Hey, everybody, it's Javi. Since this is a podcast about movies from the 1980s, there's always the chance that we will run into attitudes that could be charitably described as being of their time. While Stroker Ace is no exception, this one is egregious enough that we do feel the need to offer a content warning. From the 57-minute mark of this podcast to about the one-hour and two-minute mark, Paul and I talk about a scene that presents a sexual assault as a topic for comedy. If this is a trigger for you, we strongly suggest that you skip ahead. With all that said, here is Multiplex Overthruster, Summer of 83.

Well, you wreck a race car, you wreck your rental car, you wreck your hotel room. Nobody's perfect. Watch where you're going.

We're laughing, but we're laughing out of real sorrow here and misery. We're not laughing because we're happy or entertained, are we, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra?

We're laughing at the absurdity of us willingly subjecting ourselves to this atrocious movie. You would not know from that clip that this is a bad movie. There are bursts, like bubbles that pop of intermittent, just borderline effervescence, but then quickly dissolve into ennui and a me too nightmare.

Paul, if they gave a Nobel Prize for generosity, that last statement would win it.

Okay?

Watching, watching Stroker Ace is what I imagine it must be like to be dead. Okay?

Like this was, you know, no, no, no. Watching Stroker Ace makes one aspire to death.

Paul, did you ever see a movie called Beyond the Black Rainbow Panos? Cosmatos is great psychedelic re-imagining of the 1980s.

It haunts my dreams.

Do you remember the plot of that movie was that this guy goes into like a psychic dream state where he literally finds the black hole where all things coalesce and he comes out and he's kind of like a bald serial killer. This is kind of like what that movie did to me.

Javi, you've known me long enough that you should understand my default state is a psychic dream state, but your point is well taken.

Because you are Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and you are Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And this is Multiplex Overthruster Summer of 83.

Oh, yeah. No, no, we're out. Paul, because I'm the plot guy in this one, I've decided to recount this plot in a level of detail that can only be called pornographic. I want to beat your beat by beat rendition of Trading Places and make this the longest podcast we've done. Please no.

No. Oh, dude, Laura.

OK, folks, we are talking about Stroker Ace, a film in which Burt Reynolds plays a violent sociopathic misogynist, and it's about his relentless life or death struggle to stay that way. OK, this movie is about a race car. OK, Paul, I'm I'm I'm I don't even know, like, just doing great.

OK, great, Paul.

How the hell did you and I like you and I watching Stroker Ace is even worse than you and I watching like Fast Times at Ridgemont High because even though you and I could not relate to the idea of teenagers who had social lives and sex, we were we were we were at least teenagers once, right? So we were we have a common point. We were at a high school. It wasn't Ridgemont High, but we were at a high school and there were girls there. I mean, we never touched any of them, but there were. Right.

So to your point, as far as I'm aware, neither of us have been NASCAR race drivers or violent misogynists.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, oh, oh. The misogyny. Let me just say, my first choice in watching this film, aside the choice of watching it at all, which I have come to regret in layered ways.

We should have so watched, like watching Superman III and dishonoring Christopher Reeve's legacy would have been better than sitting for Stroker Ace.

This film makes me yearn for Superman III. Oh, there was no way I was going to pay to watch this movie.

No, you and I did the same thing. We did the same thing. Go on, go on, go on, yes.

So the choice that faced me, as I'm sure did you, was do I watch it on Tubi or on Roku?

Tubi, Tubi, Tubi, Tubi.

Both of whom, either of whom.

Tubi, sorry, the Tubi word is here.

Would be thrilled to solicit sponsorship from, for our podcast at some point. In the, perhaps far-flung future. I went with Roku, which, I'm fascinated to know who at Roku, Wordsmith of Divinity chose to describe this film.

Oh, let's hear it. Oh, let's hear it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.

Concisely, in three words, reckless racing romance. I, on the other hand, would probably have gone with an unimaginably tedious racing movie that is also a me too nightmare.

Oh, it's a me too nightmare. Oh my God. Is it ever, right?

Oh, Lord.

There is a scene in the middle of this film that is like literally, if you ask Bob Fosse to direct Talladega Nights is kind of what you'd get. I can't wait to get to talk to that. We're going to get. OK, you know, Paul, but Paul, before we before we go any further, and we will go further, I just want to want to take people behind the scenes in the Multiplex Overthruster world. You know, when we do this podcast, producer Brad, in his Infinite Wisdom, puts together a little script for us, and you host introductions, host reacts to the opening quote, theme music. And then the next line is, Paul and Javi quickly discuss importance of this film to each, where and how they first saw it. Paul, what was the importance of this movie to you? And where did you first see it?

The importance of this movie to me was sort of like a road hazard sign, seen in the distance, out of the corner of one's eye, that warns one away from getting near this treacherous terrain of pain and suffering.

And where did you first see it?

Three to one hours ago.

Okay, the importance of this film to me is that I was a smarter person before I saw it. And now I'm much stupider for having seen it. And the first time I saw it was exactly about 30 minutes ago too. So, holy shit. Okay, guys, this is the movie. This is a movie about a race car driver named Stroker Ace, who is the best driver in NASCAR. And while he is fielding a challenge from Aubrey James, who is a handsome young driver who wants in on the number one in NASCAR action.

Played by former Hardy Boy.

Parker Stevenson, yes. And former embarrassed husband of Kristi Alley. Yes. In awards shows, she would always talk about how he would have sex with her, which was a really weird topic for awards show acceptance speeches. And should tell you how interesting this movie is that we're already diverting.

Oh, I have another Parker Stevenson tangent that I'm dying to get to. But it's coming later.

Okay. Wow. Now we have a reason to live, which is much needed after seeing this film. Stroker gets into a contract with Ned Beatty, who is the Chicken King of the South or some such thing, who makes him go through some embarrassing and humiliating mall openings and chicken story. He has to wear a chicken outfit at one point during a race. During that time, Stroker is slowly falling in love or I don't know what he's doing with Loni Anderson who plays a character.

Quickly tumbling into lust.

Yeah, quickly tumbling into lust with Loni Anderson who plays Pembroke Feeney, is the name of her character, which is probably the most literary thing in this movie. Finally, Stroker basically convinces an actor buddy of his to swindle Ned Beatty into thinking that his company is being bought out. Stroker has to lose a race, but Stroker is too big and too big and he got maniac to throw a race, so he wins the race and still manages to get fired, and then he drives off into the sunset with Loni Anderson. Does that encapsulate the Proustian divinity of this film, Mr. Paul?

I mean, somewhat, with a little bit of creative license, but just enough to put a little juzh on it.

Hey, producer Brad, let's ring the bell and get on this, because we got to get on this. We got to-

Ding ding.

When this movie opens, it starts with the Warner Brothers logo and the soft piano strings of As Time Goes By, from Casablanca play, and honestly, that immediately demeans Casablanca. I just want to go through the lyrics, like already, already.

I will say, that is a modern attachment to the film. That was not attached to the film in 1983, but it is worth mentioning.

Somebody at Warner Brothers hated Casablanca enough to tag this on.

It has now become the theme of all things Warner Brothers, which your mileage may vary.

Your mileage will vary. It is varying right now. Paul, we opened this film where we meet young Stroker Ace and his friend Doc, and Doc's dad is a moonshiner. They get into a... Doc's dad offers them a ride, they get in Doc's pickup truck, dad is driving moonshine, the cops race them. And as the ballad of Stroker Ace plays in the background, we have a credit sequence over this chase.

And who is the Stroker Ace theme song by?

Well, you know what, since this is all around the same time as Dukes of Hazzard, I am going to guess Waylon Jennings, but I'm probably wrong.

It is Waylon Jennings' adjacent. It is the Charlie Daniels Band.

That's right. That's right. And with the Charlie Daniels Band, Waylon Jennings must be adjacent.

Yes, so. And there is a good line. I don't think I requested this clip.

Is it, is it, mama, is it mama lock your daughters up? Because that's a, that's a scene, that's a line in the movie. In the song, I'm sorry, in the song.

It should be kind of a disclaimer for the entire film. But the, the Stroker's friend's dad inquires, ain't you that kid that locked that teacher in the outhouse and then overturned it? And that kind of informs us immediately. I mean, this, this.

About what it's like to be in the audience.

Well, yes, this prologue flashback origin of Stroker Ace, which inexplicably denies us the answer to the biggest question of the film.

Oh, really? What is that?

Who names a kid Stroker Ace? How is this kid named Stroker Ace?

All right, Paul.

We're never told this.

