Weirdhouse Cinema: Rock'n Roll Wolf

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss 1976’s “Rock'n'Roll Wolf,” also known as “Mama.” It’s a Romanian–Soviet–French co-production and a live-action adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale “The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be
discussing the nineteen seventy six Romanian Soviet French co produced
psychotropic children's fairytale musical Mama aka Rock and Roll Wolf,
directed by the Romanian filmmaker Eliza Beta Boston. And I

(00:36):
really mean it when I say this movie has everything.
It is so much, so fast, and so wonderful, infectiously
lovable music. Russian ballet dancer is dressed up like spiders
and or sparrows. Nearly just NonStop locomotive energy. Maybe flags
a little bit in the second half of the movie,

(00:57):
but at least the first half is like it. It
is a freight train. It does not stop. It's got
diverse frolicking theeomorphs in a secret village in the deep woods.
It's got rooftop sea saws, bridges over nothing, goat boy, levitation,
ice based wolf traps, strawberries coated and honeydew, a rainbow

(01:19):
parrot with like mad auctioneer energy, plaintive, donkey, solos, pendulum beds,
secret passwords, red squirrel, acorn rituals, A dangerously handsome bad
boy wolf man, a gorgeous angelic goat mother, and non
stop historical smoking. Yes, this is one of those where

(01:40):
I am definitely in how have I never seen this before? Territory?
A rock and roll wolf is so so in my
wheelhouse and I can't recommend it enough, super weird and
pushes like every single sensory boundary at once.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I showed part of this to my wife at lunch
after I'd finished watching it, and she thought it like
an acid trip. And her follow up question was, how
did Joe find out about this movie? And I don't
have the answer. Do you have an answer? Can you
answer it?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
For this? I wish I remember? No. I honestly I
don't know how this movie first came onto my radar.
I've like had it on a list of movies I
was gonna come back and check out later, and then
this week I did. I looked at my list and
I was like, oh, okay, what's the deal with this one?
So I know one reason I became intrigued this week
is that I started looking into user reviews and comments

(02:30):
online just how people were reacting to this movie, and
I noticed there were several distinct tranches of audience reaction.
One type was pretty similar to how I'm reacting now, like, WTF,
I just discovered this insane movie as an adult. My
senses are overwhelmed and I am delighted and confused. But interestingly,

(02:53):
another type of reaction was and I think this is
probably particularly common in people from certain countries in yours.
It was a reaction like I grew up watching this
over and over on TV, and it is intensely nostalgic
for me. I couldn't verify this, but I read a
bit of unsourced trivia online that this movie was played

(03:14):
every year at Christmas on Norwegian television, where I believe
it would have been known as a RockA Uven, meaning
the Rock Wolf. And so I don't know. I guess
we are in Christmas movie territory, whether whether or not
we meant to be this week.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, And it's when we get into the plot later on,
it does seem like there is some sort of well,
you know, so there is some winter folkloric magic going
on here. So it does seem to fit well within
like the Holiday movie Universe.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, yeah, we get a winter fairy who comes and
saves a little goat boy who has gotten lost in
the in the wilderness. Oh but I should mention the
third major type of reaction, so we've got the this
movie is is weird. I love it. We've got this
movie is anstee for me. I saw it when I
was a kid. And then the third type is my
fanatical celebrity crush is a weird pipe smoking wolf or

(04:08):
a heavenly goat mother or both. Uh and this type
of reaction could overlap with one of the other histories possibly,
but a lot of people crushing on the main sort
of lead animals in this movie.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, this movie has dare I say, strong furry energy
to it. If you if you at any point in
your life, you've really gotten into the practical makeup effects
for the cat's musical or perhaps the I finally remember
this show Zublie Zoo starring Ben Vereen. This was a

(04:43):
like a kid's musical dance show, very Broadway, and all
the makeup was very cats.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I've never seen Zubalizo, but I watched part of this
movie with my wife and she she compared it to
Zublizu as well.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yes, strong Zubali zoo energy and uh and yeah, it
has a a lot of attractive people dressed up as
these animals. So I did have to wonder at times
like if I was bringing that energy into it with
other people. We're having that reaction as well, because I
just came off a couple of viewings of nineteen seventy

