#72. Showgirls, Ms. Pac-Man, and Ice Cream Trucks
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With JVL out on a busy work week, Mary Katharine Ham fills in for a deliberately not-safe-for-work episode on Showgirls, timed to its 25th anniversary and to the new documentary You Don't Nomi, both riding HBO Max's decision to stream the uncut NC-17 version. Sonny reviews the documentary as an unusually good extended video essay — no talking heads, since the filmmakers mailed audio recorders to critics and laid their voices over clips — and praises how it situates Showgirls inside Paul Verhoeven's larger body of work alongside RoboCop and Starship Troopers, complete with a montage of characters vomiting. But he refuses the rehabilitation: this is camp in the strict Sontagian sense, badness born of earnestness, and any claim that it's genius satire collapses because there's no there there. What is it commenting on, he asks — Las Vegas? "Las Vegas is a comment upon itself." He singles out a Ringer writer's ninety-second monologue about mirror motifs, immediately punctured by a female critic's "Mirrors? Really?", as the documentary's best moment, and defends Elizabeth Berkley as a Saved by the Bell TV kid instructed by Verhoeven to play everything at maximum pitch. Mary Katharine, who first saw it around 17 at "some sort of ill-advised house party," found it sleazy but insists it is very much not forgettable, notes Nomi Malone is just Jessie Spano's caffeine-pill breakdown stretched to feature length, and admits her main takeaway on rewatch was wanting to get Berkley a therapist. Vic saw it at 22 in the Shirlington Theater in sweatpants, giggling throughout, and gripes that the documentary flags the film's racial problems but ignores the one Japanese businessman ("we're not all like that"); he also flags the $40 million budget. Both Mary Katharine and Sonny fixate on the film's strangest thread, the ex-Mormon woman who plays Berkley's roles in stage parodies. Before all that: Mary Katharine's just-under-the-wire destination wedding, dishwasher-loading philosophy staged as a JVL tribute, closed pools and injured deer at the swimming hole, Vic's shoeless daughter chasing an ice cream truck without money, and Mary Katharine's ranking of post-Saved by the Bell careers, which Sonny amends to put Mark-Paul Gosselaar first because "Zach always wins."
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- On this latest episode with special guest Mary Katharine Ham subbing in for JVL, we discuss Showgirls and t...
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Hey, this is Sonny Bunch. Just wanted to give you a quick heads up. We are talking about the NC-17 rated Showgirls on this week's episode. So this is a not safe for work and not safe for vans with children episode. So maybe just skip this one if you're listening with the family. All right?
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and subbing in for Jonathan V. Last is our good old friend Mary Katherine Hamm. Hello, Mary Katherine. Hello, glad to be here. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher. Look under podcasts and search for Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends and leave a review. JVL is having a busy work week, I understand. But we are so happy to have back on the show Mary Katherine. How are you and what is going on?
Guest00:01:06I'm good. I mean, as good as I can be. It's a weird year. But I did manage to sneak in a wedding on the very last weekend you could have a party without being judged. And without anybody, luckily nobody got sick.
Vic00:01:27That's what I want to know. You had a lot of people that were... Everybody went to your destination wedding. So everyone who was on planes. And you're telling me nobody said, oh, that's for you.
Guest00:01:36We were crossing fingers hard once we got back. So we did the wedding. Everybody had a lovely time. Came back. We're immediately locked down as soon as we got here. So we have been extremely married for several months now.
Vic00:01:51That's good.
Guest00:01:52It's like extremely married with two children in the house 24-7. But we were crossing our fingers pretty hard. We were crossing our fingers pretty hard that everybody was okay.
Vic00:02:01You feel really bad. You might have to give back the presents. Yeah. Everybody was good. You might need this blunder more than I do.
Sonny00:02:08You know, this is, this is, this is, look, you take your chances on something like this, right? Like if you're going, if you're going to the destination wedding in the middle of the pandemic, you understand the choices have been made. There's no, there's no present return.
Guest00:02:22And to be fair to everyone, it was not quite social distancing time. It was the very weekend before the, orders came down that life was going to be different.
Vic00:02:33Before anybody would secretly take the photos of you and then report you to the place.
Guest00:02:37Although I did get some heckling about putting the photos up later and had to explain these are from earlier, you know, the normal internet stuff.
Sonny00:02:44No, no, it was okay. We did this literally right before everybody was required to social distancing, so it's totally fine.
Vic00:02:50Literally you plead ignorance.
Guest00:02:52These joyous pictures are fine.
Vic00:02:55The, I think it's because everybody, uh, as far as I know, must have, you know, I mean, they followed the rules, you know, when they, after they came back and, and I know, for example, the McCormick's, they really quarantined hard on that. So they didn't go out, you know, and so, uh, and everybody's fine as far as we know. So that's it.
Guest00:03:11Yeah, it was pretty locked down as soon as we got back. So that's been, we had a nice adjustment period when we go.
Vic00:03:17Yeah. The girls must've loved that.
Guest00:03:20It's good. We've been training them up. They, uh, they do many more chores than they did before lockdown.
Sonny00:03:26Oh, so yeah, we've, what's the best, what's the best trick that you've taught them?
Guest00:03:29Uh, the new. Newest one is that they unload the whole dishwasher. Oh, the whole dishwasher. I'm very proud of them. Yeah. They might not know how to read or write, but they can definitely unload the dishwasher for me.
Sonny00:03:41My, uh, my daughter who turns five in a couple of weeks, she doesn't unload the whole dishwasher, but she, she likes to do certain parts of it. And one of the, her favorite thing to unload, uh, are the glasses under daddy's globe. Do you have, do you, daddy, daddy, are there any globe glasses? Are there any globe glasses? You know, it's like. It's like a bar. It's like a globe bar and it's got like a little, it's got a little thing underneath and she's, she just is so excited to take the globe glasses down. As long as she's careful with it, you're fine.
Guest00:04:11It's a beautiful thing that she'll always remember.
Vic00:04:13What, what I, what I tell, what I tell the kids, I have to remind the kids is, um, I like to, I don't know if this is a, this might be just an Asian thing. I saw a video of like, you know, I like a Filipino mom video of like washing the dishes before. Like. Running water on them before you stick it in the dishwasher.
Sonny00:04:33Oh yeah. You have to do that.
Vic00:04:33Okay, good. Because I know some people put whole chunks of like, isn't that normal?
Guest00:04:37Even I do that.
Vic00:04:38And I feel like there's a drain, but I'm not like, it's like, you know, it's not
Sonny00:04:42like, it's not like the food disposal.
Vic00:04:43Yeah. Well, that's the thing, even though they say, oh, you know, don't, don't remove all the food because it'll affect how it gauges, how much water to add, but I'm still going to wipe, put stuff down. I'm not like putting like chicken bones in there. It'd be insane. No, no. Okay. Good. Uh, like animals. Have you seen the commercials? For like these dishwashers where it's like the casserole, like the lasagna casserole is it's like half the lasagna is still in there. Really?
Sonny00:05:07I get like, is that, is that an ad for the dishwasher or for the detergent? I think it's the detergent saying like, it's gotta be the detergent. It's like, it's like Mr. Bubbles, you know, look at how powerful Mr. Bubbles, Mr. Bubbles.
