Should You Buy Into The Franchise?

Clip 0:00 Obviously, the walking is weird, but the swagger is interesting. Swaggering, but anxious. Okay. Like a panther. Oh. On his way to a job interview. What? Dave 0:21 This is the Extra Hot Great Podcast, episode 531 for the week of October 7th, 2024. I am invisible jackhammer David T. Cole, and I'm here with superhero fatigue patient Tara Ariano. Tara 0:40 Oh, it's real. Dave 0:41 And Captain Cable's Devintra Hardewar. Devindra 0:43 I can make any cable appear out of thin air. It's great. Tara 0:52 Welcome to Extra Hot Great for another week. First up, a little pod business. Sarah, you did not hear her name in the intro. It is because she is a Mets fan. She had a chance to go to a postseason game in New York, and I believe she is en route to said game at this very moment while we're taping. You will hear her later in the episode. Sit tight, and she will be back for the Patreon-exclusive episode this Friday, which we will tell you the topic very shortly. And with that out of the way, our guest. He is an editor at Engadget and a co-host on the film cast. You've heard him with us many times. It's Devinder Hardaway. Welcome back, Devinder. Hello. Devindra 1:32 Hey, happy to be here, guys. Tara 1:34 We are here to talk about the franchise in which the latest production from Maximum Studios is a superhero epic called Tecto, The Eye of the Storm, and German art house director Eric Daniel Brühl is at the helm. He has a lot of very imaginative ideas, most of which just cause more work and more hassle for his first assistant director, Daniel, Himesh Patel, who is at a further disadvantage because he actually has read all the comic books Maximums, movies and TV shows are based on. At the same time the viewer is walking into the production in progress, Daniel is very quickly trying to bring Dag, Lali Adafope, the new 3rd AD, up to speed, and her first day happens to coincide with a check-in from Pat, Darren Goldstein, aka the Toy Man, a figure who is feared and reviled by the creative types on set. So Daniel's already having a bad day before he's confronted by the arrival of Anita Iacash, a producer who is rising faster through the studio ranks than Daniel is, and is also his ex. The show is co-created by Armando Iannucci of Veep, John Brown of countless British comedies, and Sam Mendes of directing multiple James Bond movies. Mendes also directs several episodes here. Only one has aired so far on HBO. We got access to the whole season, but we'll be careful about spoilers. Let's do the Chen check-in. Devendra, should our listeners watch the franchise? Devindra 2:55 Absolutely. I think it's a lot of fun. I like the characters. It feels like Inuchi back in his rhythm, especially after Avenue 5, which I did not like very much at all. So this is good. It's funny, and I don't hate everybody. That's a start. Tara 3:08 Ditto on Avenue 5 for sure. Dave? Dave 3:10 Yeah, I'm going to give this a watch. I'm not as enthusiastic as Devendra, but I think it is worth your time. Tara 3:17 I've seen the whole season. I reviewed it, which we'll link in the show notes. So I would say, I mean, definitely yes, but I am a Marvel hater. So let's get into it. Dave 3:25 Does that help or hinder? Increases your enjoyment of the franchise or decreases your enjoyment? Tara 3:30 Oh, no, I think it increased it for sure. Felt it was on my side. So as Marvel drifts into what some consider its flop era, it's an increasingly common target for satire. Devendra, did you feel like the franchise was taking easy potshots or did the blows land for you? Devindra 3:47 I think that was my worry going into this is because, yeah, it's a very obvious target. the most popular genre and like franchise around right now sure it's super easy to make fun of it especially coming from something at max which is you know part of the whole wb family and their superhero movies are not doing so. Dave 4:04 Well so right the. Devindra 4:06 Met at the metal level it's kind of funny to see something like this coming from max i think there are a lot of the obvious jokes but what works here are i think are the actors and the jokes are just like really well written i think i think it works well despite hitting a lot of the obvious notes. Dave 4:19 Yeah i felt like maybe this was a project that would have hit a lot harder if it was five years ago six years ago seven years ago maybe like it feels almost and this is a weird thing to say but there's like a big difference between whether it's punching up up up or just a little bit up from today versus back in the day it's. Devindra 4:39 A little toothless because of that yeah. Dave 4:40 But yeah the writing is pretty smart that panther clip from the start slayed me like i love that dynamic that part of it where they're still trying to get a tour talent to come in and lead these things but they really are not interested in what they're bringing to the table they just want the name on the poster and we want the the marvel look the marvel everything about it that part of it still hits really well i thought and everything about eric in this i thought was great. Devindra 5:08 Also i also want to shout out like it is very much a sam mendez production like this man cannot start a project without a really elaborate winner which. Dave 5:16 Really took. Devindra 5:17 Weeks and weeks to practice. Like he just has to show off. He kind of got that thing from the James Bond movies, I guess. So it's really impressive. It feels like good energetic TV with the first episode at the very beginning. It reminds me of like early sports night, early West Wing stuff. Tara 5:32 I would say the more famous winner from his career is 1917. Devindra 5:37 Sure. The ultimate winner. Yeah. Tara 5:40 I thought that was good. It was like not overly showy and it was a very fast, like, here are all the million stakeholders on a thing like this that are all going to be coming to this one guy with their complaints that Daniel's job truly is just to shovel shit and like keep the lights on and be able to answer why aren't we shooting? Because that comes up like in every episode. Dave 6:01 Right. And the other thing about the show at its base level for me that I enjoy, which I don't think you really get on any quick log line, is that there is a genuine love for the craft that's built into the DNA of the show. Yes, it's all about this movie genre that most people that are in the business think that is kind of killing the business or at least is sucking out all the oxygen in the room. But when you get down to the how the movie is made and the people that are making it actually has a surprising amount of heart for something that I knew she is touching. I mean, he did. This is not his show. Like Thick of It was his show. These are other people that are that are writing and running it. But knowing that he's involved, I feel like the characters have a lot more heart than you would expect. And I think it works here. All the characters are pretty unlikable. so when you have a cast of miserable people that are all doing this paychecky job you really have to nail the jokes and that's what they did here the humor isn't as rapid fire as maybe you would get on the thick of it or peep show or or other things that people that have worked on this show have done before but it really is a good formula here really works you can't just have anti-marvel stuff 24-7 or the show would fall apart right away. And going through everything through the eyes of Daniel, for the most part, really makes it click. Devindra 7:21 Yeah. Tara 7:22 Devendra, you're nodding. You agree. Devindra 7:23 I totally agree. I think Daniel's like a really good centerpiece for the show because he is sort of how I think a lot of people feel too at work. If you're the person, it's either the person you want to be, the person who everyone's going to, or the person you actually are and you were just like burdened by this maybe sort of actually like your job too so i don't know i'm a big over worker and i