In this captivating episode of Don't Encourage Us, join our always hilarious and humble hosts and guest Matt Baughman, a renowned actor, as they embark on a creative odyssey, transforming a quirky romantic comedy into a poignant Pixar-style film. Witness the dynamic evolution of ideas, where a dog's perspective on its owners' divorce takes center stage, offering a blend of humor and heartfelt themes. This episode isn't just a brainstorming session; it's an invitation to explore the complexities of family dynamics, all wrapped in an engaging, interactive experience. Dive into this imaginative and insightful journey with us!
In this captivating episode of Don't Encourage Us, join our always hilarious and humble hosts and guest Matt Baughman, a renowned actor, as they embark on a creative odyssey, transforming a quirky romantic comedy into a poignant Pixar-style film. Witness the dynamic evolution of ideas, where a dog's perspective on its owners' divorce takes center stage, offering a blend of humor and heartfelt themes. This episode isn't just a brainstorming session; it's an invitation to explore the complexities of family dynamics, all wrapped in an engaging, interactive experience. Dive into this imaginative and insightful journey with us!
Matt Baughman in "Gutenberg! The Musical!
Speaker 1: Uh, so now we have scenes in the park, I guess, and what, the doggie daycare where the dogs are talking about their relationships with their owners. Is that, is that what, is this fitting your new vision for this project?
Speaker 2: And you came up with the idea. I didn't have this like, uh, gossip circle at the park talking about the, uh, dog relationships.
Where were, where were you going with this? I'm just trying
Matt: to,
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I'm just trying to keep up. Welcome to Don't Encourage Us, the show where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds, books, movies, TV shows, video games, nothing's off limits. I'm your host, Potent Potables, and I'm here with my co host, Potpourri.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Doing great. Potable.
Speaker 1: We have a story break episode, but before you turn off the show and delete the episode, we have a special guest. Matt Bachman is back. That's really going to
Matt: turn people
Speaker 1: off now.
So Matt, long time listeners may recall is a, an actor, a local stage actor and a leading man who's graced us with his presence. Welcome back, Matt. Thank you.
Matt: Thank you. It's fun to be here. Also, gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Also
Speaker 1: procure excellent liar.
Matt: It is fun to be here. I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: Let's get another, a couple of takes on that one.
No, that's good. All right. So today we're breaking an original idea, but before we get into that, what's been on your list this week with, are you talking about me to me or Speaker 2? You know what, I'm just going to throw it out there and everyone's to swing at the pitch. I'm a
Matt: guest. So I'll go first. Uh, I, I, I kind of want to, and this is going to bring, bring the pod down a little bit, but I kind of wanted to talk about the death of Matthew Perry.
Uh, but maybe not talk about the death of Matthew Perry, but talk about how, uh, influential he was. I grew up with, there's three actors that really influenced me. There was Jim Carey, uh, there was Chris Farley, and then there was Matthew Perry. So. Jim Carrey, I've, I kind of like learned my, how to use my face to get a laugh.
And then Chris Farley was how to use my body to get a laugh. And then Matthew Perry, I learned how to use comic timing. Like I felt like his comic timing was impeccable and it was. Completely evident. And friends, obviously. But I mean, I watched his movies, uh, the whole nine yards. There was a movie called Three to Tango that I used to, it was a Manno.
Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. Fools. Fools Rush in when I, I was actually performing in a play when someone ca I came off stage and someone said, oh God, Matthew Perry died. And I have to be honest with you, for the rest of the show, I was thinking about that. Mm-Hmm. . It was just, I've, I've never met him. Yeah. But he was, I've spent.
Thousands and thousands of hours with him really hit me hard. One of the not celebrity deaths don't really hit me very hard, but for Matthew Perry, it did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there's only one guy left there. It's the curse of Matt Bachman. That's true. Jim Carrey. Well, when Chris
Matt: Farley died, I think I was in high school and people called me because they knew how much I loved him so much.
They would, they called me and asked me how I was. They didn't do that with Matthew Perry, but when Jim Carrey dies, yes, that's going to happen. Hopefully for many years he will not be, he'll be with us. Hopefully he'll perform more. That's, you know, he doesn't do a ton of acting. What was Matthew
Speaker 2: Perry's journey like?
I, like, don't know anything about him. Beyond really friends and in the movies he did, but how he got into acting. Do you know anything about
Matt: that? Well, what I was also sad was his I was reading his book He had a biography out and about halfway through it. So I have to be hard to going back into it He well, he came from a showbiz family like his dad was an actor So he started up pretty young like I think when he was a teenager and he did small parts and like growing pains facts of life that like shows like that they kind of like one offs And then he kind of struggled with sitcoms like pilot season and then, yeah, he hit with friends and that was that basically he was on another show at the time, a pilot where he was like, uh, an airport security guard, but who checks bag, like the security, what are they called?
TSA, he was a TSA, but for like an alien planet, it was a weird, it was a really, really concept, but he was contracted for that. So he wasn't available for friends at the time. So he had to have that show get canceled before he could sign on to friends. But he was the producer's first choice, but they basically shot the pilot with him.
And I think the same issue was with Jennifer Aniston. That's right. They both were
Speaker 1: contracted. She was the lead on another sitcom
Matt: on another show. And they're both hoping that those shows got canceled so they can continue with friends. And luckily, you know, stars aligned and those, those shows got canceled and friends became the biggest hit probably ever.
On TV, and I've seen every episode at least 10 times. Yeah, there's only,
Speaker 2: what, just a handful of shows on that level. Maybe two or three, right? Seinfeld?
Matt: Friends. I would say Seinfeld 1, Friends. Knight Rider. No. I think, unfortunately, I think Big Bang Theory might be going up into that realm, which I'm, I mean, I've watched every episode of that, but it was not, I, I, I don't know.
And Everybody Loves Raymond, maybe. Um, that might be, yeah. NCIS with Scott Bakula.
Speaker 2: Man. NCIS Albuquerque.
Speaker 1: Star Trek Enterprise. You missed
Speaker 2: our Scott Bakula conversation. We've had a couple of them now. Because we thought he had,
Speaker 1: what? He had passed on or something, right? You thought he had retired. And I was well aware of his many different shows.
Well, I haven't seen
Matt: him recently. That's, that was my question,
Speaker 2: Matt. And apparently, our, uh, Potent Potable co host knows. Knows all about Scott Bakula. You
Speaker 1: want to take it away? I'll take Scott Bakula for 500.
Matt: Have you ever seen Necessary Roughness? Uh, the football movie? Where he was like a washed up quarterback for college.
Yeah. But he was only like, he was like 30 maybe? And CIS
Speaker 2: Toledo. Is that what he said?
Speaker 1: Uh, okay. So, uh, yeah, the loss of Matthew Perry, uh, just to bring it back down because we wouldn't want to have fun on this show. It's a big deal. Yeah. He was touring with his. Book talking about his substance abuse issues and his near death experiences. And my wife attended when he was in town and it was really, really a big deal to her.
Like he talked about nearly dying. And she made the point to tell me that he very clearly stated that he thinks the doctors would not have tried so hard to save him on at least one occasion. If he was not so famous. Right. So he was living, I think, on borrowed time. Um, and that's not my opinion. I think that's probably what his opinion was, or at least what he talked about.
Um, so in a, in a way, I guess it's great that he had the years he had, although dying so young, uh, I mean, he could have lived another 30, 40, 50 years. Uh, I think reasonably, um, perhaps if he'd taken better care of himself or maybe this was just an accident, but he certainly lives hard for
Matt: sure. He did. And so in his book, his parents, so he had, uh, some, he had, uh, whatever keeps babies up at night, not whooping cough, but something, I can't remember what that, what that's called, but it's something that keeps the baby crying constantly and the doctors prescribed the baby at three months.