Paul, in apropos of which we need to, we need to immediately address the, the elephant in the room, which is, last summer, we watched another film by this director named Hal Needham. And that movie was called Megaforce. You may remember, you may remember that around this time last summer, we were in this really, really bad k-hole because we saw a Hal Needham movie, and here we are again.

Yes.

And in that film, the main character was also named Ace, was he was Ace Hunter.

Ace Hunter.

And he was also a-

A Stroker Ace.

Yes, Hunter. So maybe this should just make one big mashup called Stroker Ace Hunter.

You know, there's an, there's an interesting, this is one of two very interesting nomenclature connections.

Oh, do go on, do go on, Paul.

I'm saving the other one, because it is-

Okay, okay, then let me get through the plot.

It is spellbinding. But, but, but, there's one other piece of, of, of, uh, expository revelation.

Oh, revelation is there, yes.

We're given by the moonshine running dad. Again, we have no idea why or how Stroker Ace gets his name. We know he is into shenanigans.

Shenanigans.

And we also know that he is obsessed with his hair.

Yes.

Which he keeps checking in the rear view mirror, distracting his friend's dad from using it for driving because...

For driving while being chased by the cops, yes.

Yes. Chased by the cops in the most tedious police chase perhaps ever committed to film.

Anyway, from there, we cut into the introduction of Stroker Ace as an adult. He is driving a car with three wheels and he has his trusty mechanic, Lugs, leaning out of the open door of the car to keep the car stable while he's driving on the three wheels. He arrives at a NASCAR race. And the first thing he does, Oh God, are you going to go into this level of guy? I can't do this. No, no, no. I just want to point two things out. Because every time I go, I'm like, Oh God, it's another hour.

Yeah, no, no, no. I just want to point two things out that are immediately kind of illustrate what we're in for and what we're not. Oh, what we're not going to get.

Yeah, entertainment.

One is, we do get this cut from young Stroker Ace obsessed with his hair in the mirror in the car to adult Burt Reynolds, Stroker Ace, similarly obsessed with his hair. We never see that again. It is established as the cornerstone of this character's identity.

It really is about as much about him as a character as we know, really. Like we learned for the entire film, but this is about as much as we learn.

Yes, and then it is immediately abandoned for the entirety of the rest of the film, which is just amazing. The other thing is right out of the gate, again, after the most, and it's Hal Needham. So it's like, what are you doing? It's the most tedious police chase in the flashback. Then we get the one and only ambitious-ish stunt in the entire film.

Oh my God, you're right. Yeah, you're right.

When we get to the NASCAR racing stuff, all the crashes, a fucking B-roll. It's stock footage, it's grainy.

Not just B-roll, it's like they go to the videotape from when it aired on ABC.

Exactly, exactly. And then it's up, it looks like shit. It doesn't cut together. He doesn't stage, I don't know if it's a budget issue, but this is a showcase, this opening scene of them counterbalancing, like a demonstration of physics in motion, of how do you drive a car if it's missing one wheel? Well, you need Jim Nabors hanging out the door on the passenger side.

I'm in agreement, yes.

To counterbalance it. And it's kind of intriguing. It's like, oh, these guys are scientists. These guys are...

Wow, that Nobel Prize for generosity is in the mail, Paul.

There is nothing that follows. Nothing of this of this ingenuity or ambition or much less artistry of this entrance, which is, I will say, pretty cool kind of character entrance as he arrives. They're arriving just in time for the opening announcements, introductions for the Daytona 500.

Look, I just want to say that I've seen the movie Cars a great many times because I have little kids. A lot of the plot beats at the beginning of this, you meet the other guy who hates Lightning McQueen and all of that, are similar and it just goes to show you just what the majesty of Pixar is. That when you've got literally like a stuntman directing a movie about Daytona and about Nascar and Pixar got it not just right but so much better, like five million orders of magnitude better.

This is true. If you have any inclination to see Stroker Ace, see Cars instead.

Just go see Cars instead, yes.

I would love to know among the powers that be in the Pixar brain trust when percolating Cars to what degree was Stroker Ace instructive, as perhaps a cautionary tale?

I think.

Not to do it, but also as a model of an, frankly an asshole protagonist, because I've never liked Lightning McQueen. I don't mean to go on a tangent. Lightning McQueen is an asshole in Cars.

Yeah, he's terrible. Yeah, he's terrible.

And I know that's like his arc is like to whatever, but he's always kind of an asshole.

He's always kind of an asshole.

But yeah, Burt Reynolds immediately arrives and is hitting on women and is just a sexist nightmare.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, I'm the plot today.

Yes, yes, yes, sorry.

Whoa, whoa, you just want to use it. You just want it so badly, don't you?

Just trying to move things along.

Move things along. OK, OK, never.

From our pit stop. I know it is my fault.

All I want to say is that when my son was four and we would watch cars, he would refer to Lightning McQueen as lighting the Queen, which I think is actually it connotes a much more interesting film, certainly than Stroker Ace.

But anyway, folks, it's a documentary I want to see.

Stroker shows up at the announcement. He hits on the first two women. They've all had sex with him already and pointedly remind him. Then he nonchalantly hits on the third woman, whatever.

I think one says last time he left her to go get a loaf of bread.

Just anyway. So my notice, Stroker is a masher scumbag. We find out that Parker Stevenson is obsessed with Stroker, obsessed. But weirdly, for a Hal Needham movie, and this is the guy who directed Megaforce, it's weirdly not homoerotic, which I find bizarre for this kind of a movie. Or is it homoerotic? Did you find it?

So there are some intriguing parallels to Megaforce. The setting in the Nascar and race car driving provides a convenient plot mechanism to put everybody in onesies, basically in big, in full-body suits. And Parker Stevenson-

They're not as tight, though. They're not as tight.

No, no, and they're not Lycra. They're cotton fat or whatever. They're kind of more-

Semtex or whatever the fuck it is. That race car driver. No, wait, Semtex is the explosive, never mind. You know what I mean.

I was gonna say, they're probably asbestos.

Which is kind of like the experience of watching this movie, being put in a carcinogenic suit.

Yes, and there's now a movement again to make America asbestos again. But Parker Stevenson, I gotta say, cuts a very sleek and suave figure in his yellow jumpsuit, racing suit, that he perpetually has zipped fairly far down on his, I would not even say chest, too like his belt.

Wow.

And so, you know, I'm just...

Do you think that somewhere if...

He's also got really good hair, sorry.

I think that Aubrey is Ace Hunter's illegitimate son, is what I think. And I think that this probably began as a Megaforce sequel, but then they got to get Burt Reynolds and that happened.

He may or may not be, but I'm gonna, again, foreshadow, I think he's somebody's twin brother.

Ooh, get to that in a sec.

Oh, oh my God, really? You think he's that person's twin brother? I think I know who you mean.

I'll be stunned if you know who I mean.

Okay, so look, first of all, I want to also go on another tangent before I get to the next scintillating plot beat, which is this movie is based on a novel. There is a literary work upon which this movie is based. Okay? One that was printed, and I missed the New Yorker review of Step on It or Stand on It, the novel upon which this is based. I don't know, maybe the New York Times review did something or the New York review of books, but yeah, this is a literary work, my friends.

I believe, and I did not make a note, but IMDB exists, I believe it's based on a novel with two credited authors.

It took two people to write the novel upon which this was based?

That's correct.

Wow.

Now, weirdly though, the script was written by Hugh Wilson, right?

Yes.

Who turns out created The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd with J. Tarras, or wrote on Days and Nights of Molly Dodd with J. Tarras, and then created Frank's Place. So it's actually somebody who's a very talented writer.

Yeah.

He created WKRP in Cincinnati.

Exactly, which is one of the great sitcoms of the 1970s.

With Loni Anderson.

Yeah, the great Loni Anderson.

In which Loni Anderson was quite good, unlike this film.

Yes.

Speaking of which, now we meet Loni Anderson. She's standing on top of some sort of like a thing, on the concrete things they used to divide it. A barrier. A barrier. And see, this movie has rendered me, it has literally removed the capacity for speech. And we meet her because somebody puts one of those air hoses underneath her and does a Marilyn Monroe on the subway thing with her. So immediately, the tone of sexual harassment, sexual assault and objectification of women is manifest. In case we didn't get it, when Burt Reynolds hits on the three women, two of them have already fucked them and he doesn't remember either of them. One of them because he went to get bread. So Paul, Me Too Nightmare. This is in Us Being Sensitive. This movie goes there in the worst way possible. We'll get there. So then we get to the inciting incident of the plot of this film, in which the Chicken King of the South approaches Burt Reynolds' character, Stroker Ace, with a proposition. Producer Brad hit it.

