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[0:00] Jesse McAnally: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally. And I'm Andrew DeWolfe. And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew to like musical theater. And today we have an extra special guest. One of the most special guests we've ever had. I'd say like Frank, that's a spoiler, but Frank is a truly good friend of mine, a talented person. He's getting out there. So join me in welcoming Twitch streamer at Frank Broadcast, and podcaster at Frank Podcast, currently doing Raccoon Shitty, a retrospective of all the Resident Evil films building up to Zack Krager's most recent one. And of course, Farley Flavors himself, Frank Zekin.

[0:56] Frank Zekin: Yes, hello, everybody. Yeah, I'm going to see it tonight. We've been working on it since April. We've been doing all the live action movies and the animated ones. And yeah, it's finally coming to an end.

[1:09] Andrew DeWolfe: Yeah. Are they good? Like those live action ones? They look really bad.

[1:15] Frank Zekin: There's like one and a half that are good out of 15.

[1:15] Andrew DeWolfe: So is it like the first one and the second, like the first half of the second one, or is it like some random number happened to be good?

[1:27] Frank Zekin: I like two. I think the first one kind of stinks.

[1:27] Andrew DeWolfe: Okay, but so two is the good one?

[1:27] Frank Zekin: Two is the fun one. I don't know if I'd call it good. Really. It's like the kind of movie that you would see on cable and you would just leave it on while you do your chores. That's about the highest this franchise has gotten. But maybe not anymore. Maybe tonight I'll find out that Zack Greger just raised the ceiling for what this franchise can put out.

[1:53] Jesse McAnally: I will say it's been getting good reviews. So, oh, can I? Frank, you're the only one that'll get this. I was just invited to a press screening of Digger, and I'm so upset that I can't go.

[2:07] Frank Zekin: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's like, that's really and I think it might be a musical. I won't know if it's going to be a musical. He also told me that too. And I feel like that makes it way more interesting because the marketing for Digger has just been weird, really weird. They started with that trailer that's just a montage of Tom Cruise and other movies. And every time I've seen that trailer at the beginning of a movie in the theater, there's always at least one couple that turns to each other and are like, what the fuck was that? It doesn't actually tell you anything. So I don't think Warner Brothers knows how to market it.

[2:37] Andrew DeWolfe: That makes sense. Warner Brothers seems to be bad at a lot of things.

[2:45] Frank Zekin: Well, you say that, but then last year, Warner Brothers was good at a lot of things.

[2:45] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that's actually what my show did. We did a season before Raccoon Shitty called the DCPU, you know, like PU, you stink, right? Ooh, it smells. About the DCEU. And, you know, it's about, obviously, Man of Steel through everything before James Gunn hit the reset button. But it's also the story of how Warner Brothers is just a complete shit show and how, you know, it's being bought by company after company. And there's all this executive meddling and severance type stuff going on behind the scenes. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't really know what to do with Digger.

[3:25] Jesse McAnally: Speaking of not knowing what to do with a movie. Oh, boy. This has been a long requested episode. This is an episode that I know so many people have been like, well, if you're bringing musicals and cheese back, are you going to talk about Shock Treatment finally? I'm like, yeah, we're doing it, guys. Here we are. In case you haven't picked up what we're throwing down this week, we are talking about Richard O'Brien's sequel, question mark, to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment.

[4:10] Jesse McAnally: This is the Mecca of America, the Bethlehem of the West. This is the birthplace of the virtuous, the home of happiness. Leisure wise, we're sure you will adapt. So Shock Treatment is a film directed by Jim Sharman and written by Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien with music and lyrics by Richard Hartley and Richard O'Brien. It is described as a non-canon parallel film to the Rocky Horror Picture Show following the characters of Brad and Janet Majors and the town of Denton, controlled by a television network. It premiered October 30th, 1981 in a limited release. So it never received like a proper film release. They were trying to give it the Rocky Horror Treatment at midnight movies as a release.

And then what you get that way is no one knows it came out due to its increase. They forgot the Rocky Horror Treatment was to first release it and have it flop and then do the midnight thing. Well, they kind of did that, but much longer. Due to its increased budget and limited release, Shock Treatment was an even bigger financial flop than Rocky Horror's original general release in 1975. It was a critical and commercial failure upon release, never earned the cult status of its predecessor. However, a lot of more recent reviews have enjoyed the satirical themes and the prescient satire of reality television. And it's gotten a little more attention. In 2015, there was even a stage production in the UK.

There is interesting stuff happening. The plot of Shock Treatment is Brad and Janet Majors find their strained marriage put to the test on a popular Denton TV show, Marriage Maze. Poor Brad is heavily sedated and institutionalized while Janet is given a radical makeover and primed for stardom. But what are the real motivations behind the kooky DTV crew and their enigmatic head honcho Farley Flavors? So before we dive into me and Andrew's opinions, Frank, what is your history with the Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as what did you have coming into Shock Treatment?

[6:39] Frank Zekin: Oh, wow. Okay. So I know three things about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The first one is that it's one of my mom's favorite movies. I know that Tim Curry is in it, and I know what his character looks like. I don't even know the guy's name. And I know about the Time Warp song because going back to my mom, that's always what she would use for her morning alarm, and it would drive me nuts.

[7:01] Jesse McAnally: Oh, that's so cute. I don't think I've met your mom. Now I really want to. I want to bond over Rocky Horror with her.

[7:07] Frank Zekin: Yeah, she really loved that movie. I remember seeing the VHS tape as a kid, and it was kind of freaky because it was just like a pair of lips in a black void. And it's like, I don't really know if I should be popping this into the VCR. I don't know if I'm old enough to watch this.

[7:21] Andrew DeWolfe: I mean, I had a similar experience with it because my dad, I used to do theater as a kid. Shocker, shocker. And my parents thought I was an overactor. So my dad to try to show me what true acting was, showed me like the first 30 minutes of the movie. And he's like, look at them. They're like, they're like performing and all that. And then Frankenfurter came on screen and my mom's like, what the fuck are you showing our kid? Turn this off.

[7:48] Frank Zekin: Yeah. And as far as this movie goes, I didn't even know it existed until Jesse had texted me. And I was, you know, I was willing to do the homework, like, okay, I'll watch Rocky Horror. Like I looked up and said, oh, it's a sequel. And Jesse's like, do not watch it. I want to get the opinion of somebody who's never seen it. So, okay.

[8:02] Jesse McAnally: See, Andrew and I are too close to Rocky Horror. It was like one of the first things we did. Andrew was cyber bullied by Meatloaf himself. It's just, we can't be objective about that.

[8:13] Frank Zekin: Yeah. I think I do remember hearing about the cyber bullying from Meatloaf. I'm like an honorary cast member of that movie, sadly.

[8:25] Andrew DeWolfe: Now, Andrew, you are not in love with the original Rocky Horror film or the show or anything like that. What was your thoughts on Shock Treatment?

