Hola, Sneakers! It’s Episode 620 of the podcast no one needed!
This week Ian and David talk: phone-y baloney; guys and sex dolls; the toy of sex; the multiplanes of existence; the way of all Fleischer; hag-iography; Snow what; Gulliver unravels; a Swift response; future past; world war wonderings; favouring Currie; Dads’ armies; golf bores; bridge nix; the problem with It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World; the hosts with the mosts; prize winners; hit The Wall; musical incoherence; see me, feel me, explain me; build up to comedy; breaking up is easy to do; the magic of Graham Chapman; unknown Python; a little me time; downtown Chester Brown; drinking gamed; disgusting trivia; island girls; stuff yourself; hot potato; too many kooks; Dave is enjoying Recipes for Love and Murder; let’s reminisce with the films of Hal Hartley; the real James Bond; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; Ed returns; deflated impressions; bad Forum; Dave’s Avatar theory dies a sad death; movie ride; Thrawn cocktail; cult of one; show notes; choose a theme; go phish; tomato surprise; a little Mohr; and, finally, fuck the old guy.
Question of the Week: Have you ever been scammed?
Sub-question of the Week: If Star Wars is the number one film that has saturated pop media culture, what is the number two film?
Thanks for listening.
If you want to watch the Fleischer Studios version of Gulliver’s Travels and see what all the fuss wasn’t about, here it is:
We know you’re no dummy, here are the rules to Bridge:
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To follow up on our discussion of James Bond and James Bond, Wikipedia states that:
“Fleming wrote to the real Bond’s wife, “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born.”[13] He did not contact the real James Bond about using his name in the books, and Bond did not learn of Fleming’s character until the early 1960s, when Fleming’s James Bond books became popular in the U.S. In 1964 during Fleming’s annual winter stay at Goldeneye in Jamaica, James Bond and his wife visited Fleming unexpectedly.[14] In his novel Dr. No Fleming referenced Bond’s work by basing a large ornithological sanctuary on Dr. No’s island in the Bahamas. In 1964, Fleming gave Bond a first edition copy of You Only Live Twice signed, “To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity”.
“James Bond’s wife told Fleming that her husband saw the use of his name for the character as a good joke, to which Fleming replied “I can only offer your James Bond unlimited use of the name Ian Fleming…Perhaps one day he will discover some particularly horrible species of bird which he would like to christen in an insulting fashion.”
So there you have it: James Bond was aware that he was the source of Fleming’s famous character’s name, and he was rather pleased by it.
I’m going to broaden your question from “film” to “film franchise.” Since Star Trek started off on TV, I’d currently have to put the Marvel movies in the number two position for recognizable characters and merch sales and kids showing up at our door in Halloween costumes. Harry Potter was up there for a while, but the franchise has stumbled a bit of late.
It was fun to hear you argue about the degree of impact Star Wars had on the general public and when and for how long. Like Dave, I felt Star Wars waned from mainstream pop culture for a while after the Return of the Jedi. Yes, it had a loyal fandom. But for instance, when Spaceballs came out a four years later in 1987, my feeling then was that it was a little late for a spoof. If Grandpa Mel had finally heard of it, it was no longer the latest thing.