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[0:00] Tommy: So, Jimmy, do you think Andrew Lloyd Webber got arrested for staging an illicit production of Cinderella?

[0:08] Jimmy: Yeah, he did. It's true. It's very true. Honestly, I did kind of take a small double take. That's how I ended up at that tweet, because I saw some other hubbub around the tweet, and I was like, wait a minute. Did this happen? Is this a real thing? And I'm dubious of everything on the internet these days.

[0:30] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. In like both directions. But how fun would that be? How fun would that be?

[0:40] Jimmy: Welcome to Jim and Tomic's Musical Theatre Happy Hour.

[0:44] Tommy: I'm Tommy.

[0:45] Jimmy: And I'm Jimmy, and this is the only musical theatre podcast with beer steins.

[0:51] Tommy: And dropped lines. We're gonna breeze right past that when Jimmy wrote it. Here we take apart your favorite shows, muddle them together with a shot of buffoonery, and pour you a refreshing glass of musical theatre conversation. Jimmy, what are you drinking today?

[1:04] Jimmy: I am drinking a lovely glass of stewed nettles.

[1:12] Tommy: Ooh, deep cut. Well done.

[1:15] Jimmy: Thank you. Thank you very much. You could have just gone with Poison Dragon's Liver.

[1:20] Tommy: Poison Dragon. But is it from a poisoned dragon? Do they poison the liver?

[1:27] Jimmy: Why are we talking about Poison Dragon's Liver, Jimmy?

[1:29] Tommy: Why are we talking about it? Well, Tommy, it's because we're talking about our first ever movie musical.

[1:37] Jimmy: Is that just a movie?

[1:39] Tommy: Actually true.

[1:40] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:42] Jimmy: Oh, I'm having a movie experience at the moment.

[1:45] Tommy: I know. We did Singin' in the Rain, and that was like more popular as a movie.

[1:49] Jimmy: Yeah, but this is our first. This is only a movie.

[1:52] Tommy: Yeah. At least for now.

[1:55] Jimmy: F ye, yes. What movie is that, Tommy?

[1:58] Tommy: Well, you gotta read the quiz question because it says on the Google Doc.

[2:01] Jimmy: Oh, that's what we do, isn't it?

[2:02] Tommy: And so, in this podcast, Jimmy, first we do this intro thing, and then I ask what you're drinking, and then we do the quiz question.

[2:02] Jimmy: Do you know what would be really handy? See if we had that written out as a sort of list of notes that I could remember.

[2:15] Tommy: There's this new platform I've found called Google Docs. You'll love it.

[2:19] Jimmy: Okay, I'll look into it. This musical was in development concurrently with another popular musical franchise as a backup plan in the event the production company could not secure appropriate rights. Thankfully, the production company decided to finish both movies.

[2:40] Tommy: What was that production company and what was that musical?

[2:42] Jimmy: It's Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a film.

[3:26] Tommy: A delightful film, a delightful film. 1971, directed by, well, created by the team that brought us Mary Poppins. So directed by Robert Stevenson, screenplayed by Bill Walsh and Don DeGradi, and then music by the wonderful Sherman Brothers.

[3:40] Jimmy: Ah, those pros. Starring Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson, Mr. Banks.

[3:46] Tommy: Yes, yes, Mr. Banks himself. Got a bit downtrodden and became a big thing.

[3:52] Jimmy: It's so fun to see him back to back because it's like the exact same character and entirely different.

[3:57] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. And he's aged 4,000 years.

[4:00] Jimmy: Yeah, in like two years. It's wild.

[4:02] Tommy: Yeah, it's probably makeup. Anyway, in 1996, the release was restored with some deleted and lost content, which is quite cool. And there is a proposed stage adaptation. It was gonna be in Chicago, and then they were like, no. I actually think because the director died.

[4:25] Jimmy: So that's a fair reason.

[4:26] Tommy: That's a fair reason. But the plans are that it's gonna be remounted with a new team in the UK.

[4:33] Jimmy: Yeah, which if they go the Mary Poppins route could be fun. You know, do that. I think there's lots of potential here, but hashtag we'll talk about it.

[4:43] Tommy: For sure. So, Tommy, you love this a lot. Why don't you talk us through it?

[4:47] Jimmy: B and B. Picture it. World War II. Sicily.

[4:56] Tommy: No. World War II, the northern shores of England somewhere.

[5:04] Jimmy: Why would we have northern shores in England? Think about your geography, Tommy.

[5:09] Tommy: The northern parts of England near the shore.

[5:13] Jimmy: No, I think it's probably more south.

[5:15] Tommy: The southern shores of England.

[5:17] Jimmy: Yeah. Because it was filmed in Dorset, which is south.

[5:18] Tommy: It was filmed in California. There were some scenes that were filmed in Dorset.

[5:27] Jimmy: The Southern Shores of England, it's the Blitz or thereabouts, and they're evacuating all the London children to the countryside to save them from the bombings, including these three precocious children, who we meet in what could only be described as a bizarre museum of old war equipment. But we'll get to that later.

[5:53] Tommy: And then we immediately meet Angela Lansbury, aka Eglentine Price, who's the local spinster recluse who also hates children and likes receiving packages from the mysterious Emelius Browne. Everyone thinks they love letters in the town. And by everyone, I mean the two other adult characters.

[6:17] Jimmy: Three people in the town.

[6:18] Tommy: Yeah. The priest and the lady who runs the museum and the post office, and is the only other person who lives there aside from the dad's army or the extras we see in the final scene.

[6:27] Jimmy: Anyway, exactly. Despite what she wants to do, Miss Price takes in these three children, and they quickly discover that she is indeed a witch. She's learning to become a witch through a correspondence class, so she receives a broom in the mail. She's not a great witch.

[6:42] Tommy: And through an act—wow, the more I'm planning ahead, this movie is a wild plot. Through an act of parlay with the children to not out her as a witch, she gifts the youngest one a magical bed knob that makes the bed travel places. And the first place they travel is London to find Emelius Browne, the creator of this correspondence witchcraft class, who they quickly discover is a fraud, and the only person who's actually been able to do anything with these spells is Eglantine.

[7:14] Jimmy: They go on a wild journey to find the last lesson, the substitutiary locomotion spell, through Portobello Road, a thrift alleyway of sundry items and dance, discovering a seedy book salesman who has the other half of the book. But then their journey takes them to the animated Isle of Nabumbu, where they find Astaroth's failed animal experiments and the spell to substituti locomotion, which they lose on the bed ride back, but happens to be in a comic book in a Deus Ex Machina kind of way.

[8:00] Tommy: Angela Lansbury unsuccessfully bewitches some shoes to dance around. Then the Nazis attack, 'cause it's World War II, and they lock up Angela and the kids in the war museum. But they're saved by Mr. Banks, who turns into a rabbit, and then they bewitch all of the war equipment to defeat the Nazis. How'd I do?

[8:28] Jimmy: Yeah.

[8:28] Tommy: And then he goes off to war.

[8:31] Jimmy: Yeah, Mr. Banks goes off to war.

[8:33] Tommy: Yeah. Kisses her, kisses her on the lips, they get one kiss. We love that.

[8:39] Jimmy: Oh yeah, her place explodes.

[8:41] Tommy: That's right. They blow up all of her witchcraft stuff, which is so—I was watching it again, and I think one of the reasons I like this movie so much is it has great world building. Like, I want to watch them continue to go on adventures on the bed to defeat the war. I want them to do like the Doctor Who thing, which is basically the same kind of setup, right? Travel to random places and do stuff.

[9:11] Jimmy: But they blow up all her witchcraft stuff. But wouldn't this be a fun animated series?

[9:17] Tommy: Yes.

[9:18] Jimmy: I'd love to—well hey, we're talking about our thoughts. Let's talk about our thoughts.

[9:23] Tommy: Alright. Your lot and my lot have got to combine. Eglantine, part of the stars. Destiny calls us, the future is...

[9:43] Jimmy: Yeah, it would. It's so sad when they destroy them. It's such a—like, listen, we're not gonna make a sequel.

[9:51] Tommy: That's what just makes me feel like, no, make a sequel. When it is, it's been Eglantine Returns. I've been reading a lot of the other—doing a meta-analysis of the reviews of this movie, both contemporary, which there are a surprising amount of, and from the time. And one of the threads is like, it's hard to care about these characters, that they're not very sympathetic.

[10:17] Jimmy: Yeah, you made a face.

[10:18] Tommy: I agree. Like, I care about them so much. Like, so much. And that's actually something I want to talk about. When should we talk about that? Should we talk about that now?

[10:27] Jimmy: Maybe I'll talk about that now.

[10:28] Tommy: Sure, let's talk about that first.

[10:30] Jimmy: Yeah. Like, the characters are really fantastic. And I think one of the things that I love the most about the characters is that they're totally rough around the edges.

[10:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[10:42] Jimmy: And they're so painted that way. So I think we're gonna talk a lot about Mary Poppins as we go through this. Obviously, the comparisons are undeniable. It's the exact same team in an extremely similar story.

[10:56] Tommy: Right.

[10:57] Jimmy: But in many ways, they're also polar opposites.

[11:01] Tommy: Right. Well, and it's almost as if the Eglantine that's in this movie is the Mary Poppins we meet later in—is like the real Mary Poppins, not the Disney Mary Poppins. Disney has given Mary Poppins a sugary sweet exterior in the Julie Andrews film, and we learn later—and we talked about this in Poppins—but like in the musical and in Mary Poppins Returns, we get the sense that she is, you know, more vain, more stern.

[11:29] Jimmy: Um, and you get the same kind of, you know, the Eglentine Price is not like she changes throughout the show. We get to see her grow. It's a huge scene at the end when Mr. Brown juggles the apples and spills gravy on his face, and it's the first time we see her laugh. And like, it's a huge story beat in the show that she's actually enjoying herself.

[11:55] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[11:56] Jimmy: And what wonderful subtle nuance to put in a character in a children's movie.

[12:01] Tommy: So totally. But I think as well, I think the basic fact that she's not good and she openly admits through the film, like I'm not great at this, I just wanna learn. Like, that in its own right is something that is never—like very rarely explored, I feel like, especially again in children's films where it's like you can be rough around the edges, like you can make mistakes and get things wrong, but there's things that are more important than that. Whereas like with Mary Poppins, as much as she's a complete icon, she's like a deity.

[12:34] Jimmy: Right.

[12:34] Tommy: She's like, I mean, she's too—she's so untouchable.

[12:38] Jimmy: Well, and even—

[12:40] Tommy: You can't relate to me. No one can relate to Mary Poppins.

[12:42] Jimmy: Nobody's Mary Poppins.

[12:43] Tommy: All the characters in Mary Poppins are at most two-dimensional. You know, like Mr. Banks is exactly who he is until he turns around and becomes this entirely different person, right? The kids are these precocious little shits until they learn better.

[12:57] Jimmy: Right.

[12:57] Tommy: You know, the wife is exactly who she is and really never changes. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, you know, the kids go back and forth between that—my boyfriend commented on this last night. Like sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, Miss Price, you're so sweet, we love you," and sometimes they'll be like, "We're gonna blackmail you."

[13:17] Tommy: And they'll like bounce back and forth and you know, they'll be it is this fun, like motley crew of adventurers who you know kind of have this combined desire in life, but it's never they never really spend a lot of time exploring that like Eglantine wants to do this to fight the war.

[13:40] Jimmy: Like we got you know, we don't even really talk about the war a lot.

[13:44] Tommy: I think we say the word Nazis once, maybe twice across the whole movie. Um and so like her deeper motivations aren't explicitly explored a lot, and that makes it a lot of fun. Then it just becomes about the thing we're doing right now, gotta get the book, gotta get the star, gotta learn the words, gotta enchant the armor. Um it's cool.

[14:05] Jimmy: Like it makes it fun and you know a combination of like it's got this deep underpinning of a plot, but also it's it can be a little frivolous at times.

[14:14] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely. I just think um Yeah, just as like I can also have a character role model, I think like Eglantine is a really, really solid one. Do you know? I mean, like I especially as kind of leading ladies go.

[14:30] Jimmy: Yeah.

[14:30] Tommy: Especially kind of leading ladies in 70s Disney, like 60s, 70s Disney.

[14:35] Jimmy: Like what 100%, like what what leading lady in the 70, like don't need no man, you know.

[14:41] Tommy: Like very much don't need no man. And they and I think this for the 70s, this does a pretty good job of like, yes, she does fall for Mr. Brown, but it's complicated, you know.

[14:52] Jimmy: Well uh it's complicated, but also like he I always I I don't think it's like she falls for him. I think he falls for her.

[14:59] Tommy: That's true. It much more feels it's going that way. And if you if you had seen the extended edition, there's a whole scene where Mr. Brown has a discussion with the one lady who lives in the town.

[15:10] Jimmy: There's a the like Mr. Brown goes into the town to grab a drink at the pub and some materials for dinner. And then in the cut everyone else's scene, they cut straight to dinner. There's another scene where Charlie and Emilius and that lady from the town are in the shop, and she like the gossipy town lady is like, Oh, we thought with all the letters that you two would, you know, that you had something going on.