(05:15):
six is were Wolf Woman. So I don't know if
I'm letting like the were Wolf Woman experience taint my
viewing of a family children's Christmas story, you know, from
several countries away.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
No, I mean, it's not the only movie of this sort,
but I think from what I can tell, everything explicit
about it is, you know, very it's very family friendly,
and it's you know, it's a children's movie. It's a
fairy tale movie. But there's sort of a second level
of interpretation that a lot of people I think, look
back on it with after they grew up watching it,

(05:52):
and in fact, regarding that first type of reaction, like
all the people who were saying, oh, I watched this
so many times as a child, like maybe on Norwy
TV or in Norway. Somehow this connects to another interesting
thing I found online which was a trailer for a
live musical stage adaptation which played at the Norwegian National

(06:15):
Theater in twenty eleven, and I so wish I could
go back in time and see this. I would fly
to Norway. If they do a revival, I don't know,
maybe they keep doing this thing. But kind of interesting
thing about it is the movie I think is firmly
aimed at kids. It's like a it's extremely weird, but
it is a family fairy tale adventure. Just from the trailer,

(06:38):
this stage musical looks to me more explicitly aimed at adults.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
It has slight, slight, rocky horror energy.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, yes, soft, but yes, I see what you're saying.
Like the little clips in the trailer feel like something
in one sense, aimed at adults who have passionate nostalgia
for a movie they loved as children, with a sense
of irony about the weirder aspects. For example, a few
of the clips from the stage version really seem to

(07:07):
press on the sexual tension between Mamma Goat and mister Wolf. Like.
I pulled out a few screenshots for you to look at.
Rob This is again, this is not from the movie.
This is from the stage version, where we've got Mamma
Goat here spanking the wolf them just like making weird
faces at each other. And then here's this one scene
where suddenly Mamma Goat has had a costume change and

(07:28):
she's no longer in her Romanian folk dress and is
wearing some kind of black leather thing with a bunch
of metal rivets.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, at this point, I feel like we're in a
meat love video.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, yeah, but no. Yeah. Again. To be clear, this
does not happen in the movie. I think adult viewers
will find it impossible to miss the weird tension between
the wolf Titisuru and the goat mother Rada, but it's
not explicit in the movie, and it's not played for
laughs like it seems to be here. So technically this

(08:00):
movie is a film adaptation of one version of the
fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Seven Young
Kids in the Brothers Grim Catalog. And we'll get to
the details of that story later on. I'll summarize it
when we get to the plot, but overall the movie
is quite loose on plot. Rock and Roll Wolf is,

(08:21):
like many musicals, more of an experience. It's kind of
hard to communicate how much experience is packed into this
eighty minute movie, the kind of time I personally had
with it. The runtime just flew by, especially in the
first half, with the song and dance number is just
coming so fast, and the tone and the visual and

(08:42):
sonic texture constantly switching up with this kind of rapid
shuffling deck of cards kind of feeling. I loved Rock
and Roll Wolf, and I think it's a real shame that,
as far as I'm aware, there is not like a
high quality blu ray of the English version available today.
I really really want that, because this is a gem

(09:04):
of a film. Oh and I guess sorry. That brings
up a second impressive thing about this movie. It is
a film where the main creative inputs were Romanian and Russian.
But there is a native English version of the film,
so not just subtitles, not even just a dub. There
is a version of the movie where the songs have

(09:28):
lyrics in English and are performed in English by the cast. Now,
it might be different voice actors than the people playing
the characters on screen. I'm not sure, because I did
listen to snippets of songs from the different versions there's
at least one in Romanian, one in Russian, and one
in English. I don't know if there are any other

(09:48):
language versions. And the voices sound kind of different to me,
so I think it might be different singers. But like
one example was that I recall in the Russian version
the wolf's sound did a lot less suave than in
the English version and more kind of rascally.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, I did notice that the English track was recorded
in London, so you know, I mean that kind of
leads me to believe it is a different a different
vocal cast for the English cut. But the English cuts,
the version we watched, that's at least a version that
as of this recording is floating around out there. I
asked around about this movie at Video Drome here in Atlanta,

(10:29):
the video rental store, and John, one of the guys
who works there, is quite knowledgeable. He was looking around
looking stuff up, and he pointed out there is a
DVD version of this film, or a DVD R I'm
not sure I'm the technical specs there, but there is
some sort of diss you can buy. You might have
to go on eBay to get it, he said, but