Opioids. Um, so that kind of like, he feels, he talks about how that kind of attribute to his, his, how his brain chemistry or something, his drug abuse was kind of like, yeah, exactly. It was just in him from such a small
Speaker 1: baby, right? Like rewired his brain or his biochemistry somehow. Yeah, maybe, maybe.
Matt: So, R. I.
P. Matthew Perry, but I'm glad that his, you know, his work lives on. You can watch it every night at Nick at Night, which I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on, it's on all the time. It's on all the time. Yeah. Everywhere. Friends is a real cash cow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read somewhere that they, they make like 20 million dollars a year in just the residual income from the show.
Yeah. Each one
Matt: of them. Crazy. I mean, they don't have to work again.
Speaker 1: I would say. I wonder what happens to those checks now from, from Matthew Perry, like do they go to his family? Does someone inherit it? Or is it? Yeah.
Matt: There's like some, I saw some headline, it goes to his dad apparently, I think. And there is some sort of controversy with that.
Speaker 1: I wonder how, if his dad dies, does it go to someone else or is it like one person only? Like I'm now, I'm curious about the rules of residual inheritance. I would think, I would
Speaker 2: think it was
Speaker 1: phrase I've never heard.
Speaker 2: It would be similar to any type of income, right? Continuous income on investments, because it's really kind of like investment income, right?
Because it's an asset that's paying off a residual, like a rent almost.
Matt: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you live in New York. Does that mean you could like bump into somebody who's like got a table at a club and and They're like living off that leave it to beaver money. I think it's possible. Yeah, and they're great grandparents
Checks keep coming in. Oh, yeah
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll bump into Scott back hill and ask him about quantum leap money
Speaker 1: That should be coming in. There's a, there's a new reboot series. There's a reboot.
Matt: I wonder if he gets a little. Can we get him
Speaker 2: on this podcast? Maybe that should be like a goal of ours.
Matt: I don't think, I mean, I don't think he's
Speaker 2: doing much. See that's why he's not going to come on the podcast when you're, when you're talking like that.
I don't think Scott Bakula is doing much. There we go.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Scott. You coastal Americans. It's so embarrassing. Speaking of embarrassing, I hesitate to mention this because I know it's a sore subject for Matt, but the new Transformers movie came out, Beast Wars, didn't do so well. I don't know if you guys, did you guys go to see it together?
Did you keep up the tradition?
Matt: Uh, I waited for... It was streaming Paramount. I know.
Speaker 2: How did you miss it though?
Matt: It was on the newsletter Matt. It didn't have Shia LaBeouf in it. Um, It didn't have Mark Wahlberg in it. So, you know what? I'm just going to wait.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you go to Transformers movies, not for the Transformers.
Let me go for the actors. Okay, that makes sense. Screw the Transformers. Makes sense. They'll have to get Jim Carrey in the next one.
Matt: Yeah. Oh my god, if he was opening night, preview night. He'd be camping out.
Speaker 2: Like those Black Friday
Matt: sales. Can you imagine? You're right. Yeah. Um, but Pete Davidson was in this one.
He was a voice. And he was really good. I can't remember which, I can't remember which autobot he played, but he was, he was, he was good. He was the only recognizable person I can remember besides the, the person who always does the voice for Optimus. Um, kind of Optimus. Are there humans
Speaker 2: in this one or is it just all?
Transformers. There
Matt: is, there, there's the um.
Speaker 1: Speaker 2, super fan.
Matt: There's, he was in Hamilton. Not it's not men. It's not Lin Manuel. Uh, he was in, in the heights, Anthony Ramos. So he was at, he was the main guy. He was good. Um, he
Speaker 1: was good. Did you like this movie, Matt?
Matt: I'm gonna have to say not really. I'm gonna say two stars.
Oh, wow. Ouch. Yeah. Ouch. Wow. I didn't really like the Mark Wahlberg one either. So maybe it's starting to fall down. But the first three. I like the original.
Speaker 2: I
Matt: still, I'm still a fan of the original. The original one was a. Stephen, I went to see the original, it was awesome.
Speaker 1: That's alright, we'll cut this, but just to save you guys some embarrassment.
So why don't we talk about the Marvels instead, because
Speaker 2: I heard that's getting great
Matt: reviews. Oh, I'm going, I got my tickets for tonight already.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, great. Come back and tell us how good it is. So we'll see what it is. What's it getting, like one
Matt: star reviews? It's not getting, but it's short, you know, it's
Speaker 1: what you want
Matt: in a movie.
It's Marvel's like shortest movie. I think it's like four and a half hours. I saw killers of the flower moon. Oh my God. How was it now? That's a long, long,
Speaker 2: and there was something wrong in the theater with the, um, heating system. So they just had the AC cranked up at like full blast. It was sitting there with the winter coat on and gloves.
The entire time it is,
Matt: that's how you
Speaker 2: got COVID probably it's, um, it's so incredibly long, man. Like I, that movie could have been like two and a half hours tops, maybe two, but three and a half. It's funny because the, um, the CBS morning show did a piece on it on the whole story in about eight and a half minutes.
The story from end to end and then sitting through that movie was just like, I mean the acting is phenomenal though. Of course De Niro is great. The, all the other like, um, supporting actors are incredible. Cinematography is great. Like, so everything about the movie as you would expect is incredible. It needs an editor.
Yeah, there's, it's just too much, like, really, really slow scenes, a lot of, like, kind of redundancy in, like, the way they told the story. They would discuss something, then there would be flashbacks showing it that were really kind of unnecessary, and it just really, I don't know, it just really dragged. I thought.
Matt: That's the problem now with Scorsese and I'd put Tarantino in there and I'd put, uh, I'd put Christopher Nolan in there where they give him so much slack. They don't, they just say, whatever, this is going to be three and a half hours, it's going to be four hours. It doesn't matter. I messed it up. I'm a genius filmmaker.
Yeah. Yeah. That's on Lucas too. Maybe. George Lucas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. George Lucas. Prequels. You know, somebody need to come in and be like, uh, we'll keep about 70 percent of this. Yeah. It's
Matt: like, they're, they're too precious with their material that they don't want to cut anything. And they're like Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer I loved, but you're right, I sit in there for three hours.
It was, it was too much. It's like, cut it down, like, cut it down to at least I mean,
Speaker 2: less really is more, like, in a lot of ways. And I think that, you know, really shows the skill of the director and editor. And you can really showcase it if you can get something that, you know, you feel needs to be told in four hours, but you get it down to 90 minutes.
That's super tight and every scene moves along. So like, um, back to, we always talk about this, Matt, back to the future, how it's a perfect movie, the way it's structured, you know. It is. It never, ever drags. Cause they were so great about the editing in that movie and just keeping everything flowing. That's what this movie needed.
Matt: Right. But. It goes by quickly. Yeah. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Scorsese, this might be blasphemous, but started watching his movies, trying to like watch movies I haven't seen before, like, um, taxi driver and I'm, and things like that. And I saw, Oh shoot, what's the movie with the, they're not the Irish gang.
Um, Gangs in New York. Gangs in New York. It was
Speaker 2: on the tip of my tongue. Trust me. It was
Matt: there. Yes. I just watched that. That was so slow.
Speaker 1: Alex, I'll take, uh, Matt Bachman for 300.
