Mike 'n' Ike Review The Munsters (2022)

Scott here. Jeff and I would have watched this and recorded a show about it, if I didn't find myself oddly immune to the comic stylings of Rob Zombie. Oh sure, he's funny, but they really should've hired someone with proven horror chops. Like Mr. Rogers. (I know he's dead, but imagine a worm-eaten corpse in a cardigan shambling around the set, holding a director's viewfinder up to his empty black socket. Now that's scary and funny. But I digress...) 

Jeff, however, would not let this stand, and fobbed the job off on Immortal Alien Stoners and Entertainment Gurus Mike and Ike, who began life as a feature in a college newspaper, and now return to their roots. Enjoy!

The Munsters (2022)

Directed by Rob Zombie

Written by Rob Zombie

Based on Characters Created By Norm Liebmann & Ed Haas

From a Format By Alan Burns & Chris Hayward

SOUND EFFECTS: LIGHTER. INHALE.

IKE: (Holding breath) Brain bad.

MIKE: I know, Isaac. I know. Now give me Falcor before brain leak.

IKE: (Exhales) Suck away, limey. You deserve it.

MIKE: You are not wrong.

THREE QUICK INHALES, LONGER ONE.

PAUSE.

IKE: Told ya this stuff was good. Keep holdin’...hold...and exhale!

THREE QUICK INHALES, LONGER ONE.

IKE: I know, limey. I know, but we’ll get through this. We gotta. I’m not lettin’ him break us. Now gimmie.

THREE QUICK INHALES, LONGER ONE.

IKE: Gimmie Falcor.

THREE QUICK INHALES, LONGER ONE.

IKE: Michael.

THREE QUICK INHALES, LONGER ONE.

IKE: I will punch your pecker so hard it’ll feel like Tuesday. Exhale!

EXHALE.

MIKE: (Short pause) I am ready now.

IKE: You are such a greedy bitch!

MIKE: (English accent) Greetings and salutations. He’s not Mike.

IKE: (Southern accent) He ain’t Ike, but we are confused.

MIKE: And pissed!

IKE: And sad.

MIKE: And high.

IKE: And impressed.

MIKE: And not at all aroused.

IKE: And it’s entirely cuz'a Rob Zombie.

MIKE: A.) Because he hasn’t called us in weeks!

IKE: And 2.) We watched The Munsters and...damn!

MIKE: I fucking hate prequels!

IKE: This is what Zombie wanted to do!

MIKE: Well Zombie’s wrong. I don’t care how they met! I don’t care about the early days of Butch and Sundance, and I could give less than three fifteenths of an actual fuck about when Harry met Lloyd!

IKE: Ya cared about how they got the Death Star plans.

PAUSE.

MIKE: Shut up. The point is it’s already got one strike against it. Strike beta: it’s in color.

IKE: Ta be fair

MIKE: To be fair

BOTH:(Singing) TO BE FAIR!

IKE: Zombie wanted it in black and white. Higher Ups nixed that.

MIKE: Well Higher Ups are wrong. The Munsters are basically classic Universal monsters, and said classic monsters are black and white. They just don’t work in color.

IKE: You’re not wrong.

MIKE: I know.

IKE: That bein’ said...

MIKE: Damn it! Let me enjoy my righteous fury!

IKE: The colors that Zombie used were incredible.

MIKE: I don’t care.

IKE: Ya said so while we were watchin’ the damn thing!

PAUSE.

MIKE: Point taken.

IKE: I think the best way ta describe the look of this thing is it’s as if Dario Argento directed Creepshow for kids.

MIKE: That’s...very good, Isaac. Well done.

IKE: Thank you.

MIKE: You may have Falcor now.

IKE: THANK YOU!

LIGHTER. INHALE.

MIKE: It should have been in black and white.

IKE: (HOLDING BREATH) You’re right. (EXHALE) I’m just saying what we got was pretty cool.