[15:35] Tommy: And he's like, Oh, we have nothing going on. And she's like, Well, you know, if you don't snatch her up, someone else might soon enough. And you can tell, like, it's built to show that like he's got deep, deep feelings for her.

[15:47] Jimmy: Um, and it's we're coming off the scene where um the kids are like, you know, you're a dad, Mr. Brown now, aren't you?

[15:54] Tommy: Right. Um, and it's interesting, it's fascinating. I think it really changes the tone of the show when you cut that scene too, because you don't get to see that emotional through line of Mr. Brown.

[16:03] Jimmy: It's it's definitely a lot more kind of like snap happy, we bobbed along, so now we're in love, like that kind of thing.

[16:09] Tommy: Right. Um without that. But um, no, I just think I just think in terms of a quite healthy relationship.

[16:16] Jimmy: Yeah, that is one. You know, I mean, like it's and he he doesn't love her because she's a witch, or he doesn't love her because she's like stunningly beautiful. He loves her because she's precocious and intelligent and her own woman.

[16:28] Tommy: Like that's why he really likes her.

[16:30] Jimmy: Yeah. Um kind of the opposite of Mr. Banks in a way.

[16:32] Tommy: Yeah, yeah. Like, um, and I think that's brilliant.

[16:36] Jimmy: Yeah.

[16:37] Tommy: What a good what a good role model.

[16:39] Jimmy: Yeah.

[16:40] Tommy: It's really, you know, and there is this I don't know if it's it's sticking in my head just because of how crazy 2020 is, but like there is this undercurrent of the whole thing of like, well, we're at war, and so we gotta, you know, make do and figure things out, and maybe this is our our chosen family at this moment.

[16:58] Jimmy: Chosen family, exactly.

[17:00] Tommy: And it's it's kind of it's it's unquestioned. There's no like there's no hardship about I'm gonna rebel because I don't this you're not my family. Like it's just like let's all be together.

[17:11] Jimmy: We all like each other's company, this is a lovely thing. Let's just enjoy that.

[17:15] Tommy: Like what again, what a lovely message.

[17:17] Jimmy: It's so it's so sweet, it's so like wholesome and and different from a lot of Disney fair of the time.

[17:24] Tommy: It is interesting, like you know, 70s Disney were like falling out of the Disney Renaissance, we're just starting to, and I think this is a sign of some more progressive voices at Disney that are are poking at these non-traditional stories, um, which honestly I think failed them a bit for a while, and is why they're where the dark times where they like weren't all princesses in castles and stuff and people didn't want to see it because that wasn't the Disney they thought of.

[17:52] Jimmy: Exactly.

[17:53] Tommy: Well I think Walt had just recently died.

[17:56] Jimmy: Yeah that's I think that before this so yeah I it it's Disney is changing and people were expecting different things from Roy.

[18:09] Tommy: Yeah.

[18:09] Jimmy: Um so it it does kind of fit and it's weird I think like because of this sort of to me it's like the I would call like the low rule version of Mary Poppins compared to the high rule version.

[18:22] Tommy: Do you know do you know that reference kind of it's a link to the past.

[18:26] Jimmy: No a link between worlds.

[18:28] Tommy: Yes got it yep yep the dark world the dark world is like the the alternate the mirror world like that kind of thing um because things were a little bit darker in Disney and this film is a bit of a darker Mary Poppins.

[18:41] Jimmy: Yeah.

[18:42] Tommy: Um in kind of all all fronts I don't know um I I do want to talk about the kids for a little bit because they're even again the kids are just interesting.

[18:52] Jimmy: Yeah.

[18:53] Tommy: They're like they're they're really like weird in a good way like it's weird.

[18:59] Jimmy: And they're they're individual like in Mary Poppins what's the difference between Jane and Michael Banks?

[19:05] Tommy: Does it matter?

[19:06] Jimmy: They exist as a unit right one is a boy and one is a girl like that's kind of the only difference.

[19:10] Tommy: Like they're both just rich. Even beyond that they run they question Mary Poppins and that's about it.

[19:15] Jimmy: They've got like, you know, six dialogue option choices, depending upon the situation they're in.

[19:21] Tommy: The three kids in Bedknobs and Broomsticks have distinct personalities.

[19:25] Jimmy: They disagree with each other.

[19:27] Tommy: You know, they they fight and like chastise each other for things.

[19:31] Jimmy: Yeah.

[19:31] Tommy: Um none of them fit into a stereotypical archetype.

[19:39] Jimmy: Yeah.

[19:39] Tommy: As well, which is is really good. I think um is it Charlie's the oldest one?

[19:41] Jimmy: Charlie's the oldest one.

[19:45] Tommy: I'd say he's like the closest that falls into like being like the older, you know, age of not believing teenager kind of thing.

[19:51] Jimmy: Yeah.

[19:51] Tommy: But he also has moments of just uh kind of being childish, but also stepping up, like just quite nice things.

[19:59] Jimmy: He's he's got that like you know, older male sibling without parents, you know, or with absent parents archetype of like I'm gonna take care of my house, sort of yeah.

[20:08] Tommy: But he but he's also he's conniving too, which like it puts him on a on a similar par to Emelius Browne, like they they get along right off because they kind of speak the same language, you know, in the same way that uh Carrie and Eglintine, you know, are have this you know I I hate this way I'm gonna phrase this, but like lady power connection.

[20:35] Jimmy: But like they one day we'll find it.

[20:38] Tommy: The lady power.

[20:40] Jimmy: This is this is why I hate it.

[20:41] Tommy: But like Eglintine spends the whole movie being like Carrie, will you do this and Carrie will you do that?

[20:45] Jimmy: And she just kind of responsibly dots along, and she's always the one to be like, Charlie, stop it.

[20:49] Tommy: You know, stop doing the stupid thing. We gotta we gotta be we gotta figure this out.

[20:53] Jimmy: And she's just like a lovely gal, like I really like her.

[20:55] Tommy: Yeah.

[20:56] Jimmy: Love Carrie.

[20:57] Tommy: Um, and then there's Paul.

[20:58] Jimmy: And then there's Paul who just says what's on his mind, and it's so delightful.

[21:02] Tommy: Paul, potentially one of my favorite characters in cinema.

[21:05] Jimmy: Like, he definitely owns my two favourite lines in cinema.

[21:10] Tommy: Uh number one, which is lovely bit of string.

[21:14] Jimmy: Oh, I don't know why.

[21:16] Tommy: That is a line I quote with my brothers.

[21:19] Jimmy: Like, just lovely bit of string.

[21:22] Tommy: Well, and the whole the whole set of.

[21:26] Jimmy: Why would you say lovely bit like why would you say that you're six?

[21:31] Tommy: Even in context, is like, you know, they're like, they're trying to enchant a magical item, and they're like, Well, do you have anything that you keep with you?

[21:38] Jimmy: It's like, oh, I always keep several things with me.

[21:40] Tommy: And one of them is a lovely bit of string.

[21:40] Jimmy: A lovely bit of string.

[21:45] Tommy: Horseshoe nail.

[21:46] Jimmy: Like, come on.

[21:48] Tommy: There's also I because I knew it was gonna happen last night.

[21:50] Jimmy: There's just like the quickest of cutaway to just the string being set down that is just so delightful.

[21:56] Tommy: Like close up on string.

[21:58] Jimmy: Yeah, because it's lovely.

[21:59] Tommy: It's a lovely bit of string.

[22:03] Jimmy: That I would have in a t-shirt.

[22:04] Tommy: Yeah.

[22:05] Jimmy: Talking t-shirts.

[22:06] Tommy: Like just lovely bit of string.

[22:07] Jimmy: Lovely bit of string and have to have the string.

[22:09] Tommy: Oh, that'd be good.

[22:09] Jimmy: I'm making that.

[22:10] Tommy: I'd wear that.

[22:10] Jimmy: I'm fucking making that.

[22:12] Tommy: That is a good t shirt.

[22:13] Jimmy: Anyway, um, my other one, which I think we all know what's coming, what's that got to do with my knob?

[22:13] Tommy: What's that got to do with my knob?

[22:22] Jimmy: I that is a line.

[22:24] Tommy: Since I've watched this last like the last time I watched this, I was too young to get it.

[22:29] Jimmy: Uh-huh.

[22:30] Tommy: And last night that line happened and we had to pause because we were laughing too much.

[22:35] Jimmy: Yeah.

[22:35] Tommy: And it's funny, they know what they're doing.

[22:38] Jimmy: They know what they were doing.

[22:40] Tommy: Because uh there's they always refer to it as like it's this'll sound weird, but it's Paul's knob.

[22:47] Jimmy: Do you know what I mean?

[22:48] Tommy: Yeah.

[22:48] Jimmy: The knob belongs to Paul.

[22:50] Tommy: But any time they're referring to it, it's always the knob.

[22:54] Jimmy: Right.

[22:55] Tommy: Because the second you add a personal pronoun, suddenly it becomes weird, and you're talking to a six-year-old boy.

[23:03] Jimmy: So not good egg one time.

[23:05] Tommy: Um it's so funny.

[23:08] Jimmy: What's that got to do with Maud Knob?

[23:11] Tommy: Like, come on.

[23:13] Jimmy: Genius.

[23:14] Tommy: Uh and he delivers it perfectly.

[23:17] Jimmy: He does it so well.

[23:18] Tommy: The the like there's this particular era of I think Disney family comedy where the one liners aren't rip roarers, but they're super clever.

[23:32] Jimmy: Yeah.

[23:32] Tommy: You know, I think you get Disney later and you know, you get much more like bespoke jokes, like set up set up punchline, you know, bah ha ha, pause for laughs.

[23:45] Jimmy: Um, but like this one you get, you know, poison dragon's liver, do they poison the dragon or just the liver?

[23:51] Tommy: It's not it's funny.

[23:52] Jimmy: It's a teehee giggle.

[23:54] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:54] Jimmy: It's it's not like a hold for laughs kind of thing.

[23:57] Tommy: But the whole show is filled with that.

[24:00] Jimmy: But it just it but they feel more iconic that way, like it feels just like this is an iconic line, like you know, in those like cult classic things where you take this small insignificant thing and it becomes uh, you know, a t-shirt.

[24:13] Tommy: Like that's what so many of these lines belong to Paul feel like.

[24:18] Jimmy: Yes.

[24:18] Tommy: He's just so great, like such a good and what's his line in Portabella Road when he's eating the Wilkes?

[24:24] Jimmy: Hmm.

[24:25] Tommy: I can't remember what the one, but it's the one he sings and he's sitting and he's just smiling.

[24:29] Jimmy: And if I'm not all three of them are there and all smiling, I'm just like, you guys look like you're having the time for your lives.

[24:35] Tommy: Like it just seems like just genuine joy that these three kids really get on with each other and are having a lovely time in California, you know what I mean?

[24:42] Jimmy: Well, I mean that's what the whole movie does feel like.

[24:45] Tommy: I think in a way that Mary Poppins doesn't quite feel like, and maybe it's characterization or maybe it's actual actor connection.

[24:52] Jimmy: But like Mary Poppins, there aren't a lot of times where everyone kinda looks at each other and smiles and nods and is like, Yeah, we're here, we're doing this.

[25:01] Tommy: Whether it's the story or the actors doesn't matter too much.

[25:04] Jimmy: Um but that happens a lot in this and it always feels good.

[25:07] Tommy: Like halfway through Portobello Road when Eglintine starts dancing, after they steal the star from the line and and Eglindine's like, Come on, come along, everyone, and they kinda like hip-hop and run a little faster.

[25:17] Jimmy: It's just it's you know, it's when the doctor looks at all three of the companions in whatever and is like, run, and then the music starts playing, and you're like, uh, they're all they're all doing the thing.

[25:28] Tommy: You get to watch them all do the thing together.

[25:31] Jimmy: It's just a good wee fam.

[25:34] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[25:34] Jimmy: Good wee fam.

[25:36] Tommy: Um But right, so that being said, Tommy.

[25:41] Jimmy: Do you think this works as a children's film?

[25:43] Tommy: Hmm.

[25:44] Jimmy: I think children today would not enjoy it.

[25:48] Tommy: I definitely agree with that.

[25:52] Jimmy: But no, just in general.

[25:54] Tommy: Like, I know obviously it's literally a kid's home.

[25:56] Jimmy: Right.

[25:56] Tommy: There's no denying.

[25:58] Jimmy: But I couldn't watch this when I was wee.

[26:01] Tommy: I did.

[26:02] Jimmy: I could barely get past the credits.

[26:04] Tommy: Oh, this was I mean, I'm a weird child too, but like this movie is ingrained in my psyche as other things that I watched over and over again when I was seven are.

[26:15] Jimmy: Right.

[26:16] Tommy: Yeah.

[26:17] Jimmy: Like we had this on VHS and it was always in the VCR, and you know, I would walk across the couches and sing Portobello Road.

[26:25] Tommy: You know, this and Mary Poppins.

[26:27] Jimmy: I mean, I think it speaks to the kind of gay musical theater kid I was gonna turn into that that these were my jam.

[26:33] Tommy: But like Bedknobs and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I think even more than Mary Poppins.

[26:38] Tommy: Yeah. Was my jam. Like I liked this before I knew what musicals were.

[26:43] Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah, I've always had that impression of you that you know, I mean, I don't know, it's just like your devout love of Angela Lansbury, but I know that this is where it began.