(10:49):
it does exist. But in terms of like a really
nice like Blu ray edition, which clearly a film like
this deserves. He said, you know, a good place to
watch out for it would maybe be the deaf Crocodile guys.
That company puts out a number of great films, some
you know, some Russian films for sure, and so that
those would be the guys to pester with your with

(11:11):
your requests for rock and roll Wolf aka Mama.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Well, yes, I fully endorse that please put this out
because this is you can tell you can just look
through the core of visual assets here are fantastic. This
is a movie of beautiful production values. It has these
great sets. It's set in this fairy tale animal village
in the middle of a forest with all these you know,

(11:35):
strain like these Romanian folk cabins and weird sets. But
it's also got like some disco kind of sets.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
So yeah, the psychotropic elements dominate as well. The costumes
and the makeup are just you know, push to eleven.
It's almost constantly something something beautiful to behold.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
It is definitely a nineteen seventies musical. There's that no
doubting that. If you have ever seen like the original
film adaptation of Godspell. Indeed Rocky Heart Picture Show or
a movie if we've talked about on the show before,
The Apple, which came out in the nineteen eighties, but
he's still a seventies rock musical, like this has all

(12:18):
of that energy, the rock and rolls there, the disco
elements are there, and also that kind of like bohemian vibe.
You know of these troubadours and bards floating around in
a troubled decade but still keeping you know, some of
that energy of the late nineteen sixties alive in their art.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, hey, hey, hey, Wolf's on the way. So, like
I can see that comparison with The Apple and all that,
And another one I saw people a comparison I saw
people making online was Tommy you know, of the Who album.
So I absolutely see that. Though something about this does
feel a little it has common esthetic elements, but it

(13:00):
feels less decadent than a lot of your western seventies
rock operas. It feels more wholesome and kind of forest
magic based.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah. Yeah, it is ultimately angling for children and features
a lot of child characters. So yeah, it's it's it's
managing to be all these things at once.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
But on the other hand, don't want to over sell
the wholesomeness or make it sound bland like it does
have strong Mother Goose drops acid energy.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Is that your elevator pitch?

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, that's got to be mother. Mother Goose drops acid
and joins the spiders from Mars.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
All right, you know, I'm not sure we actually have
any trailer audio for this one, given the nature of
the picture. We'll hunt around a little bit and if
we can find something, we'll throw it in here. If not,
maybe we can get JJ to sample just a tiny
bit of the audio. If not, you know, you'll never
hear this part because we'll cut it out. I shall

(14:04):
say like this.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Esse home. Now you can open the door. Don't be
afraid now, not any more. He suits costious pain terrors

(14:29):
of occupation. We let up helping can in sua summation.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
He ho ho, I'm the donkeeper treacle he hoy.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
All my rather a good care cale.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
All right, if you want to see this film for yourself,
we already discussed ways you might be able to find it,
and perhaps find it in the future. Who knows, but
this is always the case. We do urge you to
watch it in the best quality possible in however you
obtain it. All right, let's get into the people behind

(15:26):
this picture, all right. Starting at the top, we have
Elizabeta Boston born nineteen thirty one, the director Romanian film
director and screenwriter whose credits include nineteen sixty four's Memories
of My Childhood, nineteen sixty eight's Kingdom in the Clouds,
seventy twos Veronica, and seventy threes Veronica Comes Back. She's

(15:46):
been involved in various stage and screen projects over the
course of her long career, as well as in academia
concerning film.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Apparently, these Veronica movies she did are also sort of wild,
sort of fairy tale fantasies aimed at children, and I'm
interested in checking those out because oh and we didn't
I guess we didn't mention this yet. But one of
the appeals of getting into this movie this week is that,
of course, every Christmas season, Rob and I get in

(16:14):
get in mind the mind of Jack Frost or moros
Co the Great the you know, Christmas Tale of the
Russo Finish Taiga. But that one I saw little echoes
of that in the movie we're talking about today, and
in the screenshots I saw from the Veronica movies, I
saw some comparisons one could make to moros Coo as well,

