Childhood Ruined?: The Rocketeer (1991)

Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe, here in this great screening room with comfortable recliners, are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled.

Keith! The crossover of all crossovers. The TCU. Terry. Cinematic Universe. Terry!

Frozen ice cubes folded into pants they have to put on and hope that it keeps you cool enough.

Derek! 50 bowling balls rolling at him and they just form into a suit. And the power twins, Zap and Jordan, with their magical lemur snort dedicated Welcome back to Fumbling Their Way Through Movies, one forgotten gem at a time. This week we watch the 1991 Nazi bust-in-action flick, The Rocketeer. This is Fumbling Through Film.

Piston is shot, nothing left of her but spit and baling wire.

I could fly a shoebox if it had wings, Pete.

Ow! What?

What's the matter? I don't know, there's something under the seat.

Yeah, that's my duffel bag.

What do you got in there? I don't know, but it's heavy.

Here, Pete, clean that table off.

All right, open her up.

Oh my, what do we got here?

Here, take the bat.

Well, that's a piece of work, isn't it? Yeah.

What are you supposed to do, is it a bomb or something? Huh?

Too complex to be a bomb.

I don't see any moving parts.

I wouldn't touch that if I were you.

Hello and welcome to another one-of-a-kind, genre-defining, brand new episode of Fumbling Through Film, the only show that dares to bring together 3 dudes to talk about movies. These aren't just any movies though.

Nope.

No, they aren't. They're the ones we've missed, overlooked, New Year's movies, we feel are simply worth revisiting. Sorry, Terry. Even in the new year, that means any movie.

Oh, I thought you might change your tune. The New Year's resolution.

It just means any movie. Anyway, uh, my name is Derek and I'm a fumbler. Joining me here in the Fumble Dome, uh, we are fresh off of celebrating New Year's and all that kind of good stuff. And oh, what else did we do? Oh, it's, it's been a few weeks since New Year's. We're fresh off that. We're just getting over the hangover.

That's true. We went a little crazy. We don't look crazy.

Not so. Anyway, joining me here in the Fumble Dome where it's just a disaster is the Prime Minister of Fumbling and Film, Keith.

Hey, hey, what's up? It's KG, fumbler extraordinaire and the secret identity of the Laughing Bandit.

The Laughing Bandit. Oh, I thought you said polar extraordinaire and I was like, okay. Yeah, but he's a fumbler extraordinaire.

Yeah, could be both.

Good. Why not both?

Mm-hmm.

And that other secret, secret identity.

Yeah, that other man of duplicity who's got a secret, secret identity of the Dr. Dre of Kansas is Terry.

That's true. I'm the Dr. Dre of Kansas. I'm like the king of men. Sniper with the microphone.

Sniper on the mic. Sniper on the microphone.

I've got several, several identities I go by.

Yes.

Yeah, and there's many more to be found. That's not it. That's not it. I've got a, I've got a, an identity for every aspect of my life.

How many aspects do you have?

Uh, that's about 2 million.

Wow. 2 million. And see, so one of the rules of, of, uh, being full of shit, Terry, is you don't, you don't give yourself a mountain that's so high to climb That you'll never reach the top and you'll just fall to your death.

I thought I'd give myself some wiggle room so that I could, if I were to make up random names, I'd have like maybe a, you know, a few years to kind of just make things up.

Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha.

Each one is just the Dr. Dre of something. It's the Dr. Dre of lockpicking. The Dr. Dre.

Uh-huh.

2 million. There you go.

Yeah, we'll get there eventually. You know, maybe in 20 years.

20 years. 20 years. We'll do it.

For sure.

Uh, we know what else we're gonna do for sure. Hmm, this episode.

Oh yeah, that's true. I guess we will probably do that. We gotta do it.

We're starting year 2, season 2. Is it series S2 or Y2, you think?

Oh, like, well, it's got—

it's gotta be Y2 because we, we go by a calendar.

Yeah, that's true. It is year 2, and we'd go January to December.

Is it, uh, it was, uh Year 2 BC, like, or BF?

BC, before Christ?

No, before fumbling.

Yeah, well, we are—

it'd be after—

it'd be DF. DTF.

YTF. Yes. Yeah, DTF year 2. I like that.

Okay, new shirts of the year. DTF, down to fumble.

Down to Fumble, year 2. Well, since we're down to fumble, we better— let's get everybody else down to fumble as well.

Yeah.

And let them know what we do here.

I really thought you covered that in the intro, but okay.

We watch movies, but not just any movies. Every month, one of us picks a genre, a theme, a guiding light, some words to live by, a rudder on our helmet to steer us into a direction. Oh yeah. And each one of us picks a movie that aligns with that theme or genre. We watch those. And on the 4th week, we each put a movie onto a wheel. The wheel spins and gives us a movie to watch. And then that is our month. And this is the first month of DTFY2.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know if I'll remember that, but I'm trying to remember for the next episode. I should write it down. DTFY2. And I chose— oh, I shall say, we used to have an order that we let the wheel decide. We have a very pesky 4th member of the podcast, and it's a wheel, and it decided this year's order. And it goes Derek, Keith, Terry, which is ultimately almost the same order as last time, except for I'm going first and then Keith follows me, which is the same loop.

But yeah, yeah.

I just got to pick first for the new year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The wheel's more of a, like, I, I feel like it, like a Derek Jr. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. It's fitting that the wheel sided with Derek again.

Little Derek.

Yeah. Little Derek. Little Derek came through in the clutch. Let me go first. Possibly saved us from some trauma.

I don't know. That's true. I, you know, little Derek doesn't lie. You know, it does a good job usually.

It does. And for this first month, I had this idea brewed in my head, but then after we did the Sniper episode, it cemented it for me. We're going to rewatch movies that we haven't seen since we were kids and we liked and revisit them in a month I'm calling Childhood Ruined? With a question mark. And so, because I really hate that phrase, I hate when people do that. My childhood was ruined by you doing something that you like that goes against what I like. You know, like somebody redoes something or—

Oh God, makes a new Star Wars movie.

It makes a new Star Wars or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie or a Transformers movie or whatever, right? You ruined my childhood. Well, actually, your childhood is still there, right? You can still have, you still have memories of it.

I really feel seen with this.

But what we're doing is we're going to actually see if we could ruin some childhoods because instead of remaking our movies, we're rewatching them to see if we were just stupid kids or not.

And if it did ruin our childhood, all the memories we had will be deleted from our brain.

Exactly.

Now, I did, I did put that into consideration once you put this, and I had to start figuring out since I'm next and I was going to start figuring out a movie, things that I don't want ruined by this podcast.

This is a challenging month. And so for the first week, I chose a movie that we've actually talked about on this podcast in the past. I don't remember what the context was.

Neither do I.

It was from a deep dive because I— it was from my deep dive, as a matter of fact. And it's a movie I have fond memories of, but I see people kind of shit on it from time to time.

I'm like, really? I thought it was good.

I really liked it. Yep. And that is The Rocketeer from 1991. Now, before we talk about our viewing of The Rocketeer from 1991, before I take us closer to The Rocketeer than we ever dared dreamed, did anyone, any of us except for me, because it's from my childhood, have any past experience, history, knowledge of The Rocketeer from 1991?

Uh, yeah, I think I've watched this like in within like the last 10 years as well. Um, I think at some point I tried showing it to my kids, but then when I showed them the— at least what Disney Plus makes a trailer out of, which is just like a scene from the movie— they were like, that doesn't look familiar. I think one of you said it looked boring, which I'm like, okay. But that's, um, yeah. But I, I'd seen this originally as part of your childhood also, Derek.

My childhood?

Part of Derek's childhood?

Well, no, Derek said he, he has memories because of his childhood, so I'm Yeah, it was around that same childhood.

Probably not.

I don't think I— I don't necessarily think I saw it with you.

Would that be your childhood? We didn't have a shared childhood.

No, you guys shared.

We did kind of grow up together, but we didn't have a shared childhood.

You had the same childhood. I, uh, I have seen this before. Uh, it's probably actually been— it's probably been about, yeah, 10 years as well. I don't know.

Oh, so your childhood almost.

It was almost my childhood. Yeah, it basically was. It was— well, it's Derek's childhood. No, I saw it recently— or not that recent, but I watched it probably in early college or late high school, I think.

Sure.

You know, big comic book guy, and I knew this was based off comics, so I think that's why I watched it.

Okay.

