Bugging Out At Y2K: The Movie

Dave: [0:13] This is the Extra, Extra Hot Great Podcast, episode 332 for the December 28th, 2024 weekend. I am two-digit year code David T. Cole, and I'm here with core meltdown Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [0:32] Your mom's a death trap. Dave: [0:34] And glitter victim Tara Ariano. Tara: [0:37] No, I thought I was making it work. Dave: [0:47] I'm so sick of y2k. Tara: [0:49] Well too bad because that's what we are discussing welcome to extra extra hot great for another weekend our last weekend of 2024 in fact so with that in mind we decided to go back, way back, all the way back to 1999 and talk about the subject that was on everybody's minds, Y2K. Thus, we are talking about Y2K, the movie, not to be confused with the A24 movie, Y2K, which premiered in theaters December 6th this year. This is not that. In this TV movie, it's late December 1999. Nick Cromwell, Ken Olin, and Martin Lowell, Joe Morton, have been contracted by the U.S. Government to try to troubleshoot problems that may arise as a consequence of the Y2K bug. They basically don't prevent massive power outages in the U.S. And then just have to scramble to fix issues after they arise, drafting Nick's father, Ben, Ronnie Cox, a retired NASA engineer, to help. Nick and his wife, Alex, with an I for some reason, played by Kate Vernon, also have a bratty teen daughter named Kelly, Jane McGregor, who sneaks out before everything goes to hell in Seattle, panicking everyone when they then can't track her down in the chaos. Tara: [2:05] Y2K, the movie, originally aired on NBC November 21st, 1999. It was co-written by former Roger Corman collaborator Jonathan Fernandez and directed by Dave, get this, Dick Lowry, whose other credits include every one of the Kenny Rogers Gambler movies. We can't escape it. Dave: [2:26] You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to go to next month, and when to run. Tara: [2:36] Okay, let's do the Chen check-in. Sarah, should our listeners watch Y2K colon the movie? Sarah: [2:43] Why not 2K? I only wanted to make that joke. Actually, no, you should not. Tara: [2:49] Dave. Dave: [2:50] I was going to say, why, why not 2K? K. I'm not sure if I got the right amount of negatives there. No, you do not need to watch this. What a disappointment. Tara: [3:00] I agree. This really was a drag. Dave: [3:02] Come on. It's Y2K. I want to see a different Y2K related injury or death at least every 90 seconds. Tara: [3:10] Yes. It's so low ambition. Let's get into it. It aired during sweeps. It was not a critical hit. Tom Shales of the Washington Post wrote that it never quickens the pulse or sets the senses on edge the way a thriller ought to do. It merely catalogs random catastrophes that could possibly maybe might occur at midnight, which is really this is it. It's like computer whack-a-mole. It's not interesting to watch. Dave: [3:35] Except there's not that many moles involved. There's like plane travel and a nuclear station. And that's pretty much it. They do a quick bank run scene and stuff. But like, you know, you want to see like the coffee maker go in the fritz. The guy can't get his money out of the vending machine first. Like there's a build up to these things where you start with the domestic and then eventually we're going to get into planes falling from the sky. But certainly whoever wrote this has a very particular phobia about being in a plane when things go wrong because there's way too much plane stuff. Tara: [4:06] It's true. Sarah, your thoughts. Sarah: [4:08] There were a couple of times, not when there was any tension or my pulse was quickened, but there were a couple of times when the relationship between Ken Olin's character and Ronnie Cox's, who are playing son and father respectively, that could have been sort of interesting that it's like, here's this IT systems crisis manager dude, Ken Olin, and his old school Navy dad, Ronnie Cox, playing the kind of character Ronnie Cox always plays. And it's like, okay, that was sort of interesting or could have been. But then the rest of it is just like, I don't know, a bunch of British Columbians playing various shitty characters and Joe Morton getting a paycheck, which I have no kick with. But this almost felt like it was boring because they didn't want to jinx anything into existence. But it was real boring. Dave: [5:02] I have a pitch for your father-son storyline. So we know that dad was in NASA and top levels for a lot of years. That's just kind of cover. He's actually, he's way deeper into the government than that. And the deal is he was the last government solution to the Y2K problem. And you're like, what? That's right. He and his team is responsible for globally setting back the clock 30 years back in the first year, 2000. And we've been reliving 1970 to the year 2000 for the second time. They were just so good. Nobody remembers it. And that is his role. Son, I've been here before. Let me tell you how we did it. And then the guy's like, well, we're just going to put an oxygen bomb near the nuclear power plant, a water intake. And that's our solution. Bops. Sarah: [5:51] So he's basically V.C. Andrews. Dave: [5:53] He's basically. Sarah: [5:55] Or Audrina's parents. Dave: [5:56] Uh... He's kind of like the cigarette smoking man from X-Files. Tara: [6:00] That's what I was thinking. Sarah: [6:00] Oh, okay. Dave: [6:01] He can make shit happen and you can't do anything about it. Tara: [6:04] Speaking of British Columbians. Dave: [6:05] Yeah. Sarah: [6:06] Mm-hmm. Tara: [6:07] I guess the Kelly plot was supposed to give us like an emotional connection to the problems that are cascading, but she's such an asshole. Like it's impossible to care about this child. Dave: [6:17] Someone run her over and that would be the end of the whiny kid storyline. They got another one. They got, she's got a brother or something. They'll be fine. Tara: [6:23] It's true. Dave: [6:24] One less mouth to feed in the possible post-Y2K apocalypse, you ask me. Tara: [6:28] Yeah. Sarah: [6:29] If you can't get enough Goldenberg's peanut shoes to go around, she's the first to go. Dave: [6:34] And only because somebody mentioned Drew Morton, we just have to say he seems to be contractually obligated in this phase of his career on being on every tech apocalypse movie, whether it's on big or small screen. Tara: [6:44] Yeah. I will say a project like this separates the real actors from the pretty faces in terms of like how they can make something out of nothing. Joe Morton, I thought, did as much as was possible to do with what he had to do. Same with Ronnie Cox. Rex Lynn as Tex, who is the manager of the nuclear plant in Seattle, really, I thought was the standout of this. He was like doing