Why don't you drive a Clyde Torkel chicken pit special? We'd be partners. Can I drive for you? Why not? Because everybody loves me. Everybody hates you. I'm good looking. You're not that bad looking, Clyde. My money looks good.

Wow. Okay. So that's the plot of the film right there. Is he going to drive for the Chicken King or not? Now, a really interesting thing happens in the scene, though, and as we've heard, Burt Reynolds' mechanic is played by Jim Nabors, an actor whom I personally am very fond of because he was in a show called Gomer Pyle USMC, which was a spinoff of Andy Griffith. I used to watch that show when I was a kid on UHF. But Jim Nabors was in fact gay in life, and he is coded as gay in all of these films that he's in with Burt Reynolds because that's apparently hilarious. We do get this moment here where Jim Nabors appears to hit on the very tall black former football player driver of Ned Beatty's car, a man named Arnold. He's played by an actor named Bubba.

Bubba Smith.

That's right.

The iconic Bubba Smith.

You know why he's not iconic to me? Because he's from Sportsball. But anyway, it was like Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith was a thing, right?

In what?

How do I know this? Why do I know Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith? This is a thing.

And Alex Karras.

Oh, Alex Karras. That's right. They all became sitcom guys, right? Anyway. So then we get the following. Just in case the homophobia or the homo-mocking-ness is not too intense already, we get this clip.

Don't lean on the car.

Nobody touches the car, not ever.

Except you.

You can touch it any time you want.

Let me interrogate that briefly.

I think he's hitting on Bubba Smith.

I, okay, that's a reasonable interpretation. I interpreted it just purely as an intimidation factor, that Bubba Smith is this towering, I think initially presented as a force of potential doom, setting up a twist for later. That is what Jim Nabors looks at him like, he's a plate of pancakes, come on.

You can't look at that line reading and see an intimidated man, you're seeing a man who's going like, hello, nurse, you know?

I mean, a stack of pancakes can be intimidating, so the two are not mutually exclusive.

So, okay, so we get our first race and Aubrey is racing against Stroker and he's trying to crash into him or something. In fact, we get clip number four. Producer Brad, can you just give us, just so we know what the plot of the movie is, give us clip number four.

Who's driving number 10?

What are you talking about?

You ought to know who that is.

It's Aubrey James. He's only been trying to kill you for two years.

By the way, I already got blisters on my hands. I'm going to drive this thing for 500 more miles. I'd have to be King Kong.

Well, it shouldn't be any problem for you.

You both got the same IQ.

Wow. And that's about as funny as this movie gets, by the way. I just want to call out the expository brilliance of making sure that after we've introduced Aubrey James as a character, not only do we get introduced to him all over again in dialogue, but also we established the rivalry and also we established that Stroker Ace is so narcissistic that he cannot remember anyone's name or who his enemies are. I think Stroker Ace might be like the dude from Memento.

So, I was going to point something out and I presume that you would have this interpretation, because you are, if nothing else, a deeply perceptive movie, Tommy. Perceptive even beyond the realm of The Senses, as the Grease 2 episode demonstrated in your...

It was in the realm of The Senses, the movie, the Japanese erotica movie, where the guy gets his penis cut off, because I prefer having that happen to me than watching this film. Do go on.

Yes, oh, you just made me lose my train of thought, but it's back, it's back.

Do go on.

I perceive ample evidence, whether or not it's intentional, that Stroker Ace has suffered probably repeated severe head injuries and brain trauma, because he clearly has memory and perception issues that he covers with humor and kind of just agro-ass-holiness, but I think may be a serious neurological impairment. He may be playing a character with a severe disability.

So this is like one of those movies where the person with the severe mental disability wants to play in the football team and they have to overcome that, but this is like the version where they're already there and they've learned how to mask, is that?

I don't know, I don't know, but again, I-

You should see producer Brad is just rolling his eyes, we're like, what is happening to me right now?

Well, the one part of this movie I liked was the rivalry that he just didn't seem to care about it. I kind of liked that it wasn't that mean-spirited.

It is kind of funny that Stroker Ace is this object of kind of Moby Dick obsession-

For Aubrey, yeah.

For Aubrey James. But he barely exists in Stroker Ace's awareness. And that is somewhat amusing, but I feel it has unrealized comic potential. There are two other nuggets that we get.

Except that later on in the movie, Stroker literally puts him through a plate-glass window as a goof, and no one seems to care or be- Yes.

There are numerous instances of assault.

Assault? Straight up assault, right?

That go unprosecuted in this film that are remarkable. It's just stunning.

If you got 10% in the other direction, Stroker would be straight up a murderer in this movie.

Yes. Although we do get evidence of what is occupying law enforcement's attention at one point in the film. But there are two observations that are made. One is Clyde decrees to Stroker Ace and to the audience this very simple kind of reduced sauce of definition of Stroker Ace, which is you either crash or you win. Like that's sort of who Stroker is and what he does. The other thing in terms of like little comedy nuggets, he surveys this ocean of humanity at the Daytona 500 and observes that there are 120,000 fried chicken junkies who have convened for this, that he feels certain dominion over as the owner of the.

And yet, and yet also contempt, because that's because he's a villain in this film.

Yeah. Yes, yes. And but yeah, but then immediately and again, not to step on the plot, but we get this in in rapid retrospect. Almost, you know, that first image of Loni Anderson channeling Marilyn Monroe is is innocuous compared to everything else. She is increasingly subject to it, including it. Immediate harassment by Clyde. Once once we see them interacting. And then what do we learn about the lovely Pembroke Feeney?

Oh, yeah, let's let's let's have clip number three where Ned Beatty hits on on Loni Anderson. Yeah, let's let's do that.

Come on, let's get out of here and beat some of this traffic. Oh, Mr. Torkle, the race just started.

Darn it, sweetheart.

When I got my own car running down that track, I'll stay and watch the race. But I think I can use my time better getting to know my new employee. Go out and get some dinner and get ourselves some champagne. I don't drink. You don't?

No.

Why don't you? I'm a Sunday school teacher. Didn't you read that on my resume?

All right. Well, that happened. Anyway, look, the race happens. She does not go off with Ned Beatty and Aubrey causes a crash, I think, or he-

I think Aubrey slams into the race and knocks his car out. It is a crash. He's out of the race.

But so is Aubrey. So then we cut to a bar, and Aubrey is there with a beautiful woman, and he kind of boasts to Stroker Ace that he's there with a beautiful woman. And, you know, oh, no, no, wait, wait, no, let me get- I'm sorry, I'm skipping parts of the plot here. Because literally I have brain damage now from too many clips. Stroker is having problems with his own sponsor. His sponsor is the head of the Xenon Oil Company. And the guy is such an asshole, the guy is such an asshole, that Stroker can only trap him in the car and put a cement hose in the car. So literally, like this assault, like he literally pours raw concrete into the, like it's like a mafia thing, like isn't that how the mafia kills people? Like-

He clearly has planned this in advance.

Clearly.

With numerous co-conspirators.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Who are cheering it on. But yes, he pulls the car up next to a cement mixer.

Conveniently located cement mixer.

Yeah. That then pours concrete into the back seat onto the sponsor and we never see him again. Like is he killed? Is this how he dies? Like does he escape?

There's a couple. There's two moments.

And again, no charges are pressed.

Like there are two moments in this film in which it is literally left up to the viewer to decide whether or not Burt Reynolds character has committed a major felony. Okay? This is one of them because they literally leave the sponsor is still in the car going down catch a Stroker Ace. Right? And then and then we hear and then we hear clip number six.

Why can't you just stop and talk to somebody?

Why do you have to fill up that car with C-men?

Because a man's got to do what he's got to do.

All righty then. By the way, there's a strong possibility that this movie, that there's a movie we didn't see. Maybe there's cut scenes where it's revealed that Stroker Ace is a serial murderer, that he just kills people very publicly and to great acclaim. And he's the one guy who gets, I don't know. Anyway, it's a better movie than this one. I'll tell you that for nothing.

It's let me just say what the clip that we just heard, what we just heard Burt Reynolds utter. An absolutely terrifying world view.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

He's like, I mean, blanket justification for anything, for any number.

Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter has a much better moral code than Stroker Ace because Hannibal Lecter's moral code at least is eat the rude. So at least he's got a stroke. Stroker's just like, you piss me off. I kill you.

But I'm tantalized again by the door you just opened to a parallel universe where this film were made going down this rabbit hole of Stroker Ace being a serial killer who uses the Nascar racing persona as a cover to travel the country and find new victims for his insatiable urge to kill.

