I don't like podcasts. I don't judge people who listen to them, I just know they aren't for me, that's all. There's too much music out there that I could be listening to instead of some fucking jabroni jabbering on about a subject I only half care about. I get that some podcasts can be informative, but in that case I'd rather be listening to music and reading about that subject. And I find most amateur comedy to be, at best, unbearably cringeworthy.
The "bit" in Puke on Your Birthday's case was that I was going to pretend like I had a long-running podcast, and just record a random episode. So I set up the laptop microphone and I recorded myself talking about The Secret Life of Pets 2, a truly terrible movie, for over a half hour. It was... fine. I can't imagine a single person listened to it. Even I didn't listen to it at the time. It took me till now to listen for the first time.
It was not great, but I needed to listen so that I could transcribe. Because, over the years, I've grown uneasy with the fact that there was a podcast on the blog. Even a jokey one-off podcast. It's still a podcast! And I don't want podcasts here! We value the written word here at Puke on Your Birthday!
So let's just put the whole thing to bed, on this random Saturday morning, when everyone is still asleep. Here's a transcription of Episode 17 of Getting SLoPpy, our Secret Life of Pets 2 podcast. Fuck podcasts forever. Listen to some music (I suggest the new awakebutstillinbed) while you read.
And come back tomorrow for Episode 18.
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JAY-Z: [rapping] Right there up on Broadway, brought me back to that McDonald's. Took it to my stashbox, 560 State Street. Catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons whippin' pastry. Cruisin' down 8th Street, off-white Lexus, drivin' so slow, but BK is from Texas. Me, I'm out that Bed-Stuy, home of that boy Biggie. Now I live on Billboard and I brought my boys with me. Say what up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' mai tais. Sittin' courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high five. N****, I be Spike'd out, I could trip a referee. Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from...
ALICIA: [singing] In New York! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of! There's nothin' you... [fades out]
JOE: Okay, we're back. Um... I don't know. The viewing of this one really took its toll on me. I feel like this time I should start talking about this song that we use at the beginning of each podcast episode. And it's also the song at the beginning of Secret Life of Pets 2. So I listen to this song every week, for the past seventeen weeks. Of course, it's "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z. It's kind of a weird choice for a children's movie? I get that they're going for the whole "New York is a character!" thing, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the themes of the movie. Feels like they kinda just google searched "songs about New York," and figured that this would fit well in a scene featuring dogs running around in a park.
You could look at some of the lyrics, he says, "I bleed blue, I ain't a Crip though. But I got a gang of... n-words walkin' with my clique though. Welcome to the melting pot, corners where we're selling rock..." I mean, I don't want to sound like that conservative talking head, whatever the hell his name is, um... Ben, whatever, that asshole. When he was reading the "WAP" lyrics, and quoting his doctor wife, saying that Cardi B had "problems." I don't mean to be that guy. But I've always had a problem with Jay-Z's song, just because of the New York aspect of it, I guess.
If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I have a long-term problem with New York. I think it's mostly a little brother complex, being from Philadelphia, working in Philadelphia, establishing my life in Philadelphia. I definitely feel like New Yorkers look down on us, and I take offense to that. Especially when it comes to pop culture. A lot of TV shows that I watch, they take place in New York. A lot of the music that I listen to was created in New York. It just seems to be this love... no, "love" is too simple of a word... this sort of worship of New York? And this assumption that New York is some wonderful place where all the best art comes from. I think that's just New Yorkers loving themselves too much. If all the "best art" is coming from New York, then who is making that claim? New Yorkers! And the New Yorkers are writing music, movies, and TV about New York, and those songs and those movies and those episodes of television impress further that New York is this "important place," when really it's not. That's just the people from New York saying it is. So... I don't know.
I'm definitely getting a little off track. We're supposed to be talking about Secret Life of Pets 2. [sighs] I guess I'm already tired of talking about it, after seventeen short weeks? And we have how many more weeks to go? Whatever 52 minus seventeen is? 35 more weeks? Which is pretty daunting. So, I don't know, let's dive right in and talk about our Shining Light this week. Let's talk about something positive. The thing that I noticed this week, watching Secret Life of Pets 2, was Chuck. Chuck is played by Pete Holmes. You wouldn't notice that if you haven't watched this movie seventeen times in a row. He doesn't really have any lines. He has a couple grunts, and a couple... I think he cries at one point? But you wouldn't really know he's Pete Holmes. I guess there's a chance that it was left over from a bigger role before cuts? We'll say that his wife is played by Ellie Kemper, and I think that was a holdover from Secret Life of Pets 1, which, as longtime listeners know, I've never seen, and don't plan on seeing. But I guess she had a bigger role in that? That's why it's kind of a big-ish name for... whatever Chuck's wife's name is, you know, Max's owner. She really does nothing in this movie at all, she barely has any role, but she's played by Ellie Kemper.