[26:51] Tommy: I just absolutely where it began undoubtedly. Like my exposure to Murder, She Wrote was like, and this is the lady from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Remember her, Tommy?

[26:59] Jimmy: Um, you know, and like that's how I got into that world.

[27:04] Tommy: Yeah. Um No, for me, I just was creeped out by it.

[27:08] Jimmy: Really?

[27:09] Tommy: Yeah, like quite significantly. Like I really didn't like the chanting in the credits.

[27:16] Jimmy: Sure. Right? That instantly creeped me out. And then when it begins, yeah the whole film is quite dark.

[27:23] Tommy: It's very dark and shadowy.

[27:25] Jimmy: Yes, okay. You know, I mean like not I don't mean like in tone.

[27:28] Tommy: No, like intellectual lighting wise. Her house is quite drab. I this time through I noticed the lighting a lot, and it is a really fascinating mood that they're setting. And movies in the 60s and 70s didn't play around with lighting a lot.

[27:42] Jimmy: Um, you know, they just want you to see what it is, and they're not gonna beyond like setting, they're not gonna do a lot of like mood shaping with you know their key light and stuff.

[27:51] Tommy: Yeah. But this movie does a lot, like, even when she's like about to ride the broom and she like turns the light down and gets really shadowy, and I think a lot of that is there, and they don't do this anymore, but she has a male stunt double through most of the movie.

[28:05] Jimmy: Um It's so obvious that's so obvious, and a lot of times I think they like turn the lights down to like hide the wigged male stunt double. But it's he's very good. That the first broom scene is stunning.

[28:17] Tommy: So good. Well, and even my like the first time you see Eglentine Price when she's driving in on the motorcycle, it's the male stunt double.

[28:27] Jimmy: Yeah. And that's why that's why you know she's got the big old goggles and the hat and stuff, and she's all because it's a guy, and they don't want you to know.

[28:36] Tommy: Um dark, right? It's it's interesting to me too that you mentioned the credits, the opening credits, because I've always find this weird because they're they're making a deep deep reference to the what is it, the the that tapestry.

[28:51] Jimmy: The Bayeux tapestry.

[28:52] Tommy: Yeah. Um, which like no kid is gonna get. And like, even especially American adults, which is I would imagine the main audience, are not gonna really understand what you're doing. And it's not like I get it, it's a clever thing. We're talking, we're like setting up there's this ancient history of witchcraft, um, and also it kind of tells the story of the thing, and then we bring out all these implements of war from the history of Europe in the end. Like, I get that we're setting that up, but for the tone of the movie, it's a really fascinating choice.

[29:27] Jimmy: Um, I always think about the the example that Disney uses all the time for their opening credits is Monsters, Incorporated. Have you heard this anecdote?

[29:36] Tommy: So Monsters, Incorporated starts nowadays, if you see it, with a really upbeat jazzy tune and this 2D animation, b-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[29:47] Jimmy: And there's this, and they take a long time to introduce everyone, and it's unnecessary. It wasn't part of the original plan. But what they found was in Monsters, Inc., the actual 3D animated portion of the movie starts with the fake scare scene in the training room. And with test audiences, it didn't do well because that was the tone of the movie. It's like it's this serious thing that then we break the, you know, tension for, but like no one could ever get there. And so they backed up the timeline a little bit and added this technicolor jazzy huge intro. And like that's nowadays. I don't know if back then they had quite the thought around the tone that their opening credits set.

[30:31] Tommy: Um I think they just kind of think of it as an overture and a necessity. Um like taking the Mary Poppins comparison, like the Mary Poppins is like quite like mystical but beautiful, like blues, and she's like on the cloud, and we see the sky, and there's there's some there's some book ending going on because she ends flying away too.

[30:53] Jimmy: Yep. Yep whereas this one is it's so wildly different from the tone of the rest of the movie.

[30:57] Tommy: Okay, and then the first thing you see is like the army.

[31:02] Jimmy: Right. I mean old military men.

[31:04] Tommy: Yeah. Like i i i I don't know, there's just something I was really I was alienated by it from the get go when I was wee.

[31:13] Jimmy: Yeah. Um and then I like dipped back in every like occasionally. Um so like I remember like I I always loved the I always loved um the beautiful Briny Sea. That was always my absolute favorite, and I was saying that all the time. Um But then can after that.

[31:35] Tommy: I just thought I kinda zoned out because it just got creepy again.

[31:39] Jimmy: Like I will I will say, and this is perhaps the third time I have asked my boyfriend to watch this movie with me. He's very gracious. He likes musical theater, but I think it's a big ask to be like, Will you sit down and watch this It's a commitment long movie with me?

[31:53] Tommy: Um every time he falls asleep somewhere between when the Nazis attack and when they blow up the building.

[32:02] Jimmy: Yeah. And I do think this is a movie for as much as I love it that overstays its welcome a little bit.

[32:10] Tommy: Def it definitely is an original cut. It's so long.

[32:12] Jimmy: It's really long, and there's a lot of just it's that's it's like it's ca it's so many capers. You know, there's lots of capers that are happening.

[32:21] Tommy: Um excuse me, it's like these very like iconic moments. And they work so well as beats. Like individual beats. But there's so this is this moment, this is this moment, etc. They're so standalone. There's not a lot of like foreshadowing and payoff in this movie.

[32:37] Jimmy: No. Or like through you know, I guess, and like they cut him the most, but the the priest is one of the most like reoccurring things to keep coming back. Um and like it's something like his running time was cut from like 23 to one minute.

[32:49] Tommy: Yeah. And between the original cut and the premiere cut.

[32:53] Jimmy: Yeah. Um and the rest is like, yeah, you could, you know, tune into episode one of Bedknobs and Broomsticks from the beginning until we take off in the bed. And then tune in next week for the London segment, where we meet Emelius Browne and go to his diner and we sing England Tyne. And then tune in the week after where we go to Portobello Road. It's a whole episode to itself. We meet Bookman. Another episode is, you know, Brian E.C. and the animated bit. Like, it it does feel I would love to see this as The Limited Series.

[33:23] Tommy: Yeah, it's like an HBO style, you know, nine episode hour long mini musical series.

[33:31] Jimmy: It would work.

[33:32] Tommy: It would totally work. Someone don't tell don't tell Ryan Murphy, because I think he'll screw it up.

[33:37] Jimmy: Yeah, I'd would it be him?

[33:39] Tommy: It probably would be him, wouldn't it?

[33:40] Jimmy: Probably be him these days.

[33:41] Tommy: Yeah, it's fine. Um so yeah, that but what's weird is then when I watched it again when I say my late teens, that was when I was like, this is hilarious, lovely bit of string. What are you doing about my knob? Like that's like these these moments stood out to me, and then by that point as well, I was starting to crush on Angela Lansbury a lot more.

[34:03] Jimmy: Totally.

[34:04] Tommy: Um and so you enjoy that fabulousity. And like, yeah, all of these like things that I could appreciate it for, um that my like childhood monkey fantasy brain was too it was too active to filter out the yeah, the creepiness. Um now I really really love it. But yeah, it it wasn't a part of my childhood at all.

[34:28] Jimmy: That's fascinating.

[34:28] Tommy: Yeah, like deep, deep, deep in my psyche is your childhood.

[34:34] Jimmy: Yeah, oh fully.

[34:36] Tommy: Which is wild to me. I do also think like this movie, this world that it builds does tap into the same thing that you know uh uh no sympathy for the dead author, but that Harry Potter taps into of this idea of like magic is everywhere, it exists among you, it is secret and fun and exciting, and here are the ways in which it has kind of affected your life. And it did it before, you know, JK Fuckface did, so.

[35:05] Jimmy: Yeah. And it's it's that kind of sense of just like just go with it.

[35:08] Tommy: Yeah. Just go with it, mate.

[35:10] Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it's all good. And you do totally accept it. But you do get to see in the same way that HP plays around with this, is how the wizard world affects with the muggle world. And like, you know, there there is an an extent of lampshading there. And like even the whole existence of Emelius Browne as this magician, not wizard, who does like human magic. It's the same thing that um uh uh uh what's that Neil Gaiman thing with David Tennant and the other guy.

[35:45] Tommy: Oh good omens good omens and how uh what's his face really likes doing like human magic but he's an angel like it's playing with with that you know uh uh friction of a trope um which I think is something I just find very delightful it's like magic people doing non-magic or non-magic people learning about magic.

[36:06] Jimmy: Yeah very Arthur Weasley.

[36:06] Tommy: Yes very very and it's it's not again it's not a kind of magic world that you see. Because again even the magic in it is still rough around the edges. It's not yeah it's just it's all quite quirky and a little bit off kilter. But but wouldn't you love to see the season two episode where Eglentine Price meets another witch yeah or Eglentine Price meets fucking Mary Poppins. What happens at it?

[36:44] Jimmy: Slightly slightly different eras, but it's only wicked.

[36:52] Tommy: Can I do can I ask a question? Because I have had this thought. Mary Poppins doesn't age by the way, so it's fine.

[36:58] Jimmy: That's true.

[36:58] Tommy: It's fine. It works.

[36:59] Jimmy: It works in the canon.

[37:00] Tommy: But then she can't be a time lord, because that anyway. Um I this is a show about the UK, written and created mostly by Americans for an American audience. I'm curious what the experience is like watching this movie as someone from the UK.

[37:17] Jimmy: Well, I think that that's a segue.

[37:20] Tommy: Here we go. Hop on.

[37:32] Jimmy: Street where the riches of ages are stowed.

[37:39] Tommy: Anything and everything a chap can unload.

[37:44] Jimmy: He's sold off the barrel in Portobello Road.

[37:57] Tommy: You said it. You said it up.

[37:59] Jimmy: No, I get because I'm saying the noun segue. I'm not saying the motorized vehicle segue.

[38:05] Tommy: Oh, I can't. I'm seeing one hand as a G U E.

[38:08] Jimmy: There's different emphasis on the syllables if you depending upon which one you're talking about.

[38:12] Tommy: I'm literally looking up synonyms for segue right now.

[38:17] Jimmy: What have we got?

[38:18] Tommy: Continuation, passage, pivot, shift, turn.

[38:21] Jimmy: Please don't call it a passage.

[38:24] Tommy: I don't like that. That sounds like a good passage, oi.

[38:28] Jimmy: Um juncture.

[38:31] Tommy: That's what we'll be going from now on.

[38:32] Jimmy: Alright.

[38:33] Tommy: We have reached a juncture, Thomas.

[38:35] Jimmy: Hop on my juncture.

[38:37] Tommy: That sounds wrong.

[38:40] Jimmy: Does not work.

[38:42] Tommy: Obviously, um.

[38:45] Jimmy: Yes.

[38:45] Tommy: Okay, that'll be speaking to your boyfriend. Um like Disney obviously to me, there's like three iconic Disney British films.

[38:55] Jimmy: Right.

[38:56] Tommy: There are Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Pete's Dragon.

[38:59] Jimmy: Okay.

[39:01] Tommy: And Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Pete's Dragon, I would say are probably the most accurate compared to like Mary Poppins is pure fantasy.

[39:10] Jimmy: Sure.

[39:14] Tommy: Like it's got some of the right ideas about London.

[39:20] Jimmy: Right, but you're stuck with Dick Van Dyke's accent and like...

[39:20] Tommy: Yeah, and like it's so upper middle class that it's just alienating.

[39:29] Jimmy: Sure.

[39:29] Tommy: Um whereas the kind of like this rougher, like I say, this rough around the edges thing is much more of what I see the UK as compared to the kind of polished Hollywood vibe that Mary Poppins has, you know what I mean?

[39:44] Jimmy: Yeah.

[39:44] Tommy: Um so I actually don't think it's too bad.

[39:49] Jimmy: Like I really, really don't.

[39:51] Tommy: Um even Portobello, like that kind of view of London isn't hugely wrong.

[40:05] Tommy: Like, yeah, it's a little bit uh it's not as I'm sure it's like cinematicized. You know what I mean? Yeah, like so sweaty.

[40:15] Jimmy: Yeah, I was gonna say not as wet, which also feels like that scene just feels really wet.

[40:21] Tommy: It's really wet. It feels I mean, obviously, because it's in a sign stage, so you can't really see the sky.

[40:28] Jimmy: Right.

[40:28] Tommy: But they're but they do do some beautiful and they do some beautiful like map painting stuff for the entrance scenes. That is gorgeous.

[40:34] Jimmy: That opening one is fantastic.

[40:37] Tommy: It's so beautiful. Um but yeah, so actually I think it's okay. I think it I I look at I find it f c more comical than insulting.

[40:47] Jimmy: Sure.

[40:47] Tommy: Okay. Does that make sense?

[40:49] Jimmy: Yeah, that is interesting. I was thinking about it the most during um the on land animated scenes where they're playing soccer slash football, mostly because I was tracking who said soccer and who said football.

[41:02] Tommy: Okay, I didn't that's so funny, I didn't even realize anyone said uh football.

[41:08] Jimmy: Man, and now I can't remember, but it goes back and f Mr. Banks says soccer at some point, but I think Charlie says football.

[41:15] Tommy: But that's a that is interesting because like obviously the kids are British. You know, I mean like they are they're British kids, so they to us it's not soccer.