[8:33] Andrew DeWolfe: Um, okay. Yeah. So I feel like I feel about the same. Actually. So I watched this twice. Really? I watched it. Yeah. I watched it twice because I wanted to really get a feel for it. Um, I kind of feel like I feel almost the same about this as I do about Rocky Horror in that there's like some decent songs, there's some fun, like satirical stuff, and then it just doesn't work. Like there's like, I feel like Rocky Horror, it's like you, you start the movie and it's like good. And then it just gets to that second half and it's so long and it just keeps dragging on and it's like, I'm done. I've been done. I've been done since Time Warp, you know? Whereas like this one, it kind of feels the same in a way. Like, I don't know. Every song feels the same in that it's all like the same, like rock style. Like, I don't know. There's interesting ideas. There's a lot of interesting ideas that I don't think any of them like pan out the way I wanted them to.

[9:29] Frank Zekin: Fair enough. And Frank, I didn't really get your thoughts on what you, whether or not you like Shock Treatment. And I mean this not in a derogatory way, although I don't think the movie's very good, but I mean this in the most literal sense. It is a nightmare. This whole movie is a nightmare. I kept thinking, especially towards the end, when are we going to see the sky? Like there's no sky. Everything is indoors. It's completely disorientating. It's just truly like a nightmare I would have. And I do agree with Andrew. Like there are some good ideas and it seems like when you read about what people like about the movie online, they're always like, oh, it was ahead of its time. It had some really good ideas.

And it's like, okay, I guess. I feel like they weren't executed on in the best possible way though. And I think if you watch it and you think about it a little bit, you can feel a lot of moments where they're like trying to be camp on purpose to like create a cult version, like a cult movie, like they did with, like they're trying to recreate it. Like they're trying to do like The Room 2 and it's like, you can't do The Room 2.

[10:35] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that's what I was thinking when Jesse mentioned that they were releasing this at midnight screenings on purpose. And it's like, you can't force us so bad it's good movie. Like I guess the reason why Rocky Horror blew up is because it bombed and then it gained a reputation. You can't manufacture that, you know?

[10:58] Frank Zekin: Mm-hmm. So this originally started as a more traditional sequel to Rocky Horror. Richard O'Brien wrote it, entitled it The Revenge of the Old Queen, where Janet was impregnated with Frank-N-Furter's child. And so they resurrect Frank-N-Furter, Bride of Frankenstein styled. He is the monster in that one. But basically Tim Curry's like, I'm good. I'm good on that. I want to do it.

[11:27] Jesse McAnally: So Shock Treatment was born of two scrap productions, one completely unrelated, related to Rocky Horror and just put the Rocky stuff into it. Now, the original script that they were, so unlike Rocky Horror, this did not start as a stage musical. So you don't have like that development and audience, all that. So this was just kind of wholesale made to be a movie. And it was designed to be shot on location in America, in Texas, where you might see the sky. But honestly, on that though, I think I'm glad you don't see the sky.

[12:00] Frank Zekin: So come back to that.

[12:01] Jesse McAnally: I just feel like the movie is so hard to follow. Like I felt like the entire time it was slipping through my fingers. You know what I mean? Like I was trying to understand what was happening and I just had nothing to ground myself with. And I guess, you know, that might be the point, but it made it very difficult to follow. I didn't watch it a second time like Andrew, but I did kind of skip around the version I watched, which is just on YouTube, at least for now, after the first time I saw it, because I'm like, okay, I need to try and go through it again and understand some of this a little bit better.

[12:35] Frank Zekin: Understandable. But basically the reason why they couldn't shoot in Texas is because there was a once in a generation writer's actor strike, which meant that nothing was being shot. So they kind of had to pivot or really quickly to make it work shooting in the UK with everyone's schedules with basically. So they had to rewrite this entire script and it's sloppy. Like the scenes in Janet's quote unquote house.

[13:01] Andrew DeWolf: That were like, why are we here in this kind of space with her parents? Like, you feel the kind of strain of this. It kind of works, though, because it sells this weird idea that the entire town doesn't exist. Denton is a television studio, the whole thing, including her house, including where they all live, the hospital, all of it is just a TV set. It's so bizarre and it kind of works. It's like it's camp in a way. I don't know. It kind of works.

[13:36] Frank Zekin: He thinks it would have worked better as a theater, like a production in a theater, like the actual Broadway stage. If you don't mind, Frank and Andrew, I'd like you guys to try to kind of tell me what the plot of this movie is.

[13:51] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, I don't know. Andrew, do you want to take it away here?

[13:55] Frank Zekin: I could take some of it. Sure. Yeah. You can pass the baton when you switch off.

[13:59] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, we could pass. Let's see. Okay. So as far as like sequel to Rocky Horror stuff goes, I mean, you don't have a lot here. It's basically just Janet and Brad who and that's it.

[14:12] Frank Zekin: Well, it's interesting because as far as characters go, yes, but they're not played by the same actors as the previous. But as far as actors from the previous, you have them, but playing different characters. Except one, there's one guy playing the same. And I think it's Ralph. It's a nothing character who he's at the beginning of the Rocky. I don't even remember him in Rocky. He's the one that gets married at the very beginning. Him and Betty Monroe. Yeah. So he comes back and he's playing the same character, I guess, technically. I mean, I think he didn't really have a character in the first one as much, whereas this one, they kind of give him one, but he doesn't do much here either.

[14:47] Andrew DeWolf: Either way, unwind this winding path, sir. Okay. So it's just like, I guess Brad and Janet went back to Denton, but you don't really see Denton at all because it opens in a TV studio and the TV studio, I guess, is Denton. It's fucking weird, but they're running like a television show and they're like also happy explaining how great Denton is, even though Denton is literally like a TV studio. And then they start running this like game show, like marriage maze. And Brad and Janet are invited up because there's some weird fucking plot thing where the guy who is buying the TV studio that is Denton or who already runs it, it's unclear. To me, it's unclear whether he's buying it or if he already owns it. He's working with the host of the show, all the shows, basically. There's just this guy, what's his name? Farley Flavors.

[15:38] Frank Zekin: Farley Flavors. Yeah. No, no, no. That's the, that's the guy who's buying it. Who's the host? Oh, Barry Humphries actor. Fuck. The guy in the orange blazer. It's like, yeah, I don't. Yes. Yeah. It's like Burt. It's like Beck or I think it's something like that. There's something like that. He's like an important guy. He's an important character. I have no fucking clue. He's played by the shark from Finding Nemo.

[16:02] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, wow. Okay. He's, uh, Burt Schnick. He is working with Farley Flavors, who is, I guess the guy's name, but also it's like the company, it's like a fast food company. That's like, it owns the studio. It has an F swastika that is, uh, Frank's podcast. Look over Frank broadcast. After I watched the movie, I texted Jesse. I would advise against.

[16:22] Frank Zekin: Yeah. I picture from a sunny when Danny DeVito makes his own flag with the four F's. It's basically the same joke. They took it from this. They saw it. I didn't know it was going to turn out like that.