But anyway, Shining Light is Chuck. I was really interested in thinking about the fact that he was so attracted to Ellie Kemper's cartoon character that he crashed his bike. I rode a bike every day to work, and there are times when I almost crash because, ya know, riding through the city, it's summer, and the facemasks, they only cover your mouths, they don't cover anything else... but we won't talk about that too much.
Actually, you know what, there was one time—and this has nothing to do with biking, but—there was one time I was driving down 16th St. This was probably 2011, I know I was in my parents car, and it was super early in the morning. Ya know what, maybe it was my old Camry, because the windows were down. I didn't have air conditioning. Definitely the summer. The biggest ass I've ever seen crossed in front of me when I was stopped at a red light. And I was just like—and I might have been a little hungover—and I exclaimed—it was six in the morning, I didn't think anyone was around, so I just went like, "holy shit!" and I look over and some lady is sitting in her car in the lane over, and she starts cracking up, because she knows exactly why I yelled "holy shit." Luckily, the car was stopped at that point. I did not crash the car. Obviously, it's a little different in Pets 2, with Chuck. He's looking for love, ya know? And he actually ends up finding that through this bike crash.
Now, I would absolutely, if I crashed, probably not say anything to anyone who came to my rescue. But maybe that's why he ended up marrying... Ellie Kemper's character, okay, I have to look up this characters name. I got Wikipedia here. "Katie." Okay. "Max's current owner is named Katie." He meets Katie through this bike crash. I thought it was this little genuine piece of the movie. It was right at the beginning. I also thought it was kind of interesting to think about what if Chuck was actually looking at the dogs instead of Katie, and how that would've changed things. Now, we are assuming that he finds Katie so attractive that he crashes his bike, but what if he... okay, I don't mean this in a sexual way, I'm not talking about bestiality or anything like that. I'm saying what if he was... although, I don't know. Is there any indication that Chuck is into bestiality? I'm trying to think. I don't think so. I would hope not. This is a children's movie.
So let's assume that this is not a bestiality thing, and that, in this hypothetical, Chuck is just... admiring, I don't know, how goofy-looking duke looks? Which, he's definitely a goofy looking dog, all things considered. Or, I'm just thinking of this now, maybe the shape that Chuck is—he's very husky up top, just a very cartoonishly misshaped character—maybe he saw an equal in Duke, like, "Hey, here's this cartoonishly large dog, maybe there is some kinship there between me and this dog." Maybe I'm just grasping at straws. Maybe I just want to like Chuck. Maybe I just want to like Chuck because Max says he's a good guy, and Patton Oswalt, as always, gives a super-great line reading, where he kind of stutters when he says, "He's, he's a really good guy." Patton Oswalt does a lot with this character that anyone else probably wouldn't have done. He just has this humility about him.
Which is funny because... well, two things. One, because Patton Oswalt is Remy the Rat, and that's probably the best cartoon of all time. I don't know if it's because of Patton Oswalt's performance in Ratatouille specifically, but definitely doesn't hurt. He definitely has the bona fides. And secondly, as we all know, as we've discussed already a little bit, but I guess we'll touch on it a little more in this episode, that he wasn't the original voice of Max in Secret Life of Pets 1. Which, again, I will never watch. Apparently Max was Louis C.K. in the first one.
Obviously I'm gonna have very strong opinions about Louis C.K. I don't... okay, so, right off the bat, after what Louis C.K. was accused of doing, he cannot be the star of a kids' movie. That's obvious. I wonder, though, what would've happened if Louis C.K. had been genuinely apologetic about everything? Could he have still kept this job? Obviously he's not apologetic, he just kind of devolved into this quasi-right-wing crank at this point, that he was the victim of the quote-unquote "cancel culture." And so he's against cancel culture, which is fucked up in a lot of different ways. But from where I'm standing, I think it would've been more of a basic human decency thing to just apologize to these women that he sexual assaulted in the ways that he did?
I'm thinking about Pinegrove, the band where we don't know as many details about the sexual coercion allegations about the frontman of Pinegrove, whatever his name is... Evan Stevens Hall. But Hall, he worked with the accuser and made things right with her. I know that doesn't solve things 100%, and it's still a little weird with Pinegrove, but I don't feel uncomfortable listening to Pinegrove, because he made what was made clear by the accuser that he made an honest effort to make up for the allegations, and whatever shitty thing he did. Louis C.K. did not do that. He has just kind of become bitter and removed, and is attempting some sort of comeback.
Obviously he's not going to be in Secret Life of Pets 3, if god forbid we should have one. But, ya know, I for one am glad that some shitty fucking comedian didn't get to star in a sequel to a movie that he originally starred in. I don't give a shit, I don't give a shit about him. Actually, this isn't the first time this type of thing happened with Illumination and their movies. I remember Willow watched Hotel Transylvania one time, and one of the characters, I think the Mummy? One of the characters in the hotel was what's his name, CeeLo Green, who has some sexual assault allegations against him as well. He drug-raped somebody. The less said about it, the better. But he was replaced too, by Kegan Michael Key, don't quote me on that.
