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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:44:39 — 92.6MB)

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If you thought we had just one bun in the oven for our lineup of Arnold Schwarzenegger comedies about birth and child-rearing – surprise! This topic is actually twins!

In our previous episode, we cooed over 1988’s Twins, in which Schwarzenegger popped his cherry as a humorous leading man and wowed us with his lack of vanity in getting laughs. In this episode, we carry our “Schwarzepreggers” topic to term, seeing if Arnold’s final two collaborations with Ivan Reitman are what we’re expecting – and if they still deliver.

In KINDERGARTEN COP (1990) Arnold stars as Detective John Kimble, a grim cop who learns that the only way to bust a drug dealer is to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher. (Don’t ask.) There’s plenty of deception, betrayal, yelling at children, gunplay on school grounds, and even a feral ferret – but are the laughs here, or absent? This bizarre blend of kiddie hijinks and deadly police drama just might have to stay after class. 

Then, Arnold teams back up with Reitman and Danny DeVito for JUNIOR (1994), a movie about how becoming a single parent affects a man’s love life, friendships, and career – because he has inseminated his new work crush Emma Thompson’s secretly stolen ovum, implanted it in his own abdomen, and become pregnant himself. Junior is notorious for pushing high concept star vehicles to their extreme, subverting Schwarzenegger’s tough guy persona as he contends with morning sickness and kooky cravings instead of the usual cyborg nuclear attack. But nearly 30 years later, does Junior fill our bellies with laughter as easily as it fills Arnold’s belly with a viable infant? Grab some forceps, because the chuckles may not come so easily this time around!

Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:22:58 — 90.4MB)

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Arnold Schwarzenegger became world famous in the 1980s as the jacked-up star of macho blockbusters like CONAN THE BARBARIAN, PREDATOR, COMMANDO, and THE TERMINATOR. But in the late 80s and early 90s, he teamed up with GHOSTBUSTERS director Ivan Reitman for a trio of family-friendly comedies, starting with 1988’s TWINS. Schwarzenegger’s comic chemistry with Danny DeVito drove this broad, fairly inexpensive studio comedy to rake in over $200 million and become the fifth-biggest earner at the box office that year, proving Arnold’s ability to draw big crowds outside the action genre and paving the way for several more seminal turns in blockbuster comedies.

In this episode of the podcast, we look back at Arnold’s austere Austrian childhood and the 1977 documentary PUMPING IRON, which chronicles the bodybuilding championships that first catapulted him to worldwide renown (and also chronicles his orgasmic workouts). Then, we check back in on TWINS and see whether this beloved 80s comedy still has us laughing for two. (One blue line means we didn’t like the movie. Two blue lines means we did.)

So join us for the conception of our “Schwarzepreggers” lineup and see if Ahnuld’s comic chops have held up as well as that hulking body — or if he should’ve just stuck to his day jobs as world-class athlete, popular governor, and unparalleled action hero instead. Along the way, we discuss Schwarzenegger’s big screen sex appeal (or lack thereof?), marvel at his unique combination of himbo charm and tireless ambition, ogle his out-of-this-world physique, and debate whether Arnold can still tickle our funnybones as effortlessly as he could break all of our other bones.

Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:13:04 — 140.7MB)

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In the mid-90s, multiplexes were invaded by an influx of movies centered on mankind’s first contact with extraterrestrials. And unlike the cute and friendly aliens we got to know in the 80s, like E.T. and ALF, the space invaders of the 90s mostly just wanted to annihilate us, starting with our favorite tourist destinations.

Part One of the When We Were Young Early Late Mid-To-Late 90s Summer Alien Invasion Spectacular looks at two of the deadliest interstellar assaults to ever breach the silver screen, both celebrating their 25th anniversaries this year.

First up, we celebrate the 4th of July in the most American way possible — with mass casualties, tons of military hardware, a bombastic presidential speech, and a stripper! Roland Emmerich’s record-smashing INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) raised the bar for special effects-loaded summer entertainment, redefining the blockbuster with its cataclysmic destruction of U.S. landmarks (a popcorn movie hallmark ever since).

Next, we attempt to shield ourselves from Tim Burton’s outrageous sci-fi send-up MARS ATTACKS! (1996), with a cast so star-studded that it stars Jack Nicholson twice! The wacky comedy had just as much death and destruction as Independence Day, but came in for a crash landing when it opened in theaters, and has been largely forgotten since.

Which of these uncomfortably close encounters holds up better now that we’re viewing them from a distance? Do we prefer President Pullman to President Nicholson? A dog that outruns an explosion, or a chihuahua with Sarah Jessica Parker’s body? Will Smith’s fresh quips, or ack-ack-ack-ack? Get answers to these and other probing questions in a podcast that’s truly out of this world!

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:16:16 — 117.4MB)

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Every generation gets the BATMAN it deserves, and ours is hands-down the best to ever glower down at us from the big screen — Michael Keaton’s scowling, brooding Caped Crusader, and his equally brooding (but also very neurotic) take on orphaned playboy Bruce Wayne.

Early in his career, Tim Burton controversially cast everyman Keaton as the superhero who redefined the modern blockbuster as more than just a movie — with a pop soundtrack by Prince, fast food tie-ins, and an iconic logo everyone was wearing back in 1989. (And ever since.) Jack Nicholson’s unforgettably over-the-top Joker also raised the bar for movie villains (and movie star paydays) in one of the decade’s very biggest films.

The mass-marketing returned in 1992’s BATMAN RETURNS, which upped the ante with two larger-than-life adversaries — the oozy, outrageous Penguin, played with gruesome gusto by Danny DeVito, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s seductive but deeply damaged Catwoman.

The podcast invites When We Were Young superfan Jan to reminisce on all the Batman merch, cosplay, and fan fiction of our youths, before revisiting Burton’s Batman films with a critical eye. Does the macabre camp of 1989’s Batman hold up against the more somber Batmen of recent years? Is its chilly, gleefully anarchic, and disturbingly erotic sequel decidedly not okay for kids? And, in a movie landscape that’s now littered with superheroes, do these Batman films look quaint alongside Marvel’s colossal conquest of the multiplex — or is Tim Burton’s singular vision just so much yummier?

Strap on your utility belt, fire up the Bat-vehicle of your choice, and have your butler ready a dirty limerick to excuse your absence, because Gotham City’s most wanted are wreaking havoc upon our podcast — and only your nostalgia can stop them!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung