E482 A Haunted Coffee and a Propaganda Theatre - featuring That's Pretty Dark

I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future. This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward. Written and read by me, Curtis Garner. Listen to the free audiobook now. With Share My Trip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most. Like Dan and Hannah, who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. Or Tiffany, who's running late as usual, and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way. Look, she's right there. She's three minutes away. Or Sam, who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is. Some journeys are meant to be shared. Share your ride in real time with Share My Trip on Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. This is so embarrassing because I feel like we're being called out. We're partnering with Reddit, and I use it to fall asleep because Allison, she could hear if I'm watching video. So I need something silent. I start using Reddit to read at night. And I'm in all sorts of separates. It's very fun whenever I'm traveling. Shocking amount of information from Reddit these days. If I'm looking something up, Reddit is the first link. My favorite is when you search for things online, and like the auto fill-in is Reddit. And it's basically people like holding something in their hand, and then they say, guess what's in my hand. And then you comment, and then the next day they reveal it. And you see, like, you can practice your psychic gifts. So listen, there's something for everybody. I mean, for me, it's my reality TV show, Scandals. Because I don't know anybody else who watches my stories. And so I have to go on Reddit, and all of a sudden I'm in a huge community full of people who are talking about it. And it's been very wonderful. I also get a lot of, I'm in a lot of local community subreddits. So that's how I've actually found out about events I've taken Allison on dates to. It's very nice. That's why we turn to our favorite subreddits when we are looking for basically entertainment, information, any of the above. Download the Reddit app and get answers on whether you're psychic. Whether or not people agree on your skills. On your scandals, your drama, you know? Yeah, yeah. Whether you have a hot take or not, you know? You'll find out. Download the Reddit app today. I am so excited to now officially start the podcast and welcome our two wonderful guests. We have Christian and Kaylin here from That's Pretty Dark. We're so happy to have you here. I have actually not met either of you officially, even E-Met. Not until right now. I've weirdly talked about you when you've come up. Faded from the Aries stellium. That's right! Thank you. I knew we'd be friends, but I have talked about you in that I've mentioned you and said, Oh yeah, I haven't met them. I've met Kaylin, so nice to meet you, Christian. That's my favorite way to know a person is like, yeah, you know, they, we've never met. I should know them. Yeah, well, your story precedes you. You know what I mean? Like you have a reputation. Yeah, I think that's actually kind of a superpower. So anyway, we're so happy to have you on the show. Welcome. And yeah, E-M and Kaylin have been on a speed date, right? Our only capacity knowing each other is when we were dating briefly for 15 minutes or so. And it was a great, a great, honestly, one of the best days I've ever been on. Yeah, same. Truly. But neither of you gave each other a ride home. Wasn't that where it ended up? It wasn't a ride home kind of vibe. No, no, no, no. But Kaylin did send me some lovely stuff. She sent me some stickers and they are officially now the stickers that ended my sticker book. Oh, the final chapter. Wait, you know what? I remember that question of would you give the other person a ride? And I was with Taylor of Creeps and Crimes. And it ended up that we were both trying to give each other a ride. And we accidentally like swapped cities or something. And then it turned out. You'll be where she is. She'll be where you are. Yeah, exactly. We switched places. And then Eva ended up coming in and saying, I'll give both of you a ride. So we kind of just like, like botched our way into a ride from Eva. Yeah. Yeah. So I do. I do. I do remember that. That was fun. You guys are way too trusting. That's one word for it. Hey, we're among the friends if we're among Parapods. That's how I feel personally. Yes, we're all connected. Great circle of Parapods. Yeah, we are just beyond thrilled. Thank you, first of all, for letting us be here, for letting us be on your network. It's the thing that you're not supposed to say to like a prospective suitor or like a job or whatever. But Parapods was really the only network we ever imagined. Oh, gosh. We weren't it's not like we were shopping, if I'm being honest, it made so much sense to us, just too much sense. And we were very thrilled that all of you agreed on that. Oh, my goodness. You're very sweet. Well, that's so kind. It was truly the like, we were shooting for the moon and the moon was Parapods. And somehow we made it, us and NASA together. Well, from our end, we saw your lovely show. And I remember like clicking the website and I was like, this is this is the stuff. This is it. Oh, my God. And it's just it's just a great match, I think. I think so, too. Our ego is sky high. Thank you so much. Yeah. You just you just really. So is ours for being here, so this is going to be a ride today. Well, well, oh, jinx. I was going to say, does anyone have, since this is and that's why we drink, does anyone have anything that they're drinking today? Do you have? Oh, it's so many things. OK, hold on. I put it away, but I'm going to get it because this is the time. Why would you? Oh, so you were like, oh, it's time for and that's why we drink. I guess I'll put my beverage away. We get to be asked the question and you're going to put it away. Oh, that's an incredible thing to drink. Now we're talking Clyde Mays, Alabama style whiskey celebratory. That's a question. That's a sentence that I am I allowed to show this on. Yeah, you're actually required to show it on air. That is a beauty. I have not had that. I've not had the pleasure. I'll be honest. I've not had the pleasure, but it looks like a pleasure. Are you a whiskey person? You know, I'm not like I know you don't like wine historically. Yeah. And I live in Kentucky. So. Like, I really tried with the bourbon thing. It just is like not it's not. No, I get it. I get it. I get it anyway. Someday when I'm an old man, an old rich man. Yeah, I was like, if you're in the yeah, yeah, exactly. Whiskey is my favorite drink to sniff. You know what? And me, too. I can't have much of any anymore due to like all weird chronic health issues. So my friends do tastings and I sniff them. Yeah, that's actually so welcome to my world. Yeah, it's a. It's. I don't know how to describe it. It is very fun once you just commit to the bit and you're like, I'm the sniffer of the party. So yeah, these are the notes I'm sniffing. We'll see if your palate agrees. Yeah. Do you have a favorite thing you've sniffed? Hmm. Great question. And I really I don't because it's like, I know you guys are used to the memory of what the whiskey was. And I feel like now Chris and I are kind of like, yeah, this is second date conversation. Go away. Really intimate stuff. What have you seen? Have you sniffed anything recently? Yeah. Well, what was it like? You know, what was it like? Um, anyway, well, Caitlin, are you drinking anything? Are you drinking anything? Yes. It's a bubble water, as I call them forever blackberry and this just has the right amount of bubble. It's the Maison Perrier. Like, I don't know. Some bubbles are just too much. I like the Aldi brand and I like Maison Perrier and I like a blackberry peach occasionally. That's charming. I like that. Um, oh, I have a, um, a little THC seltzer for funsies. Christine. I thought that's what that was. I recognize the can. Oh, I'll say. It's pretty darn good. I've never had one. Oh, it's pretty darn good. I got to say. I really need to try it out. Is that the raspberry lime? Earl, you know it is. Just to know it is. You sure do. Grown in Kentucky, by the way. So we're all doing our. I had no idea. Wow. Local. Um, I, just to finish it out, I am drinking another Moon Punch, uh, Capri Sun. Oh, hell yeah. It is. This one is the waning crescent. So. Oh, fuck yeah, man. Beautiful. I have to find some of that. I really, I need to. I haven't had that one. They. Look, there are so many things that I talk about on our show or any time I talk about nostalgic things, it's like Super Soakers and Capri Sun. Capri Sun. And like Gushers. Capri Sun. I would love to talk to you about Super Soakers one day. We don't have to do it, um. We should do that. Right now, because it'll get too lengthy, but I do, I have a lot of opinions about the Super Soakers. And I did think, um, Capri Suns, I thought it was fitting, uh, since you are also a nostalgia based podcast. So I thought that was. Nostalgia. Very lovely. So. Anything that had like juicy commercials. Oh, yeah. Gushers. Lots of fluid. They were doing something that was psychically to us or, or psychiatrically, I don't know, but like something was happening. We were all going through puberty, you know, just happening at the same time. Neurons were, synapses were firing, et cetera. Yep. Lots of fluids, liquids. Some things were, dots were connecting. Just like squishing. Yeah. For sure. Well, since you are a, um, also a spooky and nostalgia based podcast, we have a very, uh, fun topic for people today, but I'm going to, uh. Start it off. I'm going to pregame with my own topic to lead into your topic. So excited. Yes. And, uh, the, the connection between the two, maybe people will know where we're heading when I say this, but I have a story for everybody today and it is in St. Helen's, Oregon. And if people know what that means, then they know what that means. And if not, you're in for a nice surprise. Right up top, we would like to thank EmbarkVet.com for supporting and that's where we drink. Yeah. At EmbarkVet.com you can save $10 on the breed and health test and get free shipping with promo code drink. Obviously I've talked before that I was able to figure out that Hank is mainly, um, Rottweiler and Bernie's Mountain. He's also majorly Cocker Spaniel. And then he's kind of an assortment of other things, including German Shepherd and Chow and Pomeranian somehow. That's crazy to me. One of my other favorite things about Embark is that it's not just where you can learn about their breeds or you can find relatives for them, but it also teaches you a lot about their behaviors. It teaches you about their nutrition, their grooming style. Yeah. A lot of dog parents felt way, way more connected to their dog after seeing the behavior insights, specifically. a protective side. And of course, that makes sense with, you know, Rottweilers, they're known to be guardian dogs. Embark's newest feature, the behavior insights, they provide 15 genetic behavior scores mapped on your dog's DNA. And you get a free look at one insight with your results. And you can unlock all 15 plus a year of personalized training as an upgrade. I highly recommend that you get the dog DNA test that is trusted by millions. So you finally understand the why behind the weird. Hank was always a little weird. Now it makes a little more sense to me. Go to EmbarkVet.com to get free shipping and save $10 on an Embark breed and health test with promo code DRINK. That's promo code DRINK to save $10 today. Smith and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read The Forward. The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen. I told Esperanza, like this year, you know, I'm not going to be on stage like I was last year. And so this year when you are styling me through Daily Look, my personal styling service, I would like you to look into more elevated, like day-to-day kind of carpool style. I just want to like bop around and be like, oh, me? Yeah. You know, I, I have classic easy style and Daily Look, thank you for sending Esperanza my way. She has really gotten my vibe and has sent me some of my favorite pieces. Daily Look is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. And with Daily Look, you get your own dedicated personal stylist, like big E over there, to curate a box of clothes based on your body shape preferences and lifestyle. And it's not an algorithm. They're real personal stylists. So you can have a bond just like Christine does with Esperanza. It's very special. Head to DailyLook.com and use code DRINK. for 50% off your first order. You can try it on up to 12 premium pieces in the comfort of your home and Daily Look has sizes for almost everybody from extra small to 3X and zero to 24, which is also awesome. It's time to get your personal stylist with Daily Look. Head to DailyLook.com to take your style quiz and use code DRINK for 50% off your first order. Once again, that's DailyLook.com for 50% off and make sure you use our promo code DRINK so they know we sent you. One last time, DailyLook.com promo code DRINK. We're going to cover the, Klondike Hotel. And I say Klondike Hotel hesitantly because I learned through my research that it is sometimes called the Klondike Hotel. Sometimes it's called the Klondike Tavern and sometimes it's called the Klondike Restaurant and Bar. And recently it has just been called the Klondike. So all three, all four. Concise. At once. Thank you. So buckle in. And as I mentioned, this is in downtown St. Helens, Oregon. The building itself was built. In 1910. And it was originally called a completely different name, which is the St. Helens Hotel. More on the nose. More on the nose. And the St. Helens Hotel opened, although it was mainly more of a boarding house for the workers in town. And fun fact, there was a brothel behind it. So I like to imagine that there was probably some colorful history going on there. Not your average Joe hotel. Except, just kidding, every hotel in the early 1900s. It seems to have been connected to a brothel. It was just part of the, it was just a different time. What else were they going to do, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they didn't have screens. It was a screen internet. I know. Pre-screens in general. They didn't have phones. And they couldn't read, so they couldn't like have a library. Yeah, many of them could not read. It's actually like so tragic. And down here we have our selection of fine books and literature, classic literature. And there's the brothel, the door to the right. Yeah. Sorry. Take your break. So my understanding is that this is a brothel. So my understanding of, I mean, I'm going real quick through this, just that it was a hotel, also a boarding house. And then at some point, the bar closed. I know the bar closed in 1961. There was a bar inside this hotel. It closed, but then. Oh, was it by chance called a Klondike bar? Oh. Literally, yes. What would you do at the Klondike bar? Literally anything. