Sketch Comedy Structure and Conclusion

Support for NPR and the following message come from FX's love story. John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bassette, starring Sarah Pigeon and Paul Anthony Kelly, Amy eligible in all limited series categories. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers It's been more than twenty five years since Scary Movie showed up to lampoon horror movie tropes. Since then it's been sequelized, passed from creator to creator, and now rebooted as a legacy sequel, led by the Wayans brothers who started it all. I'm Stephven Thompson, and today we are talking about Scary Movie on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR This message is from AT and T, with your summer essential, the iPhone seventeen Pro. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. Right now at AT andT, ask how you can get iPhone seventeen Pro on them with eligible trade in. Requires eligible plan, terms and restrictions apply subject to change Visit at. com slash iPhone for details Port for NPR and the following message come from FX's love story, starring Sarah Pigeon and Paul Anthony Kelly in what Variety calls a stunning portrait of love. The critically acclaimed Limited series explores the undeniable chemistry and worldirwind marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bassett. Featuring an incredible cast, including Naomi Watts and Constant Zimmer, Love Story is Emy eligible in all categories, streaming now on Hulu or via Disney pllus for bundle subscribers This message comes from Total wine and more. offering a selection of wine and spirits for summer dining Visit Total Wine and more or tootalwine dot comot Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be twenty one. Joining me today is NPR producer JC. Howard, Hey, JC. Hello, Hello. Also with us is Ronald Young Junior. He's the host of the film and television review podcast, Leaving the Theater. Hey, Ronald. Hello, Stehven. Also with us is freelance music and culture journalist Rihanna Cruz, Hey Ranna. W Oh my God There is a was up joke in this movie is ripped from the cultural headlines. relevant It's astonishinglyant relevant So the original Scary movie came out in two thousand parody of horror franchises like Scream and I Know what You didid last summer. Since then, Scary Movie has followed a trajectory familiar to fans of the movies it was originally spoofing. It got sequels, then it got passed to different directors and writers, and then it fizzled out entirely. Now Scary Movie is getting a reboot slash legacy sequel which is itself a parody of other reboots slash legacy sequels. The Wayans brothers are back on board. many, many Wayenss pop up in the cast, led by Marlon and Sean. Other familiar faces return as well, including Anna Ferris and Regina Hall Well a new generation turns up to face the return of the dreaded ghost face. It's in Theaters now, Rhanna Cruz. I'm gonna to start with you. What did you think of Scary Movie? All right, I'll put it simply Is it a good movie Debatable That's what we're here to do, Rihna.. Wh don't you tell us? B. Do we expect any sccary moovie to be a good movie though? I would say no. And I think because of that, the bar was on the floor and I had fun. You know, I love the Scary moovie franchise personally I love parody movies. I watch all the scary movies so frequently, like even four and five, which are generationally terrible and have re much only boner jokes. like I love them. they make me laugh. This movie, I was entertained. I laughed a lot. Most I could ask for. It's bloated, not everything lands. I think There's a lot of dated jokes in it that feel like they were made six years to a decade ago at best. Genousween the doofy character which should have been left in the early two thousands, if at all. There's some transphobia here that I don't really get down with, but There is a space for this kind of movie and I'm happy to see it back. And I also am like a Wan's apologist. Like I watch everything they do and they make he laugh. I mean, look, man, I rocked with in liiving color in the early nineties. I watched the hell out of that show. And did every joke land then? Noew it did Yeah. But the ones that do really do. The ones that do do. Right. Like I grew up on that. You know, my dad watched that all the time, and I watched that when my dad when I was like Oh, Stephven, yes, you like my father, also watch that Yeah I don't know. It made me laugh. I think the bar is truly on the floor. And it stepped over the bar. You know, I laughed more than I thought I would. Okay Thank you, Rihenna JC Howard. How about you This is decidedly dumb movie. But you already knew that. So what I'll say is this If you're looking for liable characters, some smart and often biting satire Taste for jokes, a tight plot You're at the wrong movie. Oh I mean, yeah, stop setting me up l sason, JC. Stop it Yeah. this is not what you're getting. Once you were alluded to kind of sub, I was like, okay, Jy's doing a bit. This is not what this movie is. even in the least bit. This was written largely by the Waynees brothers. So the bottom line is like Rihanna, if you Like the things that they do, you will like this. If you don't, then you won't. And for me I will be honest, it had some nostalgia appealals I was in middle school or high school somewhere in between there when the first two scary movies came out, which were the ones that had the Waynees brrothers involved with them. And at that time, the humor was expressly for me. A middle school high school boy, the sex jokes, the we jokes The stereotypes, the latent homophobia, they all spoke to like this middle schooler in me. There is a chance to really reinvent and to do something new with that reminds us of the original, but brings a certain growth in maturity and they successfully avoided that growth at all The humor is there. It's not for me anymore. That same humor that I laughed at when I was, you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. That humor isn't for me, but they delivered what they promised And there were That said, some things that did work for me, there was a lot of meta jokes about the franchise itself there was commentary and references to crypto and twwitch streaming and EV charging infrastructure. And without saying too much, there was a little bit of K pop in there that was incredibly delightful to me. The thing is that