some real, like real deal acting and everyone else was just whatever. Dave: [7:11] Is there a working actor this century or last that communicates more with a thin film of sweat than that actor? Tara: [7:21] No. Sarah: [7:22] John Carroll Lynch, maybe? Tara: [7:25] Uh-huh. He would be good in this, too. Yeah. Sarah: [7:27] The top lip bead. Tara: [7:29] Sure. Sarah: [7:30] Cannon. Dave: [7:31] Sweat cannon. Sarah: [7:31] Sweat cannon in there. Tara: [7:32] Too. Sarah, I think you're right about the jinx aspect of it. But I also, it's hard to know where the line is between we're trying to be responsible and didn't want to jinx anything and also just did not have the budget to do anything cool. Because something on the level of a Netflix, a straight-to-Netflix action movie, like, you would at least get more set pieces. Dave: [7:57] Yeah. Tara: [7:58] But this truly was just people looking at screens. Almost the entire thing was so dull. Sarah: [8:03] Yeah, or someone in a barn jacket running in suspicious close-up, like, oh, we're on a soundstage, are we? I see. Dave: [8:11] Given how much technology is connected to calendars, even back, you know, before everything was the Internet of Things, There's something like, what about the farm milking machine that can't get shut off? And the poor cow that's giving milk for all January 1st, whether they like it or not. I wanted more of like that sort of thing. And sure, you can end with the plane falling out of the sky. But like, where's all the inconveniences in between those ends of the spectrum? Yeah. I do remember, though, all the weird shit people were saying could potentially stop in Y2K. You know, like people's imaginations are so much more fun than what was going on in this movie. Tara: [8:47] It's true. Dave: [8:48] Like, it really just became a nuclear follow-up movie halfway through and never was anything else. Because, like, one of America's susceptible nuclear power plant OSs is about to do some bad shit. And that was basically the second half of the movie. And after that, you're like, oh, come on. Well, this is just a screenplay that nobody wanted to do jammed onto Y2K. Sarah: [9:09] Yeah, that's exactly it. Tara: [9:10] Could this have been improved if David Lowery had made a phone call and brought in Kenny Rogers as the gambler? Dave: [9:17] Oh, my God. Great question. Well, they were gambling with the red line. Tara: [9:24] They certainly were. Dave: [9:25] At the power plant. You know, it reaches a certain temperature and you get a meltdown. Sarah: [9:29] I feel like they definitely did know in Rex Lynn form when they were supposed to fold them. That's right. Maybe they didn't. And they knew when to run. He told the guy. Almost. Tara: [9:39] Yes. Sarah: [9:40] Yeah. Thank you. Dave: [9:42] And also, in the future, if things don't go right, we'll need Kenny Rogers' roasters to survive. A disaster film like this needs a bigger body count first. Like, not enough people die. Like, the first time somebody dies is off screen. Somebody in surgery died when the light went off. But the other, like, Achilles heel for this whole production is that they actually do, like, a timeline. So, like, before we even get to anything in the States where they're showing things directly for whatever cinematic choice, we get like the Marshall Islands has this first bad thing happened, which is a plane falling out of the sky at a military base. Yet another, it's the third plane thing already. And then we move across and like we're into Europe. First of all, we just skip Asia, whatever. Who cares what happened there? They're on their own. And then like a few plants in France are like, uh-oh, the nuclear power plant went off. Eh, they came back. It's okay. And then like finally we get to the States where you get some of the East Coast shenanigans going on. And it was like, that was a long wait. Sarah: [10:42] Yeah. And the other thing is like China, they mentioned, but it's one line that it's like, well, China's not having any problems, but they also have the bomb. Anyhow. Right. England. Like, okay. And then they say in this voice of stricken horror, the New York City subways are offline. Oh, that could be anything. That could be a mouse got like run over on the third rail. That could be some trash fire. It could be someone fell asleep on the switch. It could be anything. It probably wasn't Y2K. And then Philadelphia gets blamed for that also was pretty funny to me. They didn't understand where the story was. And the story was killing people starting with the shitty kid. Tara: [11:30] Yeah. Be more alarmist. Movies like this. Dave: [11:41] You know what else some people think is a total disaster, but it's not? It's the theme to a little segment we call Ask EHG. All right, no Ask Ask EHG judgments this week, so let's get straight into your questions. The first one is from Leslie, who asks, who was your first TV crush? Oh, Tara, who's your first TV crush? Tara: [12:14] I don't want to say. Who do you like? Don't tell him. It was Glenn Scarpelli. Dave: [12:20] Ooh, Glenn. Tara: [12:22] A late addition on One Day at a Time. Toward the end of the run, I think the girls had both left home, and then they decided to have the Bonnie Franklin character start dating, if I recall correctly, Ron Rifkin. Sarah: [12:35] Ron Rifkin. Tara: [12:36] And Glenn Scarpelli played his son, and he was cute to me. He's had sort of a, you know, Chachi Jr. thing going on. Sarah: [12:45] Sarah. Yeah, I'm not sure if he's the poor man's Adrian Zmed or the rich man's Adrian Zmed. Tara: [12:50] Oh, yeah. He does have a Zmed-y quality. That's true. Sarah: [12:53] Yeah, Zmed-osity levels are high. Tara: [12:56] Mm-hmm. Sarah: [12:57] Minus Greg Brady. I don't wish to discuss it further. I will say I took the bid so fucking far that at 40, I married a guy whose last name was Brady. Coincidence? I don't think so. If he'd been named Brogan, who knows where I'd be today. Dave. Dave: [13:13] Electra Woman. Who is somebody famous? Deidre Hall. Tara: [13:17] Yeah, Deidre Hall. Dave: [13:18] Yep. Hayden Haymaker, do you have a favorite music video? I'm a sucker for the theatrics of I Do Anything for Love, but I won't do that. Sarah, best music video according to Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [13:29] I don't know. I feel like they all kind of run together into one teenage afternoon mega block of Brian Adams running through a soundstage littered with dead leaves. But I am going to name Janet Jackson's Pleasure Principle as my favorite because the dancing was so cool and also look like it was something I could do. Spoiler, it wasn't. Tara: [13:52] Dave. Dave: [13:52] Oh, boy. Well, you can take a pick from any, any really of the self-serious Kate Bush videos