And I saw it at the drive-in. Oh wow. My dad was a big fan of taking us to the drive-in in the summer, and this is— I don't remember what the other movie was at the time, but I do know I saw this at the drive-in.

Nice. That's cool.

All right. Well, I guess what we're going to do now is I'm going to take us closer to The Rocketeer than you could ever imagine in another year 2 of patent pending Fumbler's Deep Dive. The Rocketeer. This son of a bitch came out on June 21st, 1991. I was 15 when it came out, so I wasn't like a little kid, but I was a kid.

I had just turned 16 the day before.

Yeah, Keith had just celebrated his birthday by going to see The Rocketeer.

Probably. I probably, yes, probably with my dad. That seems like something I would have done. Yeah.

And we would have just finished up our sophomore year of high school. Yeah. It's rated PG, has a runtime of about an hour, 48 minutes. A young pilot stumbles onto a prototype jetpack that allows him to become a high-flying masked hero. Has a couple of taglines. This, this one's long and too long. 3 years before the United States declares war, Cliff Secord leads America's first battle against the Nazis.

Wow, that is long.

It is long. And then it kind of spoils spoilers. Yeah.

What the heck? Yeah, hold on. Yeah, you can't say that. Yeah.

And I read that and I was like, all right. And then we watched the movie. I was like, where are the fucking Nazis? An ordinary man forced to become an extraordinary hero. I like that one better.

That one's good. That one's good.

It had a $35 million budget, opened at $9.6 million, which was good for 4th, good enough to beat Backdraft in its 5th week. And then it came behind Dying Young, also opened that week.

I'm like, what the fuck is Dying Young? Mel Gibson.

No. A caregiver falls in love with a terminally ill man, directed by Joel Schumacher and stars Julia Roberts, Campbell Scott, and Vincent D'Onofrio.

Oh, really? Yes.

Oh, you know what? I think I'm thinking of Forever Young.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Which is the Mel Gibson. I didn't think that. I think it's, I think it's set in a similar time period to the start of Rocketeer.

Oh my God. Oh really?

It's a period piece.

Well, that's about the time— that's the time in world history that Mel Gibson probably really liked.

Yeah, I think he had some opinions.

Yeah, I, I have a lot of similarities with what was going on in the world at that time.

Uh, number 2, they'll never tell you which side he's interested in.

No, no, I think he will.

You're right, he'll scream it at you. Uh, and then Second that week was City Slickers, and then first was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Oh, Rocketeer finished with a $46.7 million box office run. It gets a 6.6 on IMDb, a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Slightly higher. Yeah.

Roger Ebert said this: you have to dial down to return to an age of innocence when an eccentric inventor and a clear-eyed hero take on the bad guys with a new gizmo they dreamed up overnight. He liked it. Thumbs up from Ad Ribert. Flip side, Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly said this: a piece of blandly enthusiastic B-movie pulp. Wow. Okay. It was directed by Joe Johnston. He has 18 directing credits going back to 1989 with such things as He's got some bangers. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, Hidalgo, Jurassic Park 3, Captain America: The First Avenger.

Really?

But in 2010, he directed The Wolfman. Upon his return to his ancestral homeland, an American man is bitten and subsequently cursed by a werewolf. Stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt.

I saw this on my birthday.

You saw it? Really?

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

I'm assuming the reason you remember it was on your birthday because it left a bad impression or a great impression. One of the two.

I remember thinking it's awesome, but I don't remember much else about it. Might be perfect for this category.

This movie was written by 3 people. Dave Stevens, Dan Pilsen, I think. Bilson. Forgot the first letter of his name. And Paul DeMaio. Dan Stevens, he's the original creator of The Rocketeer. He first appeared— Rocketeer first appeared as a backdrop feature in the 2nd issue of an independent comic book called Star Slayer, and that was 1962. Oh, I've not heard of that one. Its success led to its own series of comic books and eventually this movie. The film in turn led to further comic book stories by various creative teams. Uh, after Stevens passed in 2008.

Star Slayer. That sounds awesome.

It does sound cool. And in '82, I bet you it looked awesome too.

Oh yeah. That's great art, probably.

Yep. The original Rocketeer stories by Dave Stevens are collected into graphic novels, most notably in the volume, The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures.

Makes sense.

So there are 2 writers, Dan Bilson and his writing partner, Paul DeMaio. They worked together all the way up until DeMaio passed away in 2018. Danny Bilson has since been teaching screenwriting at USC. So pretty good gig.

Okay.

They worked together on 33 different titles, including 22 episodes of the original Flash TV show from 1990, 65 episodes of The Sentinel, 78 episodes of Viper, video games like Medal of Honor Frontline, Command and Conquer Generals, And movies like Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, Trancers, Eliminators. But in 1989, they wrote a movie called Arena. A human becomes an unlikely rising star in the biggest fighting tournament in the galaxy.

Whoa.

That's dominated by alien species.

That sounds cool.

It does. Stars Paul Satterfield. Hamilton Camp, which sounds like a made-up name and a half. Claudia Christian and a whole bunch of other people you've never heard of.

I haven't heard of those first few people.

What is that called again?

Paul Satterfield and Hamilton Camp. No, no.

What was the name of that movie again?

Arena.

I don't think I've ever heard of that. Maybe, but that sounds like, and that sounds like something that like should probably get remade at some point in time.

1989. Lots of practical effect aliens in the trailer. I didn't watch the trailer, but I saw it.

And no Arnold in that in 1989? That seems crazy.

I know, it was probably written for Arnold, but—

Martial arts tournament.

Yeah, martial arts tournament with aliens. How dope does that sound?

That sounds amazing. I would watch that in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I don't know if it's good, but it sounds awesome.

How could it be bad?

Hmm, you'd be surprised.

Or maybe I wouldn't be surprised.

I, I think again we can remember there was 2 guys who were down with karate and in love with the same woman. We thought that couldn't be bad either.

Uh-huh. That's true. What could be bad about that?

This sounds a thousand times better than, uh, what was that movie called? I can't think of it.

Lone Wolf McQuade.

Sounds a thousand times better than that because it's got aliens in it. If Lone Wolf McQuade had aliens, it would automatically be better than it is right now.

It'd be like at least like a, like slightly, at least, uh, I don't know, 2 points higher, you know, on a 10 out of 10 scale.

All right. This movie stars Billy Campbell as Cliff Secord, right? He has 84 credits in TV and film going back to 1982 in such things as an episode of Family Ties, 19 episodes of Dynasty, 40 episodes of Crime Story, 63 episodes of Once and Again— things I've never even heard of— and then movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oh, he was the titular Menno in Menno's Mind.

What?

A movie called Menno's Mind. I don't know. He was Menno. It was a, it was a Billy Campbell vehicle. That's all I know.

All right.

He was in 2024, 2025's I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Oh, the new one. Wow.

Yeah. He was in a thing called Modus. Another thing called 10 Things I Hate About Life.

Wow.

But in 2022, he played Dr. David Secord.

Hmm.

Isn't it? Wasn't that his name? Cliff Secord? He played Dr. David Secord in Troll.

Oh, cool.

Deep in the Dovre Mountains, something gigantic wakes up after 1,000 years in captivity. The creature destroys everything in its path and quickly approaches Oslo.

I'll be honest, I just watched this and I don't remember him being in there.

Directed by the new Troll. I thought he went the old Troll.

The 2020. Yeah, yeah, the old the new Troll 2022 Netflix's Troll, I think. Directed by Roar Uthaug and stars Ina Marie Wilman, Kim Falk, and Mads Skård Peterson.

Okay.

Never saw it. Actually, I think I tried to watch it and it puts me to sleep every time.

I just watched the sequel of it too.

Was it?

I forgot there's a second one.

It's it's like Norwegian kaiju basically.

Yeah, I like Norway.

I like not to be confused with Troll Hunter, which is an amazing movie.

That's a great movie.

I've never seen it either.

Not to be controlled with Troll Two.

Oh my God!

Yes, that's a good movie too.

This movie also stars. Jennifer Connelly, the amazingly lovely Jennifer Connelly as Jenny.

Mm-hmm.

She has 56 acting credits going back to 1982. She was an underground cult member in Duran Duran's music video for Union of the Snake. She was in Once Upon a Time in America, Labyrinth, Higher Learning, Mulholland Falls, Requiem for a Dream, Blood Diamond, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Top Gun: Maverick, Waking the Dead. But in 1988, she played Emma Murdock in Dark City. Oh yes. A man struggles with memories of his past, which include a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world no one else ever seems to wake up from. Stars Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly.

