Bullied Nostalgia: Miracle on 34th Street

0:00 Order in the Court The case before us today. Elite nostalgia versus Miracle on the 34th St. The charge that it may not be the innocent Christmas classic by which it's remembered, but a cutting piece of cinematic manipulation. This isn't the 1940s anymore. It's 1994. Fate's harder to prove, miracles need marketing, and even Santa needs a good defense attorney. Objection, Your Honor. The defense maintains that Kris Kringle is Santa Claus, the film is wholesome, and anyone who says otherwise is a Grinch with a podcast mic.

0:35 Then it's settled. The jury, our listeners, will decide if Miracle on 34th St. stands as a timeless testimony of faith and kindness, or if nostalgia has been tampering with the evidence. The defense is prepared, Your Honor. Eggnog is admissible. And yes, Santa is on the stand. And it's not just any Santa, but the kind that makes department stores nervous and lawyers sentimental. Because in this courtroom, the miracle's on trial. This is bullied nostalgia. So many of our favors to watch. Oh look, now they're being.

1:10 Bashed I guess. That's what we should expect on the bullied. Nostalgia podcast?

1:21 Is it just our judges from Luko? Hello fellow citizens of Earth. As the residing judge Chance Nesbitt just mentioned, this is the Bullied Nostalgia Podcast where we rewatch classics from our childhood and see how they hold up without the wonder of a child. Today's episode has us take a look at the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street. I'm Timothy Nesbitt, and representing the prosecution we have Kylin Nesbitt. My case will say enough. For itself, here to defend the Christmas classic is Jonathan Nesbitt.

2:01 Happy. OK. And last, lastly, as mentioned, Chance Nesbitt will be overseeing these proceedings. I locked into a voice really early on. What? This is not the voice. You had five minutes, I locked into a voice. You. Can change my voice whenever I will. This is a free country. That's literally the opposite of locking into a voice. I I'm locked out of a voice really early. Before we get into the usual humdrum conversation about a movie, The housekeeping stuff, as always, is that you can find [email protected] by searching Bullied Pod.

2:48 And you can use that same spelling, [email protected] to find a way to reach out to us and let us know if you have any input on movies that we should tackle for the podcast or questions, questions that you would like us to answer at the season in review. So with that, it's podcast time. We're tackling Miracle on 34th St. the 1994 remake Chance and Kai. Had either of you seen this movie before? Absolutely. Yeah. I don't think I'd yes, I definitely. It was definitely in our mom's Christmas then.

3:28 I feel like that's true, but I also feel like I've never seen this movie before. Yeah, I think that I can spoil a little bit in my feelings about it. I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to. It was pretty wholesome. It was very entertaining. That said, traditionally when we tackle entertaining movies on this podcast, it makes for not very good episodes. So that's why you're going all in on a theme. So we'll see how things shake out. Chance. Do you want to walk us through what Miracle on 34th Street is?

4:08 Miracle on 34th St. stars our 4 main characters, Susan, Brian, Belford, Dory, and the one and only Chris Pringle. The story is that the supposed real Santa Claus, or at least a man who truly believes he's Santa, is hired by a department store. He's so good at being Santa that the city begins to love the old man, but the rivals of the department store company calls frame him or egg him on into making a rash decision so they could just besmirch his name and ruin the company's good faith. Put him on trial as not the person who did that crime, but instead the person who believes he's Santa Claus.

4:51 Yeah. The charges will be dropped and it won't mean anything if he's proved to be insane. But if he is by definition Santa Claus, then they can't rule out the possibility that he might be telling the truth. So it quickly becomes, can they prove that he is Santa Claus in court or is he a man who is delusional? Can they prove that Santa exists at all? Right. I think it's important to note that this old man who gets hired by the department store very much claims to be Santa Claus. He's not just acting like Santa Claus, he claims to be the real thing.

5:31 So as we kind of referenced, this is a remake to a movie. There's an old classic from 1947. This movie has been remade several different times and in different ways, but this is the one that John and I grew up with. So this is the one that has made it to the podcast. And there's a number of big hitters in this movie, famous actors and actresses. What did people who did they recognize from different movies or TV shows? Matilda. Yeah, Matilda. I joked with Em that this is the time in her career when she was in absolutely everything.

