Episode 251 — Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Cameron H. 23786]

Paul, June, and Jason discuss the 1984 breakdancing film Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. They dive deep into everything including the turbo rotating house dance, breakdancing mimes, flirting lessons, Ice-T’s rap, and more.
 
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[gigi-tastic 2322]

So many studs and grommets on every single outfit!

[gigi-tastic 2322]

If dance is Kelly's life and her parents want her to go to school why doesn't she go to a school known for its dance program like Juilliard, Tisch, or the New York Conservatory for the Arts?  Like these are prestigious schools on the same tier as Princeton but in the arts world. It seems like a good compromise. 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

I stand with June. That building was full of asbestos at the very LEAST. Lead paint flaking off for days! Not accessible at all! 

[GrahamS. 803]

I haven’t watched the movie yet, but does June have a side job involving Paris’ tourism board? Or did she have a traumatic experience in her life involving an inability to travel to Paris? June seems to care so deeply about Kelly’s disinterest in Paris that it’s clear this film hit some emotional chord for her. I pray for June’s emotional recovery and I might watch this movie to shed light on this mystery (I’m agnostic, so I don’t know who/what  I’m praying to, but I shall perservere! Also, I somehow doubt that the film will provide me with any answers at all, but I must try!).

[Greg T 48]

I hate to agree with June on this one, but in the end Kelly really didn't contribute anything to saving the building.  Once the city decided to pull out of the deal selling to the developer, the 30 day time limit to raise the funds is meaningless.  Even if Kelly's parents didn't write a check, Miracles could start doing whatever work they could afford while continuing to raise funds because it is clear that the city will not be rushing to tear it down.  Also, if the city was in a position to pull out of the deal, that means the property had not yet officially been condemned and sold to the developer, so it seems that the plan was to destroy city property before it was even purchased.

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

This is a difficult time for me. 

 

[Cameron H. 23786]

48 minutes ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

This is a difficult time for me. 

 

I’ve been thinking of you ever since this was announced. 

[DannytheWall 196]

I think the real estate developers had it all wrong in this movie. These kids weren't particularly meddling, so if the villains dressed up as ghosts to scare everyone away from the rec center, they actually *could* have gotten away with it. 

Of course, if that happened, we could have had Electric Scoob-aloo, and that sounds pretty awesome, too. 

 

[DannytheWall 196]

This movie was amazingly crazy, and the podcast was amazing in response. Thanks of course to June's dissenting opinion, which I love her for even if she's 100% wrong :)  Probably from her misunderstanding of pop and lock, and it seemed she was turning around a little bit at the end.  
The biggest ommission was June not making a comment that she could do that if she wanted to. Did I miss that, or maybe that's a sign of progress? :) 

Another ommission I missed hearing was some comment about the crowd scenes. I would have loved to hear Paul & Co.'s take on some of the more interesting members, like the Halloween mask, the unshaved armpits, the face makeup, or the fact that Ice-T's rapper outfit looked like he was supposed to perform at a leather BDSM scene but ended up at the wrong address. 

Things moved so quickly from scene to scene that the editor stood over the editing bay and played it like a scratch record. One minute someone's dancing on the ceiling, then his love interest walks in the door. Another time he's fleeing the hospital in a cast, and the next he's getting a mob of friends to cut it off so he can quick-change into the costume for the dance routine. I know there's supposed to be a 30-day time frame here, but if you told me the movie took place over three days, I say that feels about right.   

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

*edit because.... I don't know, nevermind*

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

I have no idea if this was an homage or not, but in the '70s Bo Diddley made a crazy funk album called Black Gladiator. (One of the songs is about how he's such a bad-ass, he invented the elephant, but I digress. The album rules so hard.)

This is how he dressed for the cover:

So compare that to what Ice-T was wearing in Breakin' 2:

[DingDongMan 18]

12 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

This is how he dressed for the cover:

So compare that to what Ice-T was wearing in Breakin' 2:

Love it. They look like they are wearing seatbelts

[Metaluna Mutant 5]

This episode is a good example of why I love the show when June really gets involved in the discussion.

[RyanSz 3140]

Quick correction, this wasn't Ice-T's film debut as he was in the first Breakin' as well as the third film in the trilogy, Rappin'. He was the only person to appear in all three films so he is essentially the Brock Simpson of the Breakin' universe.

Another person that was in the film was Christopher Denis, who was the long time Superman impersonator in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood and one of the subjects of the great documentary Confessions of a Superhero. IIRC he said when he was trying to get into acting he did a lot of work as an extra on movies hoping to get noticed as a lookalike of Christoper Reeve to get bigger parts, only to then turn to dressing as Superman and getting paid for photo ops with tourists.