(16:36):
So those are going to be on my radar. I
want to come back and check them out. All right.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
As for the writing, here, we have two screenplay credits.
One is a is a Russian and the other is
a Romanian. We have a Yuri Intin born nineteen thirty five,
Russian author, a musician whose other credits include various other
children's pictures. And then we have Vasilica is trade Livenin
teen thirty four through two thousand and two, Romanian producer

(17:02):
and writer who works several times in a writing capacity
with Bustan. And this is a good a time as
any to add usual caveat my apologies for any mispronunciations
of the various Russian, Romanian and French names that are
going to be involved in this multi national production here,
all right, This film, there's no doubt about it, stars

(17:26):
Ludmila Gorchhenko playing Ratra the Goat. This is the titular
Mama from the versions of the film you'll find with
the title Mama, and she lived nineteen thirty five through
twenty eleven.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Radiating goodness and light even when the forest is dark.
She has strong you know, she's the paladin, she's the
heroin character, and she comes off as so good and
so pure, even when she's like flirting with the wolf
who's going to eat her children.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean, you very well may think that you were
immune to the wiles of various Satyrs and Baphamets and
even mister Tumness, but you know, you need to watch
this film and see how Rada hits for you, because
her charisma, her brightness or just absolute goodness shines through.
And also something about you know, she has this little

(18:20):
button nose that seems to just work so well with
the big goat horns and all.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, yeah, she does have goat horns and they do
the It feels like a very Eastern block style of
makeup effects. Though I think the makeup in this movie
might have been done by the fringe.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
I'm not sure, but yeah, I think I saw at
least some French credits for the makeup.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yeah. Well, anyway, it's something I recognize from Morosco as well,
that the freckles she has, which are just done. It
looks like with like a black felt tip pin, just
black felt tip little freckles on her cheeks well.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Grushenko was a Ukrainian born, Russian and Soviet actress, singer,
and overall in her While she at times was seen
as too Western by Soviet entertainment tastemakers earlier in her career,
she went on to be a highly regarded actress in
Soviet and post Soviet Russia, receiving the highest acting honors
during both eras she worked well into her seventies on

(19:16):
stage and in TV and film. She put out several
albums in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, and her best
known films include nineteen fifty six's Carnival Nights, nineteen seventy Nines,
Siberi Day, and nineteen seventy six is Twenty Days Without War,
which was apparently suppressed to some degree due to its

(19:38):
anti war themes and wasn't released until nineteen eighty one,
and that was after the success of seventy nine Siberi Day,
so you know, at that point there was no stopping her.
I was exploring her filmography a bit I have this
is the only film I've seen starring her, but clearly
she's a huge name and a number of prestige pictures, like,

(20:00):
she's not an actress that you find in any like
sci fi and horror pictures. But of note, there's nineteen
ninety one's Sex Kaska, which I think translates to sex story,
and it's a fantasy mystery picture. It looks like it
has some like sexy aspects to it, but also seems
to have a very almost kind of noir quality to

(20:24):
the filmmaking. The only other two films that I think
fall roughly into a fantasy genre for her were nineteen
sixty ones The Man from Nowhere in nineteen seventy one's Ten.
So yeah, this is my first time seeing her in
a film, but it seems based on what I was reading,
and like the oh bit that ran in the Guardian
when she passed, it seems difficult to overstress how successful

(20:48):
she was as an actress in Russia.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
It seems hard to believe that she didn't do more
like sci fi and genre type movies. When you look
at some of her press photos, yere one you share
I don't know what this is from, but there's one
photo you shared with me. It's clearly from some kind
of magazine shoot or something where she's I guess she's
having a picnic. She's sitting out in the middle of
a field with a blanket spread out under her, and

(21:14):
she's got you know, kind of like a rattan lined
wine bottle there, but she's got several daggers in ornate sheathes.
She's wearing one of those like felt mountaineer hats with
feathers in it. She's got a flask of some guy
next to her, just some kind of bunches of grapes
lying around, and then a falcon in her hand like
it's per she's got one of those leather gloves and

(21:35):
just yeah, falconing.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Between this image and the still I shared with you
from Sex Story, in which she's wearing like some sort
of like she got crazy makeup on and this big
furry hat, like both of these images, and i'd really
to an extent also the screen cap here we have
from today's movie. If I encountered all of these and
like a Google image search, I would be like, get
this AI stuff out of here. Nice try mid journey,