Guest00:05:18I'm going to play the JVL part and say, those are capitalist pig lies right there.
Vic00:05:24You know, does he even want it? Does he even like talking about dishwashers though? I get the sense that this part would bore him. To tears.
Sonny00:05:30Didn't JVL write a, a, a whole piece for a big, like well story for the weekly standard about how they changed dishwasher formulas because of like environmental regulations. And now they're not as good anymore. See, if only JVL were here, he'll, he'll we'll get a, we'll get, maybe he can do a
Vic00:05:47correction or he will, especially about decibels. I have a KitchenAid and it's very quiet. And I always like to backload, especially the kids front load, you know, so they could like barely. And when they. Open up the dishwashing machine, they just, where you put the utensils, they just stick it right in the immediately in the front. They don't want to reach in the back. So it's all in the front, all crammed together. And I'm always moving stuff back.
Guest00:06:11Yeah. Mine are, mine are reprimanded for that. There are consequences.
Sonny00:06:14Yeah, no, because they're all stuck to come on now, you know, you guys, you guys do back to front. See, I do side to side. I start on the right. I put the dishes on the right and then move over. And then for the, for like the forks and stuff, I just put it wherever.
Vic00:06:28Well, wherever. Oh. Don't say wherever.
Guest00:06:30That will really trigger JVL.
Vic00:06:32There's a holder for the utensils.
Guest00:06:33Oh, no, no, no. I mean.
Sonny00:06:36Yes, obviously within there, within the utensil holder.
Vic00:06:40I don't just throw them. The knives are just flat. I don't just throw them. They're just flat laying there and spinning. The thing is spinning and the knives are there. No. Okay. Nothing like that.
Sonny00:06:48All right. Good. Good.
Vic00:06:49Sonny, how are you? And when are you going to see Tenet?
Sonny00:06:55I was, you know, I was going to see it today because we're taping on Thursday.
Vic00:06:59Oh, I'm sorry.
Sonny00:07:00Thursday, July 16th. I was going to go see it tonight. You know, go to a 10 o'clock showing in IMAX.
Vic00:07:08Was today supposed to have been?
Sonny00:07:09Today? Well, I mean, it's supposed to come out 7-17. So the Thursday, you know, things would have been tonight at 7 and 10. And yeah, but no, we're never going to see it. We're never going to see it is what it comes down to. There's a reason we're not talking about Tenet today. We're talking about something else entirely.
Vic00:07:27Oh, we are. We'll get to that in a second.
Sonny00:07:29But I, yeah, no, I'm just, I'm super depressed. I'm super depressed. Also, Dallas just announced that there will be no in-person schooling until like middle of September at the earliest. So that means not, there's just not going to be any.
Vic00:07:43No, because I'm going to end up a homeschool teacher next year.
Sonny00:07:46No, this is what's happening. And I'm going to jump off my frigging roof. But the problem is I'm only at a one-story house now. So I'm going to jump off the roof and like, just like kind of break my neck. And then I'll just be, I'll just be in a wheelchair and the children will be around all the time.
Vic00:07:58Yeah, that makes things worse. I think, I think, yeah, Arlington is going to start now. They pushed it back, I think, by a week. So they're starting after Labor Day and they're not going to start even a hybrid in terms of like two days a week or they split it up with the kids. They're pushing that to October to the second quarter. I heard there's Maryland, I think Prince George's or one of the other counties. They've decided January, which, you know what that means? 2021. That means at some point. They're just going to say this whole year. Like, I think Harvard is doing the entire the entire year online for what? Fifty thousand dollars a year.
Sonny00:08:35Yep.
Vic00:08:36Money well spent. Money well spent. Money well spent. OK. Yes, please. Oh, I was just going to complain.
Guest00:08:43I was going to complain briefly about the fact that the pools are closed because. Oh, children, children, children dipped in chlorine seems like a safe one of the safer things.
Vic00:08:55Chlorine is the whole thing about the chlorine. No, we have. The Knights of Columbus have a pool. And if you paid, then you can reserve times and they keep it like. Yes. Like there's a small percentage of people and you take you can you can you can go in, but it's staggered. Speaking of which. Yes.
Sonny00:09:11Speaking of which, Vic, I noticed the other day. So I went to a Starbucks behind the Starbucks. There was a giant water park. And I was like, what is this giant water park doing here? And I drove around and it's the Knight of Columbus pool. It's like, oh, my God. And it's got it's got it's got it's got. So anyway, I have. You have to put in a good word.
Vic00:09:30Oh, this is the way.
Sonny00:09:31Just tell him. Just tell him. Just tell him. He's got to pass.
Vic00:09:34All those Sub-Beacon listeners are so jealous that I found a way. I found a way for Sonny to become Catholic. I'm not actually going to convert.
Sonny00:09:43I'm not actually going to convert. You just got to put in a good word for me.
Vic00:09:45Well, how good is the water park? Yeah, you got it. You got it.
Sonny00:09:48At this point.
Guest00:09:49At this point.
Sonny00:09:50I mean, let's be honest.
Vic00:09:52If that's what it comes down to.
Sonny00:09:53Yeah. No, but you just put in a word. You give them a wink of the nudge. Yes.
Vic00:09:58Yes. Yeah, I have my connections. I am a third degree. Isn't that how it works, fathers? I am a third degree. Padres? I am a third degree knight. In fact, my daughter had- What does that even mean, third degree knight? Oh, I can't get into it.
Sonny00:10:08It's classified.
Guest00:10:09It's like levels.
Sonny00:10:10They're levels. Supernumeraries. Is this like the Masons?
Vic00:10:12Yeah, it's similar to Da Vinci Code, I think.
Sonny00:10:16It's like the stonecutters.
Vic00:10:17The stonecutters, yes. In fact, my daughter had a tap class, and the instructors are renting from the ballroom at the Knights, and so I dropped her off. I went in the back, and there's the place called the Deep End, which is the bar, and shockingly, I walked in, and somebody called my name and asked me if I want a tall coal ice, and of course, bring it over. So then I said, I didn't pay the pool dues. I didn't pay the pool dues, so I can't use the pool, but you mind? I just want to check it out. And then I realized my standing there alone as a man, drinking a beer, staring at kids in the swimming pool was probably-
Guest00:10:52Turn around, turn around.
Sonny00:10:54I said, what do you want to look at? At the Catholic?
Guest00:10:58Oh. Oh, how dare you, Sonny.
Vic00:11:00Moving right along. No, I'm sorry. Too soon.
Sonny00:11:03You know what? So now I don't get to use the Knight of Columbus. It's been revoked. It's been revoked. Yeah, that's not going to help.
Vic00:11:08I'm tearing up the form, 5100 or whatever it is. I'm tearing it up. Okay.
Guest00:11:11We had a brief, slightly traumatizing trip for my kids. We've been going to the swimming hole. We found swimming holes. You've got a hole?
Vic00:11:21Yeah. Wait a minute. Is this like in the movies where they have the tire on the arena? With the rope on the tree? Yes, it's very idyllic.