think watching sports night at a very young age uh really fed into that so i blame you aaron sorkin um but no i think daniel's a great character hemesh patel i love seeing him in in everything basically like especially after station 11 the cat the cast all around is fantastic i love seeing jessica heinz in this really wish she had like a bigger career because i loved her in space yeah good like she appears in a lot of british stuff but she's not everywhere she's not in like major productions so she's funny she's just great to see an eye of cash whenever she appears anybody who's seen you're the worst knows like she is fantastic so like just great all around billy magnuson the man of the punchable face every time he appears, you know, like I think he also really leans into the sort of like, you know, airhead Hollywood lead roles type stuff, too. So it's great work with this cast. Dave 8:33 Yeah. I love the note that he's an actor while everybody is doing their preparations. His preparation is just basically yelling. Tara 8:39 Yeah. Dave 8:42 And he is always opposite Richard E. Grant as Peter. And that is a dynamic that I really enjoy. My favorite part of the show is the junket interview segments that they do over the credits of the TV show, not the credits of the movie within. And if I had a big knock against the show, I wish I had more of that energy throughout the actual episode, because there's something about that that is like tickling my the player pleasure center that i wish they infused more into the actual episode but i'm glad to have what they tagged on to the end of that richard e grant is having a lot of fun here and it's showing in the end. Devindra 9:21 So much fun peak bitchy mode for him in the show. Dave 9:24 Like he's fantastic and his costume he plays this character called the eye and his helmet is just like this magneto helmet with just a big giant glass eye in the middle it's so first thought yeah but i guess The other thing, and this is, I'm sure, just a matter of budget, but it didn't quite feel like the costuming was quite up to Marvel snuff. Tara 9:45 Yes. Dave 9:45 That was like one thing that nobody ever quite get right with superhero parodies. They don't get to the nth level that they do on some of the Marvel stuff. The set stuff looked great, like the green screen hanger sets and stuff there were in looked great, but the costuming looked really kind of budge, especially Adams. I. Devindra 10:02 Wonder how real that is though because right now the thing we've learned from Marvel movies is that very few people are actually putting on costumes or putting on masks like that is all CG after the fact so you don't even see that stuff on set. Dave 10:14 I suppose but like when Adam is walking around in his Tecto thing there's no markers or anything like that on it and they have that one guy, who is an X-Roy who just plays whatever creature needs to be played that day but he is in such a mocap get up that they can't take him out of it so they put diapers on him and he ends up really enjoying the diapers as like a lifestyle change that he is like happy about. He's just like really loving life. Devindra 10:38 I don't knock it. I've taken some very long international flights with friends, and they've had to wear diapers for one reason or another. And by the end, they're like, don't knock it. You actually have a really nice flight. You don't have to move at all. It's great. Tara 10:50 Okay. Dave 10:52 And now you're slot machine ready. Devindra 10:54 Exactly. You just keep going. Tara 10:56 Yeah, that guy is a thick of it veteran, too. I agree about the costumes. That was something I mentioned in my review as well, in the first episode especially. And maybe this is just, I mean, I assume this got bought straight to series and this wasn't just a pilot thing. But when you see the Mossmen, it's like, okay, well, they're just in like ghillie suits from the Army Navy surplus store. Like they, in fact, I've seen better ghillie suits than that. They're very like layered. They look really weird. Devindra 11:19 I think part of it, it's a bit of an underdog story too. Even though it's a big superhero movie, it's like the unloved one of the franchise that nobody really gives a crap about. Dave 11:29 It's Thor, the dark world of Maximum Studios. Devindra 11:33 So they really do a good job of selling that. They're not making the biggest tentpole release for this franchise. It's the thing. Everyone's kind of an underdog in this show. And that is, it's easy to, you know, appeal to that. Dave 11:44 Speaking about all the different movies in the maximum cinematic universe, I really enjoy seeing all the posters sprinkled throughout the episodes in little corners. What was the one that was like the arthouse film that? Tara 11:55 Oh, Eric's previous movie is called The Unlikening. Dave 11:58 The Unlikening. Tara 11:58 Yeah. but the the one that they're in competition with that's also shooting on the same studio is um centurions to it's like enter the continuum or something like that everything. Dave 12:11 Is like slightly different you think you're having a stroke. Tara 12:14 Yeah yeah. Devindra 12:15 I think they saw the name quantum mania right i think we're all like recovering from just seeing a movie titled quantum mania. Tara 12:22 Yes we'll never be the same infinitude on a fake poster it's like that is so close yeah to being may be real. A few years ago, I interviewed Arian Mouyad, who played Stewie on Succession. He also has his own theater company called Waterwell. But this was after he had just been in one of the Spider-Man movies. And I asked if he was ever on that set and just looked around and thought how much money he could have used in other ways at his theater company. And he was like, uh, yeah. So I obviously thought of that conversation when we hear about the stage that's just full of Japanese cherry trees for a scene that gets cut. And that's only the first thing we hear where it's like something gets cut that has to change the entire direction of the production like and then you hear that and you remember oh this is how something like the acolyte gets to be 200 million dollars over budget. Dave 13:10 Speaking to that, one of the things I thought was very Marvel-y and it was a nice touch and must have been so frustrating when it happens, and I'm sure it's based on stuff that's happened in the Marvel timeline, is that the tentpole movie has had a story change that just wipes out a whole race that they've been filming with on this movie, Tecto, like all the moss men or the fish people, rather. The fish people have to go away and they've already shot dozens of scenes with the fish people. And just that part of it, like that machine part of filmmaking in the 2020s, that part of it I could use a lot more of. Devindra 13:45 Yeah, yeah. Dave 13:45 Marvel as it intersects with the industry rather than nitty gritty of like superhero things. Darren Goldstein as Pat, I thought was a fantastic Kevin for this show. Tara 13:58 He specifically. Devindra 13:59 Feels like a character from silicon valley you know which is a show that had a lot of like very rich people with weird like they exist on a different plane of existence and everybody below them and like there's a lot of that energy here too yeah. Tara 14:10 Yeah i don't think he's kevin i think the kevin is the the shane that never appears whose assistant is like his avatar on set being like shane thinks it's great or you know speaking about them both in the same person okay most definitely because uh pat is the one who's like i'm the guy that everyone still remembers fucking up my high five with shane at comic-con 2017 it's like dude okay so he's one level below kevin then yeah okay for sure fahey. Dave 14:34 Is that how you say his last name. Tara 14:35 Feige i think i will say dave to your point there is stuff further down the line that intersects more with like how do we massage this for the chinese market like what can we do to buy into this and we see a little