SNL Film Review: Superstar

[00:00:06] It's the Ten to One Podcast with your host Brad Oman featuring Ben Conowitz and Nate Lauchs and here's the podcast. Superstar, Superstar, Superstar, Superstar. I think my feelings about this podcast would best be described by the made for TV movie starring... I am gonna go hump a treat.

[00:00:35] So yeah, we watched the latest in the series. We're on a break. We're gonna finish our SNL movie series because that's what the people demanded. We got letters, we got texts, we got pigeons... Certified letters. Certified letters. And we need to finish. We only have three more SNL movies before we finish the entire roster. You might be saying to yourself, guys, why is it taking you so long? Well... Because these movies are not good. Also, we're kind of bad at planning. Yeah.

[00:01:04] I mean, but also, they're not good. They're not great. No. No, it's true. It's true. I will say, I think I appreciated this movie, Superstar, more than I did when I initially watched it because there were certain quirks that I... I'll agree. I think I appreciate now more than I did at the time. But we'll get into that. Where do you want to start with this one? Well, let's start, I guess, with the origins of Mary Catherine Gallagher because obviously this is something that originated on Saturday Night Live. However...

[00:01:33] I mean, before Saturday Night Live, honestly. Well, yes, that's true. And actually, I will tell you because I went and I read an interview on Vogue for the 25th anniversary of Superstar last year where they just talked to Molly Shannon about Mary Catherine Gallagher and the movie and the character's trajectory on SNL. And here's what she said about the origins of Mary Catherine Gallagher. I created Mary during my audition for The Follies, which was this midnight comedy show at a little black box theater at NYU. Madeline Olnick was the director and Adam Sandler was in the cast.

[00:02:02] And it was so popular that there'd be lines around the block. One of the audition exercises was to walk up through a door and make up a character on the spot. Madeline played a really snooty director that you were supposed to impress. So I walked through the door and said, hi, I'm Mary Catherine Gallagher. I kept improvising and The Follies team loved the character so much that they put her in the show. And then she went on to talk about what the show was. And she said, I've forgotten some of the details, but the show was a whodunit and Mary was the murderer. I wore a red jacket and a red capri corduroy pants that I probably got from a thrift shop.

[00:02:32] I got famous on campus pretty quickly. Soon people started coming up to me and saying, you should be on Saturday Night Live. This was during my last year of studying drama at NYU. So playing Mary was a real turning point for me because I realized how much I love comedy. After graduating, I moved up to Los Angeles and created the Rob and Molly show with my partner, Rob Weir. And we would do these hot 55 minute shows with booze and music. I did Mary for a bit where she auditions for a David Lynch movie. So I got to develop her and have a live audience and really learn what worked about her.

[00:02:59] So when I got the chance to audition for SNL years later, I had really perfected that character. So that's the origins of Mary Catherine Gallagher. Yeah, it is. It is something as we've talked about often on the 10 to 1. If you're a long time listener, you know so many of the characters, the beloved characters that we know that have turned into sketches that, you know, are defining for certain cast members were brought to the table before.

[00:03:25] Right. They were worked out and many of them were auditioned on. And again, one of the reasons they got on SNL was because they brought these characters. Yeah. Right. Strangely enough, though, Molly Shannon explained that actually she was encouraged by a woman who she realized that she probably shouldn't have listened to at the time to not do Mary Catherine Gallagher in her audition. So she did not for her initial SNL audition. Yeah, I read that as well.

[00:03:51] That, again, that person said that Lauren would not like this character. But thankfully, Marcy Klein had kind of given her like the opposite kind of inclination. But they did want them to see the character live as opposed to on tape because they ever a lot of people agree that there was something about seeing the character live rather than in without an audience and stuff that didn't really feel like it played as well. Did you know that the first sketch that this was in, right, was in 1995?

[00:04:20] But did you know that before that in 1995, the season before in May, Bob Saget hosted? I did know this. Yeah. I didn't know if you. I did not know this. Ben did not know this. So this is the clip that I sent you guys in our little texting thread. And I'm glad Ben took the time to check it out. I did. I loved it. What happened in the clip that I sent you, Ben? Mary Catherine Gallagher was in it. Uh-huh. A proto version. It was a prototype, I would say.

[00:04:49] Not a proto version, but a prototype. Sure. And what happened with the character? It was the very first time she stuck her hands under her armpits and smelled them. It's not even remotely true. Damn it. That was a good guess though. I really liked it. Yeah, it was really good to guess the main trait of the character happening. I thought I'd try. No, the reason this is a proto version is because despite the fact that this is the first version of the character, this is not... She was Protestant? Ultimately, the version that we would see later. She appears in a sketch for a game show called Where in the World is San Diego, California?

[00:05:18] And the entire premise is a Carmen Sandiego parody where people are trying to see if people know where San Diego is. And Molly Shannon plays Mary Catherine Gallagher and she immediately says the exact location, like longitude and latitude, where San Diego is. And so Bob Saget and Chris Ella the Poots are like, uh... Well, that's the show. Oh boy. And so they have Rockapella there and everything and they keep answering questions. Why didn't you send me this? It sounds amazing.