Guest00:11:31It's idyllic, I tell you. So we've been looking around, and I'm not dipping them in the Potomac. I'm merely dipping them in a tributary of the Potomac. It looks fine. So we go down to the swimming hole the other day, the whole family, and it's very pretty, and you walk down into the woods, and there's just a creek that's deep enough for them to wade and swim a little bit, even some cannonballs off the rocks. Like I said, it's like a movie. And on the way down. And a police officer comes by us, and he says quietly to my husband and I, there's an injured deer to the right over here, so if you just want to keep the kids maybe away from that area, and my husband yells, ah, they can learn that lesson. This is just a picture of our parenting style over here.
Vic00:12:19At some point, I hope you didn't hear like a bang, you know, anything like that.
Guest00:12:24Vic, spoiler alert. Oh, no. But it was, there were families all at the swimming hole. They're not a small number, and you do hear the dispatching of the injured deer, and the other parents didn't know what it was. Oh, firecrackers. And I thought, should I go tell them, or does that just make the issue worse? I saw them all looking at each other, and we just decided to let it go, and everybody continued to swim in the... The sea area swimming hole.
Vic00:13:00That's the way it is in your swimming hole, I guess. That's how they roll. No, I think that's just the firecracker.
Guest00:13:06Yep, I think we're fine.
Vic00:13:07Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you another thing, summer-related. I was working today at home, of course, as we all are. I'm in the living room, and all of a sudden, I hear this racket outside, and it's this electronic kids' music, like some sort of nursery rhyme melody playing over and over with bells and whistles. It was an ice cream truck. And I don't know if you have them coming by your areas now, because Sonny is shaking his head. You know, it's been a while, and I've seen them come and go, but, you know, they just drive by because there's really not a lot of people out there. But, of course, today, my daughter was across the street with her neighbor friend. They hang out all the time. And first, you hear the music of the ice cream truck, and then you hear the screaming, you know? And then I look out, and sure enough, she's running, and she doesn't have any shoes on, chasing after the ice cream truck. And, of course, no money. And so Kate and I are just watching out the window, like, what is she going to do? Like, how is she going to, what is happening here?
Guest00:14:11What's the plan?
Vic00:14:12So, sure enough, the ice cream truck stops, and then she starts running over here. So I think, okay, here we go. All right, here's some money. But what is it about ice cream trucks that's...
Sonny00:14:23So she stops the truck. She distracts the truck. Yes, she distracts the truck. She distracts the truck. And it's like, you stop. You stop, truck. And then she comes to you. Yeah, and then she comes to me. And then she comes to you. That's right.
Vic00:14:31And he waited, and then a couple other kids showed up. And so they were there, and then that music was that infernal, it's playing over and over again. But it's a weird thing. I remember, I don't know how you guys were when you were kids, but when you heard the ice cream truck music, it makes you go crazy. It's like, you've got to stop. You could be eating ice cream already, because we have ice cream at home. That never works by telling my kids, we have ice cream at home. That never works. You could be eating. You could be eating the ice cream. As soon as you hear that, you're going to jump, run out the door, and chase after the ice cream.
Guest00:15:01Yeah, my kids don't know what one is yet. We heard one the other day, and they asked me. And I said, that's an ice cream. That is just a song that plays. Don't worry about it.
Vic00:15:14It's so bad.
Guest00:15:15Mom of the year.
Sonny00:15:16You could do that for their whole childhood, because that's what my parents did to me. Whenever the ice cream truck would come by, they'd be like, the music truck is here. And I would go, and I would dance to the music.
Guest00:15:26I don't have anything else. Oh, you're kidding, Sonny. You're kidding.
Sonny00:15:29I'm dancing. You know, like the music truck. Yay, bye-bye, music truck.
Guest00:15:33It was so nice to hear you.
Vic00:15:35Bye-bye, music truck. That's why they have the pictures on the side of the truck. So kids, if you can't read, like me, for many years, just point. I know what that is.
Sonny00:15:44It's a happy truck. You know what's happy is ice cream. Ice cream is happy.
Guest00:15:47The ham parents were very skilled similarly. And when we used to go to the laundromat, where we would go, and my mother would have just a giant stack of quarters because we had to do laundry there, there was a Ms. Pac-Man game. And in the 80s, all you wanted to do was play Ms. Pac-Man. The rules in our household were such that you had to ask for permission to pretend to play the Ms. Pac-Man game. There was no question of asking for a quarter to actually play. So we played the dummy game.
Vic00:16:21Just like what, moving it around?
Guest00:16:23And we tried to convince each other that we had gotten a quarter. From our mom, like we could play the demo game so well. You're like, wow, she gave you one. No, she didn't.
Sonny00:16:33Oh, because you're watching it.
Vic00:16:36Brilliant, man. That's brilliant. I had for us today, speaking of ice cream truck and ice cream truck ranking. It probably doesn't mean anything since you did not get ice cream at the ice cream truck. OK, I just have my top three. They're all Jack and Jill, by the way. That was the product was not the other Jack and Jill. This is the this Jack and Jill. I get confused. I'm thinking of something else. And in any event, this Jack and Jill, number three, I was thinking of Adam and Eve. Sorry.
Sonny00:17:07Weren't we all? I know. I know.
Vic00:17:09I mean, I knew it was like a guy's name and a girl's name.
Sonny00:17:11I was trying to I was I was trying to figure out, wait, is he talking about Adam and Eve? It's the same names. Come on. Jack and Jill, you mean the Adam Sandler movie?
Guest00:17:19No, I don't know.
Sonny00:17:19Where he plays Jack and Jill?
Vic00:17:21I was thinking of Adam and Eve.
Sonny00:17:21And Al Pacino's in it? No. And Al Pacino falls in love with Jill Sandler? All I knew. All I knew was that it was dirty, whatever it was.
Vic00:17:28Yeah. Well, we're getting there. Number three is the chocolate eclair, which, by the way, was not like an eclair. It's not like a French eclair, you know? And in fact, it's just, you know, it's like a popsicle and it's got all sorts of crunchies on it and it's chocolate. And I remember actually having an eclair for the first time as like in a restaurant and being so disappointed. It wasn't.
Sonny00:17:48What is this crap? Right. What is this crap with the cream puff?
Vic00:17:51Okay. Okay. Number two, almond crunch. Almond crunch was like...
Sonny00:17:58I don't know what any of these things are.
Vic00:17:59Almond crunch had no chocolate. So, like, if you had a fancy ice cream truck, you'd get Nestle crunch, right? But the Jack and Jill almond crunch is ice cream and they, like, roll it in this crunchy almond that probably is not even almond. It's just like crunchies. Almonds are expensive. They are. Probably not. It had to be fake. And we had the same ice creams in our school, by the way. Okay. And number one was strawberry shortcake. Obviously.
Guest00:18:20So, I'm just pairing these up with good humor, which I assume is the same-ish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vic00:18:25Yeah. Okay. You enjoy that as well. I agree. I love that. It's almost like fruity pebbles on the outside, the flavor of it, and it's got that, you know, soft pink center. Speaking of which, our movie of the week is Showgirls. Yes, Sonny. Oh, Mary Catherine just left. Thanks for coming.