[16:45] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. So, um, that Farley flavors wants to like date Janet. I think I'm pretty sure. Okay. Cause the main plot point is that Brad is basically told that he's sick and unwell. And Janet just kind of goes along with it. And Brad gets like sedated and shoved into a padded cell that is, has a jail cell in inside of it, which I feel like beats the purpose of a padded cell, but you know, whatever. I mean, first question, did you guys notice right away that Brad and Farley are played by the same actor?

[17:19] Frank Zekin: No, I honestly did not right away. I thought the makeup was really good. I don't know if there's makeup as much as just the hair's done differently. And one guy's got glasses. Maybe it's just like a Clark Kent situation.

[17:29] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, exactly. Like the only time that like, okay, maybe, maybe the glasses are more doing more. Everyone goofs on Superman. Like that wouldn't work, but then here we are. I guess it also helps too, that Brad is gagged for 90% of the movies. So you don't really hear both of their voices that much. It's mostly just Farley flavors. Brad has like three lines before he gets, he gets a full song duet with Janet.

[17:58] Frank Zekin: How dare you?

[17:58] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, that's true. About the toaster. About the toaster, which I couldn't understand why he was referencing all that. I'm like, is it because they're in an ad break? Maybe that's what it is. I don't know. Like it's one of those things like about Shock Treatment where I don't think it's good, but I am deeply compelled by it. It's, it's strange. Like I will sing that bitchin' in the kitchen thing anytime I make toast. Okay. So yeah, that's like the main beat. The main driving force is the guy wants Janet and Brad has to be locked up and it's put as like, it's part of like a TV show where he's in the hospital, but then there's actual like crazy people who are in the hospital who like are trying to experiment on him and it's not ever disclosed to us what their experiments are or what they're trying to do.

[18:45] Frank Zekin: No, they're character actors.

[18:49] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. I thought it was just bullshit. That's what it is. Oh my God. Okay. It's just bullshit. It's funny you bring that up because I was listening to the audio commentary with little Nell and Patricia Quinn, um, which is also not doctors at all. They don't care. It's basically like, um, better help. Yes. Or something. We sponsored better help for several years. We didn't, we didn't know. Oh, that's sorry. Look, we needed money. No worries. They don't give us money anymore. Fuck them. Um, we needed money, but no Patricia, Patricia Quinn's who plays, uh, one of the nurses is like, I was under the impression I was a doctor, but now they're saying I'm a character actor. That was not how the director told me to play it.

[19:31] Frank Zekin: Like, yeah, no. Cause the whole time they're playing it, like they're, they're actual crazy scientists and they're like incestual. And like, it's super weird.

[19:39] Andrew DeWolf: Well, that's just because Rocky Horror had the incest thing going on. Does he call her his assistant? Andrews here would be very important questions.

[19:51] Frank Zekin: Um, with that, um, Frank, I want you to take over and tell us about what, what's going on with Janet after they put Brad in the insane asylum in the loony bin.

[19:56] Frank Zekin: Oh God. All right. So the two doctors quote unquote are gaslighting Janet into thinking that Brad hates her and she has a sort of breakdown where she starts crying and what's his name? Bert Schlick. The, the guy with the orange blazer. Uh, he, he rolls, he rolls out a TV where he's, he's got a Farley flavors on it. And, and he's like, Janet, I want to make you a big star. And, uh, at some point Janet's parents like win a contest where they're like, the questions are all about how much Brad is like mentally unstable.

[20:37] Andrew DeWolf: Um, Oh God. Okay. And then Janet kind of lets it go to her head. She sort of becomes a reality star within this weird TV set. It's hard to not be Courtney Kardashian.

[20:53] Frank Zekin: Yeah. And, uh, I feel like we needed a bit more with Janet of her, like not liking Brad or something. Cause she is so quick to just be like, get the fuck out of here. And now I'm famous and like, Oh, absolutely. I mean, they have one exchange where she seems annoyed with him and then she just immediately believes the two character actors, you know, doctors, when they say that Brad hates her now, it's just like completely unbelievable. It's nuts. I gotta say, um, the actor, uh, Jessica Harper, um, who you might recognize from family, the parents, Syria, I was going to bring that movie up a lot of frustrated wife acting with her face that I think she's trying to perform the annoyance without any texts to back it up.

She's trying, but I do think at a certain point you do need to have some like dialogue, like something, um, you can't just have it while she looked annoyed. Let me look at her face. She's doing her best. I think Jessica Harper is the best part of this movie. Easily. She's got a voice, fantastic voice, but she's also a great actor.

[22:02] Frank Zekin: Uh, and, and phantom of the paradise is a movie I couldn't stop thinking about because she's obviously, uh, the co-lead of that movie. Uh, 1974, Brian De Palma. It's basically phantom of the opera. I don't, did you guys do that on the show?

[22:12] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Okay. Right. So I, but, but much better.

[22:18] Frank Zekin: Oh, absolutely. That is a fantastic movie. And it's a really similar premise where Jessica Harper is like kind of groomed into being a pop star in the way that she's been groomed into being a reality TV star here, but it's more believable in that movie. I want, well, that's more of a motivation here. Her motivation is like, I don't even really understand, you know, that being said, we're using the term reality TV star that did not exist. That was not a thing that existed when this film was made. So I guess, like, I'm trying to imagine in the eighties without the idea of like, you know, the 24 seven real world reality TV show, what the fuck is going on? Like, cause we kind of have more context for what this is.

[23:01] Andrew DeWolf: Even they don't really, probably better now because it makes more sense. It's like we understand.

[23:06] Frank Zekin: Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. Like a person could get sucked into the TV basically and literally live there. Like that's a thing that could happen. I feel like even in the movie, they don't really know how to articulate the concept because there's that one character who's always following people around with a camera and she's not saying that she's shooting live. She's always calling it a documentary. Uh, I remember that at the beginning of the movie, she's like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm shooting Farley flavors documentary behind the scenes. Uh, and then she's got like a camera on them when, you know, they're having their little meeting in his office. And, uh, yeah, it's just like a mix of like live broadcasts on a soundstage with, I guess, prerecorded footage.

It's not really, I guess all reality is, I guess all reality TV is prerecorded when you watch it on TV. Like they definitely chop it up and stuff, but it seems like even in the movie, they don't really know how far ahead they're thinking, but it is a cool idea.

[24:00] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. They portray it as if it's like multiple different TV shows. Cause you have like Denton Vale, which is like anything happening at the hospital, but then you have the, the game show stuff, which happens like on the soundstage. Um, I don't know what it's supposed to be at her house. Is that like, is that something or like, I don't even know. It gets unclear sometimes.

[24:23] Frank Zekin: It is, they did not build out the world. And I feel like it's much more complicated than the couple trapped at a weird house in a Rocky horror kind of had to work.

