BONUS The Friday Show - Hey Arnold!
Guest:it's so funny i was like i said to mark did you talk to him about his animals he's like yeah but you know i got him to say the names which is all you want him to do it's like once he says the names that's it you get you had your laugh you move on it's uh lulu and whiskey and dinky
Guest:hey chris b mac attack how's it going it's going all right it was uh it was a fun week i gotta say pretty fun yeah well yeah yeah we will talk about uh shortly basically for the duration of the episode um arnold schwarzenegger which was uh hilariously fun uh but also i was out in la for mark's birthday party that's amazing i did not know you were going so that's very cool
Guest:It was a very brief trip.
Guest:I went out just for that weekend, which would have been the only time it was possible.
Guest:I'm dealing at home right now with Dawn.
Guest:My wife has a broken ankle.
Guest:So my duties at home and responsibilities at home are paramount.
Guest:But we were able to get some help over the weekend.
Guest:If that wasn't the case, I would have stayed out longer so that I could have been there midweek for our big interview.
Guest:But instead, I just went out Friday and came back Sunday.
Guest:And the party was a blast, a total blast.
Guest:And I felt really happy to be there.
Guest:I was very, very happy for Mark that he had all these people there, you know, who were genuinely happy to be a part of his life.
Guest:It was a great time.
Guest:I had a fantastic conversation with Fred Armisen.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it surrounded something personal for him, really, that I was a part of.
Guest:And I didn't realize how kind of specifically important it was to him.
Guest:I knew it must have been important.
Guest:But as he said to me, that was the night my life changed.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And it was in 2002.
Guest:I was a regular audience member at UCB Theater.
Guest:And it was a perfect thing for someone my age and my income level.
Guest:You could do a $5 show and see comedy for all night long.
Guest:And it was the kind of comedy I liked, too.
Guest:So I became very well acquainted with the shows that were going up there.
Guest:I would go very regularly.
Guest:And there was one show that I liked, a semi-regular show.
Guest:And the way that that UCB Theater used to work was you could,
Guest:make reservations you could you you know you wouldn't buy tickets online or anything but you would call up and say put me on the list for this show so you go on the list and you'd show up there and uh i called for this show and the person taking the calls was like uh yeah that's not happening tonight
Guest:And I was like, what the hell?
Guest:This is a monthly show.
Guest:How's it not happening?
Guest:They were like, but I would recommend you come anyway.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:And they're like, I would just recommend you come, okay?
Guest:And I was like, oh, all right.
Guest:Yeah, I'll come.
Guest:That would be great.
Guest:So I told the friends who I was going with, like, hey, there's something weird that's going to happen at this show tonight because they were very cagey about it, but they told me really, like, we should go still, even though the other show is canceled.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So we went and we go in there and it's clearly, you know, full house, just like it normally was.
Guest:It's a tiny black box, right, on 23rd Street.
Guest:And we're sitting there, the place is full, and...
Guest:The spot that I was sitting with my friends was on the aisle by the door.
Guest:This black box theater, it had rows seating, but then it also had a row alongside the wall to stage right.
Guest:So if you're in an audience...
Guest:you can see then the door, which is all the way to the right of the stage.
Guest:And alongside that door, there were still chairs set up against the wall so they could just fill in every space and people like, so you're basically, if you're sitting there, you're seeing the show from the side, right?
Guest:You're seeing the performers in profile.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But anyway, you're on the aisle, like right when the door is opened.
Guest:And so we're just sitting there and the place is already full.
Guest:We're waiting for the show to start.
Guest:And then Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, and I believe it was Steve Higgins walk in right in front of me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because we're on that aisle.
Guest:And they go and they sit right in the middle.
Guest:These three open seats right in the middle of the audience.
Guest:So we're like, oh, this is like an SNL audition.
Guest:Somebody, some showcase for somebody.
Guest:And I remember the first people that come out was a group.
Guest:It was like an improv troupe.
Guest:I recognized only one guy from it from other things I had seen.
Guest:And that guy has since gone.
Guest:I see him in improv stuff all the time.
Guest:He's one of the like regulars from Drunk History.
Guest:Drunk History has a troop of people.
Guest:He was one of them.
Guest:I'd see him in commercials and stuff, but I didn't have any memory of anybody else from it, mostly because I didn't know them.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I believe they said they were from Chicago, like they were an out of town group.
Guest:So then the second guy who comes out,
Guest:He comes out as this character who's like a Cuban musician or something.
Guest:And he's named Ferticito.
Guest:And this is Fred Armisen.
Guest:And he's doing this bit where he's basically like a guy with a catchphrase.
Guest:And his catchphrase was,
Guest:I'm just Keating.
Guest:And he would do, everything would be around that catchphrase all the time.
Guest:Like, and it was a hilarious bit.
Guest:We were just like, this is the funniest guy ever.
Guest:And he turns it like midway through the bit.
Guest:He turns it into, he's doing this like Bobby McFerrin.
Guest:He puts a little wig on with like, you know,
Guest:braids short braids down to like shoulder length hair like rick james style and uh and he's like tapping he's a musicologist and he's like all right now i'm gonna do i'm gonna do a beat like this and he's like tapping his chest and he's asking people in the audience like give me can you give me a demitone with a with a little nope that's too much take half off take it and he just like we were so taken by this guy we're like this guy's hilarious like i
Guest:I thought this, like, if this guy doesn't get SNL, we're going to see him somewhere, right?
Guest:Because he's so funny.
Guest:And then the third guy was the guy who did like a very standard SNL style audition where he did impersonations, right?
Guest:Like where you always hear, oh yeah, I did this one, I did this one, I did this one.
Guest:He did like Keanu Reeves and Jeff Goldblum and somebody else.
Guest:I don't really remember.
Marc:By the way, I hear about that on your show, but yes, go on.
Guest:Right, exactly, right.
Guest:And so that was the night.
Guest:So we left.
Guest:We were like, wow, that was amazing.
Guest:And then two weeks later, we go to see the Wilco documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And Armisen is in that opening for them as that character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's like a scene in the movie where he like does that character interviewing Jeff Tweedy.
Guest:Like he's like playing that character still, but in an interview with Jeff Tweedy.
Guest:And we were like, that's the dude.
Guest:This is the guy we just saw.
Guest:How is he in this movie too?
Guest:And then lo and behold, like a couple of weeks later, he gets hired as a featured cast member on SNL.
Guest:I think it was like the season premiere.
Guest:He showed up in Weekend Update doing that character.
Guest:uh so it was just like i had such a feeling of triumph for this guy like yeah man i saw this guy fred like we were there when he got this but but i always was wondering like was it that easy like right it seemed to go so easy right like to go from he he did the show he he did this ucb thing lauren was there and then all of a sudden he's on snl like yeah
Guest:was I seeing it at the end?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like he was already on the show and they were just having him work the, the, the, the character out in front of a live audience or something.
Guest:I didn't know, but I figured I'll never know.
Guest:So here I'm at Mark's birthday party.
Guest:And I see Fred and his girlfriend and, you know, meet them both because they have been on the show.
Guest:So I would say when I see people who've been on the show, I say, thank you.
Guest:And I said, hey, Fred, I've always wanted to ask you something.
Guest:I think I saw your SNL edition and he like, you know, furrowed his brow.
Guest:Like, what are you talking about?
Guest:I was like, I was at this UCB show in 2002 and I didn't even get it out of my mouth.
Guest:His like jaw dropped.
Guest:Oh, no way.
Guest:And I was like, oh, you know what I'm talking about?
Guest:He's like,
Guest:Yeah, that was my audition.
Guest:That was when I got the show.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He's like, I've never met anyone who was there.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, he goes, I wouldn't allow anyone I knew to come because I was scared.
Guest:So as far as I knew, the only people there were Tina and Lauren and Higgins.
Guest:As people that I knew, I didn't know anyone else in the crowd.
Guest:And I've never since talked to anyone else who was there.
Guest:And then I'm like, I proved my bona fide.
Guest:So I like...
Guest:Did exactly what I just did with you and went through the whole night.
Guest:He remembered the name of that guy who came after, which I've drawn a blank on again.