Matt: But like the only move I can safely say that I really loved of Scorsese's was, uh, The Departed. And that's like, that's like noted to be one of his worst ones, which I, even though he won the best picture for it, but that's the only one
Speaker 1: I, could you imagine it'd
Matt: be a four hour transformers movie.
I think that's a crossover event we want to see. He would at least get Leo in it, so I'd watch it. Goodfellas with
Speaker 2: Optimus Prime. There's some great scenes there, right? There's like the big boss. Instead of like Joe Pesci, they like swap Optimus Prime in.
Matt: Did he also do, he did Casino too, right? Yep. Yeah, that was, that was a snoozer too.
Yeah, there's... Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. 2. What about Wolf of
Matt: Wall Street, what do you think of that? Actually, that one is probably, I'd put that second next to, I didn't mind Wolf of Wall Street. That one was like, it felt like it was just too much. Like I kind of came out of the theater, like this was, this was too much.
This is like the pacing. Everything was, I felt like my heart just went through some sort of surgery basically. Um, but I know it was my heart went through some sort of
Speaker 1: surgery. Don't talk to me right now. My heart just went through some sort of surgery. One and a half stars.
Matt: That was funny. That's a quotable. But yeah, that was a, it was a,
Speaker 2: that's like when we were splicing, uh, reviews together for a studio theater. Remember that? Yeah. It was dot, dot, dot. Just make it pretty. Dot, dot, dot. Engrossing. Dot, dot, dot. A must. Dot, dot. Watch. We used to work at a theater. We had to come up with reviews.
Sometimes these plays were horrendous. So we'd need to look through all the reviews and literally cherry pick words and string them together into these sentences. But in order to make it quote unquote legal, you had to put dot, dot, dot in between every word. So it was just a series of words with dot, dot, dot strung together into a sentence because the original sentence was like, this was the worst thing we've ever seen.
And then it was like, this was dot, dot, dot. Dot, dot, dot, scene, and then you'd find best from somewhere and then clip it, clip it in. It was so funny. And just make it pretty. They would
Matt: tell us. Just make it pretty. That was, that was our big note. Just make it pretty.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, uh, so you guys mentioned brevity is key.
So thanks to the listeners. Thanks to everybody for coming today. I think we're good. That's good. Great having
Speaker 2: you on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. See you next week. See ya. See ya. We're not hypocrites. Nope, we are, actually. Uh, so anything before we go into story break? You guys ready to dive in? Let's do it. Let's dive in.
Let's do it. Alright. Very good. So, we still don't have a story break theme. Anybody want to take a stab at that one this week? Matt,
Speaker 2: you're the guest. An impromptu off the top of your head, uh, Story Break song you can make up. That's
Speaker 1: so mean. He's in, he's in Yeah, set to a
Matt: song. Set to something that's not copyrighted, hopefully, so we don't get sued.
Da da da da da, it's Story Break. It's Story Break. Break me off a piece of that Story Break. Nice. That might be copyrighted.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. I like that. I think you were just off key enough that you can claim it's an original composition.
All right. So, uh, I brought the, uh, the pitch for today. Uh, so my idea. I think there's a film, right? So I'm wide open if you want to make it a cartoon or a Transformers movie, but right now I'm thinking, well, if that's the
Matt: case, Transformers now. All
Speaker 1: right. So this is a romantic comedy about a woman who gets dumped by her boyfriend and she stalks him.
Until, a friend of hers helps her realize that she doesn't love her ex boyfriend, she's really more in love with his dog. And then, hijinks ensue as she tries to find ways to sneak pets and cuddles by hiding in the bushes at the park, following them around, and even going so far as to take a job at his doggy daycare.
So, any reactions? What do you think? Is that a decent premise? Can
Matt: we run with that? I think it's a good premise, especially for dog owners. Yeah. Because... Like I love my wife. Okay, let's just get that out there
Speaker 2: right now.
Matt: Okay. I love my wife. I love
Speaker 1: my wife.
Matt: She's right there. I love my wife. I love her. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: gut sneaking into the frame, isn't there?
Matt: But I, I, I love my dog. It's just a barrel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. You love your wife and you love your dog. I love my wife. All right. I love my
Matt: dog. So if my wife and I went through trouble, I'm, this is hypothetical. So we are having troubles and we were wanted divorce. We would probably stay together for the dog like a child.
Wow. Especially if you don't have a child. Yeah. Um. And you have a dog, you treat that dog like your child. So yeah, if we were, we would not get divorced because we had a dog because we, we couldn't, we couldn't do the split custody thing. We would have to, we'd have to be there a hundred percent of the time.
Sounds healthy. So I could see that. Is
Speaker 1: this a Valentine's Day card that he's writing over there? Look, we're not having problems, right?
Speaker 2: But even if we were... What's the cover? What goes on the inside? That's the question.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wouldn't fight with you in front of the dog. That's how much I love the dog.
Happy Valentine's Day. Here's some flowers or whatever.
Matt: Here's some flowers. Here's some flowers or whatever.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think, I think we got your very heartwarming message. Um. I love my dog. You love your dog. Yep. I get it. I love my dog. It's controversial, but we'll allow it today. All right. Good. So, because you love your dog, this premise kind of works for
Matt: you.
I'm saying people, there's a lot of people out there like me, and I think people will want to see
Speaker 2: this. Just tap the mic once if you're in danger, Matt.
Speaker 1: Oh man. All right. Good. Yeah. So, I think this is a fun one. This occurred to me. I was talking to a woman, and she, uh, she actually lives in New York, and she was saying, She wasn't sure about her relationship she was thinking about, maybe breaking up, but, you know, the guy was nice and they, she just didn't really like his taste in music, they didn't have a ton of stuff in common, but she loved his dog so much and she just couldn't imagine not seeing his dog, not being able to play with that dog and have a good time.
So she was legitimately stringing out the relationship. Just because she loved the dog and I was like, man, this is a romantic comedy. If I have ever heard of a romantic comedy, like I think this is something that a lot of people can identify with. I think they've probably fallen for that. I think they've confused their love of an animal or a pet with the partner who owns it or the person who brought it into their life.
I think we've all seen that and I think it's high time that we have a whole movie that's a romantic comedy. So my working title for this one is part time dog stalker. Uh, it's just a working title though. Obviously that's not going on a marquee. Uh, there's a lot that we do not have for this film. So let's start filling it in.
Any thoughts, any reactions, anybody got anything for this one? Um, I think with the
Speaker 2: dog part, I see what you're saying. She, you know, she's not into the guy. But I wonder if this could be one of those movies where like, eventually the guy picks up on it. And something happens where like he starts becoming a better boyfriend because of the dog and it's kind of like that becomes kind of the impetus to kind of go, I guess, in that case, you'd be going more into the traditional romantic comedy vein.
Speaker 1: See, that's what I knew this would come up, right? We should talk about the ending first so that we don't fall into this trap, right? Yeah. What is this ending? Is it okay? Actually. The woman ends up back with the boyfriend and the dog now has their fam, you know, they have their family and that's the happy ending or does this woman find a different guy who maybe also has a dog who helps her realize, or, you know, maybe they get a dog together and then you have your happy family or does this woman end up single with the dog with her ex boyfriend's dog or with a new dog of her own?
Or something like that. Like taking a job at humane society, helping dogs. Like what is the ending here that is appropriate for the time and the story? Do you guys have any thoughts about
Matt: that? The dog dies. Dog. Dog. Just
Speaker 1: kidding. I'm just nice psychopath. Good
Matt: job. Can we mute his mic? Tell the dog to pull the trigger.
