Much like the year 2024 itself, we’re taking the Year of the Weasel into 2025 with the mandate “more of the same, but worse”! So in that spirit, here’s Pauly Shore doing some decidedly shaky accent work in a limp Coen Brothers imitation so obscure, we didn’t even know it existed until last November. But wait, don’t leave yet, the score is by legendary session musician Jeff “Skunk” Baxter!
We can’t exactly say we’re surprised, but after finding the positives in both Jury Duty and Bio-Dome, we’d held out hope for Pauly, the exceptionally short-lived 1997 Fox sitcom that officially sank Pauly Shore’s career, to have at least some redeeming qualities. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t, but we still watched four of the five existing episodes so you don’t have to! We’ll be back next week to wash the taste of our mouths with some Thanksgiving-themed Totally Pauly.
We’ve finally reached the movie that gave us the idea for this series (we’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing)! Jury Duty may not be great cinema–it’s basically 12 Angry Men with a closed head injury–but we’ve both seen much worse (cough, In the Army Now). And besides, if you’re looking for great cinema, you’re in the wrong place, because next month we’re finally watching Bio-Dome!
Video version:
00:00:00 Trailer for Jury Duty (John Fortenberry, 1995)
00:24:18 Zach made the mistake of editing out some of the Barbarian Brothers references in this episode, as if we were going to stop talking about them
If you couldn’t already tell we’d passed the glory days of Pauly Shore‘s career, well, here’s your wakeup call: Not one, but two glorified cameos in movie tie-ins to a cartoon, one of them direct to video. Luckily for our hero, A Goofy Movie (1995) happens to be a generational touchstone, and An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000) is… surprisingly watchable? Anyway, we go to some dark places in this episode, so to avoid incongruity with the kid-friendly movies’ themes, we bleeped out all the cuss words with fun Goofy sounds in the tradition of our Cat in the Hat episode. Unless we accidentally left some in, in which case, sorry, kids!
Here’s the video version:
00:00:00 Trailer for A Goofy Movie (Kevin Lima, 1995)
00:03:22 Our first of four (!!) podcast episodes on the Shrek series (you’re on your own for the other three)
Well, we knew the honeymoon had to end eventually; after nearly four months of being arguably the world’s most consistently Pauly Shore-positive podcast, we’ve finally found a movie we just plain don’t like. In the Army Now is brazen military propaganda, weirdly racist, and perhaps worst of all, not very funny. But hey, at least the soundtrack has a pretty cool ZZ Top song!
A quick note on the audio quality: We once again had a laggy Internet connection, and somehow lost Callie’s local audio, so you’ll notice significantly more crosstalk than usual on this one (and that’s coming from two people with a pretty high tolerance for crosstalk). Your patience and understanding is appreciated!
Video version:
00:00:00 Trailer for In the Army Now (Daniel Petrie Jr., 1994)
00:06:15 We talked about the Jeffrey Katzenberg/Totally London kerfuffle in our Son in Law episode
Our year-long deep dive into the filmography of Pauly Shore continues with 1993’s Son in Law: a heartwarming culture clash romantic comedy about how you shouldn’t call members of the white rural working class inbreeders, even after they roofie you and leave you in a compromising position to destroy your sham engagement. Whoops, spoilers!
Video version is below:
00:00:00 Trailer for Son in Law (Steve Rash, 1993)
We’re now a month into our year-long immersion into the filmography of Pauly Shore, and we’re finally watching a Pauly Shore film! Actually, make that one and a half Pauly Shore films, because we’re pairing his motion picture debut, 1992’s Encino Man, with his (rightfully) lesser-known role in the same year’s Kid n Play vehicle, Class Act. If you’re worried about keeping the movies straight, though, don’t be: he’s pretty much the same character in both. We’ll pick up again in two weeks with Son in Law–see you then, buuu-ddies!
Here’s the video version (unfortunately you’ll have to look at our mugs more than in past episodes, since Encino Man is a Disney I.P. and they don’t play around with copyright):
00:00:00 Trailer for Encino Man (Les Mayfield, 1992)
When we last left our hero, it was 1989 and the world was teetering on the brink of full-blown Weaselmania; now, we’re picking up for a deep dive into the peak of Pauly Shore‘s pre-movie fame, including his MTV show Totally (Different) Pauly, his two (!) imperial-era standup comedy albums, and his 1992 victory-lap HBO special Pauly Does Dallas. Next time, we’ll finally talk about Encino Man! Sound good, buuu-ddies? Cool.
Video version (with much better audio syncing than last time) below:
00:00:00 Pauly’s Totally Buff Special
00:02:30 A representative example of the Totally Different Pauly opening
The podcast event literally no one asked for has finally arrived! From February 2024 until whenever we’ve had enough, we’re taking you on a journey through what we genuinely believe is the underrated filmography of the Weasel himself, Pauly Shore. Join us in this introductory episode as we explain why we’re doing this to ourselves (and to you) and take a quick jog through the random roles that resulted in one of the greatest characters in 20th century American literature.
But first, you’ll notice there’s something a little different this time: Given the importance of the visual medium to our current topic of discussion, we’re experimenting with video! As you can see from the first episode, the experiment hasn’t been an unqualified success; there was some pretty terrible lag on Zach’s end that has been preserved at the beginning for explanatory/comedic effect. We will troubleshoot this moving forward, but in the meantime, enjoy watching our audio swim in and out of sync while the video footage struggles to catch up with our lips! Welcome to the future!
00:01:23 Our infamous episodes on the KISS memoirs (Gene, Ace, Peter, Paul)
This month’s Headbangers Book Club Official Selection is a special one, as it’s the first book we’ve read that’s not a total sausage party! Pamela Des Barres may not have been a rock star in her own right (unless you count her brief stint in the Zappa-sponsored girl group the GTO’s), but her memoir I’m with the Band is a vital counterpoint to the male-dominated hijinks of ’60s and ’70s rock; plus there’s a couple of real questionable relationships with preteen boys, so it fits right in with our previous selection in even more ways than expected! We’ll be back in a few weeks with Part 2. Thanks for listening!