Guest:But another thing he told me, well, it's crazy.
Guest:What?
Guest:That improv group at the beginning, one of the dudes in that group was Jack McBrayer.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have that, like my mind's eye has no memory of it whatsoever that McBrayer was in that.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:And obviously he didn't get something from that.
Guest:It was, but he, you know, 30 Rock comes out, I don't know, five years later.
Guest:So he must've been still in the bloodstream.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, of Tina Fey rattling around.
Guest:Exactly, exactly.
Guest:All these little connections start happening.
Guest:But so then Fred tells me... So I said, did you get the show off of that and not have to go do the studio audition?
Guest:He said, no, I did the studio audition after that.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:But it was kind of weirdly in my head that I had already gotten the show.
Guest:Like, they didn't tell him he got it, but he met Lauren that night at UCB.
Guest:And he said to him...
Guest:are you here auditioning a lot of people?
Guest:And he goes, no.
Guest:And Fred said in that moment, he thought like, well, that's really cool of him to say that to me.
Guest:And he wouldn't, he probably wouldn't say that to me if he didn't want me to feel like I was, you know, really seriously being considered.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that, that, that if he wanted to be like, yeah, we're into auditioning a lot of people or whatever, who knows what'll happen.
Guest:But then he was just like, no, no,
Guest:Not addition a lot.
Guest:And then he said the next thing out of his mouth, he still to this day doesn't understand why, but it turned out being like a great thing to say.
Guest:Like it just kind of like equalized them on a plane somehow was he just goes, you know, George Harrison.
Guest:like not like do you know him or what's he like he was just like you know george harrison and lauren was like yeah i do like that's all he reacted to it and and fred said he's like i it's weird to say this but like i felt like we were friends in that moment like it's
Guest:And the whole time, you know, I've said this on these mics very often, I've said it to you privately, but like, man, for me, as someone who's like steeped in SNL lore and like, you know, not only to have had in my life this moment where I serendipitously was involved in this guy's audition, which is crazy, but then...
Guest:you know i get to see him and talk to him about it and he's like this is this is over 20 years ago that it happened and he's like i've never met another person who is there that's right crazy and that must be so rewarding for him to finally be like oh like this whole time being like man i wonder if the crowd connected just as much as me he's like he's like you must have been my good luck charm because
Guest:And I was like, I laughed like, you know, that's funny of you saying he's like, but no, seriously, how weird is it that I'm sitting here talking to you now?
Guest:Like if you if if it wasn't something connected to that, I never would have seen you again.
Guest:But something made me have to see a person who saw that.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Just a coda for that story.
Marc:I met Fred Armisen at the Bowery Ballroom.
Marc:He was opening up one night for Yola Tango.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:They do like eight nights at Bowery Ballroom.
Marc:Yes, the Christmas show.
Marc:Or a Hanukkah show.
Marc:The Hanukkah show, yeah.
Marc:And and he was he was the opener.
Marc:And my wife and I, we go up to the top because, A, it's very hot.
Marc:B, it's just like after like the peak covid.
Marc:So we're all like we're all wearing masks and like, you know, still doing a thing.
Marc:And also, I just wanted to lean on something.
Marc:So I'm there, and Fred Armisen is there with probably his dad.
Marc:And I didn't want to make a big scene, but I just wanted to be like, hey, Fred, just want to say hi and good luck tonight.
Marc:And he did.
Marc:His set was just like the history of music with him playing one instrument at a time.
Marc:Be like, oh, in the 60s, this is what guitars sound like.
Marc:Meow, meow, meow, meow.
Marc:And then like, oh, you go into the drums.
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:And like the seventies, the drums were like, it killed.
Marc:It was delightful.
Marc:So yeah, he did this one man act with music and it was great.
Guest:I saw him at, uh,
Guest:UCB once years after that, UCB in LA, where it was at that time period when Saddam Hussein was arrested and on trial.
Guest:And remember, he had the bushy beard and the suit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And so they introduced, they did not say Fred Armisen is here.
Guest:They just introduced him as Saddam Hussein.
Guest:And he came out wearing that gray suit and
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:And he had a beard and gray hair.
Guest:He was all made up to look like Saddam.
Guest:But he brought a guitar out and he spoke only with a British accent.
Guest:And then took requests and did his versions of covers of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the bit.
Guest:It was like Saddam Hussein as like a British, like Eric Clapton type, basically, like unplugged.
Guest:So I think he lives in that world all the time.
Guest:That's his zone of funny and entertaining.
Marc:I hope someone requested a George Harrison song.
Guest:Well, I know a guy who knows him.
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Marc:amazing great story uh so while you were there did you like see the fridge that mark is having so much issues i saw the fridge here you want to know the scoop my scoop on the fridge what do you got it looked fine
Guest:There was nothing a human, like my fridge, if I go down to my fridge downstairs, it's like falling apart.
Guest:There's a handle that's janky.
Guest:The ice machine, forget it.
Guest:That thing hasn't worked for five years.
Guest:We just like, we have like a post-it on it.
Guest:Do not use, right?
Guest:Like that's it.
Guest:Like Mark's fridge is fantastic.
Guest:fine totally fine and i mean like i'm sure to him whatever's wrong with this pissing him off and he's getting a new one i don't know if you heard his intro on today's show he talked about how he broke up with the repairman oh no yes
Marc:The love affair is over.
Guest:But he basically ghosted him.
Guest:It's not like he did a breakup.
Guest:He's just like not contacting him again.
Guest:And he ordered a new fridge.
Guest:So he's like, yeah, I decided not to tell him.
Guest:I didn't know if it would break his heart or whatever that I got a new fridge.
Marc:I love that you're looking at it and be like, this is a fine fridge.
Marc:There is nothing I can see wrong with it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So good luck to them on their future endeavors.
Guest:I don't know if their paths will ever cross.
Guest:Maybe they will.
Guest:Since this guy is the contracted repairman of this particular brand of refrigerator, you know, if something happens in the future on it, you know, the guy said there's too many computers in these new ones.
Guest:So who knows?
Guest:This one could break down in two years and he has to call this guy back.
Guest:So what's Mark going to do with this old fridge?
Guest:I'm sure that whoever comes and installs the new one just takes the old one because you don't like, you don't go around LA and see like refrigerators sitting on the sidewalk or whatever.
Guest:They take them.
Marc:Man, what a shame.
Marc:Also, so what was the food like at Mark's party?
Marc:Was it all
Guest:Well, it was a taqueria that had some vegan options and veggie-based options, although they made meat.
Guest:And I was just being very producer-like.
Guest:I was trying to make sure everyone had seats and everyone was tended to and taken care of so that Mark didn't have to spend too much time.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And because of that, I realized I was not eating anything.
Guest:And there was one point where I was talking to James Gray, the director, the guy who made Ad Astra and Armageddon Time.
Guest:I'm talking to him about Armageddon Time because it takes place generally where I grew up.
Guest:So I was telling, we were reminiscing about Queen stuff.
Guest:And as I'm in the middle of talking to him, have you ever had this happen where you're cognizant of how drunk you're getting?
Guest:Like in the moment, like it feels like in the middle of something, you're like, I think I'm getting drunker as I'm talking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, I excused myself from talking to him.
Guest:And I was like, I've got to go find some food because I realize I'm not eating anything.
Guest:And I should.
Guest:I should put some food in my stomach.
Guest:So that was the first time I actually paid attention to what was around.
Guest:And I just kind of grabbed whatever was like on the table still left on plates.
Guest:You know, that's how it's kind of happening.
Guest:Family style.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was very nice, and it was super cool that all these people showed up.
Guest:Some of them were folks who I've known for a long time, Sam Lipsight and Tom Sharpling, and just really great.
Guest:We got to go to see Mark do three sets at the Comedy Store the night before.
Guest:Wow, three.
Guest:Me and Sam and our friend Mike Batistic.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:He did three sets all different.
Guest:I think he was flexing in front of us, right?
Guest:It was like...
Guest:You know, watch me do this backflip.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he wanted to make sure we saw they were all going to be different.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:It totally delivered.
Guest:I met Chevy Chase's daughter at the comedy store there.