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for mentioning that. If you did not, I literally had highlighted, in my notes, that a Klondike bar is also nostalgic. And I was like, what are the odds? Sorry, I cock-blocked your own joke. I'm sorry. I was hoping somebody would say it. Stole the thunder. It had to be you. The dots. The dots keep connecting. They keep connecting. It's that stellium, I think, is what it is. Yeah, sure. The bar closed in 1961. And I think it was on the second floor of this building that was a hotel. So I say that because it's odd that now the tavern has reopened since on the second floor of what is now everywhere else an abandoned building. So you have to go to the second floor of a building that's not really used to go to the restaurant. Well, that's a recipe for paranormal happening. Yeah. For bad. They asked for it. I agree. And at some point, I don't know if the St. Helen's Hotel became officially named the Klondike Hotel or if it got the name the Klondike because the bar inside was called the Klondike Restaurant and Bar or the Klondike. So I don't know how Klondike people have suggested in the past to the Klondike Hotel. And then Eva, who actually is the one who suggested this topic, I think Eva also called it the Klondike Hotel. So it's known as the Klondike Hotel when you search for it. But nowhere is it actually called that. And what came first, the bar or the hotel? It's just kind of murky. Yeah, it's all murky. I really I tried. And yet I came up with kind of nothing. So we understand that. Thank you. So although the bar is open inside the hotel, the rest of the building is closed off, which, as you said, is the perfect recipe for ghosts. And in 2018, the Klondike Restaurant and Bar or the Klondike Tavern, however you call it, it at the time they thought it was permanently closing down because I guess it was just hard to maintain and things like that. And up until that time, 2018, this was known to be one of the most haunted places in Oregon. So it or Oregon. I don't know. You're right. The first time I hear it every time. Oregon. Oregon. Don't add another option. The Klondike State. Yeah. So in 2018, right before it closed up until that point, it was noted everywhere as incredibly haunted. People had investigations going on in there. A TV show is filmed in there. Um, Lorraine Warren actually went in. I don't know if you are familiar with the Warrens, but so Lorraine Warren went in there with one of the TV shows and they did a three day investigation there and she was like, oh, it's so haunted. She, of course, I've never seen her go to a place and not think it's haunted. I'm not surprised. Mr. Bagans. Bagans has not been there yet. Well, there's, there's always time for that. I think always he'll find it. Of the things people have. People have witnessed here. People have heard voices in empty rooms. They've also heard voices whispering their names, which cannot imagine something worse. That's right. Lorraine. Lorraine. Oh, that's actually very scary. Horrific. Thank you. Your husband sucks. Your husband's in her. And so do you. And so do you. You're the worst. You know what? That is worse. It's just being judged and criticized. It's just being like. It's a chorus of ghosts who hate you. Yeah. You specifically. We just covered that in an episode. We recorded an episode that will come out before, before this one, but hasn't come out yet where these ghosts just hated Nick Groff of Ghost Adventures. And literally anytime they talk to him, they're like, fuck Nick Groff. They're like, let us know you're here. And it's like, we hate you, Nick. Get out of here, Nick. And it's like, wow, it's got to be personal at that point. I don't know. Well, so people hear all sorts of things. They hear all sorts of voices. They hear a little girl crying out. Apparently the radio will turn on and off and the volume will change itself. Awful. A coffee maker turns itself on and off, which I'm kind of okay with that. There's steep ghosts. Yeah. Well, I mean, if it's making a good cup of coffee, sure. Like make me a pot. But if it makes a bad cup of coffee. Yeah. I was going to say, if it's making it from the same grounds over and over again, that's pretty gnarly. I think that's kind of like, it's not like your fault, but it's your responsibility. You have a new task. Yeah. It's up to you. If you're going to be involved in this, do something about it. Be the haunted coffee you want to see in the world, you know? Imagine if the ghosts are now also leaving notes on the coffee maker. Be like, whoever didn't clean up last time, I'm on to you. This microwave is only. While you're at it, clean the microwave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. So objects move on their own throughout the building. Pictures have thrown themselves off of walls. Light bulbs explode. Drinking glasses have shattered themselves. Mm-hmm. And people have seen figures in the windows on floors that are blocked off, so nobody should be there, but they see people walking around up there. They've seen a little boy asking for his dad, and then he vanishes. Mm-mm. That's just sad. Yeah. I want to know the lore, but also I think maybe for my own mental health, it's probably for the best I don't know. Yeah, it's probably just a real bummer. Like, I'm nosy, but I don't know if I'm that nosy. Yeah. People have also seen an older man sitting at a booth. as soon as the waiter goes up to take his order, he vanishes. which I love. Fun. And then people see a floating half of a body at the top of the stairs. They see like just the head and torso, but no feet. How'd you get up the stairs? Anyway. Good question. To go back to the waiter, isn't that just a waiter? Oh, dis. Now that's something. Actually, we officially side with the service industry. Yeah. Thank you so much. Just kidding. For real, all of us. You know, you guys are on your second date. It's all about how you treat the waitstaff. You know what? All right. Pay attention. We're eyeing it. We're eyeing it. That's true. We're paying attention. That's a great point. It's so true. The building, like I said, has had a bunch of paranormal investigations come through. They've also had like, they've hosted spiritual classes there. I just know Christine would eat the shit up. What? They've had like classes hosted there where like to open up your third eye and like psychic classes and you go in there with an experienced psychic and they help you tap into stuff. Yeah. I just, I just know Christine. Would you do ayahuasca at the Klondike bar? Oh, that feels like a fake sentence. It's gone from what would you do for a Klondike bar to what would you do at the Klondike bar. It's truth or dare at the Klondike bar. Yeah, I mean, you have to because you don't want your third eye to be blind. Oh, yeah. Now, hang on. Hang on. You've become semi-charmed. I've actually, my footing has been destabilized. Apparently, this is a quote from a newspaper article I saw. Nearly every team or investigated group that's gone investigating there. Nearly every team has reported scenting an altercation that took place somewhere on the second floor, which is where the bar was. So I could see like a saloon where the alcohol is. Yes. The show that Lorraine Warren guested on was Paranormal State. Fun fact, in case you want to go watch it. And I did say in 2018 that the building closed and they thought for good. But after the pandemic, there was a guy from Portland named Holcomb Waller and he took a tour of it and he was like, I've always wanted to open my own bed and breakfast or boutique hotel or some phrasing like that. He was like, maybe I just do that right now. And he ended up buying the place and his plan, at least at the time of this news article, was to reopen the restaurant and reopen the hotel and completely have it as it once was. I think since then, the hotel plans are out and it's just the restaurant that's open, which it's now been, according to its website, renamed the Klondike. And I have not seen any mention of him talking about ghosts, but maybe that's part of his like rebrand. But I would argue that the rebrand needs the ghosts. It does. Why wouldn't you lean in? He's wrong. You don't have to lean in at this point. I don't know. If he's listening, bring him back. Get your shit together, man. Holcomb Waller. That's a hotel. That guy owns a hotel. Like, you just would assume that if he was born for it. Yeah. He's born for it. By name, Holcomb Waller. You are the owner of a hotel, Waller. Your name's interesting, but we have to make your first name way weirder than your last name. Yeah. It's very, um, like Hallmark movie. Yeah, Holcomb's a last name. Yeah. Yeah. Very weird. I feel like there's a lot of people in the world who have two first names as their first and last name. You don't get a lot of two last names as the first and last names. That's true. That's much more unique. It's a power move. Anyway, that is the Klondike building, I'm just going to call it, in St. Helens, Oregon. So that's a quick little one and I only made it super quick so that way the two of you could really, uh, I know that you prepared some very extensive notes and I did not want to step on your toes here. Too many, honestly. Far too many. Saying how you feel out loud is terrifying, but that's what Hinge's new free audiobook, No Ordinary Love, is all about. It's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Denton-Hurst, Nicola Dynan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read the foreword. Give it a listen. Or Tiffany, who's running late as usual and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way. Tell us all the fun of the nostalgia that is St. Helens, Oregon. Well, I think it's only fair and only fitting that Em reveal the topic as this is your childhood haunt. This is the thing that was haunting you in childhood. One of several that you gave us options to talk about. And we were very excited to talk about this one. Thank you. I was very excited. You said, hmm, give me some nostalgic movies that you really liked. And I went, oh my God. Please, sit down. Options are endless. But one of the first ones I requested was Halloween Town. I was going to say, St. Helens or Halloween Town. That's where we're going today. That's where we're headed. Yeah, Halloween Town. You also mentioned Double Double Toil and Trouble. And any listeners of That's Pretty Dark will know that I am chomping, champing really at the bit to do a Mary-Kate and Ashley episode. So I was so stoked to see that. And then, Dual Star is so tight-lipped. They don't tell you anything. So I was like, if I can't do a Dual Star production with Em and Christine, Halloween Town's the next best thing. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Kaylin has shoehorned a Mary-Kate and Ashley reference into every single episode that we've ever done. It's a compulsion. It's a sickness. And I'm the one I'm not mad about it because I grew up with older sisters. I'm the youngest of, I have two older sisters. And I used to hang out with them and all their friends. And we used to watch Mary-Kate and Ashley movies at every sleepover we had. So I'm very familiar. Yes, a perfect sleepover. You had the education. You had the foundation. You putting a reference into every episode is actually why we put you on the network. So it was worth it. That was the test. That was where all along it was riding on that. I'm really glad that we connected that way. Before you start, I would like to have our audience also know that Christine, this was your first time watching Halloween Town, which is so exciting. Welcome to the Folds. It was a fucking delight. I was beside myself. I'm so happy. I'm just so happy. I just fucking loved it. That's all I have to say. It's like if a spirit Halloween became a cozy little town. And gave you like a hug. Yeah, and gave you a hug. It was so cheery. I just loved it. Well, the way I described it was it's like Hocus Pocus set in Stars Hollow. Oh, man. I think the best quote I've ever heard in my entire life. That's a powerhouse. That's 100% correct. All right, I'm signing off. You guys have fun. That was a great contribution, Christian. We appreciate it. Before we do dive into Halloween Town, though, I'll give kind of a brief idea of what our show is. Again, we're That's Pretty Dark podcast. It is more than just a rewatch podcast. The thing that Christian and I kind of found as we were just talking, you know, we've been at this for like five years now. We've been friends for a decade. And as we're talking about like what we grew up on and what we cared about, we kept realizing that we all felt like we watched these things on our VHS player like by ourselves or with our siblings, you know, but this was before any of us could connect and talk about what we were seeing. That's such a good point. And so much of the media that we were consuming at the time, we are millennials, but obviously even Gen X and Gen Z, like we were consuming this media, but it was very emotionally deep, we'll say. There was a lot of emotional depth to the things that we were seeing. And it's not like we talk about like the subliminal darkness or like what was darker or deeper. And we kept having these conversations and we realized we just needed a place to talk about that from our childhood. Because we're the last generation to fully experience like true disconnect from, you know, the social media era. Pre-internet childhood. Pre-internet, pre-digital age and everything. So, yeah, I mean. Such a good point. Hard to believe. To have a place to talk about it has been, you know, bountiful to say the least. That's amazing. Because it's more than just like what was made. It's the why and the how. Like the Don Bluth movies that made it that made you cry constantly. Like All Dogs Go to Heaven and The Rescuers. Traumatizing. Things like Courageous Cowardly Dog, you know, that are just Traumatizing. Yeah, it's classic and we grew up on it and like, what did it do to us and why? And nine times out of ten we come into it feeling like, whoa, this was so heavy. Why did we watch it as kids? And we come out going, we're really better off for having watched that. Like that taught us a lot. We grew from it. So it's like, you know, the cultural context. There's often folklore. Decades later, like now connecting over it, which is so cool. So unified. Like we didn't have at the time that connection. It's commiserating, honestly, oftentimes. Essentially. Commiserating, but it's kind of like we're taking the head off of the Scooby-Doo monsters of that stuff that we watched when we were alone and everything that was like hiding in our imagination and in our closet and better understanding how they actually impacted us. Well, I haven't shared this yet, but the reason when I watched Halloween Town, I remembered the reason I had never seen it is because I started it and I was too scared as a kid and I never finished it. I was too scared. I was so scared of everything that like it just wasn't going to happen. I was too, but I would watch everything like with my older sister. I think if I had older siblings, I would have. Yeah, I didn't have any. We would laugh at it during the day and then at night I would be too afraid to sleep and I'd have to go run to her room on the other side of the house and sleep in her room because I was too scared, you know? I was the older sister, but I was also so sensitive. So you had to be brave, but you had to be brave. - Same. - I wasn't. - Wow. - I was an only child, was telling me what was going on i just i just heard at school i needed to watch this thing and i went okay and let's do it so whatever hit you hit you our our show we tend to focus on children's media things that we grew up with but it's the things that scared us as children that still continue to haunt us as adults that have stuck with us over time and so we make it back into like pinocchio like older stuff too you know like things like willie wonka you know that kind of stuff we covered pinocchio the history of pinocchio back to oh man back in the 1800s writing these stories and everything i mean i did not know about the pinocchio episode i have to write that one go check it out we did it we did it for christmas there's so many layers of his it's not just the like what was made but like what were the creators thinking that made them make what they made to make us think how we think to bring us here today making the stuff that we make as a generation question have you covered the brave little toaster goes to mars well okay we have not done yesterday after i finished halloween town um i keep having this so this is so fucking insane i'm so sorry everybody i'm just gonna say it and then we can move on it's insane say it i got reiki two weeks ago and while i was receiving reiki for the first time in years i had this sudden like flashback and it was of all these balloons in outer space singing and i was like what the fuck it's like i was there yesterday and i kept popping back into my head throughout the week and then finally i was like oh that's seen from the brave little toaster goes to mars like i don't know where from the recesses of my subconscious that got pulled out but then after i finished halloween town that came up as like recommended viewing and i was like i wonder if it really was in this movie and i clicked it and like 10 minutes in it's these balloons in outer space singing and i'm like having this like weird existential crisis like why that was just really stuffed in there it must have like come out of my head it was so strange um anyway i watched that and had a lot of weird like memories of how much those two movies kind of like disturbed me also a lot of people remember the clown the clown scenes because it's a dream in that movie yes the clown uh yeah i hadn't because i didn't watch the first one bring it back no i'm like oh my god the clown i forgot about the clown oh no we've we've never done a sequel yet okay if we ever do that you're gonna have to come on the show you're gonna have to come i really will say i watched it and i was like okay aside from the fact that they call humans master uh all the appliances call human master which is like super not really didn't stand up didn't hold up over time but other than that like i was like it's pretty good watch yeah hey well i'm sorry we're here for halloween town anyway that's no we needed to tangent to that because that's very important again formative and that's really what we're here to talk about so part of what we do is we talk through like the production story so i've got some brief stuff on that and then we'll kind of dive into the plot of the movie and give all of your very gracious listeners a little taste of what it's like that's pretty dark and if at any point this doesn't sound fun to you just let me know and we'll truncate it even further and speak we'll hold the plug forward the vhs just yeah vaudeville hook just get me get me out of here and everything never do that to you i will say as someone who's obsessed with fun facts i don't think there's going to be a moment that i i regret uh at all today so that's amazing that helps truly that does um but i'll start off again with a little bit of the production story because the story of halloween town started not with like a grand studio vision nobody was like imagining this happening to make money necessarily on the studio side it was a kid who asked a question so in 1991 uh we have sherry singer who was the senior vice president of tv movies for walt disney television um was assigned to collaborate with steve white entertainment and this was a new company led by this television executive who had been at nbc before like striking out and creating his own company um they worked together as producers and they ended up falling in love and they got married in 1993 so it started on this like tv executive love story and around that time steve had told sherry so he had a daughter from a previous relationship who asked him where all the creatures from halloween go the rest of the year when it isn't halloween and um nightmare before christmas premiered in october of 1993 so that's probably what everyone is thinking but she this little girl did not have the benefit of knowing jack skellington yet but this question that she asked her dad turned into a pitch and then a script and uh then it was rejected several times by many different studios they shopped it around for years and years nbc passed on it disney channel passed on it um but then there was sort of a turn in the tides because disney channel made under wraps i don't know if y'all are familiar with under wraps the very first ever decom thank you thank you but once they did that they were like oh wait uh i turns out kids do love spooky stuff after all what were we thinking and so they circled back to this team who had this idea and for whatever reason it was not clear to me in my research but the original like screenplay had been written with more of like an adult demographic focus like it wasn't even written as a kid's movie it being a question from a kid which i thought was very strange um but once disney channel circled back they kind of had it retooled for a child audience um although the writer of the original screenplay left one little souvenir which was that he named the piper kids after his kids so morny and dylan and sophie are named after his kids oh and i even watching that was like those are great names yeah three siblings they sound like kids in a 90s movie it does yeah then disney channel brought in um director dwayne dunham uh he like in his early career was editing for projects like return of the jedi blue velvet twin peaks like in the 80s and that's something else we love to do on our show is like we see the creative voices that were behind like this like where did they come from and what were they and then now it's halloween town you know what i mean so they're bringing their vision in that like that 80s slant that like focus into halloween town so those again the layers are just all on top of each other but he had previously directed um homeward bound hates even bring it up painful homeward bound and we're gonna cover that one day oh god we're definitely gonna get there i yeah i shudder at the thought but i i recently uh made my my partner watch it for the very first time because she was like what are you talking about and i was like did you cry the whole time yeah how did you not see it oh i it's now she still uh cries anytime i just go peter i knew you i'm so fucked up he was he was just too old he was just too old oh god yeah we watched that over and over and over painful yeah yeah but that's exactly why we're here honestly but after halloween town uh here's more decom lore duane denham went on to do several more decoms the 13th year double teamed right on tiger cruise now you see it so these were all the same director he became like a decom director yeah slam dunk after slam dunk seriously yeah but he didn't direct luck of the irish which is my favorite interesting a great decom because i didn't grow up with disney channels so that's the only one that i saw i didn't either i didn't discover until i was like 12 or something it was horrible i have a fun fact about luck of the irish that kind of plays into halloween town yeah okay do tell share in halloween town high halloween town height wasn't that one of the movies yes the same high school and that movie is the same as luck of the irish whoa oh like that's the same as luck of the irish the filming location is it i was gonna say it must be probably in la i don't know all i know is i remember watching luck of the irish very recently and i was looking up fun facts and it said halloween and i was like the fun fact that i saw this saint patrick's day is that there's the scene where they're sitting at the max like the big mac computers and they're in a rainbow like the colors are in the rainbow and yeah ryan is at the like at the end of the rainbow i never noticed that amazing oh my god how fun very fun two for one decom fun facts but anyway they hooked duane in by telling him that he would be working with a 20 to 30 million dollar budget and if you have seen the film you can probably guess that that's not what happened um it was closer to a four million dollar budget which is very different yeah um but still obviously incredible for what they were able to do they shot the entire movie in about 24 days in 1998 in and around saint helens uh like you mentioned them uh they basically took over the whole main square of the town and turned it into a movie and they were able to do it in about 24 days so