his game here, though, Williams, I'm not going to.

00:55:28
Speaker 1: Be able to allow us to skip over the fact that Linda, who's very frustrated and killer, keeps attacking her kid.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: When given the.

00:55:37
Speaker 4: Opportunity of screenwriting advice of Save the Case, which is like the.

00:55:44
Speaker 2: First act, kicks the door.

00:55:46
Speaker 6: She literally kicks the little white dog. I noticed the most about the rewatch. I was like, yeahs.

00:55:55
Speaker 5: Also, this is also where I really noticed that she's British.

00:55:58
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well I didn't notice for enough like three more scenes. I was like, with her accent, I did.

00:56:04
Speaker 3: The same thing writer.

00:56:05
Speaker 1: I think he was a scene in the bedroom where then I was like, wait a minute, does she have an accent?

00:56:09
Speaker 3: And then yeah, it was like.

00:56:11
Speaker 4: This is a woman from England but has clearly spent a lot of time in America because her accent is like dialed way back.

00:56:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very breathy and I'm just depressed here. Take all the well.

00:56:23
Speaker 5: All the groceries in, my friend, take all core bags of groceries in yourself, tiny little man.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit out here and kick a dog.

00:56:31
Speaker 1: It's like, that's a strange, strange moment. I did think about it for the rest of the movie. It was like, bad for Linda, but also you kick dogs, So I'm just keeping that in mind.

00:56:43
Speaker 2: So light red Flag.

00:56:44
Speaker 1: Later that night, Chris is in his bedroom and he sees his love Netanya on the date with Brett, incidentally right outside his window. He then talks to himself about how Brett is a great catch. He's the star baseball player, his parents are rich, and girls think you cute. And then Munchie arrives on a shooting planet. Let's listen to their introduction with clip too.

00:57:06
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have to get my break suggested.

00:57:10
Speaker 5: Fuck.

00:57:11
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good question. I think there's a lot of name for me, but who can pronounce it all? My friends call me MUNCHI.

00:57:16
Speaker 3: There we go.

00:57:17
Speaker 2: I love the circle of the ball circling him in here.

00:57:20
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: Kid is so good. He's great.

00:57:24
Speaker 4: He has to be in a movie with Munchie the puppet for like eighty percent of his scenes, yeah, which means he's acting with nothing or you know, like a piece of tape, most likely on his coverage, right, he's looking at a tape mark and he this.

00:57:38
Speaker 2: Kid is so expressive. I'm with him.

00:57:40
Speaker 4: I know exactly why he's saying every one of his lines, like yeah, he's so clear, he's he's like just great. He's like he's an adorable little guy.

00:57:48
Speaker 6: Like so sweet, so cute, so good in this movie.

00:57:51
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, it takes so much energy to drum up all those reactions just.

00:57:54
Speaker 1: To hear, like, just to have somebody to talk to for it. It probably wasn't the actual vo. I'm probably a stand.

00:58:01
Speaker 6: And do you know, well they had the puppet for his eye line, okay, and they were on his coverage. He did have a puppet to look at.

00:58:11
Speaker 3: But is like acting against somebody was.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: Just like a pa, That's exactly which no offense to that pa, unless that pa was a was a great actor.

00:58:22
Speaker 3: Is probably just very blandly saying the lines. And it's hard to act. It's really hard.

00:58:30
Speaker 2: But you know, this is this Bill Daniels night Rider never went to the set, No, he was always just the voice of kid.

00:58:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know that's different now because as of the show as.

00:58:38
Speaker 2: A voiceover actor.

00:58:40
Speaker 5: Now, even if you get an audition that says like it's for a live action thing and it's you know sitcoms, you'll see, oh, there's something where they're watching TV and they want to hear you. They want you on the set now, and you are there actually reading the lines from run.

00:58:54
Speaker 2: Through and all that, because it does make a big difference.

00:58:56
Speaker 4: He's so important to be able to act off each other.

00:58:59
Speaker 3: Bill Daniel has never met David Hasselhoff.

00:59:01
Speaker 2: He told me that he told me that one of them never met him.

00:59:04
Speaker 3: I think that's very funny.

00:59:06
Speaker 1: Anyway, Unchi explains he's there to solve his problems, and he quickly disappears when he senses that chris mom Chris's mom is going to enter. So let's remember this moment he senses that someone's coming, he disappears. Now this is where we learned that only Chris is allowed to see him. Munchy immediately shows his powers by cleaning Chris's room with the snap of his fingers.

00:59:28
Speaker 2: Is Mary Poppins, yep, is Mary Poppins.

00:59:31
Speaker 4: This is the same story and comes in and has magical powers.

00:59:36
Speaker 7: Makes all the kids dream contry.