available because you've got Army Dreamers, you've got Wuthering Heights, Cloudbusting, Babushka, Hounds of Love, Man with a Child in His Eyes, Wow sat in your lap. Any one of these will do you for some major 80s art major vibes and everything that entails. They are so just earnest and weird. I just love them all. They're not great. The production values are lousy. But if you only have time for one, you should watch the one called Breathing, which is a song about a fetus experiencing a nuclear attack from the womb. Tara: [14:36] God. Dave: [14:36] And there's a lot of crossover between this video and that Moonlighting episode where Bruce Willis is the baby in the womb. The sets look a lot alike. So like I'm saying, you got some big 80s art major vibes coming in with pretty much any Kate Bush video. Tara: [14:52] This is a basic pick, Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, still very cool and fun to watch. Also, this is one that keeps coming up whenever we watch a doc series for this podcast about fashion models, but Freedom 90 by George Michael, still slaps. Sarah: [15:08] God, yes. Tara: [15:09] A really clever workaround for the problems that he was having with the record label at the time, and they all look incredible, and it's so sexy, and I love it. Sarah: [15:17] And Tara came on Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs many, many years ago now to talk about that vid, I believe. Tara: [15:24] Yep. Dave: [15:25] Shamalix has our next question. I will take this one. Who composes the badass music for ESG's various segments? All right. So history here on the theme, the main theme. I paid someone a long time ago whose name is Lost to Time, but nobody I knew. Just somebody I internet Googled. And I needed them to do a theme. i asked him to do a theme with the general vibe of the nfl song i always had running in my head called heavy action and if you don't know what it is it's this one, which i think was the starter of some nfl show in the 70s i don't know if it was the actual football games or nfl films or whatever they had it was nfl films yeah most of these are Most of those great songs from the 70s, you remember, are from that. But then after that sort of horny section, it goes into this part of it, which might seem a little horny section. So this is the same song. I was like, I kind of want that. I kind of want this. That's sort of like the vibe. Sarah: [16:50] Oh, wow. Yeah, I think that's definitely NFL films. Dave: [16:53] Yeah. So that was the genesis. And then that guy provided this, which is the unsweetened, I call it, version of the theme. Yeah. Tara: [17:05] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dave: [17:21] So we used that for probably about a year or so. That still exists. What we did is we asked Dan Rogge's brother, Adam Blau, composer, big time Hollywood composer, if he could do a better version of this that was like fuller. But he just took that audio and sweetened it. So everything you hear in the theme that exists today is instrumentation that he put on top of what you just heard. So that is the history of the theme. Tara: [17:45] Amazing. Dave: [17:46] Game time theme. Is this worse than jazz theme? and the Segway music are all from Kirk Hamilton. And he did that, and I asked him, I was like, okay, I got this idea. You know how jazz is terrible, right? We're going to do a segment comparing things about how bad jazz is. And I need a really bad jazz ditty for that. Had no idea that he was actually a saxophonist and actually a jazz musician. But, I'm going to say, I made the right call. He nailed it. Sarah: [18:13] Yeah, you did. He has a sense of humor about it. Dave: [18:16] Oh yeah, yeah, Kirk was great about it. Tara: [18:18] I think you'd have to. Dave: [18:19] The Canon and Around the Dial are mixes from a few things from this old royalty free CD for music I found. So that's where those come from. Anything I'm missing? That covers all the big ones, I think. Tara: [18:30] I think so. Dave: [18:31] Yeah. All right. Duke City Expat asks, is there a newer show, sitcom, or drama that would benefit from a tell-me-the-plot style theme song a la Gilligan's Island? Demonstrations of what they might sound like, completely optional. Tara: [18:47] Brooke and Carrie are the other two. It's Chase James' music has broken through. I started too high. In New York, the two-backs made their way. Wake up with Pat. Have a good day. Brooke's a player in the industry. Carrie's moved on from age, net worth, and feet. They're so close to reaching all their goals Even though he posted his hole Brooke and Carrie are the other two, Nice Thank you Very good Dave Well. Dave: [19:25] I don't have anything to sing for you But I do want an ever-evolving Sort of previously on purpose theme for Dr. Odyssey Because Dr. Odyssey doesn't have a proper theme But it seems like a kind of show that certainly could have one and it has lots of things to talk about. Lots of things to peg lyrics to, like everybody got ringworm, they're all dumb, and then the crew did a threesome. You know, like that kind of thing, set to music. And then that sort of slightly changes each week. Tara: [19:54] Yeah, I love that. Dave: [19:56] Sarah? Sarah: [19:57] Once I had this idea, I could not dislodge the actual tune from my head, so I just went with it. I would like the actual Gilligan's Island theme melody He adapted with lyrics to explain Space Show, which, if you're new here, For All Mankind, which would do a really wonderful job undercutting the show's extreme self-seriousness, and also explain to new or in-media's viewers just joining the show how the alt timelines work. So it's like, you know, just sit right back and we'll hear a tale, a tale of a boring man, and then there's a shot of Joel Kinnaman, etc. Dave: [20:31] Etc and with an e would you rather be stuck as a sibling of the dutton family or the roy family for some reason you're stuck in a gilmore girl style pact where you have to do the weekly friday night dinners with the family patriarch and also in this scenario the final season of both shows has not happened yet so with all that stipulated sarah debunting dutton or roy. Sarah: [20:56] Roy, because you know what Succession doesn't have? Kelly Riley. And I can't eat with that happening. Tara. Tara: [21:07] Yeah, Roy, at least I would be in New York. The dinners would be unpleasant, but I'm not trying to go to Montana. I don't need horses in my life. Roy's. Dave: [21:17] Dave. Yeah, I'm going to go with Roy as well, based solely on the zero chance of eating vegetarian anything at Yellowstone. Sarah: [21:25] Yeah. Dave: [21:26] Like even like their tossed salad is somehow 100% meat. They just make it look like lettuce for you or something. Sarah: [21:31] I was just going to say that. Remember that like meat heap at the diner that. Dave: [21:37] The meat heap. Sarah: [21:39] With like that steak knife, like jammed in it, like the flag on the moon. Dave: [21:44] It was amazing. All right. Well, good for the Royce. Last question for us from Michelle. Who is an actor that could be added to a show you actively despise that would make you give that show another shot? But I think for me, at this point in time, I would give a show a shot with Matt Barry in it. Tara: [21:59] Mm-hmm. Dave: [21:59] Sarah. Sarah: [22:01] BB Newworth. Tara. Tara: [22:05] I mean, I thought of the show. That was the first thing where I, you know, I assumed that was part of it. But a show that premiered earlier this year on Peacock was called In the Know. It was a stop-motion animated affair set at NPR that I hated so much. It had like Zoom interviews with, you know, live action people and stuff. Zach Woods did a voice. I trusted his taste before this, but all of that said, for how much I hated it. And by the way, my headline for it was, in the know is a show for no one. And I later heard the creator on a podcast quote it, which I was like, sorry, but also sorry, it's true. Sarah: [22:44] But also learn. Yeah. Tara: [22:46] The only reason I would ever try to revisit it is if they made Paul F. Tompkins a regular cast member, because it would make me think they had made it better. Dave: [22:56] All right. Here is your Ask Ask ESG question that comes from Dr. Calhoun. Apparently, I'm old because I started putting on episodes of Barnaby Jones in the background. Let me tell you about my new best friend, Barnaby Jones. Go back to my place. Take naps. Anyways, he has Barnaby Jones on in the background. while he does other things. Imagine my surprise when the bad guy in season one, episode four, just drops the N-word. What's something they said or did in an episode of TV that you can't believe they did and would never get away with it now? So if you have an example of that, carefully type it in to the Discord channel. Ask, ask EHG. And we will be back in a future episode with our winners. Dave: [23:43] Uh-oh, that weird backwards but yet very fast music can mean only one thing. It's time for our very first Tiny Nonak. Presenting the very first Tiny Nonak is Tara. Tara: [23:56] Hello. For basically the whole time we have known him, Corey Stoll has been one of our foxiest bald actors. So when, in 2014, he showed up in FX's drama The Strain with a very full, very fake head of hair, it was a topic of some discussion. It was, in fact, almost the topic of discussion about the strain, such that when the show titles mentioned, you might remember the wigs Stoll wore to play his character, Ephraim Goodweather, before you remember that the show was about vampirism spreading virally. And that is why we are talking about it in The Hair Nonac. When the show first launched, Stoll and co-creators Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse all said there was a reason Ephraim had to have hair at the start of the series. And the reason was Ephraim was going to need to escape the city incognito at some point down the road. So halfway through season two, he shaves his head and remains shaven headed through the next, if you can believe it, two and a half seasons. Did you know the strain was on for four seasons? Sarah: [24:59] Oh, God. Dave: [25:01] It just kept going. Tara: [25:02] However, other season two interviews claimed the reason for the wig was that producers didn't want Stoll to look so much like his character from House of Cards, so it's hard to know where the truth lies. The fact that the head shaving was reported in Trade Magazine posts ahead of that episode's airing suggests that producers realized they fucked up and wanted everyone to shut up about it. Understandable. Not really possible. So Corey Stoll's wig in The Strain aims for Chris in the morning, lands on Brandon Walsh if he was a Lego minifig, has more telltale flyaways than a late summer dandelion, is teased higher than a turret at Dracula's castle. Again, just a reminder, The Strain was about vampires. Should have been collected and stored at a CDC lab for extensive testing to determine whether it was part of a PSYOP by a hostile foreign nation intended to destabilize our government. Stoll's character worked for the CDC. Would not be out of place in a badger habitat. Was an actually shocking insult to the audience The Strain hoped to attract, as though we all wouldn't know after one second this was not hair this guy grew himself. Herself was more widely despised on social media in the summer of 2014 than Lena Dunham, Jay-Z, The Ice Bucket Challenge, or the finale of How I Met Your Mother. Tara: [26:17] Is a hate crime against a hot actor whose baldness is a huge part of his appeal. Ephraim Goodweather's hair in The Strain never fooled anyone. Ten years later, it is still the most memorable thing about The Strain's first season, and not in a good way, and that is why you should induct it into the hair no-knack. Dave: [26:38] Thank you, Tara. Tara: [26:40] You're welcome. Dave: [26:41] Sarah, do you want to go first or shall I? Sarah: [26:43] Sure. Here is what is interesting, I guess, about this Whig Cop Tribunal. Dave: [26:49] Yes, yes. Sarah: [26:50] Clearly, great effort was made to make this thing a natural... They went to a lot of trouble to give him a hairline that was not the square thing that you usually see in a high school production of Fiddle on the Roof. They also tried to make it look unstyled and a little like, this is a crisis, no time to do my edges or shower. There's a greasiness to it that is authentic. Sarah: [27:20] But if I'm not mistaken, like, I don't think I agree about how bad it is. But if I'm not mistaken, I think your point is that it should be in the known act because of how much focus it pulled from literally everything else about both actor and show. And in that regard, I must agree. We all know he is bald. There is no reason, like, if you hired an actor to act different from other characters he played in the past, that's what the money is for. Why was this done? Why was this effort undertaken instead of, I don't know, making scripts that didn't suck? I've seen worse wigs, but I have never heard another wig talked about as much as this. And again, if Tara, it is your contention that regardless of its quality, even if we disagree on the relative lack of aptitude of the wig maker that this. Sarah: [28:20] Was the conversation and that it was styled high enough to literally be a lightning rod, which I do agree on that point. Why is this happening? It's a pandemic. What are you doing? It's like not acceptable as work product or as conversation piece. As it