6:11 Yeah, so Susan Walker, the little girl, absolutely kills it. Her name is Mara Wilson, and as High and Chance have both said, she was the main character in the Matilda movie. John, anybody stand out to you? My favorite movie of all time, Jurassic Park stars Richard Attenborough. He's the owner of Jurassic Park in the movies, and he plays Kris Kringle in this movie. That's right. Yes. I was kind of hinting that you should tell us a little bit about Jurassic Park. Yes, there's also other very talented actors and actresses in this.

6:50 Elizabeth Perkins plays Dory, who I watched in the Flintstones movie for this podcast last year. Which is very weird. Why did you watch that? And I had very nice things to say about her in that role. Dylan McDermott, of course, is Brian Bedford. And then lastly, James Reamer plays Jack Duff, who has been a ton of stuff as well. But I always like to circle back and speak to people who voiced characters in the Bruce Tim DC superheroes shows. That series means so much to me and and I would have made you 2 watch it so many times over the years.

7:37 He voiced several characters. Sorry to our listeners, Mesa really wants to ruin the audio right now. Yes, Kai's cat is running around a lot, and so I'm just gonna lean into it and say that her it's. Christmas. That's right, those are Jingle Bells. OK, So what do people want to talk about this movie? Well, I think too, even just placing these characters in the story that Chance described, essentially the main cast surrounding Kris Kringle is the woman who hires him for the department store. That's Wilma from The Flintstones.

8:16 She has a boyfriend. That's Dilek McDermott. He is a lawyer, and so they're dating, and she has a daughter named Susan, who's the Mara Wilson from Mrs. Doubtfire in Matilda. The dynamic between them is that the mom's glad she hired Santa, but she does not believe in Santa Claus herself. And she's raised Susan, her daughter, to be a skeptic of Santa like her. But the boyfriend, the lawyer, he has kind of a belief in Santa Claus, and so no. It's not kind of a belief, it's a wholehearted belief. The guy's like, yeah, that's Santa.

8:56 Yeah, I think that they were really cute. They had this weird banter, like they'd say something that was critical of him and Dylan Mcdermott's character would turn over to Santa and be like non believers, what can you do? It's very weird. Though yeah, I'm not sure what this movie means by the term believes. I don't know if anyone else felt this way, but this movie almost feels like it's not people rallying behind the idea that he's really Santa Claus. It's like rallying behind the idea that there's at least one good human being in the world.

9:29 Objection although you are. Agreeing with my point, judges are non partial overruled. I like it. The big part of the movie is, yes, there's this overarching plot, but whether or not Kris Kringle is Santa Claus plays out in the dynamic between this woman, her boyfriend and her daughter, because she doesn't believe the boyfriend does, and the daughter is kind of torn between the two. And so you get to kind of get to see how each of them react. Their relationship is very confusing, yeah. It's like they're dating, yeah, But it's also like they're not.

10:10 Yeah. So. And then I really thought he was his boss. For a while. The start of the movie is the little girl sending a recording to her mom, being like, hey, I'm at the neighbor's house and he doesn't want me to tell you this, but he really wants to hug and kiss you. And so it's like, OK, they're dating. Well, I think he proposes to her and she's like, if I gave you the wrong idea about this and it's very muddied. He gave everyone the wrong idea. We didn't know either. Yeah, exactly. But I do really like Dylan McDermott.

10:46 I think he's a really charming actor in general, and his character Brian Bedford in this movie just really leans into that. He is extremely likable. As we already mentioned, Mara Wilson's Susan the little girl is very likable. The whole cast is very likable. When the whole cast is likable, the ones who stand out to you are exceptionally likable. I don't remember watching a movie that's this wholesome that I enjoyed. Normally movies are really trying to push a narrative so hard. Most wholesome movies are preaching so loudly that you kind of lose the story and that the message is so loud.

11:33 Yes, this movie is still preachy. It is a lot, but it never really feels like it gets in the way of enjoying time with these characters. You could chop off the last third of this movie and still have a really positive experience watching these characters interact. I appreciate the way the judge is presented, Brian accuses him. He's like, you're doing this for all the wrong reasons. And he's like, I'm a judge for the government. I can't in good faith do this or I'll lose my job. I would have much more appreciated if the villains in this movie were like that.