00:59:38
Speaker 1: His mom is impressed, thinking that Chris did it, and is still only lit in the eyes, and she says she needs a hug, and Chris knows something is up.

00:59:47
Speaker 2: So Chris, she only hugs him when things are bad.

00:59:51
Speaker 1: No, She's just remember he was She was quiet in the car. She was quiet, and now she can tell he can still tell something's up.

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Can you come and hug me, Chris?

01:00:00
Speaker 3: I love you, Lea's get into your bed, Grace. Do you like how my eyes look in this light?

01:00:08
Speaker 1: Chris asks if she can bring back his dead dad, but unfortunately there are limits and the.

01:00:15
Speaker 5: Greatest photo of a dad in a frame ever.

01:00:23
Speaker 1: Just so great, it's wonderful, so he can mon she can only help in this dimension and can't help with the dead dad, which feels like a cruel plot point, but okay, Monchy says, ask for anything else, and Chris asks for a Death Race two thousand arcade game with a serious system, and then it arrives. Monchi even turns the game into reality and Chris is driving a race car quote perfectly faster than those guys from Domino's. Munchie explains, and now we're making a dig and how fast Dominoes delivers.

01:01:09
Speaker 2: There's two references.

01:01:09
Speaker 4: There's Dominoes and then there's a tiny Tunes reference in this little cultural expert driver driving at one hundred miles an hour, pulling these perfect slides.

01:01:21
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming is it.

01:01:23
Speaker 7: Still virtual or is the idea that we're actually.

01:01:25
Speaker 2: In it and made it real? Made it really? And yeah, he's drifting and it's like he's it. But first of all, everybody drives like this. I know, I love that every scene drives like this. It was great. Yeah.

01:01:40
Speaker 1: So it's a big driving action sequence as they avoid prop planes and I I just I couldn't figure out how they did this for cheap. I really couldn't. I couldn't figure out how any of this happened. Bombs going off the car?

01:01:51
Speaker 2: Well, what was the budget? Do we know?

01:01:55
Speaker 6: Does it? I mean, did it say anywhere online?

01:01:58
Speaker 2: I google it.

01:01:59
Speaker 3: I'm dying.

01:02:00
Speaker 6: I made that much money if that gives you guys any back.

01:02:05
Speaker 2: In the day, in the early nineties, which.

01:02:08
Speaker 6: It was probably like like scale plus ten, scale plus ten for whatever that was in ninety four.

01:02:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, und grand so what is this in your grand?

01:02:16
Speaker 2: So what was this movie made for?

01:02:18
Speaker 5: I mean, I would say four or five hundred, you would say, I would be I would bet.

01:02:22
Speaker 2: This was less than a million dollars. It was a.

01:02:26
Speaker 3: Twelve day shoot, that's it.

01:02:28
Speaker 2: If what I was looking at was right?

01:02:29
Speaker 1: Did did?

01:02:30
Speaker 2: Didn't it say that it was? I thought it? That's what it said was that.

01:02:35
Speaker 6: I don't think it was more than like a couple of weeks.

01:02:37
Speaker 7: Actually, you can't shoot this in twelve days with a puppet and everything.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: Maybe, dude, it's just stuck against the wall.

01:02:43
Speaker 4: And I know that's a lot of coverage you have to get and you have to sit there and do it, you know, and I don't know twelve days.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: Well, if you just put the puppet against a bunch of different backgrounds and just get footage of him like this, right, you can you got your coverage for an entire scene basically.

01:03:00
Speaker 2: It right, true, there's a lot of locations.

01:03:04
Speaker 3: I know a lot of locations. Okay.

01:03:06
Speaker 1: So eventually Chris asks to go home because it's too real. So they're back in his house. Chris asks if he can get anything he wants, and she says, yeah, you're Donald Trump, and.

01:03:16
Speaker 2: Then Chris just rattles already the rich guy, right, yep, there.

01:03:22
Speaker 1: We go, and then Chris just rattles off a ton of electronics he wants as we fade out, and the next morning, both Munchie and Chris are sleeping surrounded by the electronics. Munchie makes it all disappear just in time for Chris's mom to enter by using the magic word reaganomics. Well, the Reagan reference.

01:03:40
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the thing.

01:03:41
Speaker 5: He'd always say, say the magic word, but there was then it was just a rant and there was no actual magic word.

01:03:48
Speaker 2: He would just be like, say the magic word, don't it's appear now? And it's like, how do I How am I supposed to know that's the magic word? Munchie? How am I supposed to know that? If you're going to change it every time? It is very strange. Oh my gosh.

01:04:02
Speaker 1: Okay Worth noting Chris is still in his Concord junior high shirt.

