[Rap] Yo, you're in for a treat, so hang onto your seat. Get ready for adventure and remarkable feats. You'll meet Koopas, the Troopas, the Princess, and the others. Hangin' with the plumbers, you'll be hooked on the brothers. Join us for a conversation about the highest-grossing film based on a video game, The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
[Rap] Yo, you're in for a treat, so hang onto your seat. Get ready for adventure and remarkable feats. You'll meet Koopas, the Troopas, the Princess, and the others. Hangin' with the plumbers, you'll be hooked on the brothers. Join us for a conversation about the highest-grossing film based on a video game, The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
In this episode, we trade thoughts and comments about the 2023 blockbuster, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Ultimately, we all came away with a similar feeling about the movie. It was fun to watch, but it comes up short in a few ways. There's certainly no shortage of terrific easter eggs and clever ways of incorporating nostalgic sound effects and sounds. But some of the main story beats felt like they lacked depth. However, one thing's for sure—we all loved how they portrayed Princess Peach as a badass. You can expect great voice-over performances from the entire cast, and they don't hold back on the number of "Mamma Mias." It's worth watching, but it left all three of us wanting a version of the movie crafted for the generation of Super Mario Bros. players who grew up with the franchise in the 80s and 90s. Collectively, we give The Super Mario Bros. Movie an 80 out of 100. "Let's-a go!"
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Taylor: Yeah, but even that song I've got beef with, honestly, like I, I know Jack Black for so long of like, you know, he's been such a fundamental part of my entertainment and like youth and everything, that I hear that song, and I'm like, that dude wrote that in 10 minutes.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah but most of his songs sound like that.
Taylor: Like, dude, wrote that and perform...
No, come the fuck on. [Joseph and Willie laughing] Wonder Boy! Bro, I will fight you right now if you tell me fucking Wonder Boy, isn't one of the most beautiful and fucking crafted songs in existence.
Joseph: Not to like hate on his writing and their, their style as a group. But there's that component that Jack Black always brings to the table which is like that peach peach peach peach peach peach peach, like when he did that, that's like-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -Jack Black just kind of like zoning out and being himself-
Taylor: It is.
Joseph: -and he does that type of thing in his music often. I thought it was smart for casting Jack in that role. I thought it was smart to do, do scenes like that.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. You're not going to get that dude and not, and not play on his musical talents, that would be a waste.
Willie: It would be weird to have him in that role and not somehow, I guess.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: But I think that goes to Taylor's point that like-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -does that really make sense for Bowser? Like, do you need that? Why?
Taylor: Right!? [laughs]
Willie: Is it just because it's a kid's movie and you need to have some sort of memorable music in it? Probably, I guess.
Joseph: I think that's part of it.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:39
Joseph: What's up, welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends, Willie and Taylor, and we're just three regular guys wondering if traveling back in time would be better than traveling forward in time but I digress. So, what's up? How y'all doing?
Taylor: I like the time we're in right now.
Joseph: Pfft.
Taylor: Um, we're living in a time that I can stroke on my-
Joseph: Trash answer.
Taylor: -my p-organ, my p-organ button. I can touch that as many times as I want to in the privacy of my own home.
Joseph: You could do that in past, present, or future.
Taylor: Oh, could you?
Joseph: Sure.
Taylor: Oh, well, then yeah, that changes everything. I don't know. Let's go to the future, baby. I don't want to revisit the mistakes of the past. No, thank you.
Joseph: You think future Taylor, you'd go back...
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Would you, would you Marty McFly it and go and get like a whole bunch of investing knowledge and bring it back? And oh, man, that just made me think.
Taylor: Eh.
Joseph: Maybe you just go back in time and just buy a bunch of Bitcoin, man.
Taylor: Oh yeah, you could. Yeah. You can go back to 2009 or whenever it first kind of took off and just really go hard on it. And then you could also go back to that time and invent a cryogenic freezing and then freeze yourself-
Joseph: Sure.
Taylor: -until the new future, so it's like you don't even have to wait at all. You just come to, it's like, Oh, there's my fortune.
Joseph: [snorting] Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Now I can enjoy it and just hope there's no side effects.
Joseph: Go to the past and freeze yourself until the future?
Taylor: Yeah, dude, that's what I'm saying. You got to mix it up. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, baby. [Joseph and Willie laughing] Your molecules made it the first time. They may not make it the second time. [Willie laughs]
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah, seriously.
Taylor: Like, take a different river back, you know?
Joseph: Uh, Willie, what do you think? Going back or going forward?
Willie: Um, uh, I don't think I have a preference.
Taylor: [laughing] Willie's just fucking going in the wind.
Joseph: I'll stay right here. Yeah, I'll just stay right here. [Taylor laughs]
Willie: Yeah, no, I don't.
Taylor: How dare you?
Willie: I mean, it's just because going back is obviously introducing a lot of complications.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah, like.
Willie: Right? That's the whole problem is like-
Joseph: Timeline shenanigans.
Willie: -Exactly. There's so many different versions of timeline, like, manipulation that we see in TV and video games. It's like, I don't know which one of those is actually true. Doesn't seem like any of them would actually work.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mandela effect, bro.
Willie: But I definitely don't want to go back and like, fuck some shit up-
Taylor: Yeah, I...
Willie: -trying to do something like, Oh, I'm just going to get myself some Bitcoin and then-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -get back to the future-
Joseph: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Willie: -and some shit's all wrong, you know?
Taylor: Yeah, Ashton Kutcher taught us all about that.
Joseph: Yeah, it wouldn't be worth doing something so trivial, but you could go back and like prevent genocide, you know, or something that would really impact the world. And of course we're then at a different timeline, but…
Taylor: Yeah, but once you started that, I feel like you would never end. You would, your work would never end, where you could go into the future and just kind of say, okay, here's where we are right now. We've improved here. We've gone down here. Let's try to improve some things. If you go back then, you're just going to be fighting assholes all day, every day.
Willie: Yeah. You're also assuming a lot that you're going to go back and end a genocide, but like how? You're one person,
Taylor: [chuckling] Right, that too.
Willie: Do you have some superpowers that we don't have right now? And also...
Joseph: No, but you have knowledge from the future, which would make a big difference.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Ok but also... It would, but also let's say you were trying to go back and stop some genocide. Is your time travel going to change your location as well? Are you going to end up like 60 years in the past, sitting exactly where you are right now?
So you still have to get yourself to wherever this place is that you're trying to get to stop this horrible event from happening.
Joseph: Mm hmm. Yeah, it depends.
Willie: You still have to travel to the other side of the world?
Joseph: Well, it depends, man. We haven't really defined all the parameters of the travel and the machine, but if you can choose.
Taylor: Dude, stopping a genocide would change everything. There would be such an influx of people that existed suddenly, that didn't exist. That'd be a that'd be a tough call to make.
Joseph: Well, I mean, they're not gonna live forever.
Willie: And hopefuly, it would...
Taylor: [laughs] Thank...Wow, Joey.
Joseph: You know, they still die in a reasonable amount of time. [Willie laughs]
Taylor: Maybe, maybe all the effort that went into the genocide actually was put then into, uh, life, uh, extension side. Whatever you call that. Whatever the opposite is.
Joseph: Dude, could you imagine going into the future and people realize you were from the past and they just fucking hate you?
Taylor: Oh, yeah. They're like, look up his timeline.
Joseph: You were around during the time where y'all just doing a bunch of dumb meme shit.
Taylor: Oh man.
Joseph: I read about you in history books and like, I despise you.
Willie: And have to be like. No, I'm not one of those people, I promise.
Joseph: Yeah, you're defending the past human race.
Taylor: Yeah, ooh, uhh. Yeah, I'll stay right here.
Willie: Yeah, just to be clear, yeah, if you did have the opportunity to go back and end a genocide, yeah, you should probably do that, but obviously, there are all kinds of effects that would change things.
Hopefully things would be better, but also, shit might be hard again for a long time-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -because that doesn't change the people's attitudes. Towards who, whatever the genocide happened, right? Like...
Joseph: No, no, no, no. And that was just a...
Willie: There's still all shitty people who exist who are still gonna like hate those people, even though they didn't.
Joseph: Well, you also, you would, those people would never know that a genocide happened, right? Like if it was prevented, you don't even know what happened in the world if it never happened.
Taylor: That's the brutal part.
Joseph: So you can't even react to it not happening.
Taylor: Yeah, you can't take any credit for it. You can't be like, I saved a million people.