12:14 No one wants to send Santa to prison, man. But like, we got jobs, we have kids. So let's talk about how this movie was received in 1994. This movie was originally planned as a small release, and then when Fox tested it, the approval rating was 100%, which never happens. They showed it in front of preview audiences. Every single one of them were like, yes, I love this movie. That gave them this undeserved confidence to go all in on this movie. They spent a ton then marketing it and trying to get it out to everybody.

12:57 The problem was this movie landed in Christmas of 1994, which was also the Christmas when Tim Allen's Santa Claus came out out. You don't need to be a rocket scientist or a mathematician to figure out if that movie was successful. It had two sequel movies. It blew this movie out of the water. Also, just like in concept Miracle on 34th St. the movie would struggle to beat Santa Claus the movie because Miracle on 34th St. has a boring name and it's about law. Yeah, I feel. Similarly, I enjoyed this movie and I'm like is this marketed towards kids then the kid?

13:41 I would not like this movie. Yeah, that's a very good point. Chance this is a family kids movie from 1947, but the things that we like 50 years later are not the same things that they liked in 1947. So that's a good question. We know that this movie cost them $46,000,000 to make, but as I mentioned they we put a lot of money into marketing it. We don't know if they made money, but we don't think so. The consensus is it was probably a bust. 20th Century Fox believed in it so much that they offered a full refund to anybody who bought a ticket and didn't like the movie.

14:29 They reported that they refunded 1500 tickets, which you know, the movie made 40, some $1,000,000. That's a pretty small amount of people, but it does all kind of speak to this fact that it probably didn't deserve 100% approval rating. Rotten Tomatoes has this sitting at a 59. Which? Low, I think is low. Yeah, I was going to say I think it's worth more than that, but I can certainly see where they got really excited about something that was maybe undeserved. John, you were the main voice behind making this our Christmas movie for the podcast.

15:11 Do you want to tell us a little bit about why you wanted to do this movie so much and whether or not it. Lived up to your expectations on it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, things I remember from being a kid is that I remember the bad guy's plot of mob boss, banker, owner of this other competing store. He's got these goonies who hired this guy who gets on Santa's nerves until the point where Santa kind of hits the guy with a cane kind. Of yeah. He does hit him. No, it's more of a kind. Of, well, the guy. Catches the cane and then pulls it into his hand.

15:52 He certainly wanted to hit him. But anyways, keep going John. As a kid, I remember that scene and be like, Oh my goodness, I was so angry at the bad guys for doing that and I was scared and sad for Santa for getting implicated in all of that. In my notes after the guy's speech to egg on Santa, I just have Litton in quotes. Whoa, gross. Oh yeah, I think that goes to show what kind of people, the villains and. That is a great. I want to come back to John for one second, but just tying off what you were talking about earlier, chance you asked if this is a movie for children.

16:30 And essentially, the way the bad guys get Santa to be upset is that they infer that he's doing inappropriate things to children, and that is not really a. Suitable for any. Yeah, it really does tie back to that. I don't know who was intended to watch this. It's a good point. Chance. Kate, back to you, John. So you were talking about how upsetting these villains were? Yes. And then the other emotion I remember is the way that they win the court case is on the American dollar bill. It says in God we trust.

17:11 And so the defense lawyer for Chris Kringle circles to that line. And then the judge sees it. And the judge says, oh, well, we clearly acknowledge that God exists in America because he's on our bill. So who are we to challenge whether or not Santa exists? That's kind of how they win. And I just remember that case being made on circling a dollar bill. I remember just as a small kid, that was the fun fact that I knew, even though I was in Canada, I knew that the American bill said, and God we trust.

17:40 And I knew that that was a deal breaker to win a court case. So those are the things that I remember from the movie. I vaguely remember it when rewatching, but those were the two emotional moments. And you wanted to revisit those moments. That's why you made it for the podcast. Yeah, well, it was a Christmas movie that I knew I had watched a lot as a kid and I wanted an excuse to watch it. But I mean, having watched it now, I think it was actually quite clever of a movie because they never actually.