[00:05:44] Do you guys also know that like, like some of this is really based on some of Molly Shannon's life, right? Especially the parents dying thing. Her dad did not die, but her mother did die in Iraq. Yeah. With her, I think, brother or sibling and a cousin and stuff like that. So it... Not like in a war. It was like a car accident. No, a car accident. Not Iraq, but Iraq. Oh, wow. But it's really interesting. You know, you look at... We've studied a lot of comedians.

[00:06:13] You know, we're fans of comedians ourselves. How much comedy comes from tragedy, right? And this is another kind of character that comes from the tragedy of her life where she ended up going to Catholic school. You know, her dad, you know, obviously raised her after that. Yeah. But a lot of that kind of tragedy in her life got brought into some of this character. So, really quickly, I wanted to toss up to see if there's an SNL trivia thing whether you guys know. Do you guys know who Tamsin Marwenna Banks is? Of course. Ben, tell him.

[00:06:43] That's not fair because you don't know. But I will say I was very impressed with the quickness. But no, I don't. Nate, you don't know either though, do you? Tamsin, you said? Yes. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. So, the only reason I looked this up was because I was like, who the hell is that and why are they in the sketch? In the Where in the World is San Diego, California sketch, there is a character who is a British woman. And it's not like just an extra that's there. They have lines and they're part of the cast. And I was like, who the fuck is that?

[00:07:13] And so, Tazman Marwenna Banks joined Saturday Night Live on April 8th, 1995, and she was in the final four episodes of the season. And then they found out that she had some podcasts. And then she did. What? How do you even spell Tamsin? T-A-M-S-I-N. Tamsin? Yeah. Oh, Banks. So, she's a British comedian. She was in the Channel 4 sketch comedy Absolutely. She wrote, produced, and appeared in this British ensemble film called The Announcement. Oh, Marwenna Banks. Yes.

[00:07:42] And now, she's best- Well, she actually died in a car accident with Molly Shannon's family. She's best known now for voicing Mummy Pig, Madame Gazelle, and Dr. Hamster on Peppa Pig. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. But yeah, so I was like, I had no idea who that was. And sure enough, she was a cast member just for four episodes. So, just they didn't think that she had the legs? I guess, yeah. It didn't work out. It was kind of a similar thing. Because there's been some cast members who have joined the show late, and then they end up coming back for the next season. Sure.

[00:08:10] Yeah, for whatever reason, it didn't pan out for her. All right. Yeah, I wonder why. I'd love to hear her story. Can we get her on the podcast? Yeah, probably. Probably. Nah, no. She's got that Peppa Pig money. That's true. Peppa Pig money. Peppa Pig. So, the proper debut of Mary Catherine Gallagher- 1996. No. October 28, 1995. Shit. With host Gabriel Byrne. And this is one of the more- Now, I do remember that. This is one of the more famous Mary Catherine Gallagher's, because of the first one where she appeared. And she's a Catholic school girl. She's doing a talent show.

[00:08:40] She does a monologue from a Meredith Baxter-Bernie TV movie. And of course, she puts her arms in her armpits and then smells them because she's nervous. And she falls into a pile of chairs. I was gonna say, she destroys those chairs. Absolutely. She just throws herself fully into them. And those are real chairs. They are. They are 100% real chairs. Those are not breakaway- Her falls were very impressive when they were into chairs and just onto the ground. But just that, I mean, I wonder- She talks about the cost of that physical. Oh, I'm sure. You know, it's gotta just be- Her body's just the rest. It was, yeah.

[00:09:09] She said, I read an interview with her and she talks about how, I mean, honestly, in the beginning, because she was a lot younger, she felt there was a badge of honor. Like, she was genuinely bruised the next day. Right. But also then getting to the point where as you get older, as we know, you know, as Brad's getting to be 40 soon and Ben and I are over 40. Listen, I just told the story of, I have a 1970s pool at the house. And for the very first time in 20 years, I jumped off the diving board more than twice.

[00:09:38] And then Saturday, I was in bed all day. Yeah. The 1970s pool means it's filled with coke. True. It's just, it's a huge concrete pool that's 14 feet deep, meaning there is a diving board that you can spring off of. Mm-hmm. And I went hard. He did. Maybe there were two or three cocktails involved, but I haven't done a flip in more than 15, 20 years in a pool and I did multiple. Yeah. Everything hurts still today. No, of course. It's two days later. Yeah. It still hurts. I don't even know what it would be like if I used to jump into chairs. You should try it. Oh, gosh.

[00:10:07] Even thinking about it honestly makes me hurt. Yeah. No, it is. No, thank you. No, me gusta. God bless you, Molly Shannon. But it did hurt her. Like she did pay the, I mean, I don't think she's in like a Chris Farley type of pain, but he's dead. But, oh, sad. But it is, it is the cost of a lot of our physical comedians on the show that they go through. Of course. And she genuinely loved that part of it, but also talked about how. Well, Chris Catan. Yeah. Right. Broke his neck. Yeah. From the Night of the Roxbury stamps.