Guest:Talked about her pops a little bit.
Guest:And yeah, that was it.
Guest:That was my whirlwind trip out to L.A.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Sounds incredible.
Marc:What an exciting week.
Marc:So so did you prep like how is Mark feeling about meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Marc:Well, we prepped the fuck out of it.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:How?
Marc:How would you prep?
Marc:Did you watch all the movies?
Marc:Because I've watched a shitload of movies.
Guest:I personally don't need to watch the movies.
Guest:I've seen them all so many times.
Guest:All of them?
Guest:The ones you should watch, yes.
Guest:Okay, fair.
Guest:No, I haven't seen End of Days many times or Collateral Damage.
Guest:Eraser, no?
Guest:All right.
Guest:Eraser, I've seen a lot, yes, because it was on HBO a ton.
Guest:So Arnold came up, has been coming up for years, where we'd be like, we definitely want to talk to Arnold, like when he would have something going on.
Guest:And there was one point where it got close and then didn't happen.
Guest:And so then when this one came up, I was always having a hedged bet on whether or not it would pan out.
Guest:And then they said it looked very likely.
Guest:And I said, OK, I've heard that before, but let's go.
Guest:We're in the middle of strikes.
Guest:Over.
Guest:There's limited promotional opportunities.
Guest:Let's really push on this.
Guest:And we got them.
Guest:We got them booked about like three or four weeks ago, I think.
Guest:And so I told Mark right away, go watch that Netflix documentary, which he did.
Guest:And then, you know, this book came.
Guest:We both read the book.
Guest:And there was a lot of actually good stuff from the book that I was able to link around the prep for the interview.
Guest:You know, because a lot of what we were going to go for with this interview was going to be like, like we want him to be Arnold now and reflective on who Arnold was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not so much like we don't need him to get into the myth of Arnold.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's been done a million times.
Guest:And we wanted like I had this feeling.
Guest:That his actual ambition was to become the president.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And which is not crazy.
Guest:Like he he he was on a track where they were trying to change the Constitution and he was, you know, presenting himself as this moderate and everyone would you know, he would he was.
Guest:He was being talked about like there was a Time magazine cover with him in Bloomberg and it was like, was he is this possibly the next president, right?
Guest:And the next presidential ticket with the both of them.
Guest:And when you think about it, it makes perfect sense to like be like the coming out of the Bush years.
Guest:that would be the way that the Republican Party would try to rebrand, right?
Guest:Like these moderates, these guys who weren't going to like go into wars and they were going to focus on like kitchen table issues and stuff and they're business oriented.
Guest:Like it had all of the hallmarks of where things were going.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:I think like if it had been like the Democratic nominee in 2008 was Hillary Clinton, there might've definitely been an Arnold movement going on.
Guest:But I think a combination of Barack Obama being a massively charismatic figure and the economy collapsing, I think kind of doomed his political fates, right?
Guest:And he had a political fall.
Guest:Like his political fall happened before the stuff came out about him impregnating the housekeeper, right?
Guest:And having this secret son.
Guest:The fall had already occurred, and he was already out of office and going back to movies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my thing to Mark, and this book, he presents it like it's like a self-help thing.
Guest:Be useful, it's called.
Guest:It's supposed to be like, you know, seven traits of highly successful people, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:he presents it like, I had all this stuff, I was at the biggest box office draw in the world, and I was the leader of the sixth largest economy in the world, and I was a champion bodybuilder, I had all these achievements, but then I screwed it up with my personal behavior and it all came crashing down.
Guest:But here's what I've always learned is like you can, you know, just have to look within the best of yourself and figure out how you can move forward.
Guest:And that's the self-help element of the book.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:And my thing was like, I think this dude hit bottom before because I think that the loss of his political ambitions was his first true failure in life, right?
Guest:So the first time the thing that he had put his mind to and been like, I'm going to do that.
Guest:didn't happen yeah he did not become the president which they talk about in the interview and like he's got a great answer to it like really like when he's kind of confronted with the idea of not becoming the president he's like well you know ultimately though i there's no sympathy for me what are people going to be like oh poor arnold didn't get to be president that's amazing
Guest:But yeah, so to me, in a way, this kind of is an insight into how Mark and I prep for these shows sometimes.
Guest:It's like we've tried to find the gap and circle it and be like, let's build the show around that.
Guest:And that's like, I think a great example was Terry Gross.
Guest:She was a person that not a lot of people had talked to.
Guest:Not a lot of people knew who she was beyond being the host of Fresh Air.
Guest:You don't know her personally.
Guest:So what do you do to try to get...
Guest:anything interesting in a backstory there and and you know in the research we found this moment of her life that just kind of like got skipped over and it's like what was happening there and that's where it turned out like oh she had gotten married and like they they eloped and went cross-country and then she got divorced from that same guy like a year later because she was like 18 or whatever that was where the goods were we're in that spot so like
Guest:You know, impulsively, instinctually, Mark and I look for those things with prep.
Guest:And so, you know, we got there, you know, Mark wanted to watch a few things.
Guest:He watched Total Recall and I'm not sure if he really watched any other movies, but I think, you know, he just wanted to get some like kind of full blast Arnold to the face before, before doing it.
Guest:And then we just like, we talked all day.
Guest:If I had been out there, we was like, if I stayed past when I had to come back home, we would have just been watching Arnold, talking Arnold, talking
Guest:like Arnold Arnold Arnold I put together like a little blueprint for him of Arnold's like political career and where I thought what I thought certain things meant and he really you know we just we synthesized it very well and like the entire day before we just we talked for hours about Arnold and whether it was over text or then we get on the phone we talk about it was just a it was a really um Arnold intensive time like we were
Guest:We were really focusing on it.
Guest:And I think it all paid off.
Guest:You will hear it next Thursday.
Guest:Next Thursday.
Guest:You will also hear on Monday, Mark and I did an Arnold just left bonus episode.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I was waiting for that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Very cool.
Guest:Well, that, I'm not going to spoil it because it's Mark's story to tell.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But, oh my God, it has the greatest story from when Arnold showed up.
Guest:Let's just put it this way.
Guest:All morning long, there was an issue where construction was going on in the house right behind Mark.
Guest:So he's freaking out that this construction is happening.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I was like, if I were there, I would have been handling this, but I wasn't.
Guest:So I have to have Mark handle it.
Guest:And I tell him, like, just go over there and pay them off, dude.
Guest:Like, that's what we do on a movie set.
Guest:You just, you know, oh, this you're you're doing something that's going to interfere with our recording here.
Guest:We'll pay you to stop for, you know, an hour or whatever it's going to take.
Guest:And then I was like, you know, whoever's over there, just give them Arnold's autograph.
Guest:Well, it went even better than that.
Guest:And I will let Mark tell that story on the Monday bonus episode.
Guest:I do not want to step on his amazing story.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And then the interview itself is amazing.
Guest:Or as Arnold would say, fantastic.
Guest:It was all fantastic.
Guest:Extraordinary.
Marc:Did Arnold interact with the cats at all?
Marc:Were there any cats?
Marc:I don't believe so.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Darn it.
Marc:No, no cats.
Guest:And he didn't bring a donkey or anything, huh?
Guest:No, but they talked all about the animals.
Guest:It's so funny.
Guest:I was like, I said to Mark, did you talk to him about his animals?
Guest:He's like, yeah, but I got him to say the names, which is all you want him to do.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:It's like once he says the names, that's it.
Guest:You get it.
Guest:You had your laugh.
Guest:You move on.
Guest:Lulu and whiskey and dinky.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:So, so, I mean, God damn, there are so many inroads for this.
Marc:Uh,
Marc:It's really telling how really, like, professional you are of going for that gap in his sort of resume.
Marc:Like, because, like, he used to be married to, you know.
Marc:A Kennedy.
Marc:Yeah, a Kennedy, dude.
Marc:Like, I mean, there's a lot of shit to talk about.
Guest:Well, okay.
Guest:So that's, it's interesting you bring that up because that happens way more often than, than it doesn't where, you know, we're just looking at someone who has way too much life.
Guest:Jane Fonda.