(21:59):
But I'm not believing that this is a real image
of a woman with a falcon and a ceremonial dagger
and a big flowery hat out on a pick neck.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Yeah, somebody put into the prompt like a Russian actress
as Edward scissorhands.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, but these are all real, These are actual photos.
I think I found the bird one on a blog
about like Russian pop culture. All right, so that that
is our star. That is mama that. But on the
other hand, this film was also known as rock and
Roll Wolf, So who is our wolf? Well, the character
is Titisuru, played by Mikhail Boyarsky born nineteen forty nine,

(22:37):
Russian actor and singer, apparently best known for some adventure
films he did, especially a nineteen seventy nine Soviet Three
Musketeers movie in which he played the lead role of d'Artagnan.
In fact, I think the name of that movie this
may be in translation or you know, international releases, but
I saw it referenced as d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers.

(22:57):
So he must have stood out from the rest of
the bum.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah. Well, wait a minute, No is d'Artagnan one of
the three Musketeers. I think he might not be.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
He's not. It's been a long time sin they've done
Three Musketeers.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
But I gotta look this up. I'm not gonna be
able to rest until I know.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, I haven't. As a kid, I watched at least
one of the versions that had Oliver Reid in it.
But yeah, it's been a long time since they interacted.
Because sometimes there are four of them. Right, they're three musketeers.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Right, Yes, that's right. It's d'Artagnan, Athos Aramis, and Porthos.
I could, I just looked it up.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
So Porthos was Oliver Reed.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Okay, I didn't know that, but yeah, that's right. It's
like d'Artagnan appreciates these other three guys, the three Musketeers.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
All right, Well there you go. Well this is apparently
his big role that skyrocketed his career. I believe he's
currently retired from acting, but apparently remains an active voice
in Russian politics.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
So this guy is obviously a big part of the
impression this movie makes on people. Like I think there's
a reason that one of the release names, like the
international title was rock and Roll Wolf because people online
have thoughts about this guy.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, I mean, I mean he's a slind, tall slender really,
you know, has like kind of kind of lichen, you know,
aspects to his his body and face already. But yeah,
he's wearing all black. He's constantly smoking a pipe, and
I mean constantly. I don't know if there's a single
scene where he isn't smoking a pipe. He's always creeping around. Yeah,

(24:26):
he has a real rock star energy. Reminded. I was
reminded at times of like Frank Zappa, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yes, yeah, a little bit Frank Zappa, because he's got that.
He's got a strong mustache and part of a little
beard with with the dark hair and the heavy eyebrows.
I'm thinking a cross between somewhere between Jerreth the Goblin
King and I remember in Almost Famous, when Billy Krudi
plays a rock star, there's a little bit of a

(24:55):
resemblance there. He's the one.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
I'm a Golden God, right I remember, remember.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, So there's a good
bit of that. But he is just a just a
rascally gyrate and rock star in the middle of this
fairy tale village with a twinkle in his eye so
bright it would be like registered on telescopes and other
star systems, like he is up to no good. Oh,

(25:22):
and I almost forgot to mention this is true of
most of the characters in the movie. But it's especially
notable in his case wearing an Amadaeas style wig, gigantic
voluminous wig in his case with just these you know,
kind of swishes of curly wavy hair going all over
the place. Everybody's got their own type of voluminous wig,

(25:45):
but his is I don't know, it looks really good.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, So we'll have a lot more to say about
this performance, but at this point we're going to get
into some of the supporting players and animals playing Donkey.
We have George Mihaitza born nineteen forty eight. This is
a Romanian actor and direct director, apparently a pretty big
name in Romanian cinema. His films include nineteen sixty eight's
Reconstruction and two thousand and eight Silent Wedding, as well

(26:12):
as the sci fi comedy A Fantastic Comedy from nineteen
seventy five. This was I thought one of the creepier
characters in the film. I don't know, every time Donkey
was on screen, I was at least a little creeped out,
in part because he falls in with the gang that
is supporting mister Wolf, that's supporting Suru. In his various schemes,

(26:35):
but I don't know. There's something about his face, like
he puts out this like calm, serene kind of clown face,
but he's like actively supporting the main villain. And he's
a donkey, Like this is not an animal that I
would necessarily think of as, Oh, yeah, the donkey's gonna
definitely fall in with the wolf.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
He's the only herbivore in the wolf gang.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, what does that mean? Maybe gets into I don't know.
It could be something cultural. We've talked before about about
donkeys and how sometimes they are associated, at least in
ancient Babylon or ancient Sumeria, with various demons and so forth.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
So I don't know. His emotional key is strange. He's
like a morose gray clown. Where we were just talking
about everybody's wigs. His wig is gray Nigel Toughnell, and
he has got big donkey ears on top, though he
strangely has a lot of soul at a few moments.