18:15 They never proved that Santa is actually Santa. He could just, yeah, convinced maul Santa. They film it in such a way that you could make a case either way. He is so pure and lovely that you could be convinced that he's Santa, but he's imperfect enough. He gets angry sometimes. He didn't know that Susan didn't have a dad. He's not like magical enough. You don't see him do anything supernatural. The closest you get to that is him having weird knowledge about sales. For talking like 12 languages. Yeah, I guess, knowing languages.

18:53 But he could be just someone who's quite eccentric. Yeah, I was watching this with M and I actually said I'm like, I think this movie is more meaningful if he's not Santa. Yeah, and that's kind of the cool thing. At the end of the day, it's left up to us to have faith or doubt things. Even the big thing at the end where the Susan girl's wishes come true, she wishes that her mom would get married and that she would have a baby brother and that they would get a house. Well, the way that Kris Kringle organizes this is he gives the engagement ring to a priest, lies to the mom and her boyfriend to get them to meet up so that they get married.

19:33 He finds out that the house that Susan wants is up on the market, so he arranges the ride for them to go there. And they get a Christmas bonus this year so they can afford it. And now mom's pregnant, so she might get a brother. Like none of it's supernatural. John, He's no proof that she's pregnant. He sabotaged the condoms. I. Actually said that, yeah. I was like And then Santa boat tolls and all of their condoms and my wife was so mad at me. There's nothing supernatural about it. Yeah, this is all above code.

20:08 And was mad at you for saying that. Yes, she was mad that that's where my mind went like, well, he's got to solve the third wish. There's only one way to guarantee you. If he actually isn't Santa Claus, it's a little bit unnerving. Like, yeah. But how convinced he is that he is Santa Claus and the access he has to kids, then sure you could have a delusion that way and maybe it not be dangerous but. I mentioned it earlier, nowadays it's very easy to view, like everybody has an evil side. You know, everyone's got secrets, everyone's got skeletons in their closet.

20:46 But I don't know, there's something to be said that everyone in the world around India, that's like, no, there's one good guy because if there's at least one, there's hope for us. This is truly just a jolly old man who loves kids, and I think that's why it's more meaningful if he's not really Santa. Yeah, he's crazy, but at least he's genuine. What's interesting is that these questions that we're having are all questions that were posed in the movie that came out at the same time as this movie, right in Tim Allen's Santa Claus.

21:19 He starts to get chubby. He's on a cookie diet, his hair turns white, and everybody's like, this guy's a creep who's pretending to be Santa. They don't know that magic is at play to everyone around him that he knows in his personal life. They know this, Scott Calvin. And why are you rewriting history to claim to be Santa Claus? It's interesting that these two movies came out at the same time, came at it from completely different angles, but we're still asking the same questions. Now, your honor, I have to say this movie's full of freaks and creeps.

22:00 Almost every character in this movie is wrong and messed up the judge that we're supposed to. Like at the end of the movie. Would have taken a bribe to send this guy to jail. Santa himself is aggressive and violent. He also trespasses and deals damage to property. At the start of the movie, he's climbing on the parade floats. To. Point out that all we know about Santa's that he needs a trespasser. That's fair, but. So I don't know what to tell you man. Diction overruled. The neighbor gets it turned down from his marriage proposal.

22:39 He proposes and then she says I'm sorry, I've given you the wrong idea. And then the guy says I do everything for you and you turn me down. Why is this the good guy? He just said that he deserves this. I don't know when we were watching this M and I like. He. Walks away from this conversation. He doesn't deserve it because I think there is something to be said up like you're watching this movie. I think he does do everything for. Sure, he. Does things, sure. There's a point of like, well, he doesn't deserve anything that outcome, but she's also leading him on.

23:13 I think it's hard to not have a response like he does. Your honor, he does things for her, she doesn't repay that bath, and so his expectation is that she will do anything for him on a whim, building up this good credit to give herself to him. That's insane. Is the boyfriend on trial? Is that what's happening? I'm putting. Yeah, I don't agree movies more. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, but I personally don't agree with it. The only person in this podcast who has not been married at one point.