bit of that too in episode three with like the woman problem right where Anita has to woman the woman problem with like their one character that the fans hate. Played by Katherine Waterston, who's so funny. Dave 15:01 I guess going back to earlier when I was saying like the one thing, I kind of wish that the heart had more heart and the teeth were sharper. Like I wish there was more of a disparity between the two modes of the show, or at least the two tones battling each other. Like people that love the craft, like Daniel's there. He wants everything to be a meritocracy, but it's not. and just the reality of working on a Marvel-esque show where you're just beaten down because it is a product and you are making extruded Marvel product and get at it. It's not not there, but looking back on Peep Show or The Thick of It, other shows with the show's DNA, that had more of an edge to it. And I think it would have been a bit stronger if they could have captured that, but it also might be an escalation. We might be getting there. I feel like the episodes as we're going along, one has launched, but we got more. and they're a little sharper as you go along. Devindra 15:54 I don't know how sharp it could be right like how sharp could it be because this is ultimately a show on max you know it's a wb production basically so it's like you can't make too much fun of the whole superhero movie you know machine because hey we are currently doing that it feels like they're making fun of the aquaman movies like several times like directly here not even marvel stuff so i think that's the thing like if this were if this were one of those like small british productions that were so sharp and you had to like, you know, import it or something like Black Mirror back in the day. Like those had more free reign to be dark. That first season of Black Mirror, I remember when like I was passing it around with friends being like, why can't American TV be like this? Tara 16:35 Yeah. Devindra 16:35 Yeah. Dave 16:36 Yeah, that's a good point. Tara 16:37 Or extras even had, was able to be more savage than this in the same milieu. Let's wrap it up with one last, let's say, thinker. Of the characters that we meet in the pilot, and we've already talked about Anita, Bryson, the assistant to Shane, Adam and Peter, the actors, Rufus, the extra who can't take his fish people makeup, the director, the two ADs, blah, blah, blah. Who has the most thankless job on this production? Is it Daniel or is it actually someone else? I don't know. Devendra, what do you think? Devindra 17:07 I think it is absolutely Daniel. I think that's part of what makes him a really compelling lead character because it's just shit being put upon him. Like at one point later on, there's even like a scheduled, you're going to get shit from me because of this session. And I think that that is just like good. I think like the way that is handled is just like accepted by him says a lot about that character and who he is and what he's trying to do. And I also like the way I could see like if this series were to progress, I could see somebody like Dag, who is the third AD right now, who is like very green, very little. Like she has no influence, but I could see the series getting to a point where it's like, oh, yeah, she's she's fully running a franchise of her own by the end of this. Like just there's a lot of interesting commentary they can make about all this stuff in these characters. Dave 17:48 I agree with Devinder. It's probably Daniel, but I'll put a word in for Steph, who has to take notes off her boss's, the director's, Aaron's hand, as he's jotting things down. And it obviously was not the first time she's had to do this. So, yeah. Devindra 18:01 But she loves it, is the thing. Like, she is fully drunkly coolant. Tara 18:03 She's like Mr. Smithers, for sure. Dave 18:05 She is like Mr. Devindra 18:05 Smithers, exactly. Dave 18:06 What about you, Tara? Tara 18:08 I mean, I think Bryson, who has to, like, pitch his salad as soon as Shane, like, snaps his fingers in another time zone and country, he also feels like he's hero worshipping but I feel like he's like on the line of being able to snap and there's also more down the line I'll say with the VFX people who are really, under the gun on something like this. Devindra 18:31 It's really the VFX people yeah, Devindra 18:38 hold on. Clip 18:39 Let the wide stick give you the edge speed stick super dry antiperspirant the franchise. Dave 18:49 Divinda has no idea what's happening right now. Don't worry about it. It's just one of our many stupid traditions. All right, it is time for Around the Dial. First off, Izvitar. Tara 18:57 Yes. Two of the most ridiculous shows on TV are back, and those are, of course, 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 colon Lone Star. I'll start with Lone Star because the fifth season with just premiered is the last for the show. I'm also not caught up. But based on what we've seen so far, that's fine. The way they wrote out Grace, one of the show's best characters, the 9-1-1 operators, completely preposterous. We're told she's volunteering on a mercy ship for orphans from developing countries when she has her own child who is a toddler at home. Like, okay, we know she's religious, but good God, no pun intended. So Judd, aka Glump, her husband, quit the fire department last season to help look after his paralyzed adult son who until recently was estranged, but now they're back in each other's lives. Or they weren't estranged. Judd didn't know he existed. But now that Wyatt is settled with his wife in a house that Judd fixed up to be ADA compliant, Judd wants to go back to work, but he's too proud to say so, even though Owen, the Rob Lowe character, hasn't been able to decide whether to promote one or the other of the firefighters we know to replace Glump. I honestly don't remember any of the saves in the premiere. The big train derailment that's going to be the multi-episode catastrophe doesn't happen till the end of the premiere. I may return to this one for Around the Dial later in the season. Maybe it goes off. I doubt it. Dave 20:13 You remember when it was like Texas-based stuff too? Like it was like the bull semen containers exploding in the premiere. Tara 20:20 Of course. Dave 20:21 And shit like that. Like, what about like some sort of like taco-based catastrophe? Like, let's get it back to the roots, people. Yeah, I think they've been- One more season to do it. Let's go. Tara 20:29 Right. I think when there was a, maybe in the volcano one, like a whole bunch of spiders crawl into a food truck, but I might be conflating two different things anyway. Dave 20:39 But what about like, let's get a concert like, you know, the big ones they have. Tara 20:43 ACL, currently on. Dave 20:45 And get like Philly Welson up on stage to sing. And then like terrible things happen to Philly Welson and the gang and the whole concert. Tara 20:53 Mm-hmm. Dave 20:54 They set it up in Austin, and then they forgot about the Austin part of it. And the early seasons, all the weird Texas shit they were sticking into the first season was great. They've lost that part of it. Devindra 21:04 We got to end with a catastrophe at the border wall. Like, come on. Just something huge and really sell. That really can't be TV sentimentality by the end. We should all learn to live together. Dave 21:14 The only thing between us and disaster is that border wall. And then the credits, right? Tara 21:21 That aside 9-1-1 came back with a fucking bee nato we've got killer bees completely covering an entire car containing not one question did we ever find out. Dave 21:31 Why there were killer bees in that truck and not just like bees for honey or. Tara 21:35 Something like that besides they wanted. Dave 21:36 Killer ones i guess. Tara 21:37 Right and why so many like if they're on your way to a research lab you don't need an entire semi full of two million killer bees i assume i'm not a scientist i think. Devindra 21:47 This is probably the