Guest:Like, how are you going to do an hour talk with Jane Fonda?
Guest:You got to pick and choose, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you drill down on the thing that you think you're going to be able to do that's unique to someone else.
Guest:You know, he did Stern yesterday morning, right before coming over to Mark.
Guest:So like you got... Now, we don't know what Stern's going to talk to him about, but you got to think a Stern interview is a particular thing.
Guest:Stern talks to someone in a particular way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So just have Mark talk to him the way Mark does and find out what Mark finds interesting.
Guest:And another big thing is like Mark is...
Guest:not unreasonably on a, you know, kick right now where he's focused on like the threat of fascism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like, this guy had a Nazi dad and he grew up around all these Nazis and part, look, he hasn't shied away from that.
Guest:That's not some, there's nothing you're going to like do as like an expose of that.
Guest:But it's interesting that in his narrative of that, so much of it is, you know, I grew up watching these sad men and,
Guest:drink themselves into oblivion over the guilt of having participated in the war.
Guest:He talks about that in the doc.
Guest:He talked about that in the video he made after, uh, January 6th, uh, uh, capital attack.
Guest:Like he put a video out that was like, we got to do better than this.
Guest:We got to, you know, this is, this is, I've seen bad shit in Europe where stuff like this happened and like, you don't want this coming to America.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:And so he's brought this idea up before.
Guest:And Mark, like we talked about it ahead of time and he sure enough found a way to get in on it.
Guest:He was like, but don't you think some of these guys were like depressed and putting themselves in a bottle just because they were sad they lost the war?
Guest:And Arnold was like, yeah, of course.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he, it was like, and that's what, like when that kind of thing happens, you're like, yes, like we, you got him to a place like he had a script.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he also then knew like, this wasn't a, it's not a gotcha.
Guest:It's not like, oh, but it's like, get him to open the aperture a little bit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Widen it out.
Guest:It's like, these were still Nazis.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like they're like, they weren't all like sitting around like, oh my God, what did I do?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So yeah, I'm very happy with the interview.
Guest:I've already listened to it.
Guest:I haven't edited it, but I've already listened to it.
Guest:There won't be much editing.
Guest:And it's fantastic.
Guest:I couldn't be happier with how it went.
Guest:At the very end, it's one of those things where Mark does his whole thing and it wraps up.
Guest:And I'm always fast to point this out to Mark.
Guest:It happens a lot, but sometimes it's just the certain people you notice it.
Guest:I remember noticing it.
Guest:I don't know why it sticks out to me, but it was Sissy Spacek.
Guest:Who you're like, that's, you know, not somebody I really know their personality.
Guest:I don't know how she's going to be when she talks to Mark.
Guest:Is she just going to want to just go over, like, her current project or her filmography?
Guest:And, you know, in many ways, that's the kind of interview Mark and I are on guard about, right?
Guest:Like, is it going to go Kingsley?
Yeah.
Guest:And when it got to the end of that interview, he was like, well, thank you so much for coming.
Guest:It's a real honor to meet you.
Guest:And she's like, this was so much fun.
Guest:And I'm always quick to clip those little things out to him and send them to him.
Guest:Be like, listen to her voice.
Guest:She had fun.
Guest:This is an obligation that she is forced to do to promote whatever project she's in.
Guest:And you gave her a fun time.
Guest:And so at the end of this interview, he's like saying the same thing.
Guest:Thank you for coming.
Guest:It's a real honor to talk to you.
Guest:And I was like, oh, this is fantastic.
Guest:You're a fun guy to hang out with.
Guest:You are very fun.
Guest:I was like, dude, how does it get better than that?
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:This guy has had a lot of fun.
Guest:Put it that way.
Guest:He knows from fun.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And...
Guest:He thought this was a good hours spent of his time, you know?
Marc:It's like he's coming all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, they talked about that extensively.
Guest:That scene from Pumping Iron where he says that the pump is better than coming.
Guest:I'm coming all the time.
Marc:I watched that movie the first time this week.
Marc:Oh, this week?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where was that movie in my life?
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:I fell in love with him there.
Marc:He is just raw.
Marc:The world did.
Guest:That's why he became a star.
Guest:And he knows it every second of the movie.
Guest:He's just like...
Guest:They talked about that.
Guest:They talked about it in the interview.
Guest:He said, specific to that scene about the pump, that he was like, I knew that my bullshit that I was talking then would... He's like, I knew it was good.
Guest:I knew that I could do that kind of thing.
Guest:Basically, he's saying, I have a routine.
Guest:I have a comedy routine, essentially.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:And he's like, I know that that would bring attention to bodybuilding.
Guest:That's all I wanted to do.
Guest:I'm trying to sell the product.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I could do it well.
Marc:It's fascinating.
Marc:That is fascinating.
Marc:He had like a 15 minutes or an hour of routine and he fucking nailed it in his shot.
Guest:But then it's also just all this stuff with like Ferrigno and like the, you know, I like to mess with Louie's mind.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, so you watched that movie this week and I thought, you know, for everyone who listens to this Friday show because you like wrestling content, we're not going to do anything specifically wrestling this week.
Guest:Although, come on, if you're a wrestling fan, you're an Arnold fan.
Guest:There's no way you're not.
Guest:And so what we're going to do right now is go through our five favorite Arnold movies each.
Guest:I said to Chris, look, I just want to talk about Arnold.
Guest:It's been an Arnold heavy week for me.
Guest:I got to do some Arnold purge in my brain.
Guest:And the best way to do that, I think, is to talk about the things that truly made Arnold special, which, you know, it's a guy with he is a one of one.
Guest:There's no one else with his career and his life.
Guest:And it's pretty crazy.
Guest:And he's had ups and downs and done terrible mistakes and bad behavior and also amazing things.
Guest:And, you know, brought some truly commendable things to the forefront, like physical fitness and green energy, climate policies and and standing up against fascism.
Guest:He is a crazy, complicated, unique dude.
Guest:And the reason that he is in all of our lives is because of the movies he made.
Guest:So I thought it would be a great idea for us to go through our five favorite.
Guest:And why don't we do this, Chris?
Guest:I'll start off.
Guest:We'll go take our list.
Guest:Start from the bottom.
Guest:And I will bring up my first movie here, number five.
Guest:And if it's also on your list, just tell me.
Guest:You don't have to tell me where, but we will talk about it when we get to it on your list.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:Okay.
Marc:You got it.
Guest:So, so I, I'll go with my, my number five pick, which I, I thought about this.
Guest:This was tough to get, it's tough to get narrowed down to five.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so then you had to start like thinking of things in categories.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I feel like the, the straight up Arnold comedies were like knocking at the door of the five.
Guest:Like they couldn't really get through, you know, like kindergarten cop was there.
Guest:Twins was there.
Guest:Like I, I couldn't get them in to five.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what I did get into, what is my number five, I think it has to qualify as a comedy, even though it is action.
Guest:And it is coincidentally the first of his movies, his blockbuster movies, that was a bomb or considered a bomb.
Guest:But I think it holds up, not only holds up, it is in the top five of my favorite Arnold movies and its last action hero.
Guest:Mmm, that did not make my list.
Guest:Well, good.
Guest:Well, let's talk about it, because I know it was your first movie you saw by yourself, so you must have some fond memories of it, at least.
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:It was a self-aware Arnold movie that...
Marc:Just – I was hooked from the trailer.
Marc:And this movie is great.
Marc:It's this little kid who's watching an Arnold movie.
Marc:He somehow crosses the Rubicon or goes into the screen and he's in the movie land version of Arnold Schwarzenegger who's playing this character.
Marc:And there's just –
Marc:Arnold just making fun of himself.
Marc:It is just- The whole time, yeah.
Marc:It is so much fun to be, to see Arnold like this.
Marc:I'm glad this made your top five.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:Well, I think what helped make the top five was that I watched it several months ago.
Guest:I think we've talked about this a few episodes ago.
Guest:And we were talking about it in relation to Stallone and how he was kind of so self-serious, right?
Guest:And Arnold was so easily able to parody himself.
