This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jesse McAnally: Remember the five Ds of Dodgeball. Danish Blue Cheese, David Stout Cheddar, Delici De Bourjon, Dulce de Latte, and Danish Blue Cheese.

[0:18] Jesse McAnally: Hi, I'm Jesse McAnally. And I'm Andrew DeWolf. And I'm Liz Esten. And welcome to The Cheese Wheel, a hyperfixation podcast where our topics are gambled on a big wheel. How are we doing today, guys? We did it. We're in the bad timeline, everyone.

[0:28] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, we're in the bad timeline!

[0:34] Liz Esten: Who predicted bad timeline? I cut that out of the episode. I was too depressed.

[0:41] Jesse McAnally: Like, toy with that. It is not in the episode. It was too sad. Yeah.

[0:49] Liz Esten: But today, as we treasure, like, goof around, like the MC and cabaret, just trying to distract you from the world outside. We're the bad guys.

[0:58] Andrew DeWolf: We're the bad guys, yeah. Pay attention, people. Apathy has not helped us. No! We have our very first patron request episode. Now, let's not get this confused with our patron choice episodes. This one is from our $20 level, where they get to pick anything that we cover. And this one is from a long-time returning patron, Leighton Ackles, who left us this little voice message to tell us why they picked our topic today. So I am gonna let them take it away.

[1:32] Leighton Ackles: Hello. I'm Leighton. And I requested Dodgeball because it is my favorite sports movie. I know. I know. Controversial. It's a hot take. But it is one of my favorites because it's so outlandish, but it's still good every time. I mean, some jokes haven't aged super well, but it's one of those movies that my family had watched since I could remember. I could remember, and I want to see other people's experiences with it. And also, my twin brother says I'm Gordon, the dad character. I hate that he's right. But grab your Average Joe's t-shirts and remember the five Ds of Dodgeball. Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.

[2:40] Jesse McAnally: Thank you, Leighton. Our buddy Leighton requesting this. We in case you haven't picked up what we're throwing down, we said it pretty clearly. This week, we are talking about the 2004 comedy film Dodgeball, A True Underdog Story. Cue the trailer. 1954, a simpler time. Dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion, and degradation. A more innocent time. Make sure you pick the bigger, stronger kids for your team. That way, you can all gang up on the weaker ones.

[3:22] Andrew DeWolf: Today, there are those who are born to be champions. Here at Globo Gym, we're better than you, and we know it. And then, there are these guys.

[3:35] Jesse McAnally: Do you know why I'm here? Now, do you mean cosmically? You have 30 days to pay off your mortgage or you lose your gym.

[3:40] Andrew DeWolf: Who'd want to buy this place anyway?

[3:44] Jesse McAnally: Okay. We can't just let Globo Gym take us over. If there was any way in the world, we could raise $50,000. We could play dodgeball. Line up, ladies! The name is Patches O'Hoolihan, and I'm your new coach.

[3:56] Jesse McAnally: So, Dodgeball, A True Underdog Story, was written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. Theatrically released by 20th Century Fox on June 18, 2004, the film received generally positive reviews from critics. In its first week, the film grossed over $29 million, and would go on to a domestic gross of $114.3 million, and a worldwide total of $168.4 million, on a budget of only $20 million. This is a bona fide success.

[4:25] Jesse McAnally: The review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, lists this as a 71% from 165 critics' reviews, saying that, "Proudly profane and splendidly silly, Dodgeball is a worthy spiritual successor to the goofball comedies of the 1980s." The plot of Dodgeball, according to Letterboxd.com, is, "When a megalomaniacal white Goodman, the owner of a trendy high-end fitness center, makes a move to take over the struggling local gym run by the happy-go-lucky Pete LaFleur, there's only one way for LaFleur to fight back. Dodgeball. Aided by a dodgeball guru and Goodman's attorney, LaFleur and his rag-tag team of underdogs launch a knockdown-and-drag-out battle, in which the winner takes all."

[5:12] Jesse McAnally: So, I feel like we have to say up front, Andrew, this is you and I's first time watching this. We were not dodgeball heads growing up. Liz, you did watch this a lot when you were younger.

[5:24] Liz Esten: Yeah, I watched it quite a bit.

[5:26] Jesse McAnally: Um, I feel like that's gonna paint all of our opinions, sincerely.

[5:31] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, definitely.

[5:33] Andrew DeWolf: I did not love this.

[5:35] Jesse McAnally: Comedy ages like milk, is the problem.

[5:38] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[5:40] Andrew DeWolf: And if you already like it, I think you can tolerate a lot of stuff, but if you're going into it for the first time after that aged period, you see how spoiled the milk has become.

[5:54] Jesse McAnally: It's a little stinky.

[6:00] Andrew DeWolf: I don't love this brand of comedy either way. I don't really love this brand of movie. I'm not a big fan of sports movies to begin with.

[6:09] Liz Esten: This is the era of the blockbuster comedy, wasn't it?

[6:12] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[6:15] Jesse McAnally: When did this come out?

[6:15] Andrew DeWolf: 2004.

[6:16] Liz Esten: Isn't this around the time when there was just a lot of big comedy movies?

[6:20] Andrew DeWolf: This is the same year as Anchorman.

[6:23] Jesse McAnally: Anchorman, like Harold and Kumar.

[6:26] Andrew DeWolf: A lot of-

[6:27] Liz Esten: That came out in 2008.

[6:28] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that was years later.

[6:29] Andrew DeWolf: It came out the same year as Talladega Nights, which kind of was proto-

[6:32] Liz Esten: No, Talladega Nights was 2005. That was a year ago.

[6:35] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, shoot. Same year period.

[6:37] Liz Esten: Yeah, my brother was really into these types of movies. I watched a lot of them growing up.

[6:43] Jesse McAnally: Well, then I'm calling you our official comedy guru then.

[6:47] Andrew DeWolf: In this case, I guess, yes.

[6:49] Jesse McAnally: What is the ultimate mid-2000s comedy?

[6:55] Andrew DeWolf: Is it not this?

[6:56] Andrew DeWolf: For me, actually, no. I remember watching this, but I only remember clips and moments of it. I watched it in full one sitting for the first time recently, but I've seen basically most of it already on Comedy Central and FX and whatever network decided to air that when I was growing up. My brother would always put it on.

[7:17] Andrew DeWolf: But I would say Talladega Nights was the one that got played the most in my house.

[7:22] Jesse McAnally: You don't drive with your eyes.

[7:24] Andrew DeWolf: You've got to feel the road.

[7:25] Jesse McAnally: The story of a man who could only count to number one.

[7:35] Andrew DeWolf: I'm embarrassed.

[7:36] Andrew DeWolf: I really thought I could feel it.

[7:39] Jesse McAnally: Talladega Nights, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

[7:42] Andrew DeWolf: You got to learn to drive with the feel.

[7:46] Jesse McAnally: There ain't nothing more frightening than driving with a live cougar.

[7:50] Andrew DeWolf: Ricky, control your heart rate.

[7:51] Jesse McAnally: I can't control my heart rate.

[7:52] Andrew DeWolf: I got a cougar on me.

[7:57] Jesse McAnally: Because me and my family will constantly quote Talladega Nights way more. Like the line about Jesus wearing a tuxedo t-shirt because he wants to be cool, but also likes to party. The you ain't first or last thing. There's just so much more Talladega Nights for me.

[8:14] Liz Esten: I remember watching this vividly because I remember watching the dodgeball scenes. I remember the training scenes. I remember Rip Torn throwing wrenches at people. I watched this when I was like eight.

[8:26] Andrew DeWolf: But at minimum, I watched this at eight years old.

[8:29] Jesse McAnally: Sincerely, you are just describing the trailer for this movie, though. You are describing the dodgeballs getting thrown, the throw a wrench, dodge a ball, whatever. If you've seen the trailer to this film, you've seen the movie.

[8:44] Andrew DeWolf: That's a lot of these comedies.

[8:46] Jesse McAnally: That's true of all these comedies because the marketing around 2004 bro-esque.