01:04:06
Speaker 3: He's slept in it. They even referenced it. I think his mom says, you slept in your shirt.

01:04:10
Speaker 1: His mom asks him to take a shower and change, and then we cut to later and Chris is mowing the lawn.

01:04:15
Speaker 4: Still the kid's got one shirt. Continuity makes it so much easier. I just wear the same shirt the whole movie. Why, I don't know, just you know, well, listen, an alien shows up or mystical being shows up, you change your close or do you spend every waking?

01:04:33
Speaker 2: Do you mow the lawn? Even I might ask for a second shirt from Monchy.

01:04:39
Speaker 1: That so, Munchie makes it so that the lawnmower can work without anyone manning it, and Chris is impressed. Munchie disappears because Jennifer aka Natanya is there. But right as Chris starts to spit some game, Brett pulls up on a little motorcycle, stealing her away.

01:05:00
Speaker 5: Be way better if it was a motorcycle it was a moped. Let's let's let's get that right right off the bat. And secondly, this is where the best with the second best helmet thing. And because Natania gets on the bike and puts the helmet on backwards fully backwards, he's like, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be with you.

01:05:22
Speaker 2: To Chris, it was just like that, that's not how that goes.

01:05:26
Speaker 6: Realize that.

01:05:27
Speaker 9: And I was terrified to get on that thing too, because like, I don't know, I think they showed it, but there was like they did get a shot of like us driving away, and like I knew this kid did not know how to ride this moped, and I was terrified.

01:05:40
Speaker 6: And that's probably why I put the thing on backwards, because like all I could think about was like, oh my god.

01:05:46
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I God, there we go.

01:05:50
Speaker 7: To drive anything, having to ride anything, like a lot of motorcycles.

01:05:54
Speaker 2: I loved it, love it, I hate it. I loved it, but yeah, it on I like in real life, but not all acting, like having to drive and act. No.

01:06:05
Speaker 5: I justified you putting the helmet on backwards because you always wore your baseball hat backwards, so I thought you wanted.

01:06:10
Speaker 6: To keep very high fashion even back then.

01:06:14
Speaker 2: Nice.

01:06:15
Speaker 1: All I know is that Natanya telling us there was a real life love triangle going on made this scene in my mind.

01:06:20
Speaker 3: I'm it's all better.

01:06:21
Speaker 5: It's totally different now, did yeah, so so did You're saying that Chris didn't have the riz right?

01:06:28
Speaker 2: Good job, will thank you?

01:06:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, very nice.

01:06:32
Speaker 1: So then the mower attacks the neighbor, mister Poindexter and Killer, and the shot that they show where the mower is going towards mister point Dexter and Killer, it's like right there, and then it is so slow.

01:06:45
Speaker 3: It takes so long, so long, And the whole time he was just sitting their run away so easily.

01:06:54
Speaker 4: They kept showing the shot over the bush where you see like things flying. I was like, Oh, God, is blood concert could go this could go really differently.

01:07:06
Speaker 3: Exact same thing. I thought, Oh, are we going to get some like real horror camp?

01:07:10
Speaker 2: Yes?

01:07:10
Speaker 1: Ye man, Okay, So now back at the baseball game, we learned that Linda's old boss, mister Carlisle, is the coach of the rival team, the Stranglers.

01:07:22
Speaker 2: The Hillside Stranglers and actual serial killer names.

01:07:28
Speaker 3: Also, when's he going to Mexico City?

01:07:32
Speaker 2: He was one of those Loo, come on, you got to have him also be the coach. I mean, that's just solid in the same suit. But you're right, I didn't even think about that. You're supposed to.

01:07:46
Speaker 3: Be in Mexico, in Mexico City, I'm not sure.

01:07:49
Speaker 2: So he's got this busy job coaching the Hillside Stranglers can go. Yeah, the.

01:07:56
Speaker 3: Team includes his son.

01:07:58
Speaker 1: The Stranglers are beating Chris's team, as seen in a montage with a song that is just a few keys off of put Me in Coach by John Fogerty.

01:08:06
Speaker 2: It also is saying exactly what's happening on screen.

01:08:08
Speaker 1: It's like some sample home rounding the little league basis.

01:08:14
Speaker 5: It's also the longest montage, I mean, the entire the baseball game takes, like an actual amount of time that.

01:08:19
Speaker 2: The baseball game takes. It's like a thirty minute scene. Great, like, Wow, the game's still going.

01:08:26
Speaker 1: So Chris's coach asks him to go get him a coke mid game, and guess who's in the locker room waiting for him money hiding in a pile of dirty launch.

01:08:38
Speaker 3: Monchy says he'll help.

01:08:40
Speaker 2: Dir he's been in a dirty line.