The writer's room for these shows are probably having the most fun in. Tara 21:51 Hollywood right now. Devindra 21:52 I mean, I hope so. Yeah, I love watching these shows with my wife. Tara 21:56 Okay, so they're covering a cart. Two bee-allergic people are in it with one EpiPen. And then bees start coming through the vents. There's also in the premiere an assistant at a fragrance launch trapped in a pool because the perfume she was trying out for this party attracts bees who sting her dozens of times. So many they have to use duct tape to pull all the stingers out in one go. We've got a killer bee transport driver who gets horribly stung and his entire esophagus filled with bees that are still alive inside him while EMTs are working on him. Dave 22:29 Don't they end up vacuuming out the bees from his throat? Tara 22:32 They sure do. Sure. Almost as dramatic as all that is how Brian Thompson, who plays mean Captain Gerard, looks now. I'm going to pass it to Dave because Dave's been very disturbed by this. Dave 22:41 Not disturbed. I was just watching it and I knew I knew this guy, but I couldn't figure out why it wasn't, you know, firing off whatever neurons you need to fire off in my memory. Tara 22:50 Yeah. Dave 22:51 And then finally, I'm like, OK, if we brickify his body by 60 percent. Tara 22:56 Yeah. Dave 22:56 I now acknowledge that this is the alien hunter dude from X-Files. Tara 23:01 Yeah. Dave 23:02 You know, just the guy that just walks around and you punch him and nothing happens. And then he stabbed somebody with a knife or whatever that thing was. Devindra 23:08 I thought he looked familiar. Wow. Tara 23:11 It's him. Devindra 23:11 Amazing. Tara 23:11 And now he's. Dave 23:13 You know he's older you know time marks his on but he's still built like. Tara 23:17 I wouldn't want. Dave 23:18 To get in a fight with that guy still he. Tara 23:19 Still looks. Dave 23:20 Like he could punch a hole right through my head if he wanted to. Tara 23:22 Yeah so I know these special effects heavy episodes at the start and the end of the seasons are just to get you hyped and then there have to be boring episodes in the middle about how so and so passed a test or whatever there doesn't. Dave 23:34 Need to be but there are. Tara 23:35 There doesn't need to be but there are that is a structural problem with the series I'm not going to look a bee NATO in the mouth especially after what happened to that one guy. Great stupid shows. I love them so much. Thank you, 9-1-1, for doing what you do. I'm so glad that when Lone Star ends, there's probably going to be another spinoff because we deserve it. For my plug, what we don't deserve is a revival of scare tactics because you may have seen that Jordan Peele is producing it and thought, oh, that probably means it's good. It doesn't. So you can read my review at Cracked explaining why it's sort of meh. And the other thing, as I point out, is like, you know, it's harder and harder to believe a prank show that no one is like, is this for TikTok? Because that's the first thing that I would assume whenever anything weird happened. And granted, I'm sure they can cut that out. But still, I just never believe a mark because I would always assume when some weird shit happens. Like when I get to a weird tasting menu and they're like, this is human flesh. I'd be like, this is where are the hidden cameras? Like, this is not real. But, you know. Dave 24:35 Well, the other part of it is that prank culture is not in high regard these days because of TikTok at all. Like people just don't know where to stop. So I feel like people might have prank fatigue. Tara 24:46 It's a bad time for the show to launch. So poor decision, Jordan Peele. What were you thinking? Dave 24:52 All right. Devinder, what have you been watching on TV recently? Devindra 24:56 Yeah, I just finished Interview with the Vampire, the second season from AMC, the AMC series. I just wanted to shout out because I feel like not enough people are watching this. And it's really mainly the TV heads who are talking about it. The first season is on Netflix right now. It's finally out of AMC jail. I don't know what the hell they've been doing with the streaming service, but they have like locked down so many shows. So I think also Gangs of London, also more widely accessible now, the first season of that. Check out Irving View with the Vampire. I loved the second season. I read Anne Rice's stuff in high school. But what I love about the show is that it treats it with like so much gravitas. It treats Anne Rice's work like Shakespeare, almost. Or another comparison is like what Peter Jackson did to Lord of the Rings, sort of like translating this beloved thing, but in a way that feels really elevated and feels really, I don't know, really masterful. So I love every aspect of the show and I hope more people check it out. Dave 25:51 Fantastic. you're you're a rice head i don't know what you call these people. Devindra 25:55 I mean i read the first couple books you know uh back when i'm a ricey i think she is a really talented uh you know writer i've not read all of her stuff but this really really does like justice to her work yeah no i love. Dave 26:09 The show i was i was one of my faves. Devindra 26:11 Yeah so. Dave 26:12 There's another show coming up in the universe they got this. Devindra 26:14 One they. Dave 26:14 Had the mayfair witches and now there's. Devindra 26:16 Like basically. Dave 26:17 This universe is fbi. Tara 26:19 Is that is that what telemosca is about. Devindra 26:21 Yes yeah yes the. Dave 26:23 Justin kirk character right he is in that organization so he they're like the watchers i guess. Devindra 26:30 I'm so excited yeah like x-files-y stuff in this universe i mean just just the the idea of it also i like that actor too so when he popped up it's like oh you're you're doing something with these uh this society here so yeah it's fantastic may. Dave 26:42 For witches didn't grab me but i always love the idea of the human organization watching the monsters. It always has the potential to be really good fun. Tara 26:50 Yeah. Devindra 26:51 So much fun. Dave 26:52 Devinder, you are all over the internet and our headphones, so let the people know where they can find you. Devindra 26:57 Sure. I mean, I want to shout out the latest episode of the film cast. We talked about Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Tara 27:03 Did you love it? Devindra 27:03 I have a lot of feelings about that movie. Love is not one of them, but it is interesting. It is certainly, it is a really interesting thing to talk about, which is we spent that entire episode just trying to deconstruct what the hell happened in that movie. But I wasn't bored. I'll say that. Dave 27:18 So that movie bombed big time, right? Like box office wise. So do you think now franchise like they're going to try to get Coppola to do a superhero movie and he will do it because he will need the money because he put his own money into this movie? Devindra 27:32 I don't know if he needs the money. I think this is a sort of like last last hurrah here, here, cinema, here, society. This is what I think about the world. Do with it what you will. He doesn't need to. He's he's not, you know, like a release God or anything. He's not he doesn't have the drive to keep producing stuff. So, yeah, I don't think he's going to do that. Well, good. Dave 27:51 Dodge a bullet there. Dave 27:54 All right. Here's what's coming up on our extra, extra hot, great supplemental podcast this Friday. We're going to be talking about Roller Jam, which sounds like America's best dance crew, but on roller skates. Tara 28:05 That is based on what I've seen so far. That is accurate. Dave 28:09 I am here. So who will be the Jabberwockies of that show? Tara 28:12 Oh, my God. I can't wait to find out. For our listeners who don't know, I and past guest Adam Sternberg many years ago traveled to Las Vegas on purpose just to go and see Jabberwockies perform at the Monte Carlo, as I recall. and it was a