that's kind of why it feels like it does because they just they just took over the whole like stars hollow like you said like here is this whole town square of course that's on a lot but this was just a literal town functioning is existing and they're like you know what we're just going to commandeer this space for how did they find that space pretty cool great question and i am not certain there there were several locations around saint helens and it's let us know i don't i don't want to steal from you but i think i think i have an answer i just remember like the town recently experiencing like a volcano or something and it was uh because that the town was like pretty abandoned and so they were so eager for people to hey they were very excited for people to come in and like hopefully bring it wow yeah whoa and that really paid off because i was just gonna say i'm not positive that's amazing to hear i didn't know but like they they have filmed like that's a popular filming location now or at least somewhat because in addition to being the filming location i'm not positive that's amazing to hear i didn't know it was the filming location for halloween town uh it was also the filming location for a lot of twilight several different twilight filming locations are right around the corner from all of these halloween town filming locations in st helens and they still have like a spirit of halloween town festival there like in october i've never been um but they kimberly j brown attends and last year jackson rathbone was there like jasper cullen um so i have yet to go but i'm fair i follow kimberly j brown on tiktok and she always films herself there and um she apparently every year they do a pumpkin lighting ceremony in the main square where like they have a replica of the big pumpkin that they bring out and like the whole town lights it together it's very it's incredible you have to you have to yeah that's how you keep calabar from coming back i was gonna say do they think do you think they have a calabar every year that comes out like no they should definitely have a guy on a top hat i wonder because well because they every year invite kimberly j brown there and she usually hosts the ceremony so i wonder if she like has to fight someone off i don't know so um to your point we all need to go let's just go just join there honestly there's one way to find out huh we all know hello we can expense it for work right is that how that works oh yeah i'm in write that off of my taxes yes i'm in i'm down i need no further convincing there were several other like filming locations one of which um i know eva had mentioned in the research the columbia theater was kind of prominent in halloween town that's also got some haunted history to it um but this was all kind of done in the same in the whole movie blocks absolutely it becomes that for sure it is scary that's probably where christine's watching i think it was probably much earlier than that but i'd like to think it was at that scene yeah i want to go watch halloween town in that theater oh you know they probably do that i was about to say it would be it would be such a wasted opportunity if they agreed and they probably make so much money if they did in like every other seat let's go yeah storm the doors they have to stage like mummy fights instead of a trailer they should have the pre-show of like the swirly portal and a guy comes out you have to react the whole thing i love machines just in the whole whole atrium yeah such a good idea and speaking of kimberly j brown i i need to get your opinion on this m um how upset were you about her recasting yeah in the later halloween town you didn't even have to finish the sentence i okay i didn't know that and i find that extremely absurd because she was a fucking star like to like you look at her in that movie i'm like a fucking star power and i i went and followed her afterward and was like scrolling all the way through to like old halloween towns that she hosted i was like digging way into her i'm like what a delight i have the biggest crush on her too i also did back in the day i remember same i didn't understand what it was but i was like i'm weirdly attached to that person it's like why can't i stop looking at her can't i stop butterflies everywhere even though i'm so scared of that do i want to be a cromwell witch or do i want to be with marnie i want to marry a cromwell witch yeah yeah exactly but no i i remember when they recast and honestly that's the reason i didn't watch halloween three i was like i can't believe they recast yeah might as well boycott she didn't she didn't want to be recast either i think she just got too old or something and they like couldn't come up with it is literally on record that it she was recast because they wanted somebody younger in the role which do you think you're gonna pull the wool over like it had been like one of my idiots seriously some of us may have aged out but like we're not dumb we all have a crush on her we recognize her to which i say make the character older if it's a problem jump ahead if you want how fucking hard is it my argument my whole thing with this is that she was considered too old to play marnie she is literally marnie's age she was 13 when she played the character of marnie she is marnie how is that yeah how can you how do you i don't understand i don't know how you can rubik's cube your way out of saying that she's too old to play the character that she they know nothing these people know nothing so they don't know anything i don't know and then they keep like all of her siblings like the the everyone else was normally everybody else came back so her grown-ass brother who had like a deep voice and a beard by the end he was like yeah you're fine that's good that's okay no he he's a man so he can do no wrong wow wait am i performing too much is that no just right just exactly don't worry we'll mute you when you're when you're over doing it that's what i was thinking is like her mom was the same actor yes right so so she had to pretend to have a new a different daughter like she's the same daughter at the very least they should have written in a storyline that like oh you know she's become so powerful they had to disguise her like yeah something something that irks me like on sitcoms when they don't they don't even address it like i think uh fresh prince may have addressed it when um vivian was recast i think like early on and i think they made a joke like they said that was that was a master class yes fantastic because it was like more and then they redid it i don't know i i also watched the girl meets world the boy meets world spinoff yeah and they they extra called out the fact that they not only recast her as one person but two people and they literally had both women acting in the scene as one sister and they would go hey morgan and both of them would just wave it was so funny good for them like at least calling it out just be a little self-aware somebody has to do an episode on recast women like oh yeah that's interesting uh fuck kevin or whatever the show is called oh oh i love that show what's it called kevin kevin can kevin can fuck him kevin can fuck himself that's the whole premise right it's that is one of the best shows i think i've seen in recent years yeah um it's so good it's good it's good but it comes from the idea that like and you jot it down it's like dark but like sitcoms absurd recast yeah and it's like a sitcom but not oh my god it's so good okay we go in so many directions but one more direction we have to go in before we get into the plot of halloween town is that um the it's you know millennials must know this information mark mothersbaugh who is from devo and also the brain behind rugrats did the score for halloween town wait what score oh the score mark mothersbaugh get out oh cool yeah so if you hear like the rugrats theme now every time you hear it you can think of halloween town i love that fun fun and i bet you m hears that theme song quite a lot oh i i hear i hear both of them in my head right now i was talking to somebody the other day and i mean it's not just because you know we talk about it on the podcast all the time but i truly think so much of my worldview came from rugrats like the way that the adults interact with each other and the weird like tongue-in-cheek yeah and they're dr lipshits and they're just you know what i mean just dr lipshits man i learned how grown-ups behave from watching that show and it's like pretty accurate i often feel like stew pickles with the with the pudding at 4 a.m all my life it's so relatable and they're like younger than us but they seem so much older or something yeah i just refuse to that they would be like invited to a party at my house and we would all be the same age i refuse to believe it painful yeah and really uh halloween town is about that coming of age about feeling like you're ready for something because um basically the whole premise of this film is that a 13 year old girl is having a very relatable very aggressive early teen crisis because she knows that there's something different about her uh she feels stifled by her parent and she is absolutely convinced that the normal life that she has being like shoehorned into is a scam and she's correct she's fully correct about everything that she thinks and feels yes she goes about it in an interesting way though there is so much um nostalgia in these opening scenes there's a lot of nostalgia in these opening scenes there's a lot of nostalgia in these opening scenes there's that orange hue that everything had in the 90s and the wind was like whipping up the street the glow and there's a bunch of pop psychology happening in this one suburban house because this really precocious kid is trying to like outsmart her mom and that's also a trope that we run into on our show all the time it's just like i don't think they knew how to write another type of kid you know in the 90s like they're all way too smart it's we uh we talked about it in jumanji with kirsten dunn's character like they're they're just way too smart for their own good and i'd like to think that that was who we were the witty the witty like callbacks and stuff i'm all about that yeah yeah marnie's mom will not let her dress up for halloween or any of her siblings not because of razor blades and apples or any kind of satanic panic which is why most of my friends couldn't participate in halloween as a kid uh it has none of that overtone at all she's just basically saying that you can't dress up and she just refuses to tell marnie why she refuses to explain anything at all and we eventually learn this is due to her own generational trauma being being forced into like a witchy world that she didn't being forced into like a witchy world that she didn't choose it's very much like a troy bolton like no it's your dream dad it's such a troy bolton oh my god and she just can't bring herself to explain any of this to marnie like maybe not realizing or knowing if she's ready like just not knowing where that line is and marnie is really pushing it um and i feel like that happens in most parent child relationships where there's this like individuating relationship where there's this um and the parent like i think the problems in that come from when a parent takes that individuation as like a personal attack yes um and or if the children lose sight of the like love that's underneath the decisions and like why the parents doing what they're doing like they both just kind of lose sight of each other's perspective and it gets really hairy uh it does in this case for sure um and i love that it's just a decom that's just like yeah that because we were all this age going through it and watching somebody going through it on the screen in a pretty loud way was really empowering and just like getting hurt like venting and like letting steam on like I mean, not to get too into it, but like, yeah, that I didn't have space to necessarily be that way. And I feel like it was such like a, it's such a emboldening or like, um, validating thing to see on stage. Yeah. Or on, on screen. All of the above. And I was going to say that I was going to ask because I would shut down immediately if I had any, any opinions on what was happening. I was just like, stop, don't talk back. Just do what you're told. Like, yeah, don't talk back. You're being a smart ass, you know, like all that kind of stuff. It's like, I'm just, I'm just being a person. I just have questions. I'm confused. Yeah. And I wonder as, as I'm getting older and now I'm like, I can see like the parental side of things also. I'm like, I feel like it's a second chance to also experience the nostalgia, but from a different perspective and be like, you just wanted to protect your kid. But then on the flip side, the kid like doesn't feel heard. And like, they know that they're smart enough to be able to probably have these conversations or they think they are, but the parents still sees them as a little kid. And like, it's a parent hasn't reconciled it in themselves. So like, they don't know how to handle it. Yeah. Can't adjust. Yeah. Nobody's like able to like compensate or adjust for the other perspective. And so everybody's just like mad