01:08:43
Speaker 5: I also love though, that the kid he goes hands in the quarters and he goes hey, and he goes I know, coach coke, and he walks down and then he's searching for the coke machine. And it's like, you obviously have set up that you've done this nine thousand times.

01:08:56
Speaker 2: What are you looking for?

01:08:57
Speaker 5: I know it's.

01:09:00
Speaker 1: So, but mister Carlyle, who I guess left to p in the middle of an inning season, I don't know why mister Carles.

01:09:07
Speaker 5: In the locker room is in the locker Also, why doesn't Munchy since there's a human being around.

01:09:14
Speaker 2: Right, if you can time the rules are you know bled here, you can't. You gotta have consistent rules.

01:09:24
Speaker 4: It's like Aladdin, you know, it's like you have three wishes and there's you know, this one did address the death thing the way people, But what are there other limits to Monkey's power?

01:09:35
Speaker 5: He cannot leave in walk in the center of a room. That is one of one of the limits of his powers, of his power.

01:09:42
Speaker 4: But like it turns out that like whenever he makes something appear, it has to like disappear somewhere else, right, Like she said, he got all those.

01:09:49
Speaker 2: Electronics, not creating the store right now, it's not creating things.

01:09:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the money we know is still money.

01:09:57
Speaker 5: That makes it okay because that's counterfeit, which I thought it was a dream sequence and we'll get into all that.

01:10:02
Speaker 2: I mean, that was a whole another thing.

01:10:03
Speaker 1: But the rules are a little Yeah, little wishy washing Munchie really should sense that there's a human nearby with mister Cardyle, but he does not. And so back on the field, mister Carlyle tells his son to hit a baseball directly at Brett and take him out, and then he does. Brett is injured by a perfect line drive, which is probably harder, by the way, than.

01:10:25
Speaker 5: That to do.

01:10:26
Speaker 2: I want you to aim at a single person with like baseball. Are you kidding? You can possible? Yeah? Uh huh, Now you also missed. I'm sorry.

01:10:36
Speaker 5: Back in the locker room, mister Carlyle gives the quintessential awesome mister Ed look. So you remember the show mister Ed. Yeah, I mean you've heard of talking so you know the talking horse. He can only do and every time anyone saw mister Ed, they go and they do the big kind of bread and that was so you can also tell that who the actor played mister Carlyle. He is either near sighted or far sided or none of them, because occasionally you would take off his glasses to look at somethingses to look.

01:11:12
Speaker 2: At something he was. He's a method black because it was she didn't see that.

01:11:19
Speaker 4: There was a million times articles just about Meryl Streep's glass acting and like how she does it, and she does it all.

01:11:25
Speaker 2: And now that you've the.

01:11:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I can picture it from Devil Wears Praduct where she takes you know, she has him on the end of her nose and she takes him off out.

01:11:35
Speaker 2: So yeah, always she's always got glasses there, always a big is better than her.

01:11:42
Speaker 1: So uh, Brett gets taken out by the baseball and this leads to Chris becoming the team's picture. Monchy shows up and makes Chris an amazing player, winning the game with a never ending screwball and a home run that impresses Jennifer our dear Natanya. Also, time to remind you everyone is still wearing a Concord T shirt and we are now.

01:12:03
Speaker 3: Fifty minutes into the movie. No one has changed their shirt.

01:12:08
Speaker 1: But this whole game really makes mister Carlyle suspicious, and also Chris's home run that circled the planet eventually comes back and bunks Carlyle on the head, knocking him out.

01:12:18
Speaker 3: We get some more great legwork.

01:12:20
Speaker 2: It's great.

01:12:21
Speaker 1: Back at Chris's house, we see his mom again, lit only in the eyes. She's on the phone with a bank and that bank is not giving her more time with her bills and the house is in jeopardy. She falls onto the couch and sulks, just as Chris walks in and asks, what's wrong.

01:12:36
Speaker 5: I Love, I'm sorry the bank that doesn't want her business. He's like She's like, well, can I refinance? Oh, I understand you're on vacation. I'll call later, Like there's nobody else, Like, well, I'm on, I'll give you mister Johnson over here at the bank, who can refinance.

01:12:51
Speaker 2: Your brushing off man. That's the whole point. I know, Oh, I get the point, but it's just so funny. It's like the bank.

01:12:57
Speaker 3: I don't want your money, sorry, ma'am.

01:13:00
Speaker 1: So Linda pretends that all is well and says that Chris should go to the dance, right as Jennifer calls and says Brett can't go tonight because of the baseball injury, and she asks if Chris will go with her, and he is thrilled. Later, now finally out of the jersey, almost an hour into the movie, Chris is in a suit upstairs getting ready for the dance with Munchie watching on. Munchi gives Chris a tux, a Rolex, and a limo to impress Jennifer.

