Jake

Important If True 2: Fight Garbage With Garbage

Recommended Posts

Important If True 2:

Important If True 2


Fight Garbage With Garbage
The great mysteries of our time lie before us, hovering tantalizingly out of reach, so instead we set our sights on the achievable. This week: What happens when flame robots battle garbage? Where's the intersection of George Michael and Matlock? And who brought Jaws to the friendly, rustic murder capital of the world? You may think these questions unanswerable, or barely questions at all. Friend, you may be right—but we'll do our best to pull them apart and see what truths they reveal.

If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

Nick's Endorsement: The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (DVD, iTunes)

Chris' Endorsement: Batman (1966) (Blu-ray, iTunes)

Jake's Endorsement: ThruYou by Kutiman

Note: Endorsements are merely personal recommendations by us, not paid advertising.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So um, I take it by the outro that "Icy Hot: is it icy, or hot?" is going to be a Linda Richman-esque zen koan/running gag that will never be given a real answer?

 

Or should I have sent in an email instead of sending a tweet? Either way;

 

 
The idea was that it "Goes on Icy to dull the pain, then gets hot to relax it away". I think my grandpa always had a tub of it lying around for his sore arms and legs,

 

Now if we're talking Head-On, I have no idea. I think they figured out it was basically just some homeopathic nonsense, which at best was massaging the head to increase blood flow and help manage pain

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I know video games don't exist anymore but your prescience knows know bounds, because the video game where the future is humans communing with animals and nature and killing robots with spears and arrows to fight back is Horizon: Zero Dawn and it's coming out literally next week.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Should we relegate all video game related reader mails to the idlethumbs.net email or are both valid for Important If True?

 

Also, regarding flamethrowing power lines, most very high voltage transmission lines use bare conductors.  This is for a number of reasons, the main one being cost.  Insulating that much wire is very expensive.  Cables closer to the ground that a person is more likely to reach are insulated but cables that the drone would likely be used on are probably bare and largely not affected by a fire spewing robot.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Haven't listened to the pod yet, but I'm seconding Chris' endorsement of the 60s Batman TV show; I recently received them on disk for my birthday and mannnn I love them so goddamn much. There may be a bit of nostalgia involved (I watched this show a lot as a small child), and I've enjoyed other more serious (or self-serious) versions of Batman too, but Adam West w/ Burt Ward is by far my favorite Batman. I particularly love how almost-cripplingly servile he is to the letter of the law, all the way down to needing to find a legally designated parking spot for the batcar. Ughhh it's so good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, jennegatron said:

yessss crazy ex-girlfriend is so fucking good.

 

I was very resistant to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend because all I heard about it during season 1 were the songs, which I thought were all pretty lame. Turns out that

A) They work way better in context and
B) though they were what everyone talked about and linked to on social media, they are actually (to me) the least funny part of the show, and everything else is much better and smarter and more nuanced.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I suddenly became incredibly uncomfortable when listening to Chris explain the flamethrower drones. Specifically because he used the phrase "Drones have been employed to clear trash from telephone poles", and I interpreted "employed" to mean "being compensated in exchange for labour", instead of the more appropriate definition of the word "being utilised to perform a task". I had a mini-freakout when I realised that the way that working-class jobs are moving towards contracts and the gig economy, that the definition of employment for alot of people is alot closer to the latter than the former.

 

But on the plus side, nature doesn't seem to need our training to take care of drones.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The most intriguing thing I've heard about Crazy Ex Girlfriend among all the praise is that the titular ex/object of desire on the show is an East Asian man who is allowed to be a fairly jock-y and bro-y type instead of, you know, weird and nerdy and good at math/martial arts.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is fantastic! Originally saw @Argobot mention it on twitter, so yeah thanks so much for the recommendation, because I absolutely adore the show now. :tup:

 

Also, I found a Matlock remix on youtube and the next recommended video was the latest IIT episode! :tup: 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 minutes ago, cooljammer00 said:

The most intriguing thing I've heard about Crazy Ex Girlfriend among all the praise is that the titular ex/object of desire on the show is an East Asian man who is allowed to be a fairly jock-y and bro-y type instead of, you know, weird and nerdy and good at math/martial arts.

 

It definitely feels like inclusiveness and dismantling stereotypes is a big goal of Crazy Ex Girlfriend, at least on a casting level. The East Asian man in question is also a Christian, who confides in his priest (also East Asian!) who is a stoner.

 

Also there's a bisexual character and one character gets an abortion so she can stay in law school and it's not a huge dramatic arc. I'd say it's pandering to progressive people, except it's also super good and funny.

 

It might still be pandering to progressive people, whatever, it earns it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 

I love Poirot. And Hastings. I think the Poirot theme has a magical meaning to me because I'd hear it late at night as my parents watched PBS in the 90s.

 

 

Along with the Edward Gorey inspired Mystery! intro.

 

Reasons I love the Poirot TV show: Poirot and Hasting's bromance. Miss lemon and Cheif inspector Japp's quirky antics. Ariadne Oliver is a great character deserving of her own detective adventures, but I do dearly miss Hastings.  The "art deco mansion of the week" format where you explore lovely on location architecture. contrast to other serialized story tropes such as monster of the week, patient of the week, murder of the week.