[8:50] Andrew DeWolf: I'm going to say bro-esque because it's not bro-y per se.

[8:54] Jesse McAnally: It's just a lot of dudes.

[8:56] Andrew DeWolf: It's a little bro-y.

[8:56] Jesse McAnally: It's a little bro-y, but not as bad as some other ones because the woman character has more than three lines.

[9:02] Andrew DeWolf: But she also exists to be sexually harassed.

[9:05] Jesse McAnally: She does exist to be sexually harassed.

[9:09] Andrew DeWolf: Look, this is 2004. I can only ask for so much out of these movies when it comes to women. I'll give it a break in some cases.

[9:15] Jesse McAnally: I will say, a lot of 2000s rom-coms that people wrote off at the time, I kind of have a deeper appreciation for.

[9:24] Andrew DeWolf: Not rom-coms, like raunchy comedies. A film like Bedazzled has aged so much better in a lot of ways than a film like Dodgeball or Talladega Nights.

[9:36] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. Let's talk about what's good about Dodgeball.

[9:39] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, okay.

[9:42] Andrew DeWolf: I like the sports element of it, actually. I am a fan of weird sports, so I appreciate their leaning into a weird sport like this and just giving it some fun attention. I like that. I think that the mentor character is pretty funny. Everyone loves an underdog story, so that's always good, too. So that's a fun aspect. And there isn't a lot else.

[10:15] Andrew DeWolf: That's a lot of what I like. There's some good gags. I mean, there are some funny lines. A lot of the ones that we've already quoted. If you could dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. There's the commentators have some decent lines. Gary Cole and Jason Bateman are the best parts of the movie for me.

[10:31] Jesse McAnally: This is Jason Bateman's finest performance of his entire career.

[10:35] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[10:36] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. No, I'm being told that Average Joe's does not have enough players and will be forfeiting the championship match. It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him.

[10:48] Andrew DeWolf: But the thing is, even that being my favorite thing, I think they did that bit a little better in Best in Show, a different kind of comedy that was made a few years earlier.

[10:58] Liz Esten: Yeah, but also different.

[10:59] Andrew DeWolf: A, also, you said in the same sentence, different kind of comedy. The goals are different, thus we cannot directly compare them.

[11:06] Jesse McAnally: No, no, that I agree with. But I feel like if the commentators off the side are like my favorite part of the movie, I'm not sure how well it's doing.

[11:16] Andrew DeWolf: It's a good gag. Like the one guy just has no idea what's happening and has no valuable input at all.

[11:24] Jesse McAnally: It's kind of like our show a little bit.

[11:28] Andrew DeWolf: Which one's which?

[11:29] Jesse McAnally: You'll have to guess.

[11:31] Andrew DeWolf: Everyone knows which one is which.

[11:32] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I'm also here.

[11:37] Andrew DeWolf: Well, it's like our early show, but it was just us.

[11:40] Jesse McAnally: Oh, it's just you two broing around.

[11:42] Andrew DeWolf: Kissing.

[11:43] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, you guys just making out while recording. Jess was saying shit, and then I would just like come in with something dumb.

[11:47] Andrew DeWolf: Bro, that's wild.

[11:48] Jesse McAnally: Bro, that's funny.

[11:56] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, when I saw this movie as a kid, I saw the promos. Maybe I'm just an idiot. The underscore a true underdog story makes me think it's a true story.

[12:07] Jesse McAnally: No, not in any remote way.

[12:09] Andrew DeWolf: I think I might have just been dumb and nine years old.

[12:12] Jesse McAnally: That's always a possibility.

[12:12] Andrew DeWolf: You were dumb and nine years old.

[12:14] Jesse McAnally: A hundred percent. They're making a joke. It's like a pretend documentary, except for it's not a pretend documentary.

[12:20] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, right. The joke is like it was promoted at the time. It was promoted heavily on ESPN. So like it was a joke that it was a true story, but it like wasn't.

[12:31] Jesse McAnally: It actually might have been funnier if they actually had done it like a sports documentary.

[12:35] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like a 30 for 30 ESPN thing.

[12:38] Jesse McAnally: That would have been funny.

[12:39] Andrew DeWolf: What they did with like Seven Days in Hell on HBO Max or HBO.

[12:45] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, you're pitching better movies that we didn't watch.

[12:52] Andrew DeWolf: I'm sorry, Leighton, I don't mean to hate on this too much. That being said, Vince Vaughn is a charisma cavern that sucks everything else in it.

[13:02] Jesse McAnally: We have to talk about this because I couldn't stop thinking it when I was watching. I'm just the entire movie like Vince Vaughn's character is so like characterless. Like it's he is a non-character in a way that I've never seen before in a movie.

[13:20] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think I've ever seen a character that is so not a character in a movie before I've seen this. I'm just like, so what is his motivation? It's like his motivation is he doesn't care or he doesn't want to be there or like it's every single scene. It's like and then they give him the big payoff at the end. And it's like, where does this even come from? He doesn't give a shit. Like why? Why would he even give a shit?

[13:45] Andrew DeWolf: It came from Lance Armstrong, remember?

[13:48] Jesse McAnally: It's yeah, it's like what does he care? Like and the weirdest part of it is they have like a setup. They could have given him a motivation because like when we're first introduced to him, he's in like this rundown house and he has a car that barely works. And apparently the only thing he has going for him is he owns this gym and he has some friends there. But he's going to lose the gym, but he's the only person that doesn't give a fuck if they lose the gym or not. It's like this is your gym, dude. Why don't you care?

[14:21] Andrew DeWolf: He's like, he's like, oh, it's been a good run, I guess. And then everyone else is like, we should do the dodgeball team. We should do the dodgeball team. And he's like, I don't know. Like, I feel like it's been good. Like, you know, whatever. It's like, why don't you give a shit? Like, why does everyone else care and you don't?

[14:40] Jesse McAnally: I don't know what you're expecting from the writer and director of Red Notice on Netflix.

[14:47] Andrew DeWolf: We're the Millers.

[15:17] Andrew DeWolf: BONUS No, I'm just kidding.

[15:23] Andrew DeWolf: I can.

[15:24] Andrew DeWolf: I'm just kidding.

[15:25] Andrew DeWolf: I'm just kidding.

[15:26] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know what's going on here. And then everyone else is like, has a thing going on. Like, the weird glasses guy has his wife cucking him. Justin Long is a weird teenager whose name is also Justin, which makes me think the writer thought he was dumb as shit and can only respond to his own name. And the pirate guy's there. Alan Tudyk plays Steve the pirate.

[15:38] Andrew DeWolf: And there's also the lady. I was thinking about it while watching the movie. And I think I realized something, and it's that Vince Vaughn's character may be a non-character or whatever, but he's also, as someone who was a white man in the 2000s, in high school or middle school or whatever the fuck I was at that point, I don't fucking know. But at the time when people liked this movie, I was in that region. He is what every white high school man thought was the perfect guy. In their head, they're like, that's me. I'm the guy who's just so cool that I don't care about anything. I just go with the flow. And nobody was actually like that. But he is that guy. And maybe, Jess, am I wrong? You have a similar experience to me, I feel.

[16:37] Andrew DeWolf: I think that white men in general appreciate apathy as a generalized neutral emotion, where caring is for the fucking libs. It's South Park, dude. It's the South Park ideology of apathy is peak. It's modern day stoicism, where you don't understand what stoicism is, so you're just like it's when you don't care about anything. And that's what peak manhood is, is when you don't give a shit. Because that's the only way I can describe his character is that he just does. He's just apathetic about fucking everything, everything. I mean, what I hate to compare this to a film that I think is technically aged even worse, but does one specific thing slightly better. I don't know if anyone else remembers this also very not that good 2000s comedy called The Ringer starring Johnny Knoxville.

[17:37] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, God, I came out a year later. Have I heard about this at work? So not a good movie, very offensive even by its premise. But it is also a sports movie about a pathetic guy being pulled into a situation. The premise. I'm so sorry, everyone out there that has to hear this. Johnny Knoxville plays a normal man whose Mexican gardener gets injured on the job and he does not have insurance to pay for his surgery. So he decides to get a bunch of money fast by playing as an able-bodied man in the Special Olympics.

