Frankenstein General Hospital (1988)

Episode 323, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Craig: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig.

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: Well, I feel like I need to start with a disclaimer. A couple frankly, . First of all, we are not morbidly obsessed with death here on Two Guys and a Chainsaw . We do enjoy our tribute episodes, but really it. It’s sad that we seem to be losing lots of, uh, special people.

Um, and this week we are doing a tribute episode for Leslie Jordan. Leslie Jordan is a actor, was an actor, um, known principally for comedy. Leslie Jordan is not known for his work in horror. This is really a stretch for us , but. When I, uh, heard that Leslie Jordan had passed, first of all, I was shocked. Um, it, it really hit me like, like, uh, a ton of bricks, um, because he appeared to be in good health.

He was relatively young at just 67 years old and it really seemed that he was at the zenith of his career. Um, having worked in Hollywood for many years and having gained some recognition, especially for his work on Will and Grace, uh, where he played Beverly Leslie, and was just absolutely hilarious. His career really hit a peak, uh, during the pandemic when he started posting videos to Instagram, just of, you know, kind of his musings and telling funny stories about his life and his childhood.

At the age of 67, he became a huge Instagram star . And I remember during the pandemic it was a rough time for all of us. Uh, of course we were all. You know, Hold up in our homes and isolated from friends and family. And Leslie Jordan really just was a breath of fresh air. He would open his posts with, Hey, you fellow hunker, downers, uh, , and, and he would just, You know, sometimes, sometimes he would talk about the pains of, of being alone and cooped up in his house.

He was sheltered in place with his mother , but he would also just tell funny stories from his childhood and, and honestly he was just kind of a ray of sunshine. Leslie Jordan was. Fairly recently, you know what he hoped his legacy would be, and he said that he wanted to be remembered like Dolly Parton would be remembered.

Just somebody who was joyful. Nobody had anything negative to say about. When I heard that he had passed away, he was, uh, in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was on his way to film scenes for the successful sitcom that he was currently working on. Call Me Cat with My Bibi. And, uh, it’s believed that he had some sort of medical emergency and, uh, that caused him to crash his car into a building in Los.

And he was pronounced dead on the scene. When I heard that, and this, this doesn’t happen very often, you know, often I hear that somebody, uh, in the public eye has passed away and I’m sad and I’m, it has an impact on me. But I cried when I heard that Leslie Jordan had passed because he’s kind of an inspiration to me being a gay man and a public figure.

and being so universally loved. Uh, he really is just an inspiration. So , of course, I immediately went to imdb. I knew that he had been in horror movies. Um, And, and we had a few to choose from. He was in, uh, I think the final Friday, one of the Friday the 13th movies. He played a, like a short order cook in that movie, and he was in one of the Demonic Yoys movies.

Yeah. And, uh, I’ve, I’ve seen, when I was a kid, I saw the original demonic toys, and that would actually be a fun movie to talk about, but I hadn’t seen the one that he was in, but I suspected that he was just a bit player in it. And he was also just a bit player in the Friday, the 13th movie. But I saw that there was a movie that he had done called Frankenstein General Hospital,

And he, he was among the top. I had never heard of this movie, but I suspected that it was probably available on YouTube and it is mm-hmm. . And so I watched the first 20 minutes of it just to kind of see, you know, if this is something that we should do. And even just from the first 20 minutes, it’s absolutely.

Awful. Yeah. like 

Todd: it is just one of 

Craig: the worst movies that we will have ever done on this podcast. Yeah. But 

Todd: this goes down in 

Craig: history. It does, but it features Leslie Jordan heavily, and if there’s anything positive to be said of this movie, it’s just that he’s in it and he’s young and. And, uh, silly, uh, any features prominently in this terrible, 

Todd: terrible movie.

Craig: And so I tortured Todd and, and made him watch it. And I guess we’re gonna talk 

Todd: about it , I’m sure. I’m sure it was torture for you too. I mean, , but the good thing about the movie is that it did have a lot of Leslie Jordan in it. I mean, so many, so often we do these tribute episodes and you know this, this well known actor has a bit part in it and there’s not a lot for us to talk about as far.