at each other. When in reality, like all parents, like all adults have been children. Children don't have the luxury of having been adults. So the parent has to be the one in that case to be like, you know what? I remember what that's like. And to try and step outside of themselves. But they're also doing the really hard job of like parenting and keeping their kids alive and like making this happen, you know? So. Big list job. Being a parent is hard. I say that all of this is a non-parent completely, fully recognizing that it is a huge, crazy undertaking. And like we say on our show all the time, I think that everybody could benefit from just like, like you said, like looking at it from a different perspective, looking back, remembering how it felt for you. That is something we talk about a lot is like, we're adults now. So we have to look at it from both perspectives. Just like you were saying, Em, it's like, now we're adults. We're analyzing things in a very different way than we did 30 years ago. Yeah. It's, it's, it's tough. There's a lot of, a lot of psychology there. With the added layer, and we're going to get to it in Halloween town as well, that our parents maybe didn't go that extra mile. They maybe didn't do that step. I don't know if they did, yeah. Well, that's certain they did not get to actively, actively guarantee. No, because their, their nostalgia stuff is like Andy Griffith, you know? Yeah. I mean, their stuff is like. Completely different values. Completely different. We know best and we just tell everybody what to do and it's like. Well, they were also, they were. Yeah. Yeah. They were raised to think that when they became parents that it was the, you know, I'm the boss, listen to me. But nowadays I feel like it's, it's a little more, you're expected to be open-minded and actively communicative with, with your kid. And so I don't even know if the movie would be, if the script would be written the same way today. Right. Interesting point. Probably not. And honestly, that's, this was like the edge of that. This is the early nineties. There is that like flip in parenting psychology where, where they're like, people are at least questioning it and then look at, you know, how they're doing it. I don't know how far we've come 30 years later. I just want to give you the space to process it. Michael said, Elena paused. I don't think I want to see anybody else. This is the love story of real hinge couple, Elena and Michael written and read by me, Raven Smith. Listen to the free audio book now. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins. Your app gives you a unique pin. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. Hey, what's your pin? 2538. That way, you know, you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from Uber. One more way. Uber is putting safety at every turn. So honestly, I wasn't even sure if I was going to mention this, but I feel like it's a valuable allegory because of the way that like Gwen is. So like tight lipped about how she feels and what she's thinking. She's not sharing with her kid. I feel like it illustrates the inefficacy of ignorance or like abstinence based education, if you will, like she's not going to forget it. She's not going to drop it. Yeah. You want to protect your kids so you don't tell them about magic or like sex or drugs or whatever thing. Totally. But all the commercials are so juicy and there's so much liquid. There's so much to understand in this life. There's so much to figure out. And yeah, if your kid is going to step into that reality eventually, which by the way, they all will, it isn't not better to like give them something foundational rather than ignoring it. Because I know in some circles or families or like regions of the country, we're from Alabama. It's presented as if like sex education, for example, will lead to an increase in sexual behavior. Right. And that kind of fear based thinking has been used over decades to like shape policy and curriculum and actual science and like. Research shows the exact opposite. If you educate kids, if you give them tools, if you give them information, they're going to use those tools and that information to make better decisions. And to me, it feels like common sense. I was going to say, what a shocking, what a shocking thing to learn. That's such a good point that it absolutely mirrors that of just like, well, I'm not going to tell you and then I'm going to be surprised when you're curious about it because I didn't inform you. When you act out or whatever. Yeah. And in Marnie's case, it's something inherent within her, you know? She's like, I feel pretty magical, mom. I don't know. Like, this just feels like it's me. And she's like, I wish you could know. I equate to hormones or any other thing that's happening that's out of control. I'm turning 13 soon. And all of a sudden these feelings in my body are telling me I have a crush on Marnie and I'm scared of the movie she's in, but I keep staring at her. That was my own problem. Anyway. But yeah, we've all been there. We've all been there. And ignorance is also always far more easily manipulated than knowledge. So if you know what you're doing, it's going to be less, you know, imagine if Marnie had fallen in with the wrong person. Imagine if she was the wrong crowd in Halloween Town. Yeah. Imagine if she was just a minion of Calibar. That's true. You'd hate to see it. Oh, all too easily. Far too easily. Just because she didn't know. Far too easy. I think this was a sticking point in our own episode because we've actually covered this before. We did a full episode. We did it for Halloween. We did like a big, yeah. But we tend to cover Halloween movies in October for like spooky season. We do like a big. Because we're doing spooky stuff all the time. But we're halfway to Halloween. We're halfway right now. So this is like the perfect time to do this. My daughter's birthday is October. It's October 1st. So every April Fool's Day, I'm like, we're halfway to spooky season. Yeah. But like growing up, I went to, so I grew up Baptist at church. Cool. But I went to a Church of Christ school. You were Baptist at church. You were something else. And when I wasn't at either one, I wasn't either one. But yeah, I kept, you know, because of all the media, every show, everything had like a sex education moment in school. And I kept waiting for that time. That's when you were like, when's my time? When am I going to tell that one? We never watched any videos. We never learned anything about anything. And it was very, it was very disappointing. We learned really interesting stuff about how Jesus was involved when you got pregnant. So I was like, oh, that's even worse. Yeah. It's sort of like. It's always a threesome when Jesus is involved. It's true. It's true. I didn't get a lack of information. I got like completely like all bad, wrong information. Very disinformation. You were very informed. Just in a very. Very wrong way. Very misinformed. Yeah. That kind of works though. Because we were always, we couldn't have school dances because they were sinful. Dancing with the opposite sex was sinful for some reason. They never talked about dancing with the same sex because that was just unspeakable. But they always said you have to leave room for the Holy Spirit. Of course. You know, so you're kind of, you know, dancing, the Holy Spirit's there when you're having sex. Jesus is there. So it's an orgy. It escalates. All the way around. I'm just throwing a fun fact in because I only learned it not too long ago. But so I recently started taking queer line dancing on the weekends. Oh, nice. And one of the, I didn't realize that there was like such a queer history to line dancing, but it was because dancing with the same sex was so sinful that a bunch of queer people started agreeing to go line dancing together. So they were technically, you wouldn't know if they were dancing together or by themselves. That is favorite fact of the episode. Yeah. And I don't even line dance in Hope. And line dancing is actually very gay. Wow. Very gay. I love that. I saw they're having a line dancing, like a free line dancing class, like in our town tomorrow. And I was literally considering it. You know what? My local bookstore, which is like super, like very progressive and they do a lot of queer events. They're having a queer line dancing event. So I guess maybe that's catching on that fact. That's so cool. I just put that together. I had no idea. And then someone said it. They said it in class. And you're like, well, as you all know, it's very gay. And I went, it's very gay in this room. What are you talking about? I know a lot of people who don't know that. Yeah. I can't wait to tell everyone. I know. I can't wait to share this. It's like, oh my God, are you two dancing together? I can't tell. Blow some minds. Because yeah, we did like the only kind of dancing. It was like, you know, the Cupid shuffle, the cha-cha slide. Like there were certain line dances and for the opposite, like because you're not close together, those were the only ones we were allowed to do. So I can't wait to tell everyone. I know. It's a fun fact. We have the gays to thank for that. Just contributing where I can. And speaking of the gays, I mean, we don't know for sure, but enter Grandma Aggie, who is a beautiful, wonderful, incredible icon of a Cromwell witch. She shows up unannounced. She's got a bag of candy. She's got some cursed artifacts. And she has no respect at all for Gwen's like no Halloween, no magic, no nothing. She has no time for that bullshit. No. And I respect it. A bag of candy that moves and also no respect. She gets to the house and within minutes, she has a bag of candy. them in Halloween costumes, which wasn't allowed. previously and she has them reading this bedtime story and she's like by the way witches are real just just so you know and what are the odds this one in the book looks exactly like you look at here uh fun fact kimberly j brown got to keep that prop i'm pretty sure fun that's sweet because it was modeled after her which is awesome fun um but but what did the new actress get when she was yeah sarah paxton stick to your stick to your mermaid and stick to your aquamarining they should they should have shown that book in the in the one where sarah paxton is it and just her face like paper like just just to show how ridiculous it is yeah how insane if there is ever a halloween halloween town reboot i really hope they have heard our commentary yes it needs to be like a decom spoof like you know there's like scary movie yeah like spook you know satire films they should do a decom satire movie a satire decom that'd be hysterical i think i can't wait over really well it'd be like like how scary movie is about all the scary movies out there you got a trade market christine they should do a decom scary i would accept disney's really a little bit scary i think in an in a real way i feel like they'll probably fucking destroy us that's true i guess we can't tm tm we'll see if i have the bandwidth for it there are ways they can hire us we'll hire a good lawyer they can hire us is really what we're asking disney we don't mean we're gonna do it without you we would never do it without you never do it without you we want you to do it with we're on your side yeah because halloween town is a magical place where lots of different sorts of people live together in peace and harmony and can't we do the same can't we do the same utopia um aggie says that all of these spooky creatures that call halloween town home are just like everyone else some are kind some are mean and it's just all in the way that they use their magic and she says sometimes the slimiest raunchiest ugliest little monsters turn out to be the nicest and that's just true i just love that it's a universal truth love it and that was my my glow up arc as well you're like that's how they described me back in the day that's how i feel but through this conversation and another with gwen aggie basically reveals that marnie is reaching this magical expiration date because on her 13th halloween um if she doesn't start her her training to be a grandma witch then she loses her powers forever so gwen was almost there no pressure at all it's a little like reverse puberty it's kind of like you have until 13 and then it stops oh yeah can you imagine if you just lost that's so sad and marnie was within hours of losing it gwen was within hours of having victoriously no wonder she showed up she super flew there she went i gotta figure we have to do something now we gotta fix this and uh she sure tried and of course marnie overhears all this and so she is like i'm going to another dimension tonight that's what's gonna happen because it's now or never so she and dylan and sophie they all sneak out and they follow aggie onto this flying bus there is no miss frizzle to be found i checked um but we're in halloween town now and this is where we're getting to see all of these creatures of halloween there's witches goblins skeletons vampires um the whole roster of spirit halloween costumes essentially but they've got jobs they've got an economy like things are popping in halloween town but only they're they're just go happy is