01:13:29
Speaker 2: His his his geeky outfit was way better than way better, gool way better.

01:13:35
Speaker 1: So cool, like those Vans, those Vans shoes or whatever the shoes were that he was wearing with that suit is still cool today Like that was that's a cool look, and then he puts them in at Tucks but talks.

01:13:44
Speaker 2: I was like, not for the problem for a dance. No.

01:13:48
Speaker 1: Also, the whole point though for this is I'm gonna woo her with money, and so a Tucks is more expensive than the So that's the point. But I agree with you as far as like cool factor, way cooler before.

01:13:58
Speaker 5: Yes.

01:13:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:13:59
Speaker 3: So also to drive the Limo, Munchie becomes human munchie.

01:14:03
Speaker 2: Okay, this is where the rules where they lost drive can.

01:14:08
Speaker 3: Make yourself human munchie?

01:14:12
Speaker 2: Yeah why not?

01:14:14
Speaker 5: And then behind the game and beyond, I mean, you could be anything at that point.

01:14:18
Speaker 2: I also love how he uses his power to turn the station wagon into a limousine that you have to rent because the rental numbers are still on the skill a rental Limos. That's helping him out, but yeah it.

01:14:44
Speaker 1: Now that he's got so much riz and so much money, Chris quickly becomes kind of a jerk with all these new things, and he wants to start bragging about his baseball heroics. This totally turns Jennifer off, who we also learn has a very old mom at home. I miss that part you Your mom is in the house when he goes to pick you up and you're she's in the background and she's like a seventy five year old.

01:15:16
Speaker 6: I did not I completely missed that part.

01:15:19
Speaker 2: She has one line and it's she's like eight years old. I have a good time at the dance. Is really bad wedding. Oh it was my god. So I'm so glad you mentioned Daniel. I wasn't gonna breath. Maybe it's supposed to be her grandfather.

01:15:37
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just my mom.

01:15:40
Speaker 6: I missed that completely.

01:15:42
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.

01:15:44
Speaker 1: Okay, So Chris dances with Jennifer and this is the same weird band from the beginning of the movie.

01:15:52
Speaker 2: Right, oh yeah, right, yes, this is the old yeah, fifty year old. I think this is the band.

01:15:58
Speaker 7: He says, he they do's doesn't he say that?

01:16:02
Speaker 2: Doesn't he say? You say I I have a band that I'm the band manages the.

01:16:10
Speaker 6: Wardrobe thought it was a good idea to put me in like high heels. It's scene when I could have been wearing flats and still been like three inches taller than exactly that they put me in heels, which made I mean.

01:16:25
Speaker 4: And then they put you in two shots with him, which is just like, don't don't do that, because he's sitting there going it's like you're looking up and down.

01:16:32
Speaker 5: It's like, no, no, did you also notice the one kid at the dance There is one kid in a blue shirt that is dancing like nobody's.

01:16:43
Speaker 2: Watching so much fun he is. He's like, it's oh, I can't even do it. He's so good.

01:16:51
Speaker 6: So didn't we talk about that? And the Boy Meets World episode two.

01:16:56
Speaker 2: There was like this exiod going for it. Yes, that's this guy. He was brilliant, brilliant.

01:17:02
Speaker 1: That's how you get noticed, That's how you get brod. God bless, I know you need those, you need those for sure. So Jennifer says she liked Chris Moore when he was quiet and cute.

01:17:12
Speaker 3: This was a munchy backfire.

01:17:15
Speaker 1: Chris is confused about why Jennifer doesn't like him now because everyone else seems to like him. Munchie gives Chris the ability to read people's minds to find out the truth, and then he realizes that everyone thinks he's got a big old head.

01:17:27
Speaker 4: This is where we're in the second half of the second act, learning the lesson from the wish fulfillment.

01:17:32
Speaker 2: So you had the wish it was all the fun and then it just now it's there was no real chase. It was a very fast transition to becoming a jerk that quickly.

01:17:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but it was it was I love of the conversation that he's having with his friend on the baseball team, and he can hear his friends thoughts, and so they're both pausing to hear the thoughts, you know, yeah, exactly.

01:17:57
Speaker 2: You're just sitting there pausing to hear.

01:17:59
Speaker 4: The f Funny, what wonder years had to do that all the time? Yeah, these constant shots just holding on Fred like well.

01:18:05
Speaker 2: He just looks around.

01:18:07
Speaker 4: Yep.