I remember seeing that movie.

Me neither.

I didn't really like that movie.

I believe it's supposed to be like It's often considered, because it came out the same year as The Matrix, yep, as an also to The Matrix, like, you know, a Deep Impact to Armageddon sort of thing.

Yeah, it's very similar in some ways. Matrix is a trillion times better, but I've heard Dark City's very good.

No, I've never seen it. This movie also stars— I, you know, I started with 3 and I had to keep adding as I watched the movie. So this movie also stars Alan Arkin as Peevee. He has 112 acting credits in TV and film going back to 1957. Alan Arkin is a legend. 16 episodes of The Kaminsky Method. Okay. Legendary.

Legendary.

And that's what you leave with.

4 episodes of BoJack Horseman.

Now that's a little more legendary.

12 episodes of 100 Center Street. An episode of Captain Kangaroo.

Okay. Oh, now we're talking legendary status right here.

This is my— this is one of my favorite deep dives I've done. And movies like— he was Inspector Clouseau in Inspector Clouseau. He was in Catch-22. In Freebie and the Bean, he played Bean.

He played Bean?

He played Bean in Freebie and the Bean. I don't know what it is.

I kind of wish it was— I kind of wish he played Freebie and then the other one was Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean.

Played Mr. Bean in a movie called Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins. He played Rafferty.

Okay, so many so-and-so and so-and-sos is he in. Hold on.

He played Sigmund Freud in 7% Solution, different one. He played Simon Mendelssohn in a movie called Simon. He played— come on. Wait, wait. He played Flash in a movie called Choo Choo and the Philly Flash.

Choo Choo and the Philly Flash? Who's coming up with these titles?

Choo Choo is spelled C-H-U-C-H-U.

And he still— he plays the Flash, I guess?

He played the Flash. He played Philly Flash in that, I'm guessing.

Oh, get, get that wheel warmed up now.

You gotta, you gotta admit— I'm not done.

I'm not done. Wait till you hear some of these.

Okay, keep going.

He played Captain Invincible in The Return of Captain Invincible. At least he's getting a lot of attention.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The Return of? What about the original one?

It's like Leonard Part 8. It's The Return of Captain Invincible.

There was The Death of Captain Invincible, then The Return of Captain Invincible.

In Edward Scissorhands, he played Edward. He played Edward?

Oh, dang it.

He was in Get Smart, Thin Ice, Marley and Me, and Grosse Pointe Blake. But in 1992, he played George Aronow in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Yeah.

An examination of the machinations between the scenes at a real estate office. It's based on the David Mamet stage play. Stars Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, and Alan Arkin.

And at some point in time was a large pillar of mine and Derek's Uh, it is a, it is a very high school years.

It's a very good movie. Have you seen it, Terry?

I've never seen it. No.

Yeah, it's pretty outstanding.

Do you want to hear Alec Baldwin's speech? Because we can call somebody up who can probably recite it word for word right now.

We have a friend that dedicated his life to that movie, or at least a speech in it.

Wow.

Yeah.

Uh, that's okay. I'll, I'll watch it someday. I'll learn it myself.

And that's as far as I was going to go in the deep dive. And then it's like, and then when I saw him, I'm like, I have to do this. Timothy Dalton plays Neville St. Clair.

Yeah.

He's got 75 acting credits going back to 1966. He was in 27 episodes of Doom Patrol. Uh, he was in Toy Story 3 and 4 as Mr. Pricklepants. He was in 2 episodes of Doctor Who. He was James Bond in Licence to Kill and The Living Daylights. He was Prince Baron in Flash Gordon. He played Archie Christie in a movie called Agatha, which I'm assuming is about Agatha Christie. He played Elliot Price in Naked in New York, but in 2007, he played Simon Skinner in Hot Fuzz.

Yes, that's where I recognized him.

Yeah, I love this movie. An overachieving London police sergeant is transferred to a village where the easygoing officer— officers object to his fervor for regulations. All while a string of grisly murders strikes the town. Written and directed by Edgar Wright, stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Martin Freeman.

That's a really good movie.

Yeah, it's really good.

It's got some great sight gags in it too. Love that movie.

Yes.

And I don't know, like, Derek, if you're— if you do the deep dive while you're watching, or if you did ahead of time or not, but like, as you're watching this movie, like, if you would have had everything else written up, I think you probably would have had to go back and Look up Timothy Dalton because he's really good in this.

I— yeah, so I, I do the deep dive before, and I usually just do the 3 names that are top on IMDb. And I saw Timothy Dalton on there, I'm like, I know he's in this movie. Um, and I like Timothy Dalton, but— and he was James Bond. But I didn't do it until I started watching. I'm like, I had to do Timothy Dalton. And then I was done, and then I started watching the movie, and I'm like, I gotta do this guy. Finally, finally, that giant man is the King Kong gentleman, was played by Tiny Ron Taylor. He's an American film actor and former basketball player. He played for 4 teams from '69 to '72: the Nets, the Cap— the Washington Capitals, the Virginia Squires, which don't exist anymore, and the Pittsburgh Condors, which don't exist anymore either.

Oh, the Condors.

Yep. Then he played a giant man in 27 different things. He recently passed away, like 2018. Like Sasquatch Mountain. He played the Sasquatch.

He played the mountain.

He played Jacko the Giant in Last Man Standing. He was Rock in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. He was the Druid in Cape Fear, and he played Al in The Naked Gun from the files of Police Squad. Oh, all right. He had a banana stuck to his face. No, on the— got something on the side of your face. No, the other side. The banana falls down. That's who he was.

One of those great funny moments from—

I didn't remember that part.

You don't remember that part of the giant man? He's like, got something on the side of your face. No, the other side.

Something, something that probably could have been in the fumbler's guide, you know.

It's a movie.

Some significant thing there.

Yeah, I disagree.

Everyone should fumble that at least once. Oh well.

Oh, I got fumbled, all right.

All right, well, so that's all the— that's all the actor deep dives. I do have some fun facts. You guys ready for some fun facts? Yes.

Hit me.

This movie was nominated for 5 different Saturn Awards, and it won for Best Costumes in 1992.

What exactly is the Saturn Awards?

It's the sci-fi— okay, sci-fi awards. And then it also won for Best DVD/Blu-ray Special Edition Release in 2012.

Wow, really?

Yes. Which makes me wonder, do I need to go back and get that one? Because I don't know what DVD copy I got.

Yeah, special edition. It must be pretty cool.

Doesn't look special edition to me.

Mine was not. It was like the aspect ratio was very small. It was like a little tiny square on my big TV.

You blaming your library for that then?

Uh-huh. It was my library's fault. I think it was like the DVD that came out at the time.

So that plane in the first scene, the actual Bee Gee used in filming, was only allowed to land a very limited amount of times during its time working on the movie. As landings are extremely hard on the landing gear of this particular plane.

Hmm.

Okay.

I'm gonna imagine it has to do with its design. Uh, the GB Racer was nicknamed the Widowmaker and the Flying Coffin because it was incredibly difficult to fly and was prone to crashing. Hey, because of its speed and maneuverability, some pilots still raced it despite the danger.

Some people wouldn't have wanted to race it because of how small it seemed. Anytime they showed like that front view of Mm-hmm. Oh, what's the name of Cliff in there? It was like, okay, I get it. He's probably like not in the actual plane itself, but it just looked like this little like mini like tube with his head just like popping up.

Yes.

Yeah.

In the original graphic comic book by Dave Stevens, the inventor of the rocket pack was Doc Savage. Oh, a 1930s pulp novel hero, which we brought up in during Buckaroo Banzai. However, due to licensing considerations, Disney did not seek permission from Condé Nast Kind of nasty. The people that do like the travel guide apparently own the copyright of Doc Savage and opted to substitute Doc Savage with the flamboyant billionaire Howard Hughes, which I thought was cool.

Yeah, that works just as good, I think, if not better.

If not better. I like, I like the Howard Hughes character in this movie. Uh, Billy Campbell, who once studied commercial art— I don't know why that makes a difference— uh, made sure to read the Dave Stevens graphic novel on which this film was based. He got the part after getting a haircut to make himself look identical to the character in the graphic novel.

Wow.

Yeah. Why did we bring up commercial art in this?

I don't know. I, I didn't edit the copy paste. I just copy pasted the— but I thought the haircut part was interesting because it's like, you got a job because of a haircut. They say dress for the job you want, right?