So Illumination has a history of replacing these shitty people, and I would argue that's a good thing. It's interesting too that Jenny Slate is in this movie, and she plays, ya know, the little dog... Gidget! She played a black character on that cartoon Big Mouth? And she purposefully stepped down and is actively being replaced for the next season, because she didn't want to be a white voice actor voicing a black character, or a half-black character even, or something like that. So I thought it was interesting that Jenny Slate is in this movie here, and that she's involved in a replacement as well, thought obviously completely different scenarios. I don't think she's going to be replaced for Secret Life of Pets 3 because she herself is not a dog. Right? That's completely different.
I could talk about this shit all day. I discuss cancel culture with myself all day, and argue with myself by standing in the shower and worrying about all that kind of stuff. But this isn't what you want to hear, right?
Okay. I dunno, you wanna hear about Nick Kroll? We could keep talking about people I don't like in Secret Life of Pets 2. Nick Kroll is probably my least favorite actor working today. And I don't say that because of his personality of anything. I don't know him. I'm not saying he's a bad person. I'm just saying that he takes on roles that really irk me, and I think that's kind of the point most of the time. Like, it's not because he's a bad actor, or a bad voice actor in this case, that he annoys me. But the characters he plays typically are designed to annoy the audience. And I don't understand why he continually takes those types of roles. It gets to the point where you wonder if he's been playing himself this whole time. I dunno, he's the Eastern European foosball players in Community, he was the villain in that. He was the radio personality in Parks and Rec, I think the radio program's name was Ira and the Douche, I guess he was the Douche? I would assume. I guess he lampooned it a little bit in that movie Sausage Party, when he played a literal douche. He was the fucking, ya know, the exercise guy on Kimmy Schmidt. Awful. Awful in that. I don't know. He... I know he was in that thing where he played an old man with John Mulaney. [sigh]
A lot of my friends liked that. A lot of my friends who like podcast liked it. Whatever it was called, Mr. Hello, Hello and Goodbye, I don't fucking know. I neither know nor care. I have no interest in watching that. He's just doing another funny voice. A funny old man voice! I guess when you need someone to do an obnoxiously unfunny voice, you call Nick Kroll. If you're gonna have a cartoon where the Eastern European circus owner is going to abuse a tiger, and you need him to yell at wolves and yell at puppies, and kick puppies, and do all kinds of heinous shit as a cartoon villain, then you call Nick Kroll. Like, just have him in your rolodex if you're gonna be making this kind of movie, because he will do the unfunny voices for you. The unfunny voices you require.
I guess that is our segue into our weekly Poop in a Boot. Because, as we all know, through watching this movie seventeen times already, that Dana Carvey plays definitely the worst character in this movie. [sigh] I hate him every... I hate him more and more every time we watch this movie. By "we" I mean me and Willow. Willow doesn't laugh, thank god. Dana Carvey plays the fucking old dog, and he does the obnoxious old man voice? Which, I guess he would've done well in Hello Goodbye or whatever the fuck... alright, I gotta look it up, that Nick Kroll old man thing. The Oh, Hello Show! "A comedy act created by American comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney that was popularized on The Kroll Show." I did not know that. That makes sense that I would never have seen The Kroll Show, for obvious reasons.
Okay, but we're not talking about Nick Kroll anymore, we're talking about Dana Carvey. Also does an awful old man impression. Like, if we're talking about people who should be replaced because they are not those actual people who they are portraying, then we should talk about they should've just hired an old man to play an old dog in this movie. Ya know? Instead of having Dana Carvey do this cringeworthy impression of an old man. It's so painful. But... I mean, this is the seventeenth week in a row I've done this mini-monologue about how much I hate Dana Carvey. I don't even know where we were.
Oh, okay, we were doing the weekly Poop in a Boot of the Week. This is what we call the character I hated the most this week. That character is Uncle Rich. I couldn't even find a credit for Uncle Rich on Wikipedia. I guess I could look it up on IMDB if I really wanted to do that. Yeah, I mean I'm looking at the cast list here. They don't even list Uncle Rich. They got a bunch of people as "Additional Voices," I'm sure one of them did this old farmer hick voice. I think he only has like three lines. But he is absolutely a Republican, right? Or at least a QAnon, rural, doing-everything-to-hate-the-libs guy. Maybe that's just me making an assumption about a rural America that I know nothing about.
I guess I didn't appreciate the fact that he was so glib about how the dogs are going to be sleeping outside that night. As if that's like "oh this is how we do it on the farm!" Didn't even consult the dogs' owners. Or maybe he did and the movie didn't give an opportunity for Katie or Chuck to protest it? Obviously Katie and Chuck understand that these dogs have never slept outside in their lives. And yet now they are expected to roam the farm, where there are foxes and turkeys and cows and sheep. They don't know where they are. They're in a strange place. That's not how you treat dogs. I guess I'm using that as a reflection on Uncle Rich. Maybe he is kind of an asshole? Maybe he's just anti-dog? I don't know. I was kind of surprised that he didn't make Katie sleep outside too. Just seems like that kind of guy. Nevertheless, we don't like Uncle Rich, and... he can go fuck himself.