I think he, she doesn't end up with the dog, but she has a healthy relationship. Like they meet up, she gets her own dog and they meet up in the dog park. So she
Speaker 1: doesn't steal this ex boyfriend's dog. She ends up with her own dog and the message there is there's plenty of love out there. You can find your own.
You don't have to. To stay with a guy just because he's got, or so a partner, right? It doesn't matter if it's a guy stay with a partner just because you, you get attached to their animal. Is that right? Okay. So then what's the ending for the ex boyfriend's dog?
Matt: Like that's what I say. I think she has to have some sort of connection.
Like they, they're in the dog park with her new dog playing and the old dog is in the park as well. Okay. And they see each other. And it's like the dog, they look
Speaker 1: at each other, he approves, the dog signs off
Matt: on her moving on,
Speaker 1: like, you're good. Exactly. I'm
Matt: good, you're good, we're all good. He holds up a
Speaker 1: paw, he'll come over.
Yeah, exactly. It's okay. I don't know, I'm having
Speaker 2: it, I'm having trouble with this one though, like, kind of visualizing the scenes because typically you'd want Yeah. I mean, traditionally, you'd have like two humans in the scene and the dog, but I'm just like, is this like a sequence of montages between her and the dog,
Speaker 1: you know?
Alright, alright. I'll walk you through it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you a little bit more context. Okay, so you start off and you have a woman and she's in a relationship and it's, it's okay. It's fine, but she's super happy and you realize in those scenes and, you know, dialogue, not just montages, but dialogue, you realize like she's in love with that dog.
Like the two of them are super happy together and the boyfriend's just kind of there. Like he's fine, right? There's nothing really wrong with him. He's not some big chat or whatever. He's just like a regular dude. And they don't have a ton of stuff in common, but she loves that dog and she stays in the relationship and she has conversations with her gay best friend or whatever, you know, about the relationship and stuff.
And it's very evident in those conversations that she's got a lot in life. She's got a good job. She makes good money. Uh, she has, you know, all, all these things going for, she's, you know, fun, smart, et cetera, et cetera. When she talks about the relationship, it's just not doing it for, except for the dog.
Right. And then the boyfriend breaks up with her. It's a, she's committed and doesn't see what's obvious to the audience, but he's like, look, like, it's just not. Not going to work. And she's like, what? And then he takes the dog away from her and she's devastated. Now you have funny scenes where she's stalking her ex boyfriend, you know, she's like following around and doing all that funny kind of crazy stalker stuff.
And this is a woman with like a, you know, a good job, right? She's educated intellectual. So it's silly and funny and weird. That's somebody who's. So successful and so competent. Like maybe she's a dentist or something. I don't know, lawyer, whatever that she's actually like being very clever and sneaky and stalking.
And then she almost gets busted. It's an embarrassing, particularly funny scene. And she's talking to her best friend about it over, you know, I don't know, whatever's trendy today, some sort of small drink cocktail sampling event or something. And she's like explaining what happened in her friends. Like.
You don't love Jim or John or Mark, whatever his name, we'll call him Chad. Why not? You don't love Chad. You love what's the dog's name. Somebody give me a dog's name.
Matt: Uh, let's do ravioli, it's my dog's name. What is it? Let's do ravioli. Ravioli, perfect.
Speaker 1: Yes. You love ravioli, and then you get a reaction shot
Speaker 2: of her.
Is ravioli in the room? He's right there, isn't he? He's got,
Matt: his paw comes up with the
Speaker 1: gun. Ravioli. It goes back down,
Speaker 2: and you're like, ravioli.
Matt: I love my dog.
Speaker 2: Is that today's newspaper?
Speaker 1: Oh, man. Uh, I was a reaction shot of the woman. You see her face as it dawns on her very slowly that she does not love Chad. She loves Ravioli. And I'm, I'm really, I appreciate that name. That was perfect. So, so then she, instead of learning her lesson not to stalk, she switches from stalking Chad to stalking Ravioli.
So she's hiding in the bushes when they go on walks and then sticking her hand out and like rubbing his head and, you know, his rear end and his favorite way of being pet and she's hiding in the bushes. So that when Chad throws the frisbee, she's over there with like treats and the dog runs in and they play together and she rolls around with them.
And when that's not enough, she gets a job at a part time job at the doggy daycare center. And she's like hiding in the back when Ravioli comes in with Chad and then she runs out and plays with them all day. Supposed to be a bunch of different funny scenarios where she almost gets caught and she has to go to extremes and it's just sort of classic, uh, a little bit cliche stuff, right?
I'm not, uh, this is not Shakespeare here. I'm not inventing a new genre. Then, you have the character arc and some realizations and then we arrive at our ending. Does that help you see it a little bit better? Yeah, I see it. Do you still hate it? No,
Matt: it's not that I hate it. I think we also need to I think we need to add like a, a, um, a subplot involving another love interest.
Like tech or something. Right. Um, cause I think we need that kind of that to make it a rom com. We have to make it, we have to have some sort of relationship going on. So I,
Speaker 1: I understand why you would say that. I really want this to be, I want all that stuff to be misleads. Right? I don't want, I don't want like an actual leading man cast as the, you know, or not leading man, but like, uh, you know, uh, an actor who has, like, I want it to be a misdirect, right?
You think that the arc of this story is this character is for her to end up in a relationship that is actually a good one and happy. And I don't, I don't think that's needed
Matt: today. I agree. I agree. But I think you have to have that flotation. Of something like I think you can have fun with that. Yeah.
Right. Have fun with it. Also be like, you know, the last scene between the two characters, like Maybe we can get some coffee and she's like maybe and that's it
Speaker 1: Yeah, go get a dog from my dog to play with and we'll talk. Yeah, you
Matt: know, right something like that Because the real love love affair is between her and I guess and well if she doesn't end up with the dog
Speaker 1: Well, see that's the thing, right?
We were back to what ending is meaningful, you know So maybe we'll figure that as we go Speaker 2. Did you want to jump in and talk about how bad it is?
Speaker 2: No, I I was just gonna say maybe like it's like a best friend type of scenario, because every rom com has that best friend, the wacky best friend.
Speaker 1: What in what role in terms of another subplot
Speaker 2: I'm saying like giving advice pro or con or or whatever about the woman and her infatuation with this dog.
I don't know. I was just thinking like,
Speaker 1: yeah, I mean, you need a running thread of of the advisor. Of some sort, right? Like it's usually one character. They don't usually divide that up too much unless somebody comes in and bring sanity and it's like their parent or whatever. But yeah, I mean, we need a running character who's the confidant because otherwise it's all like, you know, in her head.
So yeah, for sure. But I mean, what is that? Like, is that that significant? Like what to you? Like what's missing that you're trying to add back in? I'm still, I'm still
Speaker 2: struggling with the, the scenes between the woman and the dog. Like, I feel like Those scenes that you, you outlined are funny, but like what else is going on?
Like, we don't have like, kind of like, obviously it's a dog. So we don't have like the inner voice of the dog and what they think about this. Like, how do we
Matt: make this? But maybe we, should we, should we make this like a look who's talking type of thing?
Speaker 1: What does
Speaker 2: Ravioli
Speaker 1: want? Maybe the dog transforms. What does Ravioli want?
He's right there.
Matt: He wants a whole. Ravi only wants a voice, I figured,
Speaker 2: yeah. I don't know. I almost see this as a short film then and not a feature because I guess I'm having a hard time going from like, how do you establish that this is like the most amazing dog of all time without having like this? I guess I don't watch these types of movies where they're like the kid becomes friends with the dog or whatever to really establish that bond between them.