[41:23] Jimmy: Yeah, right.

[41:24] Tommy: It's just it's just football. Um this might be a stupid question. Is David Tomlinson British?

[41:30] Jimmy: British, yeah, uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:32] Tommy: Okay. Ever that everyone's British, which is also quite lovely.

[41:37] Jimmy: And it I guess helps the feeling of just feels like it's such a it's such a weird question to ask too, because like the lion has an American accent and also animated cartoons and yeah.

[41:49] Tommy: Yeah.

[41:50] Jimmy: Do you know who the lion really sounds like?

[41:53] Tommy: Hmm.

[41:53] Jimmy: This is a deep cut. LeChuck from Monkey Island.

[41:58] Tommy: I've not played Monkey Island.

[42:00] Jimmy: Yeah, I know.

[42:01] Tommy: It's not it's What?

[42:03] Jimmy: I know, it's on my should play. But yeah.

[42:06] Tommy: Oh my god, can I gift you them on Steam?

[42:09] Jimmy: I I missed point and click adventures as a kid, and they d haven't like really, you know, other than I played puttputt saves the zoo, and that's about it.

[42:18] Tommy: Okay, first of all, great, great experience because that's a great game.

[42:22] Jimmy: I played that recently. I could sing to you most of the Topiary Creatures song.

[42:27] Tommy: Brilliant yes. Well, uh no, I I totally get that. There was a game that I played when I was really we called Darby the Dragon.

[42:33] Jimmy: Okay.

[42:33] Tommy: You can sing it every single full soundtrack for that.

[42:36] Jimmy: And um you didn't play point and click.

[42:39] Tommy: I know, I know. It's like I I was into like Mist um and like that, but I missed the like uh Lucasfilm animal.

[42:47] Jimmy: Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[42:48] Tommy: Those are some of the best games ever.

[42:50] Jimmy: Oh, I I know.

[42:53] Tommy: I wonder if they're like accessible. Like obviously you can play it, but like I don't know.

[42:56] Jimmy: Well they've all been they've all been remade as iOS games these days, like No, but as in like I wonder how it would feel playing them now.

[43:02] Tommy: Right, I think that's the problem is I'm uh like I don't have the nostalgia hook into them.

[43:07] Jimmy: Um and so I might be able to.

[43:13] Tommy: I'm not being I'm not kidding. Like I just want to unique to it. Uh uh twitch.tv slash jim andomic for Yeah, Tommy plays.

[43:22] Jimmy: Um anyway, why did I say that? We're talking about football and the lion, yeah.

[43:27] Tommy: The chuck.

[43:27] Jimmy: He does.

[43:28] Tommy: It it but it's not the same guy.

[43:29] Jimmy: But he's always the same.

[43:30] Tommy: Interesting.

[43:31] Jimmy: Yeah.

[43:32] Tommy: Totally dull.

[43:33] Jimmy: Um football soccer.

[43:35] Tommy: Yeah, no, uh, but even like that's that is a small like the fact that the fact that it is football soccer that they're playing.

[43:42] Jimmy: Right.

[43:43] Tommy: Um I'm like it's like wow, good.

[43:45] Jimmy: And it and it is, it does feel like, you know, it doesn't feel like American soccer.

[43:50] Tommy: It feels like British football.

[43:52] Jimmy: Like the between the design of the ball and the design of the outfits.

[43:55] Tommy: Not and then not to mention all the other, you know, somewhere between Cockney slang and English that I don't quite understand that all the characters use throughout the film.

[44:05] Jimmy: Um like those ones I know, but I watched it I watched it with subtitles for the first time this time around, and like there are lyrics in Portobello Robe that I have been missing for literally like three decades of my life.

[44:19] Tommy: Um funny.

[44:20] Jimmy: Yeah, that are just kind of somewhere between you know, but then that's like Sherman Brothers lyrics, and they're not British, and so I'm so curious about did they have Sherman Brothers are good at that though.

[44:31] Tommy: Sherman Brothers are very good at like the research, I guess, like of of knowing slang and knowing because they they didn't have like a uh a culture consultant, you know, about like English culture.

[44:43] Jimmy: Um but it does it still has that I'm glad it has that taste also across the pond.

[44:50] Tommy: Definitely because it makes it feel a little more authentic, which makes me feel better about it it feels like it could be a British film.

[44:57] Jimmy: If like I say, if the if the dancers in Portobello would were less American looking.

[45:03] Tommy: Do you know what I mean?

[45:04] Jimmy: Yeah.

[45:04] Tommy: Um can we I got a lot I got a lot to say about the Portobello Road dance.

[45:08] Jimmy: Do we have a minute to talk about the Portobello Road dance?

[45:10] Tommy: Yeah, we've got I mean we've got ten minutes because it's the longest nonsense of nonsense.

[45:14] Jimmy: But yeah.

[45:15] Tommy: And they cut it down. If you've watched this unintentionally in your previous life, you have only seen about half of the Portobello Road dance.

[45:22] Jimmy: Right.

[45:23] Tommy: Because they cut most of it.

[45:24] Jimmy: Um first off, unabashedly, I love it.

[45:29] Tommy: Let me get that out of the way. I think it's one of the best cinematic dance moments.

[45:34] Jimmy: And I think one of the things I like about it is it is unabashedly a dance moment.

[45:40] Tommy: It is like diegetically a dance, which is a nice way in. You know, the way we the way we get in is like uh uh uh Mr. Banks, and I'll keep calling him that, is like, Oh, old chap, you can't sell a piano playing like that, play like this.

[45:56] Jimmy: And then everyone picks up an instrument and then everyone starts dancing, and they're they're dancing dancing.

[46:00] Tommy: It's not like storytelling dancing.

[46:02] Jimmy: Yeah, exactly.

[46:03] Tommy: And I think the other thing I like about it is that it's just presented as little vignettes.

[46:09] Jimmy: It's so weird.

[46:11] Tommy: It's like watching like a weird like vaudeville show.

[46:13] Jimmy: It's like, and then here's this weird guy who moves his shoulder in his face to this, you know, slide whistle, right?

[46:22] Tommy: Um so that part I love.

[46:25] Jimmy: Um how do you feel about I put this in the notes this way because I didn't know quite how to describe it. The the world dances moments dances Portobello Road.

[46:37] Tommy: So like I'm in like three main.

[46:40] Jimmy: Okay.

[46:41] Tommy: One of my minds is like, this is stereotyping to the max.

[46:46] Jimmy: Come on now, right?

[46:48] Tommy: Another of my minds is like, this is the sixties.

[46:51] Jimmy: Yeah.

[46:52] Tommy: And it's you know if if it's been a while since you've watched, they take a couple moments to and we see a couple.

[46:58] Jimmy: We see some like Highlands dancing, some like very well.

[47:02] Tommy: I will I will misrepresent this. Scottish dancing, Irish step dancing is Scottish country dance.

[47:08] Jimmy: Got it.

[47:09] Tommy: It's just ballet.

[47:11] Jimmy: Right.

[47:12] Tommy: It's not Scottish country dance.

[47:14] Jimmy: But but that's what they're trying to do.

[47:16] Tommy: So therefore.

[47:17] Jimmy: Yes.

[47:17] Tommy: So we see some of that.

[47:18] Jimmy: We see, and you know, some I would describe it as Jamaican dance.

[47:23] Tommy: They pull out steel drums, it's a bunch of black actors.

[47:27] Jimmy: Yes.

[47:27] Tommy: The we I think they're trying to daddy in, yeah.

[47:30] Jimmy: Yeah, that that seems more fair.

[47:31] Tommy: Um, we go to this calypso feel, and then there is this, and I've struggled to find the right way to describe this.

[47:37] Jimmy: Um, but they uh British Indian Army dance.

[47:41] Tommy: Um five men in turbans come out um and do something Indian.

[47:50] Jimmy: Um and I'm and I'm tiptoeing because like I don't think the movie specifically defines very well, and so I don't want to put a label on like what it's supposed to be, because I don't think they did either, and I think it's presumptive to decide what it is.

[48:07] Tommy: Mm-hmm.

[48:08] Jimmy: But it is certainly pitched as exotic air quotes around that for what the 70s is.

[48:15] Tommy: Like Yeah, it's it's um exotic is a word, but also it's also a bit melting potty.

[48:29] Jimmy: Like it's which is where I'm like, it's it's not like it doesn't feel uh so overtly offensive.

[48:37] Tommy: Do you know what I mean? That it's like done in bad, like it feels like it's done because it's like London is a melting pot of culture, and look at us celebrating this.

[48:46] Jimmy: And actually, to be honest, right, there's a weird thing if the fact that they show um like South Asian men that were in the army, yeah, um, black men that were in the British Army, right?

[48:57] Tommy: Which which are true things, right?

[48:58] Jimmy: Like that's absolute true things that very, very frequently get looked over in most fiction.

[49:04] Tommy: The thing that I that I really struggle with is when the the British Indian Army folks come out and do their dance.

[49:10] Jimmy: There's this brief cut of um this brief shot of Carrie trying like imitating their dance and trying to learn it.

[49:19] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[49:20] Jimmy: And it's the smallest little thing.

[49:22] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:23] Jimmy: But it is like there's an appreciation there.

[49:26] Tommy: As opposed to like an objectification or an exotification, you know, there's like, oh, look at this cool thing.

[49:34] Jimmy: Yeah, it's not like look at this funny dance. Ha ha ha, let's laugh at it.

[49:37] Tommy: Right.

[49:38] Jimmy: It's it is like, oh, this is cool.

[49:41] Tommy: Right.

[49:41] Jimmy: This is really nice.

[49:43] Tommy: Like.

[49:44] Jimmy: We we are we are turning a blind eye to some big things about this, like, these are the only black and brown actors in the whole damn film.

[49:50] Tommy: In the whole film.

[49:51] Jimmy: Right.

[49:51] Tommy: And so there's huge problems there.

[49:54] Jimmy: Which should be acknowledged.

[49:56] Tommy: And the other thing I struggle with, and I'm gonna say it out loud, but I I've done I've tried to research this and there's no information about it.

[50:05] Jimmy: I cannot tell if the Indian Army dancers are that skin color.

[50:13] Tommy: I know.

[50:13] Jimmy: Or it's hard to tell, isn't it?

[50:15] Tommy: Or in brown face.

[50:17] Jimmy: Yeah.

[50:18] Tommy: And if it's if it's brown face, that's a problem.

[50:20] Jimmy: Yeah.

[50:21] Tommy: If if they do have that skin color, it's a really progressive choice for a 70s movie.

[50:27] Jimmy: Right.

[50:27] Tommy: Right.

[50:28] Jimmy: Right.

[50:28] Tommy: But it and it's again, though, it's like it's such an interesting thing to pick up on.

[50:33] Jimmy: If you're representing London.

[50:35] Tommy: Right.

[50:36] Jimmy: It's not.

[50:37] Tommy: It isn't actually the f like even if I was talking about London, that isn't the first thing I would go to that London is a deep melting pot of culture.

[50:45] Jimmy: Like.

[50:46] Tommy: And the the other thing that strikes me about this is these two segments are maintained in all of the shorter cuts of this movie.

[50:56] Jimmy: And so people have made choices to keep this part when they have very explicitly cut other parts of this exact same dance number.

[51:04] Tommy: And like it's not a godsend of diversity and equality.

[51:09] Jimmy: No.

[51:09] Tommy: But it it is an interesting moment.

[51:11] Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely.

[51:12] Tommy: And it it's it you know I mean, like it's not it also doesn't feel like segregated.

[51:17] Jimmy: Like it feels like everyone is enjoying the party.

[51:20] Tommy: Like it is a nice, it's a nice vibe.

[51:25] Jimmy: Everyone's just partying together, and you know, this is our moment of joy during this wartime.

[51:31] Tommy: Right.

[51:31] Jimmy: Um so yeah, I like it it's really it's not the worst.

[51:35] Tommy: Right.

[51:36] Jimmy: Uh it's not the worst. The thing is though, I don't like that song.

[51:41] Tommy: I think it's really bad.

[51:43] Jimmy: Like, it's probably one of my least favorite bits in the film.

[51:45] Tommy: Oh, I love that song.

[51:46] Jimmy: It's stupid.

[51:48] Tommy: It's so stu like it's just it's so I do know what I think it is.

[51:52] Jimmy: I think it's the editing.

[51:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[51:54] Jimmy: I think it's the editing and the cuts.

[51:56] Tommy: And you can tell they like hacked and slashed at it a bit in some of the cuts.

[52:00] Jimmy: Massively.

[52:01] Tommy: And then what's his name? The uh orchestrator.

[52:07] Jimmy: His name is Erwin Costell.

[52:09] Tommy: He also did Mary Pop as well.

[52:11] Jimmy: Um he like it doesn't work with him.

[52:15] Tommy: Yeah.

[52:15] Jimmy: You know, I mean, they've not worked together, like the music stops and then it starts again.

[52:19] Tommy: It starts again in the middle of another movie.

[52:22] Jimmy: This is not right.

[52:23] Tommy: Yeah, I I wonder, I also do wonder in any published thing I found about this, the only song they call out as a song explicitly not included in Mary Poppins that made it into this movie is Beautiful Brian E.