Guest:But what,
Guest:i thought was just so amazing about this on the rewatch was all the jokes that were very specific to like 80s action movies right they all still translated like my kid who's never watched lethal weapon who has no idea what a shane black movie is right he got all the jokes like through osmosis through just the fact that like it makes sense that you'd make fun of the angry police chief who you know
Guest:always is yelling and there's smoke coming out of his ears.
Guest:Like he got that trope without, I don't think ever seeing a cop movie like that.
Guest:I think a lot of it was probably integrated through the Simpsons, right?
Guest:Like the McBain stuff, right?
Guest:That's all well and good.
Guest:It's a clever movie.
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:It's this and that.
Guest:It does not work without Arnold.
Guest:Arnold is the key to it.
Guest:He's the key to it when he's Jack Slater.
Guest:He's the key to it when they're in the real world and he's playing himself.
Guest:And he's got that scene where he's like, they walk into the premiere of the movie and Maria's with him and she's like, don't plug the restaurant.
Guest:It's so cheap when you do that.
Guest:And then he's standing there talking to like Chris Connelly.
Guest:And he's like, Oh, but this movie will have much fewer killings in this movie.
Guest:The last movie we killed 278 people.
Guest:This movie will kill 109 people.
Guest:Like to know that's funny in and of itself is great.
Guest:But then like, he's like, well, you know, only here in Hollywood, right?
Guest:Arnold.
Guest:And he's like, Oh, speaking of Hollywood at planet Hollywood, we've got all this thin merchandise on display.
Guest:And she like interrupts the interview and like, she's like, all right, we're done here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's I told you, it's so embarrassing when you do that.
Guest:Just like all great.
Guest:And like, it's still good.
Guest:Every, all those jokes still work.
Guest:So yes, I, a lot of times when I make lists of movies, which I don't do a lot, like I'm not like a letterbox guy, but when I'm mentally making a list, my list is always like,
Guest:would what one would i watch now right like what one would i put on right now and enjoy and it's like there this one more than any other than four above it i would put on right now and so it makes number five on my list how about you what's your number five number five for me is conan the barbarian
Marc:This is a rollicky good time of a movie.
Guest:I'm glad you picked that one and not Conan the Destroyer because as fun as that is, it is shitty.
Guest:It's good, but it's real shitty.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:This movie, though, is great from the fucking first, second.
Marc:The movie opens and there's a quote on the screen.
Marc:There's this amazing music happening.
Marc:There's this
Marc:sword being forged from steel.
Marc:And it's just really strong stuff.
Marc:And also Oliver Stone co-wrote it somehow.
Marc:I did not know that was a thing.
Marc:But this movie is good.
Marc:Arnold is incredibly funny.
Marc:And the three protagonists work really, really well together.
Marc:Oh, Mako.
Marc:Mako is the greatest.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:And the woman is great.
Marc:Like, I'm really mad I didn't see this as a kid.
Marc:Well, it was really R-rated.
Guest:Like, I mean, I remember seeing it as a kid when it was on, like, edited for television.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I remember, like, as a teenager seeing it, like, you know, on a VHS tape, like, you know, the full movie and being like, oh, wow, there's a lot of shit cut out of this when I was a kid.
Marc:A lot of boobies, apparently.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, in my household, if there was a boobie in a movie, then I just did not.
Marc:That's gone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, actually, in my childhood, sorry to go off on a tangent here, but one of my favorite movies was Doc Hollywood growing up with Michael J. Fox.
Marc:And there's like a famous, well, not famous, but there's a scene in it where the female lead comes out of the water and she's not wearing a top hat.
Marc:it was pretty startling because it was a pg-13 movie so like a lot of people were watching like oh like back to the future and then there's just some straight up nudity in it yeah yes so that that happens i never saw that version because my dad taped it off of hbo and on that scene he changed the channel and then changed it back so i never i never saw that and how did he know how was he so quick on the trigger
Marc:I mean, I'm guessing it wasn't his first rodeo watching it.
Marc:He watched it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So he went in like a like a censor.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was the censor board.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but getting back to Conan the Barbarian, this movie, just fantastic.
Marc:Fun time.
Marc:It's violent.
Marc:It has James Earl Jones as the villain.
Marc:The bad guy.
Marc:It is great.
Marc:Like it, it, it doesn't lag at all.
Marc:Normally these movies, it's like, all right, can we get to the end?
Marc:This movie just zips right along with the plot.
Marc:And I, I loved it.
Guest:It's also, the production is tremendous.
Guest:There's so many, um, things you can, you know, watch behind the scenes things of it where they use, they did such amazing use of matte paintings and scale models.
Guest:And it's, uh,
Guest:It really started as a, what would you call it, a comic strip, I guess.
Guest:It was like an early, early comic book.
Guest:But they did such a great job of putting this fantasy world on the screen.
Guest:Directed and co-written by John Milius, who people may know his alter ego is Walter from The Big Lebowski.
Guest:That's who the Coen Brothers was.
Guest:based Walter on.
Guest:They said this is straight up our version of John Milius.
Guest:So that should give you an idea of the mind behind making this, who I think is also the credited screenwriter of Apocalypse Now, if I'm not mistaken.
Marc:For all of these, while I was watching the movies and after, I do this thing where I just want to remember what Roger Ebert thought of the movie.
Marc:So I would just pull up...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I would pull up his review and he has some really great reviews of some Arnold movies.
Marc:I, I, I really went on a rabbit hole to, uh, to watch him.
Marc:It was really fun.
Guest:Oh, that's, I mean, that's a standard practice for me.
Guest:I will always watch a movie and then go read the Ebert review, uh, which, uh, which you will never disappoint even when you don't agree with him.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, for number four, I have a feeling this might show up on your list elsewhere.
Guest:And because to me, it's kind of controversial that I even have it this low.
Guest:But I have a reason for this, why it's number four, because we're talking best.
Guest:We're talking our favorite Arnold movies, right?
Guest:We're not talking best movie.
Guest:Like, I think probably as a movie, this is the peak of the form.
Guest:If you're talking about like you're ranking movies and you want to rank an action movie or a sci-fi movie, even this is like almost inarguably like at the very tippy top of the list of all movies in that genre.
Guest:And it's Terminator 2.
Marc:Yeah, that is that is on my list.
Marc:Not checking.
Guest:So we'll wait till we wait.
Guest:We'll wait till we get to it.
Guest:What's your number four?
Guest:My number four is The Running Man.
Guest:Is that on your list?
Guest:That's on my list too.
Guest:So we can talk about that when we get there.
Marc:Very good.
Guest:Let's move up to my number three.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Which is interchangeable, I think, with my number two.
Guest:And I think you just move them around based on the mood that I'm in at the time.
Guest:But this one is...
Guest:possibly the one I've seen the most.
Guest:It would be very hard for me to say which Arnold movie I've seen the most in my life.
Guest:There are several that are definitely over 20 times.
Guest:And this is one of them.
Guest:And I just, I was trying to put it together in my head to think of like the number of, the context, the different contexts in which I've watched this.
Guest:And with different friends, with sleepovers, with like just watching it by myself, showing my wife.
Guest:Like I've seen it so many times.
Guest:And it also has a tremendous wrestling connection to it.
Guest:And that is Predator.
Guest:That is also on my list.
Marc:Okay, well, is it number three?
Guest:It is not number three.
Guest:It is not number three.
Guest:All right, well, we'll get to it.
Guest:Well, what is your number three then?
Marc:My number three is a movie that's near and dear to my heart, and it's Total Recall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, we'll get to that.
Guest:So I think we've all I think this is amazing.
Guest:I think we have the same top four movies.
Guest:They're just in different orders.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:Because, OK, so for me, number two is The Running Man.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, now is the time to talk Running Man.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Which was your number what?
Guest:What did you say was four?
Marc:Four.
Marc:Yeah, four.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, again, I think I could switch this, swap this around with Predator easily.
Guest:They came out the same year, which is crazy.
Guest:How is that possible?
Guest:To me, The Running Man is so effortlessly clever.
Guest:That's the number one thing.
Guest:It takes a very substandard Stephen King story when he was writing under Richard Bachman and makes it immensely pleasurable on the screen.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:It's so rewatchable.