They’re acting or anything in that movie as it goes. But, uh, in this movie, at least, he is playing the Igor to the Frankenstein. Right. And he has a lot of, not just a prominent role, but he has a lot to do. Uhhuh, like, he’s on screen a lot, he’s doing a lot of comedy, a lot of physical stuff. He’s, he’s in it throughout and so at least there’s that.

I’m, you know, , it is a terrible movie. It. Horrible. Almost unwatchably, bad . And it as I was , and you know it, oh, you know it. Five minutes in. I was thinking about, uh, that other movie, uh, Transylvania 6-5000. And we also thought that movie was bad. It wasn’t this bad. No, but they’re on the same spectrum. Uh, they’re both trying to be horror comedies.

They’re both going for a Mel Brooks. Actually, I think this one’s almost going for a Zucker Abrams style like Airplane or, um, Naked Gun style of comedy, and it has a few comedians in it who have done things like that or bigger things, but man, this movie just falls completely flat. There’s almost no bit of it.

That is funny. No, I don’t know if I laughed once. Oh no, I didn’t. For sure. And I’ll just say, it reminded me that comedy’s hard. , it’s, that’s true. Comedy is hard to pull off. Uh, actors know this. Sometimes people who aren’t actors don’t realize it. They think it should be easy to be goofy, but comedy is 10 times harder than drama.

Mm-hmm. , this is one of those movies that demonstrates that. Probably somebody looked at the script and maybe you and I looking at the script could go, yeah, this is gonna be a goofy airplane style comedy, and in the right hands with the right actors. They could have pulled it off maybe, but this is just, um, a stinking pile of unwatchable, garbage

It 

Craig: is, it’s horrible. Listeners don’t bother. 

Todd: Don’t watch it. Don’t 

Craig: watch it at all. It’s really not worth it. I mean, honestly, it, it might be worth it to watch the first scene. The first scene is kind of funny and Leslie Jordan features prominently. Um, but when I say kind of funny, that’s being far too generous.

It, it reminded me a lot of student bodies. Wasn’t that the, we, we did that movie, right? It’s going for stupid, stupid humor. Mm-hmm. , um, low brow slapstick. Psych gags, psych gags, sex jokes, humor, 

Todd: the obvious silliness you know 

Craig: of, but it just, it, it just falls completely flat. I mean, that, that’s the problem with it.

I mean, the, the internet calls it the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. Now, I don’t know if that’s fair because I haven’t seen them all, and, and the only one that we’ve done was what? Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell or 

Todd: Yeah. Something. Yeah. The. 

Craig: Hammer one, and, and it was pretty bad, but , yeah, it looks like a masterpiece compared to this, but it was 

Todd: watchable.

Craig: It’s terrible. Um, I mean, it, it tries to do like a slapstick kind of sex comedy to the story of Frankenstein. But in modern day, um, in a modern day hospital, it, it starts out with like, I guess one of the. Good ideas that they ran with was kind of setting it up like an old school monster movie. So you get like title cards that like describe the scene that you’re going into.

Like 

Todd: it’s a silent movie in a way. Yeah. 

Craig: Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm. , uh, and so, uh, The first one tells us that, uh, we are in the basement of General Hospital. It’s Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, and then his voiceover. As I near completion of my creation, I grow weary. The only thing that keeps me going is my belief in the genius of my great, great grandfather.

Note regarding the Valter I inherited. When I turned it on to test it, a strange phenomenon occurred all the. Is drained from my laboratory. No one suspects my real identity. Therefore, I roam the halls freely under the assumed name of Dr. Robert Frankenheimer. So anytime there in his lab, it’s in black and white.

Uh, the, the lab scenes are the only somewhat salvageable scenes. Yeah. Because you’re right, they, they are reminiscent of the old movies. They’re 

Todd: reminiscent of young Frankenstein too, I think, in a way. Yeah. Which had to be an inspiration for this film, young Frankenstein. Absolutely. Absolutely. Even in the cast.

Yeah. Right. But 

Craig: young Frankenstein is really funny. Mm-hmm. , I just don’t know how this movie missed the mark so badly. Like, I just kept thinking, do they not know they’re making a terrible movie? And, and I almost felt like they did even in, okay. So in this opening scene, he’s already got the monster partially built.