Sonny00:18:45See, I almost stepped on your transition. I know you did. I saw you. What's the rocket one? The red, white, and blue?
Vic00:18:53Yes, yes. Don't get that one. Like, rocket pop? No, don't fool yourself. You're not going to get that one.
Guest00:18:56That also could have been. That could have been a transition.
Vic00:18:57That could have been. That could have been. It's big. But it's, those ices, it's not the same. It's not the same. It doesn't have the same heft as the ice cream. Okay, so if that was not, if that was not a tasteful transition, I had two other alternatives if you'd like to hear them. I'm just going to tell them to you, okay? Oh, I enjoy, you know what I'm tricking right now? This is no joke. I know you hate Irish whiskey, Sonny, because you're thinking about Jameson's. Yeah, gutter whiskey. I know you say that, but you have to try. The one I like, there's two Tealings and Red Breast, and this is Red Breast. It's really, speaking of Red Breast, our movie of the week. If you like that, okay. Okay, and then here's number three. You get to vote on which one. Number three, guess what I had for lunch today? Arby's Roast Beef. Speaking of which, our, no, no, Sonny, no? I didn't even get, no.
Sonny00:19:48We should tell, we should make sure to tell, we should make sure to tell all of the people who listen to this show with their families in the cars that this is going to happen.
Guest00:19:56This is going to be a not-safe-for-work, not-safe-for-family edition of Showgirls.
Vic00:20:05We can't wait to hear the show with Mary Catherine.
Guest00:20:06Yeah, my theory was I'm only here to just temper slightly what's going to come out of Vic's mouth.
Vic00:20:12Oh, so to speak, okay. So not only do our listeners get Mary Catherine as a special treat here, talking about, she's also here to talk about Showgirls, which came out 25 years ago. 25 years. 25 years ago, and more specifically, the documentary on the movie, You Don't Know Me, Know Me N-O-M-I, Know Me, because that was Nomi Malone, who is Elizabeth Berkley. I don't know how you want to do this, Sonny. Do you want to do a big boy review of You Don't Know Me or Showgirls?
Sonny00:20:44As JVL, as Vic is suggesting here, we are kind of talking about two movies today. The first is You Don't Know Me N-O-M-I, which is a documentary about the movie Showgirls. Looking at its legacy as a camp classic and the attempted rehabilitation of it. And secondly, we're going to talk about Showgirls some, I think, because it is streaming on HBO Max. It is the NC-17 version of Showgirls. HBO Max is like, look, Disney Plus has their offerings for the kiddos. But, you know, if you want the good stuff, you come to HBO Max. It was right there on the homepage, too. Maybe it's tailored to me because I'm a pervert. But, like, I turned on HBO Max the other day and they were like, new, Showgirls, NC-17. I was like, okay.
Vic00:21:33Are you telling me there's a different? Why not? The one I saw in the theater, was that the same one?
Sonny00:21:39The one you saw in the, so, Showgirls is like the biggest budgeted NC-17 movie ever. Like, it was, they did not cut it down to an R to get, you know, to get it shown in more theaters. We can get to all that in a minute. So, first, let's talk about the documentary a little bit. Don't Know Me is a, it's kind of an interesting documentary insofar as, it's not a talking head documentary exactly. Because the filmmakers didn't actually record any of the people talking. What they did is they sent an audio cassette recorder around the country to various critics to have them, like, record their thoughts.
Vic00:22:17Is this why I saw none of their faces?
Sonny00:22:20Yeah, yeah. So, this is why you saw none of their faces. So, like, all of their, all of their, everything they say, like, plays on top of clips. From Showgirls and other Paul Verhoeven movies. Which is kind of an interesting stylistic choice. It almost makes it, like, a remixed commentary track of sorts. But, so, You Don't Know Me is, it's a movie that looks at the legacy of Showgirls and tries to, you know, discuss whether or not it is purely a camp classic in the kind of classic Sontagian sense of the word. We discussed this when we were talking about Flash Gordon a few weeks back. But, like, basically, my argument about Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon can't be camp because camp can't be intentional. You can't, like, intentionally make a crappy, silly movie and have it be called camp. That's not how it works. Camp has to be something that is done in earnest. And the earnestness and the failure of the seriousness of it is what lends it its, like, kind of classic status. And my argument would be that Showgirls falls very squarely in that category. Like, I don't believe in the idea that something can be so bad. That it's good. But I do believe in the idea of camp in a sense of, like, a movie that is, like, it's badness comes from its earnestness. And then there's a kind of, like, honesty to it that makes it watchable. So when people go on in this movie about how it's, like, you know, oh, it's genius comedy and, you know, oh, it's so. No, it's not. It's just it's a bad movie. It only succeeds because it is trying to be serious, if that makes sense. So there's a very funny moment in this documentary where this guy who works at the Ringer is going on and on about mirrors. He's like, oh, and there's this mirror motif and the characters look in mirrors and they see reflections of themselves. And the film is structured like a mirror with the opening and the closing is the same. And just go for, like, 90 seconds goes on about mirrors. And there's a female critic who, like, is the next edited in voice. And she's like, mirrors? Really? That's what we're going to hang the success of this movie on? Mirrors? Give me a break. And it's like the perfect deflationary tactic when somebody is getting overly serious about something that's bad. And this is a bad movie, Showgirls. Showgirls is a bad movie. It's terrible. And there are still things that you can find that are entertaining about it. Still things that are good about it. Paul Verhoeven is a great visual director. So, like, it's not poorly made. It's just bad. It's ill-conceived and ill-acted and all that stuff. We'll get to Showgirls in a second. I just want to say one more thing about You Don't Know Me, which is that it is actually a very interesting piece of criticism in and of itself. The most interesting thing that it does is take Showgirls and place it within the body of work of Paul Verhoeven writ large. So, like, one of the things that the filmmakers do is they will show something happening in Showgirls. Like, for instance, Nomi, who is played by Elizabeth Berkley, she throws up, like, just kind of randomly out of nowhere at the beginning of the movie. She just, like, kind of, like, blah, because she gets, like, you know, excited and angry. And they kind of, they intercut that with other similar shots from Paul Verhoeven movies where other characters are doing the same thing. And it does, it implicitly, makes one of the arguments that some of the critics in the film are making, which is that Paul Verhoeven is a serious director who is often working with serious themes, even in kind of ridiculous subject matter. Robocop is a comment on 1980s America and the corporatization and the, you know, police work, et cetera, et cetera. Starship Troopers is essentially a parody slash satire that relies on propaganda war film tropes to make the arguments that it's making. Um, he, they tried to do that here with, with, uh, Showgirls. And the problem is that Showgirls, there's, there's no there, there. There's like, Showgirls is not commenting upon anything. What is, what would Showgirls be commenting upon? Las Vegas? Like Vegas is gross. The entertainment industry. Like we already know, like you can't comment upon Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a comment upon itself. Like Las Vegas exists as a way to comment on a by reflecting all of our most terrible and great excesses back on us. Um, so, uh, you know, so this is, so, you know, getting, getting to Showgirls itself, it's not a good movie. It has some interesting quirks to it. I mean, like, I feel, I feel kind of bad for Elizabeth Berkley because she was directed by Paul Verhoeven to be super over the top. She was coming off of her work on Saved by the Bell. Right. Right. So she was coming off her work on Saved by the Bell. She's a TV teen star. She's not, like, a great actress anyway, probably. We'll never know. We'll never know how, you know, how good or bad she could have been. But, like, she's not, she's not a great actress. She's not a great talent. And she's, she's instructed to go over the top over and over again. And it, it lends her performance a ridiculous and not in a good way, um, uh, sense. But there's other good stuff in it. Gina Gershon, I think, understands the ridiculous movie that she's in. Uh, she plays Crystal Connors, who is the, the head of the Stardust, uh, topless show that, uh, Nomi Malone's character is trying to kind of overthrow.