Guest:You can rewatch it all the time.
Guest:And it is, of all Arnold movies, appropriately for this show, the most like wrestling.
Guest:Basically, it's American Gladiators and wrestling mixed together.
Guest:You've got Jesse Ventura in a prominent role, although interestingly enough, not one of the guys who actually gets involved in the actual game.
Marc:Yeah, really strange.
Guest:But also Professor Toru Tanaka plays Sub-Zero.
Guest:He was a...
Guest:Mr. Fuji's tag team partner in WWWF and but it's also it's like a wrestling you know it's like promoter talk right it's matches one after another like oh now you're going to see this guy and this guy and it's got the ethos
Guest:of like 1980s television.
Guest:So, you know, whether that was wrestling or game shows or... And having Richard Dawson play the bad guy is just... It's one of the best of any movie in the genre.
Guest:Like... Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What a masterstroke.
Guest:It would never happen today.
Guest:There's no one who could do that.
Guest:Who could, like, oh, well, you're also, like, you know, what, are you going to put Drew Carey as the bad guy in a movie?
Guest:It would never work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the pleasures of The Running Man are immense.
Guest:I could watch it right now and enjoy it just as I did in the beginning.
Guest:It's got Arnold at his quippiest with tremendous one-liners and puns.
Guest:He's also, like, it's the great era of Arnold where he's like...
Guest:a superhero, but also like a mild mannered dude.
Guest:But like, but he's still like, you know, a military guy.
Guest:It's got a commando, right?
Guest:It's not like crazy that he's, he's the, the, this tough guy, but he's also just like, yeah, I'm the nice guy.
Guest:Please don't drop bombs on these people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he's, it's all very chill.
Yeah.
Guest:And so, yes, he uses Arnold's charm effortlessly.
Guest:And I could not love The Running Man more.
Guest:It makes number two on my list, number four on yours.
Marc:And can I say, I've watched it recently.
Marc:And it's just, it's a timely movie.
Marc:It is a movie where there are deep fakes happening.
Marc:There's, you know, a game show, a reality show that's happening.
Marc:That wasn't a thing.
Marc:Yeah, no, it got that ahead of time.
Marc:Yeah, it was really ahead of its time.
Marc:It was just fantastical, but grounded in this way.
Marc:And the best Arnold movies are when they recognize this man is like a Greek god on Earth.
Marc:And that's what this movie does.
Marc:Richard Dawson sees the TV.
Marc:He's like...
Marc:who is that?
Marc:That's, that's my next running man because he is a Greek God running around.
Guest:I mean, that's what makes more sense that he turns baby face to the audience that they're like, they, they go, you know, who, which one do you want to bet on next time?
Guest:And the old lady's like, Oh, Ben Richards, he's a bad motherfucker.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Also, that crowd, like, you know, yeah, sure, they're cheering for Ben, but they are a bloodlusty crowd, man.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's not a nice movie about humans.
Guest:Not at all.
Marc:But I love that the movie treats Arnold the way we should be seeing him.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:The way the world saw him, for real.
Guest:Like, from what you're talking about, watching Pumping Iron.
Guest:Who is that?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Make him a superstar.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's why a movie like True Lies doesn't go on my list.
Marc:Because what?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:This guy is just a computer salesman or something.
Marc:Like, no one's going to buy that.
Guest:Well, forget the fact that the middle of that movie is just a careen off the cliff disaster these days.
Guest:Like, to watch that.
Marc:It's like... It is a five-act movie.
Marc:It is just...
Guest:like bill paxton's in it for well but yeah that whole bill paxton part it's like they they should have metooed that off the screen like that like if you could meet to a movie it should have been the middle section of true lies just cut it out entirely yes it was preposterous uh yeah running man great stuff
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, so you said your number three was Total Recall.
Guest:We will get to that.
Guest:What was your number two?
Guest:Number two was Terminator 2.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, let's get into this then right here.
Guest:Terminator 2.
Marc:So Terminator 2, probably the best movie ever.
Marc:Arnold has ever been in?
Guest:It's exactly what I was saying before.
Guest:It would be hard not to rank it as his best movie.
Marc:Yeah, and it is for sure the coolest movie, and it's building off of the infrastructure of the first movie, which I gotta be honest with you, that's another movie I watched recently.
Marc:It's only like the second or third time I've ever seen it.
Marc:That movie's fine.
Marc:T2 expands on it in a way that is just glorious.
Guest:That first movie is a is a is a low budget genre movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it's a it's like watching like, you know, it's somebody coming out of the Roger Corman school of movie making.
Guest:And he made this thing with, you know, all the tools at his disposal.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:And it's it's great for what it is.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And Arnold is a kind of revelation in it as this killing machine, but it wouldn't even come close to my top five.
Marc:No, no, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it didn't for me either.
Marc:But there's just these contemporary music cues.
Marc:There's like Bad to the Bone.
Marc:I think when that music hits, that's when you know, okay, this is going to be kind of fun, isn't it?
Marc:And then there's Guns N' Roses.
Marc:And the score is also next level.
Marc:It's just a great fucking time watching it.
Guest:Well, and it permeated the culture.
Guest:There were a million things in it that lasted forever.
Guest:The special effects, particularly, the liquid metal Terminator was one of the great innovations in all of film.
Guest:Blew everyone's mind, like watching The Wizard of Oz.
Guest:And Arnold is amazing in it, but...
Guest:He is limited to what he can do because of the constraints of the role, right?
Guest:He's a robot.
Guest:And so that said, it doesn't work as a movie if he doesn't work.
Guest:And part of what makes it work so well is your believability that the Arnold robot...
Guest:like a dog can be trained by this kid and actually develop something in the way of love as artificial as it may be, because he's an artificial being and it works so that by the end, when he's literally just doing that Arnold voice thing, where like John Connor is telling him like, you can't, no, I won't allow you to deprogram yourself.
Guest:He's going to lower himself into the lava.
Guest:Arnold just goes...
Guest:sorry.
Guest:Like in that Arnold voice, like there's no robot to it, anything, but you're so bought in at that point that Arnold is a robot, right?
Guest:Like that works in that, in the moment.
Guest:And it's still a great total package of a movie.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Guest:It's one, like you said, as a movie on Arnold's filmography, it's probably his best one.
Guest:And, but I'm, I'm, I'm impressed that you also did not rank it number one.
Guest:I think everybody was kind of default to ranking it number one.
Marc:See,
Marc:The problem, I mean, and it's so funny to say problem with the movie because, you know, it's a great movie.
Marc:But it's Arnold, you're kind of tying one arm behind his back.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You're not allowing him to fully commit and show you all the tools he has.
Guest:Well, I'm glad you said that.
Marc:Why is that?
Guest:Because the movie that is number one on my list, which you brought up also, but it rises to number one for me, is because it is absolute, pure Arnold in everything that he does.
Guest:It lets him be funny.
Guest:It lets him be...
Guest:an everyman, that weird Arnold everyman quality.
Guest:It lets him be a massive action star.
Guest:It lets him go into space.
Guest:It lets him work with the greatest special effects, just like Terminator 2 does, but he still gets to be Arnold in the midst of those special effects.
Guest:He's not diminished by them.
Guest:He's not having to play as a special effect.
Guest:Total Recall is...
Guest:Definitely for me.
Guest:It was actually not hard for me to decide that this is my favorite Arnold movie and that everything else was kind of more difficult to rank behind it.
Guest:But Total Recall, I think another part of it is that it exists simultaneously as like a parody of Arnold, but also like straight up the most Arnold.
Guest:Like, do you want fucking Arnold?
Guest:Here's Arnold.
Guest:And it just like...
Guest:here's the movie but like the the idea that this comes from this philip k dick story where the guy is like a regular schlub like he's supposed to be like i don't know like paul giamatti should play the part as it's written in the book it's just like a guy who works in a construction job right and that they're like paul verhoven who made a career out of making fun of americans and particularly like american imperialism and like there are are
Guest:you know drive to like be the best and shoot the most stuff and blow up the most things like that's robocop that's starship troopers and that's totally the idea of casting arnold as this guy doug quaid like this random dude and uh like i love that it has a hitchcock element to it the you know the innocent man done wrong i love sharon stone is
Guest:fucking great in this movie.