MIKE: I’m not letting this one go. I think I would have liked the film more if it’d been in black and white.

IKE: Really.

MIKE: Yes.

IKE: This prequel?

MIKE: Yes.

PAUSE.

IKE: Point taken.

MIKE: The acting is intentionally community theatre over the top and all the performances would have come across so much better if they had been in fucking black and white!

IKE: Agreed.

MIKE: That being said, My God, Richard Brake is great.

IKE: He’s got this Vincent Price on the Brady Bunch vibe goin’ on and it is awesome. Best Mad Scientist since Gene Wilder.

MIKE: In that category, agreed.

IKE: I also really liked Grandpa.

MIKE: The Count. Remember, it’s a PREQUEL!

IKE: Everybody in the flick is fine, but The Count and The Doc are really the ones worth talkin’ about.

MIKE: Sherrie was funnier as the newscaster.

IKE: We’re gonna go there now?

MIKE: I think we should.

IKE: Alrighty then.

LIGHTER, INHALE.

MIKE: Thank you.

LIGHTER, INHALE.

PAUSE. BOTH INHALE.

IKE: The flick’s not that funny.

MIKE: It has a few good jokes.

IKE: But most of them are really hokey.

MIKE: And really bad.

IKE: But here’s the thing.

MIKE: Godsdammit, Isaac.

IKE: The jokes are really no worse than anything heard on the original Munsters, or I Dream of Jeannie, or My Three Sons, or any sitcom from that era.

MIKE: That doesn’t make them good.

IKE: But it does make them accurate.

MIKE: I don’t care! I’m entertained watching The Munsters. Hell, I’m entertained watching Munster Go Home! I was not entertained watching this!

IKE: If it’d been in black and white?

MIKE: I might have been.

IKE: If it had been fifteen minutes shorter and in black and white?

M: But it’s not so it doesn’t fucking matter.

SHORT PAUSE.

IKE: This one hurt, limey.

MIKE: This one hurt bad, and it shouldn’t have! That’s the worst part!

IKE: Higher Ups suck.

MIKE: So say we all.

Episode 67: Dinosaurs and Harley-Davidsons

Jeff goes to It Chapter 2 to find closure, while Scott goes to the 40th Anniversary screening of Breaking Away to find Undead Paul Dooley. Then it's Larry Cohen's Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) starring Michael Moriarty as an aging Baby Driver who falls in with a homicidal femme fatale who also happens to be an ancient Aztec god (can this marriage be saved?) versus The Rebel Rousers (1970), featuring Diane Ladd as a pregnant spokesmodel for Scotch, and Bruce Dern as a kindly Hell's Angel from an alternate dimension.

Episode 59: Harlequin (1980)

Jim Donahue, writer for the Daily Grindhouse joins Scott and Jeff for an all Unknown Movie Challenge show. This time, it's the 1980 Australian oddity Harlequin (AKA Dark Forces), starring Jesus of Nazareth as Rasputin, and David Hemmings from Blow-Up as a British dude pretending to be an Australian dude pretending to be an American confused about his nationality. Basically, it's Tropic Thunder gadding about in David Bowie's old Ziggy Stardust costume.

Maids melt, birds die, clowns float. You will never be the same...

It's Like a Lifetime TV Movie with Muff

Jeff and Scott watch The Predator and The House With a Clock in Its Walls. and try to decide if this much "meh!" is the byproduct of an industrial accident, or whether it's cooked up deliberately in mobile Meh! Labs by renegade high school chemistry teachers.

Then they tackle the Unknown Movie Challenge -- Strip Nude For Your Killer -- and are forced to turn in their Man Cards and burn their Italian bun-huggers, much like women incinerated their brassieres during the height of Second Wave Feminism.