01:18:08
Speaker 1: So Munchi drives Chris home now as alien Munchie again for some reason, and this allows mister Carlile to get some pictures of Munchie. If he was human, Munchy, this never would have happened, to say human. So back at home, Chris's mom tells Chris all about their financial troubles, very very lit on her eyes. They need twenty thousand dollars and maybe a miracle. Munchi hears this and privately tells Chris he's not sure he'll be allowed to help, but He also says he's going to help I get really weird mixed messages here.

01:18:39
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm not sure I'm able.

01:18:41
Speaker 2: To do this.

01:18:41
Speaker 3: I've got it covered by I.

01:18:44
Speaker 5: Missed one note I wanted to talk about very briefly. Back in the limo where they grabbed the grape juice, did you notice that the grape juice was already half gone? I noticed that a bit, and I wonder why you would want to drink a half gone grapefruit juice.

01:18:57
Speaker 6: It was half gone because dem slash so much of the damn grape juice that I think the prop people just forgot to read killing it up yeah, or put like.

01:19:07
Speaker 2: A new bottle yeah, And you were all just full of grape juice.

01:19:10
Speaker 6: I don't know why we did that scene like fifteen million times, and I kept like drinking this grape juice.

01:19:16
Speaker 2: That is well.

01:19:19
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, mister Carlile visits the Santa Monica Heritage Museum with the photo of Munchie. He meets Professor Empty Graves. They even say get it, get it, and is told that Munchie is from a species that ruled the world before man. This species was the mentor behind individuals with power and wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth.

01:19:44
Speaker 2: Well, I love how there's pictures of him with like drawn pictures of Fushy with Napoleon and with crossing the Delaware and all these kind of like, oh, okay.

01:19:53
Speaker 1: Well, there's a funny line here where mister Carlyle interrupts the professor during the explanation of the plot point, and the professor says, who's doing the exposition here? Which is writer so funny, really really great. After this, mister Carlyle now wants to steal Monchy. He must have him for himself. He wants that power and wealth. And then back at Chris's, Munchie makes it start to snow money in front of their home.

01:20:17
Speaker 3: So this was Munchie's big solved. Maybe he could have just left the money in a drawer somewhere.

01:20:24
Speaker 7: That doesn't make a good cinematic sequence.

01:20:26
Speaker 2: This is so the way they did.

01:20:28
Speaker 5: They set it up though, it was like, okay, so it's having a dream that money's raining down, and then the next day they're on the news.

01:20:33
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that wasn't.

01:20:34
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing, that it was going to be a dream, and then it just wasn't. So Linda and Chris then end up on the news with the reporter named Hannah Barbera.

01:20:42
Speaker 2: Hannah Barbera who cannot pronounce the words properly. Did you hear she says, she's trying to say deluge, but she says like deluge, she says something really weird where it was like, whoa, that was a weird and fastist like it was bizarre. Did you catch the name of the news company?

01:21:00
Speaker 7: No, I think it's Limited attention Span News, Limited attention.

01:21:04
Speaker 2: Span News, and they turn it off.

01:21:06
Speaker 7: That's great, lapsn lapsin.

01:21:10
Speaker 3: That's funny.

01:21:11
Speaker 1: So they're raking up money off their front lawn. Jennifer is nearby and Chris gets to apologize for being a geek, and then they agree to be friends. But then this raining money situation leads a man from the Treasury Department to the house. He inspects the bills and sees that the serial number on the bill is part of a series that Mint has not the Mint has not printed yet.

01:21:29
Speaker 5: Not just that, sorry, but unless they're negative dollar bills, how many bags make up twenty thousand dollars?

01:21:38
Speaker 2: There was forty two bags.

01:21:41
Speaker 7: Of full Like you say one dollar bill, don't there's reference them as one dollar bills even if they do.

01:21:46
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's not going to fill up. There's they tired. There's like eight bags of trash bags that are full bills, serious bills.

01:21:56
Speaker 3: How much it's time to do an experiment.

01:21:58
Speaker 1: When we teach Natanya how to ride a bike, we'll also get twenty dollar business.

01:22:02
Speaker 3: How many trash bags? I'll have to content? Any content? Okay?

01:22:06
Speaker 1: He asks them to come to his office and he confiscates all of the bills.

01:22:11
Speaker 3: It was too good to be true.

01:22:13
Speaker 1: They leave and mister Carlyle immediately pulls up and then breaks in their into their home to steal Munchie. And it's here that we enter a full ten minute home alone section of monkey pulling pranks on him. There are fireworks, marbles, fire a bowling ball, and there is one line I couldn't figure out during the fight, no matter how many times it rewound it. Let's see if you can help me. This is mister Carlyle. Let's play clip three.

01:22:35
Speaker 2: I'm gonna catch you world.

01:22:37
Speaker 3: Keep keep bob you.