Guest:So amazing.
Guest:Everybody's good.
Guest:Michael Ironside, one of the best, just as a psychopath henchman who's actually the boyfriend of Sharon Stone who knows that she is playing this role as Quaid's wife and it's perverse and sick at the same time.
Guest:All the dream within a dream stuff and is this real?
Guest:Is it not?
Guest:It's layered.
Guest:The way all the...
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It is by far my favorite Arnold movie.
Guest:It's one of my favorite movies.
Guest:I've watched it so many times.
Guest:I could watch it again right now.
Guest:And you cannot lose sight of the fact that it contains the greatest DVD commentary of all movies.
Guest:Oh, I've never really seen it.
Guest:Because it's just Arnold watching the movie, explaining what he's seeing on screen.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:You know how, like, they do that thing for, you know, unsighted people where there's a separate track that just explains what's happening.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so they can enjoy the movie.
Guest:Arnold is just doing that as the commentary.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And it's tremendous.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Like, he's just like, oh, this is me at my job.
Guest:I'm a construction worker.
And, like...
Guest:and now they're shooting they're shooting at me i have to run i have to run oh this is the way oh she kicked me in the balls in that part that's good oh that's but i used him as a human shield and now i throw him i throw him down the stairs are you serious i
Guest:It can't be more than like $20 on Amazon to just go buy the DVD that has Arnold's commentary.
Guest:You will not be disappointed.
Guest:I will put in the episode description here a link to just like a four-minute YouTube compilation of him doing the commentary on this.
Guest:It will sell you on the whole thing.
Guest:But yeah, so that's my number one pick, Total Recall.
Marc:Yeah, just just I mean, everything you said, of course, but it's the decision for for Arnold to be just like vulnerable and confused.
Marc:And you're not quite and that I think the best part of it is you're not exactly sure if it was a dream or not.
Marc:Like I think that is the best part of it, honestly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, you talk about going and reading the Ebert reviews of these things.
Guest:He says the greatest thing about the Total Recall.
Guest:And he's like, I don't think Arnold is going to get enough credit for his performance in this movie.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:His performance sells the movie.
Guest:And that's totally true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It really is.
Marc:He is, I mean, he's also the main attraction of it.
Marc:Like, he sells everything.
Marc:Like, you believe that he's, like, on Mars.
Marc:Like, you know, it's just, it is a tour de force, honestly.
Marc:It is a fantastic movie.
Marc:It's my number three on my list.
Guest:Your number three.
Guest:Well, I think we know what your number one is, but in case anybody hasn't been keeping up, what is your number one, which is also my number three?
Guest:We flipped there.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Predator is my number one Arnold movie.
Guest:Well, it makes a lot of sense, but what are your general feelings and memories of Predator?
Marc:I mean, this is the quintessential Arnold movie, right?
Marc:He's in the jungle.
Marc:He has guns.
Marc:He's, you know, like, there's an alien.
Marc:Like, holy shit, sign me up.
Marc:Not only that, but then there's a crew of people.
Marc:Like, his ensemble cast is...
Marc:what makes it even more special.
Marc:Like it is just the best ensemble he's ever had.
Marc:And I, you know, I'm, I know he's been in the expendables 15, but that doesn't count.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like this is the best supporting cast he's ever had.
Marc:You know, he has Apollo Creed.
Marc:He has, uh, adjusted the body Ventura.
Marc:Like it is the best fucking, uh, supporting cast ever.
Marc:Like I, I,
Guest:love this movie yes well i but that supporting cast falls into a thing that i think is a big reason it you know got into my soul as at the age when i was watching this was it's very much like wrestling right like
Guest:you have this crew, right?
Guest:And then one by one, they're getting knocked off, which is like a battle Royal, right?
Guest:Like you, you know, there was like the type of day or a survivor series.
Guest:Like you'd watch him like, which guy's going to last?
Guest:Oh, that guy's out now.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Now that guy's out.
Guest:And like, you're watching this and you're like, I'm rooting for this guy.
Guest:Oh, he just got his head blown off or whatever.
Guest:And, and it gets down, but then he comes down to Arnold and the predator.
Guest:And the movie is like, Hey, guess what guys, this is now the last half hour for,
Guest:Like, it's a long period of time where it's just Arnold and the Predator.
Guest:And it builds up, right?
Guest:Because you've got to, like, have the scenes where he's making all the booby traps and he's, like, dealing with his wounds and then he lures the Predator in.
Guest:And it's like, that's your main event, man.
Guest:You've got to do a build for the main event.
Guest:You've got to have your main event fight.
Guest:How are you going to beat this guy?
Guest:Are you on even footing with him?
Guest:He's got laser guns.
Guest:And he does.
Guest:He uses human ingenuity to blow up this...
Guest:evil motherfucker or whatever it is he calls him i forget exactly the line uh ugly you ugly motherfucker you ugly motherfucker that's it that's it entirely as i said about uh the running man and predator i could change i could swap the two of them just i guess depending on my mood so uh it's number three on my list and and number one on yours uh why don't you go back and why don't you list your whole uh one through five again just in case people were wondering
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So number five, Conan the Barbarian.
Marc:Number four, The Running Man.
Marc:Three, Total Recall.
Marc:Two, Terminator 2.
Marc:And number one is Predator.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so my list is pretty close.
Guest:Number five was The Last Action Hero.
Guest:Number four, Terminator 2.
Guest:Number three, Predator.
Guest:Number two, The Running Man.
Guest:And number one, Total Recall.
Guest:I was wondering if Pumping Iron was going to make it into your top five with how much you've been talking about it.
Marc:It was number six, honestly.
Marc:It's so good.
Marc:You know what I also watched?
Marc:I watched Commando, which was super fun.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But yeah, didn't make my list.
Guest:That's Arnold's starter kit.
Guest:That's how I look at Commando.
Guest:That's like you're just getting out of the gate with him.
Guest:He hasn't really established the Arnold persona yet.
Guest:It's like watching early Hulkamania.
Guest:He doesn't do the full Hulk up yet.
Guest:He's not doing the point at you, brother.
Guest:He's in white trunks.
Guest:exactly right the white trunks are weird all of that but uh yeah i i mean and like i said some of those comedies twins term uh kindergarten cop they're great i just couldn't i couldn't get them in there uh eraser is kind of like an underrated one i'm not gonna say it's it's great but it's like it's it's definitely fun for like a mid-90s arnold and and i like it's worth watching again um
Guest:And True Lies, like, you know, from the Cameron point of view, as a production, it's great.
Guest:But I have so many problems with it.
Marc:So Red Heat couldn't make my list because it's just like 48 hours.
Marc:But I wish, you know, it was just actually 48 hours.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But yeah, he's made a tremendous amount of movies.
Marc:Great movies.
Marc:They're all various ranging, but he is an icon.
Marc:He is the guy.
Guest:Well, I hope that has pumped you up for the Arnold content we will be bringing you next week.
Guest:On Monday, you will have the bonus episode of me and Mark talking right after Arnold left the garage.
Guest:And then on Thursday, the Arnold Schwarzenegger WTF, which I will, as you can tell by what I'm talking about, this is a guy I thoroughly enjoy.
Guest:It could have been very easy for me to feel like it didn't hit the highs that I expected it to hit, but it absolutely met them.
Guest:And I look forward to you all hearing it.
Marc:It's such a tiny moment, but...
Marc:Did Mark ask Arnold about SNL?
Marc:Like, did he have an SNL story?
Guest:Oh, about like Hans and Franz?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, dude, I'm not even going to tell you.
Guest:Ah, fine.
Guest:My answer is yes.
Guest:And yeah, it's pretty great.
Guest:We've done a lot on Arnold this week.
Guest:We've done a lot on movies and WTF.
Guest:We really didn't do much on wrestling.
Guest:I guess we can leave today by doing our best thing in wrestling this past week.
Guest:And I got to say, I'm going to go first here because we might share some stuff in terms of what we're talking about.