[52:37] Jimmy: I bet ya.

[52:39] Tommy: Portobello Road was a star right.

[52:42] Jimmy: It feels like the sort of thing that Bert could sing about look at the CD place and let's go on a journey, kids.

[52:49] Tommy: It's Bert's Day Out with right.

[52:51] Jimmy: And like maybe they didn't get all the way, maybe you didn't make it to production, but it's also such a nothing song in this show, too, right?

[52:59] Tommy: They're going to find the book. They could end up at Bookman's.

[53:01] Jimmy: We're not getting a lot of expository moments other than like watching Eglintine search for the book through the song.

[53:08] Tommy: You know, we're not learning a lot. And so, you know, shoehorned isn't exactly the word I'd use, but it's the word I'm using. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that it probably could just easily snip into Mary Poppins, can it? Yeah. Imagine Bert, you know, Mary it's Mary's Day off, Bert takes the kid somewhere in the first act of the movie. Or like when they're going to see Uncle Thingy. Right. I mean, like the bypass Portobello Road or something like that. You can see that. And and I do say all of this, it's been a long time since I've read both of these books. Or uh all of these book series. I've read all the Mary Poppins's and all of the Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. I have. It's been a good decade and a half.

Um so I can't quite remember if Portobello Road is included, is like a plot point in any of the Bedknob series. Um I think there's only two. There's just two, yeah. So perhaps. But perhaps. I mean, it fits the character, like you know, I mean, like, it's uh it's it's not the same upper middle class joy that Mary Poppins celebrates. It's very much the working man's joy. Um of Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. Like so, you know, but who knows? Yeah. Who knows? We'll ask the Shermans. Again, when we have lunch with Alan next week. We'll ask him. We gotta we got a zoom call. We're gonna we're gonna play some uh zooming the Sherman's can you play some jackbox games. Oh jackbox is the shadow that would be good. I would love that. Um yeah, well we've we've kind of talked about that a few times, but yeah, let's talk about the cut content.

[54:42] Jimmy: Yeah, sure. Because there's a lot of it. It's wild. After all, it's a step in the right direction. It's a step in the right direction, after all. After all, it's a step in the right direction. It's a step in the right direction after all. When a baby spider tries to trap a fly, oftentimes the silken thread will come awry. Though a tangled web is all that he can claim. It's a step in the right direction all the same. Proper Lord of the Rings extended edition.

[55:19] Tommy: Yeah. When I think. Have you played the music yet? Have we taken our what'd you say? Our our I was gonna say juncture. Juncture. I was gonna say seance, and that's wrong. Oh, we could just uh I was just gonna include it in the same one. Here we go. Um I think one of the interesting things about this, so content was cut from this movie before anyone saw it. Fully produced, intended to be included, content was cut because it had its premiere at Radio City. And it need because of the stage show they were doing, it needed to be two hours or less. And so before they even premiered it, but based on what I read, it seems like after they decided what the movie was gonna be, they had to cut 30 minutes of stuff.

[56:06] Jimmy: Yeah. Which is a lot. Um and so there's about there's about four songs and a couple scenes that were cut. Um the the ones you could place, so Mr. Banks, Mr. Banks, uh Emilius has a song called Do It With a Flare that happens in the scene you see where he's doing magic on the street for the passerbys in London. Um and you can actually see there's a ton of cotton. It's like he had a bunch of like spoken lines in the middle of this song, and they kept all those and cut the music in between. Um there's a song that Eglintine sings called Nobody's Problems, which I don't actually know where that's supposed to be. I think it's near the end. It's somewhere near the end, but I'm not sure. Is it after Step in the Right Direction? No, Step in the Right Direction is supposed to be at the beginning when she flies her broom.

[56:54] Tommy: Step in the Right Direction is the one that's entirely messed up. So it is, yes. Um, and you can actually hear when she flies her broom, the whole underscoring is the song, a step in the right direction. It's a terrible song. Um it's very funny to me. I I love it, and it's a poorly written song. After all, it's a step in the right direction. It's a step in the right direction, after all. And then the next chorus is nonetheless, it's a step of I love it. I think it's classic Sherry. But it's like her learning how to fly her broom. Um, and then the one that Jimmy and I like had to really figure out to place, there's a cut song called Don't Let Me Down, which actually happens in the middle of the song Eglantine when they're in the library.

And in the cut you've seen, you've actually seen Eglintine and the reprise of Eglintine, both which happened in the library, and then there's a middle bit called Don't Let Me Down that uh uh Lansbury and Tomlinson sing to each other um that they just like whole hog removed.

[57:59] Jimmy: Um and then there's a couple scenes, the scene I mentioned earlier about where they're picking up mail and the nosy town person uh uh uh chats to Mr. Brown about you know Mary Her. There's a whole bunch of cut dance numbers from Portobello Road. Um I think those are most of the big chunks, but they you know, they went at this thing with a machete. They chopped huge chunks of it. Uh before anyone even saw it. Like most people didn't see most of these segments until nineteen ninety six when they restored them back in that version we were talking about.

[58:32] Tommy: Yeah. Which is really bunker. And I for the signs of it as well it doesn't I don't think it was a decision made by any of the creators. No. Like I think it was a decision purely made by Team Disney um because the creators were not happy. Yeah that it was being cut. And it's it's weird like y you can see it in the film. Like there is something off about the editing in that film. Like it doesn't it doesn't feel like a whole and it's because there is so much missing. And actually maybe that's why it feels like all of these little little episodic episodic clips because at these moments could be more of the glue.

[59:08] Jimmy: Like certainly this there might be more interstitial scenes yeah that um it certainly is a lot of it is very a lot of the cut stuff seems very focused on like deep character development which is the stuff you cut in an episodic story based show.

[59:23] Tommy: Right. Yeah we don't need to learn like we don't need to learn that much about the characters to understand what happens.

[59:29] Jimmy: Yeah. Um, but it is interesting. The other part, and like, I remember having this experience as a kid because of how much I watched this show, uh, this movie. Um, like you listen to the opening credits and there are songs that you never ever ever ever hear again in the movie.

[59:45] Tommy: And I remember starting to have a sense of like, oh, that's that song and that's this song. And wait, what's this song? That song never happens. I remember it with a step in the right direction, which is also in the overture, and I didn't have the wherewithal to place it as underscoring.

[59:59] Jimmy: Um and then years later learning, like, oh my god, there's more Bedknobs and Broomsticks that I haven't seen. You're w what? Like a wild experience. Um, but it is, you know, th there is a like meta discussion about art to be had here about like what is the story, what is the final thing? Like these are programmatic cuts that probably happen all the time these days 'cause we do test audiences and stuff, but this is before the time of writing by committee and you know, previewing your movie and then recutting it.

[1:00:32] Tommy: Like they were done and then changed it.

[1:00:35] Jimmy: Yeah. I've said do you know a really good uh example of it is the Frozen Two documentary on Disney Plus.

[1:00:41] Tommy: Hmm.

[1:00:42] Jimmy: Yeah it's they go into a law of their cuts and why they cut them and uh it's it's actually really interesting.

[1:00:50] Tommy: Interesting. I do th Disney and cut content is such a fascinating thing to me. This is we're gonna go I have we have we talked about Lion King? Um there's a whole I only know this 'cause there was a great uh uh video of the developers of the Lion King video game.

[1:01:07] Jimmy: Welcome to our video game podcast again.

[1:01:09] Tommy: Um, talking about the creation of their game. Um and there's a whole segment in the video game where you battle this giant gorilla. Um and there's been this talk about like why is this in this video game? It's not in the movie. And the answer is it was in the movie.

[1:01:25] Jimmy: And because of the development cycle of these things, they have to come out around the same time, right? And in the movie, apparently there was one day when they were like having some story conference and whoever the big wig at Disney went to the storyboards and pointed and said, What happens between here when Simba discovers Timon and Pumba and here when Simba is a full grown adult and Nala comes back that's important.

[1:01:51] Tommy: Mm-hmm.

[1:01:52] Jimmy: And the writers all looked at each other and were like, oh God, nothing but there was a whole like middle aged Simba bit where he battles a gorilla and stuff, which you see in a montage where Simba grows up and there's three steps. There's young Simba, teenage Simba, who only is on screen for like a second, and adult Simba. And that was a full fifteen minutes of movie that they cut.

[1:02:13] Tommy: And it's Disney policy to never ever talk about cut content.

[1:02:18] Jimmy: Because which I think is good artistic policy, right? You d you don't want to make public the decisions you didn't make.

[1:02:25] Tommy: Um it undermines your art.

[1:02:27] Jimmy: I think it's good policy, but it is interesting to see where these things then pop up again. Whether it's cut content here, whether it's the frozen documentary, you know i it's it's something I find really fascinating is when these little things rear their head about you know it's that insight into the writing process that we don't get.

[1:02:44] Tommy: And Disney's so closeted about it, which is a thing I think makes them successful, that it's it's especially fun when you, you know, get a little piece of driftwood about a thing they forgot or a thing they cut.

[1:02:58] Jimmy: Totally.

[1:02:59] Tommy: They're so often about to end that frozen documentary. It's really uh that's why I think it's really interesting. Is like they basically they talk up for a significant portion of it of like we're very unsure about where the story is going.

[1:03:10] Jimmy: You know, I mean, like i if there's proper, we don't know what we're doing.

[1:03:14] Tommy: And I find that from Disney, which is all often like you see like this paragon of perfection.

[1:03:20] Jimmy: Right.

[1:03:20] Tommy: Um, to see writers just being creatives and working things out, and you know the Lopez is just trying to be like, yeah, we're not doing it's great.

[1:03:31] Jimmy: So yeah, I recommend that.

[1:03:33] Tommy: Um, but yeah, let's get a documentary about Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Because it's weird.

[1:03:39] Jimmy: It's it because of Mary Poppins, nobody talks about Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

[1:03:44] Tommy: Right. Do you know what I mean?

[1:03:45] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:03:46] Tommy: When it is such a we didn't talk about, but the one award, the one Academy Award this thing won was for special effects.

[1:03:51] Jimmy: Um re-watching it now, the one thing I'm I'm such a geek for movie special effects.

[1:03:59] Tommy: Um, and especially of this era, it's always you have to like unpack your brain when you start to analyze these things, because we're pre-computers, so everything is like light, celluloid, and animation.

[1:04:11] Jimmy: Like these are the options we have, and so then to unpack some of the effects they pull in this thing is wild, especially for like how brief and inconsequential some of the moments are.

[1:04:24] Tommy: Like, there's this whole not to mention you know the animation on top of live action, but in the uh beautiful Briany segments, there's this whole like undulating displacement map that they put on top of some of the scenes that make it look underwater.

[1:04:40] Jimmy: I have no idea, knowing very well some of the available effects of the time, how they accomplished that stuff.

[1:04:48] Tommy: Um or like even some of the like traveling bed scenes where like it's this background replacement tool, but you also see the bed flashing, and so you're doing this like what's probably pretty high-tech background replacement tool, but the bed is changing colors because they're just blinking different lights at the bed.

[1:05:03] Jimmy: And like the combination of that effect is just wild.

[1:05:07] Tommy: And that they had to, you know, it's one of the quotes that ends up in all these listicles about this movie. But that Lansbury called this uh acting in this movie, she called it acting by the numbers, because like movies of this era, it had to be so storyboarded out that there wasn't a lot of flexibility for doing different things because you had to do it exactly like this, otherwise it's not gonna fit in the animation and the cut and all of that stuff.

[1:05:33] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:05:34] Tommy: Yep. It's it's really well done. Like I think if you've if you've never seen this but you've seen Mary Poppins and you love those animation scenes, watch this.

[1:05:43] Jimmy: Like it's a huge step up.

[1:05:45] Tommy: It's so good. When it is the stuff that they do. There's a bunch of great, and I'm I'm sad that it's not a musical that we can't talk about it on the podcast, but there's a bunch of great unpackings of Who Framed Roger Rabbit as a slightly later era, but still hand-drawn animation on live action, like the paragon of hand-drawn live action, yeah, yeah, um, combination.

[1:06:05] Jimmy: And the Roger Rabbit team critiqued Mary Poppins a lot for a lot of mistakes they make.

[1:06:11] Tommy: Um one of the big ones they talk about is called they they term it eyeline, that like the animated characters aren't looking at Julie Andrews in the eyeballs, and you don't notice it, but it breaks the illusion.

[1:06:24] Jimmy: And they they did a bunch of tricks in Roger Rabbit to like fix that stuff.

[1:06:29] Jimmy: Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a fun, like intermediate step in this world.

[1:06:34] Tommy: Definitely, yeah.

[1:06:35] Jimmy: You can see one of the things they did for this one, which they didn't do for Poppins, is they made life-size cutouts of the animated characters for actors to act with.

[1:06:43] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:06:44] Jimmy: And the props as well. Like, I think the prop work is so good. There was a moment that I noticed when I watched it just recently. Um, the football scene where um they're holding the cup.

[1:06:56] Tommy: No, not the football scene under Brainy C where they pick up the animated 3D effects.

[1:07:04] Jimmy: Oh, I mean, good. Hello, when are we?