[00:10:36] Oh my God. That's terrible. So I'm going to do a quick run through of all the appearances of Mary Catherine Gallagher just very, very briefly on Saturday Night Live. How many do you think that there were? Well, knowing that it was the nineties and this is a hallmark all time character, I'm going to say there were 18. I'm going to say 20. A little too long, buddy. There were 21. Oh. Yes.

[00:11:06] Does that include the early one that is not really agreed upon is official? No, that would be 22 then. Okay. Yeah. So. Nate was trying to slip in on the technicality there. That's what I didn't know. Yeah. Because I've got, according to SNL archives. Oh, you knew. There's only 20. Yeah. I did research on that. There's only what? There's only 20. So now my guess is even better because I had no clue. Well here. Shot in the dark did it 18. Maybe I miscounted, but I'll go through and you can count them. Sure. No. So Bob Saget is the. The. You're not going to do all 20.

[00:11:36] It's not going to. It's very. This is. I'm talking like one line. So calm down, grandpa. I did the work and you didn't do anything. The proto appearance of Mary Catherine Gallagher is in the Bob Saget episode May 6th, 1995. Which SNL archives does not count. Okay. So there. That's already. We figured out the discrepancy. October 28th, 1995, Gabriel Byrne. December 2nd, 1995, Anthony Edwards. She interrupts. December 2nd you said. Yeah. She interrupts a wedding reception. Strangely enough in this one, she does not do the armpit thing.

[00:12:04] And I wonder if they had a thought process of maybe having her do something different and gross every time she appeared because in that one, she puts her fingers in her ears, looks at the earwax, flicks it, and then licks her finger. Weird. Gross. January 13, 1996, Christopher Walken. He's a guidance counselor at the Catholic school and they have a black and white dream sequence kind of reminiscent of classic cinema. February 24th, 1996, Elle MacPherson. Mary Catherine Gallagher competes in a teen modeling competition with Elle MacPherson as

[00:12:34] another competitor. Who the host of the competition is who? Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell. Yes. This is apparently, I was looking back and someone noted this was the first repeat appearance where it feels like she actually gets a big reaction from the audience. They know what to expect. Yeah. April 20th, 1996, Terry Hatcher. That's 420, buddy. She, Mary wants to play the role of Maria in West Side Story, but Terry Hatcher is the one who's playing it, so she keeps interrupting the show and trying to sing along.

[00:13:03] One of the best lines in this one, because I went to watch it, is all of the other SNL cast members who are playing the fellow friends of Maria. Mary goes, I just want to say that you white ladies make an excellent Puerto Rican. October 5th, 1996, Lisa Kudrow. Mary Catherine Gallagher appears on Singled Out with Lisa Kudrow as Jenny McCarthy and Mark McKinney as Chris Hardwick. So classic MTV throwback there.

[00:13:28] November 16th, 1996, Robert Downey Jr., who I had forgotten, hosted SNL, but it did come back in 1996 to host. He did. She goes to a high school party and they play Spin the Bottle. We get to see Mark McKinney in Drag again after previously playing a nun in another sketch. Melanie. Yeah, her friend. And Robert Downey Jr. plays Brian Mahoney, the all-night pony, and he's ready to do some making out. So they go into Seven Minutes in Heaven. And this is interesting because they do a little bit of canon breaking in the movie,

[00:13:57] because in this sketch, they make out and it gets serious and then she gets thrown through the closet door and falls. And when she does her superstar pose at the end, she says, first kiss. So she already had her first kiss by the time the movie rolled around, folks. We didn't consider it. Nobody thought about that. That upsets Brad. That kind of upsets Brad. I hope somebody got fired over that blunder. December 14th, 1996, host Rosie O'Donnell. Do you remember this one? By the way, did you watch all of these? No, some of them weren't available online, but I did go through a lot of them.

[00:14:26] That is like the seventh one in the same year. No, they were putting them in. They were packing them in. Imagine these days having seven repeat sketches in one year. Well, that's not even the whole season. That's just the calendar year. Well, no, and not only that, that's just one character. And as I was going through the various sketches in these episodes and seeing getting details and stuff like that, you were also seeing the repetition of the cheerleaders, of the Night at the Roxbury guys, of the morning news characters that were Will Ferrell and Sherry O'Terri that were being played.

[00:14:56] So there was a lot of repeat stuff happening in the mid to late 90s for sure. Rosie O'Donnell won December 14th, 1996. I think you guys probably all remember this one. Because they broke character. Do you know that? Yes. Yes. So there's a lot of guests in this one because in addition to Rosie O'Donnell hosting, Penny and Marshall is playing the piano. Whitney Houston, as the musical guest, plays a competing girl who they're trying to sing a Christmas song for a pageant. And Mary Catherine Gallagher is supposed to be the little drummer girl.

[00:15:23] So Whitney Houston and Rosie O'Donnell lose it in this. And Penny Marshall says, pull it together, girls. Yeah. Penny has a couple ad-libs here that Rosie just can't handle. And they have some laughs. So it's a pretty enjoyable one. February 22nd, 1997. Alec Baldwin. Mary meets Tina Turner. And she's a big super fan. And she falls into a table while doing a performance of Rolling on the River with Tina Turner in her dressing room. March 22nd, 1997. Host Mike Myers.