He just needs a few more things and I. His assistant played by Leslie Jordan, um, brings him two legs. I got a Master. Boston Marathon specials . They’re wonderful. Any problem? Oh, no problems. Master. Good boy. You should have seen those two. Who were they ever squished? I’m talking pancakes. I never heard anything so freaky.

Jogging down the street and hit by a bus, then smashed into a wall. The only thing in one piece was their legs. They must have just just gone under the bumper and been just grounded up like hamburger meat. It was the most, I get the idea Iggy. It, it ends up that he’s accidentally brought two left legs and Dr.

Frankenstein is like, oh, I should have known, I couldn’t trust a short order cook to be my assistant. And Leslie Jordan’s like, no master. I, I’m so sorry. Here, just soft off my leg. You just go ahead and just salt right off and, and it’s, and it’s Leslie Jordan. As Leslie Jordan. Yeah, he is this diminutive little man with a funny little voice and this deep southern accent, and just everything about him is charming.

And, and funny. Yeah. He 

Todd: has that thick Georgian accent. It just sounds cute and fun no matter who it’s coming from. . Yes. Right. You know, and, and so he, he’s got that going for him. And like you said, he, he just comes across as a harmless, sincere. Nice heart on his sleeve kind of person. And I was watching, I have to admit, I am not that familiar with him and his work.

I don’t watch much television. I didn’t see Will and Grace. He, he looked familiar because he’s popped up in little bits and pieces here and there. So I at least recognized him, but, I didn’t have the name recognition that you did when I heard that he had died, and when I went to, I think you might have sent me a YouTube video that was a little bit of a retrospective remembering his career that just happened to have been filmed like two weeks before his death.

Yeah, so it was more of a, Hey, Leslie, Jordan, your career is really taking off again. Let’s go back and talk about it and what got you here kind of piece. And I was really surprised, uh, to see all of the cool stuff he’s done. His attitude, his demeanor. I thought, man, I, at 67, I wanna have something like this happen to me, you know?

And so very tragic, but watching him in this and then seeing clips from his other movies and clips from his TV shows in that series, I thought, yeah, he just kind of plays himself in a way, Uhhuh, you know, that’s not to diminish him at all. As far as his acting ability goes, you still have to be able to act in front of a camera no matter what character you’re playing.

Jeff Goldblum plays himself in pretty much everything he’s in, right? Yeah. And he’s very well respected. This guy, the same like he just, he was for me in this movie, and especially in this opening scene, he was the only thing worth watching. And I’m not just saying that because we’re doing this tribute episode about him, he literally seems to be the only person on this entire set that has some command of the scene.

And what he’s doing and it’s not like it, you know, he’s this huge presence. I just mean like, you don’t look at it and go, oh God, grown, grown, grown. I mean, you do, because the situation is stupid. He’s not given smart things to do, but Right. He, he’s got a definite character. That character is believable.

He’s acting out that character very well. And in another movie, this would’ve been funny. He, he clearly has a physicality that works. His timing is quite good. I, I love it when he is holding these legs and at one point when the doctor is talking, he just kinda like, kind of drops one a little bit and puts his arm on it.

I mean, he’s just so casually kind of doing these little bits with these legs while the doctor is talking. And I, I thought, whoa, that, that’s kind of funny, right? He, he’s cool. He’s cool, he’s fun to watch even in this horrible. 

Craig: He really is. You know, and there are other people in this movie who have done other things, but they’re not fun to watch

No, they’re, well, not in this, but you know. Yeah, that’s what I mean. The guy that plays Frankenstein, mark Blankfield, he’s a working actor. He cont he, he’s prolific, he continues to work. He can do 

Todd: this kind of stuff. I don’t know why he’s so bad in this movie, right? 

Craig: I don’t either. Because you really get the sense that he’s not a bad actor.

No, it’s just a terrible movie. The guy that plays the monster Irwin Keys. Really recognizable. I re, I recognized him from House of a Thousand Corpses. He’s this big hulking kind of scary looking guy. Oh yeah. He’s not, you know, like if it were a high school play, You would, you would clap at the end and think, oh, bless their hearts.

But like 

Todd: they really tried . Yeah. 

Craig: Um, Lou could, could tell, uh, plays Dr. Saperstein. He was in Young Frankenstein, and, and you’ll recognize him too. He’s been in a lot of stuff. Um, so it’s not that everybody. Is talentless. That’s, that’s not the case. It’s, it’s just a terrible 

Todd: movie, you know, in that way it’s really like Franken, uh, Sylvania, six, 5,000, you know, a-list stars in this movie that is just bad.

