Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to the podcast that really, really likes you!
This week: locked room mystery; rhubars; rhythm methodist; white collar crime and punishment; hands on investigation; river of shit; cuckoo for Columbo; spouse of life; across the border station; young at heart TV programming; name that cartoon; unprovoked walrus assault; future past; pains in a necktie; adult in origin; ice capades and crossed swords; vaults in Alberta; hippo critic; reference material; before the Fudd; Claghorn o’plenty; career killer; sofa so good; living in a box; fuzz down under; the bad humour man: play pool; get your giallos; it’s Challengers one, Dave love; Hitman was a hit with Dave; theatrical sabotage; winning friends; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; evangelical numbers game; McCartney hearings; park it; degraded; pi eyed; Gary meanderings; and, finally, kind of a drug.
Department of Joe E. Distinctions
Our apologies, but Dave conflated the comedic actor Joe E. Brown with the nightclub comedian Joe E. Lewis. It was Lewis who ran afoul of organized crime and had his throat cut for his pains.
Question of the Week: Who is the best Gary?
Sub-question of the Week: What is your favourite test?
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The best Gary with one R — at least, the one who had a big influence on me as a comedy writer — is Gary Jones who came from Toronto to perform with Second City at Expo 86. He stayed on and did amazing work in our first sketch comedy revue and was the original Captain in “Star Trick The Musical.” If you wrote a line for him, you knew he’d have the swagger and the hunger-for-laughs to really sell it. The best Garry with two Rs is Garry Chalk, also a former TheatreSports performer. He is a friendly, generous guy whose parlayed his imposing presence and resonant voice into a hugely successful career in live action and animation here in Hollywood North.
My favourite test is doing the New York Times crossword puzzles in the Saturday Vancouver Sun newspaper. I use them as a cognitive test of my general and pop culture knowledge; of my ability to spot a pun in a clue; and of my power to resist Googling an answer. Actor Morales (4 letters)? Singer Rita (3 letters)? Popular sandwich cookie (4 letters)? Old Olds (3 letters)? No problem!
BTW, it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe a limited number of people will qualify to get into heaven. Investigating further, that number is 144,000. Their current membership? About 8.8 million. The rest will have the chance to live forever in an earthly paradise.
Hey hey Sneakers! Time to write in….
My favorite Garry with two “R”s would have to be Garry Shandling, the late comic and all-around funny man. I know we’ve discussed him before and this isn’t the first time I’ve written about him here but I really miss Garry, something about his comedy and timing really appealed to me. I still find myself just going to YouTube and watching Garry Shandling videos over and over again, his defeated, impassive comedy still makes me laugh, hard.
If Shandling is my funny Garry my more serious Gary, with one “R”, goes to the brilliant Gary Oldman. The present silver screen’s “Man of a Thousand Faces”, Oldman’s roles haven’t failed to mesmerize me. There’s a meme going around with Oldman on it, from “The Professional” I think, and it says, “Imagine one day you’re at work or out for a drink or doing the shopping and someone shouts “CUT” and it turns out you were Gary Oldman all along. That’s how good an actor he is.”
I find my inner critic debating what role Oldman was his best, “True Romance”?, “Sid and Nancy”?, “Hannibal”?, “The Fifth Element”? or is it Oldman’s performance in “Darkest Hour” that won him an Oscar in 2018…they’re all great and he continues to be a chameleon. My brother was an extra in “The Dark Knight” when he lived in Chicago and got to meet Gary Oldman, said he was happy to greet the extras but honestly couldn’t understand completely what he was saying from his heavy accent. He got to watch Oldman and Chris Nolan work together though, a once in a lifetime experience.
I play a daily test online and no, it’s not Wordle. The American Film Institute has a visual quiz every day called “GET THE PICTURE, AFI’s Daily Movie Guessing Game.” The photo is an image from one film and I try to guess it before clicking the PLAY button. When you click PLAY, you then get to choose from five movie titles below the image to guess what movie it’s from. The weekend quizzes are harder and the AFI delivers one every day. You can track your progress too and see where you rank. Go here and scroll down to “Get the Picture” to play: https://www.afi.com
Dave, you were discussing the in-jokes and era-based references made in cartoons and film and how some of them have been lost in time. Then you mentioned how the Marx Brothers used these in references in many of their films. If you’re ever wondering if all these Marx references can be found in one place and explained then please check out Matthew Coniam’s book, “The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer’s Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details” Now you’ll be able to understand all the Marxian detailed and era-heavy humor like “habeas Irish Rose” and “The Trial of Mary Dugan, with sound”, just to name a few. If the author sounds familiar then you may know Matthew from as one of the hosts of “The Marx Brothers Council Podcast”. It really is a delightful book and one I could have used decades ago to better understand everything the Marx Brothers were going off about, but better late than never!
And like clockwork as if it were repeat of last week and the week before, I’m off to walk after writing all my friends at Sneaky Dragon.
You are all my friends and I’m grateful. Thanks to all…