And I'm kind of missing that in this. In this plot, the different scenes that would kind of establish how amazing this dog is that she's completely obsessed with the dog and not other people in the movie, you know. Am I missing something? Like,
Matt: it's a dog. I know it's a dog said like a classic non dog owner.
Speaker 1: I know, right? Loving your life. Jesus go get a dog No, I think I think you're your criticism is legitimate if what you're saying is and only otherwise No, if what you're saying That it's too thin, right? It's too thin of a story. There's not enough going on. You're not seeing the meat of, uh, you know, uh, typical four hour film or whatever it is you like to go see.
So, I...
Matt: What would he do?
Speaker 2: He'll stretch it out. He wouldn't know what to do. We're gonna hold on the dog for about 15 minutes.
Speaker 1: With the sun rising behind him. Oh, man. Okay, good stuff. So, so Matt, I think he has a, he has a... I think he's, he's right. There's, there needs to be another major plot thrust here or something else to kind of make this into a full movie.
It could be a tight, short comedy with some funny scenes, but it doesn't hurt to add more. Any thoughts about what else this movie needs? Well, I
Matt: think, like I said, the potential love interest, cause that could add a
Speaker 1: couple scenes in
Matt: there. Um, I think you would have to make the boy, the ex boyfriend, I think you're going to have to kind of make him a jerk.
I think you're going to have to make him someone kind of despicable in a way. So, and he gets his comeuppance at the end because, um, I, I, I think. It's a stronger choice to have that as opposed to have just someone just kind of like he's an okay guy. Yeah, because I think you could probably that gives a little bit more Emphasis of why she loves the dog so much is that she's staying with this horrendous guy just because of the dog
Speaker 1: Okay, but that changes the ending right then you can't leave the dog with this guy either
Matt: You're right.
You're right. You don't, you wouldn't want to leave the dog with, you're right. You wouldn't want to leave the dog with, uh, with the owner. Is there
Speaker 1: a way for him to be flawed and an obviously terrible match for her without him being despicable? And then we could give him an arc where he works on himself and, you know, and by the end of it.
He is, uh, appropriate. Like he's good enough to own ravioli is that, and then she lets it go. Could that be, I
Matt: think you're right. Like he learns his lesson too. Like maybe he's like kind of just a schlub, like he has no ambition in life. Right. It doesn't walk the dog enough. Never walked the dog enough. He just lays on the couch and then he, you know, gets in shape.
Montage,
Speaker 2: like a Rocky montage.
Matt: Takes his shirt off. There you go. But then she goes back to him and he takes off his shirt and he's got the six pack abs. You've changed. And then they get back together. That's possible. Ooh, I
Speaker 1: hear, I hear feminism
Matt: booing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Are you trying to get yourself cancelled Matt?
Matt: No,
Speaker 1: no, no, no, no. No, no. Are there some muscly gym guys with a gun pointed at you?
Matt: Off camera. Yeah. Pump it up.
Speaker 1: Uh, good stuff. Okay, so can, back to my question, can we make this, uh, the, the boyfriend, can we make him flawed without making him despicable, give him an arc, and then that, would that satisfy our number one critic in the room? Never.
Matt: Never?
Speaker 2: Demand excellence.
Speaker 1: Okay. So what do you guys think? Can we do that? Can we, can we find a version of him that adds to the story?
And secondly, I guess that's the question for Matt and for Speaker 2, would that help? Would that turn this into a more closer to a worthy? I think so. Yeah. I think
Speaker 2: if you, I think you can make him despicable without. Making him absolutely horrendous, like if he was just someone who's really self centered or he only worries about his career or like Maybe he doesn't pay attention to ravioli as much as he should but maybe someone from the Humane society sees him or something and reports him.
I don't know something like that might might work So he's not like so he's not horrible. I'm saying and it's like an outside force that kind of takes ravioli away from him
Speaker 1: Well, let's give him some excusable flaws that he can recover from. Is that, what are you, were you going to say something Matt about
Matt: that?
Well, I forgot who, who broke up with who he dumped.
Speaker 1: Uh, our character. Yeah.
Matt: Oh, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was for me, that was important because she's confused and I think this is relatable, right? Like she, she loves the unit that they have created because the dog is like the shining star, not this guy who's, you know, dealing with depression or whatever his forgivable flaws are that he can overcome by the end or maybe the way he was raised or whatever is an acceptable way to, you know, reason for not being a great boyfriend.
And then when she doesn't see it and so he ends the relationship and she's, you know, crushed and confused about why she's crushed. So I feel like that's critical, right?
Matt: I think he, if he breaks up with her, then he can't be kind of a slug. Because I feel like if a schlub would just let things happen, like just be too lazy to break up with him.
Too passive. So he
Speaker 1: can't be... Too passive. Unless that makes it funnier, because it's, it's more unexpected, right? It's more surprising. Like she's the dynamic, successful person who's smart and educated. And he's got some nice qualities, but he's been kind of going downhill and not been a great boyfriend. And she's defending...
To her friends, why she's still with this guy. And they're like, that doesn't make sense. Like it doesn't add up. Right. And then he ends it with her and she's like devastated and shocked. And then this weird stalking behavior. And they're like, what is happening? Like, I feel like there's a lot of comedy in that.
I know it's totally inappropriate and borderline offensive, but it's funny if you play it right. And you put music behind it. That tells you you're supposed to think it's
Matt: fine. Right? Well, what if he broke up with her to go out with another, to date another person? Oof. That is hard to come back from. I was thinking that, Matt.
Speaker 2: But what if, like, that person is rejecting him? Like, he's going after them, but rejecting, they're rejecting him. It makes him almost, I mean, doesn't make him look great. But at the same time, he's not like completely awful that he's, you know, cheating on
Matt: her the whole time. Well, no, he's not cheating. They don't cheat.
Yeah. He's just fickle. It's
Speaker 2: like shiny object syndrome at work or something. I'm almost seeing this as a cartoon now.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing you as a cartoon right now. Fine.
Speaker 2: This session's
Speaker 1: over. I'm sorry. Go ahead. What do you mean?
Speaker 2: No, kind of like those Richard Linklater, you know, he did those movies that kind of like look realistic.
Do you know what I'm talking about, Matt? You might know. Those Richard Linklater movies. It seems like it's kind of surreal
Matt: too. I think it's too, maybe, but then that changes the whole vibe of the movie. It does. That's what we're here for. Those cartoons are changing lives comedic. Those are, that's what we do on this
Speaker 1: podcast flexibility.
Okay. So what are you trying to capture with that? You're trying to change the tone or you're trying to turn this into something that to you makes sense. What is making it a Richard link letter cartoon do that? I'm not getting, it'd be funny if we had
Speaker 2: the dog's perspective on all of this.
Matt: Like it was like a talking dog.
Are you
Speaker 1: here? Are we back to it? Okay. All right. Yeah, so I'm sensing that this idea is not landing on the level that I Imagine we're here to
Speaker 2: explore different concepts, right? Where would we take it?
Speaker 1: I'm let's do it. Yeah, let's good I give up. Let's go down that road. I'm nothing if not flexible. So the dog is a talking dog.
It's a cartoon. There's a whole rich world of dogs and their perspectives on their owners. So now the dog has a ton of dialogue. Well, you know what I mean. Medium income dogs. Uh, so now we have scenes in the park, I guess, and what, the doggie daycare where the dogs are talking about their relationships with their owners.
Is that, is that what, is this fitting your vision for this project? It is now, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's your vision. And you came up with the idea. I didn't have this like, uh, gossip circle at the park talking about the, uh, dog relationships. Where were, where were you going with this? I'm just trying to.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to keep up.
Matt, what do you think?
Speaker 1: Oh man, save me some of that.