That's true. If you want to be the Rocketeer, you might as well have a haircut like the Rocketeer got. That big metal helmet on.

The decision now, uh, related, the decision to cast Billy Campbell as Cliff Secord caused mixed emotions amongst Disney executives because, uh, they wanted like a big A-list name. Oh, but the director and Dave Stevens believed in Billy Campbell, so it worked, I guess.

Yeah, worked out just fine, I'd say.

Beemans, the gum chewed by Cliff, is the lucky gum of pilots. Oh, in The Right Stuff, 1983's movie, The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager asks his crew member's friend for some Beamons before a flight. Tangentially related.

Did not know that.

Joe Johnston's work on this film is what led to his hiring as director of Captain America: The First Avenger.

That makes sense. Similar time period.

Similar time period. He does have a pretty good grasp on the era, doesn't he?

As far as like, he likes putting out films.

Yeah, and fight Nazis too. While filming, Billy Campbell and Jennifer Connelly began a romance. Luckiest man in Hollywood. They later became engaged but broke the engagement in 1996 after having been together for 5 years.

Wow, that's too bad, I guess, or good.

I don't know.

Interesting.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it all worked out. They might be nightmares to be together with. Who knows?

Yeah. Who could say?

Disney had a special mechanism built especially for this film called the shaky cam. It was designed to be the exact opposite of a Steadicam. That is to introduce vibrations into the picture. This was used in the scenes filmed inside the zeppelin to give the impression of the power of the engines.

Okay. Interesting.

Oh, I would have thought it was more during some of the parts of the flying of the Nope. Yeah, the jet pack, but okay.

But when the movie went to video, the effect didn't transfer as well, so therefore they steadied it for video.

Oh, I was gonna say, because it didn't really feel any different.

Nope. So you— to experience the shaky cam, you had to see it in theaters or drive-in.

Yeah, well, how was it?

I don't remember. I'm sure it was great.

Yeah, but it was really cool.

I probably the whole ride home couldn't shut up about the shaky cam.

Did you see that zeppelin? How shot, man!

It's so realistic.

It was so shaky, like the engines were rumbling.

Oh my God, it's crazy in that thing.

Derek, you've never been on a zeppelin in real life. I know, but it was like being there.

That's so accurate.

I can only imagine historically how accurate zeppelin took me to being on a zeppelin. Originally, this movie was supposed to be preceded in theaters by a Roger Rabbit cartoon called Hair. H-A-R-E in my soup. Unfortunately, the cartoon was never made.

So, wow. Okay, that's the thought that counts, I guess, right? Like, this was gonna have something, but then we put no effort into making it.

Yep, we were gonna do it, but then we didn't.

I don't know why, I don't know why anybody's including that in the facts anymore though. It's possible it never happened. Let's write down that it didn't happen as opposed to just Let's just ignore the fact that we didn't do something.

It's possible that there was a post-credits scene of the Rocketeer flying over the ocean to go fight in World War II, but they didn't film that.

We didn't film it.

Yeah.

Was it— so this was after Roger Rabbit?

Yes.

So maybe like it was already kind of like announced that there would be like a special, like a Roger Rabbit special beforehand or something like that?

I remember there was another movie that had a Roger Rabbit short before it, and I don't remember what it was. I remember what short was. It was like he was babysitting or something like that, but it just never happened.

Maybe in the special DVD edition it has it.

That's what makes it award-winning. It's got all the secret stuff. Yeah, the camera still shakes and you get the movie, the cartoon that never was.

I'm surprised when for the— okay, for that shaky cam, why didn't they just— it wouldn't it be just as easy to add in a little bit of shakiness? That's what they wanted to do. Like, why did they smooth it out?

This is pre, pre-PCs, pre-computers doing that stuff, right? Yeah. So there really wasn't post. They would have had to like move each film frame.

Oh yeah, it might take a while, I guess.

Yeah.

Also, and I know like Pixar and Disney will do this where they'll give you like that little short. Pixar will do it especially, will do that. Why don't we do that with other movies? Like, like a little 5-minute short film.

Yeah.

Like, you know, like a newsreel. Yeah. Oh yeah.

We can watch the news before we get— yeah.

Let me give me fake news, but that's what I want. Yeah.

Just before I see my films.

Modern.

Yeah.

I go to the movies to get away from the news, to be honest.

God.

Yeah.

You might not go to the theater now.

That would be now that instead of like, so Marvel like got the post-credit thing going. What about the pre-credit that like sets stuff up somehow? Yes. And you have to pay attention to it to know things for future movies.

Like Shang-Chi is babysitting, and then we get into Avengers Doomsday.

So otherwise known as the cold open, is that what you're asking about? Or like something totally unrelated?

No, no, yes, no, like a newsreel ahead of time, but it's all something to do with like, like if it was like the Marvel Universe, like it's a Marvel newsreel, it talks about a bunch of stuff that you kind of should pay attention to. Or like Monarch does, like when Monarch does all the stuff at the end and they show like all like the news clippings and stuff of different kaijus.

Yeah. And it's like, I think you're honest.

You gotta make sure that you're there for the 25 minutes beforehand.

It's like intercut in the trailers somewhere.

I was just gonna say that.

Yeah.

You don't know. So you have to show up on time or else.

Yeah. They already take a break to give me an actual commercial in between the trailers. Why not give me like some kind of weird news clip I gotta pay attention to? Yeah.

Yeah. For a movie, takes like an hour and a half now because, and they know people will just sit there and wait for that pre-credit scene.

I'm trying to think how this would work though. Like, If you put something in like the first look as well, or whatever is the, the opening 25 minutes where it's like commercials and stuff.

Yeah.

That forces you to be there for that as well.

Maybe they put like 10 seconds sprinkled in, so it's not like the full like clip, it's like 10 seconds after each trailer. So you have to like piece it together as you watch.

It's, and it's 10 seconds at a time.

Yeah.

The entire thing.

Final fun fact. Final fun fact.

Sorry.

No, you're fine. Dave Stevens, the writer-artist of the original graphic novel, gave the film's production designer, uh, his 2 art directors and the entire— anyway, he gave him the entire reference library pertaining to The Rocketeer at that time period, including blueprints for hangars and bleachers, schematics for buildings, the autogyro, photos and drawings of the Bulldog Cafe, The uniforms for the air circus staff, and contacts for locating the vintage aircraft that were to be used. Like, this dude had it all.

Yeah, he had it planned out perfectly.

Stevens says he remembers that they literally just took the reference and built the sets.

Like, he's like, I was set up because I knew they'd come to me for a movie. Wow, that was super close.

Got you goddamn close, man.

That was really close.

Too close.

Those thrusters, they were going so fast, I was worried we were gonna hit the bottom, but we didn't.

We were so close. We were as close as having the fire out of a jetpack blasting off the back of our legs.

Yes, it almost hit me, but like just miraculously did not.

That dude has no hair on the back of his legs.

I'm surprised he still has legs after the— after the first 2 times, I think his legs are gone.

Yeah, like, oh, you need a helmet. Uh, you might need some flame retardant pants as well.

Some metal pants. That'll just heat them up though. That's probably not good.

Yeah, yeah, you need some like Kevlar or something. I think that's flame retardant, or whatever they make baby cribs out of.

Big old like, uh, frozen ice cubes folded into pants they have to put on and hope that it keeps you cool enough.

And he just like irrigates crops as he flies over them.

Yes, the sprinkling combination of sweat and ice melting.

Ice melting off the back of his legs.

Yeah, that'd be fun. That'd be pretty cool. That'd be like being a nice ticking clock. Some stakes. I can't use the Rocketeer suit for too long or my legs will be burnt off and my ice will melt.

Now, Terry, you said stakes, and I assume you meant S-T-A-K-E-S, like the stakes are high. But what if it was steaks? And he had them strapped to the back of the Sonic.

Oh, actually, I, I thought he was referring to like cooking steaks.

And he had like a perfect medium rare, like 2 pieces flying around.

He's timed it out. He's like, all right, I gotta fly around for 2 and a half minutes and these will be cooked perfectly.

That's, that's funny. 'Cause I took it as S-T-E-A-K-S. Yeah. And, and the, and the proper timing for cooking meat by how much you fly in the suit.

You could put some frozen steaks. It's the same thing as ice. Just throw some frozen steaks on there, tape 'em on and fly off. Come back down. You got your dinner all ready for you.

Wait, what'd you say, Terry? You want this meat? You might want this medium well. Okay, be back. Takes off, comes back in 2 minutes. It's all set.