like explaining to the kids like how halloween town came to be and basically said that the people that started a human halloween imitated the traditions of these creatures like mortal sea mortal do um and she says this was actually how the kids parents met because gwen crashed a mortal halloween party so this witch is like dying to live her mortal life and she crashes a mortal halloween party so can you imagine if you're the dad if you're her her husband you're meeting a witch at a halloween party cute good costume whatever and then you you like the next day you find out oh wait that's not a costume it wasn't a costume that's like waking up the next day going what did i do but it's like no but like really cool like in a really cool way really cool way in a magical way oh boy wow and basically they decided to uh humans and monsters didn't mix because humans were the real monsters if you can imagine uh they marginalized these monsters they made it hard for them to exist and so they kind of made it miserable in return and retaliating um and this retaliation on the monsters part was turning them evil which aggie is very clear and make sure to say which they were not evil that was not who they were so they decided to just distance themselves very healthy take some space and they created a whole new world which is halloween town and she said this distance allowed the monsters to like settle down and have homes and children's and jobs and an expert bowling league and i don't know every community has one so yeah all of them and i don't know if it's sad or sweet but i don't know if it's sad or sweet that when they are like safe and like not oppressed and not being hunted for sport all any of these magical metaphysical creatures actually wanted in the first place or aspired to have was a human life oh yeah like a house and a family and a bowling league oh my god that's all they wanted all these goblins and ghouls whoa but that normal life did not last because now people are acting strange there's this undercurrent of fear aggie says that the residents are changing they're becoming hostile and they're becoming more and more violent and they're becoming more and more hostile or disappearing um not unlike america right now although it's not usually the same neighbors that are becoming hostile as the ones who are disappearing right keep that allegory yes wow very different very profound what you just said oh um but she suspects that there is some kind of dark force behind this change and aggie needs help to combat it especially from gwen who has now fully rejected all of her magical identity so there's this generational guilt trip she tries to put it on gwen that she needs help and gwen says that there are plenty of other witches that could do this and aggie basically says like you know how it is today nobody wants to get involved and that made me take pause because i'm like hey hey everybody get involved by the way get involved whoa that just had like a ripple effect in my yeah yeah whoa nobody nobody wants to fight a fight that's not theirs but you have to recognize that like first they came for the exactly next they're first they came for the goblins it's all our then they came for the witches yeah at the end of the line like they're in there somewhere everybody that you care about is in there somewhere now but it will be your fight yeah which makes it your fight now is how i feel right it has to become your fight i mean you're exactly talking to the very right audience so we're with you that's the hope that's the hope and us us too yeah i wore my band the fascist shirt for this oh i love that it's so whimsical that was a birthday gift wasn't it did i get like a birthday or christmas you got oh i love that i love that little whimsical book on it i know he's so happy yeah he lives in a world without fascists imagine yeah but gwen gwen wanted to have a normal life right we talked about that earlier that was really where she was going she wanted to be free of whatever like danger or chaos that she associates with this magical world and she felt like she could protect her kids from that if she could just keep them guessing until after their 13th birthdays but she didn't tell them the truth and now the truth is showing up anyway like it does for all of us yeah i mean imagine finding out on your 14th birthday that you're a fascist you could have been a witch in college they're like i don't talk to my mom i really can't get into it but it's like it's really complicated it happened in high school she basically yeah yeah i can't go there i can't go there you wouldn't understand it's like a really like inside insular family thing family thing super niche yeah so marnie takes it upon herself because her mom is you know not going to engage she wants to help her grandmother and she's like i don't know i don't know i don't know you know her her people her kind um and that involves activating this ancient talisman they say it's merlin's talisman which is a nice touch i think um it's this ancient thing but it needs a very specific witch's brew which is made from scratch not the boxed witch's brew that i tried out in the microwave that had like the bubble bubble total trouble settings on the microwave my favorite joke in the whole movie of course so good and then they run around halloween town collecting all these ingredients they go to get werewolf like locks of hair from werewolf from a salon they get ghost sweat from asana which don't you can't think too hard about that like on our show we think too hard about a lot of things and sometimes we just have to let it be i think since childhood i've thought too hard about that one i was like how are we rough why does a ghost need to be at asana because we said ghost tears yeah ghost tears would be great ghosts are upset sad make a ghost cry yeah that's like good yeah the sweat thing was weird especially because he like lost all that weight and then like did you see that at the end he's like oh my pants are so i'm like i like that they gave everybody kind of a bit like i wrote in my notes like oh i love that every like the kind of oh sorry the off the wall characters kind of all got like their moment and i love that like yeah the barber like the hair salon werewolf had his like lines i was like i love all these speaking roles but then with that damn ghost in this i was like okay it's getting weirder by the second and it's like a bunch of children with this like presumably naked ghost that's what i was thinking i was like why are we just standing around with this guy they're like trying to like yeah yeah like touch him yes shockingly of everything uh based in halloween town that's the one thing i just can't logically justify everything else made sense to me yeah that one was a kind of weird offbeat one but anyway i agree and it had like a similar tone like to um i thought of casper but i thought of like the uncles like casper meets wendy casper where they're just all of the ghosts are kind of bum and that's the kind of world where a ghost would go to asana i guess right yes the vibe wouldn't feel so like off but this was also like a sword i don't know if it was like a sword i don't know if it was like a sword i don't know if it was there was so much that was honest about it that the punch of that was just not it didn't it was odd it felt like kind of like slapstick yeah it felt like it was a clip from back when the show was supposed to be darker and and it was supposed to have some like more grown-up more adult jokes yeah that's a good instead what that results in is a bunch of kids standing there waiting for a ghost to sweat i don't like it yeah i just don't like it just doesn't quite track all of these moments this movie just keeps threading in these little warnings there are these characters that like know too much like they know stuff they shouldn't know and people are like acting off and there's this sense that they're being watched and there's this guy luke he's a local bad boy um he's especially suspicious because he's going between like flirting with marnie and these weird vague threats um at one point he calls himself a big cheese which is not a move i would recommend upon approach like it didn't work wouldn't go there yeah um this is our second datum so i can i feel like i can now say that i'm a big cheese that should be impressive it's now a safe place to say that yeah yeah but we made it here you know we earned it you know we did not earned it it's the payoff you know kind of a big cheese cheese around here when marnie rejects him like any like burgeoning maladaptive misogyny should be rejected he immediately channels this attraction into anger it was like wow okay really written out plainly for us there yeah it was like this is gonna be important by the way um because he knows some very powerful creatures which i'm sure um a lot of a lot of folks are hearing stuff like that on the dating apps yeah you you haven't heard the last of me you know that kind of energy just like mafioso not a good look like you've crossed me now and it's like whoa what are you all i did was say no no yeah right but meanwhile gwen shows up in halloween town maybe a product of like a do you know where your kids are psa and she's like oh you know what i don't um i like what she went i know just where those little twerps went for immediately yeah immediately she recognized she's watching like like the world's worst infomercials and just like she was yeah she was eating a candy that like i do feel really like i relate to that because that is what i do when leona goes to bed and i'm like oh my god mom's never change i guess yeah eat candy on the little little tiny kitchen tv and she's just yeah i love that for her it's so good the glow that that's the 90s glow that's a glow you know what i mean like the kitchen tv i didn't even have one but like i know what that i know what that feels like i know it's magical and speaking of a glow uh we next find at uh calabar's propaganda theater um aggie is here gwen is here um and they end up having to confront this dark force which we learn is calabar later um and they lose which was also surprising i guess watching it as a kid because there's this moment of oh no um calabar freezes aggie and gwen and they're stuck there staring at the screen eyes forever fixed which that's another like allegorical thing that we we might get to i don't know but like clockwork orange theater propaganda that they're watching to brainwash them into something that they aren't these creatures from halloween town and now aggie and gwen it's very on the nose very on the nose very on the nose and it is another like foundational 90s kids film convention which is basically dismiss the adults like remove the safety net yeah they're no longer they're not here to help you anymore yeah they are gonna exit stage left and now you have to handle it like you have to you have to grow we talked to dj mikhail who was the creator of are you afraid of the dark on our show and he made a point to mention that where he was like oh my god i'm so scared of the dark like really the beginning the question in every episode was how do we get rid of the parents like where do we put them sure wow so that the kids can grow a good point yeah because because the kids have to realize that they are resourceful that they have they are the main character yeah what they need to you know be yeah and i guess that's like an ancient trope harry potter even not that that's ancient but i mean you know going back and back like harry potter all the young adult well also they're always on their own yeah i feel like at least in this movie it also leads into by the end not only do they feel more that they have autonomy and that they you know can be taken seriously but at the end of halloween town the parents finally respect the children's opinions and oh you i should not look at you as a little kid anymore i can rely on you and your your own information yeah yeah like i should respect you more like i yeah there's this yeah there's respect that gets earned like through these journeys like the hero's journey it's the hero's journey but like in a tiny little like familial way you know um it's also funny because in a way it's like like in a way it's like like in a way like in a way it's like like in a way it's like like aggie whenever they're struck with this magic aggie says the words we'll be all right it's just an evil spell that freezes us we're not dead by the way um we're not just like she like she could have looked at the camera like that was for me that was for kids like me yeah who's so scared and was like it's just pretend we're not really dead we just look at yeah yeah we're just playing dead on tv it's not real that's what i needed it was really it was heavy-handed in a way that most i don't feel like they were so much in that way but it was also it became funny to me looking back at it i think early on because i think it was like one of the like first like five d comms out there so i think they didn't have a real rule system yet on like how how dark we can go yeah yeah yeah and i mean that stayed a question mark i feel like for a long time yeah that's true of much the media that we cover it's like this was the first