Matt: I don't know, I'm going back and forth, I kind of like, do like the cartoon idea of, but not the Richard Linklater, I'm talking about just like, kind of like, Disney? Um, Pixar type, type of Disney. And kind of like, well, I mean, this changes the premise, but it's kind of like, what if the, the, the dogs were subjective of the, of his parents breaking up and like, what, what's going on with that?
Like, he doesn't understand why dog mom and dog dad are not together anymore. And he might try to get them back together, but it takes the whole premise into it completely. No,
Speaker 1: no, no. But this is, this is probably a better idea because it's an opportunity for like Disney or Pixar to like teach kids how to deal with their parents arguing and divorce.
It's kind of
Speaker 2: genius actually. So
Speaker 1: the dog is just a really clever
Matt: idea. Well, that's why I'm here. Thank you. Because basically, yeah, because you don't understand why mom and dad, mom, dog and dad dog are breaking up. So he got tried. So the premise, the funny premise is there is the dog tries to get all the hijinks occur when the dog tries to get the parents back together, kind of almost
Speaker 1: like a parent trap.
Yeah. It's a kid fantasy. Yeah. So first of all, screw you for coming up with a better idea. Jerk! Second of all...
Speaker 2: Laughter
Speaker 1: Second of all, this is potentially really powerful and it has a ton of heart. Like, this is a great... A message for kids in a fun, safe, easy to digest kind of format. And there's enough heart and potentially interesting elements to it that parents will be paying close attention to because there are very few families that haven't thought like either about in their own family or families, they've known what it's like for kids when parents have problems and you're just substituting the kids with dogs.
That's brilliant. Yeah.
Matt: Totally. Thank you. All right. Yeah. And no one has to take off their shirt and show their ass.
Speaker 2: Unless they want to. Because
Speaker 1: we're inclusive here. Well, now I'm out.
Now I hate it. Uh, that's great. All right. So, uh, what else do we need in our Disney? Is it Disney? Or you want more Disney, more Pixar? What do you think? What kind of animation do you want for this?
Matt: I mean, I would go Pixar. Pixar. All right. I think that just seems like, because they take, They take, they take like real life or they take, you know, hard concepts with people and make it into kind of like a storyline.
So yeah, I would, and I think if you want to talk about the ending, I would say that the parents don't get back together, but the, the other parents get another dog. Like, he stays with the mom and the dad and they, they are amicable, so they get back together and like, basically the dog has a new brother or a new sister, like
Speaker 1: a half sibling or something?
A half sibling. No, the parents don't split. The parents end up together in your story. No,
Matt: the parents do split. Ah, okay. But the, but the other. And like, let's say the dog goes with the mom, but also the dad also gets a new dog. Right. So they, and then the dog's happy and they're amicable. Right. And they meet up in the dog park and they get to play and they have their Like a new family almost.
A new brother.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you've got half siblings and then you can do the blended family where like one of the parents gets remarried. That's the one that has primary custody of the dog child and that person that they marry already has a dog or a couple dogs or cats or whatever birds or something. So now it's a blended family.
It's a blended
Matt: family and that's the benefit of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah. That's your story. That's great. That's brilliant. Thanks for coming on. Yeah.
Matt: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the podcast. It's yours now.
Matt: You
Speaker 2: know, what's funny, I just saw the podcast title because I had copied it and pasted it over. Like I wasn't really paying attention to the title.
I just saw that Matt was going to be on it. That's hilarious. I think you've got a title. Rough Love is like the perfect, perfect title
Matt: for
Speaker 1: this. Yeah, that was my other working title. I like that one. I can see that. Mm hmm. That's perfect because it's a difficult journey for kids to adjust when there's a strife and divorce and breakups in the family.
So yeah, it's, uh, it works. It's, you can make it inclusive. So Pixar will take a swing at it. And, uh, I imagine a lot of parents will be interested in curious. You just, you have to get the tone and the message, right? And it's tricky because there are a lot of strong opinions and the culture's changing all the time.
But as long as I think it ends in a way that's a little bit heartbreaking, but also everybody's okay. Right. Dog's okay. Right. Then I think it works. Yeah.
Matt: Agreed. Let's, let's get this, let's get, do an outline, send to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: become millionaires. This one writes itself, I think, for the most part, but any thoughts about key scenes in this one, like over the course of the film?
Where does, where do challenges come in? What do we need to see from the characters? Like, what, you know, tell me more. Any thoughts? Some really good
Speaker 2: foreshadowing, I think. Like there's like the typical places where they go with the dog together so that later on in the movie you see the same scenes and it gives you that like kind of emotional reaction, you know, like the favorite dog toy or something and they can't find it.
In one scene, and it's because one of the two parents has it at their house or something. I thought that would be a nice kind of scene for the movie. Kind of bring things together.
Matt: And I think you're going to have to have like a plan scene. Like a, like the, he's, the dog is in the park. Ravioli's in the park with other dogs.
And then the other dogs are like conspiring. Like, okay, how can we, what's, what's the plan here? And it's like one of those like Ocean's 11 type of things where it's kind of like the flash forward of the plan, what the plan is going to be. I think you need something like that. So I have a
Speaker 2: question that when you're so the dog obviously isn't understanding what's going on.
So is it the interpretation of the dog? And then talking to other dogs or other animals about what they think is going on. So they're like, Oh, my owners did this. Yeah. When this happened, this is what I did. You should try that. Like, so it's something along those lines, right? So there's
Matt: like that. Right.
Cause I'm sure there's another older dog in the group there that said, this happened to me once. And they actually goes, that's a flashback to their story too. It's the end. You see the old dog as a puppy and this is happening. I like that. Great.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you two are very happy together.
Speaker 2: Wait. You had an idea for a movie?
We should discuss it. Not one.
Speaker 1: No, we're doing both movies. It's official. We're doing live
Matt: action. They'll be completely new pieces.
Speaker 1: That's right. We're going to steal dialogue. If it doesn't work in one movie, it'll work in the other one. So we'll just write them at the same time. One's
Speaker 2: NC 17 and the other one's a kid's movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pixar's first NC 17 film.
Matt: Well, do you, on Story Breaks, do you do casting at all? Like
Speaker 1: what would you do? We do everything on Story Break. We cast away. We,
Speaker 2: uh, we go from beginning to end.
Matt: Who would you cast as the main dog? Peter
Speaker 1: Cullen. Peter Cullen. Sorry. That would be... Wait, which movie are we casting, right? Are we casting the Pixar movie?
Do you mean, like,
Speaker 2: literally what dog movie? Like, Lassie? If we could find Lassie, would we cast Lassie? No, like... I
Speaker 1: know what he voices a dog. I'm trying to keep it light, okay?
Matt: Well, no, but that's true, too. God, he's stupid. Geez. Geez, pay attention. I think...
Speaker 2: God
Matt: damn it.
Speaker 1: You really got to lean into your sarcasm more, right?
Uh, yeah. Okay. So voice of a dog. Uh, if we're doing the Pixar film, it needs to be somebody on the younger side or who can do the voice of like what an eight year old or something like that. I don't know what age we're aiming for six to 10 probably for divorce. Um, so the main dog would be the younger, like it, maybe there's two dogs in this family or two pets.
Maybe it's a cat and a dog or I don't know. Some other pet, they have a otter or something, and the older one would be like the older sibling or older sister, brother. And then the younger one would be the main character. That's typically the Pixar kind of approach to teaching kids. So we're looking for someone who can do the voice of like a five, probably six to 8-year-old.
What do you guys think? Sound about right?