23:43 I think if there's something to be said about Brian that's questionable is how much he does things behind the mom's back. She's made it very clear that she doesn't want her daughter Susan exposed to Santa Claus at every turn where he can. The boyfriend tries to undermine that by bringing Susan to see Santa, by giving Santa to babysit her. So I did feel like that was a bit of an overreach on this. Santa, who mind you up to this point was seen as an untrustworthy random old guy. There's an old guy who really likes kids and you hire him for your business.

24:22 It's only like the villain in this story. John, is it true that up to this point in the movie, Santa is seen as an old guy who likes kids? Do you? Do you vow to speak the truth and. Holy truth, yeah, but the truth so help you God. In God we trust. Up to this point in the movie, does the mother of the child see Santa as an old dude who gets really into character and likes children? Yeah. Does she have any reason to trust him? No. Now, if you were to get told not to allow your kid to be nearby this guy, do you think that that's a good reason to go around somebody's back is just because you think that they might be Santa?

25:07 Objection. Leading the witness. That's all, Your honor. That's all. You're not doing your job very well, John. Sustained. Okay, well with that, let's talk about Santa. I do appreciate that none of us have revealed our own personal beliefs around Santa Claus because we understand that we might have listeners who come from various backgrounds and values around Santa's. People can make up their own mind about Santa. I'm more of a Krampus guy myself. Can't have one without the other. Did you guys see Krampus pulling the strings in the background of this movie?

25:49 He was everywhere, he was Bedford the whole time. It's kind of like. How there's some horror movies where they're like, did you see that saving was in every other scene and you rewatch they're like, Oh my gosh, he was why is he doing there? In every other scene, you look in the background, there's Krampus. I wonder if there was any kids who watched this movie and then asked Santa Claus for their parent to get married, have a kid and get a new mansion and it didn't come true. But what do you? Mean it didn't come true.

26:19 I don't know because I had you. Didn't ask how many people asked for that and it did come true. Why are you looking at the glass half empty? Hey, I appreciate that Tim. I feel like this is worth a social media survey maybe you could put on to the world. Hey, anyone asked for this and get it? Or who asked for this and didn't get it, because we're assuming most people did. If you asked Santa for a sibling, for your parent to get married, and a mansion, please e-mail us at [email protected] and let us know if you got it or not.

26:59 Much appreciated. Speaking of Santa, as Chance referenced earlier, Santa knows a lot of languages and one such language is sign language. The little girl Sammy in this movie actually was deaf and Richard Attenborough asked her parents not to let her know what was going to happen in the scene and so she sat down on his lap and the actor actually signed everything. So her surprise in the movie is real. She did not know Santa was going to know sign language. It is an adorable scene. It's so sweet, especially knowing that that kit was very genuine.

27:43 Right. It's very cute. If there's anything that's very consistent in this movie, is it David? Attenborough. He does such a phenomenal job. The scenes where he's at his best are when interacting with children. There's just a lot of warmth that comes with performance. How far do you think you'd have to fall before? Or you thought genetically altering dinosaurs was a good idea. You told me that Santa. The greatest? Gift of all he's giving the gift of dinosaurs. Jurassic Park. Came out first, right?

28:15 So would he have been the brain damage from Isla Nubar? He had to collect a. New identity. That was where Santa's workshop was. But to velociraptors making toys. I think there's spinoff possibilities here. I'm sure that movie exists. Give me some time, I'll come up with the name for it. There was some things in watching this movie that Emily and I were like, there's something unique, interesting when I looked into it is tied back to an homage to the original 1940s version. All the kids, everyone there is wearing very dressy winter clothes, not wearing clothes that you'd be wearing in 1994.

28:58 And so that was a choice to make all the clothing and outfits look older. And then also it would put gliding above actors heads to mimic that classic glow and some of those same camera angles. So it doesn't feel like a 1994 movie in some ways. Yeah, there's a couple other things that all tied back to it. We have a lot of drunk Santas and pop culture to the point where it's a trope. And Kai actually asked, is this where this trope comes from? And my answer from research is yes. Yeah, I mean, this is a remake of a 1947 movie, so.