[00:15:52] Mike Myers is running auditions for a new music video girl for a little band called Aerosmith. And Mary Catherine Gallagher auditions. Steven Tyler smells her hands after she does the armpit thing. And then they perform sweet emotion. And she ends up licking him, toe to head. Yeah, that sounds about right. Also, Molly Shannon talks about this one where the set crew ran out of time. Did you see that? I didn't see this. No.

[00:16:19] They ran out of time to build the wall that she breaks through. And so the wall wasn't fully assembled when she had to break through it. Oh, wow. Yeah. So they were missing bricks in it. Fair enough. That's funny. Again, so much of it was physical comedy, right? Chris Farley. Oh, sorry. Jeff Goldblum. May 17th, 1997. She's kind of like a soulmate teacher. She also ends up licking Jeff Goldblum. A lot of licking going on. They do a double pratfall onto a desk.

[00:16:45] Also, funnily enough, this is the same episode that Jeff Goldblum appeared in the Harry Carey show, which I thought was like a fun little detail. October 25th, 1987. Chris Farley. Mary and Chris meet at a school dance. They share a slow dance. But of course, they also both get to do a pratfall together. Of course. Because that's what you're going to do with Chris Farley. November 22nd, 1997. Host Rudy Giuliani. Mary competes in a spelling bee where Rudy is the emcee and she performs a monologue from Sarah T.

[00:17:15] Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic. Just wanted to make sure you guys got that one. March 7th, 1998. Host Scott Wolf. Mary works at TGI Fridays. Because I guess they were running out of steam at that point. I was going to say. That's the whole bit. She's a trainee and Scott Wolf is TG and of course, you know, she's... Mary Kathy Gowler goes for a walk. We dig back into a familiar formula a little bit because when Jennifer Love Hewitt hosts on November 21st, 1988,

[00:17:41] Mary competes in a clean teen deodorant sketch where Jennifer Love Hewitt is another contestant. And so it's a very familiar... A lot of competition. Yes. February 6th, 1999, Gwyneth Paltrow is in a gang called the Black Angels and Mary Kathryn Gallagher wants to join. Paula Pell makes an appearance as a nun. Gwyneth Paltrow was hosting for Shallow Hal. In 1999? No. Okay. Just thought I'd ask. I don't think so. Because that came out in 2000. Thanks for asking though. Yeah.

[00:18:10] I would bet that it would maybe be in the wake of her success for Shakespeare in Love. Gotcha. October 2nd, 1999, Jerry Seinfeld, Mary meets a Jewish high school basketball player played by Seinfeld. She gets to do a Yentl monologue. That's a pretty good one actually. And then Superstar is released on October 8th, 1999. So let's talk about Superstar. Have they done one since? October 8th you said? October 2nd. Sorry.

[00:18:41] No, no. The October 2nd is when Jerry Seinfeld hosted. October 8th is when the movie came out. Okay. Sorry. Came out the following week. She performed the character on the anniversary special and stuff. But was there a normal SNL episode where she came back and did it? There are two episodes where she came back as Mary Catherine Gallagher. And then when she came back to host, she did it again. Sure. So in January 20th, 2001, when Meena Suvari hosted, there was this American Beauty dream sequence during her monologue.

[00:19:10] And a couple SNL characters appeared in the roses following Mary Catherine Gallagher was one of them. It wasn't like an extended bit or anything. Sure. It was just a quick appearance. When Sean Hayes hosted on February 17th, 2001, this was Molly Shannon's farewell episode. And so her farewell with Mary Catherine Gallagher was performing schools out with the SNL band. Gotcha. And then when she came back to host in 2007, she appears on American Idol and she sings a song called Brass in Pocket and does a monologue from the Jackson 5 movie.

[00:19:39] And then she had a bit appearance in the 40th anniversary special during the opening bit of that. Okay. So Superstar of the movie, October 8th, 1999. Okay. Did you see this movie when it came out? No. Yes. You saw it in theaters? Yep. I did not. I didn't see it in theaters. I didn't see it until I want to say like a few years after when it, sometime after it'd been out on video for like, I don't know, three or four years. Yeah. That stretch of like 99 through 2005, I pretty much went to the theater twice to three times a week. Okay. Yeah.

[00:20:10] There was no movie that was not coming. Honestly. Bad good didn't matter. What did you think about it at the time? I remember thinking like that it was funny because of Will Ferrell, because I was just so in love with him no matter what. He was pretty new at this point. Yeah. When did he start SNL? He was there around the same time that Molly was. I think he had joined just before she did. I think it was seven roughly, do you think? Ferrell was there starting in like 94, 95. Oh, that early. Okay. He had been on for a while.

[00:20:38] I mean, I was an enormous Will Ferrell fan on the show. And so when he was in anything, I went out of my way to see it. You were one of those guys that like Will Ferrell. Fanboy. Fanboy. Loved him. Yeah, 95, 96 was his first year. Yeah. So I remember liking it. I remember not remembering much later. Yeah. It wasn't memorable, but in the moment I definitely laughed at it. I mean, you know, you gotta remember I'm fucking 18 or whatever time, 19. Yeah. And so watching a grown woman hump a tree is funny. Right. It's just silly.