00:06:42
Joseph: Nope. Alright. Well, today, we're revisiting the Mushroom Kingdom, and Brooklyn, to talk about The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Not Super Mario Bros., which is a movie from 1993 starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Nah nah nah nah, we're talking about the newer movies starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Pratt, Jack Black, and Charlie Day.
However, Super Mario Bros. from 1993 is definitely going to happen at some point. Anyway, I assume spoilers are gonna happen today, so consider yourself warned before continuing this episode, and let's jump into it. Overall, I thought the movie was pretty fun. I definitely enjoyed all the Easter eggs and just all the references they made, at least in the first half of the movie.
Um, but Willie, what are your overall feelings about it?
Willie: I did, just so you know, I did watch the other Mario Brothers movie.
Joseph: Oh, seriously?
Willie: When we first started talking about covering this movie, possibly, yeah, a couple months ago now.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I watched it then. I definitely still enjoy it.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: It's definitely weird. And it definitely is only like slightly inspired by, by the video games, right? [Joseph chuckles]
In characters only mostly.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But I think it still holds up. And I think just in general, I'll say I would probably watch that again before I'd watch this new movie again,
Joseph: Ah.
Willie: For sure.
Taylor: Dang.
Willie: But before we get into this, I think since we're covering a movie this time, I think it's... would be responsible of us to point out that this is being recorded during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023. And I know we have a very small audience like there who knows if, you know, this will ever reach 100 people, this particular episode or anything. But, um, our podcast covers more reviews of video games and sometimes movies like this, which doesn't violate any sort of the rules of the WGA or SAG-AFTRA strike.
But this isn't promotion of any work. It's just sort of us talking about this movie, giving it a review. And I think more important than that, we're just, I'm saying that because we support all those people who are on strike right now. Their demands aren't unreasonable. They're, you know, just asking for better wages, residual payments from their work and, you know, certain protections from their job or for their job as they move forward. Especially in a word... in a world where we use AI more and more, just making sure that there are protections in their jobs is kind of important.
We completely support those people and hope that they get the things they're hoping for in their negotiations. And even as we're recording this, it seems like there's a tentative agreement coming from the WGA side of things. So hopefully that goes through and hopefully that has an effect on SAG-AFTRA.
And, particularly, you might hear us talk more about this in the future because there might be a strike that is about video games too, in general, for all the SAG-AFTRA workers who are doing video game stuff, interactive media.
Joseph: Let's burn this thing down.
Willie: Yeah, everyone should support unions, they're good for ever... for the working class. Everyone should be able to make a living wage.
Taylor: Yep. And that's coupled with everybody protecting their rights against AI, against the different things and the ways that it can not help you, but actually, uh, use your likeness and steal directly from your being. That's not cool.
Willie: So yeah, fully support what's going on with all of that.
And I'm saying all that, even knowing that my review today is going to be like, just sort of meh of the whole thing. Like, I think this movie is fun, definitely in some parts, but I also think it's boring in other parts. But even knowing that I still think writers should be paid fairly and actors should get their due for their work. Right? Like...
Joseph: Oh yeah. I mean, they're not.
Willie: That doesn't somehow-
Joseph: [laughing] Yeah.
Willie: -take away from their ability to like, do their job.
Joseph: Mm, yeah.
Willie: Like I wish, I just wish they got paid their worth and got residuals on the things that are now streaming forever, you know?
Joseph: For millions of people.
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: Even if I'm critical of what we talk about today, still in support of all of that.
00:10:31
Willie: So, yeah, I mean, I think in general about this movie. I think it's, it's fun in parts, and I'm, I'm stealing this from Barbara. I think she said like, it's adorable sometimes, but also it's really boring sometimes. And I think that that, that sort of goes for me too. I feel like some, some of it's boring, but there are lots of hidden Easter eggs that are fun and it's fun to point those out.
So we'll probably do some of that today. But overall I think it's kind of just like, it's whatever. And I think I would rather watch the other Mario Bros. movie again. [chuckles] Instead of watch this again, it was... Honestly for doing something like this, I would watch the movie twice. Once to take some brief notes down and once to do a deep dive.
And I did do the deep dive sort of, but it was really hard to make myself want to watch it again. Like I almost didn't watch it a second time. And I don't think you have to, to do this. I just, that's just my personality.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And it was really hard to convince myself to do.
Joseph: Yeah, I didn't watch it a second time, but I think that's the exact thing I would do.
I would have watched it the first time that I did already. And then I would watch it one more time with not, not thinking about the podcast at all, but I think that's the, that's the two times I would watch it probably.
Taylor: Yeah.. Uh, watching it from a, someone who's in a, like a animation and art creative, uh, point of view, I definitely loved it from that angle.
The story, definitely agree that like the story beats and stuff like that. All they did was tick all the boxes of what's Nintendo. Okay, here's the, here's the Kongs, here's the blocks, here's the power ups, here's, you know, all the things you remember. And they did that great. Like, I, I feel like, just like you said, the, the first half was really mind blowing.
Just between how crisp and beautiful the art in that is, like, just overall. Everything that they had going on and then the way that they were able to capture the magic of the blocks, the sounds, the environments, the like, every single aspect of Mario. I thought they did a great job on all that.
Joseph: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Taylor: Having Jack Black as, um, as the, what's the dude's name? Koopa King?
Joseph: Bowser, dude. What the fuck are we even doing?
Taylor: Bowser, dude. I'm yeah... [Taylor and Joseph laugh] Pretty good, but I, I'm at a point in life with Jack Black that I think like, I've heard his voice, I've seen him in so many things that it's almost to get him in something like this, it's almost too cliche. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's almost become more of a distraction, that like, okay, yep.
There's Jack Black. Oh, yep. There's Charlie Day. Okay. He's starting to become a fixture in the voice world. And I, I don't know, I guess part of me is like those big roles to me. Whenever I see that I'm a little more disappointed that it's not somebody I know less. I don't know if that makes sense. You know, you like...
Joseph: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. We said that about Mario, like 15 episodes ago-
Taylor: That's true.
Joseph: -when we were talking about Chris Pratt.
Taylor: Yeah. It was just kind of the, eh. Eh.
Joseph: I did like that they leaned into Jack Black's ability to perform and his like musical talent and stuff like that. I like that there were the scenes where Bowser is like on the piano and singing about Princess Peach.
00:13:36
Taylor: Yeah, but even that song I've got beef with, honestly, like I, I know Jack Black for so long of like, you know, he's been such a fundamental part of my entertainment and like youth and everything, that I hear that song, and I'm like, that dude wrote that in 10 minutes.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah but most of his songs sound like that.
Taylor: Like, dude, wrote that and perform...
No, come the fuck on. [Joseph and Willie laughing] Wonder Boy! Bro, I will fight you right now if you tell me fucking Wonder Boy, isn't one of the most beautiful and fucking crafted songs in existence.
Joseph: Not to like hate on his writing and their, their style as a group. But there's that component that Jack Black always brings to the table which is like that peach peach peach peach peach peach peach, like when he did that, that's like-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -Jack Black just kind of like zoning out and being himself-
Taylor: It is.
Joseph: -and he does that type of thing in his music often. I thought it was smart for casting Jack in that role. I thought it was smart to do, do scenes like that.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. You're not going to get that dude and not, and not play on his musical talents, that would be a waste.
Willie: It would be weird to have him in that role and not somehow, I guess.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: But I think that goes to Taylor's point that like-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -does that really make sense for Bowser? Like, do you need that? Why?
Taylor: Right!? [laughs]
Willie: Is it just because it's a kid's movie and you need to have some sort of memorable music in it? Probably, I guess.
Joseph: I think that's part of it.
Taylor: And there's so much memorable music built into it though.
Joseph: Oh gosh, man.
Taylor: Like all the... Man, the music was beautiful.
Joseph: It's fantastic.
Taylor: The renditions that they did of everything. That's to me, that was just, it was such a juxtaposition. And that's probably, like I said, because it's bias coming from a super long time fan of Jack Black.
So it's, I'm not going to be mad at him for taking a part and doing a part and doing a good job. Like I thought he did a great job at it.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: It was just. I just see that and I think, man, that could definitely have been somebody else too.
Joseph: Mm-hmm, for sure.
Willie: Before we move away from that song, if we don't come back to talking about it, I want to ask if y'all had seen people doing the mashups of Never Gonna Give You Up and Peaches because people realized-
Joseph: Uh-uh
Willie: -very early on that that chord progress... progression is-
Joseph: Mmmm. [Taylor laughs]
Willie: -the same chord progression from Never Gonna Give You Up. So he basically-
Joseph: No, I did not see that.
