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If there is only one law in Cool World and no one has ever broken it, why do they even have Brad Pitt as a police officer? Why is there even a police department?

Paul, June, and Jason discuss the 1992 live-action/animated fantasy film Cool World starring Kim Basinger, Brad Pitt, and Gabriel Byrne. They talk about the rules of the animated realm of Cool World, why Brad Pitt’s character is a police officer, Holli Would wanting to turn human by having sex with a noid, and much more. Subscribe to Unspooled with Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson here: http://www.earwolf.com/show/unspooled/ Check out The Jane Club over at www.janeclub.com Check out new HDTGM merch over at https://www.teepubli…wdidthisgetmade Where to Find Jason, June & Paul: @PaulScheer on Instagram & Twitter @Junediane on IG and @MsJuneDiane on Twitter

The end of movie i dont know whats happening and who to cheer for. No clear exposition no clear protagonists or antagonists

The most improbable thing in this movie was not the existence of an alternate dimension cartoon world but that Jack Deebs channeling his vision of it into a comic book would be a huge hit. I was curious if anyone had theorized what the content of those books would be and found that DC published a 4 issue Cool World prequel comic to go along with the release of the movie. The first issue can be bought online right now for $2.60. It retailed for $1.75 at the time so its value hasn't quite kept up with inflation. They have also been posted online. http://vlcomic.com/read/comic-cool-world-eng/1 I read the first issue and here are some highlights if you don't want to waste your 10 minutes. Harris is a petty criminal in the first issue not a detective. Almost every object in the comic is anthropomorphized. Cool World is one of (many?) cartoon worlds it is right next to Sweet Place. Holli tries to seduce Harris to get to the real world but he won't break that rule even though he is a criminal. Another human enters Cool World while he is dreaming so presumably other than Harris and Deebs that is how Noids get to the cartoon dimension.

So there are many issues with the comic book store. First, unlike Tall John said there are other comics in the shop it's not just Cool World. We see some Batman and Superman wall books, a couple Akira comics, and in Jack's stack of things he was buying we can see an issue of New Gods and Teen Titans. The fact that DC did a prequel comic is starting to make a bit more sense. Second, all the Cool World books are behind the register. They're like nudie magazines at a convenience store or something in which you have to ask the clerk for them. How are people suppose to look through them? Is Cool World for adults only? Third, they are selling a very rare signed from prison issue of Cool World. What would indicate if a comic was signed in or not in prison? It's issue number 3 so clearly it was published before his time in prison. What's to stop some schmuck from folding an autographed issue they already had in half and claiming it was from prison? That's another thing. The comic is folded in half with a very hard crease. That's got to bring the comic down a ton in value even if it was autographed from prison. Lastly and this is more of an Easter Egg than a nonsensical thing, but the rather larger gentleman in the comic shop is seen reading an issue of Animation Magazine. Not only that but it's an issue with Ralph Bakshi (Cool World's director) on the cover of it.

Well clearly there are police because we have that whole chase scene so I want to know is if Brad Pitt is working with them. If so he managed to become a detective it seems so that means he had to work his way up through the ranks. At one point was Brad Pitt riding around in that police car with a bunch of tiny guys? Did he have a beat that he walked? I want to know.

I agree with this. The movie looks significantly cheaper than Roger Rabbit despite coming out a few years later. The budget on this was $50 million but Roger Rabbit was $70 million. I don't know anything about animation costs, but is a $20 million difference enough for this to look that much worse? I think the animation in this occasionally looks good but it really looks significantly cheaper than Roger Rabbit. I read an interview with Bakshi and he admits some fault in the fact that he's maybe not the best guy to be running a production this large. So, maybe that's part of it?

There was a lot of insane stuff in this movie they didn't have time to discuss, like the 2 dimensional sets and the sketchy, half-finished-looking animations that would fly by. There's exposition happening and suddenly a cartoon dog with sunglasses materializes and makes goofy noises. Incidentally when I was looking for that screenshot I saw there's a short part in Holly's house where Brad Pitt looks in a funhouse mirror and it distorts him to have the a similar look as he does at the end when he becomes a cartoon. That's called foreshadowing and it means this movie is art. Do we think Brad Pitt's horrible acting was due to having nothing to act against? He was still pretty bad when the other human was around

Much like June, i have a deep love of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It's definitely in my top 5 favorite films. Unlike June, i didn't laugh one single time at this film. I wanted to set it on fire. I remember seeing Fritz the Cat way too young, and i should have trusted my guts and not have watched this.

Wikipedia has the album as 70:33. Idk, Triplicate was only about two hours and it was split on three discs. Maybe there's a thematic reason.