[Cameron H. 23786]

In regards to Lucia, Turbo's paramour, and why she was hiding in the hospital linen closet, I think I have an explanation. The movie takes great pains to show us that Lucia cannot speak English, and it is abundantly clear, based on the nurse's reaction, that the hospital staff has no interest in bilingualism. I think what we can infer from this is that Lucia probably probably came to visit Turbo in the hospital, but was unable to communicate her intention to the hospital staff. This means, in order to see him, she most likely had to sneak in. She was hiding because if anyone caught her, she would be unable to answer their questions. And even if she was able to non-verbally express her feelings, there was no telling that they would allow her to stay.

I also think we are meant to believe she was so smitten with Turbo, she was unwilling to leave his side. I think she may have been hiding so she could be with him outside visiting hours. She only reveals herself when it is his friends in the room and there is no hospital staff present.

I mean, yeah, I guess it is a little bit weird, but I think you need to put yourself in her position. If a loved one fell into a coma and was hospitalized in an area or country with a language other than your own, and with no interest in trying to communicate with you, what lengths would you go to to be by their side?     

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

Was it just me, or did Turbo somehow heal a broken leg in roughly 36 hours' time? His leg is in a cast and elevated in the hospital bed, but then later that day he's out there dancing with the crowd.

Is Turbo an X-Man?

[Cameron H. 23786]

23 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Was it just me, or did Turbo somehow heal a broken leg in roughly 36 hours' time? His leg is in a cast and elevated in the hospital bed, but then later that day he's out there dancing with the crowd.

Is Turbo an X-Man?

I just took it that this movie is about Miracles.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

24 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

I just took it that this movie is about Miracles.

That was my other thought: perhaps the Boogaloo itself has healing properties.

[pastulio 5]

I was surprised no one mentioned the handcuff belt that went through at least three characters in the movie! Here's a couple of shots of it and I'm sure there are more. Also, I love that Ice-T is credited in the first Breakin' as simply Rap Talker.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

The actor who plays Turbo is billed as  Michael 'Boogaloo Shrimp' Chambers . Is that where they got the Electric Boogaloo from?

[Cameron H. 23786]

June might not know the difference between popping and locking and "doing the robot," but clearly, the actor who played Turbo did. Actor Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers, played "Good Robot Bill" in the now classic Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1 minute ago, Cameron H. said:

June might not know the difference between popping and locking and "doing the robot," but clearly, the actor who played Turbo does. Considering the recent release of Bill and Ted Face the Music, it's rather serendipitous that Turbo, actor Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers, played "Good Robot Bill" in the now classic film Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

 

OMG.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Regarding the hospital dance scene, it is worth pointing out that there are historical antecedents to mass compulsive (and deadly) dancing epidemics. Independently verified by reliable contemporary witnesses, the first recorded case of "The Dancing Plague" occurred along the Rhine River in 1374. During that time, up to 400 men, women, and children were overcome with the insatiable need dance. (Dance Fever, if you will). It was reported that the people "scarcely paus[ed] to rest or eat, [dancing] for hours or even days in succession." Smaller outbreaks were recorded over the ensuing 200 hundred years with another large scale instance occurring in Strasbourg in 1518.

Why this occurred is still up for debate, but as with a lot of strange behavior during the Middle Ages, The Dancing Plague has been attributed to the accidental ingestion of ergot -- "a mold containing psychotropic chemicals," sometimes referred to as St Anthony's Fire. This mold would grow on their grain stores and eating it would cause the people to essentially trip balls. (As an aside, ergot contamination has been suggested as a possible cause for the strange behavior exhibited by some of the victims of the Salem Witch Trial.)

However, others have attempted to explain this phenomenon as mass psychogenic illness (i.e. mass hysteria). It has been observed that the dancing epidemics of 1374 and 1518 were both preceded by a prolonged periods of hardship in the region -- floods, famine, disease, inflation, etc. In short, during these times of hardship, shared trauma builds up within a group and can potentially manifest as mass motor hysteria. These occurrences usually begin in closed systems with people sharing similar stresses and beliefs. If, for example, the shared beliefs are supernatural in nature, this hysteria is often couched in the mythology of that group. However, these bouts of shared motor hysteria can also occur within secular groups, often, perhaps unsurprisingly, with school age children.  

Is it possible, due to the looming closure of Miracles, Kelly's familial strife, and Turbo's grievous injuries there was enough shared trauma to induced a mass dissociative trance that contaminated the hospital wing? 

...Or maybe that pizza Ozone and Kelly ate was just made with really, really bad bread.    

[hornacek 43]

Regarding the safety of the Miracles building, the only reason the viewer would think it was unsafe is because the evil developer tells the bald inspector that it's unsafe when he's trying to convince him to foreclose on the building.  It's pretty obvious from that conversation that the developer is just making that up because the bald inspector needs a reason to put on the form as to why the building is being foreclosed.  When Ozone is giving Kelly a tour we don't see anything in any of the rooms indicating the building is unsafe - everything looks fine.  June appears to be basing her entire belief that the building is unsafe on the evil developer saying it is, even though he's never been inside of it.