Willie: -sort of rickrolled everybody-
Joseph: Wow.
Taylor: Oh man.
Willie: -in making that song. [Joseph laughs] And he, he didn't write the music himself. And I'm sorry that I can't remember the person's name, I know that there's someone who wrote with him and... The person who played the piano actually, for the piece.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But yeah, the, the construction of that song, I saw like a jazz musician break it down on YouTube one day. And then everybody in the comments was like, do you realize that you're playing... what you're playing right now?
And people, or just people being like, I think we just got rickrolled, and like coming to the realization that, that chord progression is just a very slow version of-
Joseph: That's amazing.
Willie: -Never Gonna Give You Up.
Joseph: Wow, yeah.
Willie: So there's lots of mashups on YouTube if you just go look'em up.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Wow, yeah, I didn't come across that at all.
Taylor: Awesome.
Joseph: That's cool though.. Um, Jack Black. So I thought he had moments that were great and then other moments that were like what Taylor is feeling where you're just like I can't separate Jack Black from being Jack Black.
Taylor: Mmm.
Joseph: And see him performing in these roles and it sometimes doesn't feel believable because we are so exposed to like, his antics and his style, that sometimes you can't cut through it.
00:16:52
Joseph: So I kind of felt that way with Bowser. I was surprisingly impressed with Keegan-Michael Key as Toad dude.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: Like the opening lines, I was like, dude, this doesn't sound anything like him.
Taylor: Nope.
Joseph: And then it kind of came in through like more lines for that character, like you could start to hear him. A little bit more, but the opening of it, I was kind of blown away, dude. I was like, wow.
Taylor: Yeah. And there was a lot of good one liners from Toad as well. Yeah, that was one of those things that made more sense, but also I, they might, I think they sped his voice up. Like it may have been 1.5X or something.
Joseph: Mmm.
Taylor: If I'm not mistaken, unless he just did all that.
Joseph: I mean, he does talk pretty fast.
Taylor: He does talk really fast. He might have done that naturally. It just sounded...
Joseph: I guess they could have like pitch shifted his voice or something. Like maybe it's not all, all naturale, maybe. Who knows?
Taylor: Yeah. And the character designs? Oh my god. Speaking of Toad, like, I really loved the designs of all the characters. They looked good. Um, just kind of the style choices that they went with, um, having to, do we know what studio that was or anything that did the...
Joseph: I think it was like Illumination.
Taylor: Illumination. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That, there was an interesting look to the characters, the sets, everything that really kept me captured. It was so crisp and just like, maybe you get so used to, like, we've been rewatching because of the kiddo, we've been watching a lot of Pixar stuff, a lot of the classics, um.
And, uh, there's a look to them and this did not have that look somehow. I would assume as a, as a layman to 3D art and design, that it's all going to kind of look the same to some extent when you get so crisp and so realistic looking, but this had like, just interesting effects, bokeh blurs at different lengths and angles, then I guess you're used to, and the clarity of that kind of stuff was, it all really clicked to me.
I, I really enjoyed like sitting six feet from the TV and just looking at everything and enjoying all of the, just all the work that went into that art. I think they did a fantastic job there. Like I had zero complaints.
Joseph: You said bokeh blur and it made me it made me think of the phrase Baraka blur for no real reason other than the fact that those-
Taylor: Is that when Baraka moves [Joseph laughs] his blades real fast and it's-
Joseph: Yeah. Baraka-
Taylor: Ok, nice.
Joseph: -Baraka motion blur.
Taylor: Okay there we go. He invented that.
00:19:10
Joseph: I mean the film is... it's beautiful man like the anima... Like I think it looks fantastic. And a lot of the music and the way that they incorporated some of those, like, original themes. Or not original, but from a lot of the games in the series, the way they've incorporated it in little moments throughout the film I thought was brilliant, and then the way they treated the end credits too, the music was really good at the end.
Taylor: Yeah, and they didn't overdo it. They didn't spam you with too much.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: Like, I wasn't sure if it was going to be everything was just, you know, exact sounds or whatever, but yeah, it was so well done.
Willie: Yeah, I do think animation was, like, really pretty. If anything about this movie, it does look beautiful. There was a moment when they first go into...
the sewers to like the part that no one has been to in a while.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Just before they fall, I guess. They're climbing on that pipe and they're looking at the, the wheel they're about to turn, the valve. And it sort of looks like it, oh, it's weird because it almost looks like claymation in that point in the way that the wheel is moving, which was very weird to me. [chuckles]
But it was like, oh, this looks, this is like super interesting in the way that it looks. And I think that part definitely was one of the cooler parts in just the way that everything looked that animation style, even down there in the underworld or whatever, like just before they go through and everything comes out as like bright technicolor sort of stuff.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I feel like that section looks. Sort of the coolest in a weird way, that it's just like, I haven't seen anything look that good.
Taylor: The lighting, they killed it with the lighting on there because we're a scene like that would usually be really dark. I... that was one thing that stood out to me was that you knew it was dark, but it was not dark.
Even on like the TV I was watching on, I think is, uh, you know, 2k or something. And so it's not, it's not great with, with the kind of black and darker black and stuff, but it was killer. It looked amazing on there.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Like they did what Nintendo does, which is, they made the thing look amazing on no matter what TV you're watching it on or whatever, that movie probably looks incredible.
Joseph: All the Dark World stuff-
Taylor: Its interesting.
Joseph: -I think was really great. Like after Luigi kind of goes through-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -and like all the Dark World stuff, like they should probably do like a Luigi's Mansion in like a similar style because I think that would do really, really well.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I just love the mood and the darkness of all those scenes and the subtlety in all that darkness, I think they did really well.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: And all the Bowser stuff too, like in the intro, like Bowser's world and what it looked like, it gave me like strong Super Mario World and, and, uh, Mario three vibes with like all the way, like the Bowser castle and the way it was treated.
Taylor: Who were the penguins? Like, um, where did they come from at the, at the beginning? Like the first little battle scene.
Willie: I'd have to look it up to see what game they're in, but they're in one of the more recent games.
Taylor: Okay. Okay.
Joseph: Yeah. I wasn't too familiar with them either.
Taylor: So they become kind of a fixture. Okay.
Willie: Like I know that they're literally, they are called Penguins in, in, in the [chuckling] Mario world too.
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Taylor: Oh dang.
Willie: That there's not some special name, but, uh, I don't remember where they are.
Taylor: Okay. So they had a minor role in Super Mario 64 and 64 DS.
Willie: Yeah, I don't even remember.
Joseph: Mmm.
Willie: Oh, I do, sort of.
Taylor: Yeah, now that I see that art.
Willie: And then Galaxy. Galaxy makes sense, that I haven't played that much.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Galaxy, Galaxy 2 and Odyssey.
Joseph: They got me with the intro to the entire film.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Willie: Oh, yeah, for sure. I will say those...
Joseph: I was like, Oh, yeah. Let's fucking do this. Like, it's on.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, that was really cool.
00:22:26
Willie: Before we dive into that, I do want to point out, because you started to talk about music earlier and just the choice of music, obviously there's like actual songs in this, but even the score is really good.
I saw an article with the composer, which I just lost. His name is Brian Tyler. He estimated that there were something like at least 130 references [Joseph whistles] to the video game music and sounds.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. And sound effects, right.
Willie: Yeah, at least 130 references like on the low end, and there is there's stuff throughout this entire movie-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -that's just like scattered about.
Joseph: And the sound effects build up quickly, like the number of those, like it, it gets large very quickly.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Coin sounds and jump noises. And, you know, the pipe transition sound effects and stuff like that, warp stuff.
Willie: Yeah. But then, yeah, throughout the score, just the music that was coming in and to your point, Joey, the hook at the beginning, we first like see them in a commercial using the Super Mario rap at the beginning.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I assume that's what you're talking about.
Joseph: I was going back even earlier-
Taylor: How it shows the game itself.
Joseph: -to where it was 8 bit graphics.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Joseph: But that too, man, like the way they executed that scene, like I love that.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And the rap being in there, like that was for us, right?
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: It's for people of our generation, not for the kids-
Taylor: [chuckling] Yeah.