Vic00:28:05By the way, the idea that the biggest show on the strip is at the Stardust is itself kind of...
Sonny00:28:09Really? It's not a, it's, it's not at the Wynn? Okay.
Vic00:28:13Yeah. Uh, I, yeah, go ahead. Continue, Sonny.
Sonny00:28:15And, uh, just, uh, like, I, I do like some of the, I like a lot of the performances in this movie. Like, Alan Ratchins, who, uh, plays... From L.A. Law. Tony Moss, who is the character. He's, he's the guy who is, like, the director of the show, of the topless show. And he is, like, he's perfectly scummy and, like, in a kind of, like, he, he's both gratuitous and impersonal at the same time. And it, like, it just, there's something about it that totally works, uh, and he's, he's doing a very good job with it. I don't know. I mean, like, Robert Dobby as the... I liked him better. I liked him better. Robert, Robert Dobby as the strip club owner who, like, totally earnestly at one point asks...
Vic00:28:53Say, say something you can't say.
Sonny00:28:54I, yeah, I mean, I can't even... Even with the NSFW warning on this... It must be weird. It must be weird not having men... Bleach. ...show their affection for you, uh, you know. And, and, like, I, I, it's just, like, it's so perfectly, he says it so perfectly seriously as if he really means it, that it must be weird. Um... Yes, yeah. I don't know. I just, I, like, again, it's not a good movie. Paul Verhoeven directs the hell out of it. It, it is a, it is an interesting movie visually. But it's bad. It's just, it's so ill-conceived and, and whatever he thought he was doing, he has not done. Um, and that is, and so that's kind of where I come down on the, like, is, is Showgirls a masterpiece? Is it a trash masterpiece? Is it, I mean, what it is, is a, it's a camp cult classic. It is a movie that, like, that only succeeds because it fails at trying to succeed.
Vic00:29:55Right. There's a weird... There's like a weird sort of earnestness to the movie, I think.
Sonny00:30:00Totally. It's totally earnest. There's, there's, there's no argument to be made that this is tongue-in-cheek. There's no argument to be made that this is...
Vic00:30:07They really wanted to, like, this is going to be, and this is the follow-up to Basic Instinct, but this is going to be it. It's going to be, like you said, this commentary. Mary Catherine, uh, question.
Guest00:30:15Yes.
Vic00:30:16Uh, you've seen the movie Showgirls. Yes. Okay. When did you see it and what did you think of it at the time?
Guest00:30:23Yeah. So I'm the perfect age for this. I think I was 15 when it came out.
Vic00:30:29Oh! Oh!
Guest00:30:30Uh, and I had watched, uh, Elizabeth Berkley my whole childhood. Um, and I was like, I'm right in that sweet spot for Saved by the Bell fandom as a child. It was on every single day after school for me. Uh, so I had seen her there.
Vic00:30:44In between, like, Hangtime and California Dreamin'.
Sonny00:30:47Not that I watched those when I was in my 20s. Right. Not at all. When you were 30?
Vic00:30:52At the Weekly Standard.
Guest00:30:53So I was 15 when it came out. When it came out, I probably watched it at 17 or 18, I would guess. Uh, I don't think I saw it right away.
Vic00:31:02So, I mean, obviously, NC-17 means no one under 17, right? Right. So that means you could be 17. No one under 17 for me. So you saw it...
Guest00:31:09Well, I feel like I saw it at a, you know, some sort of ill-advised house party or something. Oh, I see. Which is kind of the environment you would watch that at 17 or 18 years old. And what I, what I took, I did not enjoy it. But I will say... One of the, one of the reviews, one of the reviews, and you don't know me, says sleazy but forgettable. And I would say it is sleazy but not at all forgettable. No, no.
Sonny00:31:38Certainly not, certainly not if you see it at around that age. So, I mean, I probably saw it when I was...
Vic00:31:44You were five, Sonny, you were five?
Sonny00:31:46When I was, I mean, whenever it, like, it was on HBO after it had been in theaters. Because I remember, like...
Vic00:31:53You didn't see it in the theater. I remember... No, no, no, you would have been...
Sonny00:31:56No, because I was...
Vic00:31:56I would have seen it in the theater if I was your age, I would have seen it in the theater. Go ahead.
Sonny00:32:01But I definitely, I probably saw it at, like, I don't know, 17 or so on HBO. And I remember being like, oh, there's a lot going on here for, you know, 15 or 16 year old. I was like, oh, okay.
Guest00:32:18I do remember earnestly liking Gina Gershon. I thought she was great in the movie and I liked her from then on as an actress. Yes. So I remember her very clearly.
Vic00:32:28I was 22 and I was, this is before I even, I just graduated and I was living in Shirlington before Shirlington was a thing with my old college housemate, Jose. And the two of us walked down to the Shirlington Theater, which was there at the time, next to a Best, which was gone, and a Damon's House of Ribs, also gone. Yes. What is a Best? A Best, that's like a department store. Forgot about that one. That's where I got my AT&T phone with voicemail service. You put a cassette tape in it. Anyway, went in there and it was rather titillating. You know, it was like, oh, we're walking into this thing. I wonder if we're going to get stopped. It was like, I was giggling. Well, as you can imagine, I giggled throughout. And then, also weird, I was wearing sweatpants. Anyway, but I did enjoy- Not the trench coat? Not the trench coat. No, that comes later on. I remember at the time, even for me and by my standards, and of course, I mean, because this crushes the quadrants in so many ways. Rules the world. Yeah, the quadrants. Yeah, it rules the quadrants. But even for me, at the time, I thought the acting made you cringe. Like, it just made you, Elizabeth Berkley made you cringe, her acting I'm talking about. But then, you know, again, as you mentioned, Sonny, you know, Paul Verhoeven says, no, it was all me. I told her to do this, which is a shame because I think she's great. I like her. I remember seeing her in Any Given Sunday. She played the escort. But she was great in that with Al Pacino. The other question Mary Catherine and I had is, did you have thoughts on this movie as a dancer? Because you are also, I'm not saying you're an exotic dancer, but you, but your dance, you, for real, for real, I mean, you were a dancer.
Guest00:34:10I'm not a, I'm not a trained dancer or anything, but I will say, I'm trying to think, I...
Sonny00:34:15What classes have you taken?