stuff accounts for maybe a third of the movie You know, the rest is the same five or six jokes from twenty years ago you know, like I said, if you like it, then you'll love it. How about you, Ronald? Okay, so to continue JC's point In this order, Scary moovie one, two, three, four, five, these were my ages when they came out. sixteen, seventeen, nineteen twenty two. twenty nine And I walk into the scary movie at forty two So so I feel like what I absolutely thoughtought this movie was about to be was what it kind of avoided. It stepped up to the line and stepped back, which was G X and elder millennials dealing with living in a G Z world now, which was I thought was going to be very fun and funny. They tap it a few times. Anna Ferris shows up, Regina Hall shows up, they are very funny I'm reminded that they are good at this. The Wans's brothers show up. I'm reminded that they are good at this and then they just throw wall to wall referenceces at us from the beginning to end jokes that are coming so fast I can't even laugh at them because I'm trying to read the screen and it's clicking away from it. sixteen year old Ronald probably would have watched this and enjoyed it. forty two year old Ronald Ws to know that the Wanss are also growing up with me. And there were a few times in which they're making commentary about race, about gender, about queerness. and I want to know that what they actually think of these things and I'm not actually getting that. I'm getting just very sophomoreic jokes. So it was okay But it could have been good. Steven, this could have been a great film And they just didn't want to do it. All the ingredients were there. I'm really glad, Ronald that you made that last point about of the absence of point of view that comes through in a lot of these references. I mean, my issue with these movies in general and with a lot of kind of post naked gun spoof franchises, which this is one of many. One of my biggest issues with them is that they tend to give you references in lieu of jokes. Yes, Stephen. And And there's a bit here. at one point, there's like a whole bit where it's like the one character has like a drug stash and oh no, we gave the drug stash to the kids for Halloween And then it's like, oh, the kids are on drugs, Haha. And I'm like o Okay, well, here's where you're going to get your weapons reference. Right And the kids are running around like the kids in weapons and one of them says six, seven And that's the joke. I laugh Stehven. Rianna, God bless you. I'm so. I laughed. I laughed. I'm laughing at Stehven saying six seven. I'm not laughing And so so to me, so much of it was just like, o, here's where they're going to do the parody of this. Here's where o, that church looks like the church in sinners. here's here we go. And so to me, I wanted more jokes, where this film worked for me somewhat. I mean, naturally, this is going to be a meta property Like meta is in this film's bones. This is a parody of a meta satire. Of course you're gonna have opportunities to kind of play around with the long and winding road that got this franchise to this point. And some of the jokes that they're able to work in about that did work for me. There were a couple of kind of fun running jokes that were referencing horror movie tropes. There's pretty I thought pretty funny bit where the love interest who is very, very heavily telegraphed to be the killer. I thought some of that stuff was pretty funny To me, getting back to what Ronald said, I just thought so many of the jokes were so toothless And there's this vibe that runs through it and it runs through the film, it runs through the marketing of the film That's very like they're back and cancel culture and better watch out But then it doesn't have anything to say. Yeah. Yeah. Rihanna alluded to kind of some transphobia and I definitely got transphobic vibes off of it But it mostly is just like, here's a trans character Right. And that's the joke. like that's the comedy that this person exists, which is kind of the only place in the movie where I was like ag And obviously like I don't want it to come from a point of view that is worse or that is actively hostile, but it just doesn't have anything to say. And so there's like a scene set in a subway that's full of kind of these commentaries on like pares and stuff like that. And again, that just feels so dated. Yeah To me, this franchise and this film just don't really land for me. And some of this, I think is generational. The original Scary movie came out when I was in my mid to late twenties, and I grew up on airplane and the naked gun and hot shots partarte du, you know, L the kind that kind of original Zucker era of spoofs, you know, the David Zucker famously kind of took over this franchise for a while and piloted it into the ground. Pot intended. Yes, exactly. For me, like this film, if you are notionally open to this franchise, if you have enjoyed these movies either have a communal experience in the theater with lots and lots of other people orr you either watch it at two o'clock in the afternoon or two o'clock in the morning In a state of mind to enjoy it. Yeah I get what you're saying. Shorty state of mind, if you will. Yeah. I went in with as open a mind as possible. I really, really, really came in I ready to laugh and I only chuckled lightitely. I was chucking it up in there. I gotta be honest. I was having a good time. I wish I'd seen this with you. I know, yeah. I was having a really good time. I wish I'd been in that state of mind. state of mind. watch. There's something's one thing I wanted to point out about the transphobia and I will also include racism That's in this film. There's a scene in this film in which there' some commentary about police brutality. And I feel like what I got from that was again, not a perspective, but more like a pointing to itness. Yeah Ranna, you just said that. Like when you said they said, here's a trans person. Isn't this hilarious? That's kind of like the biggest The issue that I have here is to say, if you're gonna make the joke, either make the joke and say it with your chest or don't mention it at all. Because it's like you're not making the joke. Now you're just referencing it as funny, which just makes me say like, I need to know what you think about this so that I know like are you being smart? Are you writing something or are you just confused at the prospect? And