I wonder—I'm thinking about this just now—I wonder if Rooster is kind of a reflection of his owner, Uncle Rich. Rooster, as we all know, is played by Harrison Ford, kind of this old crankster dog who sees things a certain way, and doesn't like to show emotion, and pretty much seems like every old Boomer that you know. I don't know. I wonder if Uncle Rich is more like that, and the dog is shown as a reflection of Uncle Rich. Are we to assume that the pets in this movie are reflections of their owners? I dunno. It's kinda weird to parse through what the intentions of creating these animals with certain levels of intellect.
Like, what's the deal with Cotton the sheep? He's portrayed as this idiot, like, are we to say that all sheep in this movie are idiots? And why? What makes a sheep dumber than a turkey, who, ya know, you see the turkey and the turkey can't even speak the English language, whereas the sheep does. I don't know. I don't have the answers to this movie. It's just... it's just one of those things where they take artistic liberties with the characters and try to make it as silly and as stupid and as goofy for children as possible.
I was talking with Pam about this today though, after we watched the movie for the seventeenth time. Are we supposed to agree with the pets when they feel a certain disdain for their human owners? We should go back to the poop in a boot, when that little pug is so happy that he pooped in a boot, and his human owner isn't going to find it for weeks. Are we supposed to enjoy that? I guess there's a certain sense of recognition that we've all had that type of dog that does something stupid. I guess it's a retroactive appreciation for the dog being so dumb and loveable? So, is that it, or is it supposed to be making a point that we should give the dogs more credit for doing these things to purposefully piss off the humans? Or is it trying to say that animals are smarter than we give them credit for? Or is this movie trying to say the word "poop" as many times as possible? Probably.
I think that's one of the things I get too involved in with this podcast. And movies in general, when I'm watching a certain movie so many times because Willow enjoys it. I start thinking about it too seriously, and start thinking about the motivations of the moviemakers would have that aren't necessarily there, or intended by this writing room. Do they even have writing rooms for a movie like this? Or is it just a script that's passed around till its complete? I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this.
Oh, I did want to talk about something else, though. I read on IMDB Trivia—or no, it wasn't IMDB Trivia, we can get to that shortly. It was actually TVTropes.com, but they have movie tropes as well. And they describe Daisy, who was Tiffany Haddish, as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," which I don't know if you've ever heard that term. I'm going to read now: "a Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girls are said to help men without pursuing their own happiness. Such characters never grow up; thus, their men never grow up."
I think the biggest example is what's-her-name in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ya know, with the weird colored hair, and with the playful quirky attitude, and doing goofy things to live life to the fullest, that kind of thing. And also, what's-her-name in, what's that movie? The one where she says "the Shins will change your life"? I'm not a movie buff, obviously. I spend all my time watching Secret Life of Pets 2. But you know what I'm talking about. There is a claim that Daisy is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and of course we're forgetting about the fact that she's a dog, not a girl. That's not what I'm talking about. But is she "manic," "pixie," and "dream"? No, I don't think so. I would say she's the opposite, actually.
Okay, first off, there's no "broodingly soulful young man" who's trying to embrace life. The young man in question I guess would be Kevin Hart's character? Second of all, I don't think she's not pursuing her own happiness. I think the happiness that she finds is through doing good for others, that's why she goes to a "superhero" in the first place, to rescue this poor tiger who's trapped in a cage. She ends up doing it. She actively pursues her own happiness. So whatever the fuck TVTropes is talking about, I don't know.
Okay, so here's another thing I was thinking about, and this has to do with Snowball. And I don't want to give the movie too much credit here, I know it's a lazy production, they just kind of do things that kids are going to love, like when he's doing the whole Superman bit on the roof, on the railing, that is definitely something Willow says every time he puts on the mask, he goes, like, "Superbunny!" So I don't want to give the movie too much credit, but I did think it was interesting that the character at the end was made to change his outfit, from superhero to princess, and how effortless that change was. I maybe wondered whether this movie was trying to make a point about how frivolous the costumes that we wear each day are.
Kinda made me think of that great Pixar short, Partysaurus Rex, and obviously Pixar did this a lot better than Illumination. But just how Partysaurus Rex showed T-Rex, the best Toy Story character, and how effortless—it wasn't effortless, but he was able to change his personality based on the scenery and scenario he was in, and how much he enjoyed doing, and how much joy that brought to others, when he found that confidence to change himself in a different context.
I wondered if Secret Life of Pets 2 was trying to make that same type of point, that Snowball is happy as a superhero, he's happy doing good, but he's also happy just chilling as a princess with lipstick on. Not to mention that Kevin Hart was outed as someone who was homophobic, so maybe this was a redemption story for him as an actor. Or maybe that's giving the movie too much credit as well.