01:22:40
Speaker 2: I'll keep bob you. I am going to something or is it a kebab It's a noun, right, can you verb this? I'm gonna comebob you listen.

01:22:52
Speaker 3: I couldn't figure it out. I tried. I literally I was like obsessed with it. I don't know. If you know anyone, please let me know. But in the end, mister yeah, we gotta get it.

01:23:04
Speaker 1: Does end up capturing a lifeless munchie who he hopped out with a handful of potatoes.

01:23:09
Speaker 5: So the potatoes first of all attacked that connect.

01:23:15
Speaker 2: Drops a potato this bar off his head and knock him. You had established a potato allergy for potatoes, kryptonite something with potatoes, because he says kryptonite potatoes and he says something. Well, it's a whole pulley.

01:23:35
Speaker 3: System by the refrigerator.

01:23:38
Speaker 1: Anyway, He shoves the little guy Munchie into a garbage bag, and Chris, his mom, and the Treasury guy come back home with a new reasoning for the snowing money, a counterfeit ring that dumped the stash over their house. She tells the agent about losing her job and he suggests working for the government. She's into it and also possibly into him. But when Chris re enters the house, he sees mister Carlyle and the bagged munchie. Now Chris, his mom and the agent revealed his name is Todd after the thief in their car. During the chase, Munchy messes with mister Carlyle's car and also Todd says he also had a monkey growing.

01:24:16
Speaker 2: Up, apparently that he was also part of a munchie.

01:24:19
Speaker 3: He goes, oh that guy, I had one of those too.

01:24:22
Speaker 5: Everyone had a munchie and everyone else turned into a president. But Todd is still working for the irs or whatever it has happened. Like what did he do to his Munchy? Did not become Napoleon?

01:24:34
Speaker 2: Is my question.

01:24:37
Speaker 1: Eventually, Bobs enter the chase and Carlyle crashes his car, causing a flip. They also apparently had money to I guess they had money to shoot this part.

01:24:45
Speaker 3: I'm telling you some of these stunts.

01:24:47
Speaker 7: Oh this is a Roger Corman way though, That's what he would do. Like one of his like one of his go toos was that cars are actually cheap, So smashing a car and doing explosions always cheap, and so like you just you just buy a used car and then you just put up a ramp and flip it, and like you just pay a stunt guy for that, and like you don't really care that much about the car, and you get one take.

01:25:07
Speaker 4: It's like it was like the old school Hollywood thing, you know. It's just like I remember my brother. My brother was in a movie that had had one of them have a big explosion to the Disney movie called Spies, and they just found an old house that was foreclosed on or going to be demolished anyway, and blew it up.

01:25:23
Speaker 2: And it's like, it's actually not that expensive to just blow up the house.

01:25:26
Speaker 6: Am I wrong? I thought? Was Roger Corman also known for like be horror movies.

01:25:32
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, okay.

01:25:34
Speaker 6: I have tried to get I have tried to have my agent somehow get me into these horror conventions. Just Munchie strikes back and.

01:25:42
Speaker 3: They're like, no, it doesn't care.

01:25:45
Speaker 6: It's just like a really bad horror horror movie in Canada. I think I told you guys with Chauncey Lea Pardi.

01:25:52
Speaker 2: Yes, we was in it.

01:25:54
Speaker 6: I was like, that's it, that's my ticket. I'm getting damn cons.

01:25:58
Speaker 2: They just.

01:26:00
Speaker 6: They'd rather have me for Little Monsters.

01:26:02
Speaker 2: Man, are you going to Munchie Cohn? In Wisconsin?

01:26:09
Speaker 6: The featured guest heartbroken.

01:26:13
Speaker 1: Well, mister Carlyle's car blows up and mister Carlyle is taken in by the police. Turns out mister Carlyle also sexually assaulted one of the police officers wives.

01:26:23
Speaker 3: That's revealed.

01:26:26
Speaker 1: Chris doesn't know if Munchy made it out alive, and Todd says if he was anything like his little friend, he's back at the house waiting for him. Chris just accepts this and happily hops into the car and they drive off. Back at Chris's house, he has no idea where Monchy is, but just then his TV turns on and it's the Munchy Show. Munchy pops up and says he was at the jail where mister Carlyle was just sent to the mental ward.

01:26:47
Speaker 3: Monchy says he came to say.

01:26:48
Speaker 1: Goodbye, but Chris says his mom is still in trouble. Munkey explains because of the counterfeit money, his mom will have a new higher paying job, the bank will extend the mortgage, and he may even get a step down out of all of this.

01:27:01
Speaker 5: I'd like to talk about that, just the way that Todd right when they like everything got wrapped up and he's like, all right, let's go home, it was like, whoa you live here?