Excuse me, chef, my, uh, I wanted medium well, not medium rare. And the guy's like, oh God, he has to like put on the jetpack again. He's got suited up, fly around for an extra 33 seconds. Uh-huh.

Oh, excuse me, waiter, I think there's some burnt hair on my— laying here on my steaks also.

You didn't— you failed to read the menu. At the bottom, there's little text. Your steaks may have burnt hair on them.

Yes.

It's something you agree to when you give—

You'll eat it, and I'm gonna watch you eat it.

Chez Rocketeer.

You agree to eat it no matter what. Yep.

Yep. Because failing to eat it would upset the Rocketeer.

Oh, you don't want to do that. He'll come after you.

Yeah.

At high speeds.

At high speeds. Very high speeds. Well, boyos, let's talk about our viewing of The Rocketeer.

We should.

Well, is your childhood ruined, I guess, is the first question.

Oh, should we? Yeah.

Or should we wait? I think that's got to be how we end, right?

Like, yeah, I think that's how we got to end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

It took— this movie took way too long to get to rocketeering.

Yeah, it does kind of dawdle a little bit. Mm-hmm.

A lot of— I don't think it's necessary. Like, how would it happen?

The setup?

Yeah, too much setup. Like watching the gangsters try to steal it and like, uh, like all the threads come together at the end, but I don't even know if it's necessary.

Like, it's the only reason that he's flying over where they're driving through that field is so he can get shot in the The plane blows up and he needs something else besides his plane. Yeah, because otherwise it makes no sense that he decided to like, oh, let me see what's going on down there.

Yeah, there's 2 cars driving through a field. I'm gonna see what's going on.

And I hear gunfire. I'm sure he could hear that from up there. Yeah, he saw a guy hanging out the back of a car with a Tommy gun. I mean, come on.

Yeah, I gotta see what's happening.

The setup took a little too long, I would agree. Yeah, I feel like I like the, the conflict between like there's like the FBI the gangsters and then random airplane pilot flies in the middle of it. I think that I like that, like it kind of sets up why he wants to keep it a secret and not just return it right away, I guess.

Yeah, for sure.

I agree that they probably could have found a more like streamlined way to do it. Like maybe he just found the crash or something like that, you know, or something like maybe he just happened upon it. It didn't have to like crash, blow up somebody's gas tank and do all this stuff.

Yeah, like, like we Like, you see it, like, it gets hidden in the, the other plane and everything all the same way. Just maybe it doesn't get put in the plane, in that plane, because if the other plane doesn't blow up, they don't need to go look at the, at the old plane at all.

And yeah, that's true.

And do the clown show. So maybe, like, it just gets put someplace else in, like, wherever the vacuum was originally. Put, put that, you know, put the contraption there, and then he finds it. Because yeah, you, like, you don't need to have him crash that plane in order to need to use the thing. It's still— if he finds it, he's gonna be like, oh man, we should use this and put on like a cool show and stuff like that.

There's, there's just got to be a better way to get to him being the Rocketeer. And I understand if it follows the graphic novel to a T, there's sometimes where you gotta just take some artistic license and just—

Yeah, condense it back.

Make it more economical.

I agree.

Like, even like having like the Um, Howard Hughes character, is that his name? The billionaire?

Yep.

Uh, like having him like finding a volunteer or like, you know, because he doesn't want to work with the government, he just finds this guy down-on-his-luck pilot or something and like, here, why don't you?

And that's kind of where I thought it was gonna go when they're like, oh, we couldn't do it, blah blah. And I, I thought Howard Hughes is gonna be like, it's all right, I have one. And yeah, you know, I just need a pilot to do it right, sort of thing.

Uh-huh. Or like he's holding back the government because he doesn't seem like he likes working with the government. Maybe he's holding back from them, but he's like I got a guy I'm gonna let try this thing out. Like, I'm not gonna let the government do it, but, you know, something like that would be kind of cool. And I like— I liked the Howard Hughes angle. I thought it reminded me of Iron Man a little bit, which is cool.

As much as I— as much as I, I did enjoy Alan Arkin's Pee-wee character, it like— maybe like him working with Howard Hughes, just working with Howard Hughes.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's— and it's like, so Howard Hughes is like, look, I already lost 2 guys to this. I don't want, you know, 2 good pilots. I don't ever wanna have to work with this thing again. But he still connects with Cliff somehow, and then they work together on it.

Yeah.

'Cause he finally has, he has a working one and he also has a pilot who can actually handle it.

Yeah. They could have shown Cliff being the badass pilot, but then having to make some heroic, crazy pilot maneuver to save the plane or to save his life or to save somebody. And that catches the eye of Howard Hughes sort of thing. And like Howard Hughes needs the— a Rocketeer, right? And yeah, whatever.

Yeah, I mean, it, it's still not awful the way that they set up. It just takes a— it takes long to get to it.

Yeah, it takes a long time. And then I feel like, like we were talking about the twist where there's Nazis, I feel like that is very like too long. It takes too long for that to become a thing because I'd like forgot that that was like a you know, like the Nazi— like the Nazi angles kind of comes out of nowhere. And I'm like, yes, I get that's the time period. And I, I remembered before, like when I was watching this movie, I was like, wasn't he supposed to fight Nazis or something? I was thinking that the whole time and I was like, well, I guess not. And then at the end I'm like, oh, whoa, okay. Like they don't set that up really at all. I feel like they set up a slight amount with like we're talking about like the newsreels and stuff at the beginning when they go to the movie theater.

Yeah.

But like the Nazi angle was not necessary or go more in on it.

Yeah, because for me, the movie really— I don't want to say takes off, but really becomes good when the Nazi stuff happens.

Yeah, yeah, it's got a bit of, uh, you know, Indiana Jones-esque.

Yeah, it's got some Indiana Jones, but even though the giant Nazi zeppelin flying over Southern California—

Where does it come from that nobody saw it?

Well, they saw it apparently.

I don't know, they showed the whole route. They said that the zeppelin's gonna be flying all the way across America during that movie.

That's true. And this is pre-WWII, right?

So yeah, so they— we weren't at war with them, they were just doing their—

oh, and so it was there just because it was going to be there already.

Yeah, it was like a showcase setup.

Yeah, it was probably sponsored by the parents of current politicians, to be honest.

I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, wasn't the zeppelin's name like Lucifer or something like that? Like, wasn't the name—

I thought that's what they said at first.

Yes. Huh, that seems like it's pretty evil.

I mean, Nazis are evil, obviously, but I do like when it crashes, it takes out the land in Hollywoodland. So now we just have Hollywood.

I like that too. There's a lot to like about this movie. I just really wish it would have got to the good stuff faster.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a little— the first half is a little slow go. I think once he saves that dude in the plane, yeah, after that everything kind of really kind of Pushes along because that's when I think it's right after that you get the the big guy going in like crushing people, like going in like yes killing all the people.

That big guy he made me laugh so hard because when the one time we were in the house and he had to talk, it was clearly not him talking. But he like he moved his mouth not to lip sync words; he just like a Muppet he opened his mouth and like. Another man's voice was heard.

It's like that voice was like, it was like restraining to escape.

Like, yeah, where's the rocket?

I really, I like that guy. That henchman was very intimidating.

He, he was. When they showed him opening the door, and I'm sure they used a prop doorknob that was much smaller than a normal doorknob, but his giant paw grabbing— yes, a doorknob. Oh man, this guy is a monster.

How about him out on, him out on the ledge? Yeah, that made me laugh too. You just see those giant feet like, just like shuffle back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That scene of him in the hospital is pretty creepy, of him like leaning in at that one guy. The guy doesn't wake up, just like shake him.

Yeah, yes, some of that like old-school pulpy stuff was really good, and there was like little bits of comedy. I love the time period. I love the, uh, attention to detail. I also love the, uh, the big band dance number, even though it was totally superfluous and unnecessary, but it was still cool to see. It's a lot like, uh, it reminded me of speaking of Indiana Jones, speaking of the Temple of Doom, when they have the big music number in the nightclub sort of thing.

I like the fact that like, he's like, do you want to dance? She's like, there's no music. And he's kind of like, oh, I hear music. And you're like, as soon as they see Neville Sinclair on the floor, they're going to start playing music.

Yeah. They're like, oh shit, we bet we're on break.

