(beatboxing music)
- Hello, internet, my name is Daniel.
It's officially pronounced D.O.B. O'Brien
and welcome to another wet episode
of Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder,
the only show on the internet that tries
to incorporate a new word that I learn in every episode.
Today's truculent episode explores--
Movies have protagonists, there's no way around that.
We have a person or persons we care about
and we want them to learn a lesson and succeed.
Everyone who gets in their way on that path of clarity
is generally a villain at the worst,
and forgettably disposable at the least.
Movies try to make things as black and white as possible
with clear heroes and clear villains,
so we don't feel bad for the people who lose
to ensure that the protagonist wins.
But, every once in a while, they miss the mark.
There are some unexplored casualties of popular movies
and I'm gonna talk about them because this is my show,
and that's what I've decided to do with it.
(beatboxing)
Captain America: Winter Solider
is the best Captain America movie so far.
We see what life has been like for Captain America
in the modern world, easily weaving PTSD in
with a fun and tight espionage movie,
plus the undeniable sexual tension between Cap and Bucky.
- I'm with you 'till the end of the line, pal.
- Cap spends the movie trying to reach and save Bucky,
who's not only his friend,
but his last connection to the past life that he knew.
Bucky's been brainwashed and Cap tries everything he can
to make Bucky snap out of his programming.
When punching doesn't work, Cap breaks into a museum
and steals the original Captain America uniform
that had been on display in a glass case,
hoping that the old uniform will jog Bucky's memory.
This leads to a cameo from Stan Lee, my friend,
who, as the overnight security guard at the museum,
is the one to stumble upon the missing uniform.
He says, "I am so fired,"
and the audience laughs because, "Hey, it's Stan Lee,"
and, "Hey, he's fired."
But, like, yeah, he's definitely fired.
They never specifically age the character
of museum nighttime guard, but he's in his 90's.
That's a 90-something man who still has to work,
doing his (bleeps) best and the next day,
his 27-year-old boss is gonna pull him into an office
and be like, "World-famous enemy of the state
"broke into a museum, stole an iconic, decades-old piece
"of history and you didn't notice anything
"until it was too late?
"Doesn't look good, Stan.
"The costume is one of the reasons people travel
"to this museum and pay the entrance fee, Stan.
"What are we supposed to do, Stan?"
There is someone on staff at that museum
who has been looking for a reason
to fire the incredibly old security guard
and this is all the ammo they needed.
You think they're gonna just go easy on him,
just because it turns out Cap only stole the costume
to remind a time-traveling assassin
that they used to be buddies?
That changes nothing, Stan blew it at work
and he should get fired.
There was a 90-something-year-old man,
picking up some extra money by working the graveyard shift
and now he's out on the street.
That's on you, Captain America.
(beatboxing)
In Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams has to dress up
as a sweet Scottish lady and pose as a nanny
in a misguided attempt to be closer to his children.
- And these must be the cherubs.
- He does a bunch of voices.
- Don't fuss with me.
- There are some shenanigans.
♪ Dude looks like a lady ♪
There's obviously a scene where he has
to balance dinner with his family
as his widdled alter ego, Mrs. Doubtfire,
and a dinner with his boss as himself at the same time,
in the same restaurant.
It is, in general, one of the most 90's movies ever made.
In between shenanigans and montages set to Aerosmith songs,
we meet a sweet, old bus driver,
played by the late Sydney Walker.
- Evening, ma'am.
- Williams as Doubtfire has to take a late bus home
from work most nights, and his bus driver is usually
the only other person on the bus.
When he sees her, he smiles and sweetly flirts with her.
It's cute. - Cold night, isn't it?
- Yes, it is.
- Hope you have something nice and warm to go home to.
- And the audience watching along is supposed to laugh
because, "Ha, the bus driver doesn't realize
"he's flirting with a guy."
In the 90's, sometimes a guy accidentally liking another guy
was all it took for something to be considered a joke.
And like, I'm sorry, we're sorry.
Anyway, I don't know what went wrong in my brain,
but I think about that bus driver all the time.
To begin with, he's a lonely old man
who works the late shift for a bus
that is almost always empty.
He's obviously single, which means his wife either died
or left him, or he still hasn't managed to find someone yet.
Then, he meets a woman who seems sweet and seems his age,
and isn't rebuffing his advances,
so he probably suspects she's single.
Available women his age are probably hard to come by
and now he's found a pretty one
that actually seems to like him.
He must feel pretty lucky.
He also seems like just the sweetest man.
When he sees Mrs. Doubtfire's bare legs covered
in the thick and wild fur
that is Robin Williams' natural pelt,
he doesn't bawk or abandon his flirtation
like some other, more shallow men might.
He accepts Mrs. Doubtfire, wooly legs and all,
as, "Natural, healthy, just the way God made ya."
- I like that Mediterranean look in women.
Natural,
healthy,
just the way God made ya.
- Well, he broke the mold when he made me, dear.
