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I'm having a a weird Mandela effect moment because I thought for certain I remember seeing a line of NBA dolls similar to the WWF Brawlin/Cuddle buddies. They would have been released around the same time as the WWF one so Barkley would have been one of the athletes chosen, but for the life of me I can't find anything on them. Also, speaking as someone who worked in a dog pound for a summer, there are more reasons that a dog is to be destroyed other than "I wanna kill this dog," and yes destroyed is the term used. It's that term usually because the dog has something wrong with it like rabies or another condition that can affect the rest of the animals in the pound or humans, so they need to be put down, which is the term used more for dogs that haven't been adopted in a given period of time. So Travolta is realistically bringing a very ill animal into his home with two small children and running the risk of someone getting ill or hurt. Or even more realistically, the entire movie is a Jacob's Ladder Scenario for the dog who imagines itself being saved from the pound, saves the family from wolves, and reunites the family in the end.

Are these Hoopster Heroes what you were recalling? Also, while I knew the term ‘destroyed’ is used when referring to putting a dog down, is it appropriate to use it in front of a small child?

You guys talked a lot about how bad of parents both John Travolta and Kristie Alley are a lot. They don't know if their kids have homework, I'm pretty sure Kristie Alley didn't use car seats when driving her children through the snow, but most importantly they let their kids tell horrible jokes. At one point in the movie Julie tells a knock knock joke. It went like this "knock knock" "whose there?" "transsexual". There are three major problems with this joke. First it isn't complete. There is no "Transsexual who?" to follow up and complete the joke. Secondly, what does this 4 year old know the word transsexual and think its funny to use in a joke? Do they not monitor what their kids watch or listen to? Lastly, its a really bad joke. It makes no sense. I can put up with them being horrible parents and putting their kids in dangerous situations just for their own selfish reasons but they could at least teach their kids to be funny.

As Paul mentioned, the ad on the taxi cab is for Señor Pizza... which is a callback to a previous Kristie Alley film. What film you might ask? How about the one where Patrick Dempsey is a pizza delivering gigolo! Yup... We're talking about 1989's Loverboy! Oh and the tag line in the trailer is, "His customers always come first." Suuuupppper appropriate easter egg for this kid's film. Or maybe the gang is right and this really isn't a kid's film after all! Trailer:

Paul seemed to be confused as to why the dogs appeared sound like they were chewing when they were thinking, but I think the confusion is that he and the gang seem to be under the impression that the babies, dogs, wolves, etc. are communicating telepathically. However, I've always been under the impression that they aren't communicating via their mind but rather the words we're hearing is the translation of their own languages - both verbal and non-verbal. That's why in Look Who's Talking Too the children's mouths sometimes move. If you were to remove Bruce Willis and Roseanne Barr's voice overs, as adults, all we would be hearing is baby gurgling, but they are still "talking.". It's the same deal with the dogs. They are just speaking a separate language that only they understand. So, no, the dogs can't speak with or understand squirrels or clouds or whatever. Babies can speak with babies and animals can speak to animals of the same genus. We're just getting a peak into what all their strange noises actually mean.

So I had to Google to see if clam souffle was a thing (hoping against hope that such a monstrosity was pure fantasy) and apparently it is. Here's the ingredients list from a recipe from James Beard's Mother's clam souffle : INGREDIENTS 4 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 teaspoon salt Dash Tabasco 1 cup clam juice 5 egg yolks 2 tablespoons chopped parsley 1 cup drained clams 6 egg whites Butter for the casserole No offense to James Beard or his Mother but I still gagged at the thought of this dish. I'm sorry I see the words clam juice and I dry heave.

Was browsing this movie on IMDB, and noticed that the family's last name in Ubriacco. Ubriaco (with 1 c) means "drunk" in Italian. Not sure if that is a coincidence, a misspelling or what, but might explain a lot of what's going on in this trilogy.

The most important thing about this movie is the Diane Keaton dog wants a slice of lemon with her water. Don't do this. Lemons can upset a dog's stomach and cause vomiting or diarrhea. The small amount of juice from lemon in a bowl of water may not cause problems but do you really want to risk it?

Found this comment about the Charles Barkley doll on a YouTube clip from the film:

June already upset the breakdance community now poodles have no expressions

I can get behind this 100%

...

I have to say that I mostly agreed with Amy and Paul on this one. I think this is a really great movie, and I think it's my toughest call yet on whether or not I think it belongs on the list. As great as I think it is, I also can see Amy and Paul's argument that it somehow feels inessential. As far as whether Stingo is an "incel", in terms of the literal origin of the portmanteau, "involuntarily celibate", Stingo is that, undeniably. If it weren't for the kind of creepy and mostly useless scene with Leslie, the voluntariness might be more up for debate. As far as the current vitriolic connotation the term has, maybe I wouldn't go that far in applying it to Stingo. But that said, I still think Stingo is an uninteresting character. For me, the movie is interesting in studying Sophie's character, and, as Cameron H. put it, how can she move on after surviving what she did. The way that question is posed and answered in the film, mostly through Meryl's Hall of Fame performance, is why I ultimately come down on the side that this does belong on the list.