[1:07:08] Tommy: And it's so well done. And it is a hand-drawn cup on top of the celluloid that they just had to get. There's a great, it's such a tiny moment, and it's so inconsequential. Like the cup is a big show-off moment, right? That's a VFX show-off of like, look at what we can do. When they're leaving the football scene, there's a moment where it's right before um uh Aelius steals the star of Astaroth.

[1:07:33] Jimmy: Yeah, and he helps the king with his coat, which is animated. And so you've got this animated fabric that David Tomlinson, the real person, quote unquote, picks up and puts on this animated character, and it just happens in a way that you don't even notice it.

[1:07:50] Tommy: Yeah, but they had to spend so much time figuring that stuff out.

[1:07:56] Jimmy: Yeah, um, and even all the whole football scene is filled with it. It's also filled with some cheats. Don't get me wrong. Anytime David Tomlinson gets run over, you see like the stampede coming, and then he just disappears in a snap. They don't bother to animate him, he's just gone.

[1:08:11] Tommy: Um, and that's just a cut. Like they just chopped the film and then he was gone. But there are times where like the lion picks him up and moves him, and that's like a whole flying wire rig that they had to figure out and match move and animate by hand. Like this stuff is wild, and then all the beautiful Briany stuff, they're on a flying bed prop that they're filming against a fake sodium light sc or sodium vapor light screen that then they match move to this thing and then they cut to a model of the bed.

[1:08:43] Jimmy: They also do in some of the Traguna McCoy stuff at the end of this, um, in some of the bed flying scenes, some of the first live action on live action compositing in this, which I think goes underappreciated. There's a lot of like semi-puppeteering moments where, you know, like the simplest one to picture is Angela Lansbury flying on her broom, right? She is on she's in a studio on wires with a fake orange screen behind her.

[1:09:13] Tommy: And then they superimposed a real sky behind her, or like when she flies on the broom for the first time, and like her house fades away. It's not a real house, it's a model, and they zoom out of it. But it's the first time they use this process to do that. So not only like it's one thing when you get rid of the background and then you get to recreate the animation and you can kind of cheat with it, fix your eyelines, move hands here and there.

[1:09:39] Jimmy: It's another thing when you film her flying on the broom, and then another real life shot of the model of the house flying away in the background, and you have to match both of those real cameras to each other in the same shot, just by doing it. Like you got nothing to help you other than like your eyeball and your gut.

[1:10:01] Tommy: Yeah, that I totally hadn't appreciated that before, but yeah, you're so like that is extremely impressive.

[1:10:09] Jimmy: It's cool, and there are shots. I noticed them the most this time, but there are shots of the final Traguna McCoy segment with all the armor and stuff, where like in the same panning shot, they will use like three or four different strategies to animate this armor. Like, first you'll see a guy in a costume where the helmet's attached, but there it's you know attached in a way where his head's underneath his shoulders, and like he'll fall down and die, and then they'll pan past one of the horses who are literally floating, so those are superimposed out and like marionettes on wires cut to like a real life just costume on the floor with like a balloon in it that deflates, and like they'll combine all of it into one shot, and it just all looks like the same thing because you've been taught to think that's what it is, but or like, and then in a shot right next to it, they'll have like the Nazi who gets stuck in the leg armor that like walks around is just like a spirit Halloween costume.

[1:11:13] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. Right. It looks it just looks so good, like and and they because they're bouncing back and forth between all these effects, you don't even bother. And even some of the things like little stuff, the like machine gun muzzle flashes, they're not shooting machine guns, so that's hand animated on it's the same as uh David Tomlinson moving the cup.

[1:11:37] Jimmy: But instead of it being a cup, it's a drawing of a little burst of flame that they superimposed over this gun in this moment. Or there's one time where like one of the armor pieces gets hit in the head by a bunch of bullets, and the bullets are little animated things. You see yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:11:51] Tommy: And like the fact that they taught like the show off moment is the beautiful Brian EC. The like hiding the effects moment is the Traguna McCoy segment at the end. The magic. It just all looks real.

[1:12:05] Jimmy: And you're not even thinking about the effects that are happening.

[1:12:08] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:12:08] Jimmy: It's so em it's deeply deeply impressed. They hugely deserve the Academy Award. Like and it's such a step up from Mary Poppins. Like if you think the classical effects and Mary Poppins are good, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[1:12:20] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:12:20] Jimmy: Definitely get bad on the lipsticks watched. And it's it's such a tragedy I'm gonna get a little nerdier here, so buckle up. Um, so they're not using nowadays we use blue screen and green screen, right?

[1:12:31] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:12:31] Jimmy: And we that used to be or we use L C D screen.

[1:12:31] Tommy: Or we use L C D screen like in the Mandalorian.

[1:12:36] Jimmy: Um, but if we're talking background replacement, we use blue screen and green screen, which used to be an optical process. Like it used to be a film based process because you'd expose three reels of film, red, green and blue, and then you could use the green, turn it into something that you'd cover the exposure with and then re-expose the film with whatever.

[1:12:54] Tommy: But it meant you couldn't costume anyone in green.

[1:12:57] Jimmy: Yeah. Disney pioneered the and they you they were able to do blue screen at this time but it didn't look great. Disney pioneered perfected this process called the sodium vapor process, which is so cool.

[1:13:11] Tommy: And it's such a shame that it has fallen out of favor because it's just such a clever technique.

[1:13:15] Jimmy: There is a particular kind of light, like physical lamp, that lets out a very tiny wavelength of light that only reflects off certain material and that you can separate out in the camera. So they put a prism in front of the camera that separates most of the light one direction.

[1:13:35] Tommy: And then this really particular light that they'd shine at a very reflective background that's only reflective for that light onto another exposure.

[1:13:43] Jimmy: And it gave them a perfect mat to key out this stuff. Which is why, like if you watch Mary Poppins again, her whole Jolly Holiday outfit has this white tool, semi-transparent veil that is impossible to do even these days with blue screen.

[1:14:03] Tommy: Like they just fake it somehow.

[1:14:05] Jimmy: But because of the way this technique works, it just works perfectly. But the first thing is it's super expensive. And the second thing is Disney only created one physical film camera that could do this process.

[1:14:22] Tommy: There's just one device that could do this thing.

[1:14:27] Jimmy: And every shot in this movie that has some kind of background replacement used this one singular camera with a prism.

[1:14:35] Tommy: Wow.

[1:14:36] Jimmy: And like that, in and of itself was is a cost prohibitive process. Whereas anything, most any camera could do a blue or green screen replacement of the days. Um it is, you know, it's like a it's a technique lost to time. I was looking it up. The last time it was used was in with Dick Tracy in 1990.

[1:14:53] Tommy: And by then blue and green screen had gotten so much better.

[1:14:57] Jimmy: Yeah. It's cool to watch, you know. It's it's so it's such a flex. It's such a like Haley who we can do. And we're and it's gonna be a good movie behind it. It's not just like a like uh, oh, look at our special effects.

[1:15:12] Tommy: Totally.

[1:15:13] Jimmy: Oh, well done, Disney.

[1:15:14] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:15:15] Jimmy: So much. It's so good. And and that they'll combine it with like marionettes. Like the whole um the first substitutiary locomotion with the nightgown and the the nylon and the hat.

[1:15:27] Tommy: And that's just fishing wire and clever puppeteering.

[1:15:31] Jimmy: The whole thing.

[1:15:32] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:15:32] Jimmy: You know, there's a mo when whenever Emelius Browne is just dancing with the nightgown, it's just attached to him. That's it.

[1:15:37] Tommy: It's actually Julie Andrews.

[1:15:40] Jimmy: You don't see it, but it's Julie Andrews. Just at the top.

[1:15:42] Tommy: Yeah, and then the lonely goat herder appears.

[1:15:46] Jimmy: Yeah. That's again, that's another cutscene, but yeah.

[1:15:51] Tommy: Uh okay.

[1:15:54] Jimmy: That's my nerding about the Marionettes and the special effects.

[1:15:57] Tommy: It was beautiful nerding.

[1:15:59] Jimmy: It's so sweet how much you love this.

[1:16:01] Tommy: I love it so much.

[1:16:02] Jimmy: I love this movie so much, Tommy. And I know it's got it like huge problems.

[1:16:07] Tommy: And but no, that's but that's why we love it, isn't it? You know what I mean? You could love things for the problems left on very sleepy, so I don't know what I'm saying.

[1:16:16] Tommy: Uh right.

[1:16:18] Jimmy: Let's talk about this musical.

[1:16:21] Tommy: Oh man.

[1:16:27] Jimmy: Stunier locomotion.

[1:16:30] Tommy: You made some studio history with Kragoona McCoides and a little help from me.

[1:16:39] Jimmy: With Laguna, so right.

[1:16:46] Tommy: Okay.

[1:16:51] Jimmy: I kinda get it.

[1:16:52] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:16:54] Jimmy: I kinda get why this. It's it's ripe for adaptation. I think they should prioritize Hercules, which also seems in the musical pipeline, but I just think like I think there's a l there's a lot more Disney that they could still do.

[1:17:10] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:17:11] Jimmy: Before bringing out Bed Knobs and Room 6. I think in terms of musical theater. I think in terms of musical theatre, I think that makes sense. I think the appealing thing about this one is in the same way they did with Mary Poppins by using a bunch of just like Victorian era stage magic, is that fits really well in a clever way with this.

[1:17:32] Tommy: Like the the Mary Poppins comparisons are unavoidable.

[1:17:36] Jimmy: But that you know, this isn't a show that's gonna have a huge concept on top of it, the way that Lion King does, even the way that Hercules is going to. Um and that it did when it was in the park.

[1:17:47] Tommy: Um this is gonna be, you know, she's gonna be in a purple outfit with a vest, Charlie's gonna wear a green sweater, like they're they're gonna replicate some of this, but then the bed's gonna fly over the audience, right?

[1:18:01] Jimmy: I know, uh yeah. This is I think this is where I've got my worry though, is like is that why they're doing it?

[1:18:08] Tommy: Oh yeah, 100%.

[1:18:10] Jimmy: I have no doubt.

[1:18:10] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:18:11] Jimmy: I don't like that. It's it's the it's like chitty chitty bang bang, right?

[1:18:17] Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

[1:18:19] Jimmy: And that's been done.

[1:18:21] Tommy: Right, exactly. Do you know what I mean?

[1:18:22] Jimmy: And then it was Mary Poppins flying out just herself, and that was like holy moly. And then it was Julie Tamor.

[1:18:30] Tommy: Right.

[1:18:32] Jimmy: And we're done. Do you know what I mean? Like we've done it now.

[1:18:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:18:36] Jimmy: Nothing more needs to fly out over the audience.

[1:18:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:18:41] Jimmy: But I think that's exactly what it's gonna be. And oh her and her broom ride, like, the whole thing is gonna be epic and Yeah.

[1:18:51] Tommy: And that isn't the film?

[1:18:52] Jimmy: I know. Well, you know, I think this is it, is like it's gonna uh because even actually in a similar weird way with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, like the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stage musical is huge, like it's huge.

[1:19:04] Tommy: It wasn't that because I was not in the palladium so it's gigantic and it's and it's like kind of cartoony the whole time in a way that the movie isn't, yeah.

[1:19:12] Jimmy: Very kind of panto, like British Panto vibe. Um whereas Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, we've just discussed like it is rough around the edges.

[1:19:19] Tommy: Yeah, the vibe of that doesn't fit, yeah.

[1:19:21] Jimmy: Like so to have like anything grand or are they gonna go more like cursed child route and lean into the grittiness?

[1:19:31] Tommy: Gritty.

[1:19:32] Jimmy: Yeah. Score play of a Geneve. But like traditional music like the th, you know, Mary Poppins on stage, they totally forego all of the animated penguins and like totally rewrite that scene and make it about statues and colorfulness and stuff, and like how Brian C to the boom boo and and and have something that is as impressive as the animation, but isn't the animation, you know.

[1:19:57] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. Cause like that, I would say for most people who've seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks, even in passing, yeah, um, the bit that they remember is the bed and the animation.

[1:20:08] Jimmy: Right.

[1:20:09] Tommy: Yeah, and like that's and it and it's iconic, and it and it's the reason it won an award, it's on the cover of the it's on the poster, like exactly that's the whole thing. Um so how but again, a lot of people remember Mary Poppins, right?

[1:20:25] Jimmy: They remember the animation, do you like they remember Julie Andrew's step in time and the animation?

[1:20:30] Tommy: So you know but I think that's the thing is like, and I think where this gets away where Bedknobs and Broomsticks is in a bit of tougher a tougher spot than Mary Poppins. In Mary Poppins, that whole animated segment of the song is Jolly Holiday, which mostly exists as a duet between Mary and Bert, right?

[1:20:50] Jimmy: Right.

[1:20:50] Tommy: And it's about themselves and like maybe their environment a bit. Um but like more casually so, which is easier to recontextualize into anything. Whereas such a huge part of the icon of this movie, like there's no song in the football game. You cut the whole thing, right?

[1:21:06] Jimmy: And not lose a song and find a different way to discover the star of Astaroth.

[1:21:13] Tommy: Absolutely totally. Yeah, that whole store of Star of Astaroth like our finding the the words could be anything else. It absolutely could be. Um Yeah, I'm I'm just I'm intrigued to see how they handle the the staging and just the look. Because it and there's also I mean at the moment there's discussion of like because there's no announcements in terms of well, first of all, we still don't know who's directing it.