Yeah. And this is 

Craig: worse, but, you know, yeah. I didn’t hate that movie. It was stupid, but I didn’t hate it. I, I don’t know, I just don’t even care enough about this movie to hate it. Like, I, I kind of hated it when I was watching it cause I was like, oh my God, isn’t it over yet? It really, I just, I just wanna talk about Leslie Jordan.

You talked about his timing. Um, Megan Malawi, who herself is a comedic genius, her partnership with Leslie Jordan on Will and Grace, in my very humble opinion, was the best part of, of that show. Uh, I, I loved that show. I thought it was a great show. Will and Grace. Least interesting characters to me. It, it was the, the side characters who were the funniest and, um, Leslie Jordan was a semi-regular, but, but he was a guest star.

He would pop up. A couple of times each season and , Alan and I would just wait for it. Like, honestly, like that’s what we were watching the show for was for, to wait for him to show up and, uh, he would, he would always. You know, of course this is the writing, but he would always, uh, announce himself. Like he would just pop up out of nowhere in a scene and announce himself with whale, whale, whale.

If it isn’t Karen Walker, . Like every time, and every time we would hear that, like we. So happy and excited, and they had this hilarious re like adversarial relationship. But it was, it was just comic gold because, uh, they were both rich VAD characters and they were adversaries, but at the same time, they were friends and they, they played that relationship just beautifully.

He so deserved the Emmy that he won for, for his role on that show. And, you know, again, Thinking about him. This is a, you know, he was born, um, in the south. He was, he was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was a southern boy and he just had so many things going against him. He’s tiny. I have no idea how tall he is, but I would guess no taller than five two.

And he’s gay. Uh, effeminate and to, to be all of those things in the south, in the 1950s and 1960s. And I, I just can’t imagine what that would’ve been like. And, and he was somebody who knew he was gay from a very, very early age. And, and he came out to his mother at age 12, she said to him, I think that this will make you the subject of ridicule, and I can’t bear that.

So you should live your life quietly and to see how he didn’t, how he didn’t, how he went forward. Comfortable in his own skin, being himself and, and bravely frankly, being his, his genuine self and just, he just had such a positive attitude about. Everything. And, and, um, he moved to Los Angeles when he was a young man.

Uh, just in the past couple years. He posted on Instagram some photographs of himself when he was in his twenties and he was hot

He had kinda this hairy Robin Williams hotness going on. . He was, he was ripped. He was like rocking his six pack. Uh, He was a horseback rider. He, uh, he wanted to be a jockey, but he was too tall,

But he, he, he worked with horses that’s hilarious and trained. He trained and rode horses, uh, and was a big part of the gay scene, uh, in Los Angeles in the seventies and, and eighties. Somehow managed to, uh, avoid, you know, being. Directly affected by the AIDS crisis, but he, uh, volunteered, you know, during the AIDS crisis, he, uh, delivered meals to patients who were sick and suffering from aids.

Uh, sadly the, the, the sad part about his life, but there’s a happy ending to it. Uh, he fell into. drugs and alcohol and, and became an addict and really struggled with that for a large part of his life, but came through it, uh, and was sober for I think probably the last 20 or more years, uh, of his life. And he talked about that.

And he was a religious guy. He was raised Southern Baptist and coming from. A gay Catholic, I can tell you that it’s a challenge to grow up in the church, I should imagine. 

Todd: But 

Craig: regardless of how, you know, his church felt about his lifestyle, uh, he. Maintained, uh, a relationship with God and, and, and just last year released a gospel album,

Todd: I mean, the guy is just like singing and dancing and sing. Yeah. 

Craig: Acting. And, and that’s, that’s why I wanted to do this because honestly, he’s an inspiration. I wish that I could live a life like that and, and bring that kind of, To people. And he was friends with Dolly Parton. Um, she also released a statement when he passed away, and she said that, well, she, she called him little brother and she said that they had a special bond, a special connection, but she said that she also suspects that everybody who knew him, People, uh, who only knew him because of his celebrity who, who didn’t know him personally, but she said that she suspected that everybody felt that they had a special relationship with him.