Joseph: -you know, that are pulling in all the dollars, but it's for the parents. It's for people our age and I loved all those retro, kind of nostalgic bits that you find throughout, at least the first half of the film.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah, that's another thing that it's not where my criticism is, but it sort of is, but Barbara and I were talking about it and I, it's definitely a movie that I think parents are meant to go watch with their kids, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I think it's meant to be something like that to share because it's got stuff in there for people who grew up in the 80s who do know where that came from, right? And there's going to be tons of references you're going to get, but also it is just like a kid's movie.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: The thing is, I think for me, I do think that there, when there's a movie designed for parents to watch with their kids, I think there are much better versions than, than this movie.
Joseph: Oh yeah, for sure. I, a lot, a big part of me wishes it was less of a kid's movie. You know, selfishly, I wish it was more for like our generation.
Willie: I think that that's, yeah, probably true and probably where some of my hangups are.
Taylor: Just to sidetrack a little bit. I've watched recently a little bit of the, um, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn uh, show on HBO.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And didn't, I had no idea what to expect. You know, I just popped it on while I was doing some stuff and like, they were straight up cussing and like-
Joseph: Oh, shit.
Taylor: Nudity, and Murder and stuff.
Willie: Yeah, people love that show. Like, it is a show for adults.
Taylor: Yeah, so I was just going to say, it's kind of cool when out of nowhere you get hit with one's like, Oh shit, this is for me, like directly. And that's yeah. But yeah, I'll agree with you on that, man. Other than the design and everything, as much as I loved it, you're right. I, that's not going to be one that I'm going back to unless the kiddo wants to watch it. If he falls in love with it, then I'm sure I'll see it a thousand times. But personally, I, I couldn't see myself just jumping back to that one anytime.
00:25:24
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I have one big kind of gripe, and it's with the, it's Bowser's motivation throughout the entire movie. And like, I just don't feel like that's even close to being strong enough for the motivation behind that character and wanting to, like, destroy the Mushroom Kingdom and the world and all that stuff.
So I think it fails big time there for me, but I still enjoy the movie overall.
Willie: One of my notes that I wrote was literally just, Bowser an incel, question mark. [Joseph and Taylor laugh] It's like the first thing that you like-
Taylor: Yeah. [laughing]
Willie: -the first thing you hear about him is like how much he's going, like, just, you know, he's going to ask this person to marry him.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: If she says no, like he's going to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And it's like-
Taylor: Oh god.
Willie: -and he immediately is like jealous of Mario, sort of stuff.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And it's like...
Taylor: Ready to hurt anybody that he has to or whatever. Yeah.
Willie: I can kind of see that lining up with his motivation in the games too. But I also think I realized that in the earlier games, I never really thought about it.
I do think there's some growth there in the way that the Princess is portrayed too, right?
Joseph: Sure, sure.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Cause in the early, early game, she's just a damsel in distress.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: In Two you can play as her.
Taylor: On this she's a badass.
Willie: But that game is sort of weird and an outlier, right. But also in three, it's sort of like, you're still just the Mario brothers. And like in Mario 64, you're trying to save the whole Mushroom Kingdom as a whole. It's not till later in the games that you start realizing that, like, that actually Princess Peach is powerful and a badass, like she is in this movie, too.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: So, like, there's obviously been a lot of growth in the way they wrote her, I think,
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But I never would have thought, from the first game, about that sort of Of Bowser's intentions of like, oh, he's in love with this person-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: -and wants to like marry this person.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Marry them.
Taylor: It's more like he just wants to hold her as like, I rule a kingdom or whatever.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I don't know. I guess I never really thought about that. I guess it fits.
Taylor: It's a little weird.
Willie: But it was weird as fuck.
Taylor: It was a little weird.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah, as you were going back over that stuff, just to find the line of thinking of like, how is this? Yeah, that's, uh, definitely a lot of shitty IRL stories have been written [Taylor and Joseph chuckle] with the same plot, very similar plot. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: Yeah, exactly. It kind of gave, and this is, I don't really want to open this can of worms, but I wanted to just reference it, that it gives me like nineties Disney vibes and the way, like the messaging is all fucked up for kids.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: There's some of those kind of through lines and threads that are reminiscent of some of like the earlier Disney stuff or not earlier, but like the nineties Disney stuff. I could definitely see that.
Willie: Yeah, without getting the can of worms that would be Disney stuff. Like I do, [Taylor chuckles] that's what I. When Barbara and I were starting to talk about it being like a movie for parents to watch with their kids.
I also, I was thinking it from a different angle than, than Barbara was. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I was... in my head, what I was thinking was about sort of having to explain some of that stuff that you're talking about, Joey, to a kid. Like, if I had a kid and I was like, watching this movie.
And talking about Bowser, like, how much of that would I want to talk to my kid about? Like, obviously, like, this is not good behavior.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Like, you should never act like this. If someone doesn't like you or want to be around you or want to be with you, like-
Joseph: Don't pursue them to the end of the planet. [laughs]
Taylor: Let it go.
Willie: Don't pursue them-
Taylor: [chuckles] Yeah.
Willie: -and coerce them into trying to like, you know. Like it just, it doesn't, it's not going to work. It doesn't make any sense. And you're a shitty person. Like, don't be that person.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: But I also thought, and this is a, a me thing. We've talked about this offline before, particularly because we record this podcast. I've talked about using ableist language and stuff and how like I've tried to avoid it and how like when we talk, I would like us to try that.
And I know that's part of some of our vocabulary sometimes. And so it slips, but it's a conversation we've had offline before. And I felt like this movie, too, also, when it has, uh, like the first thing Princess Peach says about him at some point, or someone calls Bowser, like, crazy and a lunatic or something like that.
And I was like, that's another one of those things that if I did have a kid, that I would have to say, like, hey, this is ableist language that I... Don't want you using, and these are the reasons why.
Joseph: Peach straight up called him a fucking monster dude in front of the whole kingdom.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, damn. I mean, I know, I know we're talking about, you know, we're talking about a video game movie here, but-
Willie: Right.
Joseph: I was, I was kind of surprised that that was written in.
Willie: Yeah, the part that I was thinking about, Peach is like meeting with her advisors, uh, and then meets Mario for the first time-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: -and that's when she's talking about, I think that, yeah, she's the one who says, calls him a lunatic and a psycho or something like that.
Joseph: That's right around the time I'm thinking about too.
Willie: Yeah, it's funny to me because I think I would rather her use the word monster to describe him than use like language that I would consider ableist.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And if you don't know what I'm talking about at all, like I would, I would just encourage you to go Google, like ableist language and why you shouldn't use it, just to like, go figure that out.
Joseph: Yeah, definitely a, a conversation for another day and...
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Yeah. It's a deep one.
Joseph: Yeah. A deep one.
Willie: But I think it's one of those things that, like if I were watching this with a kid, it's a thing that I would have to explain, and I'm sure many parents have many conversations with their kids about the stuff they're watching, you know?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So it's not a, not a huge deal in that sense, but yeah, it's a kid's movie. Maybe don't do that. And I say that because maybe don't do that because it just normalizes continuing to do that in the future, right? Like kids do repeat what they see in movies. So like, let's stop making that a common occurrence.
Taylor: Yeah.
00:30:47
Joseph: [chuckles] Right. You know what you said about Peach and the way that there's been, I don't know, you might've said progress and like the like the way she's portrayed in these stories.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: That's also something really awesome about Tears of the Kingdom and the way that Zelda is portrayed in that particular game in like the, the same light.
But yeah, I also like that they kind of turned her into a badass, like Princess Peach, like when she's going through the obstacle course and like basically putting Mario through the trial, uh, they made her look pretty badass.
Willie: Yeah. I like how she's trying to comfort him by being like, yeah, it took me a long time too. And she's just, he's like, you did it right away, didn't you?
Joseph: Yeah,you did it the first time, didn't you?
Willie: I also like that general backstory about her, like just being found there and I don't know how much that is true.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: I guess I never really thought about it.
Joseph: Yeah, I haven't either. And they kind of left it open-ended too, right?
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Like there, there was no resolution to that.
Willie: No. That she was just found there one day-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -And then raised. And when she came of age, they crowned her Princess Peach. Maybe that's true. And I just never knew because-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: -I don't think I played past Mario 64 in ernst like, I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: I wonder...
Willie: Like I've played bits and pieces of things.
Joseph: Yeah. I also wonder the same, was it like part of like, part of Super Mario Bros. history already? Or is that them trying to kind of explain away the fact that Princess Peach is here, and then, like, there's all these mushroom people?
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah, I don't know.
Taylor: [chuckles] Yeah.
Joseph: And that she's like the princess there, right? She's leading the entire kingdom.