[1:21:39] Jimmy: Like it's no in terms of just on paper, yeah.

[1:21:42] Tommy: Yeah, so it could if it goes regional then if it starts small, right? That might go in its favor.

[1:21:48] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:21:50] Tommy: Um if it starts big, it's gonna need to do some impressive stuff and yeah.

[1:21:51] Jimmy: It's gonna need to have the Frozen treatment.

[1:21:59] Tommy: If it does this like real you know, more like Peter and the Starcatcher vibe, storytelling, you know, wouldn't that be fun?

[1:22:05] Jimmy: Fuck that would be so beautiful. Like that would be the right kind of thing, but I But then still hide some magic in it. The other thing I wonder about, because when we get these adaptations, the story expands. Um and I'm curious, and I I only like started finding this headcanon in my recent re-watching, but like there's like a throwaway line, Eglantine lives in this house and it's her father's house.

[1:22:29] Tommy: Uh huh.

[1:22:29] Jimmy: And he's gone. You know, did he die in the war? Did he die earlier? And then she puts up the kids in her father's bedroom.

[1:22:41] Tommy: Bedroom.

[1:22:42] Jimmy: And you you can write all sorts of head canon about like nobody's gone in there since, but she has this like determined, like, well, we gotta, you know, I'm d we're we're doing the war and I gotta do this stuff, and here's the next thing that happens. And then the bed is her dad's bed.

[1:22:58] Tommy: That becomes the icon of the whole film that they fly around. Like there's a whole thread to be invented there about like you know, her singing to her dead father, or you know, some some early flashback stuff. Like, I'm interested to see also like how do these children whose last names now I'm realizing do we ever learn?

[1:23:21] Jimmy: Yeah, and it begins with an R.

[1:23:23] Tommy: Uh the Rollins children.

[1:23:25] Jimmy: Yeah. Um, do we see them leave London? Do we uh meet?

[1:23:31] Tommy: Yeah, where's their father?

[1:23:32] Jimmy: Yeah, like are they orphans? Um, you know, there there's there's a lot of threads to kind of pick at about the origin story of this thing. And I and because this musical's gonna wanna lean a little further away from the episodic nature, like they're gonna want to make these characters they're gonna want to put more foreshadowing into this thing.

[1:23:53] Tommy: Obviously. You know, they're gonna they're gonna make Eglantine's character shift much larger. Like she will probably be more unlikable at the beginning, so that she can become likable by the end.

[1:24:04] Jimmy: Um same with the children, you know. Um, and I'm just I'm curious to see like that's what I would do if I was working on this thing.

[1:24:14] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:24:15] Jimmy: Uh yes. I think one of the things that I'm in terms of story wise curious about is if they're gonna add in an antagonist.

[1:24:24] Tommy: Sure.

[1:24:24] Jimmy: And like Miss the what's her name, Miss Andrews in Miss Andrews, yeah. Cause obviously in the film the antagonist is the Nazis.

[1:24:33] Tommy: Uh right, which is also the biggest nebulous, you know, like temporarily it's Bookman and that slimy guy with the tie.

[1:24:41] Jimmy: Oh my god, slimy guy with the tie by the way, do you know who he is?

[1:24:45] Tommy: So that's Bruce Forsyth.

[1:24:47] Jimmy: Right.

[1:24:48] Tommy: Where do I know him from?

[1:24:50] Jimmy: So he is like a UK icon. He's sadly dead now. Um, but he was like, so he has a catchphrase of nice to see you to see you.

[1:25:02] Tommy: And then you say nice.

[1:25:04] Jimmy: Nice to see.

[1:25:05] Tommy: Okay, great.

[1:25:06] Jimmy: Yeah. Uh what?

[1:25:07] Tommy: Huh?

[1:25:08] Jimmy: That's just that's just Bruce Forsyth, and everyone knows.

[1:25:10] Tommy: Um he presented our version of Dancing with the Stars.

[1:25:15] Jimmy: Fascinating.

[1:25:15] Tommy: When he came on the screen, my boyfriend said, Did they find the slimiest looking British person they possibly could?

[1:25:21] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:25:22] Tommy: He's like, he's he he just looks like a rat. Like he's just got like the hook nose picture. And he loves it. Like he you know, he leans into it.

[1:25:27] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:25:30] Tommy: But it's really fun because you never think of him as an actor. Like he's a he's a presenter, like consummate professional, um incredible presenter. Um, like Bob Hope style. You know what I mean?

[1:25:41] Jimmy: Exactly, exactly.

[1:25:47] Tommy: But I think he's really good. It's great. He's one of my favorite parts. He's one of my favorite bit parts of this whole thing.

[1:25:53] Jimmy: Um anyway, that's total sidetrack. But uh, yeah, like there's no uh kind of recurring antagonist. So it'll be interesting to see if they do more with that.

[1:26:04] Tommy: Like, is the Bookman gonna be chasing Is there gonna be both seeking for this chasing uh you know Professor Brown to get the other half or whatever Right.

[1:26:14] Jimmy: Yeah. Uh that'll be interesting to see.

[1:26:18] Tommy: Um I'm also interested to see like how because the movie tries really hard to like downplay like it's a war, you know.

[1:26:25] Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:26:26] Tommy: It's like how his Oh, it's wartime how historical it'll get. Like the war is presented as a novelty in this movie.

[1:26:33] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:26:33] Tommy: And it's not a novelty in real life. Exactly. Um again, like if you think of like Sino Music Um in their treatment of the war, yeah. Uh it's uh I guess a little bit more involved because of like Uncle Max's relationship and stuff, but um I I don't see I don't see them doing more with it.

[1:26:56] Jimmy: Like Yeah, when it is, you know, the the because of the current political climate discussion of Nazis is uh is uh is a sordid topic these days.

[1:27:08] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:27:09] Jimmy: It's not very yeah. Not don't get me wrong, not that it's not cut and dry, but it's not it's different than it was even two decades ago when the producers swept the Tonies and we could spring time for Hitler and be like, ha ha Nazis, remember that you know it's not that anymore.

[1:27:30] Tommy: Uh uh.

[1:27:32] Jimmy: So yeah, stor uh yeah, story wise, that'll be It'll be interesting to see. I like this idea of her and her father. I think that's a really interesting thing. Wouldn't that be a fun and just just a couple moments, but like to give because I do think we read in a lot of the subtext to Eglantine that isn't really there, but I think it's a good way to set her up of like she's she's had this painful past that gives that informs her desire, you know, and then one day she got this spam mail about like, you know, like why how why did she sign up for this course?

[1:28:07] Tommy: You know exactly.

[1:28:08] Jimmy: That's what I want to know is why does she want to become a witch? Like, did she want to become a witch so she could help in the war? Like, is that what she wanted to do? Or does she want to become a witch and then the war happened, she was like, Did she I could do something like that? Did she sign up thinking it was gonna work or sign up thinking it was gonna be a total joke? Like, you know, was she all did she have Harry Potter syndrome and was always a little magic?

[1:28:30] Tommy: Probably not.

[1:28:34] Jimmy: Uh-huh. Like she's like, why can she do it but it doesn't work for Mr. Brown?

[1:28:37] Tommy: Yeah, like you know, there's there's a lot of threads to pull at here. And I I also think that's part of the problem of uh gonna be one of the difficulties of adapting this thing, is it is so episodic, there are a bunch of roads you could follow. So which ones do you pick? It really needs focus because what's so good about Mary Poppins is they just they were like, this is about the family, and that is our story we are telling.

[1:29:03] Jimmy: Right.

[1:29:05] Tommy: We're just telling a story about this family. Um anything else will will work, but we need to look at the mum and dad relationship, the kids' relationship, like that is what we're gonna do.

[1:29:13] Jimmy: Well, and Mary Poppins does such a thing of recentering it around Mr. Banks that the movie doesn't quite do, you know.

[1:29:19] Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it's more comical, I would say in the film.

[1:29:22] Jimmy: Whereas in the movie that is like the the crux is that f like family relationship, that bond and bringing that back together. And I don't know what you would I don't think there's anything in the film that you could have as your focus. The thing that I really don't want it to be is a love story between Nickel and Titan and the biggest thing.

[1:29:41] Tommy: That would be terrible.

[1:29:42] Jimmy: I think one of the I would hate one of the most delightful things about this movie is that even in spite of himself, uh, you know, Professor Brown runs away and like only goes back because the Nazis attack.

[1:29:55] Tommy: Right.

[1:29:56] Jimmy: And still only sticks around to like casually be around, but we don't get a huge like, and then they lived happily ever after.

[1:30:03] Tommy: No, then he went off to war.

[1:30:05] Jimmy: Yeah, there's no wedding scene, like there's no wedding in it. I don't want to see a wedding in my Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

[1:30:11] Tommy: Like, I'll happily have them cohabit.

[1:30:13] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:30:13] Tommy: Like go for it. Yeah, but it is like that's one of the delightful things, and it's only if you know the context, they don't telegraph this, but like Mr. Banks goes off to war, and then the war keeps happening, right?

[1:30:24] Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1:30:26] Tommy: There's no like, and then he came back home and the then you know they lived happily ever. And we won, and the Nazis were defeated. Like, we don't we don't get that in the world of the story.

[1:30:37] Jimmy: Nope.

[1:30:37] Tommy: And and that's kinda nice, you know. It it's just a zoom in of a really particular moment. I do love I do think the one foreshadowing that this movie does very well and that has a hugely satisfying payoff, um, is we meet Dad's army early on as like a frickin' joke, right?

[1:30:59] Jimmy: Right.

[1:31:01] Tommy: Especially carrying shovels. Yeah, it's such a nice it's such a joke. And you're like, ha ha, setting the context, jovial movie, right?

[1:31:07] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:31:07] Tommy: And then the like cover story for this wild time when these magical armor things, you know, defeated the Nazis was that Dad's army drove them away. And it is I like noticed it this time and I forgot it happened. There's like a two short still of like a newspaper clipping of like there have been reports, unsubstantiated reports of Nazis landing on the shore.

[1:31:36] Jimmy: The you know war agency denies any allegations that this even happened.

[1:31:40] Tommy: And like the fact that Dad's army swings around and like has their victory moment that is the thing I would love to see is that like the Draguna McCoy army starts but also Dad's army, you know, gets a bayonet in like Yeah like the coming together I think that'd be nice that would be nice.

[1:32:01] Jimmy: It's a very like that that moment is a very act two of a stage musical.

[1:32:04] Tommy: Like that's running around River City to find Professor Hill Chaos and pull your weird puppet things and have things flying in and out pay off these moments and then you know Eglint appears over the audience and points a thing and the Nazis on stage like she's a witch and then the thing their house explodes like that's a good act two climax.

[1:32:27] Jimmy: Yeah yeah yeah. But it is it's an interesting one because it's not an eleven o'clock number you know are they gonna write her a song to sing on the broom potentially or just do a reprise of Traguna McCoy?

[1:32:28] Tommy: Yeah although maybe they'll make more of an ending do you know I mean because as we've been talking I've been like I wonder if the storyline will be what we talked about earlier which was this idea of the chosen family.

[1:32:54] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:32:54] Tommy: Like is that gonna be the thing is like pooling them all together. Are the kids gonna get more involved in the fight?

[1:33:00] Tommy: Yeah, you know, I mean, you know what? You know what they should do? Split driving the Nazis out and blowing up the house.

[1:33:10] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:33:10] Tommy: Let us win by driving out the Nazis, you know, yay hurrah. And like the audience knows that, you know, whoever the lead Nazi is is still around trying to blow up her house, but everyone gets a second to think we've won, and then there's this standoff and tension and then the house explodes and there's a big pyrotechnic effect, and we can spend an Into the Woods moment wondering if anyone died and like that happens at nine a.m. the next morning, not in the middle of the night.

[1:33:10] Jimmy: You know.

[1:33:39] Tommy: Right, yeah, as it happens like right as Eglantine and, you know, Professor Brown are like holding each other and like the kids have foo. Like that's the beat to pull at the end of the show.

[1:33:52] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:33:52] Tommy: And then it's the coming together of like, we don't need magic, we've got each other now, like we've got R.

[1:33:58] Jimmy: Yeah, you know, I wonder if there's a pull of or like let the kids figure it out without magic or like, you know.

[1:33:58] Tommy: Yeah, uh-huh. There might be 'cause I think that would be, I think, yeah, like the kind of Eglantine's lost her parents somehow.

[1:34:12] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:34:12] Tommy: The kids have lost their parents somehow. There's definitely something there in terms of tying those two.

[1:34:17] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:34:17] Tommy: And like she sh—either she loses her book or her magic stuff gets blown up and she still does something, you know, the magic was in you all along or whatever.

[1:34:28] Jimmy: Exactly.

[1:34:30] Tommy: 'Cause I think that would be good. If they were gonna change something, I think keep the magic.

[1:34:33] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:34:34] Tommy: And but it's disappointing that it just goes. But let them like set up that she can only do magic when she can read it out of her book. Like that's her character flaw.

[1:34:41] Jimmy: Right.

[1:34:43] Tommy: And then at the end take away her book and let her overcome not having her book as a way to have her hero moment. That's the turn to take at the end.