This isn't really too developed of a thought, but I did think that there are glimpses of this movie, and if you think about it too long, then you end up giving the movie too much credit. Maybe you start thinking this movie is saying deeper things than it actually is trying to say. I think it's maybe just putting this masculine bunny character in drag, and expect kids to laugh at it. And that's... I laughed.
Alright, so we're gonna end this as we always do every week with asking Pam as she sits on the couch over there, if she has any questions, as she has her weekly question of Secret Life of Pets 2. Pam, do you have anything to add?
You could look at some of the lyrics, he says, "I bleed blue, I ain't a Crip though. But I got a gang of... n-words walkin' with my clique though. Welcome to the melting pot, corners where we're selling rock..." I mean, I don't want to sound like that conservative talking head, whatever the hell his name is, um... Ben, whatever, that asshole. When he was reading the "WAP" lyrics, and quoting his doctor wife, saying that Cardi B had "problems." I don't mean to be that guy. But I've always had a problem with Jay-Z's song, just because of the New York aspect of it, I guess.
If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I have a long-term problem with New York. I think it's mostly a little brother complex, being from Philadelphia, working in Philadelphia, establishing my life in Philadelphia. I definitely feel like New Yorkers look down on us, and I take offense to that. Especially when it comes to pop culture. A lot of TV shows that I watch, they take place in New York. A lot of the music that I listen to was created in New York. It just seems to be this love... no, "love" is too simple of a word... this sort of worship of New York? And this assumption that New York is some wonderful place where all the best art comes from. I think that's just New Yorkers loving themselves too much. If all the "best art" is coming from New York, then who is making that claim? New Yorkers! And the New Yorkers are writing music, movies, and TV about New York, and those songs and those movies and those episodes of television impress further that New York is this "important place," when really it's not. That's just the people from New York saying it is. So... I don't know.
I'm definitely getting a little off track. We're supposed to be talking about Secret Life of Pets 2. [sighs] I guess I'm already tired of talking about it, after seventeen short weeks? And we have how many more weeks to go? Whatever 52 minus seventeen is? 35 more weeks? Which is pretty daunting. So, I don't know, let's dive right in and talk about our Shining Light this week. Let's talk about something positive. The thing that I noticed this week, watching Secret Life of Pets 2, was Chuck. Chuck is played by Pete Holmes. You wouldn't notice that if you haven't watched this movie seventeen times in a row. He doesn't really have any lines. He has a couple grunts, and a couple... I think he cries at one point? But you wouldn't really know he's Pete Holmes. I guess there's a chance that it was left over from a bigger role before cuts? We'll say that his wife is played by Ellie Kemper, and I think that was a holdover from Secret Life of Pets 1, which, as longtime listeners know, I've never seen, and don't plan on seeing. But I guess she had a bigger role in that? That's why it's kind of a big-ish name for... whatever Chuck's wife's name is, you know, Max's owner. She really does nothing in this movie at all, she barely has any role, but she's played by Ellie Kemper.
But anyway, Shining Light is Chuck. I was really interested in thinking about the fact that he was so attracted to Ellie Kemper's cartoon character that he crashed his bike. I rode a bike every day to work, and there are times when I almost crash because, ya know, riding through the city, it's summer, and the facemasks, they only cover your mouths, they don't cover anything else... but we won't talk about that too much.
Actually, you know what, there was one time—and this has nothing to do with biking, but—there was one time I was driving down 16th St. This was probably 2011, I know I was in my parents car, and it was super early in the morning. Ya know what, maybe it was my old Camry, because the windows were down. I didn't have air conditioning. Definitely the summer. The biggest ass I've ever seen crossed in front of me when I was stopped at a red light. And I was just like—and I might have been a little hungover—and I exclaimed—it was six in the morning, I didn't think anyone was around, so I just went like, "holy shit!" and I look over and some lady is sitting in her car in the lane over, and she starts cracking up, because she knows exactly why I yelled "holy shit." Luckily, the car was stopped at that point. I did not crash the car. Obviously, it's a little different in Pets 2, with Chuck. He's looking for love, ya know? And he actually ends up finding that through this bike crash.
Now, I would absolutely, if I crashed, probably not say anything to anyone who came to my rescue. But maybe that's why he ended up marrying... Ellie Kemper's character, okay, I have to look up this characters name. I got Wikipedia here. "Katie." Okay. "Max's current owner is named Katie." He meets Katie through this bike crash. I thought it was this little genuine piece of the movie. It was right at the beginning. I also thought it was kind of interesting to think about what if Chuck was actually looking at the dogs instead of Katie, and how that would've changed things. Now, we are assuming that he finds Katie so attractive that he crashes his bike, but what if he... okay, I don't mean this in a sexual way, I'm not talking about bestiality or anything like that. I'm saying what if he was... although, I don't know. Is there any indication that Chuck is into bestiality? I'm trying to think. I don't think so. I would hope not. This is a children's movie.