Taylor: It was a super quick part, so it was probably easy for them to justify doing that just so, hey, they don't have to ask questions.
Joseph: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Taylor: Like, yeah, because then you get the smurf question, right? Of like how the dark places that that goes to. If you like, let your mind wander. [laughs]
Joseph: And they did it a few times in the film. Like, they did it at the beginning with the accents. Like, after the Super Mario commercial.
Taylor: Oh, yeah.
Joseph: They were like, hey, was that over the top? And that kind of justified that they're not going to carry that accent throughout the entire film.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: So I was like, okay, that's pretty smart.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: And it just took them a second to do. And then they also did it with the outfits for Mario and Luigi. Once they get back home-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -and like their entire families, just like straight out dogging them for the commercial they made. They're like, oh, this is part of our brand image, that we're wearing these suits. I was like, okay, that's, that's interesting.
Willie: Yeah, and I will say that's another thing that I never really thought about that gets brought up in that scene is, their uncle or somebody brings up like a plumber wearing white gloves. [Joseph laughs] And I like have literally never thought about the idea that wearing white gloves-
Taylor: [chuckles] Terrible choice.
Joseph: Right, it sounds like such a terrible idea.
Willie: [chuckling] -would not be a great idea.
Taylor: Yeah, that's a bad idea.
00:33:23
Joseph: Taylor, what's an Easter egg that really stood out to you, thinking back to what you liked?
Taylor: Um, probably the cheesy stuff. I really like the rainbow road. I liked, um, the vehicles, like when they're all making their vehicles, um-
Joseph: Oh, sick. Yeah.
Taylor: -before the battle. Yeah, I really liked that. I thought that they, they touched on like all, every, every, um, Mario Kart that I could remember. Like every single vehicle. I thought they really nailed that stuff. And that was another badass princess point where she had a, you know, she chose the motorcycle and...
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Pretty cool.
Joseph: Rainbow Road, I feel like they really made it work for me when they did the shortcut.
Taylor: Oh yeah. Yep.
Joseph: If it didn't have a shortcut, I probably would be like, yeah, I kind of expected that. And that's almost too expected. But the shortcut was a really nice kind of nostalgic touch and tie into, you know, racing on Rainbow Road and Mario Kart.
Taylor: Is that the part where... no, because she caught him. What was the part where, uh, Mario and someone else went underwater? Was that towards the end? Was that where he...
Willie: That was just after Rainbow Road.
Taylor: After Rainbow Road. Okay.
Willie: Cause they fall down from Rainbow Road into the water.
Taylor: That was it. Into the water. Okay. That...
Willie: Yeah, it's DK and Mario.
Joseph: Mmm.
Taylor: That's it. And he saves him. Okay. That was an exceptionally beautiful scene. Um, I thought that I really liked the underwater thing.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: They included some squids. They included the fish at different points.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Those were always some of my favorite characters.
Joseph: When they had just gotten to the kingdom, there was like one of the toads walking around with like a Cheep-Cheep in a bag.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: [chuckles] Right.
Joseph: Like it was kind of, like it was going to take it home and put it in a dish or something, a bowl.
Taylor: Oh god. Oh man, that's awful.
Joseph: There was one place in that scene called Antiques.
Willie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joseph: It was just called Antiques and it had like a, like a hammer from the, like Hammer Bros and it had-
Willie: Yeah, it had all kinds of stuff there.
Joseph: -musical notes and a banana peel, I think was in a glass case.
Taylor: I didn't see that
Willie: It had Yoshi coins and there was P wings in the back.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And then I noticed that music box, the hammer. The other thing that was really funny from that scene is the customers talking.
Joseph: Yeah, he's like, does this work?
Willie: Yeah. Did you catch the next line though? What he says?
Joseph: Yeah, he's like, yeah, all you have to do is blow in it.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I thought that was great.
Willie: Yeah. It's an obvious nod to blowing in Nintendo games.
Joseph: NES catridges.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, that was so good. And it's, I like that subtlety, like that level of subtlety.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And I was trying to get a better look of what that person was holding, but I assume it was like a little NES cartridge. Cause it kind of seemed like it was like that shape.
Willie: Yeah, I couldn't tell. I don't think I got a good look at it when I heard that.
Taylor: Oh, I see now. Oh, man. I see the hammer, okay, and a glass case. And it's got the, yeah, those music boxes, the clouds. Oh, man.
Joseph: I would say another one of my favorite moments, well, I think my favorite overall Easter egg was, uh, Punch-Out Pizzeria.
Willie: Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: And like, when they come out of the commercial and you see Glass Joe and you see, like, The duck from Duck Hunt and you have like all the different Punch-Out images that are on the wall, like that whole branding for the pizzeria, I thought was top notch.
And I also really, really loved when Mario excused himself from the table when he left and then he went and started playing the NES-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -and there was a little bit of gameplay and you could see the NES console and there was a controller that had the cord wrapped around it.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, this is great.
Taylor: Yeah. That looked almost like, uh, Joust that he was playing, like some variant.
Willie: He was playing Kid Icarus.
Joseph: Yeah, it was Kid Icarus.
Taylor: Oh, is that what it was? It was Kid Icarus?
Willie: Yeah, it was Kid Icarus. Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Okay. All right.
Joseph: And I love that it was the game, dude.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: That's cool.
Joseph: Like, it looked great in there, too. I was like, this is, this is a great move.
00:36:52
Willie: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I think you're right. I think there's a lot of stuff in the first half of the movie that, that was fun for me. And it was nice to spot, especially when I did go back and watch, I was definitely more invested in looking at the beginning of the movie than I was at the end, by the end of the movie I was definitely jumping more and more through the movie because I was like, I just want this to be done.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Which I guess, there probably was a little bit of my attitude going into the movie that was like, I was not prepared to really enjoy it. So maybe that takes away from sort of my enjoyment. Overall, it's fine. It's whatever. It's good. But when I saw that it was only an hour and 32 minutes, I was definitely relieved-
[Joseph chuckles]
Taylor: [chuckles] Yeah.
Willie: -to know that from the outset-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -because I'm glad that like somebody made a movie that like gets in and does what it's supposed to do, and then leaves. Like instead of-
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: -instead of a normal movie runtime right now where it's like, Oh, we, this has got to be two hours and 20 minutes. Like-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: I don't need that. Actually.
Taylor: Yeah. Unless you're jamming it with the good stuff, which very few of them are like-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -You don't need it to be that long. Hell, some of them are pushing this three hour mark
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And so much of the movie, like. Like if, uh, okay, perfect example. If I go back and watch Infinity War right now, there is zero chance I'm not skipping through half that movie. The drama. Like, I don't care about the drama moments. I cared about them in the initial watch through when I was like, you know, all invested in what's going on in this universe, but every time after that, there's no way. Like just give me a skip. It should just have like a Netflix, like skip bullshit, [all laugh] bullshit button, where it just skips right through that and skips you right to the good part or whatever.
Joseph: It's too subjective. Too subjective.
Taylor: No, that's true. Yeah, that's true. It'd be very subjective.
Willie: I think I would, I would disagree. That's one of the movies that I probably would watch in its entirety.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I tend not to do that anyway, so it's not really a good judge, but I don't know. I did enjoy that movie and I do think you're right.
Taylor: Oh, it was great.
Willie: The first viewing is like, holy shit. Every moment of that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And I don't think I ever felt like that was, that one doesn't feel long to me for some reason, because it is a lot of action.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
Taylor: I watched it maybe 10 times, so [chuckling] maybe it's also me watching it too much-
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah.
Taylor: -You know, and by the, by the last couple times I've seen every conversation, I know how the conversation goes and, but that's also probably more of me thing in general.
Willie: Sure.
Taylor: Like I, I'm not good at watching the same conversations over and over again. It may be a ADHD thing.
Joseph: I get what you're saying 'cause I've seen Inception so many times, one of my favorite films of all time. I've seen it so many times that some of the more impactful moments no longer have that, the impact they had when I saw it for the very first time, or like the first three times, unless I go a really long time in between watches.
Taylor: Hmm. Yeah.
Joseph: Then it's like some of that feeling can resurface a little bit, but it just doesn't hit the same once you've seen it so many times that it starts to lose its impact, at least in those scenes.
Taylor: Yeah, it's almost like it's just baked in, now, to me anyways, like I, I just, I know it, I've seen it, it's in my head playing before the part even comes, and, but you're probably right, and, and, Infinity War is probably not the best example, I just think of it because it's long.