[1:34:54] Jimmy: That would be good.

[1:34:56] Tommy: I would like that.

[1:34:56] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:34:56] Tommy: I would enjoy that. Uh, Disney.

[1:34:58] Jimmy: And it's again like even just as a story, like that's not, I get it's not one that's, it's not a huge trope of like, oh yeah, the classic children family story.

[1:35:05] Tommy: Right.

[1:35:05] Jimmy: No, no, there's something fun there.

[1:35:07] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:35:08] Tommy: So I think, uh, Disney executives, jimandtomic@gmail.com. We are for hire.

[1:35:13] Jimmy: Um, we do have both dramatic—we do have steep rates, but we are excited about this project.

[1:35:21] Tommy: Yeah, we are. We can't wait to get involved, like seriously, for real. I don't know who you'd even tweet at, but I know the Sherman Brothers, we're having Zoom with them later.

[1:35:33] Jimmy: Chatbox.

[1:35:33] Tommy: We'll ask 'em. Legit, I would totally do this.

[1:35:40] Jimmy: You definitely would if I—who knows? Who knows?

[1:35:44] Tommy: But this is it. I don't even know what stage it's at.

[1:35:46] Jimmy: I don't like—because I know it's another thing, it's—I'm a bit concerned about.

[1:35:50] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:35:50] Jimmy: So the music and lyrics that are done, um, like the extra stuff.

[1:35:55] Tommy: Okay.

[1:36:01] Jimmy: Yeah, pair who don't have the best pedigree behind them.

[1:36:07] Tommy: Sure.

[1:36:07] Jimmy: So the only thing I know them from is the Theory of Relativity musical.

[1:36:12] Tommy: Yes, which I know only in passing. Solid as fuck opening number. Absolutely love it.

[1:36:18] Jimmy: After that, I don't really enjoy it.

[1:36:21] Tommy: Sure.

[1:36:22] Jimmy: Um, they are, as in terms of their style, they're very contemporary.

[1:36:31] Tommy: Interesting.

[1:36:32] Jimmy: Uh, and like contemporary now, contemporary, not like contemporary musical theater.

[1:36:36] Tommy: Got it.

[1:36:36] Jimmy: Yeah, 2000's contemporary.

[1:36:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:36:39] Jimmy: Um, so that's interesting, I guess.

[1:36:45] Tommy: Um, to see. But I—the other thing is we know that, um, Mark Shaman is your go-to man to work with the Sherman Brothers music.

[1:36:57] Jimmy: Because as we've discussed in our Ray Puffers episode, you can't tell the difference.

[1:37:02] Tommy: Like he is like the Sherman Brothers. Are these guys gonna be able to get the same kind of magic?

[1:37:11] Jimmy: Or because they need to.

[1:37:12] Tommy: Well, or does it go like, do they find their Lion King moment? And does it go a different Star Catcher-y kinda like does it lean into some interesting devised theater kind of beat behind the whole thing?

[1:37:28] Jimmy: Let me tell you a tale of a modern witch, modern of World War II and you know, like—

[1:37:28] Tommy: Yeah, no, but just, I mean just in terms of the musical sound, like the actual sound, like the Shermans are so iconic. I wonder if they—and this isn't like, in my opinion, this isn't their best work. There's some good songs, but I wonder this isn't their best work.

[1:37:49] Jimmy: But I wonder then if they step on it more than they did with Poppins, like treat it as less of the holy word and more of the starting, you know, Bedknobs and Broomsticks remix.

[1:37:59] Tommy: Um, you know, give Traguna McCoydy a jazzy underbelly or something.

[1:38:05] Jimmy: Right.

[1:38:05] Tommy: You know, but don't touch—don't touch beautiful Brainy C.

[1:38:07] Jimmy: Don't touch beautiful Brainy C.

[1:38:09] Tommy: Um, but I—Jimmy's dancing.

[1:38:12] Jimmy: He's—he's—I just dance.

[1:38:13] Tommy: Now do a flip, do a flip.

[1:38:15] Jimmy: Um, but I do wonder if they'll play more fast and loose because it's not, you know, you can't cut supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from, uh, Mary Poppins, but like does anyone—can't change it to my—does anyone really remember all the lyrics of Portobello Road?

[1:38:35] Tommy: Are there lyrics?

[1:38:38] Jimmy: Like, other than just Portobello Road at various pitches.

[1:38:44] Tommy: Um, I just don't like that song, Tony.

[1:38:46] Jimmy: Um, sorry.

[1:38:48] Tommy: This will be our last episode.

[1:38:52] Jimmy: That's fine.

[1:38:54] Tommy: You did Cats, so I will do Portobello Roads.

[1:38:59] Jimmy: That's the trick. I would watch a whole Portobello Road musical. I think that would be fun.

[1:39:03] Tommy: In a kind of, uh, uh, like, um, do you know what that musical is with the way? And I know it's not one you know well.

[1:39:10] Jimmy: It's fucking Oliver.

[1:39:12] Tommy: Oh yeah, it is.

[1:39:12] Jimmy: I don't know Oliver.

[1:39:13] Tommy: Oliver is the Portobello Road musical. Like, because that's the thing. Like, if you like Portobello Road, you'll love Consider Yourself.

[1:39:21] Jimmy: I do love Consider Yourself.

[1:39:23] Tommy: I couldn't name other songs in Oliver, but I do love Consider Yourself.

[1:39:27] Jimmy: Who will buy?

[1:39:28] Tommy: Who will buy is like—Portobello Road is a mashup of Who will buy and Consider Yourself.

[1:39:33] Jimmy: I'll take that on face value.

[1:39:36] Tommy: Yeah, Who will buy's a great number. I love Oliver.

[1:39:40] Jimmy: Oliver so much.

[1:39:41] Tommy: Anyway, not for now.

[1:39:44] Jimmy: Um, yeah, so I'm just—I'm really intrigued. I mean, who the f knows when it's gonna actually appear.

[1:39:49] Tommy: Right.

[1:39:50] Jimmy: But I'm glad it's happening in the UK over the US.

[1:39:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:39:53] Jimmy: It's potentially more likely, although, um, our politicians have just told us if you work in the arts, potentially think about getting a new career.

[1:40:02] Tommy: Uh, because it's not a viable option.

[1:40:04] Jimmy: The world's on fire. Isn't that a lovely thing to say?

[1:40:10] Tommy: Um, so yeah, who knows. But I, yeah, they just—I hope they get it right.

[1:40:18] Jimmy: I feel like they kinda have to. Disney can't—well, no, they have had a couple of plenty of flops, yeah.

[1:40:24] Tommy: You know.

[1:40:25] Jimmy: Uh, what's his face, Schumacher says, you know, uh, I think around Little Mermaid and Tarzan time he was like, people learned, we can flop just like everyone else, and I think it's one of the most, uh, uh, canny things he said about Disney theatrical enterprises.

[1:40:40] Tommy: Um, so who knows. It'll be fun to watch.

[1:40:45] Jimmy: I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

[1:40:46] Tommy: It's also how I feel about—

[1:40:48] Jimmy: You will.

[1:40:48] Tommy: It's how I feel about the Back to the Future musical. It might be a piece of shit, and I think I'm still gonna find something to enjoy about it.

[1:40:54] Jimmy: Uh, some of the music is good, by the way.

[1:40:56] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:40:56] Jimmy: I vr—there's one song in particular I love. So there you go.

[1:41:01] Tommy: There's another one that's gonna fly.

[1:41:04] Jimmy: We can't have it. Flying vehicles on Broadway between Chitty, Back to the Future, and I guess a bed isn't a car, but there's something.

[1:41:13] Tommy: There's some comparisons there.

[1:41:16] Jimmy: This will be my last point. It bothered me this time. Uh, when they're in London and they like—the first time Emilius is getting on the bed. Um, and he says, Mr. Brown, you go around to the right side. I always travel on the left.

[1:41:31] Tommy: Which is a funny passing line for Eglantine to say.

[1:41:35] Jimmy: Except the one vehicle we've seen her in before that time is a motorcycle with a sidecar.

[1:41:42] Tommy: She literally drives it on the right.

[1:41:45] Jimmy: We have proof that she does not always travel on the left.

[1:41:51] Tommy: Change the—like get some continuity people in there. Make the line I always travel on the right.

[1:41:58] Jimmy: I can never watch the movie again.

[1:42:01] Tommy: You see this movie too anytime.

[1:42:03] Jimmy: It's official.

[1:42:05] Tommy: It's official.

[1:42:06] Jimmy: Yeah, probably.

[1:42:08] Tommy: I'll accept it. I think you're the first person on the planet to have made the observation, though, so that's fine.

[1:42:12] Jimmy: Somebody had to.

[1:42:13] Tommy: And if it has to be me, that's fine.

[1:42:16] Jimmy: Yeah, let Angela—she'll have been annoyed about it, I think.

[1:42:20] Tommy: Probably she'll have picked up.

[1:42:21] Jimmy: She's fine.

[1:42:21] Tommy: Acting by the numbers. It's lovely bobbing along.

[1:42:25] Jimmy: Bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful brick.

[1:42:32] Tommy: What a chance to get a better peep at the plants and creatures of the deep.

[1:42:40] Jimmy: It's crack when you're dancing on the side.

[1:42:49] Tommy: Each glide Bob goes over with romance.

[1:42:56] Jimmy: It's lovely bobbing along.

[1:43:00] Tommy: Bobbing along through the water where we can.

[1:43:04] Jimmy: Swimmingly.

[1:43:13] Tommy: Could even fall in love.

[1:43:15] Jimmy: Bobbing along singing a song.

[1:43:18] Tommy: On the bottom of the beautiful brick.

[1:43:24] Jimmy: Bombing along, singing a song.

[1:43:27] Tommy: On the bottom of the beautiful Brian.

[1:43:30] Jimmy: Shimmery shiny.

[1:43:33] Tommy: Beautiful Brian.

[1:43:39] Jimmy: Jimmy.

[1:43:40] Tommy: Tap three times and give a smart quarter turn to the left.

[1:43:44] Jimmy: Twist my knob.

[1:43:45] Tommy: Ah!

[1:43:46] Jimmy: No, I hate it.

[1:43:47] Tommy: Hey.

[1:43:47] Jimmy: That was Bedknobs of Brun Six.

[1:43:50] Tommy: It was.

[1:43:51] Jimmy: Sorry.

[1:43:51] Tommy: We did with a whole podcast without doing it.

[1:43:53] Jimmy: Come on.

[1:43:53] Tommy: That's true. You did make a whole podcast. It's just my brain's now going because there are so many like porn adaptations of Disney stuff, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks—

[1:44:06] Jimmy: No.

[1:44:06] Tommy: It'd just be the same name.

[1:44:08] Jimmy: Just be the same time.

[1:44:10] Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

[1:44:12] Jimmy: I sleep on the right.

[1:44:13] Tommy: Oh god, get us out of here. Give us a quiz question.

[1:44:16] Jimmy: Um, okay, I'm doing it. So both Stephen Sondheim, you know him, uh, and Jerry Herman, you know him, uh, have worked on partial musical adaptations of the source material for this musical.

[1:44:29] Tommy: What show?

[1:44:30] Jimmy: I'm so pleased with this quiz question. Um, if you want to get in touch with us, our show Twitter and Instagram is @jimandtomic, or drop us an email on our website at jimandtomic.com. J-I-M-A-N-D-T-O-M-I-C.

[1:44:43] Tommy: Well, you're there.

[1:44:44] Jimmy: Yeah, I was gonna continue singing the little thing. I'm not gonna do that. Uh, yes, while you're over there, um, you can check out our Patreon if you'd like to financially support the show.

[1:44:54] Tommy: Um, our current Patreons.

[1:44:56] Jimmy: I hate when people say that on podcasts and call them Patreons.

[1:44:59] Tommy: It's patrons.

[1:44:59] Jimmy: Yep.

[1:45:00] Tommy: And I just said it and I'm annoying myself. Our current, uh, patrons.

[1:45:05] Jimmy: We love you lots, dearly.

[1:45:07] Tommy: Um, we're having a lot of fun over there with our new video podcast called Last Call.

[1:45:13] Jimmy: Um, this time around, we're playing some game.

[1:45:15] Tommy: And, uh, yeah, we did. If you wanna—if you want to rub our ignorance in our face, now's the time to support us.

[1:45:24] Jimmy: So that's a great time to do it.

[1:45:26] Tommy: Um, yes, but most of all, it just helps us when you tell all your friends about our show.

[1:45:30] Jimmy: Um, we love between National Podcast Day and just some of the other tweets we've been getting about like, hey, listen to this podcast, and we love seeing our, uh, Aunt Jim and Tomic show up there. Y'all rock and we adore you deeply, and I love you.

[1:45:39] Tommy: The end.

[1:45:45] Jimmy: Very much so.

[1:45:46] Tommy: I love you too.

[1:45:47] Jimmy: That's sweet.

[1:45:48] Tommy: Oh cute. Um, hey, well, that's all for this time around the riverbend. Thank you guys so much for listening. Uh, Tommy, cheers.

[1:45:56] Tommy: Cheers.

[1:46:11] Jimmy: Do you know what you are?

[1:46:12] Tommy: And she goes, oh river.