Supermen Against the Orient (1973)

Jeff and Scott are joined by distinguished porn researcher Indy McDaniel to discuss zombies and superheroes, Klingon breasts, The Disaster Artist, the Forgotten Shannons of Softcore,  I, Tonya, why Star Wars Battlefront II is like a casino, but not a nice one on the Las Vegas strip, but more like a crappy one next to a gas station and diner on a frontage road off I-15. For the Unknown Movie Challenge we suck it up and take on the 1973 Hong Kong-Italian kung fu superhero smash-up, Supermen Against the Orient, which has a theme song you have to hear to believe. And believe me, you're gonna hear it.


Also available on Stitcher and iTunes

Exorcist II: The Heretic

It's Halloween, and we're celebrating with another preview of Better Living Through Bad Movies II: The Sequelizer. This time, John Szura and Blanche Ramirez go full Mercury Theater to bring you the spine-tingling horror that is Exorcist II: The Heretic, a film that ruthlessly kills priests, grasshoppers, and Linda Blair's career. Enjoy!

Dear Spike And Cronenberg: We're Sorry

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 10: Sickies!

You may have thought Jeff and Scott were abducted by aliens but the truth is much worse. There is tragedy, there is pain, there is discussion that bounces all over the pop culture landscape, including thoughts on Wonder Woman, Marvel vs. DC, MST3K old and new, House of Cards, the Black Panther trailer and most importantly, their mutual love of the classic Universal monster films and Jeff's total hatred of The Mummy.

I Went Straight For Ten Minutes!

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 4. Jeff returns! To scream at Scott! First, Jeff and Mary catch up on the last few episodes of Bones; then Scott and Jeff are joined by suave Brit Dave Probert, of the Twice as Bright, Half as Long podcast, to chat briefly about Logan, the new Twin Peaks, 50 Shades Darker, and Erich von Stroheim as The Batman. Scott reports from the premiere of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 pilot, then Dave brings us the Trojan Horse-like gift of A Pound of Flesh, a 2015 movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme's naked, naked ass.


P.S. Here's a link to the piece Scott wrote about the Lou Ferrigno Hercules movie mentioned on the show.

The Slumgullion Episode 18 “Magnificent Seven (2016)”

Guest starring Mary Clevenger, Blanche Ramirez and John Szura

A Quinn Martin Production

Format is thrown out the window as the New Movie Crew descends on the remake of The Magnificent Seven and skeletonizes it like a school of piranha.

The Slumgullion Episode 14 “Pearl Drops do NOT Help the Eyes”

Music from Scooby Doo and My Little Pony

Part the First:  In which our heroes discuss Luke Cage, Star Trek and Jeff defends a mildly controversial Suicide Squad opinion.

Part the Second:  In which all notions of time, space, and reality are thrown into the crapper as our heroes take a listeners' challenge and discover the painful, confounding, life and soul draining universe of Earl Owensby.

Prepare yourself for The Wolfman (1979).

The Slumgullion Episode 13 “Who Doesn’t Love Sassy Sue?”

Guest starring Blanche Ramirez and John Szura

Jeff and Scott have a discovered a new to them film genre…Hillbilly Soft Core…and it is every bit as WTF as you can imagine.  Strap in for cringe inducing jokes and cringier inducing nudity.

Slumgullion Episode 11: What the Duck?

There is a lot of pain in this episode.

 Jeff and Scott discuss four film -- two new, two old (Independence Day: Resurgence, The Neon Demon, Battle Beyond the Stars and Howard the Duck) and really don’t like any of them…at all. Yes, there is a lot of pain in this episode.

A lot.

Thankfully, there is also a brief, soothing balm.

Slumgullion Episode 9: The Valhalla Hillbillies

Song by Choir! Choir! Choir!

Jeff and Scott are annoyed.  They’re annoyed at movie fans.  They’re annoyed at comic book fans.  Jeff is REALLY annoyed at the people who publish the new Star Wars books.  After a healing cleanse of R.E.M. by way of Choir Cubed, they tackle 1978’s The Norseman for the Unknown Movie Challenge and while it does not annoy them, it DOES confuse them.