And, and I agree. I did. I didn’t know the man. And, and I, I, I don’t even think that I realized how much I admired him until he passed. Hmm. But that’s, that’s why we watched this stupid ass movie,

Todd: Do we even need to talk about the movie? I mean, it’s, I don’t know. 

Craig: Like, it’s basically the story of Frankenstein. But throwing in like horny nurses and a bdsm. Psychologist with big boobs, . Yeah. 

Todd: And that sounds exciting, but it’s definitely not . 

Craig: Not at all. Well, I mean, if, if you’re 12 years old and and unaware of the internet, 

Todd: boobies.

Ooh. I was trying, while I was watching it, I was trying to figure out why I was rated R I’m like, there’s no way this movie is going to throw anything of me that’s R-rated. And I think the only thing it is, is they’re like, Three sets of boobs, , and not in a sexy, you know, oh, you know, they’re like making out kind of way.

It’s like, oops, my shirt came off kind of thing. , or, oh, I’m running out of the bathroom, topless, or 

Craig: whatever. Just like there’s, there’s the lipo section, Dr. Dr. Hoover, who just like carries around a giant industrial vacuum cleaner. He’s got a morbidly obese woman on the table, but he turns on the vacuum like before he inserts it, and it sucks off one doctor’s to pay and it sucks the nurse’s clothes off.

And she’s like, ah, . And then she runs into the next room where there are other doctors, and one of the other doctors says, I wish you’d come to one of my surgeries dressed like that. It’s so bad. . Yeah, it’s ridiculously bad. Mm. The only good parts are when little teeny Leslie Jordan is like sneaking around the hospital, like on tippy-toe.

Uh, and there are lots of running gags and I love a running gag, but when they’re not funny, the first time , they’re 

Todd: even worse. , I know. 

Craig: But one of the running gags is like the antagonist of the movie. He’s like the boss, Dr. Ruger. He, he runs the hospital. He keeps just catching Leslie Jordan out of the. Of his eye and he keeps asking people, who is that tiny man?

Yeah. I don’t know. And Leslie Jordan, like they’re harvesting organs. At one point he has to go collect the head of a. Kid from some other hospital, and he’s supposed to get the head of this genius kid, but he, he looks in the coffin and says, you’re too ugly to be a genius. . So he goes to a different coffin, ends up being the wrong kid, and there’s a joke about how the kid who’s head he ends up taking, uh, he died because he went down on a girl underwater and she was.

Like turned on that she held him down, clenched his head between her knees and he drowned. Yeah, I wish, I wish there was anything good that. We could talk about, but there’s not, in fact like it just, there were times even in the scenes, the scenes with Leslie Jordan and Mark Blankfield who played Dr.

Frankenstein. Their scenes were the ones that I enjoyed the best, but even then, I felt like there was something off, like sometimes the timing would be off and I couldn’t tell if it was because they didn’t really know their lines or if it, if they were making it up as they went along. sometimes like, uh, Frankenstein would just go off on this maniacal laughter.

It just seemed like they filmed the first take and just ran with it cuz it seemed like Leslie Jordan wasn’t sure of the timing yet. Like do I, do, I just let him laugh maniacally for. 30 seconds. Uh, is he done? Oh, okay. My next 

Todd: line, the camera work is really flat. A lot of these scenes are filmed in one long take.

The camera sits there and. It barely moves while we see three characters in almost full body on the screen. And so, you know, I think something that really works with the Mel Brooks movies and uh, the airplane type movies, the Zucker Abra movies, is that they’re cinematic. They have a style to them, even in just the cinematography.

And so when these actors are working, like we get to see their faces, when a guy goes off on a monologue, the camera might slowly dolly into their face or might cut to a closeup on their face. And so whatever they’re doing that, um, you know, make some funny or interesting is right there. But to see somebody going off on a monolog, While he’s standing in the middle of the screen with two other people, by his side, where there are all these other distractions and just people just standing there not knowing what to do.

you know? Yeah. But, but just look at him. It’s just, it just feels weird. I think that’s, One of the many things, you know, I’m, I’m trying to get lessons from this movie. Like, I, I really, when the movie was done, I thought, I suppose that could have been funny because it’s so stupid uhhuh that it was bad. But I’ve seen so many movies that are so stupid.