[24:35] Andrew DeWolf: Like I, I also wanted to say, um, watching this and I hate to do the comparison to Rocky horror because Frank doesn't have that. But I've recently saw Rocky horror at, you know, the state Wayne and had the Rocky horror is a badly made movie technically meaning there is no ambition to the camera movements. There is no, basically everything is locked down shots to just get whatever you can get into frame into frame. Um, there's almost no movements. There's no real set design here. This is a really ambitious. They're doing like these one take shots where they're like specific stagings might like, as far as something to look at the scene where they're the night, night scene, which is technically not even a plot relevant scene is one of those like most beautiful kind of constructed things. And I'm just like that where there's like multiple rooms and they're going back between all of them.

[25:28] Frank Zekin: Yeah. Like that's a cool, it's a cool shot, a cool idea. But like, as you said, it has like nothing to do. And there's so much of that in this movie where it's like you were, you had these visual ideas and you had the money to do them instead of trying to put the thing on into, as I have like at, at the end when they have like the whole town in the, in the insane as like, that's a compelling image. Yeah. It's really cool. But it's like, what, what the fuck is happening?

[26:08] Andrew DeWolf: That's why it's so frustrating to me. We've lost the plot. We've stopped doing the plot because I'm just like, I think we should wrap that up. But also, I'm just like, there's stuff here that's frustrating me because it is of effort and quality, whereas it might not have been. Yeah, we can wrap up the plot. I can wrap the plot up in a second. You want to do it? It's literally like, Janet gets groomed into being a reality TV star. That gets big. And then eventually, she gets sedated as well because she's kind of out of control a little bit. And then what? Brad gets the fuck out. A bunch of shit happens on the main soundstage. They get locked in a room. The whole town gets sent to the insane asylum. And then they escape in a car that was gifted to them.

[26:56] Frank Zekin: Wait, wait, wait. You're forgetting the big reveal that Brad and Farley are lost twin brothers.

[26:59] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. Which is completely inconsequential. And it doesn't matter at all. You get a really wild, almost out of context, musical number between Brad and Farley where they're just showing two different acting styles at once. It's real Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. We're going for it. And you gotta say, I respect the actor for bringing the two energies.

[27:31] Frank Zekin: Was it better than Hasselhoff?

[27:33] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, shit. Yeah, I think it is. He was in tune.

[27:42] Frank Zekin: Anything left to say about the plot or just generally what we thought about the way it was laid out before we move on?

[27:51] Andrew DeWolf: There is the one shot where the TV audience is sleeping in the stands. It's like they literally never go home. This is all they do. And I thought that was a pretty interesting image too. But no, not really. There's not much else I can think of. I think my thought is, and I feel like if they had made it today, they would have done this. I think that the whole thing should have been portrayed as if we're watching TV. And that's where you have The Truman Show doing this concept a million times better just a few years later. Well, more than a few years. That's the other movie besides Phantom of the Paradise that I kept thinking of. The real world on MTV had already come out a few years prior, but it does the 24-7 reality TV thing so much better.

[28:40] Frank Zekin: I'm thinking Truman Show mixed with RoboCop.

[28:44] Andrew DeWolf: There's definitely some Verhoeven-y satire in here too on commercialism and stuff, definitely. It's one of those things where the movie doesn't really make the most of it. But imagine the whole movie portrayed as if we're watching a television. The ads come up and there's ridiculous stuff and then it's like we're following. They do some of it because they have the stuff where Denton Vale comes up and we see, oh, it's like we're watching that show right now. I feel like that should have been the whole movie. But I'm not sure. Either they couldn't pull that off and they wanted to or they didn't. I think that might have been more high concept of an execution than they were thinking. But I think it definitely would have been more interesting to watch, especially if you still have the same story with Janet and Brad playing out through the perspective of the sets of the shows. You'd have to rewrite it a bit, of course, but it definitely seems more interesting.

[29:42] Frank Zekin: It would have worked perfectly too because literally the end of the movie is they leave the studio and then the movie just instantly ends, basically. Again, same as The Truman Show. We're voyeuristic the entire movie. That is also like De Palma's whole shtick is voyeurism. It's like as soon as he leaves, that's it. Credits.

[30:01] Andrew DeWolf: Honestly, that's kind of my biggest complaint about The Truman Show is it kind of gets objective in the middle, like when we start seeing what's going on into the control rooms and there's not like a justification of what we are visually seeing. That's when the movie kind of loses air for me. So I wish that part of me just kind of wishes that movie committed to the bit a little more.

[30:22] Frank Zekin: I love that stuff.

[30:24] Andrew DeWolf: I think it's great. I think that's very Robocop 2 where they're talking about how like he's the first human being purchased by a corporation. You know, that kind of thing. Not the last. Not the only one. That's another nice bit of info. They do explain that in the movie, though, because there's a guy doing interviews with the director. Only for that scene. But then we get like Paul Giamatti like switching things.

[30:45] Frank Zekin: That's true. They do. They do go to that at times. Yeah, that's true. Like that's when the movie is like, well, what are we doing here? But I mean, they also show people watching the show as well.

[30:55] Andrew DeWolf: So yeah. What else is on it? It's like one of the best scenes in any movie ever. I love that. That one line makes it worth it. I don't know. It's not my favorite of Peter Weir or Jim Carrey's work. It's very good, though. It's great.

[31:11] Frank Zekin: Speaking of great things, let's go into a mid-show.

[31:28] ♪ Musical number: "Let There Be Light" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[32:48] Andrew DeWolf: Hey, guys. Sorry to interrupt your little show, but we've got a show to you. Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donation by our donors over at Patreon. And at Patreon, you get tons of fun perks such as patron-only commentaries on a whole separate podcast where Liz and I are talking about High School Musical, the musical, the series. But I think tomorrow we're going to record a very special bonus episode on Camp Miasma, which I'm really excited about. I hope I like it better than I saw the TV glow because we got a lovely— We have one of our patrons, Thezbian, who writes us very well-thought-out, multi-paragraph emails. And she sent one about how we were wrong about I Saw the TV Glow.

And it was such a joy to read. Keep writing those emails. But including our patrons, we love them. Come support us and join folks like Layton A., Ewan Cassidy, Monica Throe, Brent Black, John Vanals, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, Jen AC. Nothing is certain except Beth and taxes. Thezbian, Roof Geese, EJ Francis, Chris Marcotte, Kiji Marie Anastasio, RJ Noriega, Joe, Toriana Frazier, Sammy The Adequate Amount, Jacobson, Villainous Miss, TheOmegaGeek, Maddy Wargell, Elisa Erdman, Rrra Marasso, Mara, PuffyboyAnnaB, Goldplateikikimora, I still can't get over the fact that they broke character recently, Aria Ardy, Carl Baldasso, JRL Studios, BT Fliberty Jigot, Caleb Bailey, Daven Willis, Sophia Hurtado, Jessica PantsPants, Casey Denning, Liz Montemurro, and Jose Gonzalez.