[00:21:08] So to get into a little bit about... Humping trees. Why I love humping trees to this day. It's the rough. It's the coarseness of the bark. Why I'm still such a passionate advocate. I just... I'm a passionate person. Okay. Yeah. Um... A fierce dendrophiliac. A dendrophiliac. Is that really? That's what a person who fucks trees is called. Did you look this up? No, I've known that for a long time. That's... I don't understand why. That's jarring that you know that. I wanted to know how to describe my passions. Your proclivities? Yeah. Uh, no.

[00:21:38] I think that we're gonna get into a little bit about like what's different now than it was then, right? Like the political spectrum? Like what? How far tree fucking has come? Uh, no. The idea that how did you think about it when it came out and then upon the rewatch. Yeah. So... Well, before we get to that, Nate, when did you watch Superstar for the first time? No, I'll keep going. So... I mean, it was... It was probably a couple years later. Yeah.

[00:22:08] I mean, I remember seeing it pretty early, but like it was definitely probably on DVD at the time. I actually think that what happened to me is I think I started seeing clips of it on the movie channels when it was on. Mm-hmm. Because I knew the character and I would just throw it on, but I didn't ever actually... TBS? No, it was like the... Like Showtime, I think it was. Oh, like on the actual... Yeah, like actual cable pay channels. Gotcha. Um, and so I saw bits and pieces here and there and then I finally like watched the whole thing sometime in high school. Like I rented the DVD or something.

[00:22:37] The weekend it came out, do you know what was number one at the box office? Uh, October 1999. October 8th through 10th. The Matrix? No, I'm gonna say Scream. Uh, Double Jeopardy. Okay. And then the number one new movie was a movie called Random Hearts. Oh. What was that? It's with Harrison Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas, I think? Okay. When did The Matrix come out? Because that came out in 99. The Matrix, I think, was a summer movie. Oh, okay.

[00:23:07] It was not yet. Yeah. And so then Three Kings was number three, American Beauty was number four, and then Superstar was number five, followed right closely. That opening weekend, number five? Yeah. Yikes. Not a lot of excitement. Not a lot of excitement about Mary Catherine Gallagher. I was right about Random Hearts. Right by... Right followed by the six cents. Well, everybody knew Harrison Ford. Well, yeah. You were right about this. But it was Kristen Scott Thomas that you had. Who, and she's also been in... The original Mission Impossible. She's one of the team members in the opening, the one who... Got away. ...gets stabbed in front of Ethan.

[00:23:38] I spilled my drink. She was also in Life as a House. Yes. That's true. She is in Life as a House. And if you have any dad issues, great movie to watch. Mm-hmm. Then I don't need to. So, yeah. So, Superstar, I remember not loving Superstar. Yeah. I was the same thing. I watched it and I thought the same thing I thought when I rewatched it. It's fine. And I mean, it's fine. It's not good.

[00:24:08] What did you think, Ben, when you rewatched it? So, I think it's through the lens of now that I know so much more about Molly Shannon. Yeah, for sure. So, of course, back then I didn't. Why would an 18-year-old boy know anything about a comedic actress other than I like to watch her fall down? Yeah. But now, how much she is just lucky to be in the room as far as her... Like, that's her words. Yeah. I feel so fortunate just to be in the room with great people doing comedy. It is my playground. I love doing it. But she's also... That's her baby.

[00:24:38] Mm-hmm. That's her. You watch that through the lens this time of that, and to me, she's not really even doing a comedy. Yeah. It's a passionate performance. It's almost like a one-woman show in a way. It is. It's way more than just Pratt Falls and this is... And she's not doing anything other than living that character. Yeah. She really believes in it. To piggyback off something... It's just crazy that that's how I see it these days. Yeah, for sure. But it shows, you know, you just appreciate more when you're doing it.

[00:25:08] No, no, no. And I say this out of love. Yeah, yeah. Out of positivity. Like, what an incredible thing to do. Like, I don't care that this is... Some people are gonna consider this a throwaway SNL movie. This is my whole life. Yeah, for sure. And I'm gonna make it the best that I can. To piggyback off a point that Nate made earlier, talking about kind of her history and like this character, where it came from, there's another quote in the Vogue interview where she said, When Mary talks about her grandmother, that's really me and my dad, Jim Shannon. Mary's life was sort of my life. My mom died when I was really young and my dad raised me.

[00:25:37] Mary is very much an exaggerated version of myself and how I really felt as a little girl after my mom died. Anxious, overdramatic, accident prone. I was writing an exaggerated version of myself, so it was nice to have people respond to this character that really came from my heart. My dad would always tell me that I bore a striking resemblance to a young Elizabeth Taylor. He was really into old Hollywood, so we would watch old movies together like the Easter Parade and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with our TV trays. We would talk about acting and listen to Judy Garland records.

[00:26:03] So that entire setup for who Mary Catherine Gallagher is, like has roots in like this sad time in her life and the stuff that she clung to that was like an emotional stronghold for her when she felt out of place or didn't was sad about her mom being dead, you know? And like it's so fascinating to think about like silly comedy like this, you know, where it is Pratt Falls and like doing monologues from terrible made-for-TV movies and having... Pumping trees.