But kill in creative ways like I fill your car with cement. You know, I throw you through a plate glass window in a service dolly. You know, it's not just I stab you 58 times, I rape the dead body and then I tie you with your own intestines kind of serial murder. That's chicken shit for this guy. This guy is like, I fill your car with concrete and while you're still alive.

It's methods of murder that channel his perhaps youthful ambition to be a stunt coordinator.

OK, Paul, let's get on with it. We go to one of the many interminable bar room scenes in this.

And this one, so many.

Aubrey is with a beautiful girl. He's boasting to Stroker. It turns out Stroker has already had sex with this woman. But just for kicks and giggles, he's going to try to steal her from Aubrey. By the way, let's...

He recognizes that she is a former Miss Daytona.

Clip number seven, producer Brad. Let's just see the misogyny in full bloom here. Because it's just... it's almost heroic, the misogyny, really.

What town are we in?

Daytona.

Damn. You know what? I think he's with my girl here. What's her name? I don't know her first name, but the last time I was with her, she had a sash on and said Miss Daytona. It's probably her last name.

Again, further evidence of his mental deficiency.

Yeah, his mental deficiency. Yes. Okay. He looks over to the girls. They lock eyes. She can't go with him because she's with Aubrey. Burt pretends to be a nice guy, waves her away, but then he feigns injury in order to get her sympathy and she leaves Aubrey to help him with his ankle. Thank you. Superman III. Yep. That's what we should have been doing, Producer Brad.

Sorry, I was prepping. I'm undoing it.

And that's, it's like, you know what that is? That's like in both Jacob's Ladder and Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, where you find out that it was a fantasy all along and you actually died. I am hoping, I wish we were still watching Superman III and this was like the, this was like the flashback before Superman III began.

There are so many moments watching this film that I yearned for Superman III to land on my balcony.

And snap my neck, and snap my neck like the General Zod's in Man of Steel so that I don't have to watch Stroker Ace any further.

No, that's not, I don't recognize that's not Superman. But the one true Superman lands on my balcony and whisks me away from the pain of Stroker Ace, like he carries Richard Pryor on the one sheet of Superman III.

So guys, then Ned Beatty makes a deal for, so Burt Reynolds doesn't have a sponsor, so he has no choice but to sign on with the chicken guy. They make a deal for what appears to be an eternity. I literally think time was compressed during the scene. I think I was in the event horizon of a black hole because when I stepped out of my office having seen the scene, I was 83 years old, but my children are only 15 minutes older than I was. So it's really weird. Paul, do go on.

So, so Clyde Torkel, again, another, let's say noteworthy name played by Ned Beatty, shows Stroker and Lugs a new, a new race car emblazoned with Fastest Chicken in the South, which again is not exciting to Stroker, but, and presents him with this voluminous contract that Stroker compares to a yearbook. And I guess he went to a very large high school. Yeah.

It explains the education he got.

It is. It's thicker than a phone book. And of course he can't read it. Like he's got to, it's up, there's the stupid things. This scene would have been more interesting had it just literally been someone reading us the contract. Yes. In narration. Maybe Jim Nabors reading it in the song. But of course he doesn't read the contract. He just signs away his soul and his life, whatever. Again, missed opportunity for even higher stakes of conflict, of what he could have signed to.

But Paul, I forget anyway, have you noticed how this film is almost viciously anti-dramatic? Like every time they get to a point where there might be a plot point, there might be something happening, the movie just wiffles and just goes, fuck it.

It does. And yet, and yet, Javi, what wonder are we rewarded with next after Stroker wins the race, and there's a celebratory party.

Yes. Yes. Okay. And the greatest thing that happens in this film happens now. There's another race. Somebody wants to race. I don't even fucking know what happens. We'll just get to. Yeah, he's upset because the car says chicken on it. Okay. And it says the fastest chicken. Whatever. We know that real men don't like the word chicken. Apparently, we've learned that from Marty McFly, Stroker Ace and Donald Trump. Anyway. So guys, Paul, thank you for bringing this up because first of all, we skipped over three plot beats, which for you, I adore you. This is this may be the best moment of my life right now. But Paul Plot has literally hated this film so much that he opened up a hole in the middle of the plot and let us through.

A wormhole. I've created a wormhole to speed us through.

Guys, Jim Nabors is left alone in this celebration and for no damn reason in walks.

And let me just say, setting the table for this, it is quickly established that Jim Nabors, Lugs, suffers in the shadow of the extroverted Stroker Ace, for whom he feels love but also underappreciation. Because he is the mechanic, he's the engineer, he's the Scotty that keeps it together and helps.

He is Michael Caine to his Hugh Jackman in The Prestige.

Sure. And he just wants a little bit of validation, a little bit of love, a little bit of recognition. And then what presents itself to him, manifesting all of those ambitions.

He never gets the girl, he never gets the respect and then suddenly, by the way, Paul, one of my dream women shows up, and her name is Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Now, here's the thing. She's not playing Elvira, but she's not playing a character either, because she's actually kind of in full Elvira, she's sort of in Nascar-Elvira drag, right? She's got the hair, she's got the cleavage, she's wearing black, but they're sort of Daisy Dukes, right?

She's as Elvira as you could hope or want for.

Without breaking any copyright restrictions?

But not explicitly named or described or introduced as Elvira, which is very, it almost is mystical in this moment. That she appears, and I question, is this a moment where the film turns into genre? Is this a supernatural vision that Lugs is having? Is she only visible to him?

Like when Luke is dying in Hoth, right, after fighting the Wampa, and Obi-Wan appears as a force ghost for the first time, right?

Yes, yes. And maybe it's just that all of his yearnings for love and recognition and for somebody to be interested in him, for him instead of Stroker Ace or anybody else that he's always on the periphery of, finally the universe is bestowing the manifestation, the spirit in the form of Elvira that is really into him.

And we are regaled with the following Dadaist haiku of dialogue.

Well, hello.

Hey.

How are you, ma'am?

I don't know.

How am I?

Well, I'm not one of the drivers. I'm just a mechanic.

I like mechanics.

You do? They know how to tinker with things for hours, make them go fast.

And we don't know. I mean, for all we know, they go and have the monster fuck of both their lives or they don't. We don't know how this ends, do we?

Javi, how, how in God's name are we deprived of this movie? How, how are we brought up to this door, this portal of wonders? And then we are not invited in. Maybe we're just not worthy. And I get that. I get that. We're mere mortal men, but oh my Lord. First of all, time no longer has meaning in the space that we share with the majesty of Elvira and the genius of Cassandra Peterson. So I just wanna just praise her goodness and greatness. This is the single best line reading in the film.

Yes, the best acting in the film, the best acting in the film.

It is masterful. I replayed this repeatedly just to bask in the exquisitely calibrated modulation of her delivery to milk every layer of innuendo out of this line with such delicious delicacy. And she is a wonder to behold. Now, Paul, Paul, Paul. The world does not appreciate.

But here's the great thing about that. You've got two famously queer actors. Cassandra Peterson finally came out about four years ago. God bless her. Jim Nabors, famously, you know, gay coded, never said, you know, he was from that era where he didn't talk about it. It was very clear and obviously. Paul, could you imagine if we just took some of the great films of all time and recast them with Jim Nabors and Cassandra Peterson as a romantic but not romantic, gay but not gay? Yeah. Can you imagine Raiders of the Lost Ark? But instead of Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, it's Jim Nabors and Cassandra Peterson. Can you imagine Casablanca? Except instead of Humphrey Bogart, it's Jim Nabors and Cassandra Peterson. Can you imagine Gone with the Wind? Except instead of Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable, it's Cassandra Peterson and Jim Nabors. We should just end the podcast here, should we?

I mean, I... We're done.

I'm going to be meditating on these things for the rest of my life. Holy crap.

In case you're wondering, though, in 1983, Roger Ebert said she is the best thing in the movie.

Yes, she is, because Roger Ebert was a smart person.

He appreciated her in 1983.

Yes. Guys, guys, I'm going to go through a lot of shit right now. Just everybody hang tight, because I'm going to get through the next four or five plot beats as quickly as I can. They go on the road in a tour. Stroker is being forced to go on all of these supermarket openings and chicken store openings and all sorts of demeaning commercials and stuff like that. He is traveling with Jim Nabors and Loni Anderson, though they don't get to share a room, right? And we find out, here's what we find out. You know what, this is your clip number 10 to give you an idea of kind of what's happening in terms of Stroker Ace's pride and ego during this period of his life.

You know, I have a certain amount of dignity and a pretty good self-image. I mean, I know what I am. I'm a race car driver. I ain't no goddamn chicken. I'm Stroker Ace. And the only thing I like better than winning a race is to stuff Torkel Chicken in my face. It's not very dignified, is it?