Intentionally, and they make it funny, like the airplane movies are dumb as hell. The jokes are obvious and silly and dumb, but they’re funny because it just delivered better, I guess, and filmed better. I don’t know how to pinpoint it. I’m looking for, you know, the formula. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard. Is that so hard to pinpoint?

You either got it or 

Craig: you don’t. Well, Dolly Parton has famously said many times, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap in in, in describing her own look. I feel like that applies to these types of movies. It takes smart people. to make a really good stupid movie. Yeah. Like Mel Brooks is a genius in terms of film writing and directing and, and comedy.

His movies are stupid. You laugh at the jokes because they’re so stupid, but they’re also witty. The same thing can be said of, uh, naked Gun, airplane, all these other movies. You’ve mentioned? Yeah, they’re dumb. The humor is dumb. It’s low brow, it’s juvenile. But, but like you said before, comedy is hard. Um, you know, the, the little bit of acting that I have done, It specifically in college.

Um, I did both dramas, uh, and comedies, and I felt so much more comfortable and confident in drama. I, I, I’m so insecure in comedy because it is hard to be funny. It’s really, really hard. And I, you know, I think I had varying levels of success, but , it, it’s tough. And I think you’re right. I think that this movie had some potential and I think that there were good people in it.

Somewhere along the way, something went wrong and it just, it, it’s just flat, like you said. I didn’t, I didn’t laugh once I, I, I smiled. I’m enamored with Leslie Jordan, but that’s, that’s it. That that was the only appeal. The sex comedy fell flat. I, I guess I thought it was kind of funny when the horny nurse bangs, Dr.

Franken, signed in the elevator and other people boarded the elevator and like didn’t even notice. Like that was kind of funny. I guess. , 

Todd: I . I think something else now that I’m thinking about it that really works too is that with, there’s probably no surprise that those movies, like we’re talking about Mel Brooks and whatnot, they tend to be ensemble like he has kind of an ensemble, he has actors and actresses that he works with on a regular basis, and they often end up in this, you know, different characters in different movies.

They all have that, you know, they have that ability. And I think part of their ability is they’re not just saying funny lines, but they still have a strong sense of character. Like Dom DeLuise. You know, Uhhuh can walk on the screen and have a bit part in a, in any movie, Mel Brooks, whatever, and it might last for three minutes, but when he leaves, you have a strong sense of that character like, He almost seems like a full fleshed out, you know, silly man or whatever he is playing in that movie.

It’s strong, it’s confident, and this movie doesn’t really have that, even with the people who are on screen for most of it. They’re just flat characters too. You would think in a comedy that’s just about telling jokes supposedly that almost anybody could step into that role and just do the jokes and do them well.

But I think, for example, I’m thinking about that doctor. Um, the psychologist who keeps popping in and out, who’s supposed to be angry and kind of a villain in a way. Yeah. He’s kind of getting in the way. He must have, he has some poll over the hospital. I thought he was more of like an executive or something of 

Craig: the hospital or something.

Yeah. Jonathan Farwells, the actor’s name. I think he did some work on Star Trek. 

Todd: Yeah. And he, he has a good look for the. He has kind of striking features, um, you know, kind of like evil, older, middle aged man kind of thing. And he has this great setup where he has this secretary who at first, you know, is wearing the glasses and seems kind of mousey or whatever, but.

Every subsequent scene where they come on board and she’s there, or he’s, you know, scheming to get Dr. Frankenstein kicked out looking for the little man and dictating things to his secretary, blah, blah, blah. She is getting more and more sexy and it sort of becomes revealed very quickly that they have this, uh, Sexual relationship that’s comically casual.

You know, like suddenly she’s typing, but now she’s in skimpy lingerie with garter belts and things and just stands up and walks across the room and casually picks up a whip. And then you see he’s hanging upside down with his boxers on. That kind of thing. Shows up a lot, you know, in these movies. Um, it’s actually kind of a trope by now, right?

It’s kind of, kind of been there, done that. It could be funny in this. , but he’s just not an interesting character. 