it seems like it's the latter. Yeah. I can't believe I'm on here as like a scary movie defender, but what I will say I love it. What I will say is Do you come to these movies for perspective? Because I've rewatched all of them recently, you know, and grranted like the third scary movie, which is one of the Zucker movies and it's the one where they parody signs. That's my favorite scary movie because I think it's like top to bottom jokes that make me laugh, but like It reminds me a lot of myavorite movie, which is Austin Powowererss Gold member, but it you know, like this is the vibe that I'm going for, right? Yeah. But when I watch all the movies, I don't know, I'm not really looking for anything beyond jokes that make me chuckle. You know, It's the same type of humor as something like Family Guy or American Dad like the Seh McFarlane type of comedy where it's like you're making a reference to a thing that I know and that's making me laugh because I could put the pieces together. And that's as much as I'm expecting. You know, I'm not really going into a Wan's movie expecting them to comment on the state of the world. I don't know. Maybe it's a generational thing. Well, let me just say one thing, okay, you're right. However I think that's a problem. I think the fact that they are doing that, I take issue with. So I feel like if you are going to do parody and do that and you don't have a perspective, then you're absolutely right. We end up walking into a movie just being like, oh, we're just supposed to laugh at this even though we walk back outside and things feel just a little bit more tense than that. That's all I'm saying about parody and comedy. And I don't think you're wrong because that's exactly I feel like now I have to switch my brain to say I'm walking into a parity that's not gonna to have a proble Re much of a perspective. I think I have to kind of come down in between the two of you in a lot of ways. And I think in typical JC fashion, I'll offer one of the most generous roms of this movie. God blast, man. I appreciate you so much. It is parody. It is not as much satire as it should be. The movie being what it is, I think is why some of the metajokes worked for me. We've kind of talked about this a little bit, but the original movie was produced by Merrimax which at the time was run by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob Weinstein And Marlin Waynes has talked about how In a sense, they lost this franchise to the Weinsteins who made those other three sequels without the Wes And so I feel like a lot of the jokes about Anna and Regina doing some of those sequels and some of the meta commentary about Hollywood I feel like For them, this was their kind of way process everything that happened to them with this franchise. This was Marlin's way, one of Marlin's ways in real life, processing acceptance, his own actual acceptance of his transgender child And like in some ways, it does work, like some of them land and some of them don't because in some ways, they are I think they are doing something deeper, they are examining their own kind of feelings about these things, but not actually telling us exactly how they feel.'re just they're processing it out out loud in front of us. And I can see this movie in the shadow of those interviews. I can see this movie in the context of those interviews. and I see that something deeper. However, none of it was there on the screen So like ye Well that's how much credit did this movie? Yeah, exactly. I got to review what's on the screen Which is why I don't defend this movie from that perspective. I just like this is own is my own therapy. This is my way of processing it. I appreciate it. I love it. I am totally here for it That is a very generous read and I will try to think about the movie through that lens, I think that's really useful I will say I found I did find so much of what they were actually parodying be some of the most obvious stuff and some of the most dated stuff. The fact that they're still primarily parotodying screams. The twenty twenty two scream at that, which gone and forgotten, like water over stone in my brain. I was watching this. I was like, am I supposed to understand? And I just think like, man, I mean, one thing that doing a horror movie spoof should give you is a lot of reference material to work with. And obviously, this movie is not going to be able to touch on obsession or backrooms Man, what about the conjuring movies? L I could probably write you a satire or a parody of the Cjuring movies, which are so silly Where's that? Where's Midumar Wh was hereditary, there have been so many huge horror properties and they're just kind of still mucking around with sccream and I know what you did last summer And then with these kind of glancing Look, we also saw weapons. I managed to like clear a very, very, very, very, very low bar and also feel like a missed opportunity. A lot of this movie feels like it was cobbled together from screenplay drafts over the past fifteen years And they like cherry picked scenes from each of them you know, as they were developing it over time. and it leads to a little bit of disjointedness with the parodies. Yeah. Th These are sketch comedy guys. They've always been sketch comedy guys and there are elements of this that feel very sketch based and that is a very hard thing to translate into a feature film. Yeah, it feels like you're stitching together like two minute TikToks over and over and over again, you know. Of course my referennceces, I'm talking about like sketch comedy, like, oh, in the late nineties, Mr. show. Yeah. But yeah, it's like that's the vibe, you know, it feels like it's cobbled together. There's scenes that like exist in their own world Like the scene where Shorty's doing Twitch streaming with Kai Senat. that was better. That's like a little short in and of itself. I thought that was one of the better scenes of the movie circ. I agree. Yeah, no, totally. I laughed a lot at that. but I don't know. I like A lot of the references for me felt dated, but I don't know what they could have done to bring it up to speed. you know, without the movie becoming corory I don't know. Exactly to your point, Stehven, it might as well have been a series of sketches. This was a sketch comedy bit that like was veryery loosely woven together But when they found something that they thought they could have fun with