No, but he looks real nice in his chicken outfit.

Now this is a classical example of what I call the Gilligan cut. The Gilligan cut is exactly this. Literally, I'm not wearing the chicken suit. I'm in the chicken suit. Okay, now, now we get to the big revelation in the movie that establishes the dramatic conflict between Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson for the remainder of the film. And that is, well, I mean, honestly, I can't even... Paul, you've got your hand up like you're ready to...

Oh, no. I... This is one of many... This is one of many moments of dread...

Yes...

.of this film.

So, let's just get to the dramatic conflict between Burt and Loni. It is revealed in clip number 11. Producer Brad, have mercy.

Are you talking about Pembroke Feeney? Of course I'm talking about Pembroke Feeney. No woman looks like that and is a... What do you call that? Right. You buy that? Stroker, there are some nice women in this world... and Pembroke Feeney is a god-fearing woman.

I just want you to know I'm proud and honored to know her.

Can I ask you a question? Sure. If you had a Ferrari, would you just leave it in the garage? If you had wild turkey sitting around, would you never drink it? Stroker Ace, I do believe meeting Pembroke Feeney is the healthiest thing to ever happen to you.

I think the fact that we evoke OJ. Simpson in this, I know they did not have the benefit of hindsight, but the fact that— Or foresight, rather. Or foresight, or sight, Paul, or just sight in general. Yes. I honestly think if this film had been shot by a blind director and a blind director of photography, it'd be a better movie.

What I'm trying to say is— So Akira Kurosawa?

Oh, oh, too soon. Too soon, Producer Brad. Where's that bell? Can you get that bell for yourself, Producer Brad? Now, guys, guys, here's the thing.

We—suddenly we go into this sort of extended fugue state where there's sort of plot in this movie, but I don't even, I don't even know what the— I feel—there's an unfortunately necessary amount of context that we need to—we need to frame that last clip in.

Please do go on.

So Loni Anderson, who—by the way, and I— this is just an observation, and I was curious.

Her hair is stiffer than a Nascar helmet in the entire film. It doesn't change her move once.

That wasn't what I was going to say, but that is— She is an impressive quality— she's a grown-ass woman, okay? I believe at the making of this film, Loni Anderson was in her mid-30s. She is working for this scumbag Clyde, who is, again, a me too nightmare in ways we've only begun to scratch the surface of.

That's the next clip we're going to talk about.

Yeah, which is bad. But she has, prior to this moment, shown up in Stroker's hotel room to present, I would say, a very impressive array of advertising promotional plans.

She's the director of marketing for The Chicken Company.

Yes, she has been described as sort of like this assistant, the sort of secretary person. But she is clearly a very capable professional. Yes, high-minded in terms of understanding the contours of the ad and promotional business for franchise expansions. And she's put a lot of work into this presentation that she brings, that Stroker Ace has no interest in because he only has eyes for her and her cleavage and yet still finds room and time to make fun of her voice. Not once, but twice. In a way that's totally unwarranted. There's a funny line she has, I didn't ask for this clip, but where she is briefing him on the chicken pit and says, at one point, our sales actually matched out of the Colonel's until a rash of sympathy purchasing broke out after his death.

That may be the funniest line in the movie and it's funnier the way you say it though.

Maybe. But anyway, she has been assigned responsibility of all personal appearances for Stroker Ace and will travel with him. And so he is inquired if they're going to share a room. She says, of course not, because they're not married. And that is where he gets the revelation that he his brain cannot handle. Yes, he literally breaks his ability to process conscious thought more.

So more so than the traumatic brain injury that made him stroke.

Yes, yes, it is a compounding injury upon his pre-existing condition that she is somehow a virgin. In a way that, let's just say, is so hand-fisted in this movie, beyond straining credulity, beyond any boundaries of taste or consideration or plausibility, it's just stupid, and it's offensive, and it's demeaning, and my heart goes out to Loni Anderson for availing herself with as much aplomb as she does in this role and in this film, which is, again, a misogynist nightmare.

It is, it is. Now, Paul, I'm going to start racing through this shit. I'm going to race like Stroker Ace through some of the plot that happens, okay?

Good luck.

Basically, Stroker and Loni Anderson are falling in something. Supposedly, it's something. We don't even know what's happening. But what's basically happening is, Stroker and Pembroke are slowly getting to like each other while they're on this humiliating tour of marketing stops and commercials and crap like that. And she...

And also, Stroker now has a mission. He has a motive. Which is he wants to try to get himself fired, to somehow get out of this contract.

Exactly.

That he is trapped in chains of humiliation, that his ego is being crushed on.

Then we get the scene in the movie that is the most single, most problematic thing that I've seen in one of these summer movies. And we've seen a lot, because we saw Beastmaster and Sword and the Sorcerer. So we've seen some problematic shit, right?

Yeah, this is after the race where he dresses as the chicken.

He dresses as something like I don't fucking know anymore.

Just worth a passing mention. But yeah, that's all there is to that scene.

Burt brings Loni to his hotel room, and he's won a race or something. I don't know what's happened. He has champagne. She doesn't drink, but he tells her that it's fake, non-alcoholic champagne that is, even the label looks real. So he's already trying to drug her, because she buys that for some reason. She gets drunk. They have a little bit of repartee.

These are two different scenes.

I don't fucking know anymore.

Yeah, so there's this precursor scene.

Where he tries to, where she, yeah, she doesn't take the champagne, right?

Yeah. She does, but, and then she asks him why to demand race. She's saying that she doesn't drink, and then he reminisces about his childhood friend, and then Lugs interrupts, room service arrives. Right. And then that kind of sidelines Stroker's initial ambition. Then we get the Aubrey racing the food carts in the hall.

Really? That's, okay, great. So we're in this hotel, and some of the Nascar drivers are having fun by racing the little food cars around, and just because he's so fucking funny, Stroker grabs Aubrey's cart, drives him through a plate glass window into the swimming pool.

Yes. Then there is another bar scene where they're mocking Stroker Ace's chicken commercial, and then a bar fight ensues.

Oh, God, that's right. Oh, my God, you're right.

Then we get, even before Stroker Ace crosses the line, we get the scene where Pembroke barges into Clyde's hotel room.

Because he's trying to get Stroker out of the contract, and he's going to plead with Ned Beatty to get him out of the contract, and he tries to rape her.

Yes. Yes.

And she wakes him up. He's in his underwear. He starts getting all frisky. He chases her around the room. She's standing on top of the bed. And actually, Paul, you know what? I have a clip that talks about the aftermath of it. Why don't we play that right now?

He just made me mad.

That's all.

So I kicked him in the scrotum.

What's a scrotum?

Okay. So she gets out of the rape attempt by kicking Ned Beatty in the scrotum, and then goes to hang out with men who don't even know what a scrotum is. How do men not know what a scrotum is?

Yeah.

It makes no sense. A couple of things.

It's like the third favorite part of my body.

A couple of things that I think are worth mentioning here. So first of all, this scene is so horrifying. Horrifying. Like so many things. And they give Ned Beatty really bad teeth.

Yep.

To make it even more repulsive.

He's got bad hair, cheap suits, bad hair, yeah.

And he is bouncing up and down on the bed, trying to corner her and assault her gleefully. And it is, it is a horror movie. She valiantly kicks him in the groin.

In the scrotum?

Scrotum. Quits her job.

Yes.

And I'm like good for her and flees his hotel room. Right. At this moment, when I am watching, again, as previously mentioned on the Roku channel, I am interrupted by a Pampers commercial in Spanish. I just have to say, I felt like I had gone to heaven. For two reasons. This is a brief tangent, but I promise you this is worth it.

Do go on, Paul.

It is a necessary salve for what we're being subjected to.

And what we're about to be subjected to, because it gets so much worse.

First of all, I am immediately comforted by the fact that the omniscient algorithmic powers that be clearly have no understanding of me in any way, shape or form. My child is 19. He is in college. I do not have any use for a Pampers commercial. And yet, and yet, the tranquil soothing comfort of this almost nostalgic and endearing Pampers commercial was this refuge of comfort and the fact that it was in Spanish. It just warned my heart to know when. And it gave me this necessary oasis of calm that allowed me to process. This is a really horrifyingly problematic second act of this film, because coming out of it, we get that clip and what's intriguing about it.

Paul, I just want to go on record as saying that being shat on by a kid would have been preferable to what happened.

It reminds me of a favorite quote that I cannot properly give attribution to, which is, if I had been asked at this moment in the film, absent that oasis of the Pampers commercial, how is life treating you right now, Paul? My only response could have and would have been like a baby treats its diaper. Back from the commercial.