Craig: Right. And that’s the thing, like as you’re talking about it, like I feel like if somebody explained this movie to me, I would think, oh, that sounds funny, . Yeah, 

Todd: but it’s not

It’s true, but 

Craig: it’s not funny. Oh gosh. See? I honestly don’t know what else to say about it. Ben Stein is in it. . That’s random. . Oh gosh. What year was this made? 1988. That was surely after Ferris Bueller. Ben Stein slumming it in this movie, . 

Todd: Oh. Um, Bobby Picket. Is in, has a very short cameo in here. Bobby Bos picket.

Oh yeah. And I did a double take at the credits on that because I instantly recognized him as the monster Mash guy. He’s the one who wrote that must have just bankrolled his whole life. That that’s so long. He didn’t do a lot after that. But he was like a, kind of like a comedian, kind of a, I think a radio guy.

And uh, he wrote that song of Monster Mash. He was a musician and. Some people he would play with every now and then and threw that band together and did that Boris Karloff impression basically for that song. And of course that song’s played every year on the radio and movies at parties, things like that.

And he, 

Craig: I know I thought surely we would get a monster mash. You know, like, yeah, come on. You got the guy? Like, yeah, it’s a Frankenstein movie. Do the mo. I was waiting for it, like the movie was over and I’m like, oh. And, and when the movie’s over the, the main guy Frankenstein, like there’s a voiceover wait.

Uh, don’t leave yet. It’s not over. And I was like, oh, thank God. Finally the monster mash. No, it’s just some stupid, like, oh, I’ll explain what happened six years later. And it’s still just dumb . Oh 

Todd: yeah. Not interested . Wow. Thank you. About as fun as watching the slides of your aunt’s vacation, you know Uhhuh?

Yeah. I didn’t even know he was in it until after, cuz I didn’t really look up anything about the movie. And then when I saw he was in it, I was like, wait a second, did I miss something? And I went back to rewind to see if they even just made some joke or reference. Like, anybody’s gonna know what this guy looks like.

First of all, of course nobody really does. He does, but at. Did they put some kind of in joke in there? No, there’s nothing. It’s just this guy, they popped him in the movie very briefly as a dude standing in an elevator. That’s it. Missed opportunity there too. Yeah. Um, , 

Craig: uh, well look, I, uh, I’m sorry for making you watch this

Todd: Yeah. It made you watch stuff. I gotta get a little bit of. Of bad every now and then . 

Craig: Yeah. But to be fair, this is one of the worst movies that we’ve watched now. We have watched, uh, we’ve. We’ve talked about infamously, our, our lost episode, street Trash. That movie was terrible because it was terrible. Just because it was in such poor taste.

Like Yeah, I, I, I hated that movie. I, I don’t even like, 

Todd: actively hated it. Yes, both of us actively despised 

Craig: that movie. I don’t even like to think about it or talk about it. I don’t want people to watch it. It’s, it’s garbage. But this movie is maybe, W maybe the worst movie 

Todd: we’ve ever . Worst than don’t. Don’t go into the woods.

At least go, don’t go into the woods was fun in its badness. Um, right, 

Craig: because you could point and laugh at it, like, , you guys are terrible. This like, I don’t know, maybe, maybe they took it too seriously. Online, you’ll read that it’s the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. And then there are people who say, oh, that’s not fair.

And uh, some people are like, oh, it’s so bad that you know it, it deserves cult status. But the movies that are so bad, they’re good, are are entertaining at least. Yeah. Like at least you have fun watching them. And this movie just isn’t even fun. No, what I’ll say is if, like me, you are a fan of Leslie Jordan, and, and you know, it, it, it really is fun to see him young.

He just has these soft eyes and the most endearing smile. I’m sitting here in front of my computer looking at his profile picture on imdb and he just has this huge smile on his face and that’s really just. , what he embodied just, he just glowed with, with positivity and, and energy comparable, almost really like Richard Simmons.

Like they, they both just got that kind of really positive energy and he’s just an absolute delight. So if you, uh, are a fan of his, I would encourage you to go to YouTube and watch the first. Seven minutes or so. The first, the first scene with him, it feels very much like a Saturday night Live. Uh, skit. It, it, it’s not polished and, and it falls a little bit flat, but he is just cute as can be.

Um, and it, it, it’s cool to see him in his younger days. Yeah. I’m just, I, I’m just so charmed by him, you know, during the pandemic. I’d be scrolling through Facebook and he would pop up and, and he was very fit when he was young, but he was nearing 70, uh, when he passed away. And so in his videos, he’s got this pot belly and he’s.