[18:20] Andrew DeWolf: Wow. That is actually an episode of South Park. This movie was endorsed by the Special Olympics. Yes, it was. And that's kind of funny. Yeah, they did hire actual people that have disabilities in the league. It's like it is. It's like weirdly on a line of like, there's almost something there's a mild sincerity. But the thing is, that core thing of him just trying to get medical bills paid for his gardener is enough because you get like he doesn't want to be caught with the bill. But there is like an emotional core where you get why he needs the money. And you're kind of understand and following through this. Whereas the lead in Dodgeball, it's like he's I think what he is, is he's supposed to be like the straight man to all of the like the weirdos that are.

But he doesn't play it like a straight man because he never has like a reaction. Like, I don't know, I'm trying to think of like classic straight man characters, but like Jason Bateman, like oftentimes they get frustrated, you know, like they get like they get annoyed with the people, but he he just has no reaction to anything. So he doesn't really work as a straight man. You know what I mean?

[19:36] Jess McAnally: Yes.

[19:37] Andrew DeWolf: That being said, Vince Vaughn has been good in other things.

[19:41] Jess McAnally: Oh, yeah, it's not him. I think they wrote. They told him to do this, but I think Vince Vaughn has the range of my pinky.

[19:49] Andrew DeWolf: See, I would agree with you if I hadn't seen Freaky.

[19:53] Jess McAnally: Oh, I love Freaky, but like, I think that's like Vince Vaughn now. I think Vince Vaughn in the 2000s had the range of a freaking pinky. He was very bad as Norman.

[20:05] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, I have seen it. But also Vince Vaughn during this time was just making whatever was thrown at him, like the breakup, Jennifer Aniston. He was just making rom coms and comedies where he was just playing himself. And that's all Vince Vaughn did for years and made bank on it. And as soon as that dried out, he had to make Freaky and be a good actor, which is great for us. But like he didn't get paid as much. So he's also I think he's a Trump conservative. Like I don't have any like that is something that's been thrown around in the same way it's thrown around about Adam Sandler. I wouldn't doubt it. I figure if they're apolitical, that means you're probably a Trump supporter. At this point, I think if you're apolitical, you are just far right at this point, because like, how are you apolitical? Come on, you're not. You know what you want.

[20:58] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, we have not talked about the two technical MVPs of this movie. And that is Rip Torn and Ben Stiller, who I think both steal this movie blind. Rip Torn especially, I think.

[21:14] Jess McAnally: Rip Torn is great. I hate like he's he's a fucking weirdo, right?

[21:19] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, yeah, but he does a great job playing a fucking weirdo is the thing. I think he is a weirdo in real life, so it doesn't take much work. He broke into a bank because he thought it was his house. He lived a wild life. Rest in peace, man. I'm not going to lie. That's that's kind of badass. Like, I'm kind of into that. He broke into a bank and he thought it was his house.

[21:40] Jess McAnally: He was not a well man. How much you want to bet he was just going to rob the bank and when he got caught, he was just like, oh, this isn't my house. It's not my house. That was an excuse. I totally thought this was my house. Like and he's like, you're rich enough to get away with this. And he's incredible in 30 Rock. Like he is always coming up to work.

[22:01] Andrew DeWolf: He was Jack's boss.

[22:02] Jess McAnally: Yeah. And Freddie got fingered. Only reason to watch that movie.

[22:05] Andrew DeWolf: No, there's no reason to watch that movie.

[22:06] Jess McAnally: But he's funny. Watch clips of Rip Torn. Jess is going to put it on his wheel now.

[22:09] Andrew DeWolf: No, no, no. I cannot make anyone watch that movie.

[22:14] Jess McAnally: And Christine Taylor, who I think is very funny in Christine Taylor, is very funny in the Brady Bunch movies, given nothing to do here except kiss a lady at the end.

[22:26] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that was Christine Taylor in the 2000s. I am not saying it's right, but her main job was to not be Ben Stiller's love interest and that being the joke because they were in a relationship at the time.

[22:40] Jess McAnally: So the fact they hate each other is a sub joke to the joke.

[22:43] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that happens periodically in Ben Stiller's early career.

[22:48] Jess McAnally: I see. I think Ben Stiller is actually a very good director. I don't love him as comedic presence as this villain. Like I don't like him as the big wild one. I hate Zoolander. Zoolander is just not my thing.

[23:01] Andrew DeWolf: But I'm a big fan of The Cable Guy, as y'all know.

[23:05] Jess McAnally: Yeah, dude, that's a terrible take.

[23:08] Andrew DeWolf: Now I've seen it. It's a terrible take.

[23:11] Jess McAnally: I love The Cable Guy.

[23:12] Andrew DeWolf: Shut up. You can go fuck off and die.

[23:14] Jess McAnally: I thought it was alright. I also really, really like I like Tropic Thunder for all of its faults and not aging well. I think it's a really well-made, well-told comedy movie. And The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Very weird, very interesting film. Like the fuckers movies truly can go fuck themselves.

[23:38] Andrew DeWolf: They can fuck themselves, you mean?

[23:40] Jess McAnally: Meet the fuckers. Those are awful, dude.

[23:42] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, God. I've never seen any of them.

[23:44] Jess McAnally: I've had to sit through some of those.

[23:46] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, my God. Those I have not seen. Thank God.

[23:49] Jess McAnally: They made like five of them!

[23:50] Andrew DeWolf: I know! I haven't seen them! As a society, how did we let this happen?

[23:55] Jess McAnally: Look, we're letting a lot of things happen in society right now, and I don't even know why.

[23:59] Andrew DeWolf: You know what? That's a good point. And I've got to think about that over some commercial breaks. How about we go do that and we'll have a good long think about society.

[24:07] Jess McAnally: Terrible.

[24:38] Andrew DeWolf: We just did both Halloweentown and Halloweentown 2 over there. Hopefully we'll do something Thanksgiving or Christmas related soon. And also, just like Layton Ackles, if you are at our $20 level, you get to pick what we talk about. There are some stipulations, but mostly it's kind of hands off and we can do some wacky stuff like Dodgeball, a true underdog story. But not One Piece. We can't do all of One Piece.

[25:01] Jess McAnally: No. No. TV shows are kind of off-limits for a minute.

[25:07] Andrew DeWolf: At least entire TV shows.

[25:08] Jess McAnally: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could do maybe a mini-series.

[25:10] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Like, The Penguin.

[25:12] Jess McAnally: Holy shit, did I love The Penguin.

[25:15] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, my boyfriend did too. He keeps telling me to watch it and I keep not doing that.

[25:19] Jess McAnally: The Penguin was great! I'm too busy watching 9-1-1. Andrew, do you remember that period when we would do Patreon recordings and all I'd want to talk about was the Batman castings? That's how long we've been doing this?

[25:31] Andrew DeWolf: And you're like, I don't give a fuck about Batman, Jess. I'm like, yeah, but Colin Farrell's The Penguin!

[25:36] Jess McAnally: Jess, we recorded a bunch of Patreon stuff where we just talked about Candyman 2021 for three of them.

[25:42] Andrew DeWolf: It was a bad movie.

[25:45] Jess McAnally: Was that good? No, it's not good. I think I described it in the episodes as one of the best-made bad movies I've ever seen. It's really pretty, but it's not a good movie. Nia DaCosta frustrates me.

[25:57] Andrew DeWolf: Dude, Rest in Peace, Tony Todd.

[26:00] Jess McAnally: Yo, Rest in Peace, Tony Todd. I was literally just looking at my phone when that happened and my girlfriend looks over, and she's like, oh, Tony Todd! Oh, he's dead! I was at a horror convention when Tony Todd died, and that's when all the Candyman merch got pushed up to the front of all the vendors' stands. We can't do any more Candyman movies now that he's dead. He is Candyman the same way Robert Englund is Freddy, and you shouldn't do anything that doesn't have them. Except for the next Freddy movie that doesn't have Robert Englund that they're totally making.