Joseph: Right, right, right.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I mean, you can say this like about like the, uh, The Irishman or something like other long Scorsese films that are like three hours-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Like some of them might lose their impact over time-
Taylor: Heavily dialogue based.
Joseph: Right, right, right.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Less action based too.
00:40:15
Willie: I do want to go back to a couple of things that Joey said, because I do think that Punch-Out Pizzeria was really great and the scenes at Mario's house.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: But there's a couple of things in the Punch-Out Pizzeria that I want to point out. And even before that, in the commercial, did either of you try going to their website, that's in the commercial?
Joseph: [chuckling] Oh, I didn't..
Taylor: Nuh-uh.
Willie: Here's the website. It's smbplumbing.com. They have a website that you can go to that is like a mock up of what their service is, right? And you can view a map of the service area, which is Brooklyn and Queens.
Joseph: Oh, shit.
Willie: And you can, you can go down to the bottom to see what careers you could apply for, at the bottom.
Joseph: It has not pulled up for me.
Taylor: Nope, me neither. But my internet or browser or something has just been.
Willie: Let's make sure, yeah, that should be it.
Taylor: Not happy recently, like the last day or two. They're probably squeezing more juice out of the internet lines.
Willie: Okay, so maybe that doesn't work. Let's see.
Joseph: Yeah, this thing is...
Willie: Let's go to this. I know that this works.
Joseph: I tried just googling it and it still won't pull up.
Willie: Weird. Did the internet just go down? No, that one doesn't work for sure, the one that I
Taylor: just sent.
The Internet just went down.
Joseph: Yeah, it took me to GoDaddy.
Taylor: Well, that's, I mean, I've been having trouble getting to anything that uses a Google portal authentication lately. Like, I don't know if there's something going on, but like, I'll have to try three different browsers before one of them actually works.
Willie: Oh, weird.
Well, that shit's broke for y'all. I don't know why.
Joseph: Yeah, it's not pulling up.
Willie: Maybe leave out the... No, like, this is literally the... The website, it works for me.
Joseph: Weird. Yeah. I don't know what's up. Cause I can't even get it to work when searching on Google.
Taylor: No, same. I see it on there.
Joseph: Uh, oh, well I'll go back.
Willie: smbplumbing.com. It does work. There's a, I can show you since we're here and we can see it, but there is, uh, this website. If this ever comes up.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Willie: There's this about us page, these [Taylor chuckles] testimonials that we can read in a second.
Joseph: As seen on TV.
Willie: Yeah, as seen on TV. You could click here to get the commercial, I think.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Is the map underneath that?
Willie: Apparently got the key to the city. If you go to service area, you can see this.
Joseph: Oh, okay. Pretty basic.
Taylor: Oh, I forget the uncle was playing Donkey Kong.
Willie: Our plumbing kingdom only covers Brooklyn and Queens. Need an appointment? Click here. If you go to this, it takes you to a place to find where you can find the movie.
Joseph: Haha, sick. [Willie chuckles] Yeah, I like that.
Willie: You can call this phone number and theres a message from Luigi who's like, text us instead, but I haven't texted it yet. [Taylor and Willie chuckle]
Joseph: Oh man. Yeah.
Taylor: That's gonna be good.
Joseph: If they have a text response, that's good.
Willie: There's also this live chat thing here, which I don't know if you heard audio when that happened.
Joseph: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. That's awesome.
Willie: But this is like a 20 questions thing.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Willie: That you can play. I haven't done it.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Nice. Okay. I like the follow through.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, gotta love that and anything and wherever that happens. So I love that.
Willie: And if you look at these testimonials, there's the college hoopsters, five stars, the college, these college stars know who to call for service, for super service. And there's a video here. I don't remember one of these links to a video that is like the power ups explained by Keegan-Michael Key telling you like-
Joseph: Oh, nice.
Willie: -like what they all do.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: I think it's multiple people who are explaining the power ups.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Dude, they got a bad review from Spike. That's hilarious.
Willie: Yeah. [Taylor laughs] Which is one of the things I want to talk about because he's in that, that first scene. In the-
Joseph: Yeah, in the pizzeria.
Willie: -Punch-Out Pizzeria, yeah. Obviously when they come out of watching the movie, the first thing that I would point out though is that you see there's someone playing, what looks like Donkey Kong, but it's called Jumpman.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, straight, straight call out to-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -to Mario before he was named Mario.
Willie: And...
Joseph: And the cameo voice acting.
Willie: Yeah, the cameo voice acting there by the guy who used to play Mario, Charles Martinet.
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Taylor: That's... Okay.
Willie: That guy's name is Giuseppe, the character who's playing,
Joseph: Mm-hmm. mm-hmm.
Willie: Um, who comes back again later at the end of the movie too.
Joseph: Mm hmm. He does the same little, uh, [In Mario's voice] Wahoo!
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I forget, I forget that sound effect in the jump, but they made sure to get that in there.
Willie: Yeah. What I think is funny about that scene is, yeah, we see Spike and he's talking about how they just quit his job or whatever to go do their, their own thing. And Spike is a character from a game that they were in before Super Mario Bros..
His shirt says Wrecking Crew on it, which is the game title.
Joseph: His hat too.
Willie: Yeah,
Joseph: Yeah, that was good.
Willie: Mario and, and Luigi were, yeah, in a game called Wrecking Crew just like a year before Super Mario Bros. released, where you're-
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: -you have a hammer and you're just knocking shit down, basically.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And trying to avoid getting hit by people, even uh, Spike in that game is the foreman who's like, for whatever reason, trying to stop you from doing your job, [chuckles] he's like chasing you around the screen.
Joseph: Oh, right. [laughs]
Taylor: Ha.
Willie: Uh, but yeah, it's funny that they had him be there and like, talk about them quitting. Oh, and the other thing from that is obviously the phone ringtone-
Joseph: Mmm.
Willie: -that Luigi has when they get the call.
Joseph: It's GameCube, right?
Willie: Yeah, GameCube's startup sound.
Taylor: Awesome.
00:44:58
Joseph: Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, those little tiny moments I think are just like nice little nuggets.
Taylor: There's so many. The video I'm watching right now that's all the references, is 33 minutes long.
Joseph: Oh my gosh.
Willie: Yeah, yeah there are lots of things.
Taylor: Yeah, there are, I mean, it's stuff like even in the news, um, there was a news report going on and it had news from Wave Race-
Willie: Uh-huh*.*
[Joseph chuckling]
Taylor: -like so and so wins a Wave Race.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: And I mean crazy amounts of references.
Joseph: I would say that's probably the biggest reason I would go back and watch it a second time is-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -to just pay more attention to the gems and the easter eggs and hidden, hidden sound effects and things like that.
Willie: Well, have I got a video for you? Yeah, there's definitely videos you could watch for that that'll sum it up in about 20 to 30 minutes. [chuckling]
Joseph: Yeah, that's probably a better use of time.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But part of the fun is catching them yourself and finding them yourself.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I did write a lot of them down the first time and then when I went back it was easier to like obviously like watch them. Like go to that section and see, see sort of what other details I missed in them.
Joseph: There was a moment where they, it was a memory for Luigi. I think when he was flying-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -Like, to Bowser's Castle or something like that, where it showed the baby Mario and baby Luigi.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: That shit looks so damn good. Like, the visuals of that, I love that.
Taylor: They nailed it. Diddy Kong looked amazing. Like they...
Joseph: Yeah, a little tiny cameo for Diddy.
Taylor: Yeah, I thought there was going to be more going on from them-
Willie: And Dixie next to...
Joseph: Yeah, that's true.
Taylor: -but yeah, yeah, Dixie too, yep.
Joseph: The Seth Rogen classic laugh.
Willie: Yeah...
Joseph: I was like. [laughs]
Willie: Yeah, that was weird.
Joseph: I kind of wasn't expecting it, but at the same time was not surprised at all that it was in there.
Willie: Yeah,
Taylor: Uh-uh. No, it made so much sense as soon as you heard him talking and laughing and stuff. It's like, okay, yeah, that's I know who this is.
Joseph: Uh, and then the wild Yoshis, the wild Yoshis was pretty cool.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, that was really cool.
Joseph: Oh, that reminds me. There was one thing. So when Princess Peach and Toad drive back to the Mushroom Kingdom, I forget what happens right before they go back.
I think it's like everyone got captured.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: The whole Kong army gets captured and then they drive back. I really appreciated that it was dark when they were driving back. So like, it was a really nice kind of subtle way of giving me... like grounding the environment and like giving me a sense of how much time had passed.