Matt: I would probably say. You need like a teenage voice for the youngest one just because the dog, in dog years, they'd probably be a teenager. Pete Davidson? I would say, I think he'd be really good
Speaker 1: actually. Pete Davidson. Pete Davidson. Alright. Pete Davidson? Well, you just want to date him.
Matt: This crowd. But he's, he wouldn't be good as the lead, he'd be good as a side character, as a funny side character, dog. Somebody
Speaker 2: has something against Pete Davidson. You're talking about Speaker 2.
Matt: I like Pete Davidson a lot, but I think his talents lie. I think his talents lie as the supporting. We'll put Pete Davidson in a
Speaker 2: box then.
He can't ever break out of his. That's fine, Matt. He just really don't want Pete Davidson to
Speaker 1: shine. You have a funny friend, Pete. Go home. Go home Pete. This is a lead, lead
Matt: role. Can we though? I mean if he would do our movie. Pete you're out. We'll
Speaker 2: be in touch. How about a Matt Bachman
Matt: type. A Matt Bachman type.
Matt Bachman will play the lead character. Not Matt
Speaker 1: Bachman per say, he's, he's played out. Can we get a Matt Bachman type, though? Maybe a younger, sexier, more, you know, six pack abbed. I'm just
Matt: describing what I'm wearing.
Speaker 1: Matt, what do you think? Who do you, uh, who do you envision? What leading man do you envision besides
Matt: Matt Bachman?
If you want young, I would say like a Tom Holland. Maybe Timothy, Timothy Chamelet, but honestly, I mean, he's a little older, but I would love Sam Rockwell as the main character because I love he's one of the actors. I'm sure he just can't play a supporting character though, man. No, that's Pete Davidson's role.
Sam Rockwell can do anything. Alley cats.
Speaker 1: Pete, your job is to yell your lines as if you're in an alley. Outside the window, go. Um, so you're, you're envisioning a younger voice though, right? I mean, I, I kind of keep pushing that, but all right. So if we're, if this is analogous for a child's journey through divorce or parent problems, then you need someone who's going to speak like they're younger and you want the character to be sound like a teenager.
Going through parent's divorce? Between, yeah. Between, okay. Yeah. So you're compromising, you're splitting the age difference. Splitting the apple, yeah. Okay,
Matt: fine. If I'm anything, I'm right down the line.
Speaker 1: He's the Transformers of Cohost. I'm the Transformers of Cohost. Right down the middle. Uh, okay. So, uh, anybody else, uh, Speaker 2, any thoughts on casting for this? You want to go outside the box a little bit? Christopher Walken, how about that?
Matt: Yeah, he'd be great as
Speaker 2: the old one. Could he play a tween though? Okay.
Like he has that nice, you know who would be funny? That guy, um, Stephen Merchant, if you could throw him in there somewhere. Oh
Matt: yeah. He's
Speaker 2: awesome. He's
Speaker 1: so funny. So now you're, we're writing characters for actors we like. That always results in a really tight story. That's going to be great.
Matt: We'll take the
Speaker 2: cast of The Outlaws, have you seen that show Matt?
On Amazon Prime. It's hilarious. With Stephen Merchant. Yeah. With Christopher Walken and Stephen Merchant. Oh,
Matt: okay. So we'll just put them both in there. Oh, I gotta check that out. Yes.
Speaker 1: Get a digital AI Gervais?
Matt: As the mom. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Alright, so. You
Matt: just want the whole British office. All
Speaker 1: these tween dogs are gonna, actors
Matt: in their fifties.
Speaker 2: That makes it funny though, right? Seventies. Seventies.
Speaker 1: God, I hate middle school. You're such
Speaker 2: an ageist. You're such an ageist.
Matt: Planning for
Speaker 1: retirement. I'm
Speaker 2: sure their tweets sound like they're 75.
Speaker 1: Come on. Sure. Why not? Alright. Okay, good. Anybody else? No other actors? We've got to cast the parents. There's other animals, I guess.
Uh, is there anybody hot, maybe somebody that's young, that's got some heat on them that we could like work in here, any actors you've seen recently that you think really were good, like, you know, like the Stranger Things kids, like 10 years ago when they were teenagers or whatever. Is there anybody like that?
Yeah, now they're in their 20s. Oh, at least. Is there anybody that jumps out? No, young Paul Rudd as
Matt: kid actors. No, nothing. No kid actors.
Speaker 1: I feel like I personally think and I've been wrong a lot today So feel free to ignore it, but I think we need some younger talent here Some actors maybe we got to go to Nick at Nickelodeon or whatever, but some actors who can deliver heart And like really make you care and help the audience, especially the adults in the audience.
Imagine the dog is a child, like is somebody's kid. I, I just don't think it works if the dog isn't clearly, to an adult, isn't clearly like a kid dealing with, you know, a young kid who's dealing with this really horrible, all too common situation. So I think we need younger actors, or at the very least actors who sound very convincingly young.
What about like Jenna Ortega? For like one of the roles, right? That's better, right? Yeah.
Matt: Yeah, that could work. Well, if you're going to go kids, you're going to have to cast, like, unknowns. There are
Speaker 1: unknown kids, right? I mean, not that I know them, but yeah, exactly. I think that's... This is where we need like a casting agency that can be like, we have thousands of kids who people know.
Like,
Matt: um, uh, Jacob Trembley, but I think he's getting old too, like too old now. He would be perfect if he was, if it was a couple of years ago. Cause he does, if you watch the, this, the Harley Quinn show on, uh, HBO max, he does Robin as a kid. But you, as you see now. His voice has changed, as you can tell. He's older, he's a teenager now.
I don't know
Speaker 1: Batman, what should we do?
Good, alright, so anything else before we put this episode to sleep?
Matt: If the listeners aren't already.
I think, no, I think this is popping. I think these listeners are gonna be really into this. Let's just try it out for the role. This is poppin everybody. This is poppin yo. This is the real, this is the real Riz.
Speaker 1: You're hired. I'm going to take that as a no, I have nothing else to offer today
Matt: from every person.
I already came up with the whole change of plots.
Speaker 1: I'm good. You did. You offered a lot. I appreciate that. Thanks for. Making this work. You certainly made my co host happy. I think he was about ready to walk out a couple times. So at this point in the episode, we usually come up with a few questions for the audience to answer.
I'll get the ball rolling. Which movie do you like better? Do you like their crappy Pixar one that's going to make billions of dollars? Or do you like my really obscure, thinly plotted, romantic comedy niche film? Huh? Which one do you like? I mean, I think the answer's obvious. But maybe you want to message us and let us know, uh, any other questions for the audience?
Matt: Yeah. I would like to know who they would cast as for both, for both your version. And, and I'm going to call it my version.
Speaker 1: Ouch. Guess whose names we figured out his names at the top of the script. All right.
Matt: No, no, no, no, no. Whatever version I'd be curious who, who people would want to see or hear. In there in either version other than you yeah, which which five
Speaker 2: characters would you cast matt bachman as
Matt: Is matt bachman going to make it in the bins
Speaker 1: Good any other thoughts questions for the audience anything else we want them to do here There's a lot for them to potentially fill in.
Right. We got to talk about endings, like what's a happy ending for a Pixar movie about divorce and how it affects kids slash dogs. Uh, and what does that look like for you? Like I imagine people, when they really stop and think about it, have pretty strong opinions. About, you know, what they want their kids to experience and, and get out of that or how they want them to land at the end of the story.
Um, so that, I think that's worth some thought there, even if you don't let us know and make us come up with our own ending. Where would you place
Speaker 2: the movie? Would it be in a city environment? Would it be in the countryside? Would it be in a lot of different locations?