[26:25] Andrew DeWolf: I don't want to.

[26:26] Jess McAnally: Well, they already made one without him, and it wasn't very good.

[26:30] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah! They're trying again! I'm not happy about it either! They're gonna fail! Honestly, whatever. Um, our current patrons are Layton Ackles, Eamon Cassidy, Monica Thurow, Brent Black, Nathaniel, Stacey Coombe, John Van Nals, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, Emily Gracie, Jhene Seas, Felice R, Nothing is Certain Except Beth in Texas, Thezbian, Chai Tea Cup, Chris Marcote, Gigi, Marie, Anastasia, RJ Noriega, Sebastian Canino, Cinemageddon Reviews, Job, Bjorn Hermans, Toriana Fraser, Sammy, The Ad Quote of Mount Jacobson, Kaylee Blazier, The Omega Geek, Maddie Wargole, Elisa Erdman, Evan Ball, Rara Marasso, Mara, Possessed Washing Machine, Nick Roten, Puffy Boy, Sydney Hicks, Gold Plated Kiki Mora, Ari Arte, Emma Carabalda, JRL Studios, Alexandra Dom, and Flippity Jigot.

[27:18] Andrew DeWolf: They all give us a little financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musicals with Cheese, helps us get a little more ambitious with what we want to do. I know Andrew wants to cover roller coasters at some point, and that takes money, guys. Let's get back to the show!

[27:30] Jess McAnally: Let's go to our favorite part of the show. It's time for the Previews Letterboxd Game!

[27:47] Jess McAnally: It's time for Previews!

[27:52] Jess McAnally: It's time for Previews! All right, if this is your first episode of The Cheese Wheel, this is where I pull real-life letterboxd reviews, and Liz and Andrew have to go head-to-head and guess whether they're a one-star or five-star based on nothing but the review alone. Are you guys ready?

[28:06] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[28:07] Liz Esten: I'm expecting some weird shit with this one.

[28:09] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. This is a stoner movie, you know?

[28:11] Liz Esten: Yeah, this is definitely a pod movie.

[28:14] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know. I feel like I get too much anxiety whether maybe they'd lose.

[28:18] Liz Esten: I know. I think if you've seen it before, it's a stoner movie because you're like, I know they win.

[28:24] Andrew DeWolf: But what if this—

[28:24] Liz Esten: No, you get so stoned, you think like, what if this time, though?

[28:28] Andrew DeWolf: This time, I watch it, they lose!

[28:29] Liz Esten: They do the perfect amount!

[28:31] Andrew DeWolf: They're obviously gonna win. Yeah, this is a comedy sports movie from the 2000s. I don't know. Rocky lost in the first Rocky.

[28:37] Liz Esten: Spoilers for the first Rocky, a 50-year-old movie.

[28:40] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that was 1976. This is 2004.

[28:43] Liz Esten: Rocky, he kind of really won, though. He won. He got Adrian.

[28:47] Andrew DeWolf: All right, Andrew, you're first.

[28:49] Andrew DeWolf: All right. Yarg, matey!

[28:52] Liz Esten: Five.

[28:52] Andrew DeWolf: For sure, the pirate reviewing his own movie? Come on.

[28:54] Liz Esten: That is a one.

[28:56] Andrew DeWolf: Andrew, Liz.

[28:58] Liz Esten: Yes.

[28:59] Andrew DeWolf: Probably a bad sign. I relate to Ben Stiller's relationship with food. Self-deprecating.

[29:02] Liz Esten: Five.

[29:05] Andrew DeWolf: That is a one.

[29:06] Liz Esten: Damn!

[29:06] Andrew DeWolf: We're zero for zero. Andrew!

[29:08] Andrew DeWolf: We gotta talk about that, too, when we get done.

[29:10] Liz Esten: Yeah, we gotta talk about the food thing, yeah.

[29:12] Andrew DeWolf: We gotta talk about fat shaming in general.

[29:15] Liz Esten: That's great. A nice, pleasant thing to talk about.

[29:34] Andrew DeWolf: Who said there's no bisexual representation in media?

[30:04] Liz Esten: Damn, I'm not good at this.

[30:34] Andrew DeWolf: Lesbian jokes on her.

[30:36] Liz Esten: Can we get in?

[30:38] Andrew DeWolf: They say the D word.

[30:40] Liz Esten: They use bisexuality as a punchline. Look, look.

[30:42] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, Andrew.

[30:44] Jesse McAnally: Yep.

[30:46] Andrew DeWolf: Homophobic jokes. Thumbs down, frowny face.

[30:48] Liz Esten: Vince Vaughn wearing daddy choker.

[30:50] Andrew DeWolf: Thumbs up.

[30:52] Jesse McAnally: Oh, you're- there's something wrong with you.

[30:54] Andrew DeWolf: Fuck, which one's more important? Oh, fuck.

[30:56] Liz Esten: Is having a fucking boner more important or is being offended more important?

[31:00] Jesse McAnally: You're having an offended boner.

[31:02] Andrew DeWolf: Ignoring or horny?

[31:04] Liz Esten: Both. Uh, horny, horny. I'm going 5, 5, 5, 5.

[31:06] Andrew DeWolf: Horny, horny. That was a 1, I'm sorry, Liz.

[31:08] Liz Esten: Aw, damn.

[31:10] Jesse McAnally: Who the fuck puts morals above horniness? Come on, dude.

[31:14] Liz Esten: Apparently there's one Letterboxd user, the only one.

[31:16] Andrew DeWolf: Liz. Yes?

[31:18] Jesse McAnally: This is all in caps, by the way. Okay.

[31:20] Andrew DeWolf: K-D-K-K-S-K-D-L-F-J-S.

[31:24] Liz Esten: What?

[31:26] Andrew DeWolf: All one word.

[31:28] Liz Esten: So it's keyboard smash.

[31:30] Andrew DeWolf: Do you want me to read it again?

[31:32] Liz Esten: No, no, no, I'm just deciphering it.

[31:34] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, so this is a keyboard smash, which means it was probably written by a Gen Z gay person.

[31:38] Jesse McAnally: So it's a 5.

[31:40] Andrew DeWolf: That is correct!

[31:42] Jesse McAnally: And you're on the board, we're tied. Andrew?

[31:44] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, yeah.

[31:46] Liz Esten: Dog bollocks.

[31:48] Andrew DeWolf: Oh god, I'm being triggered for our next episode.

[31:50] Liz Esten: I'm gonna go 1.

[31:52] Andrew DeWolf: That was a 5. Liz!

[31:54] Liz Esten: Motherfucker, dude, what the fuck?

[31:56] Andrew DeWolf: This is really hard, I didn't expect that.

[31:58] Liz Esten: I'm in front of Andrew with this.

[32:00] Jesse McAnally: Oh god.

[32:02] Liz Esten: Hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

[32:04] Andrew DeWolf: Shame.

[32:06] Liz Esten: Wait, what?

[32:08] Jesse McAnally: As a person that writes these, I can't even decipher what people are thinking.

[32:12] Liz Esten: Like, my god, that's really saying something.

[32:14] Jesse McAnally: I write these for a different podcast all the time.

[32:18] Andrew DeWolf: It's gibberish.

[32:20] Liz Esten: Letterboxd is a hellhole.

[32:22] Jesse McAnally: It's goblin logic, as Sideways lovingly put it.

[32:24] Andrew DeWolf: 1.

[32:26] Liz Esten: That is incorrect, I'm sorry.

[32:28] Andrew DeWolf: Damn!

[32:30] Jesse McAnally: Andrew, you can win this right here, because this is the last question.

[32:32] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, yeah.

[32:34] Jesse McAnally: Andrew has very little faith in himself.

[32:36] Liz Esten: So this is a true underdog story.

[32:38] Jesse McAnally: Yes, this is a true-

[32:40] Liz Esten: This is just like the ending of Dodgeball.

[32:42] Jesse McAnally: Hang on, we gotta put the blindfold on.

[32:44] Andrew DeWolf: I don't have a blindfold on.