Bouncing around and spinning around with batons and just , just having, just living his best 

Todd: life. It’s funny that he found himself in horror movies, honestly, because he doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy, like, we need this guy in our horror movie. You know? Yeah. Uh, he, but he, I’m, I’m just looking at the list.

Jason goes to hell the final Friday. He was in some horror comedies like this one or Undead or Alive A Zombie. I’ve never heard of that, but Demonic Toys, personal Demons, fear Incorporated. And he was a recurring character in several seasons. At least three seasons of American 

Craig: Horror Story. Yes. That’s just what I was just gonna say.

Uh, he did pop up an American Horror Story and, and he was really fun in those I. I really liked his character in this, uh, coven. One of the seasons was coven and he was a real, he was obviously the season centered around witches, and he was on like, uh, the high witch council. But, but again, I mean, he was just playing himself, but it, it was.

He was great and I love American Horror Story. I love Ryan Murphy. Ryan Murphy, uh, I think he’s probably about our age. And so all of the actors and actresses that he loves, he draws into the, his shows. Um, we’ve talked about it before, um, you know, like Betty White, just these people. Who are Angela Lansbury?

People who are just universally loved and deservedly so because they’re, they’re so unproblematic, , you know, there’s, there’s really nobody less problematic. You know, Leslie Jordan was so open about, His life and about his struggles with, uh, addiction. You know, that, that that can be very dark. But to see somebody be so honest about it and to have come out of it on the other side and, and lived such a fruitful life and, and made such an impression, he had over 6 million Instagram follow.

That’s crazy. I think he went from something like 800,000 or something before the pandemic to over 6 million and he said it was just surreal. Like he would open up his Instagram each morning and he would have a million new followers. like it blows me away. Close to a thousand people listen to us every week, , but, but 8 million people, I mean, you have really made an impact on the world.

And, and not just because of that, because I know that there are a lot of people with lots of followers on Instagram who are not as inspirational as Leslie Jordan, but I, I was honestly, uh, moved to tears because not only had. Really reached a peak in his career, but I just felt like he still had so much more in him.

I, I, I thought that we were gonna have him for so much longer, and I thought that we were gonna be getting more of him, and, and I was so happy about that, but, He went quickly, you and I, you and I have talked about, you know, if you’re gonna go, go like that. If, if I’m gonna go take me in my sleep, take me quickly.

Mm-hmm. , uh, he didn’t suffer. He went out on a high note, so I just. I, I thought it only fitting that we say some nice things about him. So thank you for indulging me. 

Todd: Yes, thank you. And thank you, Craig for the, the idea and for bringing that up and giving us this opportunity to talk about somebody, uh, who is well loved and admired, who’s taken from us too soon.

But, uh, Did leave this Turkey in his wake

Craig: Oh, I, I, I feel like maybe we should feel guilty about exposing this . Um, like I, uh, it’s on his IMDB profile, but I looked at his Wikipedia page and it’s not even listed as one of his credits on his . 

Todd: I wouldn’t blame it either. You know what though? I’ll tell you what, when I post this, I’m gonna post this on our page, and I’m also going to post a link to the video on YouTube and for what it’s worth, as long as that stays up.

Anyway, I’m going to have it show starting at what I think is the funniest scene of his in this movie, which is him making breakfast and coffee in the morning in the laboratory, and you get to see why. Iggy, which is his Igor name in this movie, has his weird way of walking . Yeah. That’s 

Craig: great. Yeah. We won’t spoil it.

We’ll let you watch it. It’s good. Go check it out. All right, well, thank you for listening to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. Uh, if you liked this episode, we’d love to hear from you. If you’ve seen this movie, I’m sorry, probably, but if you want to talk about it, leave us a message on any one of our profiles online.

You can find the podcast basically anywhere that you can find podcasts. Uh, just Google two guys in a chainsaw podcast and you’ll find us all over the place. We do have a Patreon page. Uh, if you’re a big fan and want to. A little bit more support and we’ll offer you some bonus content in exchange. But of course, we’ll continue posting all of our regular weekly episodes for free for all of you.

Uh, until next time, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.