were, it's actually better than a lot that I've seen, but it should not have cast the rest of the show into this chilly a shadow. I concur. Dave. Tara: [28:48] Sorry to interrupt before Dave responds. I do agree. I think the wig is bad on its face. But yes, the point is it was so clockable because we know him. We know what he looks like. Sarah: [29:00] Right. Dave: [29:00] He is very bald. Tara: [29:03] Yeah. Dave: [29:03] And he is known as being very bald. So it's like if you went to the beach and like one day the beach balls had like hair and you're like, well, that's weird. I don't like beach balls with hair. Just feels wrong. I mean, you're coming up really upsetting against that choice. You're coming up against and not just like a beard glued on like these beach balls are growing human beards, Sarah. That's how weird it is. It would be that sort of problem where you're just have to overcome lizard brain list of things that are smooth and round. Sarah: [29:38] No, it's just like, yeah, it's an assault on pattern recognition. Right. Yeah. Tara: [29:42] Yes. It's like when you see old shit where like Patrick Stewart has been made to wear a wig. It's like, it's, it's just wrong. Dave: [29:49] You're going back and watching Life Force to see that one woman's boobs. Tara: [29:53] Yes, exactly. Exactly. Dave: [29:55] All her clothes fall off. Hmm. Yes. Tara: [29:57] And she's scrabbling around to get them back on. Dave: [30:02] Um, I would sort of push back a bit on the notion that this hair isn't really terrible. I watched this episode backwards. There's like two scenes that Tara recommended to really get, you know, a full view of everything on offer. So I watched the back one first that was sort of in the dark. And I was like, yeah, that's pretty bad. And then we wound to the start of the show where he's like getting out of a car or something like that in broad daylight. And I was like, oh, wow, that looks like somebody just grabbed the first thing they did out of the box and put it on. And nobody's worked with like meshes or gums yet. Like I had that sort of. It looked like. Sarah: [30:38] Yeah. Dave: [30:39] The human personification of a Eastern European's province's coat of arms. Like one of the birds on one of those. Sarah: [30:47] Or like the lions. It's like. Dave: [30:50] Yeah. The Transalbanian Eagle. You know, I was like, what? Oh, it lives on story. Corey Stoll's head down. Sarah: [30:57] Yeah. I mean, I will say in the pilot, it's actually like that was their best work. And later, like when we were, whatever, covering it on previously.tv and just every picture in the coverage was like, it just looked like it was shot onto his head by a trebuchet several miles distant. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't good. Dave: [31:19] It's more about the audacity to try it at all with Corey Stoll. You know yes well i think this was a good pick i'm gonna say inducted into the no neck sarah d bunting do you agree or disagree no neck worthy yeah. Sarah: [31:33] It's no neck worthy i agree that the angle was just as much how much people talked about it as the actual quality so yep well done. Dave: [31:40] All right yeah the hair is as stupid as this character's name which could be also a tiny cannon into the future. Ephraim Goodweather in his goofy wig. Tara: [31:50] Fuck off. Dave: [31:52] All right, so this means Ephraim Goodweather's hair from The Strains Season 1, Episode 1, Night Zero. You're hereby inducted into the extra hot, great, tiny hair, Nona. Dave: [32:17] Not Quite Winner and Losers are out. It is time for the Not Quite Top 11 lists. I will go first. Picking up with our theme, it is the Not Quite Top 11 TV Supercomputers that may have still existed in the year 1999. Number one is a name of a real supercomputer, Univac. But the Univac we're talking about is the one as used by Wild E. Coyote when Bugs Bunny locked himself in like a desert nuclear bunker And then Wildy Coyote purchases the Univac from Agni, gets it into his cave, punches in these three parameters, rabbit, in-hole, combination lock, and then Univac chugs away and sort of atomic, agily gives him the suggestion of breaking into the bunker like a burglar. Tara: [33:07] Sure. Dave: [33:09] Number two, Old Man in the Cave from the post-nuclear apocalypse Twilight Zone episode of the same name. This is the one where the townsfolk find their wise old man telling them when and what to eat or drink. And they find out that the old man in the cave this guy is talking about is actually a supercomputer. So they stomp it to death in the name of freedom and then all promptly die of radiation poisoning. Tara: [33:33] Oh, it's just like that episode of Futurama. Dave: [33:35] Trust your local computer. Number three is the Batcomputer from Batman 66. You want me to get the bat computer to give you a bank to. Tara: [34:31] The just-opened Heritage First National Bank. How perfectly lovely. Dave: [34:41] Thanks, bad computer. Number four is the general from The Prisoner. The general is a supercomputer that will be tied into this speed learning tech that the professor created that lets people read a book in like three seconds. Number six thinks all this technology is actually a foundation for future mind control stuff. So at the end of the episode, six gets to ask the computer, the general, one question. and the one question to ask results in its destruction. Dave: [35:35] Got it! Number five is Irak, a.k.a. Ira, the information retrieval associative computer from Wonder Woman. I couldn't find a clip of it. The reason I really want to put Ira in here is because I remember one scene where Ira has top secret information that's even above Diana Prince's clearance, and she gets around it by, well, in order to know whether I really shouldn't have it, I need to know what the actual pieces of information are. And then it tells her, come on, Ira. You're a better supercomputer than that. Number six. You may enter. Tara: [36:19] I wish. This is a prop from the classic NBC series Supercomputer, 1975 to 1975. Dave: [36:28] So that is the TV show that 30 Rock wants us to believe called Supercomputer from NBC 1975 to 1975. Next up, it's Kit from Knight Rider. Sarah: [37:19] I just love that he's a bitch immediately. Dave: [37:21] Yeah. Sarah: [37:21] Gorgeous. Dave: [37:22] Number eight. Who or what, designed to be the ultimate audio-visual entertainment synthesizer. That's Synergy, the supercomputer that was built to entertain you from Jem and the Holograms. Do you know, Tara, that her earrings are the remote hologram projectors? Tara: [37:50] I think I did know that because this was a show my sister watched and she had the toys. Dave: [37:55] Number nine. Sarah: [37:56] Outrageous. Dave: [37:56] Second to