[32:46] Jesse McAnally: Do you want me to be Lance Armstrong and inspire you?

[32:48] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, yes.

[32:50] Jesse McAnally: Hi, I'm Lance Armstrong. I'm definitely not a cheater. You should go and win, Andrew.

[32:56] Andrew DeWolf: How many balls you got, Lance?

[32:58] Jesse McAnally: Uh, not many.

[33:00] Andrew DeWolf: Um, alright.

[33:02] Jesse McAnally: Andrew.

[33:06] Andrew DeWolf: He's not wrong, dot dot dot. If you can dodge a wrench, comma, you can dodge a ball, dot dot dot dot.

[33:12] Jesse McAnally: Join our Patreon to see the video version of this, because it's legitimately very funny. The tension.

[33:18] Andrew DeWolf: Five.

[33:20] Jesse McAnally: Five stars.

[33:22] Liz Esten: Cliff won the Letterboxd game!

[33:24] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah!

[33:28] Jesse McAnally: And the thing is, Andrew went on Polly Market and bet entirely on himself, so now he is getting five million dollars.

[33:36] Andrew DeWolf: Yay! Dodgeball!

[33:40] Jesse McAnally: I'm not gonna go kiss a random woman, though, just to be clear.

[33:42] Liz Esten: Polly Market on the Letterboxd game.

[33:44] Jesse McAnally: Um, so let's talk about the fat stuff in this movie.

[33:50] Liz Esten: And the food stuff in this movie.

[33:54] Jesse McAnally: Okay, so he's really... Ben Stiller...

[33:58] Liz Esten: We should probably talk about Ben Stiller's character, we never really got into it.

[34:02] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, his name is White Goodman. He runs the opposing gym.

[34:06] Liz Esten: So you have the average Joe's gym, which is the gym that needs to be saved. And then you have Ben Stiller's gym.

[34:10] Jesse McAnally: Globo Gym is Ben Stiller's.

[34:12] Liz Esten: Globo Gym.

[34:16] Jesse McAnally: So Globo Gym. Globo Gym is the worst gym ever because it literally just shames you constantly.

[34:24] Liz Esten: And Ben Stiller's character is a narcissist with an eating disorder.

[34:32] Jesse McAnally: To put it bluntly. He's also mildly gay-coded, I would say.

[34:38] Liz Esten: No, I say he's actually gay-coded, because he's definitely sleeping with that guy he's always hanging out with.

[34:44] Jesse McAnally: Michelle, yeah.

[34:46] Liz Esten: But there's a couple scenes where he's literally jerking off with food.

[34:54] Jesse McAnally: It's like watching porn for him is like eating a donut or eating a pizza.

[35:00] Liz Esten: Smelling a pizza.

[35:02] Jesse McAnally: Smelling a pizza. Rubbing a pizza on his crotch.

[35:06] Liz Esten: You know what? Watching that scene opened up another nostalgic thing of early internet.

[35:14] Jesse McAnally: Do y'all remember who Shane Dawson is?

[35:18] Liz Esten: Yes, I remember who Shane Dawson is.

[35:20] Jesse McAnally: I have a vivid memory of who Shane Dawson is.

[35:22] Liz Esten: Shane Dawson, back when they used to make daily vlog content, had a very interesting relationship with food, meaning he used to be bigger, lost all the weight, and that was his whole personality.

[35:36] Jesse McAnally: But he would show videos of his friends and he would watch them eat and get weirdly sexual satisfied by watching other people eat.

[35:46] Liz Esten: And I was just like, you don't have to tell us everything, I don't need to know these things.

[35:54] Jesse McAnally: Just seeing it in Dodgeball made me think about that as a thing that exists in reality.

[36:00] Liz Esten: Is that why you tweeted about people being interested in us watching Not Cool? And Holidaysburg.

[36:06] Jesse McAnally: Do you know about both of those?

[36:08] Liz Esten: Yes, I know everything about that.

[36:10] Jesse McAnally: Nick DiRamio made a video many years ago that went very viral about it.

[36:14] Liz Esten: I watched it when they aired.

[36:16] Jesse McAnally: I was week by week watching the chair. And I have not seen either film.

[36:20] Liz Esten: As a person that's watched many reviews of Not Cool, don't. Just don't.

[36:26] Jesse McAnally: It's not even bad funny, it's just horrible.

[36:28] Liz Esten: Isn't Shane Dawson like a piece of shit?

[36:30] Jesse McAnally: Oh yeah, he's a massive racist and a piece of shit.

[36:34] Liz Esten: He might have had sex with his cat too.

[36:36] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, he might have cum on his cat.

[36:36] Liz Esten: Yes.

[36:40] Jesse McAnally: Is that better?

[36:42] Liz Esten: He also humped a poster of Willow Smith and called her sexy.

[36:46] Jesse McAnally: She was 13 at the time.

[36:48] Liz Esten: She was 13 at the time.

[36:50] Jesse McAnally: Whip your hair back and forth, Willow Smith.

[36:52] Liz Esten: He was talking to his 13-year-old cousin once or even 10-year-old cousin about her period once in front of his fiancé at the time.

[36:58] Jesse McAnally: Did he film it and upload it onto YouTube?

[37:00] Liz Esten: How else would we know these things, Andrew?

[37:02] Jesse McAnally: It wasn't on YouTube. I don't know what the source was, but he was being exposed for doing blackface in the 2020s.

[37:10] Liz Esten: So we have modern internet people like MrBeast who suck ass, but it's always been like this.

[37:18] Jesse McAnally: There's always some asshole. Colleen Ballinger was that person for a while, and now it's Logan Paul, MrBeast, and KSI as a trio of awful.

[37:28] Liz Esten: Logan Paul has somehow come up with the fucking garbage.

[37:32] Jesse McAnally: Logan Paul has been awful. Logan Paul filmed himself with a dead body and uploaded it to YouTube, and he's still around, kicking. Like, what the fuck?

[37:40] Liz Esten: He's made sports drink that kids drink in bulk.

[37:44] Jesse McAnally: I hope that Mike Tyson kills him on Fortnite.

[37:48] Liz Esten: That's the other Paul brother that's fighting Mike Tyson.

[37:52] Jesse McAnally: That's Jake Paul.

[37:54] Liz Esten: I hope Mike Tyson kills him on Fortnite for an unrelated reason.

[37:58] Jesse McAnally: I hope Mike Tyson goes to town on both of the Paul boys.

[38:02] Liz Esten: I hope after Mike Tyson beats Jake Paul in a fight, says, Logan! And then Logan comes up and kicks the shit out of him.

[38:10] Jesse McAnally: And that's just like, Netflix gets so many more subscriptions.

[38:14] Liz Esten: I would watch that.

[38:16] Jesse McAnally: His special's just called Mike Tyson kills the Paul brothers.

[38:20] Liz Esten: I would give Netflix my money at that point.

[38:24] Jesse McAnally: I don't know. I mean, I would be so happy. I'm so glad this is where the conversation has gone at this point.

[38:32] Liz Esten: Man, I'm struggling with dodgeball, guys.

[38:40] Jesse McAnally: Alright, so we talked about the food stuff. We did.

[38:44] Liz Esten: Is this a successful sports movie?

[38:48] Jesse McAnally: I mean, compared to Angels in the Outfield, probably.

[38:52] Liz Esten: Well, so, I would say yes, it is. Because it does properly portray playing the sport.

[39:04] Jesse McAnally: The sport is the focus of it. And most of the tension involves them actually winning in the sport. So, it's a sports movie.

[39:12] Liz Esten: It's like a true sports movie.

[39:14] Jesse McAnally: And it's not too farcical. The dodgeball, the play, is not farcical, you know?

[39:22] Liz Esten: Everything that happens around the dodgeball is sort of goofy and silly, but when they actually show them playing dodgeball, it's usually kind of grounded-ish.

[39:32] Jesse McAnally: It's sort of real. And I think it's well shot and edited, considering the time period of the dodgeball scene.

[39:40] Liz Esten: They made me want to play dodgeball.