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[34:42] Frank Zekin: I like that.

[34:43] Andrew DeWolf: I like that.

[34:45] Frank Zekin: Oh, my God. Rocky.

[34:46] Andrew DeWolf: Let's get back.

[34:52] ♪ Musical number: "Ever After" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[37:04] Andrew DeWolf: All right. It's time for everyone's favorite part of the show. Where Frank and Andrew have to go head-to-head to guess whether it's a one-star or five-star. Based on nothing but the review alone. It's time for Previews.

[37:35] Andrew DeWolf: All right, Frank. You've listened to the show. You know how this goes.

[37:38] Frank Zekin: Yes.

[37:39] Andrew DeWolf: Letterboxd reviews, one star or five stars.

[37:43] Frank Zekin: Heck yeah.

[37:44] Andrew DeWolf: All right, Andrew, you're first.

[37:46] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Brad only went insane because he was missing Frank's ass.

[37:52] Frank Zekin: Okay. I don't think Brad actually did go insane. But, you know, we're gonna give that a one.

[38:00] Andrew DeWolf: That is correct. My reasoning there was that they're a fan of the of Rocky Horror, which makes me think they're not.

[38:08] Frank Zekin: Why do you think that's a pretty safe bet? This is not well-loved, you don't think?

[38:14] Andrew DeWolf: This seems like the Rocky Horror of the Rocky Horror community. If that makes any sense, like compared to normal people.

[38:22] Frank Zekin: I want to have a discussion about whether or not this deserves a cult following, but we'll do that later.

[38:27] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, we will. We will.

[38:28] Frank Zekin: You're up next. The Joker Folly ado of the Rocky Horror Saga.

[38:35] Andrew DeWolf: This feels like a person who means it in a complimentary way. So I'm going to go with five.

[38:41] Frank Zekin: That is correct, man. You're killing Joker Folly.

[38:47] Andrew DeWolf: Have you seen Folly ado?

[38:49] Frank Zekin: No, I mean, I'm more interested now that I know that like Todd Phillips made it as like an anti-sequel, but I'm still really not interested enough to watch it for just personal reasons.

[39:03] Andrew DeWolf: Watching other DC stuff to continue that other show on the channel. So like Lanterns, for example.

[39:09] Andrew DeWolf: So maybe we'll do the Joker movie someday. But if I'm not doing it for an explicit purpose, I'm probably never going to watch that. You heard it. We got to invite Frank on the podcast to cover Folly Adieu. It's a musical.

[39:20] Frank Zekin: Wow. Well, I heard it's not as much of a musical as people hyped it up to be.

[39:25] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, but it's enough of a musical that the Joker fans didn't like it.

[39:31] Frank Zekin: Yeah, kind of. Our Keeper of the Cheese Juliet started a new document when we rebooted into Musicals with Cheese and she called it Musicals with Cheese Folly Adieu.

[39:43] Andrew DeWolf: That's great. That is fantastic.

[39:43] Frank Zekin: And yeah, it's great. Andrew.

[39:43] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Why does Jessica Harper look like a gender swap Jimmy Neutron?

[39:50] Frank Zekin: Oh my god. What?

[39:58] Andrew DeWolf: Um, fuck one. I mean, I don't know. That is correct. So far, we're having a perfect game.

[40:06] Frank Zekin: That is so fucking mean. But also, I kind of understand.

[40:12] Andrew DeWolf: It's the face shape. She has a very particular like forehead hair.

[40:18] Frank Zekin: Kind of forehead.

[40:18] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I think she's gorgeous. Even today, I think like she was in the Suspiria remake and she looks amazing there too. What's your opinion on Jimmy Neutron?

[40:27] Frank Zekin: Oh, fantastic. Very, very attractive.

[40:35] Andrew DeWolf: Most fuckable Nicktoon.

[40:42] Frank Zekin: Okay. Why are Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn always playing incestuous siblings?

[40:48] Andrew DeWolf: Hmm face. I think this is also a five and I don't know why. I'm just going with my gut.

[40:56] Frank Zekin: That is correct. You have to go with your gut because if you overthink it, it's done.

[41:01] Andrew DeWolf: You get out of it gets into your head and all that. I mean, is there another movie besides Rocky Horror where that happens?

[41:07] Frank Zekin: I don't. I mean, it's shock treatment.

[41:07] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, right, right. Um, I don't think like you can't put them next to each other. Like, you know, like if you put them into another movie, it's going to invite comparison.

[41:18] Frank Zekin: Yeah, it's giving me a it's like the joke about the guy who's only seen Boss Baby watching his second ever movie. This is giving me real Boss Baby vibes.

[41:32] Andrew DeWolf: All right, Andrew.

[41:32] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. The Rocky Horror Truman Show.

[41:36] Frank Zekin: Uh, accurate for sure. Uh, does that convey any sort of emotion towards it? Not really.

[41:44] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, I'm going to go with five though, just cause it's a, it's a positive comparison.

[41:44] Frank Zekin: I'd say that was a one. You've ruined a perfect game.

[41:49] Andrew DeWolf: You have, you have to guess at some point, you know?

[41:56] Frank Zekin: All right, Frank, last one.

[41:56] Frank Zekin: Oh God. Okay. This is my Joker.

[42:01] Andrew DeWolf: I was shocked that there was two Joker references in the shock treatment.

[42:01] Frank Zekin: Yeah. I am become Joker. Destroyer of movies. All of your Joker is belong to us.

[42:08] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, fuck. I kind of want to say five again. I'm going to, I'm going to lock it in. I'm going to say five.

[42:19] Frank Zekin: He's locking it in.

[42:19] Andrew DeWolf: Oh no. Frank, that is correct. And you won the news.

[42:26] Frank Zekin: It's cause I could, I can't compete with the aura this man's bringing. I'm sorry.

[42:35] Andrew DeWolf: I agree. And I am just like, you know, I'm like, I feel like I need to put a shirt on because he hits that muscle move. And I, I'm like, it's over for me. I'm like, it's, I'm done.

[42:47] Frank Zekin: Can you smell what the Frank is cooking? Shatters into glass. Like I'm done.

[42:56] Andrew DeWolf: Um, let's talk about some of the songs really quick.

[42:56] Frank Zekin: Um, I feel like the one that we could probably just sing out of nowhere, like easily is...

[43:26] Andrew DeWolf: a, it's a classic. It's a bop. This is maybe one of the best music theater songs ever written.

[43:40] Frank Zekin: Are you shitting my dick?

[43:43] Andrew DeWolf: It's I think it's good. It's fun. I mean, it's not good until you get to the part where they go then, then, then we got blue.

[43:49] Frank Zekin: No, it was very catchy.

[43:58] Andrew DeWolf: It is definitely an earworm. It makes you think you're going to watch a better movie than you end up doing.

[44:01] Frank Zekin: Totally. Totally. And the visual styling of it, like it's very heightened, like direct to camera addresses from characters that are not relevant.