last is the emergency medical hologram, a.k.a. the doctor from Voyager. I thought that show was a real hot mess, but I do have a nice little place carved out for Robert Picardo's portrayal of the doctor. I thought that was one of the high points of Voyager. and lastly it is the revolving toilet supercomputer from red dwarf it is a over eager ai powered toilet in a spaceship that rotates from inside the wall when everybody says the words oh crap but it does it regardless of context oh. Tara: [38:27] Crap not you i. Sarah: [38:31] Do apologize i wasn't paying attention see you later. Dave: [38:34] The end of that clip the character who said oh crap the legs list the toilet and then gives a good nod like good chap which really makes the scene and that is my not quite top 11 supercomputers that may have existed up until 1999 all right sarah what is your list. Sarah: [38:53] I have, in honor of the approaching New Year's Eve, quote, holiday, a.k.a. Getting drunk amateur hour, not quite top 11 indelible moments of TV inebriation, in alphabetical order by show title. Number one, Arrested Development. Lucille Bluth asks for a vodka first thing in the morning, and when clocked by her son, eye rolls that she guesses she'll also have a piece of toast. Sarah: [39:20] Number two, Beverly Hills 90210. Donna swoons in the lobby at prom after barfing for like 20 minutes. Number three, Dawson's Creek. Dawson face plants in his birthday cake. Number four, family ties. Uncle Ned visits, drains a bottle of vanilla extract, and scars a generation. Number five, Felicity. While they're playing video games together, Ben tosses Noel a beer. And because they're both drunk by this time, Ben bounces the can off Noel's head. Then there's a wrestling match. It's one of the best moments in the entire series. I think that might be in the canon, actually. Number six, Law and Order. Briscoe falls off the wagon and kind of indirectly kills Claire Kincaid as a result. Number seven, Mad Men. Don yukes everywhere at Roger's mother's funeral and has to be keeled hauled out by his armpits. Number eight, Party of Five. Bailey burns down his family when they give him an alcohol intervention. This is in the canon. Number nine, Supernatural, Sam gets really wrecked and calls Dean bossy and short, not necessarily in that order. And number 10, The Wire, one of my all-time favorites, Jimmy McNutty gets a snoot full and then tries to build an Ikea bunk bed for his kids. And that's it. Dora. Tara: [40:42] In honor of our lead topic, I went with the not quite top 11 best TV shows that premiered in 1999. When everyone wasn't freaking out about computers breaking, they were watching some pretty good shows. Counting down from 10, SpongeBob SquarePants, not a show that I actually personally watch, but one that I know is meaningful to a lot of people. And I'm never mad when I see a little bit of it. It does look like something I can get into very easily and is still on. Sarah: [41:09] I agree. Tara: [41:09] Producing new episodes, amazingly. speaking of still on producing new episodes amazingly law and order special victims unit not a good show but certainly one i have enjoyed over the years brought me a lot of shameful joy number eight judging amy get it on a streaming platform please what the fuck word number seven mission hill a show that we discovered much later because they aired it on teletune but was pretty good number six strangers with candy if you know you know number five once and again from the my so-called life producers got three seasons you'd never know because again impossible to find but very good number four home movies cuckoo crazy forerunner of bob's burgers number three futurama first five seasons only number two freaks and geeks and if you know what year shows premiered. You've been waiting for this one. And here it is. Number one, The Sopranos. West Wing, Suck a Dick. It also premiered in 1999, but it's not on my list. Sarah: [42:18] Oh, wow. Okay. Dave: [42:20] All right. Get ready for Kim Reid's The Most Awesome Thing I Watched on Television This Month. Hi, this is Kim Reid, and welcome to The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Month. So for this month, I tried to find a Hallmark holiday movie that didn't involve a small town, a high-powered female executive, a Christmas tree farm, or cupcake bakery, or candy cane factory that's been in the family for decades but is now failing, etc. And I think I succeeded, although it had some questionable plot details that only added to the awesomeness. So the movie I watched was called Jingle Bell Run, which is basically what if the amazing race in Hallmark holiday movies had a baby but with very low stakes? So elementary school teacher Avery's sister secretly signs her up to be on a show called The Great Holiday Dash, which is absolutely not how reality show casting works. Like, Avery would need to know about all this before the casting announcements are published and friends start contacting her with congratulations, but fine. Dave: [43:12] Avery's deal is that she's really smart and generous and beautiful and loves kids, but somehow can't find a boyfriend. So at the starting line, Avery finds out that they're competing in random pairs, which is something that actually happened on The Amazing Race and was kind of a pretty good season. But of course, Avery is paired up with a real type A ex-professional athlete named Wes, and Avery's a real brainiac. And I don't even want to tell you, but their team name is Slay One. They do have pretty awesome red satin jackets with their team names, but everyone has the same color jackets, which is also not how reality television works, but I guess. The jackets are very Happy Days coated, and I still want a Letterman jacket that says Mixed Nuts like Lori Beth used to wear. Dave: [43:48] So the teams take off, and they have to fly from city to city and complete tasks, as you would expect, although they get the most obvious clues about where to go and what to do, like, where is the Liberty Bell? And the show acts like Avery's a genius because she can solve the clue. But meanwhile, every other team ends up on the same plane to the same place. So how hard could it be? Also, I understand that these movies are on a tight budget, but maybe they could have had more than one extra holding a camera at each challenge since they're supposed to be getting coverage of all the teams and also have a camera and sound person traveling with each team when they're driving to the next location. I know I'm expecting too much reality in this reality competition-based movie, but it seemed obvious. At least have a lipstick camera on the visor or something. And there was one point where they were driving from Santa Fe to Dallas and