Maybe Pitt is his own department like SVU. His only enforcement seems to be to return Noids back to the real world so he's the Special Noid Unit.

I haven't pre-ordered it yet, but I'm definitely going to get it. I like the new single too. This album is going to be all over the place. The singles that have come out are all really different from each other. It's also only 10 songs but comes on 2 CDs. Are there multiple songs as long as Murder Most Foul?

I did yea! Haven't ordered yet though. Very excited. Really curious about it too. I like Tempest a bit, but at the same time, I rarely listen to it.

When this movie came out, my friend and I got dropped off at the theater by our parents--we were around 15 years old--to watch Cool World. We go to buy tickets, and were then told that the film (or possibly the projector) had broken, and so Cool World was cancelled. Well, this was before cell phones and another movie was starting in like fifteen minutes, so we decided to just go see that instead. That movie was Universal Soldier starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. In retrospect, it was a sort of teenaged Sophie's Choice of Terrible Movies and the only valid choice was to have walked home.

Hi Paul and company. I've been listening to HDTGM since the beginning. (You're one of the first podcasts I downloaded.) I was shocked by your announcement to cover Cool World because this film is particularly traumatic to me. Let me explain. I was in elementary school when this film was released and I saw the previews many times and developed some interest in watching it, probably simply because I had been exposed to it repeatedly. I don't recall ever noticing it in theaters, but maybe half a year later I found it in my local video store and rented it. (My parents didn't notice or care what the film was about.) There have been several delicately bad films from my youth that you have reviewed - such as Masters of the Universe and Streets of Fire, which I LOVED as a kid, and to this day I still rationalize their flaws because they were so magical and intense to me as a child filled with the wonder of the silver screen. But when I watched Cool World on VHS, my heart died. It was the first film I watched that was incomprehensibly bad and nonsensical that I was confused, and then relieved when the film was over. Yet it left me with the horrible realization and knowledge that films could be so awful I couldn't understand how bad they were. I know now that children don't have the finest tastes in the arts, but Cool World destroyed my youthful innocence of taking for granted that films would entertain me in a sensible way and taught me that the world of adults was a scary, dark place of nightmares. I don't think I'll ever forget the fall into Cool World with the weird buildings and scary mouth and the gangster baby who pisses on his chasers to escape them. Coincidentally, about three movies ago I decided to rent the DVD of Cool World from my local Tsutaya video store to give it another chance and was sadly disappointed to realize the movie was even worse than I remembered as a child! This is a minor point, but I was surprised that you all didn't mention that the special effects shots of merging the human actors with the cartoons is very low quality, even though Who Framed Roger Rabbit? blended live action and animation much better a few years earlier. (I guess there were too many horrific things already to discuss in the episode.) The quality of Cool World's process seems to be on par with the poor chemical blending technique used in Jean Claude Van Damme's Double Impact.

I'm a Jack of all trades and Jill of everything else

It makes sense in the context of the era but I still hate it

Oh man, I love the Rankin & Bass Hobbit. I know it's not perfect, but it really has an indelible tone that few other animated films have. It's that singular sense of antiquity that sets the story apart from the Lord of the Rings books that came later, as well as other animated and fantasy films. It was also my first exposure to Tolkien as a kid.

I liked it fine. The only problem I had is the “commercial time” and “back from commercial” loud music.

Better get it checked out because this song gave you head lice.

Yeah, I listen to them as well and I am a weirdo who will only listen to the podcast AFTER I watch the movie (I JUST listened to the DDF podcast because I couldn't find it for free and now it's on Hulu...#teamsanity (the little girl says the literal words "drop dead fred did it!") So I tried to watch this movie but literally could not get through more than 10 minutes of him as a person with autism. I had to read the wiki because the shame/embarrassment I felt for him (not his character) with that insane mullet wig was tooooo much.. Also, Devon Sawa?!?! I couldn't even make it to his entrance...AND I WATCHED THAT INSANE CLOWN POSSE MOVIE. this movie is my white whale and I will never catch him.

Next week!

Sorry about your job/salary. Your bedroom looks much cleaner (and brighter and greener!) than mine right now. I’m still in my “I’ll dump this shit over here and pick it up later” phase.

Aw, man. You just made my day! Of course I'll be your mommy!!! I brought nothing in return... EXCEPT FOR THIS! Enjoy!

Kristy Swanson came into my restaurant a few years back, wearing a baseball cap to hide her identity. The only issue was no one remembered/gave a shit who she was, so it was an entirely pointless. She kept asking people for cigarettes hoping someone would recognize her.