[44:07] Andrew DeWolf: Um, and it's a break, but it's a breakout from a really folksy narrator that I think you could cut, which I think is like a really disinteresting way of opening.

[44:22] Frank Zekin: Just start on the Denton song and we're going to have a great time.

[44:22] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Um, it sets up the geography. It does a lot of things well.

[44:27] Frank Zekin: Um, and then we get into like a really fairly boring, uh, dialogue scene and we follow up with bitching in the kitchen, which is my guilty pleasure. I think the song is great.

[44:39] Andrew DeWolf: Um, and I listened to it a lot more than I wish I understood it though. Like I get what he's saying. I get why he's saying it. I don't understand why he's talking about appliances. He is on the stage of a game show. Why is he talking about appliances? Dear blender? Won't you help a first offender? Oh, trash can. Don't you put the dirt on me?

[45:31] Frank Zekin: Any, do we have any insight onto why Frank, do you understand the appliances?

[45:37] Frank Zekin: No, that one did not grab me. Uh, I don't think it's bad, but, uh, I, I think it just kind of like washed over me.

[45:44] Andrew DeWolf: I think on second watch, I realized that he was singing about kitchen appliances and then it grabbed me.

[45:50] Frank Zekin: It was like, wait, it took you two watches to get that.

[45:50] Andrew DeWolf: No, I mean, I got it the first time. Like I understood what he was singing about, but it was like, I guess I thought maybe it would be explained why he was singing about that. And then I realized like he never, that never has explained, like, I don't understand.

[46:03] Frank Zekin: Fair enough. It technically takes the place of an, I want song because there isn't a true blue. I want song in this.

[46:08] Andrew DeWolf: And the, I guess the, I want is I want Brad to be well and Brad doesn't want to go to a mental hospital.

[46:19] Frank Zekin: Yeah. Brad is already well. So in a way they just need to leave the TV studio.

[46:27] Andrew DeWolf: And then here's like my bold take Frank. I know we, you and I talked a bit about how, uh, Jessica Harper's voice is very good. I prefer it to Susan Sarandon's in the original.

[46:37] Frank Zekin: Oh, I had no idea. That's who played Janet.

[46:37] Andrew DeWolf: Oh yeah. That was, and she has like this very high head voice and, um, Jessica Harper has this very low, she's like an Alto.

[46:42] Frank Zekin: And I mean, I've never heard Susan Sarandon sing, but I'd imagine she's more of a Soprano.

[46:52] Andrew DeWolf: Definitely that. Yeah. It's very nasally, very in the head.

[46:52] Frank Zekin: Um, I don't like any of Janet songs in this movie. I think all of them are a fucking snore.

[46:58] Andrew DeWolf: It's hard because when you hear them, or at least when I hear them, I just think about how much better the ones in phantom of the paradise are. I listened to that constantly. Like Faust alone is out mugs. Every one of these songs.

[47:13] Frank Zekin: Yeah, absolutely.

[47:13] Andrew DeWolf: Um, but as far as like songs, I really like, or at least scenes I really like, I already talked about lullaby. So I don't really want to talk too much about that one unless you guys have much to say, but I am a big fan of that song.

[47:28] Frank Zekin: Yeah. I like that one. Um, I don't have much more to say though. I do know we have to highlight what is kind of the breakout song of the movie and is the title song and works in that shop.

[47:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. I was going to say, I'm, I just pulled it up on Spotify and even though I had never watched the movie before, I'm looking at the full soundtrack and shock treatment is already in my liked songs inexplicably. Like I must've listened to it at some point thanks to the algorithm and was like, Hey, this is pretty good.

[48:32] Frank Zekin: I don't think that's ever happened, but no, this song is great. It is actually shot very well. It's got energy. It kind of works as its own little music video in the middle of the movie disconnected from everything else.

[48:50] Andrew DeWolf: And frankly, it's the most rocky horror feeling. I know that means nothing really much to you, but this is like all my friends from Rocky horror singing this song. Like you got Columbia, we got magenta, we got riff raff all singing this song to me and it's all my friends. It's got that same energy.

[49:07] Frank Zekin: And if, if the rest of the movie lived up to this moment, this would be at the same level, if not better than Rocky horror.

[49:12] Andrew DeWolf: Not only does it not live up to this moment though, it doesn't even come close. Like we don't even do shock treatment. He never gets the shock treatment. I wanted to see that.

[49:22] Frank Zekin: I guess, yeah, I guess you're right.

[49:22] Andrew DeWolf: Um, they're too busy putting on dresses on Janet.

[49:26] Frank Zekin: Yeah. And speaking of, I think little black dress was pretty good too.

[49:32] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, that is kind of how I perceive Rocky horror music.

[49:36] Frank Zekin: There's one thing you just can't beat. That's a strapless backless classical little black dress.

[49:43] Andrew DeWolf: Well, first you go rip, rip, rip, then you go snip, snip, snip, then you whip it a zip, zip, zip, and split it up to the hip, hip, hip, and as you strip, strip, strip, shiver, shiver for that soft dress as you slip, slip, slip into that little black dress.

[50:06] Frank Zekin: Just, just because of like the instrumentation, but little black dress to me was the moment where I was like, Oh, they want this to be like a cult thing. This is like, they're picturing this as like one of the big cult moments.

[50:20] Andrew DeWolf: Cause he, the doctor guy has no real reason to start singing about how to make a black dress, but he just kind of does.

[50:26] Frank Zekin: Yeah. And then the lyrics, like the snip, snip, snip. It's like, okay, it's, you know what it reminds me of? And this is going to be, uh, uh, it's exactly what you're saying. It's trying to be a call and response thing for audiences.

[50:37] Andrew DeWolf: And you know, what else does the same fucking thing? It's the Zydrate song from Repo, the genetic opera, where they have the call and response already in the fucking song.

[50:50] Frank Zekin: And that's another one that was trying to be called, right?

[50:50] Andrew DeWolf: Well, that one successfully became cold. Like that's getting a 4k release later this year. Like that, that one did it somehow.

[50:57] Frank Zekin: That one did it, but also it was, it's an intentional, it was, uh, you know.

[51:03] Andrew DeWolf: I think it, that is the closest successor to rocky horror we've had. If, unless you were ignoring something that's actually good in camp, like little shop of horrors, which I would not count.

[51:13] Frank Zekin: The good in camp is different than bad in camp.

[51:16] Andrew DeWolf: Like little shop of horrors is a functionally perfect thing.

[51:19] Frank Zekin: Yeah, that's great.

[51:21] Andrew DeWolf: Do we want to talk about dual duet with the two brads, Brad versus Brad, Brad versus Farquhar?

[51:27] Frank Zekin: I can't.

[51:27] Andrew DeWolf: That one was fine, I think the other one was...

[51:56] Frank Zekin: I don't know.