[39:42] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, without the weirdly racial stereotype groups they kept playing. But, you know, it was 2004.

[39:50] Liz Esten: It reminded me of Mike Tyson's punch-out, to be honest.

[39:52] Jesse McAnally: So, in April of 2023, it was announced that 20th Century Studios had re-begun production of a sequel to Dodgeball, with Vince Vaughn set to return and serve as the producer of the new film. Do we want this?

[40:08] Liz Esten: It depends what the premise is.

[40:10] Jesse McAnally: He's old and washed out. He spent the five million dollars.

[40:14] Liz Esten: Is he rip-torn now?

[40:16] Jesse McAnally: He's rip-torn! He's in a wheelchair.

[40:20] Liz Esten: He's on a wheelchair, and he's just being a cranky old man. He's got the scarf on, and now he's telling people, If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

[40:28] Jesse McAnally: It's just the same movie, shot for shot.

[40:30] Liz Esten: But this is also, like, 2020 Vince Vaughn, where we've seen him be good at acting. Now, at least in Freaky, he was good at acting. So maybe it'll be better, if they make it.

[40:40] Jesse McAnally: I don't know. He might go back to playing the character he played in Dodgeball, which is a really boring guy.

[40:46] Liz Esten: Not a character.

[40:48] Jesse McAnally: I don't know. I'm just bored.

[40:50] Liz Esten: I... Vince Vaughn is with us!

[40:54] Jesse McAnally: Every scene, you could just describe him as, I don't know, I'm just bored.

[40:58] Liz Esten: I feel like the director was just like, Vince, what is your thoughts going into this scene?

[41:02] Jesse McAnally: I don't know. Okay, let's go!

[41:04] Liz Esten: Yeah, I guess throw the ball.

[41:08] Jesse McAnally: So, Vince, you're gonna be hit with a wrench. What's your reaction?

[41:12] Liz Esten: I'm gonna flinch a little bit.

[41:14] Jesse McAnally: You know.

[41:16] Liz Esten: Okay, Vince, you're about to witness your love interest kiss another woman. What's your reaction?

[41:22] Jesse McAnally: Look at my face.

[41:24] Liz Esten: You ain't kidding.

[41:26] Jesse McAnally: Oh, Vince, I can't wait for you to be in True Detective Season 2. I'm gonna get an Emmy nomination, I'm sure of it.

[41:34] Liz Esten: You're probably not, but okay.

[41:36] Jesse McAnally: Guys, we have to do this.

[41:38] Liz Esten: Okay, Vince Vaughn, get the fuck out of the studio!

[41:40] Jesse McAnally: Okay, bye.

[41:42] Liz Esten: Who is the best character?

[41:44] Jesse McAnally: No, no, no. Of the dodgeball team.

[41:48] Liz Esten: Oh, the actual team itself?

[41:50] Jesse McAnally: The best dodgeball player. Not at playing dodgeball. Who do you like the best?

[41:54] Liz Esten: Oh, not the technical player? Because the best technical player is pretty clear.

[41:58] Jesse McAnally: See, my favorite character is Missy Pyle, who's on the bad guy team.

[42:02] Liz Esten: Okay, that's the part of the movie that I actually like. Missy Pyle is in this movie as a very stereotypically ugly Eastern European woman, which is the most 2000 thing you can.

[42:12] Jesse McAnally: Her name in the movie is like Franz Stalinasva, I can't even pronounce this. There's so many fucking syllables in it.

[42:18] Liz Esten: It's funny because Russia.

[42:20] Jesse McAnally: It's funny because she's Russian. She's a fake Russian because they made up a country.

[42:26] Liz Esten: But I like how her main character trait is the one guy finds her incredibly hot.

[42:30] Jesse McAnally: I mean.

[42:32] Liz Esten: I like that. I actually think that that was a good... That was very sweet, actually.

[42:38] Jesse McAnally: I thought they were going to make fun of this ugly woman. The sad thing is I think the joke is supposed to be that haha, he finds the ugly woman attractive.

[42:48] Liz Esten: I read the joke as... It's okay. It's alright.

[42:52] Jesse McAnally: Considering the lack of... Considering the mass amount of sexism in this movie that peers out, I'll take any little moment I can get from this. Not to say I dislike this movie. I find it somewhat enjoyable from a nostalgic perspective.

[43:06] Liz Esten: I will say I was very tempted to turn it off and walk away for a minute when we have the opening scene with Justin Long and he's smushed by Big Lady.

[43:18] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that was not good. I forgot about that scene.

[43:20] Liz Esten: I see. As soon as it's over, I forget about it too.

[43:24] Jesse McAnally: So it doesn't bother me.

[43:26] Liz Esten: But that scene really was like... Because the quote-unquote Big Lady like...

[43:32] Jesse McAnally: She was pretty! I thought she was cute!

[43:34] Liz Esten: Yeah, I liked her hair. I liked her hair a lot.

[43:36] Jesse McAnally: Her hair was still long, but it had pigtails in it. It looked good on her.

[43:40] Liz Esten: But if we're pulling out a Hear Me Out cake...

[43:40] Jesse McAnally: Hear Me Out.

[43:44] Liz Esten: Franz Stalin Istvich would definitely be my Hear Me Out cake.

[43:52] Jesse McAnally: Like, right next to Sandra Fisherman.

[43:56] Liz Esten: Who's Sandra... Oh, from Bartman Story.

[43:56] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[44:02] Liz Esten: I think I just like Missy Pyle. I think it's really like pale women.

[44:06] Jesse McAnally: I might.

[44:08] Liz Esten: You know what I liked is The Pirate.

[44:10] Jesse McAnally: I love The Pirate!

[44:12] Liz Esten: I love The Pirate. Every time he was on screen, I'm like, this is actually a really good movie. I really like this movie.

[44:18] Jesse McAnally: When he disappeared at the end,

[44:21] Andrew DeWolf: When is he coming back? Where's the pirate? I love the pirate.

[44:51] Liz Esten: I love Alan Tudyk, and he was such a great character actor, but now he's just in every Disney movie.

[44:56] Andrew DeWolf: Like, he was the goat in Wish, and he is, like, in every one. Like, he's the chicken in Moana.

[45:03] Liz Esten: And I just want him to be, like, weird guy in comedy movie again.

[45:06] Andrew DeWolf: But I guess we should bring up... What? Maybe he comes back as a pirate.

[45:10] Liz Esten: He was a weird guy on TV very recently, if you care to watch television.

[45:15] Andrew DeWolf: I... no. Refused. Absolutely not.

[45:18] Liz Esten: Resident Aliens, starring Alan Tudyk, playing a weird guy.

[45:23] Andrew DeWolf: Refused. Get out of there. Unless it's got Batman in it. I ain't watching.

[45:30] Liz Esten: Was he in, like, Shaun of the Dead or something? What do I know him from?

[45:33] Andrew DeWolf: He's in a lot of stuff. Yeah. Shit we've covered on our other podcast.

[45:39] Liz Esten: He's in Encanto. He's in Wish. He's in Frozen and Frozen 2.

[45:42] Andrew DeWolf: But he plays, like, animal... he does animal noises in that, so that's... I don't think it's dangerous referring to him as a person on screen. I think that's what he means.

[45:50] Liz Esten: He was in Dodgeball, a true underdog story.

[45:53] Andrew DeWolf: He was in Firefly as that guy. He's the pilot guy in Firefly. I've seen that.

[45:59] Liz Esten: He was King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph.

[46:01] Andrew DeWolf: I do love the pirate, though. I really feel like he deserved better.

[46:05] Liz Esten: They didn't really give him, like, a plot line. They just kind of...

[46:08] Andrew DeWolf: Near the end, he gets disillusioned with being a pirate, but it gets reversed immediately after he comes back.

[46:14] Liz Esten: And I feel like it was just a way to get him off the team for the ending, which is sad. I wanted him to be there.

[46:20] Andrew DeWolf: It's just so you can do that disqualification joke.

[46:22] Liz Esten: I do want to ask the question that we asked in Barb and Star. Do comedy movies even exist anymore?