Guest00:34:17Let me detail them. I took them all during lockdown. I just became a trained dancer. No, but I, I think I had seen... As a kid, I had seen Elizabeth Berkley do the, it was funny, one of the guys in the, in the documentary who's devoted his life to showgirl analysis had not seen the I'm So Excited, Jesse Spano, Caffeine Pills episode before he became familiar with showgirls. But if you are familiar with that episode of Saved by the Bell, you know where everything Nomi Malone came from because that's just Elizabeth Berkley doing that scene over and over and over again at that same pitch. Uh, and I, after this revisiting of it, which is not, this is not the, uh, the, the toolkit I had when I was 17, I desperately wanted to get her a therapist.
Sonny00:35:07I just looking back though on it, looking back on the character or Elizabeth Berkley,
Guest00:35:12the care, well, Nomi Malone or Nomi, but I care deeply for both of them.
Vic00:35:18Looking back now though, has it changed your opinion of showgirls and watching? You don't know me like, Oh, you know what? Oh, it's got its charm.
Guest00:35:26So I would say that there were a couple of things that I did remember that I thought, okay, yes, it was visually distinctive. I remember, uh, from that long ago, I remember parts of it really well. Although I would say wild things did pool sex better than this. I don't know. I don't know why that was a thing in the nineties. Was that our thing?
Vic00:35:42People now replaying that, that line you just said. It was, uh, it's on a loop now. It's on a loop.
Guest00:35:47It was just risque. That was our risque thing. But, uh, I, I noticed, uh, the poster is great. Graphic design on the poster is great. Um, and very tasteful compared to the whole production. Uh, I like that. It is, it seems, I'm going to, I shouldn't count my chickens. It seems uncancellable, even though it should totally be canceled. I enjoy it's sort of transcending that because they mentioned in the documentary, all the, the fact that the African-American characters are just there to help her realize her dreams. There's all sorts of problematic women's stuff. You can't even begin to count. Um, but here it is on HBO. Max just living its second life. So I, I sort of admire that right there.
Vic00:36:31I will, you know what I was at, what, what bothered me about the documentary is they talk about that, the, the negative portrayals that say of the African-Americans, but they don't talk about the negative portrayal of the Asian, the really the only Asian in this movie. And that is the Asian businessman at the boat, Japanese business, Japanese businessman at the boating convention thing. And the girls get hired to be like, you know, Carl. More girls as they do on the hood, but it turns out it's more than that. And then they go, let's go back to the guy who takes them to the stinks is let's go back and, you know, have a good time. And the Japanese businessman says it in his accent, something to the effect of yes, let's go, but we have good time. We have good to come back. We have good time. I, you know what? We're not all like that. That's not how we operate.
Sonny00:37:19You know? Oh, I mean, I mean, you're not, you're not a Japanese, I wouldn't have been so forward.
Vic00:37:23I wouldn't have been so forward.
Sonny00:37:24I feel like. Let's go out. I feel like you're kind of projecting a little bit here, you know, I would have asked her
Vic00:37:33out to dinner, you know, I wouldn't have just gone, we're going to listen to Caesar sing
Sonny00:37:37first. You know, have you ever heard Caesar sing?
Vic00:37:42Thank you. Okay. So, I mean, there was that. The other thing that I think is shocking is that the budget was $40 million, $40 million. I looked it up.
Sonny00:37:51$40 million. And in today's money, that's like a hundred million.
Vic00:37:53Yeah. No, I, I, I, I, I tried. I tried putting it into the, the calculator that I have, but it only didn't let me go up to 40 million. So I just extrapolate it's about 60 million, I think something like that. But the but like compared with a quiet place, which in 2018 dollars cost only like 17 million
Guest00:38:12to make, and obviously made a killing, you know, I thought, I thought there was a part in the documentary where they note that they're always talking about their nails. And there was a suggestion that that might be a bit misogynistic or inaccurate. And I'm here to say that no women talk about their nails constantly, constantly. And since COVID started, it's even more because I realized how reliant so many of my friends are who have rich lives, rich, beautiful lives and children and careers, but they are very upset about the nail situation up until very recently. And there's a lot of talking and I think probably a lot of judging and I don't come out well in that arena. So, who knows what people have thought of me over the years, but that's a real thing. Women do judge each other by their nails.
Vic00:39:01You're saying including yourself, like going to a nail salon and stuff like that.
Guest00:39:05But see, I'm the JV one. I do my own nails. I lose in this battle. Against Crystal and Nomi, I'm done.
Vic00:39:16Okay. The Paul Verhoeven things, you mentioned that, Sonny, earlier. It's interesting because they talk about how he came to America, you know, where his stuff in Holland was okay. It was really too edgy. And so...
Sonny00:39:29Yeah. And he really did... Yeah. He was exiled to Hollywood.
Vic00:39:33Yes. And he really did have a moment there with Total Recall and RoboCop, as you were mentioning. Oh, totally. The basic instinct. However, when they do show the old movies in Holland, I have zero desire to see any of his old stuff. The movie called Spätters. Spätters. Hard pass. Not going to see that. It's just really good stuff.
Sonny00:39:50Yeah. I mean, I don't know about any of that. I have not seen any of his... I have not seen any of Verhoeven's non-English language stuff except for Elle, which was his most recent movie with Isabelle Huppert. There is...
Vic00:40:05Is that the one that she got an award for? Yeah. She won Best Actress at the Globes or something. So it's kind of... He's come around for that. I mean, I give him credit for showing up at the Razzie's to accept his...
Sonny00:40:15Yeah. That was funny. That was funny. It made me... It's a good call. Very much... I always enjoy it when people do that. Like when Sandra Bullock showed up to accept her reward for the terrible movie she did with the... What's his name from The Hangover, Bradley Cooper. No, I mean, Paul Verhoeven was... I mean, he was legitimately one of like the great kind of action genre type filmmakers from the mid '80s to the mid '90s.
Guest00:40:43Well, and some of the most, I mean, really memorable films, like I said, I will never forget this one, but Total Recall I watched when I was very young and remember it to this day in rich detail.
Sonny00:40:54Yeah. Well, it's...
Guest00:40:56I didn't realize it was the same guy until I watched this documentary, I was like, "Oh,
Vic00:41:02he's an auteur." It's the scene where the woman, the large lady and the head, and it's actually Arnold Schwarzenegger. The worst part about it, the most ridiculous part is the fake Arnold Schwarzenegger head inside the woman's head in Total Recall, you know, the famous scene I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, it's the animatronic Arnold Schwarzenegger and so, but I guess at the time of watching it, you accepted that, like, okay, that's just the way it goes, but...
Sonny00:41:24Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some kind of sketchy special effects in that, like when he goes through the 3D, or no, the x-ray scanner with the gun. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a big deal. It's like, wow. Skeleton.
Vic00:41:38Right, right, right. They did a little bit of that in True Lies. It's wild stuff. The question about Total Recall, of course, is, is it the actual dream fulfillment or was it real? All right.
Sonny00:41:47What do you say, Sonny Bunch? That's the big question, isn't it? Yeah.
Vic00:41:51It's a dream.
Guest00:41:52Yes, Mary Kat. Sorry, this is, I apologize for breaking it. This is going back to the... The documentary, but I think there might be a documentary that's the real documentary inside this documentary, which is the young Mormon girl who runs away from her family and culture, apparently, and was disowned by her parents and later goes on to be sexually assaulted and then work that out through starring as Jessie Spano in the Bayside musical. But then she goes on to star also as Nomi in the Showgirls musical.