He's the number, he's the number 3 biggest box office Yeah, right, there is. And also, I— so that's a couple other things I really enjoyed about this is like when he's kind of like— when he's kidnapped her and he's like saying stuff to her and she's just like, you said that to so-and-so in that movie. He didn't realize he had like a super fan.

A film nerd in front of her. Yeah, yeah.

And also his line at the end, she's like, you lied. He's like, I didn't lie, it was acting.

Yeah.

Yeah, I really liked him in this movie. He was a good, uh, good villain. The Nazi turn was a surprise, but sure, whatever. Like, I, I kind of almost just wish he was like a guy who was just obsessed with the, like, greatness. He's like, I want to be the Rocketeer.

Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Yeah, he's like his own private interests. Uh, that would have been kind of cool, but I, I— the Nazi angle's fine too. It just kind of, you know—

I think Nazi angle makes him a huge villain, right? If he was just personal interest, then it could have been like You know, he just— mobsters don't turn on him.

It's his own personal interest. That's the part I like.

That's true. Like, yeah, yeah, 100%.

And yeah, he's like, I'll do whatever, but yeah, I'm not messing with that. Get him.

Yeah, yeah. I don't want to say it, but even though many Americans at the time were 100% Nazi anyway, really sided with that side of things until it became a personal Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, I almost like—

it would be kind of a cool movie like to see like a Rocketeer fighting in World War II.

Like, uh-huh, I agree.

I like stuff like that.

I am surprised that this is something that hasn't hit the, the remake block at some point.

Yeah, there's like, uh, audio drama podcast for The Rocketeer. I know that.

Oh, that's cool.

That was endorsed by and written by the main guy at one point.

Yeah, because I can only imagine, like, what we saw here is just a small part of it.

It makes me want to read the graphic novel, to be honest.

Yeah, I'd be curious how that is.

It piques my interest.

Didn't, like, one of the, like, IDW or somebody bring it back recently?

Probably.

Because I think they had that, like, the Phantom and maybe the Shadow, and, like, they kind of had those type of things all crossover.

And what's cool about the Rocketeer is it makes you think that it's like an old pulp magazine comic book sort of thing, but it's not. It was like the '80s, right?

So, uh-huh. Yeah, and it has that perfect vibe. Yeah, the look, everything like looks like it. Yeah, some sort of like '30s like novel or, you know, like short or whatever.

Yeah, like a dime store novel, novella sort of thing, paperback. Yeah, it's really cool. I like— I love all that stuff. I just— the pacing is just really what bugs me about this movie.

And I love that helmet he's got on. The look of the Rocketeer is really cool with like the leather jacket and the pilot pants or whatever those are.

Except that every time he's wearing that leather jacket the rest of the time, no one seems to question who he is.

Even when he wears it underneath like the, the white coat of the, the server at the restaurant.

Yes.

Yeah. Also, how convenient is he can find like a garbage can or something everywhere to put But it's like Superman being inconvenient to find a phone booth, right?

I mean, it's got that pulpy hero thing to it.

I like that.

I don't mind. Also, the, the other first thing I thought was like the first couple times he goes to put on the helmet, he's got like strap the whole thing in. And like even when he gets it taken off at the end, I was just like, man, I can see why Tony Stark immediately made like a helmet that would like just automatically open for himself.

Yes. Yeah, specifically for Hollywood purposes so you could see his face.

Yeah. How convenient.

Otherwise it's like Mandalorian where, uh, what's his name doesn't have to be there at all for filming.

And then he just does the voiceover.

Just do the voiceover and then a few scenes where his helmet's off. Yeah. But yeah, it, unlike, unlike the Mandalorian, the Rocketeer does not abide by a strict oath and code where he cannot remove his helmet.

Right.

No, but still like being able, being able to like press a button that like the helmet opens for him nicely as opposed to like, I gotta take this whole thing off and Yeah, you know, if they remake it, he's gonna have a button that opens up the helmet.

Yeah, it'll be nanotechnology.

Oh God, that's so lame. I don't hate it.

No, I still want to stick around with the same time period.

Rocketeers.

Oh, and nanotechnology. Yeah, nanotech in the '30s, that wouldn't mean that it's like still pretty darn big, but just—

Which also, they would care less. They could care less about the, uh, the, uh, which is the backpack at that point.

They'd be trying to track down the nano We got, we got the technology down to the size of us, of a tennis ball. Yeah.

Back then, nano meant a lot more than it does now.

Yeah.

It's the size of a basketball.

12 inches across. They're all bouncing together.

Yep.

Takes like 5 minutes for it to like do its thing. Yeah.

What does this nanotech do? The helmet opens, it closes. That's it. That's all.

There's just like 50 bowling balls rolling at him and they just form into a suit. All steam-powered.

You just hear them rolling. Yeah.

Like, oh, I like the steam— steampunk nanobots.

I love it.

Yeah.

There's little engines inside them.

Yeah.

Nanotechnology from the '50s, '30s.

Yeah. I love that idea.

So efficient.

It would be nanotech if it was today, but I do like the time period. I like the Rocketeer being what— because otherwise he'd be Iron Man right now.

Yeah.

He is basically Iron Man of like the '30s.

Yes. And he— when he was flying around, I, I know it's— I know it's like early '90s special effects, so it's all green screen and stuff like that, but it looked pretty good. It didn't look bad.

It looked fine.

There's only, uh, a couple parts that look awful, and that's mostly when Timothy Dalton's flying it at the end. Yeah, with the fire and everything around him. Yeah, that looks cheesy, but again, you're like, okay, it's '91. Makes sense.

Yeah, I like the, uh, the practical ones where it's like they, they don't— you don't see him, but you see all the corn flying up, and it's like, oh, mighty big gopher, right? You know, that's done practically.

That was funny.

Like those sorts of things, or where— when he's on, uh, when he's on the cart in the restaurant and he's flying across, you know, that was like a thing. Or when he flew through the backyard, but he had a sheet over him so you couldn't see him, so you're like, oh, they're dragging something on a sheet, you know, like It just looked cool. I liked, I liked the practical special effect approach because they had to, but I wish more movies did that today.

Yeah. I mean, I thought it looked good.

It held up pretty well. I mean, yeah, a couple parts you could tell, but like overall, yeah, they worked around it perfectly.

Even when that movie came out, you could tell it was on a green screen. Like, yeah, you're like, you're willing to suspend disbelief because you're watching a movie, right?

Yep.

Now they try so hard to make it look real. And even though the CGI is, is technically flawless, the art direction, the visual makes it look weird. And that's what people complain about. Like, oh, the CGI is terrible. No, the CGI is actually really good. It's just the direction they took it in looks bad. That's all.

Your brain just knows it's not real.

Yes, exactly. Right. Where back then you knew it wasn't real, but you were willing to accept it. Right.

Yeah. It was like, oh, that's pretty good. Good for them. You know, better to try than not do it at all.

Yeah, agreed. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Exactly. Better to rocketeer than rocketeer and crash than to never have rocketeered at all.

Yes, that would be my motto.

Yeah, that's a shirt.

I'm also happy they, uh, they didn't just give Neville Sinclair, like, once he got, like, those blueprints, that he just didn't, like, his alternate rocketeer suit, and they would have to fight each other in the air.

In the air. If that movie was made today for the first time, that's what would happen.

100% evil Rocketeer versus normal Rocketeer.

One has the gold helmet, one has a silver helmet. Like, yep, yep, just something small, barely off, you know.

Yep. He's got like rocket launchers on the back.

Oh God, it'd have been terrible.

That would happen though. Evil Rocketeer. I bet you Evil Rocketeer exists in the comics. I bet there is an evil version.

I bet you there is too, especially because the, the, you know, the Nazis are making a suit.

Oh yeah. I had a plan to make it like the Red Baron, right?

I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, like the Red Baron flying his biplane versus Snoopy in his doghouse or whatever, right?

The true hero of World War II or something.

That's why— now that's what I want to see is Snoopy gets the backpack.

Rocketeer Snoopy and Woodstock screaming at him.

Oh, Woodstock versus Rocketeer.

Yes, versus Linus versus Pigpen. Yeah, the ultimate 4-way match.

Uh-huh.

That girl who always has the football.

Oh, Sally. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Lucy.

You're right, Sally was the one that's loving Charles. No, Sally was—

Sally was in love with Charlie Brown.

No, Sally's Charlie Brown's sister who's in love with Linus. Peppermint Patty was—

she's got the glasses.

the other girl? No, who was the one girl that called Charlie Brown sir? Or no, Lucy sir? I don't know, it don't matter.