blast. It was a great time. I cried. It was so good. That's not a lie. That is the truth. And I'll also say on Extra Extra Hot Great note, we talked about an interview with the Vampire Season 2 earlier this spring. So we'll link to that in the show notes too. If you are new to the Patreon, you can hear our discussion of that. Dave 28:47 All right. That is available to club members. Go to extrahotgreat.com slash club to learn and sign up and then come back here next week for EHG Prime. We welcome back Alan Sepinwall, and we're going to talk about Disclaimer. Dave 29:06 It is time for the Extra Hot Great Cannon. Even though Sarah D. Bunting is playing hooky, she did take the time out to record her cannon presentation. So here we go. Take it away, Sarah. Clip 29:18 Oh, hi. It's me, Sarah D. Bunting, and I'm here to pitch Frasier Season 5, Episode 14, the ski lodge for the extra hot great cannon. This is one of those, if you know, you know, episodes that's tough to pitch for two reasons. First, a lot of the humor is in the form of looks exchanged. Clip 29:36 Rubbery faces of horror, eyebrow wiggles, et cetera. And in this legendarily visual medium, well, you see what I'm saying? Second, its success relies in no small part on how well the viewers know the characters, and how well the viewers know the show knows the characters. So A Canon Hopeful has two choices here. Write a master's thesis on the structural elements of bedroom farce in turn of the millennium filmed media, or hike a thumb at the episode all MR8 and hope the panel's discussion bails me out. And nobody wants that first thing, your correspondent included, so I'll try to keep it brief. The basic plot here is that Roz, Perry Gilpin, has won a fancy ski weekend, which Frazier, Kelsey Grammer, gaslights her into trading to him for a big screen TV, smart lady. Frazier then invites Niles, David Hyde Pierce, mired at this point in his divorce from Maris, as well as their dad Martin, John Mahoney, himself bogged down with a head cold that's stopping up his ears and catalyzing the plot, clip one. When we were courting, I sent Marissa Valentine that said, you're the girl my heart adores, everything I have is yours. Now they're calling it a prenup. Clip 30:49 It's terrible. Can you imagine using that as a weapon? An old valentine. I'd love a cold valentine. Niles naturally invites Daphne, Jane leaves, who brings along her swimsuit model friend Annie, Cynthia Lamontagne, who's in town for her birthday. By the time this clown car gets to the lodge, Fraser is hot for Annie. Annie is hot for Niles. Niles is Niles, so he's hot for Daphne. And then the frosh ski instructor, Guy, James Patrick Stewart, shows up to also be hot for Niles, as well as to misunderstand game of telephone information about Niles that Martin and his clogged ear canals misheard via Daphne, whom Key assumes is capital D doing it with Annie. Martin just wants to get everyone wrecked on hot buttered rum and remember aloud how he used it to work up the courage to ask the doctor's crane's late mother to marry him. Everyone else in the house interprets Martin's reminiscences as an instruction to carpe diem sexfully. And because nobody exactly knows whose bedroom is where, a bunch of shrieking, door slamming, and premature champagne-lation ensue. Let's hear just a part of that in clip two. Clip 32:14 Dr. Craig! Dr. Frazier! I'm sorry, wrong room! Just get out of here right now! All right, well, so it's this room I walked in? Just go! Yes, bye-bye, sorry again. Bonsoir. Uh... Guy, you're not the crane I want. You're not even the sex I want. Where is Niles? Oh, Niles? Company. Oh, my God! What are you doing in here with Guy? Don't be jealous, Niles. It's not how it looks. Oh. Clip 33:04 What? You know, as much as I'd like to stay and help you to sort this thing out, there happens to be a very beautiful woman on the other side of this door who wants me desperately. Annie! Ah! Do it! Sorry that clip was long. It's like half the length of what I originally clipped, and it's still hard to convey the full effect, but I think the episode works at a canon-worthy level, and here is why. Clip 33:28 One, very careful setup. Martin's just compromised enough to wreak havoc hearing is established early and re-established at key points along the way, but with a light touch. The camera work shares that light touch and makes sure we see various longing looks or characters registering information, but doesn't linger too long. The actors play it big, but not non-credibly big. And the writing, of course, is made to look comparatively effortless, but when you're close reading an episode for a canon pitch, you see better what a script is or isn't doing. The Ski Lodge's script has ensured that the miscommunications and the reactions to them downstream are believable, and that it never devolves into what the late Roger Ebert would have dismissed as an idiot plot. Reason number two, the trust in the process. The show had already pulled off the legendary Ham Radio episode in its previous season, and it too is in the Extra Hot Great Cannon. The Fraser team absolutely already knew how to do this, and part of that is not doing too much. The ski lodge has all the ingredients. Sometimes the real trick is to just measure everything right, throw it on the stove, and let it cook. And boy, does it. Not to overdo the kitchen symbology here, but both Cheers and Fraser were excellent at classic sitcom fare, dishes prepared carefully and well. The Ski Lodge is a perfect example of that, and I hope you'll find it appetizing enough to vote into the extra hot great cannon. Tara 34:57 Thank you, Sarah. Devendra, you chose this from our list of submissions. Please start us off. Devindra 35:03 I adore this episode. I'm a huge Frasier fan. My wife and I, we have probably gone through the entirety of Frasier hundreds of times. Frasier is our nighttime show, the soothing show that gets everybody to sleep. It's mainly the dulcet tones of Kelsey Grammer that does it for us, I think. But I love the construction of this episode. If you were to show Space Aliens what a sitcom is, what is a situational comedy, it is this episode of a show where the audience knows the characters, like Sarah said, the writers have a good sense of who these people are and their relationships to each other. Then you bring in new people, you add a few impairments to existing characters, and you just kind of stir it all up and put them in a single location, and hilarity ensues. And I think this is just such a prime example of what I love about sitcoms. A lot of it is very visual, too. Like, I don't know why the ski lodge, why are all the rooms interconnected? Tara 36:01 I wondered that. Devindra 36:01 Like, there are multiple doors. A lot of things don't make sense. But I think the misunderstandings are all really funny. You get a good dose of Kelsey Grammer chest hair. And when you get that, like, that's a good sign for the night. Like, just sexy Kelsey Grammer. At one point, he says, I should register this dressing gown with the love police. And I agree, Kelsey Grammer. I agree. like it just really works it's all the like miscommunications and everything the entire setup that i think just really makes this episode work he has a great like a great line at the end like all the love coursing through the night everything ricocheting off the walls and no one was chasing me is it's so good and then the cherry on top is like the credits where it's like another fraser misses again once again his vanity is fully on display but also his like his own bumbling you know with romantic things is here too i love it i think this is a fantastic episode. Tara 36:57 To be clear, the closing tag is Annie gets the champagne, is on her way to Frasier's room, but then he's already in the kitchen getting a snack, so he misses her. Devindra 37:05 She leaves, and then he comes out like the second later. Amazing. Yes. Tara 37:09 It's the last door slam of a door slamming farce episode. Yeah, this episode is rated 9.5 out