So Loni Anderson's character, Pembroke Feeney, is drinking champagne. Now she knows the champagne is real. She's doing it consensually. They have some romantic banter, which, I don't know, literally makes the Declaration of Independence look like Billy Wilder.

She says rather pointedly, I want you, period. Yeah. Right here, period. Right now, period. And then proceeds to...

Go into the bedroom. And hang on, Paul, I'm the plot guy this one.

I know, I know.

You can't help yourself.

I'm teeing it up.

You can't help it. Okay, you're teeing me up. Here we go. I'm going to spike it. Ready? He walks into the bedroom where she has led him to and she's passed out on the bed. There proceeds to be a scene that goes on for approximately 27 minutes, in which Burt Reynolds' character, Stroker Ace, speaking to her as passed out, decides in monologue whether to date rape her or not. It begins with him saying, well, you're passed out. Oh, it's a shame I'm here alone. It would be great if you were here. Then he starts debating, well, he's going to leave, presumably to go masturbate in his room is what they intimate. But then he decides, oh, you know, people don't go to sleep dressed so I should undress you. Then he's looking at her thinking, do I undress you or not? Then he's like, well, that's a button on your dress. Is it a button? Oh, yes, it is a button. Well, let me just undo that. You'll be more comfortable. And then now her chest is exposed. She's wearing a push-up brassiere. He's trying to decide whether to undo the clasp on the brassiere, whether to... And Paul, this scene is a fucking nightmare. Like, I mean, I can't imagine, and we're not even going to say of its time. I can't imagine being a woman in 1972 or where the fuck this film was made. Oh, it's 83, somewhere of 83. Again, I've lost all sense of time watching in this and not being horrified. He literally spends... It's probably the longest dialogue seen in the film, talking to himself about whether to undress and rape this woman, this unconscious woman.

It's increasingly just awful as he just escalates to undressing her and then... And then...

He doesn't quite undress her fully, but it's...

Not fully, but he exposes her underwear by unbuttoning the dress top to bottom.

So then he decides that he's not going to rape her, and then he looks straight at the camera, like maybe I will, maybe I won't. He literally looks at the audience as if saying, what would you do, audience? Isn't this hilarious? Talk to me, you know?

And then he says, who would ever know?

And then he looks at the audience, like will you be complicit with me in this rape or not? And then they cut, and you don't know.

Cuts, so we don't know.

Nope.

And we're left to decide what he did or didn't do. You know what he's already done.

It's reprehensible. This literally makes like that scene in Animal House where the boy's trying to figure out whether to rape the girl or not, you know, where the devil appears on one shoulder, and then the angel, and then he finally decides to put the girl in a shopping cart and just leave her in the front steps of her home. This movie makes John Landis look like Agnes Fide in terms of like feminism, okay? Like literally it makes a John Landis film look like a pinnacle of feminism.

And then what they cut to is them having breakfast the next morning. She is enamored with him, but she is also concerned about what did or didn't happen that night because she doesn't remember. And he is testing her to make sure, inquiring whether she does or doesn't remember anything.

Yes.

And then once he establishes that she does not remember, he says very convincingly, oh, of course nothing happened. But we can't help but read this as potentially a line and line delivery this character has given many women many times.

I can't even. I can't even. Yeah, it's a nuts.

It's just it's so it's so horrible.

I but here's the thing. This happened and you can't unsee it. And it's just like now this, you know, like it begs the question of who's the audience for this film?

Yeah.

Why was this funny back then? Why would why would this have been funny at any time? Is this something that like I the fact that I can call up a similar scene from a John Landis movie tells me that this is a trope. You know, there's something that but but it is so hateful. It is so awful. And it actually begs the question for me of Paul, Burt Reynolds was the most bankable movie star of his time for over 20 years. Like literally between when he made Smokey and the Bandit and when he made the, let's say Deliverance, right? When he made Deliverance and and this movie, which a lot of people see as the end of his career because he actually turned down the role that Jack Nicholson took in terms of endearment to make this film, which I'm happy for that, by the way. I don't need Burt Reynolds in our in our life and world any further than we did after that. Anyway, but here's my question, Paul. To whom was this man so attractive? I mean, he's just a jerk. And every time I saw him interviewed in anything after this, he was a jerk. And I hate his mustache and I hate his fucking shellac hair because I can understand Clint Eastwood. I get Clint Eastwood. I understand why Clint Eastwood is still around. Like, he's 179 years old and he's still directing movies in one take. You know, but what? To me, I can see how the guy in Deliverance became a star. I don't know how this guy was a star.

Yeah, yeah. The only two things that I go back to and think of in terms of, because I didn't see, I'd never seen this film before. There's a lot of Burt Reynolds I had not seen. But when I think about the two things that really popped in mainstream culture and in my recollection of my youth were Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run. Which I have not seen in decades either.

Nor should you.

I probably shouldn't. But in my recollection, those have a sheen of charm and entertainment value to a certain degree.

I'm not going to get to too much more of this movie because fuck it. There is one funny line that remains in the movie after this. Go ahead.

Okay, so the breakfast scene ends. Stroker has to go make a call or something. Lugs arrives and finds Pembroke crying because she's crying about how much she loves Stroker because she believes that he acted gentlemanly and did not violate her the night before. But Lugs either misreads or correctly reads the situation. And goes to find him in the phone booth and dex him in defense of Pembroke's honor. And that's somewhat, if only slightly satisfying.

Here's what happens in the end game. Doc comes back, the little boy from the beginning. It turns out that he wants to be an actor. Him and his moonshining running dad now makes jewelry out of cow shit.

And who taught Stroker how to drive and race.

Stroker had to drive and race. So he gets Doc to pretend to be an executive from Miller Beer to get Ned Beatty to think that Miller wants to buy his company. But Stroker has to win the race or if he wins the race, he stays in the car. I don't fucking know anyway. The point is Stroker has to throw the final race in order to get out of the contract with Ned Beatty. Right? Paul, you're racing your hand like you want to say more about the plot before this. Please don't. Please. I'm begging you. I'm begging you. Stop. No, don't. There is one funny line, though, which is that when he finds out Doc is an actor, he does say clip number 14.

I thought all actors were egotist and hyperchondriac sissies. Well, they are. But I like them.

Okay, Paul, I'm sorry. What were you going to point out? I didn't mean to shut you down so horribly.

I mean, I certainly can't fault you of what we have been. All right, whatever. So there's the scene where we finally get a kind of, not Ocean's Eleven, but a sort of heist conspiracy about an elaborate ruse that our protagonists are constructing to extricate Stroker Ace from the contract. And so they bring his childhood friend in to portray. Why?

Why are you? I just recounted this.

But here's two things, two things, two things. What conversations, if any, do you think occurred with the actual executives of the fine Miller Brewing Company to consent?

Get them to agree? To use a good branding?

To participate in this plot structure, much less this film. But there's this scene where, again, Stroker's childhood, now grown actor friend is portraying this Miller Brewing exec who is expressing interest in buying the chicken pit. Yes. And almost it slips up because when offered a beverage, and again, I'm recording this from the Republic of Texas.

He asked for Dr. Pepper instead of beer.

He asks for a Dr. Pepper instead of beer. And again, for those of you at home who may not be aware, Dr. abbreviated no period. You never put a period in the doctor in the Dr. Pepper because that's the brand. And so we think, oh shit, the jig is up. He's going to realize he's not really an exec for Miller Brewing. But no, Ned Beatty is too dumb. He thinks he sees through a deeper ruse, which is, oh my God, Miller Brewing is also buying Dr. Pepper.

Wow, Paul, yeah, you got so much more out of this movie than I did. You really did. The point being, I don't know what the plot machinations is because it makes no goddamn sense. If Stroker loses the race, he gets out of the contract. If he wins the race, he's got to stay in the contract for two more years. Yes.

It is a classic dramatic construction. Yes. Of now, he is trapped in this battle, internal battle between what is a more powerful, compelling incentive for him? To hold on to his pride and his ego or to achieve his freedom and liberation?

And we get the only, only dramatically satisfying, other than the Elvira scene, we get the only dramatically satisfying moment in this film, which is that Stroker, mid-race, decides, I'm gonna win. I don't care if I have to sell chicken for two more years. I'm not a loser, right? And he is driving the car to win. He has to go into the pit. The jack breaks. And the best character, the long-suffering Arnold, who has been played with stoic grace by Bubba Smith, who's taken every punchline about him being big and black. He shows up when the jack is broken, and using his massive strength, he lifts the car up single-handedly. And when they ask him why he's doing it, he says, man, I just want to be in the winning team for once. Something like that. It's the only good moment in the movie.

Well, him and the Elvira scene.

And Elvira, Elvira.

I kind of want to see him and Jim Nabors and Elvira team up and go have their own movie.

Well, of course, because he's going to be Sala in the version of Raiders with Jim Nabors and Elvira. He's going to be Victor Laszlo in their version of Casablanca. And he's going to be Leslie Howard's character in the version of Gone with the Wind. Duh! He's going to be Ashley Wilkes. Sorry.

The mind boggles in ways that mirror Bubba Smith's conscience bubbling. Because we do get foreshadowing of this moment.

Kind of like Darth Vader watching Palpatine kill Luke and knowing that the right thing is here to be done.

Yes! There are moments to the film's credit and to Bubba Smith's claim where we have little glimpses of him moving from being this lumbering enforcer, you know, threat of doom at Clyde's side to questioning his position in the moral universe. And it culminates in this, in, it's, it's a, it's a, it is a beautiful, awesome, awesome moment.

Much like in the special edition of Return of the Jedi, there will eventually be a recut of this film, where as Arnold watches this, he goes, no! And then he throws Palpatine over the, nevermind.

Yeah. I, I just also have to mention, and again, apologies, but just to paint the fuller picture, as we cut to this whole scene, which is the national champion race for Nascar, what music is playing?

I don't know. At this point, at this point, I'd lost my hearing, cause my ears were full of blood. I what? From, yes, what, what? Paul, get me out of my, please! What?

Dixie.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

The strains of Dixie.

Is that what's happening? Oh, okay.

Good Lord. As we cut to helicopter overhead shots and we see Confederate flags flying amid a sea of trailer trash. And again, this is a horror movie.

It's a horror movie.

There is also a moment that amused me.

It should be called, it should be called, it should be called Requiem for a Stock Car. I mean, it's a Requiem for a Chicken. I don't know.

I don't know if you caught this, but there's a moment where Clyde is holding up a newspaper to Stroker and again, telling him basically that like, if you lose the race, I'll set you free when I keep you. And then ask if you ever throw a race. But when he's showing him the newspaper, the, in post, they slowed down the frame rate because apparently he shows it too quickly for us to read it. So that shot is like visibly green here because they're slowing it down.

What does the paper say? What's it say?

It's just about like, who's going to win the champion race? Will it be, it's like, it doesn't even matter.

I thought it was going to be like, Jim Crow reinstated or something, you know?

No, no, it's just, it's just terrible. But here's another moment.

Oh God, Paul, Paul.

I was rescued by the ingenious advertising engineers of the Roku channel. Because as we are entering this race, and I kind of could not care any less, and Stroker even says, it doesn't matter whether I win or lose. He knows he's screwed either way, existentially. The race commences and immediately my screen cuts to a Roomba commercial. And I am immediately thinking, oh man, I would much rather watch a Roomba race.

I would much rather watch a Roomba recharging.

So yeah, Stroker looks like he's going to throw the race.

Stroker, so okay, here's what happens. Here's what happens. I'm just Paul. So help me God. Don't stop me now. Okay. Aubrey, remember him? He's a character in this movie, crashes into Stroker and accidentally crashes Stroker through the finish line.

Oh, you skipped critical. No, no, I don't care. I don't care, Paul.

Javi, we're getting out of this by 1.45. I'm not doing this a two part. This is not going to be a two hour.

This is very brief. This is very brief.

Think of the children, Paul. Think of the children. OK, fine.

I am. I'm thinking of the children in the Pampers commercial. Stroker looks like he's going to throw the race. Then a senior exec from the Miller Brewing Company arrives to speak to Clyde. And it is the dad of Stroker's acting, pretending to be an actor, right, right, who's coming to bail him out because this whole time, Stroker's childhood buddy is burdened with guilt that he didn't do a better job.

Oh, God, that's right.

Of getting him out of the deal sooner or setting this deadline of when Clyde's going to make the decision to sell until the end of the season. And he's burdened by this guilt. And the dad, because he's a good dad, Javi, and he loves his son, he, unbeknownst to anyone, puts a suit on, shows up at the box, at the sponsor box for Clyde, says, I know nothing. I'm just here as the messenger. And he doesn't want to screw things up. And he then gets, once he sees how the race is going to go, we see Clyde remove his chicken pit hat and his chicken pit jacket, and he agrees he's going to take the deal with Miller Brewing, thinking it's real, which also means, as a condition, he has to release Stroker Ace from his contract. He goes to the press room, announces to the world.

Before the race is done.

Before the race is done! That Stroker Ace no longer represents the chicken pit, and then a reporter asks, what are you doing? He just pulled into second place. And then it's a duel between Stroker Ace and Aubrey.

Yes. Aubrey, wow. You know, Paul Plot cannot be stopped. You just, you just-

I'm an unstoppable force. I will not be denied.

Aubrey crashes into Stroker, getting him past the finish line first. Stroker wins.

And again, bookending the one good stunt in the beginning. This is actually a legitimately cool stunt because Aubrey cannot overtake him, Stroker, so he rams into him, flipping Stroker Ace's car and overhead. And by the way, this has happened to me in real life.

You won the Nascar Race by being forced into the finish line?

No.

Being in a car crash by your nemesis?

Where my car flipped tail over head and landed on the roof. Wow.

Are you okay?

Yes. Okay. This is all a dream where I...

Before this happened, you didn't care about plot, and then after you became Paul Plot?

No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. This is all an extended nanosecond imagination of what my life would have been in the moment I died in August of 1995 in that car accident.

Just like I said, Jacob's Ladder and Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I brought that up earlier. Stroker Ace was your Jacob's Ladder Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge? Yeah, yeah. With the way your life worked out?

None of this is real. I split an axle in a car after a blowout on my way home to my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. An hour from home, I ran off the road, car flipped and over head, crashed in the roof. If anyone else had been in the car with me, they would have been crushed to death. Somehow, I was hanging upside down in my seatbelt after being convinced I was going to die, facing a windshield full of dirt, an inch away from the roof, hanging upside down with my head, with scraped knees.

Paul, first of all, I am so happy you survived that because you're a dear friend and I love doing this show with you. So there you go. That's your validation after I've bullied you about being...

I appreciate that. I'm not entirely convinced to this day that I'm actually alive.

So here's... But can I tell you something? Here's the thing. The thing I love about this anecdote and about you in general is that even in the face of death, your love of cinema is such that you cannot let this podcast go without recounting the crucial plot beats of this film. Like I'm serious. I'm willing to throw it out. I'm like, fuck this shit. I'm done. But Paul, you're like, you know what? I almost died. I love movies and I'm not letting this one go without telling you the chief dramatic beats in the climax. God damn it. And I love that.

Such, such is my devotion to cinema.

In the face of death, Paul, knowing, knowing, by the way, that much as in Jacob's Ladder and Occurrence at Alcreek Bridge, recounting this incident might be the thing that snaps you back into the nether world. You're still recounting the chief plot beats of this film.

Hey, I am tempting fate by walking this close to the veil.

Where is Tangina when you need her? Paul.

I thought Paul was just trying to show how grounded this movie in reality is because it happened to him, too.

I did not skid across the finish line. But that is how Stroker Ace wins the race. He skids upside down across the finish line, triumphant and also free.

I am out of cant and I am out of even, guys. I got nothing. Paul, I am just going to try to get past this and you will just stop me again. We then go to the triumphant montage. Jim Nabors and Burt Reynolds decide to give Ned Beatty a quote, cluck unquote, which means they both pounce him simultaneously.

Again, one of many acts of assault, criminal assault that they commit in the film without any repercussions.

Yeah. By the way, as I said, much like with The Concrete, he leaves the scene with Loni Anderson looking up like, am I going to commit a crime? Then here again, they punch a guy, they assault him straight up and nothing happens. Not to mention, Parker Stevenson who almost just straight up murdered Burt Reynolds, looks at him and just finally, he cannot help but concede that Burt Reynolds is number one. Burt Reynolds and him smile at each other. Burt Reynolds says, mouth's the word, thank you and they smile at each other. I'm like, just kiss already. Go on, Paul.

Javi. Okay. This moment, two things. One, this film is full of things that-

Yes, it is, things.

It would be better off without.

Yes.

But yet it is also missing one crucial thing that would make it so much better.

Comedy, drama, laughs, entertainment.

Something that would transcend all of those needs and wants.

Which is?

That we harbor. But reaching back again, if... Oh, God.

This is my nightmare. You're going to reach back? As...

Why?

We're almost done.