Yeah, no, no. Yes, she called, she called everyone sir. And then, but she always called her and Patty, um, damn it, man.

How many characters are there?

Starts with an M, I think.

Magda.

Magda?

Is it, is it Marsha?

No. I don't know, Magdalene. I have no idea. Mulva.

Mulva.

Mulva. Mulva. Mulva. That's a side. Keith with Seinfeld references. Two of them tonight.

Wow.

Wow.

But that is a crossover I'd love as the peanuts versus a rocketeer.

Seinfeld. Seinfeld show.

Seinfeld versus the peanuts.

Oh my God, who would George fight and win in that? Nobody. George couldn't beat anybody in the Peanuts.

No, they would all get blown better on. I would love to see George versus Snoopy and the, the little bird. That little bird, what's his name again?

Woodstock.

Woodstock. Yeah.

Yeah.

Or George get always falling for that stupid football thing. Oh, that would be so—

Oh yes, Elaine pulling it away every time.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is not a single member of the Seinfeld cast outside of Newman that could beat the Peanuts gang in anything. Like, because even Jerry is a wimp, like, he would chicken out. Maybe Elaine and Newman team up and take out all the Peanuts kids.

They take them out. Yeah, well, maybe physical violence might be the only way.

Yeah, I'm assuming it's like a fight to the death. Seinfeld versus Peanuts. Why wouldn't it be?

I mean, that's what the audiences want to see. I think it's—

everyone's been clamoring for it for the last 2 decades, 3 decades, ever since Seinfeld hit the scene. When are they gonna fight the Peanuts gang?

Now here's the thing, are they gonna be animated to become in the Peanuts world, or the Peanuts gonna become live action, or is it gonna be like a weird—

Oh God, if, if you had the Peanuts— like, Charlie Brown's head is huge. Oh, it'd be too top heavy.

Oh my gosh. They would just, it'd be a series and you go back and forth between the two.

Oh, round one is in Peanuts world and then round 2 is in the real world.

Yeah. Well, Seinfeld world. I would like it to be like some, like hyper-stylized anime style battle between Seinfeld and Peanuts.

Oh, the third world's like in like Dragon Ball Z world.

Yeah.

Dragon Ball Z. Yep.

Yeah.

That's the trilogy we'll make. The first round is in Peanuts. Okay, and then ends on a cliffhanger. Second movie, they lure them into the Seinfeld world, and then the third movie, the portal opens up and Goku grabs them and pulls them all in.

Oh no, the crossover of all crossovers, the TCU, Terry Cinematic Universe.

Uh, I'll throw anything together, I don't care.

Yes, it's the Dr. Dre of cinematic universes.

Yes, just another facet of my life.

That's, that's how you get to your 2 million.

999,999 to go. Oh, what was it? 2 million? Oh, 999,999 to go.

All right.

Well, did we do it, boys?

Pretty sure.

Did we get through the rough tier? Ending, ending with Seinfeld versus Peanuts conversation.

We didn't really. Yeah. We were forgetting about that.

I think that really tells exactly what we thought about this movie.

I don't know if it did or not.

Look, some ideas we just are too tempting to lure away from the topic at hand, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what'd you guys think?

I enjoyed it.

It's, I mean, it's fun. It's like, you know, you take into consideration when it came out as well, so you get past a few of the, maybe the, uh, you know, some of those like early CGI type things. But I'm, I find the movie very enjoyable, uh, regardless. And again, I'm always the one who thinks that like you should take 10 minutes out of a movie, you know, edit 10 minutes of stuff out. So taking 10 minutes out of this would probably get us to the rocketeering quicker.

Yeah.

And make this a really good movie. I, I really enjoyed it. I thought Timothy Dalton is great in this movie as Neville Sinclair. I really enjoyed, um, Alan Arkin as well, even in like the small role, but he plays that Pee-wee guy great. Kind of really, I think it almost Makes it maybe Disney and probably the, some of the heads at Disney were right when they were like, we need a bigger name to be the Rocketeer. Cuz it seems like it could have been like a franchise that never was.

Yeah. It's set up to be a franchise for sure.

Yeah. When you're, when you're, when you're 2 like secondary guys really kind of major legally out, outact your lead guy, it's not like even just like, oh, it was a cool supporting role. No, like they're better than him the entire time.

Yeah, um, it's tough because Timothy Dalton, Alan Arkin, and Jennifer Connelly all outshadow or overshadow or whatever the, the main dude.

Yeah, I, I thought this was pretty good. I like it. Um, time period's really cool. Um, I like the pulpy aspect of it. Uh, the, the beginning is a little slow. I think there are some parts in this that maybe drag a little bit, but nothing too bad. I think that You know, it does sometimes feel a little hokey at times, but also it's a pulpy, you know, it kind of has— it matches the vibe. So I feel like that it works. The music can be a little over the top, but once again, I feel like it matches the '30s, whatever time period. So I can forgive that. Uh, the Nazi twist is weird, but makes sense at the same time. I wish they just built that up better, um, or just not included it. I don't know. I don't mind rocketeering Nazis. I think that's great. But it just kind of is like, oh, by the way, he's also a Nazi.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Like, I already didn't like the guy. I didn't need that part too.

Yeah. He's already a smug jerk to begin with.

Yeah.

Um, so you dislike him as a person. You just gotta get his motives and you realize that they're Nazi motives. So you're like, oh, well, that is the worst. I agree with both of you. I like the movie. I don't love the movie. I really wish we would have got to Rocketeering faster and we wouldn't— it just, it just felt like there was too many things they felt they needed to include to make you buy into Rocketeering.

Yeah.

No, I'm buying into— I'm here to see a man with a jetpack based upon the name of the movie. Just get to it as fast as possible.

I mean, we're still waiting for the rocketeering in real life.

I mean, yes, get to the Nazi fighting as fast as possible because I'm all in on that too, because this is prime, like, Last Crusade Indiana Jones time too, right? Like, I don't remember when that came out, but everybody's— this, this is like, get to it ASAP. I love the time period. I love the treatment of the time period. I love the, the direction of all the stuff that's in that time, right? I just found the, the, the gangster bend to everything was a little bit much. I would have much preferred there to not be a Nazi twist, just be the Nazis outright, or to have it be Nazis. And then you find out later on he's helping the Nazis in like some big twist there, like where he's pointing a gun at the Nazis and he turns it to the volunteers.

Yeah, he's a traitor.

One of those sorts of things. That would have been super pulpy. Perfect. But once we get to Nazis and and and zeppelin fighting, I'm like yes. That's what I came for. And now that I think about it, when we were watching this movie, when I was watching this movie, I thought the end was going to be when he got the plane. But then it's like then there was still an extra scene. No wait, there was a scene in there where it's like look, I found the blueprints. Where if that were a Marvel movie today, the look, I found the blueprints would have been a post-credit. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

We're, uh, yeah, it's right after he gets the plane and then Jennifer Connelly's like, hey, I got something for you as well. And she's like, well, really it's more for Peevy, and then hands him the, yeah, prints to it. And that would have been the perfect setup of, oh, the Rocketeer could come back because we're gonna build our own suit now.

Yep. But I liked how I like the Howard Hughes character. Played by the same guy that did John Locke from Lost. I thought he was real good. I like Howard Hughes. I know he's a real person, but I also like him as the fictional, how crazy eccentric aviation billionaire, uh, character.

Oh, like when he has that, the, the giant plane that he's building and like, I'm assuming people think it won't fly, but he gets to like—

The model flies. Like it will fly. The Spruce, the Spruce Goose is what it was called in real life or whatever. Right. It's like those, Those sorts of things. I like that. I like the bending of history to tell a story like that. Like, these are characters that are real but are fun in this, you know, because I kept talking about Hoover as well. I wish they would have had Hoover in the movie.

Yeah. Yeah.

Being, you know, crazy FBI director after The Rocketeer.

Yeah.

All that stuff.

Why not? Yeah.

Yeah. It kind of reminded me a bit of a, of a Mignola sort of thing too, right? With Hellboy and Like fitting it, like, now see, now that's a crossover. Rocketeer with Hellboy.

Yes, that's a good idea. That's a good idea.

Not versus, they team up.

It's a team-up.

Rocketeer x Hellboy.

But he does fight Ape Sapien.