of 10 from IMDb users, and they're not always right, but they're right about this. This is definitely, I would say, a God-tier episode. for all the reasons Sarah said. The airtightness, and I've now seen this episode many times, like, it's so structurally sound, like she said. There's not a wasted second, including bringing in James Patrick Stewart as Guy. I think Cynthia LeMontagne is fine. Her Manchester accent comes and goes, I would say. It's not the best. It's very, like, broad. But that sort of fits an episode like this, too, that's obviously, like, supposed to be, you know, farcical. But James Patrick Stewart just slides into this ensemble in a way that has to have been hard for guest stars. And I cut an extra clip. So Dave, please play that. Clip 38:00 Just between us, my interests lie elsewhere this weekend. Really? Tara 38:11 Just the mustard on that one word. It's so good. He has another really funny moment where he's building a fire and Daphne says something like, is there anything you don't do? And he, big wide eyes, like, There are a few things. So he's really funny. Devindra 38:25 Just his introduction, by the way. I am Guy. Yeah. I am Guy. That's it. Three words. Tara 38:32 Yeah, he's great. It's fantastic. The relationships among all of them are perfect. The way it's credible that everyone has the misapprehensions that they do. It wouldn't, the episode wouldn't work if it didn't. And that's like tight writing, but also excellent performance. Great editing. like just firing on all cylinders this is what you can do with a multi-cam show this is like you know i don't think we miss them overall but there's some there's some aspects of them that like it just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't happening live and if you couldn't hear the audience like we've talked about this before with canon submissions with with multi-cam shows like this is what they should be doing basically and if you're not i don't know why you're a multi-cam Dave. Dave 39:16 Yeah, it is a really strong episode. I'm putting it like slightly below ham radio for this type of episode, but like just so slightly, like ham radio had a chaos that I enjoyed a little bit more than this one. That's not a knock on this episode at all. My only knock I would say is that the story takes a little too long to get to the ski lodge. They have to set up Marty's plugged ear before they get to the lodge, but otherwise they could have probably got there a few beats earlier. Beyond that, it really is a really strong episode that you could totally see being done at like a local theater somewhere, right? Because once you get to the ski lodge, it's basically one set if they just took away the walls to the rooms and let you see the interiors as if the walls were really there. And then the whole thing could have been done on a stage and has that sort of vaudevillian tradition to it or Looney Tunes tradition where they're going passing between things. Actually, Three's Company tradition too. It feels very much like a Three's Company episode full of misunderstandings about who likes who and who's gay and who's not and all that kind of stuff. A few Barry Fraser moments when they finally get to the ski lodge and they're recapping Fraser's terrible driving, which was there so that people would slam into each other boobily. Dave 40:31 I'll leave it to you to put the pig back in Pygmalion was a Barry Fraser line. The other part that nobody's mentioned that I wanted to highlight is right at the climax of everybody figuring out that everybody was liking the wrong person and then nothing is matching up. Marty gets into the room. His ears are unclogged. He kind of figures out what's going on. I'm ears unclogged. I'm so happy. He looks around and he has this moment, which is very much the same as Homer going back into the hedges, where he kind of like backs out of the room, which was very funny. Tara 41:03 Yeah. Well, good night. Dave 41:04 Yeah. Good night. Type of episode that Frasier excels at and cheers before it, but they really just know how to write a tight, tight comedy like this. And it really shows that they, as Devinder was saying, and Sarah said, know the characters and you know the characters and they're playing it to everybody's strength. And you get something that is like pretty much flawless. And once you get to the ski lodge is like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And it just doesn't stop until it ends. So yeah, great choice. Great episode. Let's put this to the official vote. Devendra, what do you say? The ski lodge, canon-worthy or not? Devindra 41:39 Absolutely. Dave 41:40 And Tara? Tara 41:41 Sarah added this to our doc as an option when it was already on my two-canon list. So thank you, Sarah, for doing it. Absolutely, yes. No question. Dave 41:52 Me too. Clip 41:53 Shh. Dave 41:58 So that means Frasier, and I ought to know, I'm Frasier, season five, episode 14, The Skeelage, you are hereby inducted into the Extra Hot Cray Cannon. Clip 42:12 Americans love a winner. Yep. And will not tolerate a loser. Nope. Dave 42:17 All right, it's time to discover who is the winner and a loser of the week. Tara has this week's winner. Tara 42:22 I surely do. And that winner is, I mean, it's a question mark who the winner is, but Rugrats, the long-running animated show, is getting a live-action movie adaptation with CGI babies, which sounds absolutely horrifying. Dave 42:40 OK, so the human parents will just be like whoever you're going to get your Catherine O'Hare's or whatever to play them. And then the babies are going to be like CGI babies. But are they going to be like rug ratified by like 20 percent? So like their heads are like not quite human, but everybody else is human. Tara 42:59 They're I mean, in animated form, like they're kind of horrifying looking like they work in the show because they all look like. Dave 43:06 They all look like humans that used to be other things. and they were dipped into batter and now they're living beings. Tara 43:13 Yes, right. And this is going to be written by two Saturday Night Live writers, Mikey Day, who's also an actor on the show, and the current head writer, Streeter Seidel, wrote the script together. And I guess like, fine, you know, this is like a show from their youth probably, but are they gonna bring like an SNL sensibility to it? Like, is this gonna be for kids? Is it gonna be for people their age? Like everything about this, I hate it, but congratulations to everyone involved for selling a project, I guess. Dave 43:45 Well, it's like people that didn't grow up with Scooby-Doo, but love the Scooby-Doo movies. Tara 43:49 Sure. Dave 43:50 Like it could be like that where it's just sort of like it has a sensibility that just connects. You don't necessarily have to have grown up with it. Right. Not that anybody that's grown up with Scooby-Doo is really clamoring for a lot more Scooby-Doo in their lives. Tara 44:02 No. Dave 44:03 But it could be like that. Maybe. Tara 44:05 It could. I don't know. I guess we'll see. Dave 44:06 Best case scenario, maybe. Tara 44:07 I guess we'll see. Dave 44:08 All right. Tara 44:09 I mean, I won't. I'm never watching this movie. Dave 44:11 I don't know anything about Rugrats. Rugrats is exactly in the sour zone for me as far as something I would have watched. Devendra Rugrats. Devindra 44:17 I was raised on Rugrats pretty much. Like I was definitely older by the point, but I was watching it with my younger brother. And it is a well-written, really well-animated, really creative show. Like I believe Brad Bird worked on it a bit too. The Anne Flux creator did some animation. So like a lot of talent was in that show. I don't know what the hell is going to happen with this movie though. Tara 44:36 Are you excited? Devindra 44:37 No, nobody wants to see this. Tara 44:39 Are you scared? Devindra 44:40 I am absolutely scared that there will be CG mutant babies on our screens sometime soon. Dave 44:45 Are you more scared by this movie or more excited by Kelsey