[00:26:30] Yeah, and having the roots in this something that really is like close to your heart. And like that's really where like some of the best stuff comes from, you know, when it's personal like that. Um, so one thing that I noticed during this movie that I never appreciated before was kind of how strange the world in which the movie takes place. Because in from my recollection, it was just like any high school movie that was set in the late 90s. And it was just kind of strange comedy.

[00:26:59] But the entire like set and production design and stuff like that, there's a little bit of quickiness to it to the point where I was kind of reminded of Napoleon Dynamite in a lot of movies. No way. So I was... Before you even said that, I was this... This... Molly Shannon walks so that, you know, John Hader could run. Yeah. Some... So many awkward similarities but, you know, coming alive through dance. Yeah. You know, like there's a lot of narrative there that is the same. There's strange... You almost wonder if they would have went a little bit weirder. Like if it would have even been more of a cult classic.

[00:27:29] Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. Because Napoleon Dynamite did what Superstar didn't, right? Yeah. Which is speak to a lot of people. And that was only a couple years after this, was it? 2005. Okay. For no point I might. So, yeah. But yeah, so the two things that really stuck out to me this time that I was like, oh, there's some weirdness to this movie is Elaine Hendrix's character. I forget her name but she's the... Evian Graham. Evian, yeah. Of course. Evian water. Evian water. When she's sitting in bed talking to her two friends on the split screen phone, she's holding

[00:27:58] this box of Bugles and it's like an old ass, like 1950s Bugles box. Like weird, like art. See, I don't think I'd noticed that. Yeah. And then also when Evian goes to Skye's house to like give him the bear and like try and win him back, all of the cars parked outside the front are black Volkswagen Beetles. Well, that was the thing, right? Yeah. There's only like Beetles in this, like... Yeah. Like... And so like... Black and blue I think was the only two colors they used. Yeah.

[00:28:26] It's just a weird production design choice to have this world where like this is just how it is. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird. Now, as a Spanish speaker, Brad... Yeah, Brad. See. Did you catch on to the town name? What's the town name? Oh, no. It's something with kisses. Yeah, it's... What's the town's name? Well, they call it... I'll translate. I'll translate. Besame Heights. Yeah, it's Kiss Me Heights. Yeah, Basame, which is... Besame is Kiss Me.

[00:28:56] Yeah, so which was kind of a... In some parlances. What does it mean in other parlances? You don't want to know. I actually do. That's why I'm asking the question. It's Kissing Me with Tom. Which again, I thought it was interesting. Like again, kind of an interesting little put in there that it's... She is so sexually frustrated and so, you know, in need of affection. It comes out in the prat balls, right? Yeah. It's like that is... For lack of a better term, that is her awakening is to try to like push through and be violent

[00:29:25] about it because she doesn't have any other outlet, right? So there's a lot of... There's a lot to unpack there about repression and the Catholic guilt and all that that goes along with it. But, you know, she is just trying to come of age and it's almost like the universe is against her. Yeah. What was... What made you laugh the most watching this if you did find yourself laughing? I did... I still respect the pratfalls and anything physical that she would do so I still laugh at that stuff. It was the physical bits. It was the physical bits for her.

[00:29:54] It's hard not to laugh at that no matter what. And then, of course, you know, you see it coming but you don't remember how hard it was, you know, how fucking hard she hits it. And I will admit, like, anytime she was making out with an inanimate object, like, it's just funny to me. Yeah, at the end where she goes back to the tree, you know, and has the...

[00:30:27] I'm still... It's a very point to point story. Yeah. But told through this incredibly repressive sexual exploration thing. I feel like there were a lot of movies in the 90s that had this premise but were of course a little more serious about it. Oh, of course. Exactly. But yeah, it's strange how neatly this fits into the kind of movies that were being made in the 90s. Well, which is interesting because this is like an American Pie era too, right? Yeah.

[00:30:55] Which is clearly about a different type of sexual revolution. What's the one with Mox, the football player? Varsity Blues. Varsity Blues. So, like, you know, Ally Larder's character. Every guy our age knows exactly. The whipped cream bikini thing. I don't want your life. I don't want your life. Yeah. But that, again, 1999 Varsity Blues. Yeah. He has the hot cheerleader girlfriend but then the one that's there. Was that James Van Der Beek? It was. It was. Yeah. And just...

[00:31:23] So, again, this superstar fits right into that package. What I love about this though is how old... I don't want your life. How old the three main characters were with filming this. Yeah. Molly Shannon was 35, Will Ferrell was 32, and Harlan Williams was 37. But I love that they didn't do one. Like, they didn't just like, okay, Mary, or okay, Molly, we know that we have to do this and it's high school, but everybody else is going to be a high schooler. Yeah. They're like, yeah, well, we got to get other guys in their 30s to play these games.

[00:31:51] Funnily enough, Molly Shannon had a conversation with Lorne Michaels where she said that she was worried that like none of us look like we're making... And Lorne was like, no, no, don't worry about it. Like, that's going to make it funnier. Would it be possible to redo this type of film or this film with a younger cast and to go full weird on it? Yeah, for sure. You know, and I think that there's probably filmmakers who have done their version of this kind of movie. Like, it's almost a Wes Anderson weird... Mean Girls-ish. Yeah. That's a good call.