So let's assume that this is not a bestiality thing, and that, in this hypothetical, Chuck is just... admiring, I don't know, how goofy-looking duke looks? Which, he's definitely a goofy looking dog, all things considered. Or, I'm just thinking of this now, maybe the shape that Chuck is—he's very husky up top, just a very cartoonishly misshaped character—maybe he saw an equal in Duke, like, "Hey, here's this cartoonishly large dog, maybe there is some kinship there between me and this dog." Maybe I'm just grasping at straws. Maybe I just want to like Chuck. Maybe I just want to like Chuck because Max says he's a good guy, and Patton Oswalt, as always, gives a super-great line reading, where he kind of stutters when he says, "He's, he's a really good guy." Patton Oswalt does a lot with this character that anyone else probably wouldn't have done. He just has this humility about him.
Which is funny because... well, two things. One, because Patton Oswalt is Remy the Rat, and that's probably the best cartoon of all time. I don't know if it's because of Patton Oswalt's performance in Ratatouille specifically, but definitely doesn't hurt. He definitely has the bona fides. And secondly, as we all know, as we've discussed already a little bit, but I guess we'll touch on it a little more in this episode, that he wasn't the original voice of Max in Secret Life of Pets 1. Which, again, I will never watch. Apparently Max was Louis C.K. in the first one.
Obviously I'm gonna have very strong opinions about Louis C.K. I don't... okay, so, right off the bat, after what Louis C.K. was accused of doing, he cannot be the star of a kids' movie. That's obvious. I wonder, though, what would've happened if Louis C.K. had been genuinely apologetic about everything? Could he have still kept this job? Obviously he's not apologetic, he just kind of devolved into this quasi-right-wing crank at this point, that he was the victim of the quote-unquote "cancel culture." And so he's against cancel culture, which is fucked up in a lot of different ways. But from where I'm standing, I think it would've been more of a basic human decency thing to just apologize to these women that he sexual assaulted in the ways that he did?
I'm thinking about Pinegrove, the band where we don't know as many details about the sexual coercion allegations about the frontman of Pinegrove, whatever his name is... Evan Stevens Hall. But Hall, he worked with the accuser and made things right with her. I know that doesn't solve things 100%, and it's still a little weird with Pinegrove, but I don't feel uncomfortable listening to Pinegrove, because he made what was made clear by the accuser that he made an honest effort to make up for the allegations, and whatever shitty thing he did. Louis C.K. did not do that. He has just kind of become bitter and removed, and is attempting some sort of comeback.
Obviously he's not going to be in Secret Life of Pets 3, if god forbid we should have one. But, ya know, I for one am glad that some shitty fucking comedian didn't get to star in a sequel to a movie that he originally starred in. I don't give a shit, I don't give a shit about him. Actually, this isn't the first time this type of thing happened with Illumination and their movies. I remember Willow watched Hotel Transylvania one time, and one of the characters, I think the Mummy? One of the characters in the hotel was what's his name, CeeLo Green, who has some sexual assault allegations against him as well. He drug-raped somebody. The less said about it, the better. But he was replaced too, by Kegan Michael Key, don't quote me on that.
So Illumination has a history of replacing these shitty people, and I would argue that's a good thing. It's interesting too that Jenny Slate is in this movie, and she plays, ya know, the little dog... Gidget! She played a black character on that cartoon Big Mouth? And she purposefully stepped down and is actively being replaced for the next season, because she didn't want to be a white voice actor voicing a black character, or a half-black character even, or something like that. So I thought it was interesting that Jenny Slate is in this movie here, and that she's involved in a replacement as well, thought obviously completely different scenarios. I don't think she's going to be replaced for Secret Life of Pets 3 because she herself is not a dog. Right? That's completely different.
I could talk about this shit all day. I discuss cancel culture with myself all day, and argue with myself by standing in the shower and worrying about all that kind of stuff. But this isn't what you want to hear, right?
Okay. I dunno, you wanna hear about Nick Kroll? We could keep talking about people I don't like in Secret Life of Pets 2. Nick Kroll is probably my least favorite actor working today. And I don't say that because of his personality of anything. I don't know him. I'm not saying he's a bad person. I'm just saying that he takes on roles that really irk me, and I think that's kind of the point most of the time. Like, it's not because he's a bad actor, or a bad voice actor in this case, that he annoys me. But the characters he plays typically are designed to annoy the audience. And I don't understand why he continually takes those types of roles. It gets to the point where you wonder if he's been playing himself this whole time. I dunno, he's the Eastern European foosball players in Community, he was the villain in that. He was the radio personality in Parks and Rec, I think the radio program's name was Ira and the Douche, I guess he was the Douche? I would assume. I guess he lampooned it a little bit in that movie Sausage Party, when he played a literal douche. He was the fucking, ya know, the exercise guy on Kimmy Schmidt. Awful. Awful in that. I don't know. He... I know he was in that thing where he played an old man with John Mulaney. [sigh]
A lot of my friends liked that. A lot of my friends who like podcast liked it. Whatever it was called, Mr. Hello, Hello and Goodbye, I don't fucking know. I neither know nor care. I have no interest in watching that. He's just doing another funny voice. A funny old man voice! I guess when you need someone to do an obnoxiously unfunny voice, you call Nick Kroll. If you're gonna have a cartoon where the Eastern European circus owner is going to abuse a tiger, and you need him to yell at wolves and yell at puppies, and kick puppies, and do all kinds of heinous shit as a cartoon villain, then you call Nick Kroll. Like, just have him in your rolodex if you're gonna be making this kind of movie, because he will do the unfunny voices for you. The unfunny voices you require.