So it was like, this was like a day, right? Like you went out there, it was daytime and then you're driving back and it was nighttime and it was like a little, just the tiniest little subtle touch that I really loved.
Taylor: Oh my god, I haven't thought about Gyromite in forever. And there's like a Gyro place that is named...
Joseph: Mmm.
Taylor: Gyro... something. And then right after that is the Hanafuda, uh, cards. Which I saw a post traveling around about that, that said that, uh, what was it? Nintendo has been around since 1889 as a brand. And evidently back then, I don't, I don't remember the exact year, 18 something, but, um, they made Hanafuda handmade uh, cards.
Joseph: Yeah, they were playing cards before.
Taylor: Yeah. I had no idea. And the amount of comments on there that were like, OMG, I didn't know technology existed before the nineties.
Joseph: Aww.
Taylor: I... just made me lose all faith [Joseph and Willie laugh] in everything. I was like, holy shit.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: I learned about that Nintendo history, I think in a podcast called Business Wars, which was about the battle between Nintendo and Sega.
Taylor: Oh, wow. That's probably a good one. That's pretty interesting.
Willie: We talked a little bit about music earlier and I, I keep trying to figure out how we should, this conversation is sort of all over the place for me. Like my brain is like wanting to like organize it in like order of things. So I just keep going back to my notes.
Joseph: This is free for all for sure.
00:48:45
Willie: We talked a lot about music and I feel like there was one thing I wanted to point out that I feel like everyone should have noticed, but when they're in the home fixing the plumbing, when they get that first call and they go and shit starts to break down, there's a song there which happens to be the same song from Street Fighter: The Movie.
Joseph: What?!
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: Well, we watched... they use the actual version of that, that song Habanera.
Joseph: Oh!
Taylor: Oh!
Willie: In Street Fighter, there's Habanero: Ryu vs Vega. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: It comes full circle.
Willie: Yeah, Habanera is in that scene.
Taylor: That's amazing. I'm seeing a reference here to Soda Popinski. Man, these references are so good, dude.
Joseph: Heck yeah.
Taylor: So good.
Joseph: Also, if you didn't listen to our Street Fighter episode, we have an episode where we talk about the Street Fighter movie from the '90s. I don't remember what episode number that is, but it's called Good Morning Street Fighter, I think.
Willie: Good morning, Shadaloo.
Taylor: Yeah. [laughs]
Willie: Right?
Joseph: I think I changed it to Street Fighter.
Willie: Is it Good Morning Street Fighter? It is actually Street Fighter.
Joseph: Just to get [Taylor laughs] Street Fighter in the actual podcast title.
Taylor: Yeah, it's not a bad idea.
Willie: Okay. Yeah.
Joseph: Good morning, Shadaloo.
Willie: Right. That's what he says.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Go re-watch that today.
Willie: Episode 13.
Joseph: Yeah, I would probably watch, I would, after watching Super Mario Bros. for a second time, I would then go back and re watch Street Fighter instead of watching Super Mario Bros. a third time.
Taylor: Absolutely.
Willie: I also, in that scene where they're going to the, the house, I don't know if you noticed like their artwork on the wall was pretty cool.
Joseph: In the house?
Willie: Yeah, in the house. It was like, I don't know, I don't know if I'd call it modern art, but it was sort of just a, it's not exactly abstract, but it was, there was something that looked like Tetris in the first pic, the first painting on the wall.
Joseph: Mmm.
Willie: Basically, it looks just like Tetris blocks, like had fallen on each other. And then something that I didn't recognize that I'm sure is from a game. And then the next thing was basically just squares with a diagonal line in them-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -that basically looked like the castles in Mario 3, the texture of the background wall, where it's like half gray, half black-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Awesome.
Willie: -with a diagonal line through it, that was one of the paintings on the wall.
Taylor: That's cool.
Joseph: Interesting. I think I missed those.
Taylor: This thing was probably a dream to make, honestly.
Joseph: Oh gosh. Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I did see how ridiculous and absurd that leak scene was-
Willie: Yeah. It's...
Joseph: -where waters is popping out of everything. [Taylor laughs]
Willie: Barbara had pointed out how ridiculous it was that they decided to set this in New York and then like to make it real, but then also have something be so ridiculous it doesn't work at all, you know?
Joseph: Yeah. Kids movie. Kids movie.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Also, even just the fact that the water is leaking. But he tightens the drain-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and that somehow fixes the drip in the faucet.
Taylor: That was it.
Willie: Come on.
Taylor: That was it. That was all it needed.
Joseph: Yeah, man. It was about to lock it up, head out, and then, uh, Francis stepped in and just totally wrecked shop. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: Stupid dog. Oh, man. That whole scene, the fact that he catches it on the butt with the plunger, like.
Joseph: Oh, right, right.
Taylor: There was some good kid humor in there.
Joseph: Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: I could see kids really laughing at that probably for the next decade.
00:51:49
Joseph: Uh huh. There was the lead up to that, where they showed the little platforming bit when they're going through the construction zone-
Willie: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: -and then they showed Castle Burger at the end-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, yeah, I'm glad they did something like that at the beginning.
Taylor: They did that picture perfect too, where he like hits it and swirls around and it was a lot, a lot of good going on in that. I think anybody who has enjoyed Mario at any point can at least get a good viewing out of it. Really have a lot of fun with that.
Willie: There's a shit ton of other references we could talk about. We don't need to go through all of them for sure. I do think that one of my favorites was early on though, which was when they were going into that underground scene and I obviously was expecting to hear the underground theme-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -and it didn't come right away-
Taylor: Yeah!
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but it did come at the moment that they're on the stairs and you can see on the wall that there's a Level 1-2 sign. [chuckles]
Joseph: Yeah. 1 dash 2. [Taylor chuckles] That was great.
Taylor: Just to make all of those references not feel completely shoehorned and make it like-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -the whole thing is all natural and it's as shoehorned as you want it to be based on how closely you're watching it and appreciating it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: That is just straight up master craft. I have no idea what it'd be like to craft that kind of thing.
Joseph: It has to be difficult.
Taylor: I mean, and with the audio adding a complete separate plane of things that have to be right and sound right and work right. Just like Willie was saying earlier, it's like there's a lot of balance and straight up genius that goes into that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. I do really appreciate that about the movie that it's not like you mentioned shoehorned and it's not over the top. I mean, some things are over the top in the sense that it's also for kids, but to-
Taylor: They're very rarely like standing there with their mouths open after a line drops or something, you know, like, ah.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Ah, or whatever it's, it's just so well done and, and they move forward so well with it. I think that they did a expert job at that.
Joseph: Yeah, I feel like it's polished and you know, there's some balance there and I appreciate how they've executed the Easter eggs and references, uh, you know, to the music and visuals and stuff like that and just other Nintendo as a whole.
Taylor: Yeah, that's what I was going to say is it's Nintendo to the core. It's how they do stuff-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -and it's goes back to them making it look great on even an old screen is that's, that's what they go for. They want things to land on everybody possible. And I think that they, they did a pretty dang good job of it. I didn't come out of the movie mad. That's for sure.
Joseph: Yeah, neither did I.
Taylor: I didn't come out of it changed or anything, but I definitely had a great time just watching those visuals and commenting on it with Rebecca because, you know, she, we're only a year apart, so she definitely grew up playing the same games.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: Recognized a lot of the stuff.
00:54:31
Joseph: My final thoughts. I think it's good. I think it's worth watching. I probably wouldn't watch it more than two or three times because then I think it'll get a little too played out. Is there better stuff out there? Definitely. Are there better movies that handle Easter eggs even better? Yeah. Like I think this is, this isn't like a Ready Player One in my book-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -in the way that the references and Easter eggs are, are treated, but I think they've done a damn good job with not making it overwhelming, but have enough of that nostalgia and speak to a pretty wide fricking audience.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, adults, kids, parents, shit, single people like us, or like me and Willie. Oh, not single, but kidless.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Taylor doesn't count because he sold out and got a kid.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. Went ahead and did that. It works out for some of us, you know. I totally agree with that. Like, I give it an eight out of a thousand.
Joseph: I was going to ask that, like, what letter grade would you give it? [Taylor chuckles]
Taylor: I'd say eight out of ten, for real.
Willie: I would say an 8 is probably fine. I think that that's like, out of 10, makes sense to me.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: The one thing I did want to point out is, it's weird that the Rotten Tomatoes scores are all over the place. Not all over the place, but like the critics are 59 percent and the audience score is 95.
Taylor: Versus 90. Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, 95 percent for audience. And I feel like somewhere in between makes way more sense.