Sonny00:42:25She's shadow Elizabeth Berkley. I mean, there's a whole thing there. It's deeply weird.
Vic00:42:31Oh, yeah. And it starts off like, okay, well, how long is this? You know, that segment was a very long segment of the documentary where she's just talking. And you wonder, where is it going? Then you get, as you mentioned, Mary Catherine, the full story about her life. And you're like, it's actually paralleling Elizabeth Berkley, Jessie Spano. I need more about her. I was wondering. The musical looked kind of funny.
Sonny00:42:53Yeah. So I didn't love... I love that section of the movie just because it feels like a different movie. Yeah, that's what it feels like. It's like a set apart. It totally feels like a different documentary. That said, I think you're right. It would be totally fascinating because that's a life choice to be like, I'm going to be fake Elizabeth Berkley on stage every night. Right.
Vic00:43:16Not Betty Davis, but I'm going to be Elizabeth Berkley forever. The funny thing about Showgirls also is that, you know, the typical... The typical story is, you know, that you try to make it big in L.A. And if that doesn't work, you end up in Vegas. And at least some of the women I spoke to when I was in Vegas did my reporting, have said that, you know. But no, the... But here was like the reverse where her first thing is...
Sonny00:43:43Some of your reporting that you've done with some of our friends. They all...
Vic00:43:47And they're all going to law school. They're all studying for law school. Here in Showgirls, her goal is Vegas. And then, of course... And in the end, I guess she's heading to L.A. Is that what happens when she hitchhikes? So it's a funny, weird...
Guest00:44:01There's another story and another musical out there to be told.
Vic00:44:05That's right.
Sonny00:44:06There is a Showgirls 2, you know. There's a Showgirls 2. There's a Showgirls 2 that is a... It is a direct sequel to this, but it's... Direct-to-video? It's the... It's about the girl Penny. What's her name? The one that gets pregnant. From the dancer, the male dancer. She's in the show with the... She's like, you know...
Vic00:44:31This is real? What you're saying is real?
Sonny00:44:33100% true. It's Showgirls 2. Penny's from Heaven, is what it's called. It's a real thing. It's a thing that exists.
Vic00:44:42Early on, Sonny, you said that HBO Max is Showgirls, the full NC-17 version. It's not like there are other versions though, are there? I mean, other than the one if they were to show it on AMC, I assume.
Sonny00:44:52There is an R-rated cut. There's also a cut that showed on VH1 all the time where it had this animation over the private areas. Animation? I mean, literally they would draw bras off to the characters. Yeah, it's not a movie that does well on that format. I don't know why anybody would watch that.
Vic00:45:16My final... Yeah, exactly. When is Cinemax Plus going to come out? Max. Cinemax Max. I want Cinemax Max to come out. The only thing I thought about you don't know me and you've already basically covered it is, is it really worth... I mean, is it really something like, oh, it's bigger than it is? You know, I mean, and I just... I don't know. It's weird as Mary Catherine mentions, the fella who hadn't seen the I'm So Excited Pills thing, he writes Sestinas. Is that what he does? I don't remember which one.
Sonny00:45:51Poems. Was that the one who writes the poems? I'm not sure if it was him, but yes.
Vic00:45:55He writes Sestinas that's a bit much. I think it's a bit much.
Sonny00:45:58I mean, look, there's a lot of weird people in the world and every weird person has a weird thing that they fixate on. For instance, the movie Sucker Punch. That's like, you know, similar. Lagoon! That's another one for some people. Yeah, like everything like this has a subculture of people around it. And again, this is one of the reasons I like this movie is because it doesn't focus too much on like the weirdos who are totally fixated on it aside from the like Elizabeth Berkley, Shadow Elizabeth Berkley. She will always be known to me. I will never know this woman as anything other than like fake Elizabeth Berkley. Like that's it. Again, I do think it's, I think it is a relatively successful video essay, extended video essay about like showgirls and what showgirls means within the kind of extended oeuvre of Paul Verhoeven.
Guest00:46:57I think I came to root for Elizabeth Berkley far more than I had ever rooted for Nomi Malone. And so at the end, I was sort of happy about the Rocky Horror Picture Show kind of status of this thing for some people that she can enjoy. And I do like that because this did torpedo her in a big way. And she's not good in it. But if she was directed in a certain way, it's not...
Vic00:47:23I wouldn't have given her a second chance. I mean, I saw... I felt the same way. It's incredibly unfair. And again, if you watch her very, very small bit role in any given Sunday with Al Pacino, you know, it's very understated. You know, it's like she went out of her way to show, okay, seriously, I'm not like that all the time.
Guest00:47:45By the way, do we have time for a quick ranking? We have lots of time. Please. I have a ranking. Oh my goodness. Mary Catherine, go for it. I brought a short ranking in the short... This is the ranking of post-Saved by the Bell careers of Saved by the Bell stars.
Sonny00:48:03Okay. I'm so excited. Do we want to go
Guest00:48:05from worst to best or best to worst?
Sonny00:48:07Obviously, worst to best. You don't start
Guest00:48:09with the best. That's what I think, but sometimes I feel like
Sonny00:48:11it gets flipped. JVL does it wrong. He does. Okay.
Guest00:48:15All right. So we start... Although, I don't know. Worst is pretty good too, but okay. Okay. We're going to start with the worst. And this is tough, but I think I'm right in that it goes to Dustin Diamond, who has had many illegal trouble and basically in entertainment only done sort of very low-level reality shows as a sort of exploitative entertainment. And just... I'm not sure how great he turned out in
Vic00:48:45general. I would have ranked him as best because he did star in a porno. I know. Okay. Yours would look different. Am I number one, Dustin? He does.
Guest00:48:53Yeah. He has a sex tape. So in the in some measures, that would make him higher. Lark Voorhees is next, who was Lisa Turtle. Sorry, I should name their characters as well.
Vic00:49:03I knew who you were talking about. Why?
Guest00:49:06Lisa Turtle actually has started more or has acted more than you would have thought. And also dated Martin Lawrence for a while, which is I mean, if you've got Martin Lawrence and Zach Morris in your past, I think that's a win for you. But she's acted a bit, but she's also had some troubles legal and otherwise. Oh, really? I heard, but I can't remember. Perhaps substance abuse. I don't want to be libelous. Nobody put me on it.
Sonny00:49:37Don't get us sued. So, Elizabeth Berkley
Guest00:49:39is not at the bottom. She comes after those two. So, she's number three. Elizabeth Berkley. And she has done some stuff since Showgirls, but not a ton. But she seems like a happy young lady. She seems to have her life sort of on track. Again, rooting for Elizabeth Berkley. Then we have number four. Mark Paul Gosselaar. Almost entirely for the critically acclaimed, I think, NYPD Blue stint, but didn't really go anywhere after that.
Sonny00:50:11He's been in several... Alright, I'll do my own ranking. Oh, by the way,
Guest00:50:15you can do... Please. Elizabeth Berkley actually might move up in my estimation at some point, because she did do a Hallmark Christmas movie, and I have a soft spot for that.