[52:05] Andrew DeWolf: That's the one that's like more of a punk song, right? Yeah. I like that because, I mean, it sounds different than a lot of the other songs on the soundtrack. And also, this movie came out in '81, right? So pretty early. I mean, I know punk has sort of been going on since like the mid to late '70s by this point, but it just felt like, I don't know, sort of on the cutting edge. Like, it felt like a convincing punk song to me. This is another scene that reminded me a lot of Phantom of the Paradise, where we have like intercutting scenes with live performance without the De Palma split screens going on. See, I always get funky about diegetic songs in the middle of a non-diegetic musical. So that one kind of washed over me, but it's interesting to know that that stuck with you. Just because, I mean, Andrew, we know you love punk and you think that punk is the best thing ever.

[52:56] Frank Zekin: I think punk is really good for going to the bar and getting hammered. It's really good if you want to drive recklessly as well.

[53:06] Andrew DeWolf: Well, that's after you're at the bar.

[53:08] Frank Zekin: Of course. Or after you've pre-gamed at home and decided to get behind the wheel.

[53:15] Jesse McAnally: You heard that. Frank Zekin says, drink and drive, kids.

[53:18] Frank Zekin: Well, I'm just saying if you're going to, you might want to put on Black Flag or Suicidal Tendencies or something.

[53:26] Andrew DeWolf: I honestly think punk is good. I'm of the opinion that it's fine.

[53:31] Jesse McAnally: Okay, remind me. You said that punk sucks because punk people think Rent is punk. You said that years ago.

[53:36] Andrew DeWolf: This was a long time ago.

[53:39] Jesse McAnally: It was a long time ago, but you said like...

[53:41] Andrew DeWolf: I've changed my mind on punk. I've changed my mind.

[53:46] Frank Zekin: Also, Rent is not punk. If you think Rent is punk, you're not punk.

[53:51] Andrew DeWolf: Now I get to decide what punk is. I don't know why.

[53:55] Frank Zekin: Have you seen the musical Rent?

[53:57] Andrew DeWolf: Isn't that about people getting AIDS?

[54:01] Frank Zekin: Yes.

[54:02] Andrew DeWolf: It doesn't seem...

[54:03] Frank Zekin: You've seen the South Park movie thing.

[54:05] Andrew DeWolf: Well, I've seen the South Park movie. I don't know. Did they make fun of Rent?

[54:08] Frank Zekin: I don't think I saw that episode.

[54:10] Andrew DeWolf: Well, the other one. The puppet one.

[54:12] Frank Zekin: Team America.

[54:13] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, no. I actually haven't seen Team America.

[54:16] Frank Zekin: They have a song called Everyone Has AIDS making fun of Rent.

[54:18] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I think Rent is a big punching bag. I feel like I've seen people make fun of that all the time in other TV shows or movies.

[54:28] Jesse McAnally: That was one of the first things I had Andrew watch when we started this 10 years ago. And he's like, you know what? I'm going to go into the best interest. And he did all the research and he's like, now Rent sucks shit.

[54:39] Andrew DeWolf: I really didn't like it. I still don't like it. It was an important show. It had its impact. Yada, yada, yada. Still think it sucks shit.

[54:49] Jesse McAnally: Speaking of sucking shit, what is our overall thoughts on Shock Treatment and our cheese ratings? And generally, why do you think that this didn't hit with the crowd the way the Rocky Horror did? I'd like to hear that from everyone as well. Andrew, why don't you start us off?

[55:03] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, so I really don't think it's that bad. Is this like a super hot take, but Rocky Horror is funny bad, right? It's not like a great movie. It's funny because it's camp and it's not particularly good. I don't understand. I don't understand why this can't be good. This can't be a cult movie. We're so far beyond the studio forcing this to be cult. I think we could make it actually cult now. We're like 40 years past the release date. Let's do it. Shock Treatment. Let's make it happen.

[55:34] Frank Zekin: Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?

[55:37] Andrew DeWolf: I'm not kidding. We can watch it. We can all do the Denton thing where we go, Denton, Denton. And then we gotta be slightly out of sync with everyone like they are in the audience.

[55:47] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, we can have the little black dress. We'll do the snip, snip, snip. Whatever. Who fucking cares?

[55:54] Andrew DeWolf: Whatever. I think it's fine. I don't think it's that much worse than Rocky Horror. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know.

[56:06] Frank Zekin: The argument is Rocky Horror at least has a genre it's making fun of and tropes it's playing with. This is nonsense.

[56:12] Andrew DeWolf: Well, now it does. It's absolutely in touch with modern culture. We're sucked into our screens at all times. There's so many reality TV stars and influencers and we're constantly being told that we're sick and being drugged up. Come on, man.

[56:32] Frank Zekin: I guess it did kind of grow into itself in a way, but I still think it's a movie. It's Shock Treatment time. I don't know if it's worth a reappraisal as a good movie though. I think we can acknowledge.

[56:44] Andrew DeWolf: It's not a good movie.

[56:45] Frank Zekin: Yeah.

[56:45] Andrew DeWolf: It's not a good movie. It's a bad movie.

[56:46] Frank Zekin: I think we can acknowledge that it has good ideas and it was prescient, but I don't know if it deserves the kind of like cultural.

[56:54] Jesse McAnally: You got to see where I'm coming from here though. Why is Rocky Horror well known? It's because you go at midnight and you get fucking trashed.

[57:01] Andrew DeWolf: And you wear the fishnets.

[57:02] Jesse McAnally: And you throw shit at the screen and you throw shit at the screen. That's not a good movie. People don't watch that because it's a good movie. You watch that because you can get drunk with a bunch of other people around and you can chant shit at the screen.

[57:13] Andrew DeWolf: You can do that with Shock Treatment. It would work.

[57:16] Frank Zekin: You're drunk watching this. It's fun. I'm in for Shock Treatment. We're good.

[57:22] Andrew DeWolf: I don't have a cheese rating yet.

[57:29] Frank Zekin: I don't know.

[57:32] Andrew DeWolf: Somebody else go.

[57:33] Frank Zekin: Fucking Christ, man. All right, Frank, you're next.

[57:36] Frank Zekin: Yeah. I mean, like I said at the top, it just felt like it was very hard to follow. I didn't know about any of the issues behind the scenes. I love that kind of stuff though. So I'm glad you told us about that. It's interesting, but it just really doesn't come together for me. And the soundtrack is not bad. I think I probably will give the soundtrack another listen. But I don't think it's worth bringing back into the culture. Just because I feel like there are other movies since then that have done the reality TV thing better like The Truman Show.

[58:10] Andrew DeWolf: You're not going to get drunk though and watch The Truman Show.

[58:13] Frank Zekin: Well, I mean, you could get drunk watching anything.

[58:17] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, you can.

[58:18] Frank Zekin: You just have to have the right attitude.