Avery directed them to the wrong airport, which if it has flights, I would think it's the right airport. If we're pretending like this is early days, amazing race where the teams booked their own flights, but then they just drive to the next challenge and the other teams were delayed by weather. So it all works out. Also, the teams had absolutely no urgency at any of their tasks so that Avery and West could take time to learn about one another's secrets and vulnerabilities. But that shit happens in between tasks, not during tasks. Dave: [44:57] Anyway, at least the tasks were based on things I've actually seen on The Amazing Race for the most part, except about 75% easier. And the other teams included an older woman slash younger woman. And another was two gay men who, of course, fall in love, which was sweet. But also, they didn't have to fall in love just because they were both gay men. But what is a Hallmark movie if not an opportunity for coupling up so fine? And usually the obstacle in the movie is like, she's been hurt before or too attached to her high-powered career, and he's too stubborn and won't admit his feelings. And those things were part of it. But also there was one field producer who was trying to get Wes to pretend to fall for Avery for ratings. And of course, she overheard one of their conversations, but ran off before Wes told the producer to eat a bee. But that was resolved in like five seconds. And then the older woman on the all-female team had said all along that she was playing for her daughter, Gracie, but then she admitted right before the finale that her daughter, Gracie, died two years ago, like WTF. And everyone is just like, oh, I'm so sorry, instead of saying you're a psychopath and maybe someone should reopen that investigation. Dave: [45:58] And of course, Wes and Avery made the final by the skin of their teeth, and I hoped they would end up coming in second, since honestly, Wes, the former professional hockey player, was doing just fine financially. And Avery's biggest financial goal was to pay off her student loans, which joined the club for most of America. but they did end up winning and vowed to use their money to start non-profits, fund scholarships, donate to make their fellow finalist dreams come true, and pay off their student loans. Like, I don't think a million dollars after taxes goes quite as far as you think it does, but whatever. Oh, and they fell in love, despite having limited chemistry at best, but at least this movie went off formula a little bit, which was all I was really asking for, so that was the most awesome thing I saw on TV last month. Tara: [46:49] Welcome in, grandpas. You missed our discussion of Y2K, not the movie that came out this year, the TV movie from 1999. You missed our answers to questions about actors who could be added to a show that would make us give them another shot, even if we hated the show, and where all of the badass music for the various Extra Hot Great segments comes from, and so very much more, including our first ever tiny no-knack. What was the topic? Kick up that pledge and find out. For now, we will welcome you in for staying in Vegas, as I hardly need tell my illustrious co-hosts or brilliant listeners, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the premiere of NBC's Father of the Pride, the animated show about Siegfried and Roy and their white lions and tigers before, you know, one of them tried to eat one of them. To mark the occasion i'm challenging all of us to build a new show around a different artist or artists who had a las vegas residency or is strongly associated with performing in the city what's it called what's the genre who's in it who's producing and what are some blurbs for a few episodes sarah start us off okay. Sarah: [48:03] I really avoided this answer because it is so hack to just pick Elvis immediately, but I actually have read widely in the Elvis was murdered. Here's exactly why Elvis croaked on the toilet genre. I don't know why that is. But anyway, he would have turned 90 in a few weeks. So that's our hook for this program. And I want to see a period docudrama about everyone else who was involved in his Vegas residency and in that time in Elvis's life. But with Elvis himself kind of functionally never seen like that Scandi series, the investigation that was true crime. It was about a real case, but you never saw the actual killer. Like some big guy in a white satin cape can walk through the back of a shot in an episode focused on the Jordanaires who sang backup for Elvis, but it's not really about Elvis. It's about being around Elvis and trying to cope when he seems like he's about to stroke out on stage. sometimes. It's called If I Can Dream, which is one of his big hits. I'm seeing six to eight episodes. I don't know who to cast in the backup singer groups, but I am seeing J.K. Simmons as Colonel Tom Parker. I would like Walton Goggins, Harry Connick Jr., Lucas Black, and Jack Quaid as members of the Memphis Mafia. Sarah: [49:27] Riley Keough should not play her own grandma, but she can if she wants. And if she won't, that's what Kristen Stewart's are for. And Dakota Fanning can be Lynda Thompson, his girlfriend in the mid-70s, who I think ended up married to Caitlyn Jenner for a while before the Kardashians. Michael Imperioli and Michael Pena will be the International Hotel's managers, and they will get their own episode. Creating and producing and directing are David Fincher and Tobias Lindholm, who made the investigation and directed a couple of Mindhunter episodes. Episode one is like 33 and a third short films about Colonel Parker. Just a montage of various deals that Parker made for Elvis's films, his tours, his army induction, all that. The very last scene is the deal for the residency, which involves Colonel Parker having taken notes on a tablecloth, which he then saved to make sure they could renegotiate the deal if management changed hands. And then he brought this tablecloth to a meeting. That guy was a weird dude and not a colonel either. Sarah: [50:31] Episode two is 20 feet from falling stardom. It's what it was like to have to vamp as a backup singer when the king was drugged up and couldn't get through a full set. Several shots from over the group's shoulders as they see underwear and teddy bears flying towards the stage a collage of the postmortems in the dressing room every night sometimes it's just everyone slumping silently onto the couches and they're all well yeah and then there's an episode called super fans which is like veritate style shots of fans in line to see him women who have seen him hundreds of times the cocktail waitresses at the back of the room grumbling that Elvis fans are the shittiest tippers on the