Sonny00:50:23Yeah, well, that, yeah.
Guest00:50:24So, Mark Paul Gosselaar I put Tiffany Thiessen next. Kelly Kapowski. She's number two. I do love her, so that might just be my bias, but she's a very well-rounded star after this, and she made the turn from child actress to mature actress by taking a sketchy, like a sexier role in a better way, because she went to 90210.
Vic00:50:50She did. That's right. She did.
Guest00:50:52By the way, Valerie Malone. Interesting. Anyway, so I thought she pulled that off well. She's done a ton of stuff since then. She's had successful sitcoms, and she has a cookbook, which makes her an Instagram influencer, basically. She's done all the things.
Vic00:51:08I have never... I objectively understand that she's attractive. Again, personally, I have never found her attractive because of her head. It's big. She's got a big head. Heart-shaped face. It's like looking at myself.
Guest00:51:24And then number one. Number one is Mario Lopez because he's freaking everywhere. He's everywhere. Didn't he get canceled, though? I think he briefly got canceled, but it didn't work because he's on E! still. In a different way than Showgirls, he's on every hotel TV in America.
Vic00:51:39Wow. I'm not even going to ask about that one. The E! show is the thing.
Guest00:51:43That's their B-roll. They play it everywhere.
Vic00:51:45He played Greg Louganis.
Guest00:51:47Yes. He's everywhere. He'll be famous forever. He will host everything forever because every generation only gets a couple of hosts. And we have Seacrest and him. Yeah.
Sonny00:51:58I guess that's fair.
Guest00:52:00And Kimmel, but he's now sort of canceled.
Sonny00:52:03Was Mark Paul Gosselaar on a TNT show with Jason Lee? Yes. Nash Bridges. Am I remembering that correctly? No, it wasn't Nash Bridges. You're thinking of Franklin and Bash.
Vic00:52:17Franklin and Bash. That's what I was going to say.
Sonny00:52:19No? Not Franklin?
Vic00:52:20Oh, Rizzoli and Isles? Yes.
Sonny00:52:23Rizzoli and Isles.
Guest00:52:25I think he actually was in that for a while. Simon and Simon.
Sonny00:52:28This is why I would say that doing it in the proper order, worst to best. Dustin Diamond and Lark Voorhees are obviously tired for worst. That's like, they have their own issues. Assuming that we are going to not discuss Dennis Haskins. Mr. Belding? A.K.A. Mr. Belding.
Vic00:52:53He takes up several slots, if you know what I mean. If you know what I mean.
Sonny00:52:57After that, I think it's probably I think Tiffany Amber Thiessen is probably, you know, next on the list. Then Elizabeth Berkley. Then Mario Lopez. And then I think Mark Paul Gosselaar has by far had I think he has had by far the best.
Guest00:53:15Zach always wins. That's the lesson.
Sonny00:53:16Zach always wins. And like, this is the thing, is that like, he's been a working actor. He's working. In major shows. Like, throughout the post-Saved by the Bell period. I mean, like, it's hard to find there is no year where he is not working. And it's often as the lead in like one-off TV series, right? Like, he's always like I don't even know what this is. The Passage. The Passage. I'm just gonna click it on IMDB right now. I'm looking at it. The Passage, a TV series in 2019 when a botched U.S. government experiment turns a group of death row inmates into highly infectious vampirics. Vampires. An orphan girl might be the only person able to stop the ensuing crisis. I don't even know what this is. I have no idea what this is. But it got a full season run. It got a full season run in 2019. So good for him. Good for him. AC, I tried.
Guest00:54:09You just remember that.
Vic00:54:11As John Podhoretz is yelling at us right now, he's wondering if we know that Saved by the Bell in Germany was called a different show. You know what it was called in Germany? Zack!
Sonny00:54:25Of course. Of course it was. So wait, was Mario Lopez... Alright, one last question. Was Mario Lopez on the terrible beach bike cop show? Remember? What was that called? Was it called Pacific Blue? I think you're right.
Vic00:54:40Was he on Pacific Blue? Yes, he definitely
Sonny00:54:43was. Police officer Bobby Cruz on Pacific Blue. Sorry, I'm just flipping through all of their IMDbs
Guest00:54:49right now. Mario Lopez will be hosting things from now until forever. I thought he got canned. I think there was a Me Too incident, but I don't think he's totally cancelled. So he's still
Sonny00:55:01around. He's around.
Guest00:55:04He probably hit the wrong news cycle with his Me Too and he breezed past it.
Vic00:55:09Okay. Thank you both. Corrections shoutouts? I have a shoutout. I just want to congratulate listener Father Anthony Sharapa who mentioned on Twitter that he finally won a game of Civilization. Congratulations. You know, the question is, how many Inquisitors did he create? You know, a little auto-defay action going on there. Okay. He can tell me. He can DM me. Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at SonnyBunch at VictorinoMatus at MKHammer. Thank you again for doing the show, MKHammer. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Just type in SubBeacon or the podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:56:06Do you have any outtakes?
Guest00:56:09Do you have any outtakes? I should say earlier I said Vegas is gross, and as my shout-out, I would like to say that friend of the show, Kristen Soltis-Anderson, who has extremely good taste, really likes Vegas, and I have told her, we must go together so you can teach me why. So, just want to... Vegas is great.
Vic00:56:26I love Vegas. I love Vegas.
Sonny00:56:29I love the food and gambling. As long as you adhere to a strict 72-hour rule, you cannot be in Las Vegas for longer than 72 hours, because otherwise you just start to shut down. Your brain is like, too many lights. I need to be
Vic00:56:43guided. And sounds and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of bells and whistles. I have a question for you all. Have you, maybe Sonny, or, you know what, I mean, you live out, you live further out too, Mary Catherine. Have you been trying to find Comet Neo Wise? The what now? The big comet, the comet that comes every 6,800 years, Comet Neo Wise, is in the sky right now as we speak. Nerd?
Sonny00:57:06Nerd? What is this? What are you talking about? The sun goes down. It's 10 degrees. I'm sorry. I didn't go down to the basement of the science building to find the
Vic00:57:17dumb thing in the sky. It's below the Big Dipper. And I have been trying to find it, but there's too much other light in my neighborhood, so I found, the other night I was walking down the streets alone with my binoculars and I found a spot on a dark part of the street, on a side street and I'm looking for it and then of course the door, and I'm standing in somebody's like near the edge of the, yeah, Sonny's shaking his head already and like the door opens like somebody was taking out the garbage. It was like a young person and she just stopped and I look, I go and I'm there with my binoculars and I told her, I said, don't mind me. I'm sorry, what were you there with? Binoculars. You were there with
Sonny00:57:55with your what? I'm sorry, can you just say it one more time? What was that? My binoculars? Binoculars?
Vic00:58:02Binoculars? Yes, that's how I say it. That's how I say it. Anime. That's how I say it. Anime. There's a throwback for you.
Guest00:58:10Binoculars. This is one of my bad opinions, but I think space is boring. This doesn't work for me.
Sonny00:58:17I'm sure it's fine.
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