[58:20] Frank Zekin: But as for my cheese rating, I just found this. So I was trying to look up cheese at a hospital and I just found this individually packaged cheese slice that I just put it in the chat if anybody wants to see that. So you can buy a slice of cheese on a paper plate for 39 cents. I don't know. I think that's.

[58:41] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, please show everybody.

[58:43] Frank Zekin: That's my cheese rating. Need to see 39 cents. Oh, it expires in 2024, though.

[58:51] Andrew DeWolf: I got to use it by February 29th, 2024.

[58:54] Frank Zekin: Was that even a leap year?

[58:57] Andrew DeWolf: I think it is.

[58:57] Frank Zekin: I think it's every four years.

[58:59] Andrew DeWolf: OK, all right.

[59:01] Jesse McAnally: Um, I don't think you can beat that, Andrew.

[59:04] Andrew DeWolf: God, she's waiting for me.

[59:06] Frank Zekin: Yeah, I've got a French power station turning cheese into electricity for inhabitants of Albertville. This doesn't tell you what type of cheese. It's just French cheese. But you know what? We're giving it French cheese being turned into electricity for citizens of Albertville.

[59:25] Jesse McAnally: Again, Andrew, you can't be pulling these boring choices out of your ass.

[59:31] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, sorry. I meant cheddar.

[59:34] Jesse McAnally: OK, but Shock Treatment or The Apple?

[59:38] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, oh, fuck The Apple.

[59:42] Frank Zekin: The Apple is too boring.

[59:43] Andrew DeWolf: The thing is, we need to watch Xanadu because when I saw Mamma Mia, they did a Rocky Horror style midnight screening of Mamma Mia where they perform it in front of the stage. They played a commercial for Xanadu before this thing, and I was like, Oh, fuck. Is Xanadu actually fun to watch? So that might be added to our list soon because that looked like a fucking blast. Not going to lie.

[1:00:06] Jesse McAnally: OK, OK. But The Apple, I don't know. People love The Apple thing. It's really hilarious.

[1:00:11] Andrew DeWolf: I don't find it that funny. I think the last five minutes are funny.

[1:00:17] Frank Zekin: My cheese rating is this cheese snack called Watts from the creators of Takis. They have cheese shock and they're shaped like little electric bolts.

[1:00:30] Andrew DeWolf: Wow.

[1:00:32] Frank Zekin: I don't want to change my rating, but I did just come up with a comparison. It's kind of like those mazes that lab mice go through with the cheese that's got the current running through it.

[1:00:44] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, the whole movie is kind of like you're in one of those mazes.

[1:00:47] Frank Zekin: Yeah. And then you get nothing at the end.

[1:00:47] Andrew DeWolf: You get no cheese.

[1:00:49] Frank Zekin: You get to leave the maze.

[1:00:53] Andrew DeWolf: You get the sweet release of the movie being over.

[1:00:59] Frank Zekin: I don't think the movie is bad enough for that, but I also don't think it's good enough for anything more.

[1:01:04] Jesse McAnally: You know, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, you got no tension.

[1:01:13] Jesse McAnally: Frank, thank you for joining us. Please promote your content and where people can find you.

[1:01:17] Frank Zekin: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a number of shows. Currently two, but we're about to start the third one because on Monday, the last episode of Raccoon Shitty or Resident Evil Retrospective goes up where we talk about Zack Krager's movie. The next one, Breaking News, is going to be called Restart of Darkness, and it's going to be about Universal's attempt to reboot the Dark Universe. So we'll be talking about The Mummy with Tom Cruise.

[1:01:48] Jesse McAnally: And you think it would end right there, but there's actually a few more movies that kind of spawned from that, that were aborted projects from the Dark Universe.

[1:01:56] Frank Zekin: Are you going to talk about the theme park they made out of it?

[1:01:59] Jesse McAnally: You know, I've tried to convince my co-hosts to, you know, buy in to go to Universal so we could do a bonus episode on the Dark Universe theme park. And they just don't want to spend like $500 for some reason to buy tickets for that.

[1:02:14] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, geez, who could imagine?

[1:02:17] Frank Zekin: But you can find me on Spotify, Apple Music, pretty much anywhere on the handle Frank Podcast and a little confusing. I also stream on Twitch under the handle Frank Broadcast. Less so recently because I think I'm just falling out of love with video games. But, you know, I do stream and I do the podcast thing too.

[1:02:36] Jesse McAnally: Also, you are one of the few people that do Instagram right, where I actually very much look forward to every one of your posts and stories.

[1:02:44] Frank Zekin: Oh, thank you.

[1:02:45] Jesse McAnally: I cannot recommend you following Frank on Instagram enough because he's actually funny.

[1:02:48] Frank Zekin: At Frank Broadcast, because I didn't want to make a new handle just for the podcast stuff. So it all goes on one social media handle.

[1:02:55] Jesse McAnally: Thank you so much, Frank. You are a gentleman and a scholar. And he's been around behind the scenes. If you liked our drunk Mamma Mia night, he was the one running camera that night.

[1:03:05] Frank Zekin: That's true.

[1:03:05] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I was on the switcher. I think one of the Tony streams, I was on camera, I think, for that near the end.

[1:03:13] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[1:03:15] Jesse McAnally: No, it was a game show night where Andrew and I had trivia.

[1:03:18] Frank Zekin: Oh, OK, OK.

[1:03:19] Jesse McAnally: Sorry, I'm mixing it up. Frank's been behind the scenes of Musicals with Cheese for years. So I'm grateful we got him on and I can promote his podcast. And if you want, I've been guests on both the DCPU and Raccoon Shitty for Birds of Prey and Resident Evil, I think, Afterlife.

[1:03:38] Frank Zekin: Yes.

[1:03:39] Jesse McAnally: Yes.

[1:03:40] Frank Zekin: With respect, no memory of that movie.

[1:03:43] Andrew DeWolf: Listening to that episode, I was like, man, I had all these thoughts. I have no memory of watching.

[1:03:48] Frank Zekin: I think once we publish the finale on Monday, I will completely memory hole this entire franchise.

[1:03:55] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:03:56] Frank Zekin: Maybe, maybe not. I know that's not the best way to sell it to viewers of Musicals with Cheese. But yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[1:04:05] Jesse McAnally: Anytime if you ever go to the movie theaters and say, hey, that was a musical. Come, come back.

[1:04:12] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, well, maybe we'll talk about Digger. We'll see.

[1:04:15] Jesse McAnally: Thank you very much, Frank. And we will see you next time on Musicals with Cheese.

[1:04:21] Andrew DeWolf: Bye bye.

[1:04:32] Jesse McAnally: You should watch The Rocky Horror Show.

[1:04:33] Andrew DeWolf: I will.

[1:04:37] Jesse McAnally: It's time for bye-byes. It's been a great day. Thanks a heap. Now it's time for everyone to go to sleep.

[1:04:55] Andrew DeWolf: Night, night.

[1:04:57] Jesse McAnally: It's time for bye-byes. It's been a great day. Thanks a heap.