Matt: Like how, what would that look like?
Speaker 1: Uh, anything else?
Major obstacles? Like what would be the act two turn, you know? Where we'd all look lost in a story about divorce? And kids? That's a tough one.
Matt: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: How would you, how would you work with the interpretation of like The dog seeing things through their perspective versus what the humans are actually saying, how would you make that work if there's a lot of conversation or would it all have to be like really physical, like in terms of the actions between the humans versus us.
The dogs like how would he make
Matt: that make that work? I would like said the pit like the parents don't really talk Yeah
Speaker 2: Be there like would you do it like that or is there another way to do it? And because we're assuming the dogs don't understand what these humans are talking about, but that's harder easier said than done You know,
Speaker 1: why are we assuming that isn't it?
It's pretty standard practice in films like this that the animals understand people that like just don't talk to them. I'm saying
Matt: I don't know. How would we want to do it? Like the,
Speaker 2: that's, that's my question. Like are they understanding what they're saying and the humans don't realize that they're understanding it?
Or is it just like gibberish that they hear the humans talking amongst themselves and they're interpreting what's going to happen between the humans, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's a probably a really creative stylized way to to embrace that as part of like, um, the, you know, to sort of represent the experience of a child not understanding when their parents are arguing, like, you know, they're saying words.
And maybe in our version, if you really want to go for Oscar material here, when the parents say certain words, just like a dog, The dog understands some of those words, like a kid might when parents are arguing but can't understand the, the bigger picture, you know, so the dog would experience that, or you know, the audience through the lens of this dog as only recognizing some of the words, and the rest of it is stylistically represented as noise or something.
And you can see that the dog is scared and confused because the parents arguing only. Makes a little bit of sense, but it's clearly bad, right? So there is there is an interesting way to do that. But now you're signing up for a Complicated storytelling approach where the whole film you're committed to that, right?
Unless you want the dog to like suddenly learn English You've got to
Speaker 2: set it up early on in terms of what the dog understands their owner doing I think that would be really important to do. Like when they pick up the keys, it means X, you know, when they walk through the door, this is what happens. Like these are the different patterns that you have to establish in the beginning.
So then later on, you understand that the dog, the dog's level of understanding of the humans in their life, and they can figure out like something's wrong or.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's tricky. I was watching, uh, The Hunt for Red October and they had a similar issue where they wanted to cast Sean Connery and a bunch of other actors who, who clearly do not speak Russian. Initially in the Film, when you see these Russian characters, they're speaking Russian with what I'm told are pretty terrible accents.
And it doesn't sound particularly good, but to an audience in the eighties, it sounded like people speaking Russian. And then there's a scene where the political officer is, I think he's reading a quote from the Bible and the camera zooms in a bit on his mouth and then he switches to English and then it zooms out.
And that's their way of saying like, Hey, these people are still speaking Russian, but we're just now going to. You know, show it as English. I've never
Speaker 2: seen that done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So
Matt: yeah, they did that in that Tom Cruise Valkyrie movie. It's like the first. Minute, Tom Cruise is speaking in German and then it kind of like trans over to, to English.
So it's kind of, it was kind of a cool way to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you could use those kinds of things to, if you want to show, like it's the dog's perspective on people. And then other times you have a way to visually show that no, like the dog is not understanding this, but you as the audience do not have to listen to people go, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, fetch.
The dog's
Speaker 2: barking and suddenly speaking in English.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, you zoom in and zoom out and then play the theme song or the music from October the 9th. And he's reading a
Matt: bible passage.
Speaker 2: Yes. He's like, Woof, woof, woof,
Matt: woof, woof, woof,
Speaker 1: woof. And though he came from above and saw breathing fire. Forgiving our sins with his other hand or whatever the Bible says, I forget it's been a while, but yeah, yeah, so yeah, there's, there's ways to do that, but I just don't, I think there's room in a Pixar film or a Disney movie or an animated film aimed at kids to do some of that, but you very quickly lose your supposed target audience, which is going to be kids.
Right. So they're going to be confused if you start screwing around with that stuff. Like, I think you're, you're better off looking at like 101 Dalmatians. How did they do that? You know, the
Speaker 2: 13th warrior. Yeah. See what they did.
Speaker 1: Another popular kids.
Yeah. We're on the same page today, man. I
Speaker 2: know it's someone's favorite movie. On the podcast. They
Speaker 1: did it. They did. No, they did that in that movie too. That's why I brought it up. Aren't they speaking so, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The whole montage where the guy learns, uh, Viking speak or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just do that while they're murdering.
The dogs are taking down joggers.
That's perfect. Excellent contributions.
Speaker 2: All
Speaker 1: right. So I think that pretty much does it for the day, unless you guys. Want to take over steering this ship. All right. So thank you to Matt Bachman. Thank you to the listeners thank you to all of you or That one person who stuck around to the end
Matt: It was Sarah It was Ravioli It was Ravioli
Speaker 1: That episode was rough
Speaker 2: That was rough We should just call this the rough episode With the
Matt: Bachman
Speaker 2: Oh man
Speaker 1: Another one about the, uh, that's your podcast, podcast mechanic, just come on and fix other shows.
Oh my God. So if you, if you don't want any more of this stuff, please stay away from those like and subscribe buttons. I'm sure you can find better things to do with your time. You can reach the show if you'd like and let us know what's wrong with all of our ideas. gmail. com. Or donencourage at gmail. com.
I snagged both. Uh, you can flame us in the YouTube comments if you want. You can find us on Instagram, whatever Twitter is this week. Uh, I think there's some sort of threads thing. We're on all that stuff, so feel free to join the trolls in our community. Uh, you can check out our show notes for more information.
And unless anybody has anything to add...
Speaker 2: Where can the audience find out about you,
Matt: Matt? Ooh, yeah. Good question. Let's see. I have an Instagram Maddie box. Um, you can follow me there. Yeah. Okay. M a T T Y B a U G H S Maddie
Speaker 1: box. I was going to end with T W I T T E R
Matt: um, you can find me on Facebook. Matt Bachman do not have a Twitter. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. That's cool. Matt Bachman too. Um, we can get professional with it. Um, yeah, so that's, that's it. Uh, I'm currently not in a play. Uh, but if I, if you're around April, 2024, I'm doing a musical with my brother called Gutenberg the musical.
Hmm. And it's on Broadway right now with Andrew Reynolds and Josh Gadd. It's a two man show about Gutenberg the printing press. The guy who invented the printing press. Hmm. It's a really funny zany show. And then . And then in July I am doing, uh, playing Jack Nicholson's character and one Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Oh, very cool. Oh wow. So that should be fun. Yeah. So if you're in the area, I hope you're in the area. Can you tell them where you would get a ticket or where you're going to be? You can go to landlesstheater. org. Um, you can get tickets there for both plays. Landless? L A N Landless. Yep. Like
Speaker 1: we have no land.
Yes. S Landless Theater. Okay, great. Landless landless theater.org.
Matt: All right. landless. Landless theater company.org. You
Speaker 1: apologize. Okay. Landless Theater Company. It's
Matt: just Google Landless Theater. I'm not sure what their website is. don't make them work
Speaker 1: for
Speaker 2: it, man. I like how he's just like, just come and see me, I'm show, I'll see you there,
Matt: just come see me, I'll see you there,
Speaker 1: just go see every show and I might be in one of them,
Matt: it's fine, if you're lucky, I might be there,
Speaker 1: well thank you for coming on and entertaining us, yeah this was a blast, thank you, we appreciate it, and we'll see you guys next week, take care everybody.