[46:29] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, Barb and Star, that was a 2020 release. Thus, that didn't really exist at the time.

[46:35] Liz Esten: This is a 2004 release, where there's, like, 10 of these that came out this year alone.

[46:41] Andrew DeWolf: So this type of comedy does not exist anymore.

[46:46] Liz Esten: Because they couldn't make it.

[46:48] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think the genre comedy is necessarily dead. It's just not very common.

[46:55] Liz Esten: And this type of comedy is...

[46:59] Andrew DeWolf: This is, like, the blockbuster comedy. Because I feel like back then, the big movies of the day were comedies.

[47:06] Liz Esten: You know, like, there were so many, like, big comedy movies.

[47:10] Andrew DeWolf: Will Ferrell's career was entirely based on this.

[47:14] Liz Esten: People went and saw Land of the Lost for some reason, just because Will Ferrell was screaming in the trailers.

[47:21] Andrew DeWolf: I remember comedies being fucking huge.

[47:26] Liz Esten: And I think, Jess, you mentioned that you think superhero movies have replaced it, because superhero movies now have the little comedic bits and things in them.

[47:34] Andrew DeWolf: Like, Deadpool 3 is technically one of the most well-received comedies of recent years.

[47:41] Liz Esten: And it bums me the fuck out.

[47:45] Andrew DeWolf: Barbie is also, like, probably one of the last really good comedy movies that is a comedy first.

[47:51] Liz Esten: Everything else either goes to streaming. Like, a proper comedy that I really like that went straight to Hulu is Quiz Lady.

[47:58] Andrew DeWolf: It's, like, not perfect, but I feel like that would have been fucking huge, like, 10 years ago.

[48:03] Liz Esten: I also think this type of comedy is dead and should stay dead, because this is, like, the bro comedy, you know?

[48:14] Andrew DeWolf: This type of comedy is so full of, like, sexism and, like, kind of racism.

[48:21] Liz Esten: Yeah, right, there's racism.

[48:23] Andrew DeWolf: Like, and homophobia. That is, like, a defining quality of this type of comedy.

[48:30] Liz Esten: If you like these movies, that's totally fine. And I get why you do. But I think that there's a reason we're not seeing as many of them anymore.

[48:40] Andrew DeWolf: Though...

[48:41] Liz Esten: It sounds like what you're saying, Andrew, I'm sorry to interrupt, is the woke hive mind has cancelled comedy and made it impossible to laugh anymore.

[48:52] Andrew DeWolf: Well, what I was gonna just say as well is we might see a resurgence of this type of comedy with the country being rolled back to the 1870s.

[49:02] Liz Esten: Yeah.

[49:03] Andrew DeWolf: Well, also, to go back to the actual discussion, this argument I only saw for, like, teen shows, so it might not fully apply here, but there is an era where teen television was very much, like, grassroots high schoolers living their lives.

[49:18] Liz Esten: Like, basic, like, kind of stuff like this, like, comedies about people doing stuff.

[49:21] Andrew DeWolf: And then eventually it became 2010s. They had to be a vampire. They had to be a werewolf. They had to be a witch. They had to be a something there, or it wouldn't get picked up.

[49:31] Liz Esten: That's why Degrassi doesn't exist anymore, because Degrassi was just about teenagers living their lives.

[49:36] Andrew DeWolf: No werewolves, no weird shit, just, like, actual teen problems.

[49:40] Liz Esten: So comedy nowadays just has to get more absurd to get picked up into anything.

[49:44] Andrew DeWolf: And most times it just goes on streaming.

[49:46] Liz Esten: So comedy's just in a weird spot right now.

[49:50] Andrew DeWolf: And, folks, and then, or, like, it merges with another genre. Like, the fucking A Simple Favor with Anna Kendrick, or Ghostbusters, or, I have thoughts about it, but that is worth an episode alone, so I don't want to dive into it.

[50:11] Liz Esten: I would argue that this is potentially a hybrid movie, with it being a sports movie.

[50:16] Andrew DeWolf: But sports comedies are kind of a, that was kind of a big thing, because you had, like, this, you had-

[50:22] Liz Esten: The Ringer.

[50:22] Andrew DeWolf: You mentioned, yeah, The Ringer.

[50:24] Liz Esten: Isn't that how you get to dig a night?

[50:26] Andrew DeWolf: You had cool runnings in the late 90s, about the Jimmy Kimbob sled team. You know, this basketball, very important.

[50:30] Liz Esten: The Water Boy.

[50:33] Andrew DeWolf: Jawana Man.

[50:34] Liz Esten: The Water Boy.

[50:35] Andrew DeWolf: Jawana Man.

[50:36] Liz Esten: Don't forget Jawana Man.

[50:37] Andrew DeWolf: The Sandlot.

[50:39] Liz Esten: The Sandlot's in a different, that's like-

[50:41] Andrew DeWolf: Bad News Bears.

[50:42] Liz Esten: Yeah, yeah, I guess you gotta wrap it.

[50:45] Andrew DeWolf: Ice Princess, which I watched a lot as a teenager.

[50:48] Liz Esten: Speed Racer.

[50:49] Andrew DeWolf: Angels in the Infield.

[50:51] Liz Esten: Blades of Glory.

[50:52] Andrew DeWolf: A League of Their Own.

[50:54] Liz Esten: Okay, this podcast is-

[50:54] Andrew DeWolf: Let's just keep making sports movies.

[50:56] Liz Esten: The Longest Yard, but specifically the Adam Sandler one.

[51:07] Andrew DeWolf: Thank you guys for listening. Why don't we tell everyone our cheese ratings, our overall thoughts, and wrap this baby up.

[51:13] Liz Esten: Sounds good.

[51:14] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, yeah, I mean, honestly, like, we had some things to say about how it hasn't aged very well, and particularly Vince Vaughn's character is very lacking.

[51:27] Liz Esten: Though, I will say, there's some decent gags in here, and I can get why you would want to, why you would like this, and it's kind of one of those movies where I could see, like, you had a long day, you want to shut your brain off and just kind of chill, and I could see this working totally fine for that purpose, you know what I'm saying?

[51:48] Andrew DeWolf: It's definitely a comedy movie that has not aged very well, though, but there's like a hundred of those, so I can't tell you to not watch anything, you know, come on.

[52:02] Liz Esten: And even Leighton themselves left a comment saying they never said it was a well-aged movie.

[52:08] Andrew DeWolf: Thank you, Leighton.

[52:09] Liz Esten: And, like, there's enough jokes in here that, like, land-

[52:11] Andrew DeWolf: Like, I laughed a couple times.

[52:12] Liz Esten: It's not like I was, like, deadpan the whole fucking movie.

[52:15] Andrew DeWolf: Like, I wasn't.

[52:16] Liz Esten: I was deadpan the whole fucking movie.

[52:18] Andrew DeWolf: I'm sorry.

[52:18] Liz Esten: Jess, you're deadpan-

[52:19] Andrew DeWolf: Jess, you're deadpan at every comedy, ever.

[52:22] Liz Esten: Yeah, you only like Barb and Star, that's the only thing you ever laughed at.

[52:25] Andrew DeWolf: That's not-

[52:28] Liz Esten: Fine, whatever.

[52:31] Andrew DeWolf: I'm gonna give it Armstrong Cheese, which looks like a cheese blend, but I feel like Lance Armstrong just plays such a strong role, centralizing role in this movie, that he deserves a shout-out.

[52:44] Liz Esten: Also, David Hasselhoff in this movie. Pretty funny.

[52:47] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[52:47] Liz Esten: Almost as good as Spongebob.

[52:49] Andrew DeWolf: Liz, you're up next.

[52:51] Liz Esten: I- I'm bringing this perspective from both these guys, because I watched this when I was younger, so I have a nostalgic air to all my thoughts.

[53:02] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, Jess, don't give me that.

[53:03] Liz Esten: I'm just giving context, fuck off.

[53:06] Andrew DeWolf: Don't give me that.

[53:07] Liz Esten: Don't give me that shit.