strip, performers in other hotels coming by to place bets on whether he starts slurring before the third song. I think there's a lot of material here. I'm not totally sure that the directing, like the creative team that I picked is the best way into it, but I think it's probably the most compassionate. So yeah, maybe it was kind of hacky to pick Elvis, but I'm fascinated by his life and death. So that's what I went with. Tara: [51:37] Sorry, they did a show like this about backstage at Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. I think it used to, it was on Peacock for a while, but like Paul Reiser co-created it. And he similarly, it's like everyone else on the show except for Carson. It's like just not. Sarah: [51:55] I believe. Did you watch that? Was it good? Tara: [51:57] No, I didn't watch it. I'll go next. Much as I'm tempted to make a show for Jabba Walkies, who I actually journeyed to Las Vegas to see, my show is a sitcom called Mr. Jones and Me. Tara: [52:09] Sir Tom Jones, at age 84, still performing with no plans to retire, but everyone who used to manage his career has sadly passed on in this premise. Thus, he is trying out Anthony Spencemore II, a.k.a. Dan Decker from AP Bio, who is an up-and-comer from his old agency. Anthony doesn't really know much about Tom's career or the genre he performs in, but he's eager to learn. This show would reunite more with Mike O'Brien, the creator of AP Bio. When O'Brien wrote on SNL, he was featured in a filmed piece where he played Jay-Z in a biopic without doing anything to look or sound or act like him at all. And I think that ear for baffling incongruity will work on this show, which brings the elastic reality of AP Bio to a barely grounded showbiz satire in the spirit of Girls 5 Eva. So sample episodes and all of these titles are Tom Jones hits. A Boy From Nowhere. In the series premiere, Anthony tries to convince Tom to do a Cardi B cover. Tom decides to make a point about his repertoire by being too into WAP and making Anthony and his backing band uncomfortable. In What's New Pussycat, Mike O'Brien's SNL colleague John Mulaney guests as himself, telling the What's New Pussycat story from one of his specials to general delight and upstaging a pissy Tom at his own house party. In Thunderball, Anthony finds himself in unfamiliar territory when Tom needs his help with a medical issue. Ball-related, yes. Sarah: [53:33] Oh, no. Tara: [53:36] Tom Jones, by the way, played himself, I think, in an episode of Documentary Now last year, and he still looks incredible. He could totally do this. He is remarkably spry for someone in his mid-80s. Sarah: [53:48] I will also note, weirdly, Mark Blankenship and I just wrapped a season on Best New Artist Grammy winners on Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs. And the number of winners of this category back in the 60s who are still alive or just died in their 90s, kids, get in the basement, Bob Newhart is on the porch. Yeah, it's like it is outside of statistical probability how this is like the fountain of youth, this award. I mean, it also is a curse, but you'll live a long time. Tara: [54:21] Yeah. Dave, take us home. Take us into 2025. Dave: [54:26] Okay. I'm going to put the underemployed Venture Brothers creative team on a concept that probably, to be honest, could fit pretty neatly inside of Venture Brothers, the show itself. That show is called Super Jackpot. That's one word. Super Jackpot is Venture Brothers' take on Super Friends, the 70s superhero cartoon, and all cartoons that are exactly like that. But it's set entirely inside the Las Vegas ecosystem. So as Super Friends had the Hall of Justice and the Legion of Doom, so we have factions. There is the house. They are the good guys, kind of. They are comprised of heavy hitter Vegas superheroes like the King. Tara: [55:06] Elvis. Dave: [55:08] Old Beam Eyes, that's Frank Sinatra, but he's got like a Cyclops now. Wayne Newton as Mr. Rearrangement You can like pop off limbs and they go other places Sort of like a plastic man kind of guy We've got Tom Jones as the tiger And we've got Sammy Davis Jr. As the candy man And he has all the powers of the horror candy man In addition to actually being a salesperson of candy, Okay, those are members of the house. For some reason, I think their HQ is inside the balloon at the Paris. I think that's where they work. Tara: [55:43] Sure. Dave: [55:44] On the other side, you have to work with me here, is Double Zedro. That's like double zero, but all these are Canadian villains. So they are led by Celine Dion and Shania Twain, and they sow chaos in Vegas with their minions, all the members of Cirque du Soleil. So there's all these Canadians doing bad shit. Sometimes they collaborate with the Guild of Dark Magic. That's all the stage magicians of Vegas. You're Chris Angels, you're David Blaine's, that type. And those magicians work in the abandoned Sega Gameworks arcade way down on that one side of the strip. So here's a couple sample episodes. In Season 1, Episode 3, Tom Jones, the Tiger, goes undercover in a high-stakes poker game organized by Double Zedro. The winner will walk away with all the stolen Canadian maple syrup reserves that went missing a few years ago in that famous heist. We've got season four, episode one. The house has to babysit Reno and Atlantic City B teams coming to town during a corporate event. Like the Sinatra kills the boardwalk for being annoying. It's very boys-esque. And then another one, finally, is season two, episode 10. And when the sphere, you know, the sphere, the lighted globe thing, suddenly just starts to show pictures of its butthole. Dave: [57:03] The rival teams join up temporarily to win back tourist trust in Vegas. They have to shoot a series of Las Vegas tourism board shorts for social media. That's my show. Tara: [57:16] I love it. And I love that it combined both of ours as well. Dave: [57:22] Well, guys, that is it for another episode of Extra, Extra Hot Great. We survive Y2K the movie before answering your burning ask EHG questions like who is your first crush and Dutton or Roy? Tara didn't have to strain to get Corey Stoll's whole deal into the first ever hair known act. We celebrated those who were quite the best and worst of the week, and we wrapped it all up with a look at the next big Vegas celeb-based TV show. Next up, 2025. We did it. Whee! Tara: [57:58] We're listening. Dave: [58:00] I am David T. Cole and on behalf of Tara Arellano. Tara: [58:04] We gotta go for mass evacuation. Dave: [58:07] Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [58:09] One way or the other, we're gonna be on the ground. Dave: [58:12] Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time right here on Extra Extra Hot Great.