 

If you run out of Poirot to watch, or get beleaguered by late seasons of Poirot where it morphs into 2000s style tone and cinematography, I recommend Miss Fischer's Detective Agency. It is australian art deco with a femme fatal lead. And it also follows the fabulous "mansion of the week" format.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also it's worth noting Universal Studios in '94 or something had a strange "behind the scenes" live performance of "murder she wrote" which included weird things like live-photoshopping evidence onto a suspects shoes, e.g. sawdust from the burned down lumber mill.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
50 minutes ago, plasticflesh said:

Also it's worth noting Universal Studios in '94 or something had a strange "behind the scenes" live performance of "murder she wrote" which included weird things like live-photoshopping evidence onto a suspects shoes, e.g. sawdust from the burned down lumber mill.

"Burned down lumber mill"...  Hmmm what if the Mulholland Drive-esque warped reality Jake was describing was actually the town in Murder She Wrote crossing over into the Twin Peaks universe?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok, I've actually listened to this episode now and would like to share two things:

 

1. The email about Poirot I sent in was a weird example of how technology and social networking has mutated my brain, because I debated whether I should send it. Not because I didn't think it'd fit the show but because I had to determine whether, of all the places I could direct those thoughts and observations, it would fit this show the best. I am the host of two podcasts and had a debate about whether I should talk about the Poirot thing on one of them, or send it in to this podcast, or make a new thread on the forum about it, or call in to my favorite radio show The Best Show with Tom Scharpling and talk about it with him. It was just a thing I felt and experienced but the second I had to determine how I would express this thing I felt it became #content, like a card in my hand I had to play strategically. I think this is something I do a lot but often it happens automatically, but this time I put a lot of thought into it and it was a really weird experience.

 

Note: I made the right choice.

 

2. In the realm of cognitive dissonance and the Jaws ride, one of my favorite things about this dimension we live in is that the now defunct Jaws Ride at Universal Studios Florida (aka the one true Jaws Ride, because apparently at the California one you're on land instead of in a boat? Why*? Who could be scared of Jaws on the land?) has an exact replica that's still in operation at Universal Studios Japan. It's the exact same ride, all the same beats and scares, the same New England coastal town, the same English signage. The only difference is it is in Japan and the tour guide is speaking Japanese (but still acting like she is a resident of Amity, and that the guests are tourists of Amity**) which makes me wonder how it plays over there, and if there is something exotic and attractive about the Martha's Vineyard setting of Jaws to foreign audiences.

 

 

*Actually, this fascinating article about the disastrous construction and early days of the Jaws ride at Universal makes it clear why someone might just say "Fuck it." and put it on land instead. Best tidbit: Spielberg and his family got stuck on the ride. Hadn't that shark made him suffer enough?

 

**Another layer of reality bending: the premise of the Jaws ride is that you are touring the town in a world where the events of Jaws are real and infamous and have made it a tourist attraction. This can fold into the Murder She Wrote world, I think, given that that town's insane murder rate must also make it a tourist destination for certain kinds of people.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think it gets away with being on land in Universal Hollywood because the "ride" is a tour through the actual Universal Pictures backlot, seeing actual sets used in movies and TV, and then sometimes a shark appears or King Kong or whatever. Its not specifically a Jaws ride. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
45 minutes ago, Jake said:

I think it gets away with being on land in Universal Hollywood because the "ride" is a tour through the actual Universal Pictures backlot, seeing actual sets used in movies and TV, and then sometimes a shark appears or King Kong or whatever. Its not specifically a Jaws ride. 

 

Ah, I see, that makes sense.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, plasticflesh said:

 

If you run out of Poirot to watch, or get beleaguered by late seasons of Poirot where it morphs into 2000s style tone and cinematography

 

 

I love Poirot, but actually one of my favourite episodes is one of the late season ones, despite the absence of the supporting cast: the The Labours of Hercules. As I understand it, it's not a huge favourite of hardcore Agatha Christie fans because it's one of the ones that departs the most from the original text(s), but the reason I'm tickled by it isn't even because it's a well told mystery/Poirot story, it's because the setting is nearly a perfect match to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's a hotel somewhere in the Alps (maybe?), with a funicular leading up to it and a spa; there's even a hotel employee named Gustave.

 

Not actually related other than they are both shown on PBS Mysteries, but I'm a HUGE fan of Foyle's War as well which is about a detective in WW2 Britain (in the last season or two he gets drafted into postwar secret intelligence) if anyone is looking for a mystery series to get into.

 

edit: just getting to the Murder She Wrote section, and having watched a lot by osmosis from hanging out with my folks, I am pretty sure that within the #lore of the series, J B Fletcher's novels get licensed into films or tv which lends an extra layer of something to this notion that they could hypothetically visit the set in the episode being discussed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Patrick R said:

2. In the realm of cognitive dissonance and the Jaws ride, one of my favorite things about this dimension we live in is that the now defunct Jaws Ride at Universal Studios Florida (aka the one true Jaws Ride, because apparently at the California one you're on land instead of in a boat? Why*? Who could be scared of Jaws on the land?) has an exact replica that's still in operation at Universal Studios Japan. It's the exact same ride, all the same beats and scares, the same New England coastal town, the same English signage. The only difference is it is in Japan and the tour guide is speaking Japanese (but still acting like she is a resident of Amity, and that the guests are tourists of Amity**) which makes me wonder how it plays over there, and if there is something exotic and attractive about the Martha's Vineyard setting of Jaws to foreign audiences.

 

You could be onto something, since Toyko DisneySea has a small Cape Cod themed area.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The only actual movie thing I've seen on the Universal Backlot tour was the set for Evan Almighty, the ill conceived Bruce Almighty sequel starring Steve Carell.

 

Also there was that Community episode full of flashbacks that were never on the show, and a bunch of them clearly take place on the Universal Backlot. One or more scenes takes place in the Jaws lake.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now