I guess that is our segue into our weekly Poop in a Boot. Because, as we all know, through watching this movie seventeen times already, that Dana Carvey plays definitely the worst character in this movie. [sigh] I hate him every... I hate him more and more every time we watch this movie. By "we" I mean me and Willow. Willow doesn't laugh, thank god. Dana Carvey plays the fucking old dog, and he does the obnoxious old man voice? Which, I guess he would've done well in Hello Goodbye or whatever the fuck... alright, I gotta look it up, that Nick Kroll old man thing. The Oh, Hello Show! "A comedy act created by American comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney that was popularized on The Kroll Show." I did not know that. That makes sense that I would never have seen The Kroll Show, for obvious reasons.
Okay, but we're not talking about Nick Kroll anymore, we're talking about Dana Carvey. Also does an awful old man impression. Like, if we're talking about people who should be replaced because they are not those actual people who they are portraying, then we should talk about they should've just hired an old man to play an old dog in this movie. Ya know? Instead of having Dana Carvey do this cringeworthy impression of an old man. It's so painful. But... I mean, this is the seventeenth week in a row I've done this mini-monologue about how much I hate Dana Carvey. I don't even know where we were.
Oh, okay, we were doing the weekly Poop in a Boot of the Week. This is what we call the character I hated the most this week. That character is Uncle Rich. I couldn't even find a credit for Uncle Rich on Wikipedia. I guess I could look it up on IMDB if I really wanted to do that. Yeah, I mean I'm looking at the cast list here. They don't even list Uncle Rich. They got a bunch of people as "Additional Voices," I'm sure one of them did this old farmer hick voice. I think he only has like three lines. But he is absolutely a Republican, right? Or at least a QAnon, rural, doing-everything-to-hate-the-libs guy. Maybe that's just me making an assumption about a rural America that I know nothing about.
I guess I didn't appreciate the fact that he was so glib about how the dogs are going to be sleeping outside that night. As if that's like "oh this is how we do it on the farm!" Didn't even consult the dogs' owners. Or maybe he did and the movie didn't give an opportunity for Katie or Chuck to protest it? Obviously Katie and Chuck understand that these dogs have never slept outside in their lives. And yet now they are expected to roam the farm, where there are foxes and turkeys and cows and sheep. They don't know where they are. They're in a strange place. That's not how you treat dogs. I guess I'm using that as a reflection on Uncle Rich. Maybe he is kind of an asshole? Maybe he's just anti-dog? I don't know. I was kind of surprised that he didn't make Katie sleep outside too. Just seems like that kind of guy. Nevertheless, we don't like Uncle Rich, and... he can go fuck himself.
I wonder—I'm thinking about this just now—I wonder if Rooster is kind of a reflection of his owner, Uncle Rich. Rooster, as we all know, is played by Harrison Ford, kind of this old crankster dog who sees things a certain way, and doesn't like to show emotion, and pretty much seems like every old Boomer that you know. I don't know. I wonder if Uncle Rich is more like that, and the dog is shown as a reflection of Uncle Rich. Are we to assume that the pets in this movie are reflections of their owners? I dunno. It's kinda weird to parse through what the intentions of creating these animals with certain levels of intellect.
Like, what's the deal with Cotton the sheep? He's portrayed as this idiot, like, are we to say that all sheep in this movie are idiots? And why? What makes a sheep dumber than a turkey, who, ya know, you see the turkey and the turkey can't even speak the English language, whereas the sheep does. I don't know. I don't have the answers to this movie. It's just... it's just one of those things where they take artistic liberties with the characters and try to make it as silly and as stupid and as goofy for children as possible.
I was talking with Pam about this today though, after we watched the movie for the seventeenth time. Are we supposed to agree with the pets when they feel a certain disdain for their human owners? We should go back to the poop in a boot, when that little pug is so happy that he pooped in a boot, and his human owner isn't going to find it for weeks. Are we supposed to enjoy that? I guess there's a certain sense of recognition that we've all had that type of dog that does something stupid. I guess it's a retroactive appreciation for the dog being so dumb and loveable? So, is that it, or is it supposed to be making a point that we should give the dogs more credit for doing these things to purposefully piss off the humans? Or is it trying to say that animals are smarter than we give them credit for? Or is this movie trying to say the word "poop" as many times as possible? Probably.