time they were doing a lot of this stuff yeah they were testing the water there wasn't yeah there was not a yardstick there was not a ruler they had to kind of make it up as they went along and then like hope they didn't go too far and then that's what we find often is that you kind of did you but it might have turned out okay yeah for like a lot of tv in that era there um there wasn't really like the tv rating system yet they actually invented that i think they invented it for power rangers is that we talked about it and we talked about that in our power rangers episode it was around that time um so there was nothing like really they were just trusting these like kids networks you know kid friendly programming they were just like well that's for kids so well that's why i feel like i got so traumatized because my parents like it says it's for kids here you go same yeah that is pretty much could be the tagline of our whole show yeah and i would be like what yeah yeah no my ultra religious aunt thank god gave me a dvd of the goonies when i guess it was a vhs technically way back when it would she had no idea what it was oh i love this has like this has kids on the cover here you go it's like when they misread the situation yeah you probably saw it on tv that's how labyrinth was for me at my grandparents house it was like this looks like fantasy kids look there's puppets in here that's for kids david bowie's crouch trauma again little did they know god god little did they know yeah do you know where your kids are do you know what they're watching on the disney channel because it's scary and speaking of some of that like i like also the implication we get dylan marnie and sophie they're all now off to to brew the witch's brew on their own right this is now like the turning point where it's up to them but there's this implication because sophie keeps showing up as like the most witchy like she's just able she has the instinct and she she knows what she's doing even more so than marnie because like marnie doesn't remember the spell to like turn on the talisman but marnie's like so in her head you know trying to do it and i feel like sophie's just like oh this old thing yeah i wonder if it's because sophie would one day be like oh i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't the most powerful or if they were like hinting at that at the time or if it was just because she was younger and more connected to that and there it is yeah that's that's the implication that i like is that she's more in touch with her powers because she's younger and i think that that's a trip that we see across a lot of things like she she hasn't she's she spent less time internalizing the world which is telling her no or telling her she can't or whatever like unwittingly having the unusual traits socialized out you know well there's a line where marnie even tells her grandma like oh i'm no one special and it's like well of course if you're thinking that way it's gonna take some shifting of your thinking but yeah so he's kind of like i also know like that's the one of the main reasons why they think children are able to uh have more experiences with the paranormal because they haven't been told that that's an imaginary friend yet and or they haven't started believing that yet yeah yeah they're still open to the possibility yeah right they yeah because yeah they just don't have the all of the other experience and all of the other things that are telling them that they're not normal they're not normal they're not normal and something else they can just know what they feel like what they feel what's their third eye hasn't been gouged out yet they're blind that could be a whole topic in and of itself because we i you all talk about just different paranormal stuff on your show i always get lost in the comment sections of like my kid was two years old and was telling me that they used to be an airline pilot or like oh i get so like sucked into that stuff like what do they know what do they remember they know so much more than we do so they activate the talisman and they head for the final confrontation um this is time for the big baddie and of course calabar is back this mayor that's kind of been skulking around the whole time he's too charming too smooth um he used to know gwen we get some glimpses into that he has this like middle distant gaze about her uh which clearly has become a problem he's been waiting years to give this monologue you could tell by the top hat he was ready to perform um you had so you had you had your whole life to like decide whether or not to bring the top literally and you went no no that's gonna really seal the top and you went i'm not even gonna question that decision yeah i'm just gonna do it it's like why would i this is who i am yep where where else would i be but here such a good point it's a top hat he actually went so hard the actor did during these scenes that he lost his voice and like completely fucked up the production schedule like they had to change the schedule because he yelled so much and he was like too good of a He's too good of a villain, and he's like. is the wind machine he's like you know being suspended and there's all this holy shit screaming for days on end um but yeah calabar was um out for blood because he believes that halloween town's creatures were unfairly marginalized by humans and they deserve to reclaim their world by force and eliminate the offending humans i agree that they shouldn't have been marginalized and i guess aggie's whole thing was like they kind of started going at each other rather than it being like a one you know kind of overpowering the other and the creatures that had the power to create a new world just said hey we'll just go do that um seems you know relatively simple but that's not how calabar remembers it and i'm afraid that something that's coloring his memory or understanding of the situation is that he is still hung up on gwen choosing a human over him yep so this big power trip is basically just the work of jealousy and ego and fragile masculinity it's like nothing changes yeah you know nothing nothing new under this we didn't even have to come up with a whimsical answer to that it was just oh literally he got his he got rejected by his crush or whatever holy like decades ago like oh my god energy i was literally gonna say that's some incel shit right there yeah oh and i just like quick side note because i'm the only one who's gonna bring this up so sorry but there is a weird um comparison here or similarity to um the brave little toaster goes to mars because the plot of that film is that all the appliances on mars feel rejected by humanity and want to destroy humanity and take over for themselves and then the brave little toaster is like no humans are good and i'm like well i wouldn't go that far you're a toaster shut the fuck up actually the toaster becomes the supreme leader it's a whole thing wow i understand they go after they're like we're gonna blow up the earth and i'm like no wonder i was scared as a kid i'm like what do you mean the refrigerator is gonna blow me up like wants to kill me i mean i'm thinking your whole kitchen like resents you it wants to kill you it's pretty wild the first brave little toaster gave you empathy for appliances you're like oh no the poor that's right vacuum oh no the air conditioner that's right so upset that he had a blanket panic attack and and died like yeah yeah you get all this empathy damaging that movie's just like no they actually want to hurt you so it's like a double-sided thing it's like oh wow you really feel for them well guess what they're gonna fuck you up and it's like oh my god wow so really it was a one-two punch with those films because they lulled us into a false sense of security that's right they said never mind talk about a life lesson man they just wanted to test our how quickly they can manipulate us to feel well i hope they're fucking happy because i really haven't recovered so now i'm still scared of the toaster to this day me too i'm still scared of a vacuum cleaner that he was so mean for no reason oh he was and the air conditioner yeah remember that radio that was like i'm all so super cool transatlantic radio i'm so sorry but i was convinced the radio was the the first gay man i ever experienced that was the sassiest unnecessarily sassy man i'd ever met in my life he was sassy i love it okay sorry oh sorry did i derail us by talking about the brave little toaster going to mars together about brave little toaster and that makes my soul happy i'm thrilled but marnie tries to use the talisman and she fails the first time she gets knocked down there's this oh no all is lost which we get a fake out like we often do and love it like this and then she has this realization that feels very inevitable because magic is about more than spells and training it's about belief believing in it aggie says earlier in the film which i really liked the way she described magic yes she said magic is knowing what you want and then letting yourself have it she said it's really very simple you just want to have to want something yeah and let yourself have it and i just thought that was so profound and then when they brought it back i was like oh beautiful which i feel like a lot of it now um i feel like in today's world a lot of people are like oh my god i don't want to have a magic is manifestation work yeah and i feel like that intention-based whether or not that's because of halloween town i feel like it's interesting that a lot of the kids who watch halloween town grew up and those who are now involved in magic are like oh it's a manifestation is the whether you had a crush on marnie wanted to be marnie now we're all doing witchcraft and that's the result that's where we landed i mean that's where it brought us and yeah i personally don't want to be anywhere else you did it marnie's like hey chocolate bar you better give the talisman back or you're in big trouble she's like mouth and like using her powers as a 13 year old for good you know what i mean this is the sass that we need um she rallies her family together even dylan who stops citing science textbooks because he's had this whole actually kind of vibe for the whole time um he realizes that he too is a warlock he has some internalized hatred towards his own kind i yeah i don't know what's going on there yeah yes he's definitely been um been socialized in a way that makes him i think he also has little brother syndrome because i feel like my little brother and i always bickered like that and whether he believed me or not he'd be like that's stupid to whatever i did and said i think it was just kind of our to be contrarian siblings yeah yeah he says at one point like marnie's running off and he like it's like a classic middle child thing because he's like it's always the troublemakers that get the attention or something like that yeah there's so much of that in this movie i had to admit to myself i saw myself in him a lot more than i thought because i am always the one who's like well it's probably just because the thing is the window was open oh well it's probably and so like him than i think i am like i want to be more like marnie but yeah i did see myself and then when he got some magic powers at the end i was like oh that's so fun that he got to be part of it too it's great because i mean in all of us there's a little bit of money there's a little bit of dylan like there's we've got that energy and i liked that they were calling it out like that was the yes they kept saying it out loud and when you first watch it like when i watched it back as a grown-up i was like this is all really loud you know they're saying it really plainly but then i'm like this was for kids at a time when people weren't really talking about it and i was like oh they're talking like that out loud yeah yeah you know we kind of take it for granted now you know yeah but that's it was it was a new a new voice that pop psychology night we talked about it in uh jumanji where they're marginalizing this character because she has a therapist and she's doing all this work and she's like neurotic and panicked and whatever that was really the 90s picture of psychology and this is like the kids are psychoanalyzing the grown-ups which softens it and yes i don't know yes and you're more likely to listen to it if it's another kid right and helping you make sense of the world yeah for sure um so in this moment they combine their power they're humming it's it's they really got the like meditation going on and all together uh they they their power and the talisman combine such that calabar is defeated the spell breaks and everything's good everybody's restored marnie apologizes for being like an emotional 13 year old with a point um so you know i mean apologize for maybe the way you said it not necessarily what you said yeah in that case quinn apologizes for hiding the truth and like underestimating marnie and aggie's like great we're a coven now everything is awesome like can do no wrong and there's also this moment with luke who admits that he made bad choices for shallow reasons because he had agreed to like be calabar's minion in exchange for improving his goblin looks