Grammer's Chester? Devindra 44:52 I mean, listen, Kelsey Grammer's Chester, that's a good answer. Good answer. Tara 44:57 Good answer. Good answer. All right. Dave 44:59 Loser of the week is Peacemaker. Speaking about comic book stuff, which will never get Joel Kinnaman to reprise his role as Rick Flagg Jr. Oh, no. What a shame. He was interviewed recently. This is, quote, I don't know what to say. That's ridiculous. Kidman jokingly told screen rant about returning to the DC universe. I would never. I would never be on a show like that. It's not what I do. It's not what I do. What? Clip 45:25 Joel. I'm sorry you're mad at me, but this isn't personal. This is business. Business, eh? Well, let me. Devindra 45:30 Tell you something. Clip 45:31 You just lost yourself a customer. What? I'm sorry. Joel. Couldn't hear you. I said you just lost yourself a customer. What? You just lost yourself a customer. You're going to have to speak up. You just lost yourself a customer. Warner Bros. I forced myself to what? You just lost yourself a customer. I'll talk to you tomorrow. You just lost yourself a customer. Yeah, you can use it. Devindra 45:54 Well played. Well played. I will say, though, hashtag justice for Rick Flag. Tara 46:00 Okay. I'll take your word for it. Dave 46:03 I love Peacemaker, but I don't know what the hell was going on in that show at all. Tara 46:09 Well, speaking for superheroes who deserve justice, or do they, do you know what time it is? Dave 46:14 Is it non-regulation game time? Tara 46:16 It sure is, Dave. Tara 46:30 Since Sarah is not joining us, and this was going to be non-regulation game time regardless, I offered Dave the chance to play a game this week, and he said yes, and therefore that's happening. So Dave, if you get mad at this game, remember, it's your fault. Inspired by our lead topic, I'm giving you both a quiz about superheroes from TV who are probably never going to be in a Marvel or DC movie, barring some kind of Deadpool and Wolverine mega crossover situation. So I'm going to give you the name of a superhero or supervillain from TV. You tell me what show they're from for two points. Could be a show about superheroes, might be a superhero or quasi superhero character that gets a significant mention or appearance in a non-genre show. There is one case where you will get the superhero's alter ego because their superhero name is the title of the show. If you need a hint, I'll give you the name of an actor from the show. I'll give you the person who plays the character in question. If I personally thought that would be helpful, but these are a lot of genre shows, it might be someone you have no idea who that is, in which case I'll give you the name of someone from the cast that I've heard of, and I will let you know if that's the case. So after the hint, it's worth one point. You can guess for free at each level. The stakes. The loser has to buy the winner, a superhero-themed gift valued at a maximum of $5 for the five Avengers, because I do not acknowledge Hawkeye. Dave 47:50 Defender, are you okay with wagering? Devindra 47:52 I'm totally fine. Tara 47:52 I already checked. Dave 47:53 Okay. Devindra 47:53 Yeah. Yeah. I don't gamble much, but I can go with five bucks. Dave 48:00 Shirtless poster of Kelsey Grammer, $5, question mark. Devindra 48:05 Please, please. Tara 48:08 Do you have any questions? Dave 48:09 Nope. Tara 48:10 We have 20 questions and a tiebreaker. No show is in here more than once. Let's throw it to Picky to see who is going first. Clip 48:19 We will start with Valued Guest. Tara 48:21 All right, Devendra, you are on the odds. Dave, you're evens. Are you ready to play less sung heroes? Dave 48:29 Yes, ma'am. Devindra 48:30 Sure, sure. Tara 48:31 Question number one is for Devendra. Your superhero is Leonardo. Devindra 48:38 Ninja Turtles? That is correct. I guess he's a superhero. Tara 48:42 Which Ninja Turtles specifically? Dave 48:44 Yeah, which one? Devindra 48:44 The cool one. Tara 48:46 I'll let you have that one. Dave 48:48 How old are they and what is their DNA status? Devindra 48:50 Yeah. Dave 48:52 All right, two points for Devendra. Tara 48:53 Two points for Devendra. Dave, Awesome X. Dave 48:56 Awesome X is a superhero from the television show Frisky Dingo. Tara 49:01 That is correct for two points. Back to Devendra, your superhero is Tecto. Dave 49:06 Aw. Come on. Tara 49:09 I said the easy ones are up top, Dave. Devindra 49:11 Oh, yeah, yeah. The franchise. That is correct. Tara 49:14 Two points. Dave 49:15 How bad would it be if you got that wrong? Tara 49:17 It would be pretty bad. Dave 49:18 But would it be like, you know, embarrassing bad or visited the doctor bad? Devindra 49:22 I have to think about it, to be honest. Tara 49:26 There's only been one episode, so, you know. Dave 49:28 That's true. Tara 49:29 All right, back to Dave. Bubbles. Dave 49:30 Bubbles is a Powerpuff girl. Tara 49:33 Correct. Devendra, Rita Repulsa. Devindra 49:37 Power Rangers. Tara 49:39 That's correct. Dave, Wolf Girl. Dave 49:42 I just want to say before we get into Wolf Girl, that was a non-generational answer I could have gotten right. I just want to put that out there for the record. I knew the Power Rangers question. Tara 49:51 Okay, great. Dave 49:52 Only because I think Elizabeth Banks played her in some movie or something like that. Devindra 49:55 Yes. Dave 49:55 And I saw the name connected with her. And I'm like, she's not repulsive. Tara 49:59 No. Dave 49:59 At all. Wolf Girl, you say? Tara 50:01 Wolf Girl. Dave 50:03 Wolf Girl. Feels like it's from something recent, like one of those 10,000 hero things, maybe Invincible. Is there a wolf girl in that? No, it was a monster girl in that one. Wolf girl. I don't think I know this off the top of my head, so I will take a clue. Tara 50:19 Okay. Your clue is Jean Smart. Jean Smart does not play wolf girl. Dave 50:26 Gene Smart doesn't play Wolf Girl, but Gene Smart is in the show. Tara 50:31 Correct. Dave 50:36 Watchmen? Clip 50:37 Good guess. Tara 50:39 Hacks. That's the character played by Hannah Einbinder's girlfriend. Devindra 50:42 Oh, yeah. Tara 50:44 With the ring. Dave 50:45 Damn. Okay. Tara 50:46 She thinks it's an engagement ring. Dave 50:47 Yeah. Tara 50:47 Back to Davindra Siler. Devindra 50:51 Heroes. Clip 50:52 Good for two points. Tara 50:54 Back to Dave. Dave 50:54 Yes. little cricket little cricket isn't that the gun from men in black um that's. Tara 51:01 Not a tv show. Dave 51:03 It is a tv show there's a cartoon yeah oh i'm sorry it's not it's not superhero it's not a superhero little cricket uh a superhero these are these all genuine superheroes not like you know they think they're a superhero kind of thing i. Tara 51:17 Mean this when you hear the answer you'll be like, okay, that person has superheroic powers. Okay, okay. Dave 51:22 I don't know this. I'll need a clue, please. Tara 51:26 Your hint is Clancy Brown and Clancy Brown does not play Little Cricket but Clancy Brown is in the show Little Cricket's in. Dave 51:32 Oh, this is Gen V? Tara 51:33 Yes. The Lizzie Broadway character who can shrink grow big and shrink down. Dave 51:39 Oh, that's Little Cricket? Tara 51:40 Yes. Dave 51:41 Oh, okay. Tara 51:41 Back to Devendra Clown. Dave 51:46 Not all heroes wear capes. Devindra 51:48 So many. Dave 51:49 It's so many things. Tara 51:50 It's just clown. Devindra 51:52 Just clown. Just clown. Can I have a hint? Tara 51:56 Yes, you can have a hint. And your hint is Keith David. Keith David does not play clown. Devindra 52:00 Ah, yes. Spawn. Tara 52:02 Spawn is correct for one point. Back to Dave. And then we're going to have a score break. Dave, the tuxedo. And I'll say this one is a little conceptual. Devindra 52:13 Ha, ha, ha, ha. Dave 52:16 My brain just went to the Jackie Chan movie for some reason. Devindra 52:19 Yeah, same. Dave 52:19 And I know there's a tuxedo something in Sailor Moon, but I don't think he's a superhero. I think he's just a magical dude. Devindra 52:25 Tuxedo mask. Tara 52:26 Oh my