I think that's one of the things I get too involved in with this podcast. And movies in general, when I'm watching a certain movie so many times because Willow enjoys it. I start thinking about it too seriously, and start thinking about the motivations of the moviemakers would have that aren't necessarily there, or intended by this writing room. Do they even have writing rooms for a movie like this? Or is it just a script that's passed around till its complete? I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this.
Oh, I did want to talk about something else, though. I read on IMDB Trivia—or no, it wasn't IMDB Trivia, we can get to that shortly. It was actually TVTropes.com, but they have movie tropes as well. And they describe Daisy, who was Tiffany Haddish, as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," which I don't know if you've ever heard that term. I'm going to read now: "a Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girls are said to help men without pursuing their own happiness. Such characters never grow up; thus, their men never grow up."
I think the biggest example is what's-her-name in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ya know, with the weird colored hair, and with the playful quirky attitude, and doing goofy things to live life to the fullest, that kind of thing. And also, what's-her-name in, what's that movie? The one where she says "the Shins will change your life"? I'm not a movie buff, obviously. I spend all my time watching Secret Life of Pets 2. But you know what I'm talking about. There is a claim that Daisy is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and of course we're forgetting about the fact that she's a dog, not a girl. That's not what I'm talking about. But is she "manic," "pixie," and "dream"? No, I don't think so. I would say she's the opposite, actually.
Okay, first off, there's no "broodingly soulful young man" who's trying to embrace life. The young man in question I guess would be Kevin Hart's character? Second of all, I don't think she's not pursuing her own happiness. I think the happiness that she finds is through doing good for others, that's why she goes to a "superhero" in the first place, to rescue this poor tiger who's trapped in a cage. She ends up doing it. She actively pursues her own happiness. So whatever the fuck TVTropes is talking about, I don't know.
Okay, so here's another thing I was thinking about, and this has to do with Snowball. And I don't want to give the movie too much credit here, I know it's a lazy production, they just kind of do things that kids are going to love, like when he's doing the whole Superman bit on the roof, on the railing, that is definitely something Willow says every time he puts on the mask, he goes, like, "Superbunny!" So I don't want to give the movie too much credit, but I did think it was interesting that the character at the end was made to change his outfit, from superhero to princess, and how effortless that change was. I maybe wondered whether this movie was trying to make a point about how frivolous the costumes that we wear each day are.
Kinda made me think of that great Pixar short, Partysaurus Rex, and obviously Pixar did this a lot better than Illumination. But just how Partysaurus Rex showed T-Rex, the best Toy Story character, and how effortless—it wasn't effortless, but he was able to change his personality based on the scenery and scenario he was in, and how much he enjoyed doing, and how much joy that brought to others, when he found that confidence to change himself in a different context.
I wondered if Secret Life of Pets 2 was trying to make that same type of point, that Snowball is happy as a superhero, he's happy doing good, but he's also happy just chilling as a princess with lipstick on. Not to mention that Kevin Hart was outed as someone who was homophobic, so maybe this was a redemption story for him as an actor. Or maybe that's giving the movie too much credit as well.
This isn't really too developed of a thought, but I did think that there are glimpses of this movie, and if you think about it too long, then you end up giving the movie too much credit. Maybe you start thinking this movie is saying deeper things than it actually is trying to say. I think it's maybe just putting this masculine bunny character in drag, and expect kids to laugh at it. And that's... I laughed.
Alright, so we're gonna end this as we always do every week with asking Pam as she sits on the couch over there, if she has any questions, as she has her weekly question of Secret Life of Pets 2. Pam, do you have anything to add?
PAM: I didn't hear the whole thing.
JOE: You never do.
PAM: ...Yeah, because I'm putting Willow to bed.
JOE: Yes, that feels like a good time to do a podcast.
PAM: But... yeah, just going off of what you said about the rabbit character, and Kevin Hart. I thought that too about him having the homophobic tweets, but that they were trying to redeem him. He says: "this... is... AWESOME!" They're trying to show that drag is awesome.
JOE: Do you think that was purposeful on Kevin Hart's part? Did he continue this role because he wanted to show that he was comfortable with his digital avatar wearing lipstick?
PAM: I don't know. I think they brought that in because of all that, though.
JOE: Okay. Of course, he had to backtrack, and take off the lipstick, and do some rap about a panda... but we will leave that for next week! So, as always, thanks for joining the SLoPpiness, and we will talk to you after we watch Secret Life of Pets 2 for the eighteenth time. Thanks for listening, make sure that you life, subscribe, and maybe rate us on iTunes if you find us favorable. Thank you!
ALICIA: [singing] Ooooooh!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of! There's nothing you can't do! Now you're in New York! These streets will make you feel brand new! Big lights will inspire you! [fades out]
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