01:27:11
Speaker 2: Now I've known you for twelve minutes. What does that mean?

01:27:18
Speaker 3: Bonded?

01:27:19
Speaker 2: They've bonded so fast.

01:27:20
Speaker 1: Also, in the throng day, all of this has happened in three days. Monkey leaves Chris thanks traumatic three days. Also, Brett is now fully dating Jennifer and not even Munchie could stop that. Apparently, no ladies for Chris, even if he has munchy. In the end, back in Heaven, we see that it was Chris's deceased father who was the one who requested Munchie to go take care of his family in the first place. Munchie comes back to Heaven and is proud of his work.

01:27:48
Speaker 3: Obviously.

01:27:49
Speaker 1: Now Kronos is impressed, and Munshi assumes he can go back to partying. He's told not just yet, you have another mission someone who really needs your help. And he's then shown picture.

01:28:00
Speaker 3: Of Bill Clinton. She looks at the camera and says this, let's play clip four.

01:28:08
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't miss our next picture, folks. But until then, here's the end of this one.

01:28:15
Speaker 1: Yes, well Clinton, they never made another Manchi's movie, which maybe was for the best.

01:28:23
Speaker 3: After all, I don't know how could you after this one on a high note? I mean, come on, so Natania What are your thoughts on Monchie Strikes Back, now approaching its thirtieth anniversary.

01:28:34
Speaker 6: One, I'm really old, we all Two. I wish I had my own little Munchie, you know, just kind of hang out with and get some favors and you know, see if we can fix this that and the other. Also, I've had a very interesting career.

01:28:53
Speaker 2: Yes, I really like forgot.

01:28:55
Speaker 6: About this movie. And I'm so glad that Danielle loved the Cardigan enough that we are back here doing this together. And I loved rewatching it, but I've loved doing this with you guys even more so.

01:29:10
Speaker 1: Like, well, that's exactly how we feel. We we watch anything you were in over and over again. You were hands down the absolute most incredible part of this movie, and I wanted more you. Every time you were on screen. I was fully invested. So thank you for taking the time to do this with us.

01:29:28
Speaker 3: We love you.

01:29:29
Speaker 1: Please tell us what your uh tell us where we can find you on social media and anywhere else.

01:29:35
Speaker 6: Yeah, so on Instagram. It's just at Natanya Ross. I have a film coming out in a couple months. I'm doing another one on Monday that'll be out in the next who knows. Six months to awesome and yeah and just uh and I have a lot of appearances coming up, a lot of comic cons, that's all on my Instagram promoted.

01:29:55
Speaker 3: And horror cons. Bring her out for Munchie which probably or for.

01:30:00
Speaker 6: Shadow Zone on de Express.

01:30:01
Speaker 1: There you go, come on, we could do another, we could do another recap. Yeah, and Natanya, we love you, thank you so much for being here, and.

01:30:10
Speaker 3: We will see you again soon.

01:30:11
Speaker 6: Yes, you guys.

01:30:15
Speaker 5: Can I point out very quickly that in the credits of the film one of the people who helped with the program was the Don Peterson, but the was quotes.

01:30:27
Speaker 2: Oh his nickname so strange, just like, what a weird thing to quote.

01:30:38
Speaker 3: Well, that was really fun. I enjoyed that.

01:30:40
Speaker 2: It's a sweet little movie. It was reat. It was terrible in the best ways. It just needed more money and a better puppet.

01:30:48
Speaker 4: Ye, And well you're talking about Stan Winston makes the puppets for this and it's an amazing film.

01:30:52
Speaker 5: Right what you were talking about writer with Mary Poppins, though I mean Barry Poppins is even p J.

01:30:58
Speaker 2: Traveller, p L. Traveler, whatever name. The woman who wrote it. The whole, the whole thing about it was that it's not about saving the kids. It's actually about saving the dad, which is why Saving Mister Banks came out. And that's what this movie was about. It's actually about saving the mom, right, and it was just through the kids. So yeah, another kind of you know, Mary Poppins Home Alone, e T. Gremlins. I mean it's great with a with a little bit of young kid baseball movie through a little sand lot thrown in. Yeah, it's great.

01:31:25
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode of Podmeets World. As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com and we have March Hey, I'm Marchie Podmeetsworldshow dot com.

01:31:40
Speaker 3: We'll see you all next time. Writer send us out.

01:31:43
Speaker 2: We love you all. Pod dismissed.

01:31:46
Speaker 4: Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Will Ferdell and Ryder Strong. Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman. Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara Sudbox producer, Akie Rodriguez engineer and boy meets World superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. You can follow us on Instagram at Podmets World Show or send us an email at Podmetsworldshow at gmail dot com.