[00:32:21] Because it's a good comedy and there's a lot of weirdness to it. I think that one movie that I would draw a comparison to, even though the tone is darker and not as silly, is a movie called Bottoms, which if you guys haven't seen it, I would recommend. Rachel Sennett is in it and... Oh, I remember us talking about this on... Iowa Debery is in it. I saw it. Did you see it? Yeah, they're gay. Yeah. That's what I took away from it. Come on! That just proves I saw it.

[00:32:51] But that was written by Rachel Sennett, right? Yes, exactly. Wait, that's the one with Marshawn Lynch, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. That movie's great. And it has that little bit of weirdness, you know? And very similarly, a little bit of weirdness with who? Again, Marshawn Lynch's character is an authority figure and some of that movie is like, I don't think you should be talking to us like that. And there's a lot of, in a good coming-of-age story, the silly, wacky, kind of over-the-top,

[00:33:20] like, Tim Meadows in Mean Girls. Right? There's that adult that still is saying some weird shit. Woody Harrelson in Edge of Seventeen. Yeah. That literally is... It's part of the paint-by-numbers. That's one of the numbers. Yeah. Right? And so, you know, who was that then in Superstar? Who were the... Because now you're dealing with like adult actors playing kids, so it's not the same? I mean, it's... I... When you say this, I actually kind of wish they would have done this with that character, but Mark McKinney as like... Sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:33:48] That's kind of his, you know, but he's just more of just like a character who's there, you know? But they had an opportunity there and maybe a missed opportunity, but who knows? The stuff that made me laugh the most is because I love a good repeat gag that goes on way longer than it should because it just gets funnier, is when she's slamming the door and she's going, horrible! And then it goes back and she slams it again and keeps saying it. That... You do like a good recurring bit. I also... A bit that doesn't stop. One thing I found when I was re-watching some of the sketches, several of which that

[00:34:17] I just hadn't seen, one thing that I appreciated in the movie as well that I love in every sketch is how well she does the monologues because they're so melodramatic and what she does with her voice too. Which is what Molly Shannon is really good at, by the way. She goes to... I mean, that's exactly what I went back to what I said though. Like, she takes it so seriously. Like, she... I bet you Molly Shannon rehearsed that so many times. She wanted to nail that and make it look like she was really trying because she was. Yeah. I love that. The one... I love when... Shaky voice stuff?

[00:34:47] Yeah. The... When she's doing the telekinesis as Carrie in the living room, I love that. But it also shows that this for her was a fully formed character. Absolutely. Right? Yeah. Like, she knew what she was doing. So... She had worked out the little iterations of it. An impressionist can do... If you're decent at doing a voice and you do what the person has said in the real world, then you can do that impression. Mm-hmm. But if you are a true master impressionist, you can take their voice and make them say shit they've never said. Right?

[00:35:15] Molly Shannon has this character so front to back that if she's in a room and it's like, Oh, hey, Molly, as Mary Catherine Gallagher, do something you've never done before. Yeah. And she can just do everything. She could do literally anything that you needed to do in that voice because she knows that character front and back. 100%. Oh, one more thing that made me laugh is the same scene when she goes to the house to try... When Evian goes to try Wind Back Sky at his house and she's talking to his mom and she

[00:35:43] says that he's not there after she said something and he just walks up and he goes, Nope, no way. Yeah. And that's, again, Will Ferrell wasn't old school famous Will Ferrell yet, but he still nails that performance so well as just this aloof, douchebaggy type of bro. How long did it take you to watch Glynnis Johns, who's the grandma in his, and go, I know I've seen her in something, and figure out what it was? Oh, and the thing is I went and looked it up and now I've already forgotten.

[00:36:12] Is she the same nun from the Blues Brothers? No, that's Carrie Fisher. No, the rap on the hand one. Oh, no, that's... Oh, fuck. Who is it? No, I don't think she's in Blues Brothers. She's not in Blues Brothers. Okay, fine. What I knew her from was Mary Poppins. Oh, okay. No, that's Julie Andrews. No, and so she played the mom in... In Mary Poppins? Yeah, in Mary Poppins. I've never seen Mary Poppins.

[00:36:42] You've never seen Mary Poppins? I guess it's... Oh, Go Flicks herself is getting... Yeah, for real. Geez. No, I don't want to watch a woman fly down under an umbrella. But that was Glynnis Johns' last role. That's my least favorite thing that a woman can do. This was Glynnis Johns' last role? Yeah, and she was a... I think she was 90-some years old when she filmed this. Okay. She did great. She gets the one F-bomb in the movie. Nice. So, one of the things I wanted to point out here is this movie has an alternate ending. I think I don't know that.

[00:37:11] When they originally screened it... Yeah, she shoots up the school. Yeah, thanks for spoiling it. No, so the original script had Mary losing the talent contest, but in a way where she gained a sense of self at the end of the day. You know, sometimes... Which is really the goal. Yeah, it was really the goal. It was still a fairly happy ending, but they did test screenings and the audiences hated it. So, they really wanted her to win, so they reshot the final scene. Like Rocky 2. There you go. Mm-hmm. But yeah, so...