29:39 It was from the 1947 movie. Yeah, Your honor, if I have to say why portraying the people that interact with children most as constantly drunk OK with this film goes out of its way to say that the mall Santas are all just drunkards. I don't know. It's one of those things where you mentioned like, oh, this is where the cliche starts. And you're like, man, I wish that wasn't a cliche. Yeah, it's a gross you'll. Hear somebody make a cynical comment and then that cynical comment becomes the norm. And it's like, why does that have to be the norm, you guys?

30:09 Yes, drunk and misbehaving Santas have become a trope, but I think their place in this movie is to kind of speak to people's lost hope or reasons why people disbelieve. This movie has an overlap in the themes around faith and even God is mentioned in it, and that certain ministers or priests are characterized as being a certain way or history has shown them to be a certain way. And so then people walk away from faith because of that. And so maybe in the same way people walk away from belief in Santa Claus because there's people who are misappropriating it.

30:47 Jonathan, every example of Santa Claus other than the one that gets hired by the big company is a drunkard. There's a full. Are full of drunk Santas. I don't think there's enough mall Santa jobs in the area for there to be that many drunk Santas. It could have been a Christmas party. I did try watching select scenes from the different Miracle on 34th Streets over the decades. OK, some of them were harder to watch than others. Some were direct to TV movies. I do really appreciate that we have color movies nowadays with soundtracks.

31:24 But the original 1940's, the focus in that movie was that the store psychologist was concerned with Santa Claus and Santa Claus's mental instability. So then Santa Claus was committed to the psychiatric unit. And so the way they broke the case in the end and proved that Santa could be given a clean bill of health was that they brought in letters from all the post offices that were written to Santa Claus. And so they poured out these thousands of letters in front of the judge. And the case was made that because the government acknowledges Santa's existence through the mail system, that therefore they have to acknowledge this Santa as being the real thing.

32:10 That is a lot less strong. It's a much worse argument. I didn't realize that ending was different. It is more creative in this 90s one in retrospect. Has anyone here ever written a letter to Santa or is that getting too personal? I honestly couldn't tell you. John writes letters to every movie we watch and. Yeah, consistently. It's happened to every episode. Yes, I have written a letter to Santa. Do you remember anything about that sense? No, I don't remember anything about that. But I do remember that I believed in Santa until I was much older than most people.

32:45 Because we're not revealing if we believe in Santa. Yeah, right now we're not. Older than you might still believe, because we might still believe in Santa. You might well. I just want to tell you a story about how I was asked to help.

33:07 I was like, what? That's getting cut from this podcast. Yeah, Chance. You're just gonna have the long sensor bar like.

33:15 I might actually do that, John. There was a time when I asked for a Ninja Turtle pizza thrower from Santa and I did not get it now. I wrote an angry letter. It was. After the fact, you didn't give me what I wanted. I didn't write the letter asking him for it. I wrote the letter rebuking him for not bringing it. One Star review The most magical Santa experience I remember was when we were at the ice skating rink. Oh, Bose. Crystal Gardens. Yes. And I remember Santa came and he skated with us and then he pulled over to the side and pulled out his bag and had gifts for each of us.

34:00 And I got Q from Star Trek The Next Generation, an action figure, and I thought that was super cool. Seems like a personalized gift because I think. Q Could have been Santa. It's possible. Wouldn't that be funny? He's just giving gifts that reference himself. Just. Everyone who shows up, Qi. Didn't question him if he was Q you. Q. Is the Jurassic. Park. Auction figure from the old man who runs the park. Isn't that interesting? OK, the best I've got so far is like Velossa present rappers. No, that's bad.

34:40 Velossa rapper is funny. Actually, you could just shorten it to that and that'd be. Good. Yeah, it's saying Velossa present rapper is the worst joke I've ever heard. No Velossa rapper is what you want. Of course, that could also be an Eminem crossover with Jurassic Park. Maybe Santa is Eminem. Lost the trail. Lost the trail. Bail, bail. Get out. Have you been thinking about that joke this entire time? Him being Eminem, no Velociraptor, obviously, I promise you. Higher life thinking about Santa being Eminem.