Aubrey James extends this moment of respect, much like the Thunderbirds do to Holden Caulfield, Maxwell Caulfield in The End of Grease 2 to Cole Ryder.

Yes, even though they murdered him too.

But knowing again, this came from the mind of Hal Needham and the connection to Megaforce. You know what I'm going to say? What should have happened in this moment is Aubrey should have saluted Stroker Ace and vice versa with the thumb kiss, the thumbs up.

Paul, I think you were going to say that much in a call back to Megaforce. People who should hate this guy's fucking guts, are instead finding him so masculine and impressive that they're smiling at him and telling him he's number one. It reminded me of Henry Silva as his army is being decimated by Ace Hunter. And Ace Hunter is getting away kind of smiling and just giving him the, oh, good old chap. Oh, you Ace Hunter, look at you. Or Edward Mulhair after he blows up his helicopter. Because the final theme of all Hal Needham movies is Burt Reynolds is so fucking, or Burt Reynolds' stand-in is so fucking masculine that it doesn't matter how badly he fucks you over, you're going to love him. Producer Brad, tell us how this movie did or didn't do. Please just get us out of our misery for God's sake.

Stroker Ace opened on July 1st, 1983. It was the only new release that weekend and was number eight at the box office.

By the way, undeservedly so, it should have been number 28, but do go on.

I was going to tell you what was ahead of it. Should I tell you what was behind it?

Tell us what was ahead and behind, because what the hell?

So ahead of it were Return of the Jedi, Superman III, Trading Places, Twilight Zone, Porky's 2, Octopussy and War Games. Behind it were The Survivors, Flashdance, Psycho 2, Blue Thunder, Yellowbeard, Tootsie, Valley Girl, The Man with Two Brains. So most of those movies had been out for a long time.

Right, right. So basically the audience saw this and said, mm-mm, nope.

It made a total of $13 million, was 60th at the box office for 1983, and was the 22nd highest rated earning comedy of 1983.

Wow, I think this movie destroyed Burt Reynolds' career. I mean, that's kind of the-

Well, I think he says that too. He regrets doing this film. But I think it brings up a point though.

Everyone should.

I regret that he did this film.

But when you talk about who is this for, don't forget, this was a bunch of friends who just kept making movies together.

Yeah.

I think it was just for them.

Right. And that's an important life lesson. I'm thinking of a filmmaker I won't name in particular.

I know who it is who said exactly the same thing. Go ahead and say it.

We've learned this lesson, which is that when making a film or a show or whatever, it's an important question, which is who are you making this for? Are you making this for an audience or are you just making it for yourself? And clearly, at this point, they were just making this movie for themselves. And it shows and it's unfortunate.

Another great filmmaker, and I'm not going to say his name, so I'm not entirely certain, but I think I know who it is, basically said that if the amount of fun the people had making the movie were equal to the actual entertainment value and quality of the movie itself, then the Cannonball Run 2 would be the greatest film ever made. All right, well, producer Brad.

Well, hold on, so this rakes 49.17 all time behind Vision Quest and just ahead of Time After Time in Box Office domestic rankings.

Oh, that is a crime.

Oh, that's a crime.

That is a crime.

Time After Time is a great movie.

It made more money than Megaforce, but less money than Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

I suggest that if we can't come up with a movie for next week, we just watch Time After Time. As a kind of reward duster for Nicholas Meyer, you know? Okay, producer Brad, hit me.

Next week is July 8th, 1983, and strangely, no new movie opened that day. However, when you look at all the box office charts, there's nothing in there, but New York Times Vincent Camby gave a review for a movie that he said opened at one theater in New York on July 8th.

Oh boy, and what was that? Oh my God, when the cops won't and the courts can't, Stoney Cooper will give you just this deadly force when nothing else will do. That's the tagline, when nothing else will do. What is this, a floor cleaner? Is it a floor cleaner or a movie?

But the problem is, I can't find any legitimate sources to watch.

Who made this movie? Who directed it? What is it?

Wings Houser is the lead.

Yeah, no, I'm good, I'm good. It's one of the lesser Wings Houser efforts. Paul.

So it's not available. So the problem is we now go through the charts to see what is playing. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

And I have them ranked by how they rank the box office with, per Paul's request, runtime.

Let's go.

We have Superman III, number three at the box office, two hours and five minutes.

Got it.

Porky Sue, number four.

Hard pass, hard pass.

Twilight Zone, number seven.

Hard pass, hard pass.

Flashdance is number nine.

Okay, okay, okay.

Number 10, The Survivors, Walter Mathau, Levin Williams.

Hard pass, hard pass.

Psycho II's, number 11. Valley Girls, number 15.

Okay, okay.

We also have Fanny and Alexander is playing. Ingmar Bergman.

We're not doing an Ingmar, and three hour Ingmar Bergman. It's Paul's turn to do the plot and it's a three hour movie. We'll be here until I'm 59 years old. No fucking way.

Don't tempt me with a good time. So I have, I guess now three thoughts. I believe Flashdance and Valley Girl should be on deck and on our agenda for us to see. Agreed. In what order, I don't know yet, but I've been thinking about them and I feel like we would be remiss if we did not include them.

Flashdance still has cultural currency in our time.

It does, it does. And out of, in honor of someone I admire, I feel an obligation to that film and I'll share that later. Superman III I've been thinking about. And I have a very out of left field idea for it.

Let's watch The Donner Cut.

We just watched, if only that such a thing existed. We just watched Stroker Ace, racing movie. We are recording this in the summer of 25 in advance of F1. Yes. Also looming on the horizon is the new Superman film.

I'm right there with you. Since you watched it.

But Superman III, over two hours, and as we all know, a painful movie.

A painful movie.

To sit through.

Yeah, it's actually quite painful.

So I'm gonna suggest, and again, in full self-awareness, recognition of my burgeoning reputation, as Paul Plott.

Go on.

To upend the plot. And say, what if we do something radically different with Superman III?

And watch James Gunn Superman?

I mean, I'm gonna do that anyway. I already have tickets for the first show on the biggest IMAX screen in Texas. What if, instead of going through the whole movie, we each pick three scenes for Superman III that we talk about?

I love this. Superman III and we watch three scenes each. Okay. Well, then let's walk it off. Here we go. Folks, this was an odyssey, dare I say.

We lived, we survived, we're alive, except I still think maybe I'm not actually alive.

I don't know which one of us is Odysseus and which one's Telemachus, but we can talk about that later. Folks, until then, we will see you in line at the Multiplex.

Catch you later.

Also, I teased repeatedly a revelatory tangent that presented itself to me actually at the midpoint of the film, almost like clockwork. Oh, do go on. That I have to share with your, let's say, stress-tested indulgence. I either-

The post-credit sequence is waiting.

I was gonna say. I resisted the urge to inject it in the moment.

Just get to it. God, you're killing me.

Parker Stevenson is playing Aubrey James in this film. And it suddenly occurred to me, I was taken back not to the summer of 83, or rather from the summer of 83, I was propelled forward to March of 1988. Javi, do you know what happened in March of 1988? No, you don't. But I will tell you.

I don't.

A short-lived mid-season replacement on ABC premiered, co-created by the great visionary Isaac Asimov, starring Parker Stevenson as Austin James, super-scientist detective who would solve science murders and crimes.

What was this show called?

Co-starring. Anyway, it was called Probe, and it aired for two months as a mid-season replacement, seven episodes, and I was obsessed with this in the spring of 1988. It was cut short painfully, just absolutely painfully, co-starring Ashley Crowe as Mickey Castle, his long-suffering assistant who's grounded in the real world and is trying to keep Austin James tethered. And the revelation presents itself that Austin James in Probe is the twin brother of Aubrey James in Stroker Ace.

Yes.

Dun, dun, dun.

Dun, dun, dun. You know, Paul, I'm speechless.

You can find the title sequence and bootleg all episodes of Probe, this lost series of Wonder, which included in its writers room none other than Michael Piller. Oh, wow.

Now see, now you're getting interested.

Yes.

Now you got them.

And it's on YouTube. You can find them all on YouTube.

When I think of Probe, I don't think of compelling crime drama. I think of unpleasant medical procedure.

This probably directly contributed to the show's demise.

Decline.

Producer Brad? I had a different Parker Stevenson flashback.

Oh, go on. Oh, my God.

I went to 1977, The Hardy Boys, and it was from The Hardy Boys episode where I learned that a real vampire can't be seen in a mirror, because that's how the episode ended.

Oh, okay. Wow.

That's the only thing I remember about that whole show was that one moment.

I am learning so much about the two of you. It's almost like we never met, but I've known you all my life. I love this.