God, Devinder, I thought you were having a big glass of milk for a second. Devindra 52:30 Oh no. Is this a sippy cup? Tara 52:32 I can tell. Dave 52:34 Strongest bones in the business. Tara 52:36 Mm-hmm. Dave 52:37 I'll take the hint, please. Tara 52:38 Your hint is Alec Baldwin. Dave 52:41 Tuxedo. Clip 52:43 Alec Baldwin. Dave 52:44 Is this 30 Rock? Tara 52:45 Yes. It's the one where he turns into the tuxedo, and then Liz is the Joker on the subway with the stinky eggs. Okay. Let's have a score break, Div. Dave 52:55 All right. Not going well for yours truly. Devendra is knocking out of the park with nine points to my six. Devindra 53:03 That's still pretty close. Tara 53:05 I have a good feeling about the rest of the game. Let's get back into it. Devendra, your superhero character is Nitromancer. Devindra 53:16 Can I have a hint, please? Tara 53:17 Your hint is Ryan Hansen. Devindra 53:21 Okay. Veronica Mars? Oh, I know. Okay. Tara 53:25 What is it? Devindra 53:26 Party Down, probably. Tara 53:27 It's Party Down. That's the character he's going to play until he gets canceled. Dave 53:30 Yes. Tara 53:32 Back to Dave. Dave 53:33 All right, I need this bad to catch up. Tara 53:35 Your character is Super King. Dave 53:38 Oh, Super King is from Futurama. Tara 53:40 That's correct. I really went back and forth among the three superheroes from that episode, whether it be Clobber Ella, Super King, or Captain Yesterday, but I feel like I made the right choice. Okay, back to Devendra. Rex-splode. Devindra 53:55 Love a hint for this one. Tara 53:56 Your hint is Jason Manzoukas. Clip 54:00 The League? Dave 54:02 Is this invincible? Tara 54:04 That is invincible. Devindra 54:05 That would be invincible, yeah. Tara 54:06 Okay, for Dave, Ralph Hinkley. Dave 54:10 Oh, my brain. Oh, I know that name. Why do I know that name? Ralph Hinkley. Is this... Greatest American Hero? Tara 54:24 Yes. Dave 54:24 Yes. Devindra 54:25 Wow. Tara 54:27 Never had a superhero name. I looked it up. He's referred with fake superhero names, but none of them really sticks. Dave 54:34 Like the ones the press give him because they don't know. That kind of deal. Yeah. Tara 54:37 Okay. Devendra. Heat Blast. Devindra 54:41 This could be anything. Can I have a hint for this one too, please? Tara 54:45 The most well-known person I saw in the cast list. Dave 54:48 Oh, this is going well for you, Devendra. Tara 54:50 Tara Strong. Dave 54:51 She voices everything, though. Tara 54:53 Tara Strong does not play Heat Blast. Devindra 54:55 She is in everything. Okay. One of the X-Men shows? Clip 55:01 Ben 10. Devindra 55:04 That's a kid. That's way beyond me. Tara 55:05 Okay. I don't know how young you are. Take it as a compliment. Devindra 55:09 I just hit 40. I'm on the 40s now. Yeah. Tara 55:13 Okay. Back to Dave. your character is night nurse hmm. Dave 55:19 Night nurse yeah well here's the thing I know about night nurse, I think DC and Marvel both have characters called night nurse mm-hmm, but I think it's probably a Marvel thing because but maybe not so who would be night nurse is night nurse oh um you don't have to answer this but I think there's multiple answers to this question okay mm-hmm well and i'm trying to think of one of them just let me go through my process woman, okay uh i was. Tara 55:48 Gonna try and help you but i guess i won't. Dave 55:50 I don't want your help um i do but no i i've gotten it's been too deep um i'm trying to remember what the hell show just give me a sec these shows don't exist, I think the character was in all the street team Marvel shows, but now I don't know if I'm misremembering that. Oh, fuck it. I have this, they're in a diner, they're talking to somebody else, and I'm trying to remember who the fuck the, Punisher is one of them. Tara 56:26 The one I was looking for was the one that was in Dead Boy Detectives. Dave 56:29 Okay, but Night Nurse is, that's the same. Oh, see, that's DC, but Night Nurse is the. Devindra 56:36 Rosaria Dawson character. Dave 56:37 Yeah, a Rosemary Dawson character from all the Marvel films, too. So you just played yourself, Ariana. Tara 56:42 Okay, then I have to give it to you. Devindra 56:44 That's legit. Dave 56:45 Actually, now having said Punisher, I'm not entirely sure if she was in the Punisher. Devindra 56:49 She's definitely in Luke Cage and Daredevil at certain points. But I was thinking, you were forgetting them just like Netflix forgot about these shows. Don't exist in Netflix anymore. Tara 56:59 I did try to avoid anything that said it was Marvel or DC, and this was like Vertigo Comics or whatever the fuck. No, she was not in Punisher. Devindra 57:08 So close Yeah. Dave 57:10 I just pick one at random Everybody wins there Tara wins, she was right, I was wrong. Tara 57:14 Okay Devendra The Corinthian. Dave 57:19 Speaking about Vertigo comic Oh yes Constantine The Sandman Oh yeah, yeah, yeah The guy with the teeth eyes. Tara 57:33 Horrible Boyd Holbrook. Dave 57:34 He was good casting for that, though. Devindra 57:37 Yeah. Tara 57:38 I can't believe that's coming back. Dave 57:39 I can't believe it's coming back now. I can't believe they're not just going to bury it and hope nobody knows. Tara 57:44 Yeah. Dave, Johnny Domino. Dave 57:47 Johnny Domino. All right. One second here. I have to go looking through other things for no apparent reason. Nothing. Clip 57:57 Time. Is this Johnny Domino. Dave 58:02 The saxophone playing superhero from Nightman? Tara 58:06 He sure is, Dave. Let's hear the scores before you each get your final question. Dave 58:16 All right. Well, the scores have changed quite a bit. Quite a bit from our last score break. Devinder at nine. And I think I gave myself two points for Punisher before I figured it wasn't. Although I'm not sure now, so I'm just going to say I got 12 and play it safe. Devindra 58:32 Sure. Dave 58:33 12 to 9. Tara 58:34 Let's finish strong. Devendra. Bat-Manuel. Devindra 58:38 Yep. Yep. Bat-Manuel. Bat-Manuel. Dave 58:42 Is this the last question? Tara 58:43 It's Devendra's last question. Devindra 58:46 Bat-Manuel. Venture Brothers. Dave 58:47 Can I offer a pre-clue clue? Devindra 58:50 Sure, sure. Go ahead. Dave 58:52 Spoon. Devindra 58:54 That does not help me at all. Dave 58:55 Okay. Well, then you're never going to get it. Devindra 58:57 Yeah, yeah. But I was saying Venture Brothers. Tara 59:00 The answer is what, Dave? Dave 59:01 The Tick. Tara 59:02 It is from The Tick. Devindra 59:03 Oh, yes. Tara 59:04 Played by Nestor Carbonell. Devindra 59:05 Yes. Dave 59:06 Spoon. Tara 59:06 Old eyeliner face himself. Finally, for Dave, Black Noir. Dave 59:12 Black Noir is from The Boys. Clip 59:16 Nice. Tara 59:16 That's correct. What are our final scores, Dave? Dave 59:20 All right, let's do the final tally. DeVinter ends with nine. I end with 14 points. Devindra 59:26 That sounds about right no lift for mantis in this game. Tara 59:30 Wow just for fun I'm gonna say this tiebreaker and you can just yell it out for glory, radioactive man simpsons that's right Dave you got it. Dave 59:45 Alright well done thank you Tara. Tara 59:47 Good job everybody. Dave 59:54 All right, guys, that is it for another episode of Extra Hot Great. We battled with the Marvel send up the franchise before going around the dial with stops at 9-1-1, 9-1-1 Lone Star and 9-1-1 Vampire. Sarah got Fraser's ski lodge down the double diamond trail that is the EASG canon. We crowned winners and losers of the week. And David D. Cole was the winner of this week's Game Time from Tara. Next up is Roller Jam, an extra, extra hot great. Clip 1:00:26 Remember, we're listening. Dave 1:00:31 I am David T. Cole, and on behalf of Tara Arellano, Waterfall, the absent Sarah D. Bunting, and Davindra Hardwar. Devindra 1:00:40 Superhero fatigue is real. I have it. Dave 1:00:43 It's not a scam. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time, right here on Extra Hot Great. Clip 1:00:56 Excuse me a second. Could you shut the fuck up? Are you kidding? My God, so happy to shut up. Appreciate it.