(27:33):
Do you remember the he haw song, Like the part
where he's just plaintively singing he haw, he haw, he haw.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, yeah, and Andy gets a love interest later then
I don't know why, but that was decided we needed that,
so so yes, Donkey, we'll come back to Donkey, fascinating
character in the Rock and Roll Wolf universe. Another care
this is on when we're introduced to, like right off
the bat, we have the character Parrot. It is kind

(28:03):
of a stretch to see him as a parrot. At first,
he seems like maybe he's some sort of a clown,
but yeah, he's a parrot. Played by Florian Pittis who
of nineteen forty three through two thousand and seven. This
is a Romanian actor, a folk musician and general entertainer.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
They mainly signal that he's a parrot just by giving
him a very colorful outfit and wig. But yeah, he
doesn't have a beak or anything. And the role of
the parrot here is interesting because he's a kind of
entertainer slash vender or slash auctioneer. You know, he's kind.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Of a traveling bard or something, perhaps you know, music man,
perhaps I don't know. At times I was like, it
was this guy up to no good? Is he a
con man or something? But now he's just here to
tell stories and sing songs and gather everyone together inside
the magical Disco Ball.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah, It's interesting the level that they go to communicate
what animal you person is. So I'd say, you know Rada.
I mean, she looks very human in one sense, but
you can tell she's a goat. She's got the clearer
in the ears. There's no mistaking a parrot here. I
don't know. Yeah, he could just be like a human clown.
And there's another one, like the bear family. They don't

(29:18):
work that hard to make them come off as bears.
They just look like humans in strange makeup.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
They just look like human clowns. And in fact, I
don't think the next character, Father Martin the Bear, is
named in the English version that we watched, but Father
Martin the Bear is played by noted Soviet and Russian
clown and circus artists Ol'legg Popoff, who lived nineteen thirty
through twenty sixteen. Not to be confused, I think there's
an old egg pop Off Mma fighter right now. This

(29:44):
is a different different. This guy's a lover not a fighter,
and laugher not a fighter. Maybe mostly worked in purely
Russian film, but also appeared in nineteen seventy six is
the Bluebird. I wasn't familiar with this, but this is
a an American Soviet co production. An American Soviet co
production made during the height of the Cold War, starring

(30:07):
Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Huh, I did not know there was such a thing.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, I don't know much about it beyond that, but uh,
that's fascinating. As for Olig pop Off, I'm not sure,
but I feel like this is a name I'd heard before.
I don't know if in the past, someone like I
ran into a clowning enthusiast at a party or something
and they decided to tell me about the Great Olig
pop Off, but I feel like this name has come

(30:32):
up for me before. And this is also, by the way,
a guy. When you see him in the film, you're like,
this guy's a pro clown. There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Not at all in how he physically looks, but in
the way that he is dressed here and the way
that he acts, like his physical comedy reminded me of
Harpo Marx.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Hmmm, yes, all right. Next, we have a severely Kramarov
playing the young wolf. Let's see there's another They refer
to him as something else like little young you, nephew
wolf something, but he's definitely part of the villain gang obviously.
I mean he's a blood relative.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
But yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
He lived nineteen thirty four through nineteen ninety five, a
Soviet actor who then ended up immigrating to the US
in nineteen seventy nine at the what was apparently the
height of his popularity in the USSR, and his subsequent
US films included nineteen eighty four's Moscow in the Hudson
starring Robin Williams, twenty ten, The Year We Make Contact,