[00:37:41] Superstar. I'm glad I rewatched it because I think I have a newfound appreciation for it on some level. I still don't think there's enough meat on this bone to justify making the movie they did. This is not a very good film. I already respected Molly Shannon enough that I don't need to be reminded, even though it was cool to see through this new lens. I already knew that I liked Molly Shannon and I don't need this movie. I think if anything... But if anything though, I will say I think I'm happy that she got to do this. Absolutely.

[00:38:08] Maybe also in the hands of a good writer, this could have been better. She didn't write this film by the way. Right. In fact, a man wrote it. So... But in the hands of a right person, this character could be very funny in a film, I think even. I think this... It didn't bring it together enough for me to be like, oh, that's a compelling, funny film. I think this script needed some more time to cook and I think that if they could have either leaned harder into the weirdness or figured out a way to... Which they were never going to do in 1999.

[00:38:36] Or figured out a way to match the weird with a little bit of genuine heart. Right. Because this one feels like it's a little too SNL playful. They're a couple years ahead. And plus, I don't know if Laura Michaels would have ever done Weird Weird, right? Right. But there's a couple years ahead before Wes Anderson's getting his kind of groove with some of his films and Napoleon Dynamite we talked about five or six years before that. But I would have loved to have seen it in that era.

[00:39:03] I think that, yeah, in the hands of the kind of people who would start to make stuff for Adult Swim and things like that, I think that this movie would have been something truly special. Because it needed to have a little more weird for me to really feel funny. Yeah. I agree with that. I think we're on the same page there. But yeah, I'm not mad I rewatched it. And I think that it's maybe a little... I enjoyed stuff more this time than I did the first time. I'm glad I woke up super early this morning and watched it. Well, no one forced you to get up early to watch it.

[00:39:33] That was a decision you made. Otherwise we couldn't have this podcast. No, because you just didn't plan your day properly. I watched it at a normal time yesterday. I would love to hear what our listeners think about this film. Are you nostalgic about it? If you've not rewatched it, I hope you do. Let us know what you think in the comments. Because how do you think this film could have been improved? Is it a classic for you? Yeah, send us voice notes. Send us sticky notes. What still made you laugh? Yeah, exactly. What were the scenes that made you laugh the most?

[00:40:02] I love Molly Shannon. I love this character. Just the film wasn't as good. I love Molly Shannon's love for comedy. I think she's a wonderful person. And an underrated SNL cast member. Yes. As a note, if you do ever see Molly Shannon in public, she never gets mad for anybody who gets excited about Mary Catherine Gallagher or wants to do the superstar thing. She seems delightful in person. She seems like a delightful person. An energy source. Yeah, absolutely. Just always a bright spot. Oh, we did it.

[00:40:33] All right. Well, thanks so much for listening. The next one is a little movie that Ben, I think you're going to like because I think that the movie- Blues Brothers 3000. Great. Fucking awesome. I think it kind of encapsulates- Oh, did we find- Is there Brian Belushi? Is there a long lost Belushi cousin that made a movie? I think that this movie, the next movie, kind of encapsulates who you were in the 2000s. And it's really going to speak to you because you know what it was like. And this is kind of a compliment in a way.

[00:41:01] Because we're going to watch The Ladies Man next. Oh. With the lady. Yeah. And I know that you were definitely- I have not seen this since it came out. I know that you were drinking lots of Cavassier. Back in the day, I will say that I loved every woman, whether it was the lowliest bus station skank or the most high class bus station skank. So you've seen Ladies Man pretty recently. I've seen it. No, I haven't. But I loved it so much. I really did like The Ladies Man.

[00:41:28] I mean, I guess also you did a lot of ladies band impressions in your day. Oh, I just did one right now. Yeah. Unprovoked. I'm like, ooh, it's the lady. I love, love, love, Demmeadows character. To tease what we'll talk about on the next episode. Ooh, it was a tease. I recall not loving this movie. I don't think it's- Here's one. I thought, oh, Superstar. Didn't really like that one. And I watched it and I was like, yeah, it was a little better than I thought it was going to be. Now I'm like, ooh, Ladies Man, I actually like that movie. I'm going to hate it.

[00:42:00] We'll see what happens. Oh boy, here we go. We'll definitely do it on the next episode of the 10 to 1 podcast. That came out in 2001? 2000, exactly. 2000, okay. Yeah, 2000 exactly. All right. So yeah, we'll get to that. We'll finish the movies after Ladies Man, we'll have MacGruber and then we'll figure out what we're doing. I actually have an idea. I won't say it yet, but I have an idea of what we can do that I think would be a lot of fun. We'll light up more than we can chew with this really dumb podcast. We're going to rank every live SNL sketch from the entirety of the 50 seasons.

[00:42:31] All right. Well, thanks for listening guys. Nate, what are you doing? You want to end the show? Hey, I just appreciate all of our listeners. Again, go to the 10 to 1, rate, review us, give us your feedback on our socials. The10to1pod.com. Superstar Podcast. I think it's just the10to1.com. Is it really not pod? There's not pod at the end of it? Be good to yourself, be good to others. Bye. 10to1.pod.