Joseph: Oh sure, yeah.
Willie: I think like 80 is probably right.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: It's like, it's not. Great, but it's fine.
Joseph: I'm also not surprised at all that the audience is 95. You know, because like-
Taylor: No.
Joseph: -people like us that are like, Oh, they had a NES in there. Like, all of a sudden, this is fantastic and great.
Willie: Right, but it's not. I don't know. It's just, it's not 95 percent for sure. It, for me, like, it legitimately, like, 80 percent makes sense because-
Joseph: Yeah, I was going to say-
Willie: -It's, good but...
Joseph: -B plus would probably be my grade for it.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: But yeah, I agree. It's not 95 percent for me either.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. I reserved those last two points for like, if the story would have been phenomenal-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: -and they just hit on every single point, then that's where I really start talking about those.
Willie: There was one of the critics scores. I don't know this person at all, so I'm sorry about this person, but, uh, some person named Matt Brunson, who I don't know, but I felt like if I'm interpreting their review correctly, This is how I feel about it, which they just say, "harmless and charmless." [Taylor laughs]
And I was like, yeah-
Joseph: Okay. [laughs]
Willie: -that makes sense to me.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: If, if it's, it's not bad. It's not great.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Doesn't offend me in any way really. Yeah. Like it's-
Joseph: Interesting. Yeah.
Willie: But it's also not something that's charming in a way that's like, man, I want to go back and watch that a couple more times.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: You don't think this is timeless. Now I'm ready for the next one. I'm ready for the next one now. Mario Bros. Two or whatever. That's...
Willie: Yeah. No, like I-
Taylor: Yeah, that's a great description.
Willie: It does set up a good, it set up, sets up a good sequel, obviously, with Yoshi at the very end, but I still don't care.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Like I'm not, I'm not excited about when that comes out. Again, I'll watch it when I get a chance to on stream-
Taylor: [laughing] Yeah, when it's on the five dollar...
Willie: -some streaming service.
Joseph: Yeah on Peacock.. [all laughing]
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, whatever it is at the time. Yeah, that's true.
Willie: But I don't, I don't care. It was fine. That's what that's-
Joseph: I guess, uh...
Willie: That's my review. It's fine.
Joseph: Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: It's fine.
Joseph: I think we're, I feel like we're all on the same page.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: In terms of like how great of a film it actually is.
Taylor: It's no Street Fighter or but [Joseph and Willie laugh] it's, it's watchable.
Joseph: One final note for me is that none of us actually went out and like saw this on the big screen. We didn't pay to rent it. We just kind of watched it as it finally hit streaming services. How eager were we to go out and like watch this immediately? I don't, I don't think that urge was there for any of us.
00:58:08
Willie: There is one last thing I feel like we should have talked about, but didn't for some reason, but that's the, uh, the nihilist character that is in the-
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: -that's imprisoned. [Joseph and Willie laugh]
Taylor: Oh, yeah, that star.
Willie: The little star guy-
Taylor: Star ghost thing.
Willie: I don't know what-
Taylor: yeah.
Willie: -I don't know what they actually are, but I had to look it up. It's a Luma, I guess.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: And that's Luma Lee in particular from, I think the Galaxy games.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: I, I'm not familiar with the Galaxy games too much other than playing for like 10 minutes.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Same.
Joseph: I thought they executed those scenes well.
Willie: Yeah, those scenes were good. And just the, that characters quotes, man.
Joseph: Yeah, they were good and dark and-
Taylor: Timed perfectly.
Joseph: -I like everybody else's reaction to them too, because it's kind of like, damn, like we're kind of feeling the same way as the characters in the movie.
Taylor: Everything is bleak, and he's like, yeah, this is great.
Joseph: Stop, you're not making this any better for us right now.
Willie: Yeah, when he's like, "time like hope is an illusion."
Taylor: [laughing] Yeah.
Willie: And then the one that I think definitely caught us off guard, caught me off guard was the, right after that, there's no escape, the only hope is sweet, the sweet relief of death.
Joseph: Yes. Fucking brutal.
Taylor: Yeah, he was dark. That was a dark character. It was good. It was a good, uh, mix up in the characters that you were seeing.
Willie: And I thought about it because I was looking at the, like, credits to see what my final sort of thoughts were, and obviously at the end, that character's also like, no, that's a happy ending, or is it? [Joseph and Willie chuckle] Cause everything's over now and all that's left is you and the infinite void. [chuckles]
Joseph: Oh, right, right.
Willie: And then followed up by, kind of makes you want to play a saxophone, huh? [laughs]
Joseph: Oh, and then the theme music, huh?
Willie: The theme music on the saxophone. Which, again, there's more music that follows that. Like, there's some Dr. Mario theme in there, I'm pretty sure. And finally, more of the underwater theme that is kind of absent from most of the film.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: It never, like, really comes up before that. Uh, that part that you were talking about with the Cheep-Cheep in the bag. Someone mentioned in some video that I watched that there was a hint of the underwater theme when that happens.
Joseph: I think there was, yeah.
Willie: But like I could barely, if any, like make it, I could barely make it out. Like it didn't really register to me as being part of that.
Taylor: Uh-uh.
01:00:13
Joseph: The underwater theme specifically, I wondered if they intentionally pulled back on that because it's very expected.
Willie: Sure.
Joseph: And I feel like they had to make those decisions throughout the film of like, Hey, like they're, they're the things we want to lean in and prioritize over some other things that are really, really expected, but because they are so expected, we might not want to be so forward with that.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: And I feel like that theme song specifically, because every time I saw water, I was thinking it.
Willie: Yeah, for sure.
Joseph: So I'm kind of glad it didn't happen-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -kind of like over the top and like, You know, you know the exact moment it's going to kick in. I'm kind of glad that didn't happen at all.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, and it leaves a little bit for the next one too. Like maybe the next one is going to focus more on water. I mean, that's water is always going to be the most ambitious thing when you're talking about, uh, design, [Joseph laughs] 3D design. [Willie laughs] I mean...
Joseph: How are we talking about water again, 2 episodes in a row?
Taylor: Yeah, well, [Joseph laughing] I mean, it's just because water is water is, uh, and it's the most beautiful or it's the most janky, shitty looking thing ever.
Willie: [laughing] What did we talk about last episode? Now, I don't remember.
Joseph: It's in an episode that hasn't released, but Taylor is bringing up the people that are in charge of the water in GTA-
Willie: oh, right, right, right.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -and how it looked all great and stuff.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, well, I'm a, I'm a water. I'm an Aquarius, bro. [Willie chuckling]
Joseph: Dude, now, now we've got to get the-
Taylor: Eat my water pole. I don't know...
Joseph: -the running water joke happening in all these episodes in one way or another.
Taylor: Yeah. Well, maybe we can, uh, at some point that'll be, uh, the pinnacle as we get somebody on here that makes water-
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: -in video games. [Willie chuckles]
Willie: Yeah. Any other final thoughts before we close this out?
Joseph: I'm done, man. That's it. That's all I got. Well, it's not all I got, but-
Taylor: nah.
Joseph: -that's all I'm going to say.
Taylor: Yeah. I think we said it. Like I, I dug the movie. I can put that in a chest and never think about it again.
Willie: All right. Well, I think that brings us to the end of the episode. Then be on the lookout for more. If you're hearing this, hopefully you've, you've gone back and you've listened to the full catalog of Berries and Blades things, plenty of episodes out now.
And you could also find us streaming on Twitch at BerriesandBlades. I've been doing some Lies of P lately, so this will date that, but I'll probably still be playing it by the time you hear this. Pretty good chance.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
But yeah, we'll be streaming all kinds of things. There's definitely some more stuff we want to do on there, but we really appreciate you listening and subscribing and giving us reviews whenever you can on whatever platform you're listening to.
Joseph: [laughing] Yeah, do that. Somebody do that so that makes sense. [Taylor laughing]
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Give us some reviews. That would be cool. But we do just appreciate you listening. Tell your friends about it. But thanks for joining us.
Joseph: Yeah, peace y'all. Thanks for being here.
Taylor: Hell yeah, y'all keep on keepin’ on and get your mamma mia's and your wahoos in where you can.
Joseph: [imitating Mario] Mamma mia.
Taylor: [imitating Mario] Mamma mia.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:02:48
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza, and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: [mocking Joseph] Welcome to Berries and Blades, where a few guys are sitting in their rooms and they're listening to the sounds. Pizza and burgers are the, uh, Hopdoddy.