so he's a goblin that turned into so he's an insecure male with so whatever you said earlier okay so far i've got to find a man who is assured of himself um he um he also was the voice of i should probably check that in my notes before i say it i don't know i'd have to look at my bigger group of notes but he was the voice of arnold and hey arnold for a while yeah this kid same kid and so when i found that out i was like so much i think he was the first arnold that he was the second or third i know lane torrent lane torrent was the first okay and then he was the second arnold after that wow but yeah so marnie has this moment with him where she's like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't she's like you know we get it like like he's done this it's it's relatable honestly like he just wanted he's 13 and he wanted to be like a man but like wants to look better wants to impress and um you know made made the wrong friends along the way he just wants to be the big cheese just wants to be the big cheese on his quest to be the big cheese and marnie gives him a kiss on the cheek uh that does not turn him back into a prince because that's the only trope that we aren't doing today right right i love that i do love that for us that would have been a good kind of a and then this crowd of like grateful cheering halloween town citizens sees them off in the bus and gwen asks aggie to babysit on thursday nights which is her way of like asking aggie to live with them and so they're going to combine the worlds and aggie like accepts this offer very quickly for somebody who is like uprooting her life over 200 years she's been like a fixture in this town for 200 years and she's just like nah i'm gonna go with the grandkids peace out i'll see you yeah different dimension yes although like me i guess that was um its own trope of like oh well one of the parents aka the grandparent in this case was away and not paying any attention to the family and then the other one had to stay and like become the full-time parent right whereas now we're now at the end like oh we've been reminded that family is the most important thing and family is important we got to stick together yeah there's like generational reconciliation like across three generations all at the same time um you can have that in halloween town that's what i'm saying yeah that's yeah that's my argument why would like marnie wouldn't want to live in halloween town are you kidding imagine finally discovering halloween town and that your grandma's like one of the most powerful people there and you just saved their asses and go to middle school let's go home yeah time for eighth grade tomorrow you're gonna be a homecoming queen every year for the rest of your yeah she would be the most popular kid in the town if she stayed in halloween town but no yeah and then we have she's gonna have to go back to the mortal world where nobody knows yeah nobody knows who she is at all wow But their bus soars off into the clouds, just like the car in Greece. that's the end of halloween town just like grace yeah but that's the thing that the movie lands on it's a very disney channel very like pointed way of doing it but not everything has to be either or like that's the takeaway you don't have to reject where you come from to build a new life you don't have to stay small to stay safe you don't have to be normal to belong you can sing and play basketball you can sing and play basketball you can do both nobody's gonna nobody's gonna punish you for doing both except you know all they get to school but that's another story well someone will but you just gotta get over it yeah this movie is just such like a cozy way of saying that identity isn't something that you can bury without consequence and if you know that there's something true about you that's bigger or stranger or more you than what you've been allowed to explore in the past you have to choose that at some point and it's gonna pay off that's a great great way to put it i love that takeaway i want to watch it again tonight i uh i one of my favorite things about i think i think kimberly j brown has talked about it on her tiktok or somewhere but she did have uh at some point i've heard it where out of all the props that she kept she said that she got to keep her like witch witchy dress and yeah that um debbie reynolds also kept her witchy dress and debbie reynolds used to answer the door for trick-or-treaters in her dress and so then when she died kimberly j brown started doing it in her dress oh my god oh my god that's amazing and also i think kimberly j brown has an etsy now like she like sells halloween town etsy stuff oh she also does cameos i found out you what cameo she does cameos too fun no i was just gonna say i we need to talk to kimberly j brown like i need her opinions on all of this i know i bet she has some very interesting insight yeah no for sure have you um you should also tonight maybe christine watched halloween town too see now now we're talking but she's in that one yeah third one calabar's revenge is the i thought that was the second one maybe it is i thought it was yeah i want to say there are four and i want to say halloween town high is the fourth is it still kimberly it's still kimberly in halloween town too okay i want to i'll watch that i'll watch that and then i'll watch the original brave little toaster well like fun fact for you though christine um the next one is uh is the other main character and it ends up being her future husband in real life that's right oh and i was just stalking them so they met on at halloween town i didn't know that oh my gosh there's so much beautiful lore here i'm so happy thank you guys for introducing me such a beautiful world cinematic universe for having us thank you for letting us thank you for letting us give a little taste of like what we do all the time um and thank you for your paranormal story that coincides with with halloween what a weird coinkydink that was that thank you for coming on but also like um it was very fun to talk about something that i love so much for my childhood but in an adult way like you really you brought some very some very deep wonderful points so like i would not sit here and think about myself so i love it thanks well done that's very kind i i love like the point about magic and i think that's even taking a step further because it's like figure out who you are and then let yourself be that person and i this is just such a great like i don't know just does a great job with it and to be able to look at it now like in 2026 through this lens all of the oppression everything that's happening and recognize that this is the message that we were getting as kids in the 90s and let's keep that in media and it still holds up yeah it's also horrifying that the warning signs were always there then yeah and no one listened it seems none of the important people listened at least all in this together you know just like troy yeah just i mean i hope that's the the moral that you learn at the end of each episode is that every movie is basically troy bolton discovering he can do it far more often than not at all that is just yourself yeah you can you can always tell your dad that it's his dream not yours but i do often but in song preferably um wow thank you so much both for coming on can you give people a little um a little teaser tag where they can find you and listen yeah absolutely you want me take it christian how do you feel yeah go ahead you got this you're doing great find us uh at that's pretty dark podcast we're on all the uh podcast platforms you can find us on uh instagram at that's pretty dark podcast we are part of parapods now which is an incredible place to be we love that um all of these ideas like all of this that we put into our show all of the research all the folklore all the history all the layers of everything we knew that parapods would be the right home for that because of everything that m and christine uh and all of the incredible shows it's all about community finding community like i am getting really especially extra cheesy now but like we are all in this together uh the thing that we say at that's pretty dark is you're never really alone and it's sort of a spooky tone but at the same time it's us finding out that we weren't alone in all these things that we were thinking and feeling as kids and that there is true like magic and power in that when we can all come together as grown-ups and hopefully do things better and differently so yeah find us come check us out be with us we would love to have you and again we both have just i mean for 10 years at this point you guys are now you're in 10 years like uh i remember driving to work listening to and that's why we drink listening to both of you like driving to my corporate job 10 years ago telling christian like oh you should listen to this episode they covered this thing like stop we were literally listening to you guys in 2017 oh my god that's crazy oh yeah and to be here now like i was panicking all day just in a sense of like this is almost derealization like where am i and what am i doing and i'm like oh my god i'm like what am i doing don't dissociate because i get to talk to em and christine today um so yeah we're thrilled we can't wait for more and yeah i've told other people this but i get to tell you guys now that i did uh listen to you on kaylin's recommendation but i was working on a movie and like biloxi and i just needed something new to like get me through the month i was about to have i believe i don't it wasn't during covid it was i don't know when it was i don't know but feel and i know i was listening pre-covid yeah but i finally did listen to you guys and i was like i want to be in the room doing what they're doing i want to hang out with them that's all we ever wanted like talk about manifesting energy and then somewhere along the way we were like let's start a podcast summoned reality that's so fucking cool see it's magic what did she say i mean it was literally if you first believe it believe it and all you have to do is want something and then let yourself have it here we go i'm gonna cry i'm gonna fucking cry it's real it's real thank you both so much thank you for what you've built and maintained thank you for what you do every day because you were bringing like joy to my you know corporate job and commute i know you're doing that for so many other people and yeah it's well it was an all in an effort to do it for ourselves and then we were so excited that anybody else wanted to be a part of it and that's exactly how we felt we're just like we just have to talk about this we'll see if anybody wants to listen and i can't believe that you all wanted to listen yes and more so now i want to go listen to that i'm gonna watch my little toaster and then listen to the episode to make sure i didn't miss any huge dark heavy heavy theme it's real heavy yeah i think it's just existential dread straight it is straight up i think it's gonna like open a lot of conversations with my therapist you know that's what we're here for this whole show i love that triggering left and right both for coming that's you said very sweet things but no you're you have a wonderful show i hope everyone goes and listens to it yes this was definitely like a very great taste into what you guys do yes and we look forward we're gonna have you all on our show as well yes we're not sure when it's all coming out i was gonna be speaking of talking to your therapist right it's gonna be about my trauma watching the ring when i was far too young as in my own opinion i was scared of halloween town and then i watched the ring so just to give you an idea of like how badly it went for me psychically psychologically um yeah and we're gonna talk about that but now i'm like oh my god i have so many fucking movies that i don't whatever anybody wants to talk about i'm ready to hop on the show and part two of the crossover we're gonna talk about that but now i'm like oh my god i have so many fucking movies that i don't whatever anybody wants to talk about i'm ready to hop on the show and part two of the crossover will be very fun to hear the two of you talk about some really horrific things i mean caitlin and i were very lucky that we got to talk about um a haunted house and then witches but it sounds like um yeah i'm sorry christine and i'm not you guys have the heavy hitting yeah we turned it into something more heavy hitting but oh boy nobody was definitely gonna be heavier and darker than we we usually go i think because it's like why did i say that i don't know but hey it does fit it's perfect because it's a haunted vhs tape yep yeah and nothing's more nostalgic than that good point it works for both of our shows very well it's nostalgic it's nostalgic i can't wait well thank you all for for coming on and we'll see you on the other half of our crossover we'll see you on that flip side we can't wait thanks again thank you thank you yeah you're never really alone you're never really alone should she say that about the kisses is that weird she doesn't care she presses send that way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn. 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