Guest:the best thing in wrestling this week is very difficult because AEW put on what is possibly the best pay-per-view of all time.
Guest:Of all time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They are very good at pay-per-view.
Guest:And so anything, anytime they have an excellent pay-per-view, it can go into the discussion of the greatest of all time.
Guest:And I had thought until now that the one they did all out in 2021 was,
Guest:was probably the winner of that.
Guest:And this one may very well qualify because not only did it have great matches, which their pay-per-views always do, not only did it put the people in the right spots on the card and the pacing was amazing and the way each match kind of topped the other matches, but it had the big moment at the end that had nothing to do with an actual match, but it was the debut of Edge, Adam Copeland, that was...
Guest:a bigger moment as anything in the, they've ever done.
Guest:Like when CM Punk debuted or Brian Danielson or Adam Cole, it just had that moment felt like you're watching something big.
Guest:This is like history.
Guest:And so the whole pay-per-view was something that, you know, anything in it could qualify as the best, but I do want to single out the Brian Danielson, Zack Sabre, Jr.
Guest:Match that,
Guest:Particularly because last week, someone asked a question in the comment section that said, what do you think is the most realistic presentation in wrestling?
Guest:Who has that?
Guest:And...
Guest:The answer to that question, which we went into last week, could very well just be this match.
Guest:Like, do you want to watch a match where it looks like a match would look if two people were really trying to win with holds and pain, like pushing someone past a pain threshold, right?
Guest:So they would maybe give up.
Guest:This match is so realistic and tells the story of these guys trying to break each other down physically and
Guest:that I couldn't... I watched it twice, and it's a long match.
Guest:It's like 25 minutes.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I absolutely loved it.
Guest:This guy, Zack Sabre Jr., who doesn't get seen a lot in America because he works for New Japan, he is a hell of a seller.
Guest:He sells things like he just got killed.
Guest:There was this point where he gets a knee to the head and gets up, and he's doing this wobbly-legged...
Guest:selling job on it where he's still and he's like trying to grasp with his hand it looks like in a movie when a guy gets shot and doesn't realize he's dead like he's still trying to like will his body to do something like this guy did that in a wrestling match it was crazy
Guest:Uh, so yeah, that was absolutely the best thing, but it was surrounded by other amazingly great things to this tremendous pay-per-view wrestle dream that if you didn't watch it, go get it on demand.
Guest:It is worth every penny really legitimately may be the best wrestling pay-per-view of all time.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:This pay-per-view, and this pay-per-view is my favorite thing I've seen.
Marc:I will narrow it down to one match, but this was like a symphony.
Marc:Like, it was so perfectly paced, and the matches were brilliant.
Marc:Like, the MJF...
Marc:And the Chris Statlander and Julia Hart match.
Marc:And it just kept on building and building.
Marc:The Guns versus Bucks versus the Lucha Brothers versus Hook and Orange Cassidy.
Marc:And it just kept on building to a crescendo.
Marc:And it was...
Marc:It didn't have any down notes.
Marc:It was an incredible night.
Marc:And I'm not even talking about Jon Moxley on commentary.
Marc:And I'm sure people can watch clips of it.
Marc:But guess what?
Marc:It's not the same.
Marc:It was just...
Guest:an amazing pay-per-view and i can't believe like i can go back and re-watch it over and over again and it was a every one of those things you mentioned were different yeah like it had this variety and this this sense it's you know it's it's wrestling at its best when it's a true circus in the best way of in the best sense of that you know the uh the the the variety show where you can
Guest:enjoy everything on its own merits.
Guest:And, uh, like you said, there was no downtime.
Guest:It really was truly, uh, one of the greats.
Marc:My, I always, I always refer to things very much like a rear window where I'm, I'm, you know, Jimmy Stewart and I'm looking through the binoculars or, or his camera and I'm seeing like, like, oh, the, the ballerina and, uh, there's a party going on over here and there's the, the angry couple and like,
Marc:That's what this wrestling show was.
Marc:It had something for everyone.
Marc:It was fan-fucking-tastic.
Marc:And for me, the Swerve Strickland versus Hangman Adam Page match was amazing.
Marc:Yeah, that would be my number two.
Marc:It was such a great match, a grudge match.
Marc:And the tension there was amazing.
Marc:And these two guys sell the shit out of it.
Marc:And I loved it.
Marc:The crowd loved it.
Marc:The crowd loved it.
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:amazing and swerve just got elevated because he beat adam page uh former champ and i could not love it more because i i love that guy i i'm i'm in on him and just just a just a great time i can't believe i got to watch that i can't believe they pulled that off and then they yeah they just keep on making shows like holy shit gonna do it again yeah
Marc:Yeah, like just I'm in awe of that entire pay-per-view.
Marc:But yeah, that match in particular was my favorite.
Guest:Well, if you out there happen to see it and you want to give any feedback about it, please go to the episode description and click on the link.
Guest:Send us what your thoughts were of WrestleDream.
Guest:Somebody sent us something based on the show last week and wanted to give us some more information about the John Tenta Koji Katao shoot fight.
Guest:Just a little more background on the Tenta-Katau match.
Guest:They were both sumo wrestlers, which we had talked about, but Katau was a top-class Yokozuna, while John Tenta was a much lower rank.
Guest:Even though Katau knew that the matches were predetermined, he could not abide by losing to Tenta a second time.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Katow apparently left a higher profile wrestling league before because he didn't feel like he was getting over fast enough.
Guest:Apparently, one of the major sponsors did not know that wrestling was fake and Katow was kicked out of wrestling for grabbing the mic and breaking down the fourth wall, not for trying to take Tenta's life.
Guest:Another person said, with all things Andy Kaufman, this may or may not have been a comedy shoot, but the Fridays incident with Michael Richards fits the bill of working themselves into a shoot.
Guest:And if you don't know what that is, that was on the show Fridays, which this is in the Man on the Moon film as well.
Guest:where Andy started doing this thing, which was a setup, but the actors on stage didn't know where he would just kind of stop cooperating with the bit and saying, I don't like this.
Guest:I don't like where it's going or whatever.
Guest:And Michael Richards walks off stage and comes back with the cue cards and just throws them down on Andy in front of him.
Guest:And he throws a glass of water at him.
Guest:It was all wrestling stuff.
Guest:But the actors didn't know.
Guest:I believe just the people making the show knew.
Guest:And what I would say about this is it falls into a category called working the bullies.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:This is something that is done in wrestling where the promoter and a wrestler, maybe multiple wrestlers, they have an angle they want to get over and they want it to be a realism-based angle and they don't tell the other wrestlers that it's real.
Guest:So like Brian Pillman was famous for doing this or the MJF thing where he walked out of the building.
Guest:Oh,
Guest:People in AEW thought he really left.
Guest:They were told, oh yeah, we're having trouble with MJF.
Guest:But it was a work.
Guest:So they would consider that working the boys and girls in the show.
Guest:The idea of working yourself into a shoot, which is what this person writing in called it, that's more akin to Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, who were told to go out there and trash each other
Guest:talk talk you know cut promos on each other about how they hated one another and they actually wound up hating one another and uh trying to end each other's careers because of the fake stuff they were supposed to be saying so that's the idea of working yourself into a shoot uh work being like you're working you're you're pretending shoot which you know i know i've been liberally using that word comes from the idea of like you're shooting from the hip right this is a this is not part of the script i
Guest:I see.
Marc:You're improv-ing.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And so, yes, that's how I would characterize that.
Guest:But yes, as you said, whoever wrote this in to us, everything with Andy Kaufman was in some ways a kind of a worked shoot.
Guest:And you could say that about him on SNL or David Letterman or all of that.
Guest:So that is true.
Guest:And definitely go back and listen to our episode with Box Brown, where we talked about Andy on one of the earlier Friday shows.
Guest:But that will do it for us.
Guest:We've spent a long time here talking about Arnold.
Guest:I really hope you enjoy next week's full Arnold on WTF.
Guest:I couldn't be happier with how things worked out.
Guest:I really could.
Guest:I'm so happy for you, dude.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:Well, that is it for this week.
Guest:Until next time, I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Guest:I'll be back.
Guest:Peace!