Episodes
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South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut is...very funny.
It's also absurd, obscene, and one of the best movie musicals not called Moulin Rouge of the last few decades.
The humor of the show and the movie, though, has always been too things - edgy (bordering on shocking) and timely. South Park the series has produced some of the smartest, most incisive satire anywhere in its 25 years of existence, but that kind of humor doesn't always age well?
So how does this movie hold up in that regard? We asked someone who loved it at the time - John's friend George Freitag - if he would still rave to strangers about it at Denny's like he did 23 years ago.
Blame Canada, join La Resistance, and save Terrence and Phillip as we talk about South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, a title that refers solely to the the fact that the movie is bigger and longer than an episode of the show and did not have to be edited for television!
Find George on Twitter if it still exists @georgefreitag -
This week, we're covering the second two weeks of June, 1999 (16-30), perhaps the most teenage-boy two weeks of the year.
This week:
Cartoons rule as SOUTH PARK and TARZAN both arrive in cinemas (setting up an epic Best Original Song Oscar duel!)
Adam Sandler's massive hit BIG DADDY is also released.
SMOOTH is released as a single and refuses to go away ever!
Tony Hawk lands a 900 for the first time ever!
Weird Al spoiler-bitches the ENTIRE plot of THE PHANTOM MENACE
Stephen King gets hit by a car
And more!
This week, John is joined by special guest Matt Romano, co-host of RETURN OF THE POD! -
Missing episodes?
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Disney’s Tarzan was, as the 6th-highest grossing movie of the year, a big hit. But it also had a giant budget. Made for $130 million, it grossed $171 million domestically and $448 million worldwide.
Tarzan did well with critics, as well. It was nominated for more than 2 dozen different awards, and won the Oscar and Golden Globe for best original song, Phil Collins’ “You’ll Be in My Heart”.
It holds a an 89 percent Rotten Tomatoes score with more than 100 reviews, and 79 Metacritic score with 27 reviews, putting it right in the middle of the pack of the so-called Disney Renaissance films.
But, oddly, this de facto grand finale of the Disney hand-drawn era just doesn't loom as large as the like of The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, or even Hercules.
It will, however, always be in the heart (get it?) of our guest, artist and senior editor at IDW, Heather Antos. She joins John and Joey to talk about why Tarzan is great and deserves its seat in the Disney pantheon.
Heather is on Twitter @HeatherAntos -
Meteorological summer has arrived, and it brings the sounds of summer with it! We're covering the first two weeks of June, 1999 (1-15) and what a two weeks it was!
This week:
Things get shaggadelic (baby) as AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME conquers the box office (and THE PHANTOM MENACE)!
People are just UNABLE to stop buying the new Backstreet Boys album!
People are just UNABLE to stop stealing the new Backstreet Boys album as Napster launches!
Dido! J-Lo! Blink-182!
The son of that one president announces his long-shot bid for the presidency!
And more!
This week, John is joined by special guest Pete Abeyta, co-host of MIDDLE CLASS FILM CLASS!
Connect with Pete on Twitter @TheRealPEEEETE -
Three to Tango was the 126th-highest grossing movie of 1999, sandwiched between two movies we have covered already, Drop Dead Gorgeous at 125, and Bats at 127.
It opened in 8th place (behind Bats, which it would ultimately outgross) on the very not rom-com season of October the 22nd, going on to gross 10 and a half million dollars worldwide on a 20 million dollar budget.
Three to Tango - which, we can't stress enough, features no tango or dancing of any kind - was written by Aline Brosch McKenna, who would go on to write romcoms like 27 Dresses and Laws of Attraction in addition to the likes of Morning Glory, Cruella, The Devil Wears Prada, and We Bought a Zoo, along with Rodney Patrick Vaccaro, who did not go on to write those things
Starring Matthew Perry, Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott, Oliver Platt, John C. McGinley, Bob Balaban, Deborah Rush, Kelly Rowan, and (appropriately) Sue for Swingers Patrick van Horn, Three to Tango has a stellar cast, but it was not one of the highest grossing romcoms of the year.
She's All That, however, was. So we invited the writer of that movie, R. Lee Fleming Jr., to talk to us about Three to Tango.
Lee is on twitter @QualityShorts -
It's the second half of May, 1999 - the 16th through the 31st - and the most anticipated event of the year finally arrives as Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace finally opens on May 19th, taking in $68 million on its opening weekend.
This week:
We'll explain why $68 million is a lot more than it sounds like!
Moby! LEN! The Backstreet Boys!
The end of Home Improvement!
Slobodan Milosevic faces justice!
Susan Lucci!
And more!
This week, John is joined by special guest, the host of Pop Culture Reflections!
Connect with Justin on Twitter @PopCultRefPod -
Never Been Kissed was the 43-rd highest grossing movie of the year, just edging out last week's Forces of Nature (though proving far more profitable) at the box office.
Never Been Kissed opened April 9th, pitting it against The Matrix in its second week, but still managed to post an impressive second place finish for the week, taking in 14 million dollars. This is largely thanks to the overwhelming popularity of star Drew Barrymore, coming off consecutive romantic hits in 1998 with Ever After and The Wedding Singer.