- I think about this man and the way he looks
and smiles at Mrs. Doubtfire, and I can't help but think
that seeing this woman and briefly getting the opportunity
to flirt with her is the highlight of his day.
I relate to this guy, I've been this guy.
It's been a long day of hard, lonely work,
but for five minutes, I made a girl laugh
or made her smile.
Five minutes, I was charming,
so no matter what else happened that day,
that's a day that goes down in the record books
as one of the good days.
Sometimes, seeing the courage you muster
to flirt with a stranger, rewarded with the smile
of a pretty girl, is enough to carry you
through (bleeps) anything.
Mrs. Doubtfire gets her own TV show by the end of the movie.
That means the bus driver is gonna see it,
check the credits, find out that it's Robin Williams
in a wig and just crash.
I'm not saying this is a crying game situation
where he'll freak out because he's horrified
at being attracted to a man.
I'm saying he'll be crushed when he finds out
that this harmless, nightly flirting ritual
with the attractive stranger
was just a bunch of bull(bleeps)
It was probably hard enough on the bus driver
when Mrs. Doubtfire suddenly stopped showing up
on his bus route, now he has to find out
that she doesn't even exist?
Maybe he's got a brother or sister,
or some nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews,
and they're like, "Uncle unnamed-bus-driver,
"what happened to that woman on the bus you
"were telling us about?
"Did you ever ask her out?"
And he just has to stare off and not answer
'cause the real answer is too depressing,
because the real answer is,
"She was never real, she was a costumed straight man
"in a costume, doing a character and I'll never understand
"why he kept the character going
"when it was just the two of us on a bus.
"The best part of my nights, the thing I wrote home about,
"was based on a lie.
"It was hasty of me to tell you about her."
And that's way too sad and embarrassing.
I like to think that things worked out for the bus driver,
but, like,
how? (beatboxing)
In The Mighty Ducks, Coach Bombay, a ruthless lawyer,
gets arrested for drunk driving
and instead of serving the up-to-90 days in prison
that is standard in Minnesota,
he's sentenced to community service
in the form of coaching a peewee hockey team.
- District 5 Peewee Hockey Team,
I'm Gordon Bombay, I'm the new coach.
(children laugh)
- Bombay's team was a pack of wacky,
smart aleck misfits with hearts of gold
and after some initial growing pains,
the kids grow to love and respect Coach Bombay
and he, in turn, learns a valuable lesson
about how the criminal justice system
is disproportionately lenient on white offenders.
Oh, I'm sorry, he learns to believe in himself
and be nicer to people.
The scrappy Ducks spend the movie feuding
with a snooty, well-deduced, suburbanite Hawks.
Coach Bombay realizes that due to redistricting laws,
the fancy Hawks' star player, Adam Banks,
should actually be playing on the Ducks,
'cause you know how redistricting historically benefits
disenfranchised poor people?
Anyway, star-player Adam Banks joins the Ducks
and they end up defeating the Hawks,
and really becoming a family.
A Brief But Necessary Aside
about child-aimed sports movies,
I've been critical of a few Mighty Ducks plot points
that seem tone-deaf now, when viewed through a modern lens,
but let me be clear.
I love this freakin' movie
and if you were a kid in the early 2000's,
or if you're a kid right now, as always,
don't watch this show because of the language
and the rightfully-assumed inebriation.
You really got or are currently getting screwed
or (bleeps) because no one
is making good sports movies for you.
The 90's was the Golden Age of young kids' sports movies
and nobody talks about them.
Three Mighty Ducks, Little Giants,
Little Big League, Rookie of the Year,
Angels in the Outfield, Space Jam,
The mother (bleeps) Sandlot, are you kidding me?
If we age on up, a little bit for adult-oriented movies,
the 90's gave us Rudy and White Men Can't Jump,
both perfect movies.
We were spoiled for choice,
we had amazing, iconic, coming-of-age,
underdog sports movies for every single sport.
Did Hollywood just decide after
the perfect movie-sports decade that was the 90's,
that it was time to just close up shop?
The second Mighty Ducks movie had an ice skating cowboy.
My childhood was perfect, why aren't we trying
to replicate that for future children?
End of Brief But Necessary Aside.
Anyway, who got screwed in this movie?
Oh, all the Hawks.
They not might've had the unique, individual quirks
of each and every Duck,
but they were an objectively superior hockey team,
probably because of their discipline and work ethic.
The coach of the Hawks and Coach Bombay
were engaged in some kind of decades-long pissing match,
but the Hawk players weren't engaged in that.
They were hard-working children who really liked hockey
and practiced it all the time.
- Whatever, I just wanna play hockey.
- They built their team around their leader,
and then in the middle of the season,
some drunk-driving lawyer was like,
"I'm gonna take your star player
"by exploiting a districting loophole.
"That won't disrupt anything, right?"
It hurts any team to lose anyone in the middle of a season,
let alone a star player.