(31:30):
nineteen eighty six is Armed and Dangerous, nineteen eighty eight's
Red Heat, and nineteen eighty nine's Tango in Cash. I
don't have to tell you that he generally played supporting
Russian characters and or Russian bad guys in these pictures.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
One of these days I got to watch Red Heat.
Not that I expected to be good. It just seems
like one of those that would be a kind of
history lesson.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
I think, of those the films I just named, twenty
ten is the one I need to see. I haven't
seen that one, and I've heard that while it's no.
Two thousand and one, it is interesting in its own right.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, I've seen it. It's not bad, but it's I
don't know. I just don't know if I feel like
two thousand and one needs needs a sequel film, but
I don't know, you know, go for it.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
I saw Moscow on the Hudson though at a very
young age, way too young. It has as I recall,
there's like a lot of naked Robin Williams in it,
but I don't remember its quality beyond that. I don't
think I was at an age to understand what this
movie was even about. Let's see moving on, Okay, This

(32:36):
is just a very supporting character, but she stands out
all the time in the scenes because she's our hot
squirrel lady. She is played by Marina Poliak born nineteen
fifty one, Russian actress best known for this film. Maybe
she was a squirrel woman, I don't know, And if so,
like it's it's hard to get work in serious cinema.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
You mean, in real life she was part squirrel. I
think she.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
I don't think she's in makeup here. She's just a
human squirrel person.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
There are near constant squirrel antics in this film. You know,
there'll be a scene where you're trying to focus on
what the main characters are doing, but then a squirrel
just like runs through the frame.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
All right. The next character is the Swallow. I thought
she was a spider when I watched the film, because
the spider people like, she kind of looks like a
spider woman. I don't know, Like.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
She lives in a tree and dangles from threads.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, like she doesn't have a beak, and she also
doesn't have like mandibles or anything. But but yeah, I
thought she was a spider. She's played by Violetta Andrei
born nineteen forty one, a Romanian actress whose credits include
the East German sci fi film The Dust of the Stars,
which I believe I've seen and it's one that's been

(33:48):
on the Weird House Cinema list for a while. To
come back to, okay, all right, And then coming to
the musical credits, we have two. One's French, one's Romanian.
The French composer that's credited is Just Bournois, who lived
nineteen thirty six through twenty sixteen, not to be confused
with the French silent film era director of the same name.
This guy was a composer songwriter. He composed a few

(34:12):
songs that were made famous by Bridget Bardot in the
late sixties, and he also had a singles run as
a musician in the early to mid nineteen sixties. And
then on the Romanian side we have Domesticole Popa or
Papa nineteen twenty one through twenty thirteen. He's a Romanian
composer who worked with the director of this film on

(34:33):
numerous projects. I think he scored Veronica. I could be
wrong on that, but if it wasn't Veronica, it was
one of the other pictures that she'd done.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
As I said earlier, I think the music in the
movie is quite strong in constant.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
This is so, you know, there are different types of musicals,
and you know, I don't even know that I have
the terminology in my head for the different types, but
this is one where there are a handful of songs,
but we keep coming back to them again and again,
different characters singing them, also different renditions of those numbers,
and it's nearly constant. It's not one of these where

(35:06):
all right, we've had a little dialogue and now it's
time for a full blown song. So much, but it's
also not opera.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
You know. Yeah, And it really varies in terms of
genre like. Parts of this are full on like rock opera.
They're like rock songs, almost prog rock. Others feel more
like traditional kind of stage musical numbers.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, and at times it's a little like we've got
some almost kind of like a Caribbean drum beat going
on at times, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
And the parrot songs, Yeah, the parrot.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Songs, which I guess that makes sense, like what's a
parrot doing here? Like it turn in from somewhere else.
Maybe we brought some different drum beats with it. And
then other times there's certainly what feels like more of
a I don't know, you know, you know, Russo or
Romanian like folk music kind of mentality there certainly in
some of like the more lullabot eccentric songs we hear.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah, I agreed. So I figure when we start off
talking about the plot, we should talk about the folktale
this is based on I mentioned earlier. This is based
on a traditional fairy tale, and so the Grim's fairy

(36:18):
Tales rendition of this story is known as The Wolf
and the Seven Young Kids. Here, I'm going to be
drawing on a translation that's available online by D. L
Ashleman and The story goes like this. So you've got
a mother goat who has seven children, and they live
together in a house in the forest, and one day
mother has to leave home to forage for something to eat.