It's a strange movie with an, um, uncomfortable premise. It's part farce, part tragedy, part love story (all of which tends to be true of Shakespeare's plays, from which it draws its narrative template). Never Been Kissed also became a huge home video hit, watched a rewatched by its target demo for years after, as Barrymore's "Josie Grosie" became an Elder Gen-X/Millennial folk hero.
This week, John and Jenn welcome comedians, podcasters, and, as of recently, authors Trae Crowder and Corey Ryan Forrester to talk about high school trauma, inappropriate relationships, the ethics of the 1990s, and Drew.
Trae is on Twitter @traecrowder
Corey is on Twitter @coreyrforrester -
Forces of Nature was the 44th highest-grossing movie of 1999, opening at #1 at the box office on March 19th and taking in 17 million dollars in its first week, going on to make 94 million worldwide on a budget of (somehow) 75 million dollars.
Starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck at a time when both actors' stars were at a high point and one of just a few features directed by accomplished television director Bronwen Hughes, Forces of Nature was the follow-up to her 1996 adaptation of Harriet the Spy, and written by Family Ties writing alum Marc Lawrence, who also wrote 1999’s The Out-of-Towners and would go on to reteam with star Sandra Bullock for Miss Congeniality 1 and 2 as well as Two Weeks Notice with Hugh Grant.
Forces of Nature has a weird and very 1999 visual aesthetic that flies in the face of rom-com tradition, and it dares to at least try something unique and different instead of adhering to genre conventions. It's a stranger, surprising movie. But is it a good one?
You can find Julia and her work on her website, juliasirmons.com -
Four special guests share their fond memories of the movie that (re)started it all: Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace.
This is followed by a rerelease of our Phantom Menace episode, the second in the podcast's history, with Brian Silliman and Matt Romano from the podcast RETURN OF THE POD: A Star Wars Podcast.
Enjoy. And may the Force be with you, always. -
We have hit May 1999! This is one of the biggest months of the year, and we haven't even gotten to its biggest event yet!
But in the first two weeks of May 1999, we got:
Duel of the Fates!
Robbie Williams!
The Mummy!
The premiere of SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon!
Prestige Star Wars counter-programming!
And more!
This week, John is joined by a special guest - author Chris Morgan, who has written a book about the Nickelodeon 90s that is currently available, and whose next book, 99 Episodes that Defined the 90s will be available soon! (Sooner than September, anyway)
Chris is on Twitter @ChrisXMorgan -
We continue our celebration of the 25th anniversary of 1999 with our eighth installment, April 21-30 1999!
In the last ten days of April we got:
The premiere of WWF Smackdown on UPN!
Jay Leno goes HD!
The Dawson's Creek soundtrack!
Aerosmith!
Election! eXistenZ! Idle Hands!
And some other fun diversions, including the horror that was pan and scan movies!
CageClub icon Mike Manzi joins John for a short look at the end of one of 1999's worst months, and the Star Wars content yet to come! -
Blast from the Past was 75th highest-grossing movie of 1999, opening at #4 at the box office on Valentine’s Day weekend and going on to take in $40 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.
The first of two 1999 collaborations between director Hugh Wilson and star Brendan Fraser, Blast from the Past included a stellar supporting cast, including Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, Dave Foley, Nathan Fillion, Joey Slotnick, and the legendary Jennifer Lewis.
Critics were pretty even split on it - partly because it was inevitably compared to 1998's Pleasantville - and none were especially effusive in their praise, but it went on to find a charmed audience on home video and has emerged as the quintessential "hidden gem" in the years since.
One if its fans is actor Samm Levine, who graced the small screen in 1999 in the beloved (and prematurely canceled) television series Freaks and Geeks. He joined John and Jenn to talk Walken, swing dance, and his most famous creation, the beloved character Zoot Suit Ryan. -
We're taking a slightly different approach to this one, covering 20 days of April 1999 instead of 15, and, frankly, we're focusing mostly on the 20th, because that's when the Columbine massacre occurred.
Columbine was not the first school shooting, but it was - at the time - the most unthinkable one in terms of scope and scale. 25 years later, it has become significantly less unthinkable, as so many instances of gun-based mass murders in schools have occurred in the meantime that it's difficult to name them all.
But Columbine is also a hotbed of misconceptions and misinformation, and since Jenn works in true crime and John works in a high school they couldn't not talk about it.
But they do sandwich their thoughts on this horrific tragedy with SOME fun, including John's rant on Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and a brief chat about Tal Bachman's "She's So High".
Here is the essay John references in the episode:
Retrospective: 20 Years Later, "Bowling for Columbine" is a Disgrace to Documentary Filmmaking
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Pushing Tin was the 135th-highest grossing film of the year, grossing 8.4 million dollars on a 33 million dollar budget, opening April the 23rd, 1999 as the #4 movie at the Box Office behind The Matrix, Life, and Never Been Kissed.