35:17 OK. Well. I have more. Folks against this. OK, Kai wants to speak for a little bit. Chance earlier mentioned the bad guys. They still do messed up things in this movie. And then at the end of the movie it's like, can you get my kid a good present? That's it. We aren't going to talk about the fact that these guys just did messed up stuff. I think that people are complicated and they're ambivalent. There's parts of them that want to do evil and want to do good. The message of hope is that everyone's redeemable.

35:45 Jonathan These characters get no redemption, get presents. They don't do anything to earn that redemption. They just lose and then they side with the other guys. This is why Santas Velosa wrappers are dual purpose. They eat the bad guy. Stupid. Wrap your presence or cut open your spleen. To the judge, what I'm trying to say is we as the audience are supposed to take these characters at face value as evil people, but then the moment that they lose in the fight they're allowed to turn around and say oh but no, I didn't really mean to ruin this guys life.

36:25 I totally forgot I was the judge I find guilty of being a bad podcast member. I'm just in guilty a scene where this. Stop thinking about dinosaurs. Like pulls the bow with his claw and you know how when you slide it against scissors, it like, wraps up really nicely and then Muldoons, they're watching through the window and he's like clever, clever. Why is everything in this podcast about dinosaurs to you? Half of our episodes this season we have mentioned one of the dinosaur shows and movies. Kind of like I don't know why we always loop back to dinosaurs like he doesn't love dinosaurs.

37:05 I think one dinosaur is pretty. Cool, everybody loves dinosaurs. Yeah, not enough to make 80 podcast episodes about. Just like everybody loves Santa. Boom, Velociraptor flaked it back. We're back in. Who Loves Raymond? This is a biased judge. There we go. Oh my goodness. Court case closed. All right, closing argument. I have one last argument. That could be part of your closing argument. OK. Everyone Loves Raymond Kylan. The case is closed. So capitalism, the big scary one. This movie does a lot to ignore the bureaucracy.

37:46 Imagine a movie like Elf where the lesson is not to get so focused on your job and assist with the family and whatever. We have a main character whose entire trait is that they're too focused on on their job and that doesn't get resolved. Instead, we never see any bad thing talked about overworking yourself. Tim, are you thinking of another picture of velociraptors right now? I was thinking about Samuel L Jackson's character smoking and be like, hold on to your stockings. Ladies and gentlemen of the jewelry, this 40 year old man just presented me with a dinosaur and that has reminded me of how this courtroom is really like a big birthday present.

38:34 Sorry, Christmas. What is happening? I'm surrounded by morons. Nobody's taking this job seriously. I went to 8 years of law school for this. I correct you, young man, you're surrounded by the winning side of the. Dog, you're the guy. It just feels nice to be the one who knocks the whole podcast off. You're. Not even supposed to be. You don't even have a job in this trial. I called you to the stand once. Now get back to the seat in the jury. Okay, closing arguments or whatever. Yeah, that's pretty you.

39:10 Can't say the magic word. Ho ho, ho ho. What's? Your closing argument. What are you going to say about this movie? You don't even have a job. Really talk about dinosaurs. Yeah, I could. Have expected as much. All right. Chance No. End with chance. OK? Why do we start with Chance? He's the judge. Super aggressive. And gentleman of the drawer, he used to make my statement now. So guy, what did you think of this movie? Did you like it? Oh, it's a fine movie. I'm talking about the morality of this movie, right?

39:39 This movie enforces terrible acts continually. Characters in this movie are terrible people doing terrible things, and we as the audience are supposed to accept those terrible things as just part of what makes you a good person. There's nothing to be learned from the characters of this film because we're just supposed to accept whatever traits they have as just the way that things are. Of that, the film continually propagates this idea that doing this terrible thing isn't a bad thing, it's deserved.

40:08 This guy actually should feel like he's earned a marriage with this woman. This old man should hang out with children, even with the express acknowledgement from the parent that that is not something that she wants. I rest my case, Your Honor. Yeah, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not Brian Bedford could trick this kid into liking Santa, they never thought to ask whether or not they should. I mean, I like the fact that you're using your stupid dinosaur quotes to further my point, so.