Did anyone else think that Olympia Dukakis' pep talk about infidelity was insane? Apparently, her husband was shipwrecked with a bunch of USO girls, but she refused to believe he didn't cheat on her until - years later - she met some of the women and *they* said he didn't cheat on her. Yeah, that sounds healthy. I'm not trying to blame Alley's parents for all their relationship problems, but I feel like at least some of Travolta and Alley's dysfunction should be attributed to them.

Wow, absolutely loved the fact that they had Conan on as a guest. I feel they did a good job of hitting all of the awful/weird things of this film, although I do wish they would have taken a deeper dive into some of them. Here are just a few of the lingering questions I had after watching this... - I know it's been clear that the rules for who talks and who understands who do not make sense, but one other example of that that was not mentioned is the fact that Rocks has a conversation with his mom. In these films human babies cannot communicate with their parents, but apparently puppies have the ability to communicate with their parents. It also seems odd that the film introduces Rocks' parents at the beginning of the film and then completely forget about them. Wouldn't have been interesting to hear Rocks' mother's thoughts on the fact that her owners have just put her babies in a box on the side of the street for anyone to take one? - The sports allegiances in this film are odd. They live in NY, but Julie is a fan of Charles Barkley who played for Phoenix at the time. Travolta makes the comment that at least she's not a "Dallas fan". Now Dallas was a horrible team in '93, but you would think he would hate the idea of her being a Celtics or Nets fan instead. Then there is the whole "Bash brothers" routine that he does with Mikey which is something that was created by Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco when they played for Oakland. These just don't seem to be the actions of someone who lives in New York. - I am glad they called out the fact that Kirstie Alley seemingly has accepted that she and the kids are going to die in the taxi when it crashes in the forest, but I also wanted them to comment on what her plan was after they initially crashed. She tells the kids that she going out to "look for pine cones". Why? If it was a lie to shield her kids from the grim reality, it's a terrible lie that doesn't make sense. And if she was being serious, what were pine cones going to do? Did she plan on using them as a side dish with her clam souffle? - One of the plotlines of the film is that Mikey has become disillusioned about Christmas after seeing the mall Santa is not the real Santa. His parents then do a terrible job (no surprise) of trying to deal with this. First, they do that horrible Chipmunks routine (how long did they take rehearsing that?) that probably would have turned me completely off of Christmas. Then they give in and get him a dog. But wouldn't it have been better to get him the dog for Christmas and say Santa got it for him? The forest ranger does more to re-ignite Mikey's Christmas spirit by playing the sleigh bells on the radio. - Did anyone else notice Kirstie Alley's father is reading the tax form booklet like a magazine when they are all together for Christmas Eve? Man that family really loves accounting!

I wanted to mention the 2nd opinion where the reviewer calls the movie a “show”... my grandma calls all media “shows” and despite the number of times we call them movies, she consistently calls them shows. So there is precedent for this term and my grandma is a really sweet lady

I am wet, with excitement for another studio episode. And Conan & June!!! I'm double wet. With excitement!!! I love you all!

OMG Conan?! I'm so happy he's on Earwolf playing on all my favorite podcasts

That's also kind of how I feel about it. I certainly don't think it stinks or anything. Meryl Streep's performance is brilliant and unassailable, and the most effective scenes (which I found to be the flashbacks to Sophie's past) do indeed carry a lot of power. But to me the movie feels unbalanced, with everything in Sophie's flashbacks carrying a ton of stakes and everything in the "modern" story with Stingo feeling comparatively weightless and unimportant. The modern relationship stuff could carry its own movie, but the juxtaposition with Sophie's Holocaust story feels awkward to me. It really comes to a head when the scene revealing the nature of the titular "choice" is immediately followed by a scene of Stingo and Sophie going to bed and Stingo's syrupy voice-over describing it. To me it feels a bit like they are trying to equate or compare the climaxes of these stories, and it feels like the wrong choice. Again, not terrible. Better than the average movie. But I would personally not vote for it to stay on the list.

Kevins new pasquetti joke could be poscorn.

sean name dropped tim treese in today's pro version. perhaps it's a signal that the popcorn gallery is making a return. a boy can only dream.

react to this post if your proud to be in the most annoying fanbase!!!!!

States can definitely set up something like that, but if Congress wants to legislate in this area, the Supremacy Clause allows their legislation to have precedence and to be the minimum threshold for the States to follow. And a national boys program would be allowable under the Constitution which gives Congress power to legislate the "general welfare" of the country, which certainly this is. They may also have to claim the land as federal property first, which I can't remember if they were trying to do in the film? Probably. Generally the film was pretty accurate about the law, which, believe me, is rare.

Did anyone else think the scene where Jefferson goes on a rage-punching rampage was a fantasy montage? And speaking of montages, I felt like they missed out by not including a makeover sequence with Jefferson and Saunders, where he's the one coming out of the dressing room in various tweeds and Saunders sitting in a chair, judging the outfits with a thumbs up/down.