[53:09] Andrew DeWolf: All right, so I grew up on this, my brother watched it quite a bit, and I enjoy it a lot.

[53:17] Liz Esten: Sure, it hasn't aged super great, but most movies I grew up with haven't aged well. That's just kind of how life kind of works.

[53:24] Andrew DeWolf: Your favorite movie when you're a kid isn't gonna perfectly age in the 2020s all the time.

[53:29] Liz Esten: That's just kind of how it goes.

[53:31] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know, Nightmare Before Christmas is still in the zeitgeist, because it's the live, laugh, love of Halloween.

[53:37] Liz Esten: Yeah, oh, yes, but that's a special-

[53:39] Andrew DeWolf: You're listing special cases, you're not-

[53:42] Liz Esten: Just help, this argument is that not all movies age well that you find enjoyable as an adult you grew up with.

[53:48] Andrew DeWolf: You're right, you're right.

[53:49] Liz Esten: So, I love Talladega Nights. I acknowledge it has not aged well at all, and it's kind of sexist, but I enjoy it despite that.

[53:57] Andrew DeWolf: And I like this movie a lot.

[53:59] Liz Esten: I genuinely laugh at it. I can quote the instructional video at times.

[54:03] Andrew DeWolf: Like, legitimately, I watched the clip a lot when I was younger.

[54:06] Liz Esten: What about the racist Asian part?

[54:08] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, stop fucking with my vibe.

[54:09] Liz Esten: Can I just do this?

[54:12] Andrew DeWolf: I'm sorry.

[54:13] Liz Esten: Stop undercutting me!

[54:14] Andrew DeWolf: She's totally right, though.

[54:16] Liz Esten: Jess, you're being a dick.

[54:18] Andrew DeWolf: Jess is being a dick.

[54:19] Liz Esten: Jess is kind of being a dick here.

[54:22] Andrew DeWolf: Like, I acknowledge the weird Asian stereotype. The Black stereotype is also very bad. There's a lot of bad stuff here.

[54:29] Liz Esten: It's kind of sexist, it's kind of homophobic, but it was a different time, and we have to acknowledge cultural context on a lot of these movies.

[54:39] Andrew DeWolf: Like, nothing was perfect in 2004.

[54:42] Liz Esten: We didn't have the same mindset we had in 2004 we have now.

[54:45] Andrew DeWolf: Everything's great now.

[54:47] Liz Esten: Everything is worse now.

[54:49] Andrew DeWolf: But, you know, we were thinking differently.

[54:52] Liz Esten: So I enjoy this movie quite a bit, and I would recommend it if you're looking for just a dumb laugh.

[54:58] Andrew DeWolf: Just don't think about it too hard.

[55:00] Liz Esten: It's not great for many aspects of it, but it does make me laugh.

[55:04] Andrew DeWolf: So I just saw Lane's comment, too.

[55:09] Liz Esten: Layton said they're with Liz, but also said that me and Liz are both sides of his brain.

[55:14] Andrew DeWolf: Inside you, there are two wolves.

[55:15] Liz Esten: Inside there are two halves.

[55:18] Andrew DeWolf: The Jess and the Liz half.

[55:22] Liz Esten: I like Dodgeball. It's a fun, dumb comedy. Just don't think about it too hard.

[55:26] Andrew DeWolf: I would check it out, especially... Watch it again if you grew up on it. You might have some feelings of nostalgia.

[55:32] Liz Esten: I'm going to give it a cheesehead, which is the name of a sports fan in Wisconsin.

[55:37] Andrew DeWolf: Fair enough.

[55:40] Liz Esten: The movie is what it is, for better and for worse.

[55:45] Andrew DeWolf: We kind of know Jess's taste.

[55:46] Liz Esten: Jess is a pretentious asshole.

[55:48] Andrew DeWolf: Jess is a poopy butt.

[55:49] Liz Esten: See, you cut me off, I can cut you off.

[55:51] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, but the thing is, you're agreeing with me, so it's great.

[55:56] Liz Esten: I'm a pretentious asshole. I tend to have really assholey tastes, so it just wasn't for me.

[56:06] Andrew DeWolf: It wouldn't have been for me in 2004 when I was nine years old, mostly because it just didn't give me that many laughs.

[56:13] Liz Esten: There are films that have aged badly that I can still think about and laugh.

[56:18] Andrew DeWolf: This just wasn't it for me, and I'm sorry to be that guy.

[56:22] Liz Esten: I'm sure if I saw this 50 times on Comedy Central in small...

[56:27] Andrew DeWolf: There are TikTok-sized moments in this movie that are great.

[56:31] Liz Esten: Yeah, the training montage is really fun.

[56:33] Andrew DeWolf: But in building towards a 90-minute piece, it's all right.

[56:39] Liz Esten: It's okay. I'm giving this beer cheese dip.

[56:43] Andrew DeWolf: Thank you guys for listening. Please follow us on all the socials.

[56:46] Liz Esten: We got a Threads. We got a Blue Sky. We got an X for the moment.

[56:51] Andrew DeWolf: We got an Instagram. Go follow us there on Cheese Wheel Podcast or Cheese Wheel Cast.

[56:55] Liz Esten: We got a Blue Sky now, too.

[56:57] Andrew DeWolf: We do, and we're doing good over there. We're getting a lot of people following us over there.

[57:01] Liz Esten: Even Liz has a Blue Sky.

[57:02] Andrew DeWolf: I just got a Blue Sky today.

[57:03] Liz Esten: Liz Esten on Blue Sky.

[57:06] Andrew DeWolf: I think everybody's heading over there, honestly.

[57:07] Liz Esten: Yeah, it's getting really toxic on Twitter. I've seen a lot of people.

[57:10] Andrew DeWolf: Although they are hiding posts that are pro-Gaza, which is not great.

[57:17] Liz Esten: Yeah, follow us over there. Please join us on Patreon.

[57:19] Andrew DeWolf: If you can't financially afford it, I get it. The world's ending.

[57:23] Liz Esten: If you can't do that, just leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or leave us a comment on Spotify.

[57:28] Andrew DeWolf: A lot of people are doing that. Now that Spotify has given that option, a lot of folks are interacting with us, and it's great.

[57:34] Liz Esten: I got a really nice comment on Barb and Star.

[57:37] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that was a really nice thing. I wish I had it up.

[57:40] Liz Esten: Oh, I'll get it. But thank you guys for continuing to follow us down this cheese wheel journey.

[57:46] Andrew DeWolf: And I think it's time for us to spin the cheese wheel.

[57:50] Liz Esten: Here it is. Let's go.

[57:52] Andrew DeWolf: What are we going to get? What are we getting?

[57:54] Liz Esten: No time. Spinning it.

[57:56] Andrew DeWolf: Oh my god, it's so shiny. Look at it go, Andrew.

[58:00] Liz Esten: And oh my gosh, it's special. It's got a special one.

[58:03] Andrew DeWolf: Make a special noise, Andrew.

[58:06] Liz Esten: Special noise?

[58:07] Andrew DeWolf: That's so me.

[58:10] Liz Esten: Next week, it is not chosen by any of us, but we have a special guest joining.

[58:16] Andrew DeWolf: We are talking about that classic 2013 animated film.

[58:22] Liz Esten: 2002.

[58:22] Andrew DeWolf: 2002, technically, but yeah.

[58:24] Liz Esten: It didn't come out until 2013.

[58:27] Andrew DeWolf: 2013.

[58:29] Liz Esten: 2013.

[58:30] Andrew DeWolf: 2013.

[58:32] Liz Esten: I became Irish. I embraced my Irish roots.

[58:36] Andrew DeWolf: 2013.

[58:38] Liz Esten: Food Fight starring Charlie Sheen, Hilary Duff, and Eva Ungoria.

[58:43] Andrew DeWolf: And we are joined by our good friend from the Musicals with Cheese podcast and a lot of other things, Brent Black, aka Brentalfloss.

[58:52] Liz Esten: Mr. Clean himself. We'll see you over there next week.

[58:55] Andrew DeWolf: We'll see you next time on the Cheese Wheel podcast.