Yeah, of course they have to. It just makes the most sense. Now we got, was my childhood ruined? Nah, it's still good. Not as good as I remember it being. I remember being like, just like, oh yeah, because it's like, this is around the time of Batman too, like '89 Batman. Oh yeah, right. So it's still like early comic book movies and it had that comic booky vibe. I loved it as a kid, like it now. Don't love it as much, but I've enjoyed it. It was—

you know what else would be really awesome right now?

What?

The popcorn bucket of the Rocketeer helmet.

Oh, that would be awesome.

That would be cool.

So What other popcorn buckets would exist there, Keith? Boy, you are the segue master.

I, I mean, that's maybe the jetpack. Yeah, yeah, there'd have to be a jetpack one. Yeah.

What about the zeppelin?

The zeppelin would be kind of cool as long as it didn't have the Nazi symbol.

You walk into the theater with a giant zeppelin popcorn bucket. It covers your seat and the person to your right and the person to your left.

Oh yeah, it's that big. Yeah.

It's just a giant zeppelin. You have to turn sideways to get into the theater.

Uh-huh. It's just sitting across the 2, like, uh, armrests.

Yeah. Yep. That'd actually be kind of cool. I was thinking like the jetpack would have like popcorn plus like a drink, like in like popcorn on one side and drink on the other side.

Like the kid box that you get at the theater.

Or, or popcorn in the 2 main things, like the area where like, you know, where it eventually was leaking a little bit of stuff out of it. Like that's where your straw—

that's where you peel the bubble gum off to put a straw in the drink.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little, a little bubble gum type sticker. You peel that off and that's where you put your straw in there for it. Yeah. There's lots of Lots of possibilities.

Could do like the big tall guy's nose.

Yes.

Like the big tall guy. I'm pretty sure that was a prosthetic. I don't know, maybe that's his actual nose, but he looked very like cartoonish.

Yes.

His face.

Uh, very Dick Tracy-ish.

Yes. He looked like a Dick Tracy character. I feel like his nose would be a perfect popcorn bucket.

I would also buy a Jennifer Connelly popcorn bucket.

Yeah, I mean, it's just her, or she's printed on a bucket.

I don't— it doesn't matter.

Life-sized.

Yeah, but right with your Jane Wilder popcorn bucket.

Yes, I'd like— we were, Keith, we were spoiled as teens because there were some very attractive women that were in movies at the time. I just don't think it clicked on us, at least for me when I was that young. I was like, oh, they're old.

Nah. Hindsight's 20/20.

Yeah, hindsight is 20/20. If only I'd known then what I know now, maybe I could have dated Jennifer Connelly.

Yeah, I think things would have changed. I think things would have changed.

All right, well, we know what we thought. What did the internet have to say?

Did the internet's childhood get ruined?

Oh God.

Well, On June 1st, 2006, Raygun82, R-A-Y-G-U-N 82, had this to say. I grew up with this movie.

Oh.

How can anybody give this a low rating? I remember going to the movies with my dad to see this, and at the age of 9, I thought it was outstanding. Let alone today when I watch it, the special effects are still second to none for '91. That rhymes. This is truly a great movie. The story and plot are terrific, let alone the acting. Out of nowhere comes Billy Campbell with hits, which hits the mark on the spot. I can't see anybody else playing this part but him.

Okay.

The supporting cast is awesome as well. I really believe Joe Johnston hits the mark— boy, he likes that phrase— with the nostalgic look of the 1930s. The set designs are miraculous and really put you into the feel of an older time era. So with everybody's help, maybe we could raise the ratings on this classic. Long live The Rocketeer!

Yes!

5 exclamation points. 5 found it helpful, one for each exclamation point. 3 not so much. 10 out of 10.

Wow, he's trying to recruit people to help him.

Yes.

Not, not as good as some of the reviews from Sniper, but definitely that's a solid review.

Solid review. This is the only 1-star review and it is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 paragraphs long.

Holy cow.

I'm just going to read the headline and a paragraph and we'll call it.

Okay.

Sure.

On July 29th, 2006, Winner55 had this to say. Big boring ripoff. When this first came out in theaters, I searched and searched reviews and promo on the film to find one, just even one, reference to the film it rips off, the last of the great serials.

Oh boy.

Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon.

What?

That's the opening paragraph. I'm gonna go to the closing paragraphs. This is everything that Radar Man avoided: slow as mud, unnecessary pseudoscientific explanations, a real wimp for a hero, in quotes, wretchedly miscast actors trying to come up with a good reason for being there, over-bloated cinematography and special effects, uninteresting mushy romance subplot, Banalized nostalgia, patronizing to young viewers, everything that I loathed on television that drove me to watch Commando Cody to begin with.

Wow.

This is not an action movie. Radar Men from the Moon is an action movie.

Okay, okay, what is this thing?

This was just a bad excuse to print up promotional paper cups at fast food restaurants. Skip it. Twelve found it helpful. Twenty-six not so much. One out of ten. Now keep in mind, I skipped four paragraphs.

He went to the he probably was talking all about this radar men on the moon thing.

Commander Commander Cody and the radar men they got to the rocketeering faster is what it sounds like. All right.

Well, we did it. We got through the. First week of the first month of the second year of DTF, Down to Foam.

Year 2.

Year 2. That means next week— it's gonna take me a minute to remember the, the order. I'm gonna— well, even though it's a similar order, it's not the same, but it's a little bit different. That means next week is a Keith week. So Keith, what Childhood, are you? What movie are you going to ruin for your childhood?

What childhood are you going to ruin? Is that what you're about to say?

Yeah, I almost said that.

I'm going to ruin Terry's childhood this week.

No. Which movie from your childhood are you going to ruin, Keith?

This this was a rough one for me.

Okay.

A I've I've tried to go back and watch a lot of these older movies from my childhood with my kids, so I've seen a lot more of them recently. Um, and I had to figure out like what are some things I really want to see, and then I was like well. Something's gonna have to like actually like the Rocketeer, like stuff holds up pretty nicely. Yeah. So I was like, all right, I don't want, I need to pick something that's not gonna like maybe be good, but like totally throw us off just because, you know, whatever CGI or CGI-esque type thing of the time was terrible or, or just doesn't stand up. Like you could never, I can't watch Tron anymore because it's just, it's, it's bad.

The movie's just bad in general.

No, I, I, I like, I like the movie. I can't. But I just, I can't watch it, um, that much anymore. And then I, I kind of thought— I went through about 3 or 4 different things. I was like, you know what, back in the fall— and I thought I was getting like October was gonna be my month, uh, to pick, and I was gonna pick, hey, what are movies that scared you when you were a kid? I was like, well, why don't we do this now? I can just pull this one back out.

Okay.

Uh, and use this. We are gonna watch from 1984 It's actually rated R. We're watching Dreamscape.

Dreamscape?

Yeah. A man who can enter and manipulate people's dreams is recruited by a government agency to help cure the President of the United States from his nightmares about nuclear war and stumbles upon an assassination plot.

Wow, I've never even heard of this movie.

I have not heard of this movie.

This movie stars Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer. Eddie Albert is the President.

I—

but, uh, yeah, I remember really enjoying this movie. This has been one that I've been wanting to rewatch anyway. I'm pretty sure that the plot of it is still pretty cool, but there is some CGI stuff that's gonna not be perfect.

I have no idea. I don't know what— I don't know what the hell we're even getting into.

Dreams. I don't— I don't think it— I don't think if— even if we do watch this, I don't think my childhood would be completely ruined.

All right, well I guess that leaves us in a situation where we have nothing to do. We're gonna watch— what's it called? Dreamscape?

Dreamscape.

Dreamscape. But then after what? Before we watch Dreamscape, and now we have— I don't— I'm lost. We gotta end this the way we end everything.

Yes, yes, I agree.

Oh, there she is. No.

No, that's her.

No way. Looks like a Dune thing with a sandworm.

Oh, there she is. Is that her?

Is that her?

I think so.

Thanks for listening to Fumbling Through Film. New episodes drop every Thursday. Got feedback or questions? Email us at [email protected]. You can see our films to fumble before you tumble into the grave and other musings on Letterboxd at Fumble Through Film. The through is T-H-R-U. You can also follow Keith on Instagram @kg3030lives and on Letterboxd @kg3030. Terry is on Letterboxd at Terry2099. Derek is on Letterboxd at Derek, the number 9, and then the word 9. All original music is done by the Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry, so hit him up for them bangers. Our new podcast logo is done by the delightful and talented Sanjay Vicky Nayak. You can find her on Instagram @einkstein. That's Einstein with a K in there. We'll see you next week as we keep on fumbling.