They were pacing to win
and then this blood-money-funded squad of misfits,
out of nowhere, out of (bleeps) nowhere,
shows up and snatches their best guy.
The Golden State Warriors got KD from Oklahoma
in the off-season, they didn't take LeBron
from the Cavs before the finals
because one of Bron's houses happened
to be located in an Oakland district.
Those kids did nothing wrong
and they had to watch their former captain
own the (bleeps) out of them because it was
the only way the soulless lawyer-coach
of the Ducks could actually win.
You know, this movie starts with Bombay's lawyer-buddies,
criticizing him for being too ruthless
in the courtroom.
- Next time, a little restraint might be in order.
- And by the end of the movie,
he's recruiting child players from opposing teams
in the pursuit of winning.
Starting to think Coach Bombay didn't learn anything at all.
(beatboxing)
Stuart Little is an adorable movie about a family
that decides to break social norms
and adopt a talking mouse as their new child.
At first, their human son, George, is like,
"That mouse isn't my brother."
And their cat-like cat, Snowbell,
is like, "I wanna (bleeps) up that mouse."
But, by the end of the movie,
George comes to accept Stuart as his brother
and the cat
dies?
No, that can't be right.
Cat wouldn't die, a cat doesn't die, save the cat.
The cat doesn't die.
The cat decides the also go against
biologically-necessary norms and accepts the mouse
as an equal in the food chain.
It's a great film about love and acceptance and family.
One small problem, the Little family didn't sign out
to adopt a mouse, they wanted a new child,
George wanted a little brother,
so they went to an orphanage where a bunch of orphans are.
And they were so charmed by the talking mouse
that they just had to have it.
Even the woman who ran the orphanage was like,
"We normally discourage people from adopting outside
"of their own species."
- We try to discourage couples
from adopting children outside their own
species. - Which is the diplomatic way
of saying, "Yo, rethink this, it's a mouse.
"The average lifespan of a mouse is two years.
"The oldest mouse in history is, like, four years old.
"And also, they (bleeps) all the time
"and they don't technically have any rights,
"and finally, if you're really gonna do this,
"if you're so horned up to get a mouse today,
"please don't do it in front
"of actual, human, orphan children.
"These kids live everyday, hoping they get adopted.
"How are they gonna feel when you show up
"and you're like, 'That mouse with shoes is pretty cool,
"'I'll take his ass.'
"That's insane, you're torturing all of these kids
"for no reason.
"You're making the orphans watch you adopt a mouse?
"That's not even a situation, you dopey (bleeps)"
I was so curious about this movie's message
that I tracked down a website
that specifically covers movies that feature adoption
to determine if it's a fair portrayal
or if it sends a bad message,
or could potentially be triggering.
The website is called Adoption at the Movies
and they work as a resource to help families
with adopted children connect their experiences
with wholesome films.
How dope is that?
Anyway, on Stuart Little, they said, quote,
"There's a lot of concerning stuff here.
"His brother rejects him.
"The family pet tries to get him killed by mobsters.
"Stuart is kidnapped by people posing as his birthparents.
"We learn that Stuart's actual birthparents
"were killed when they were crushed by cans
"in a grocery accident.
"Stuart's adoption agency places him
"without even visiting the home,
"and this puts Stuart in danger.
"Although this could be a lighthearted film
"for some viewers, it's probably a safe one
"to skip for most adoptive families."
End the (bleeps) quote, and that doesn't even touch
on the orphans who had to watch and be like,
"Are you sure that anthropomorphic mouse
"with an adult man's voice would
"be a better young child than me, a young child?
"Are you sure you wanna reject me
"in this dramatic of a fashion?"
I guess it's nice that the Little family is happy,
but damn, I do not care.
They gave a massive bed and a bedroom to a mouse.
Well, that's it for this month.
Tune in next month when we'll cover,
why hasn't the cool sponsor gotten behind this show,
that does consistently good traffic and costs zero dollars
to produce because we film in our office,
and our in-house editor, Nick Rude,
edits every episode ever since our former editor,
Noel Wells, stopped doing it?
And wait, what's that?
Saturday Night Live alum and writer-director star
of major-motion-picture, Mr. Roosevelt, Noel Wells,
used to edit this show?
Yes, that's right, she edited the first few episodes
and anyway, isn't it weird that I can't get Chili's
to send us a few grand to sponsor this show?
Like, that's (bleeps) insane,
I love Chili's and this show costs no money,
and its alumni have gone onto SNL,
and I talk about Chili's all the time.
Just give us, like, 100 grand and I'll talk about you
for a year on a popular internet show.
I'll eat your (bleeps) southwestern egg rolls
at the start and close of every episode.
The economics of internet writing is insane right now
and 100 grand is nothing to you.
Please, Chili's.
Whoa, does not feel like there's enough material there
for a full episode, but yeah,
definitely, Chili's, get at me.
Give us 100 grand, you'll help keep the site going.
Bye.