40:39 All right, John, was this movie everything you wanted it to be? Your Honor, I had a good time. This is one of those movies where it's actually better than I remembered because as an adult, I understand the themes behind it and the nuance, even the subtleties of why the mom doesn't like to believe in Santa Claus. Because there's something from her past that's led to disappointment, which leads to commitment issues, which leads to all kinds of things. And so there's just so many more layers as an adult that I was able to able to appreciate layers such as people are nuanced and not everything gets wrapped up in a nice little Veloso wrapper bow at the end of the story.

41:27 Because humans are good and bad and not every plot point gets resolved just like in real life. I rest my case. Yeah, it is very unusual for me to recommend a movie through our podcast, but it's Christmas times. People are probably looking for movies to watch. And you know what? I think that this is a good Christmas movie. It's a slow burn for sure. You don't really know what you're watching until 3/4. That's true. I did that with Kai. You're like. Did you think that this was going to be a courtroom drama?

42:01 No. Yeah. So, yeah, it's got a real slow burn, and I don't think that this movie's really for kids, but it is a very wholesome Christmas movie and I think it's worth a watch and I really value that We found a way to tie this back to our dinosaur themed season, so I'm happy about that as well. Get out of here. Your Honor, your closing comments. I agree, I don't think this movie is for kids what I think is an adult. That's actually surprisingly nuanced. Like I said, I think it's more meaningful if it's not really Santa.

42:37 So as an adult I liked it. This is not a Christmas movie I'd suggest watching for kids, but if you're an adult looking for a good Christmas movie to watch, I would recommend it. It's not perfect like a three, maybe a four. OK, with that, we are wrapping up today's episode. And yeah, Merry Christmas to everyone in the meantime, and we'll see you on the other side. Tim Mccancell, Disney Plus, so. So you cancel Disney Plus? Yes, we're going with Netflix. Stranger Things season is coming out, so we'll watch Netflix for a while, get caught up on things we haven't watched, and then when we're caught up there then we might switch back to Apple or Disney Plus.

43:18 K pop demon hunters while you're there. Yeah, I don't know if I'm AK pop Demon Hunter kind of guy. My father is specifically a few of the characters for some weird reason. I feel like Tim would be really into the boy band. That was what I was alluding. To the boy band, I love them. It's so. Stupid. They are the best part of that movie. Yeah, I'm with your chance. I was looking at trailers back when that movie wasn't out yet. I'm like, this looks like a stupid movie. And they're like, what's our plan going to be to convince all the humans they went demon boy band.

43:52 And I was like, Oh my gosh, how is no one made this movie? Because that's the most brilliant bad guy group I've ever heard. Of. Course demons would be boy band. I like the implication that is that they would just do that. Of course they would be, boy. Band. Like what group of people do I know human beings would actively sell their soul to it's hot teenage boys? Well, look out for weirdos. They might be a demon boy band in disguise and praise Beethoven's because trying. To think of like Christmas themed alterations on us.

44:26 But I'm just thinking of Veloso rapper right now. Maybe Tim, you want to close us out with one of the raps from the Veloster rappers? Right, right, right. What's Mrs. Claus? Mrs. Raptor Claus. No, I'm saying, is she a human? You've got all the dinosaurs at your disposal. You don't think the claw is their big like claw on their foot? That's fair. Don't forget to breathe. In and out. I did my thing. Still waiting for that wrap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's coming up with it. He's he's cooking. He's. Cooking.

45:01 I'll go. Simmer right now. Moving in while we're waiting, Grandma. Grandma. That's my favorite part of that. So chance we're all talking about something completely different and in the background you're just like Grandma goes on for we're just trying to talk. You just keep going, Grandma. I was kind of wondering if have you seen my childhood? Wait, chance? Who won the court dispute? What's the outcome? The dinosaur side Velossa rapper Eminem is Santa. It's your dad writing down some notes. He's making a rap rap.

45:47 Speak. Yo, it's Christmas in the Cretaceous. Snow on the scene. Got a tree so tall it's Jurassic green. Santa Claus be rolling in with a Dino sleigh. Raptors in the front yelling yo we gonna slay are you? Coming up with this as we speak, or it's not. Good. It's not good. I need. A good time, keep going. Ninja go ninja adventure, Jamie adventure and do all a good night. Oh, that was good. Thank you. With some dinosaur freight.