Directed by Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco director Mike Newell and written by Cheers co-creators Les and Glen Charles, Pushing Tin felt like a sure thing, especially given its very of-the-moment core cast of John Cusack, Cate Blanchett, Billy Bob Thornton, and Angelina Jolie.
But it never left the runway (get it) with audiences or critics.
What went wrong? And is Pushing Tin a forgotten gem, or was everyone right about it 25 years ago?
This week, John and Jenn are joined by comedian Joe Kwaczala to talk about this weird, uneven, confused, and very pre-9/11 romcom-dramedy thing!
You can find Joe on most of the socials @joekjoek -
We continue our celebration of the 25th anniversary of 1999 with our sixth installment, March 16-31 1999!
In the second half of March, we got:
The Oscars! Roberto Benigni jumping on chairs! Harvey Weinstein buying the Best Picture Oscar for Shakespeare in Love!
The premiere of Futurama!
Jack Kevorkian!
Ricky Martin unleashes La Vida Loca upon an unsuspecting world!
Fabio gets hit by a goose!
The Melissa Virus
10 Thing I Hate About You! The Matrix!
and more!
John and Jenn also accidentally create a true crime podcast and wonder if they've pinpointed the moment Gwyneth Paltrow came up with GOOP. -
Mickey Blue Eyes was just the 61st-highest grossing movie of 1999. The only major US release of the weekend of August 20, 1999, Mickey Blue Eyes opened in third place while The Sixth Sense continued to dominate the box office. It would go on to make $54 million on a $75 million budget.
Directed by Kids in the Hall alum Kelly Makin and written by Robert Kuhn and Adam Scheinmann, it was ostensibly a romcom vehicle for Hugh Grant and Jeanne Tripplehorn but works better as a romcom between Hugh Grant and James Caan.
Critics were iffy, with most still praising Grant for carrying the movie with a pitch-perfect performance playing to all his strengths as both a comic and dramatic actor and acknowledging the fun of the premise as well as the strength of the jokes but faulting it for failing to carry those things through. Many also pointed to the fact that, upon release, Mickey Blue Eyes was already the inferior Hugh Grant movie after Notting Hill, and the inferior mob comedy after Analyze This.
Joining John and Jenn to talk about it this week is writer Meghan Leigh Paulk. You can find out more about Meghan on her website. -
We take a quick detour to discuss the 1999-adjacent Investigation Discovery series QUIET ON THE SET, which looks into the toxic, harmful atmosphere at Nickelodeon in the 90s and 2000s under showrunner Dan Schneider, as well as the subsequent instances of child sex abuse as detailed by DRAKE AND JOSH star Drake Bell.
You can find Jenn's coverage of the documentary and some of its fallout on Distractify, including this breakdown of what's been going on with Dan Schneider of late: https://www.distractify.com/p/where-is-dan-schneider-now -
This week, we take a look at one of 1999’s biggest surprise hits, the 38th-highest grossing movie, which took in a very impressive $103 million on a budget of just $10 million, She's All That.
She's All That opened at #1 on January 29, boosted by being nicely timed around Valentine’s Day and by coming out in one of the least-competitive box office periods of the year. Directed by Robert Iscove and written by friend of the show R. Lee Fleming Jr, She's All That boasts one of the most incredibly deep casts of 1990s icons, as well as launching the career of the titular "she" Rachael Leigh Cook.
It is the very definition of the nostalgic favorite, and it finds charm and humor in places not typical of the teen rom-com genre. So this week, we invited comedy writer Chase Mitchell to join us down by the broken treehouse to talk all about it, so bring your flowered hat as we see if, all these years later, this ugly duckling is still a swan.
You can find Chase on Twitter @ChaseMit
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We continue our celebration of the 25th anniversary of 1999 with our fifth installment, March 1-15 1999!
In the first half of March, we got:
-Cher Believe-ing her way to the top of the charts!
-The untimely death of the legendary Dusty Springfield
-Cruel Intentions! Analyze This! The Rage: Carrie 2!
-Marilyn Manson taking a tumble (but, alas, not enough of one!)
-And, of course, the deaths of both Stanley Kubrick and "Joltin'" Joe DiMaggio...
and more!
John and Jenn also discuss KateGate (WaterKate?), Love is Blind, and tease our next episode. -
Runaway Bride, the other 1999 Julia Roberts rom-com, was the 9th-highes grossing movie of the year, sandwiched between The Mummy at 8th and The Blair Witch Project at 10th.
And while Runaway Bride did far worse with the critics to the vastly superior Notting Hill, its box office performance was likely boosted by two factors: unlike Notting Hill, it didn't open against Star Wars, and - more importantly - it was billed as a spiritual sequel to the movie that put Julia Roberts on the map, 1990's smash hit Pretty Woman, reuniting stars Roberts and Richard Gere and director Gary Marshall.
Runaway Bride is a written-by-committee tonal, structural, and thematic mess. But it has its charms, and it boasts an insanely talented supporting cast (and a picturesque Maryland town) that keep the comedy and appeal afloat.
Jenn's person Greg Pilgrim joins the show to talk about eggs, lamps, and the scientific term for a group of orioles. - Show more