(36:41):
She warns her children that there is a wolf in
the woods, and while she is gone, the wolf of
the woods will come to the door and ask to
be let inside, and if they let him through the door,
he will eat them all up, so they better keep
the door shut. The children ask, how are we to
know if it's you coming home, mummy, And so she says,
if the young go here knocking at the door, they'll

(37:01):
be able to know that it's their mother by listening
for her soft voice and looking at her feet, either
under the door or through the window. And the wolf
will have a rough voice and will have furry black paws.
And so she goes out. She leaves the house, and
then the text reads quote, it was not long before
someone knocked at the door and called out open the door, children, Dear,

(37:24):
your mother is here and has brought something for each
one of you. But the little kids knew from the
rough voice that it was the wolf. We will not
open the door, they cried out, you are not our mother.
She has a soft and gentle voice, but your voice
is rough. You are the wolf. So after this, the
wolf is like, hmm okay, thwarted. So he goes to

(37:44):
a shop and he buys a piece of chalk and
then he eats the chalk and that makes his voice soft.
Don't know how that works, but that is what the
story says. He goes back to the house again and
pretends to be the mother, goat on once again. This
time the kids they hear the soft voice, but then
they look out the window and they see the wolf's

(38:05):
black paw and they know he is a wolf, and
they tell him to go away. And then the text
reads quote. So the wolf ran to a baker and said,
I have sprained my foot. Rubbed some dough on it
for me. After the baker had rubbed a dough on
his foot, the wolf ran to the miller and said,
sprinkle some white flour on my foot for me. The

(38:25):
miller thought this wolf wants to deceive someone and refused
to do it. So the wolf said, if you will
not do it, I will eat you up. That frightened
the miller, and he made his paw white for him. Yes,
that is the way people are morals in the middle
of the story, that is the way people are so anyway,

(38:46):
Now that he has swallowed the chalk to make his
voice soft and gotten the flowered up dough foot, the
wolf goes back to the house and tries it again,
tries again. This time he does trick. The young goats,
and the little goats led him inside, and he eats
all of them except for the youngest one, who hides
inside a clock. Then, satisfied, the wolf goes off takes
a nap in a meadow. Meanwhile, mother Goat comes home

(39:09):
from her foraging, and she finds the house all in
disarray and her children missing. And then she finally she
locates the youngest goat hiding in the clock, who tells
her what happened, and together they run to the meadow
and find the wolf sleeping off his meal. But they
see something moving and jiggling inside the wolf's belly, And
then the text reads quote the mother goat sent the

(39:30):
kid home and to fetch scissors and a needle and thread,
and then she cut open the monster's paunch. She had
scarcely made one cut before a little kid stuck its
head out, and as she continued to cut one after
the other. All six jumped out, and they were all
still alive. They were not even hurt, for in his greed,
the monster had swallowed them down hole. How happy they were.

(39:54):
They hugged their dear mother and jumped about like a
tailor on his wedding day. But the mother said, go
now and look for some big stones. We will fill
the godless beast's stomach with them while he is still asleep.
So the kids go gather the stones, they bring him back.
They put the stones in the wolf's belly, and then
they sow him up again. And the wolf wakes up thirsty,

(40:16):
and he decides, well, I'm going to go to a
nearby well and get some water. But when he begins
to walk, he cries out in pain. He cries out
quote what rumbles and tumbles inside of me? I thought
it was kids, but it stones that they be. And
so the story finishes. Quote. When he got to the
well and leaned over the water to drink, the heavy
stones pulled him in and he drowned miserably. When the

(40:40):
seven kids saw what had happened, they ran up and
cried out, the wolf is dead. The wolf is dead,
and with their mother. They danced for joy around about
the well. So how much does this overlap with the
plot of the movie. Uh, I would say medium moderately. Unfortunately,
in this movie they never cut the wolf open and

(41:01):
fill him up with stones. But the major conflict of
the film is the same. And I guess because the
plot here is very loose, we should just sort of
summarize up top and then we can go and fill
in some texture when we talk about individual songs and scenes.
But the general plot is that Mama Goat aka missus

(41:22):
Rada lives in a house in the forest with her
goat children. In this case, it's within a kind of
animal village where one house is full of rabbit people,
one house's sheep, one house is squirrels, and so forth,
and there's also a donkey. And there is a pipe
smoking wolf in this village named Titisuru who he lives

(41:43):
in town, and he spends the first quarter of the
movie telling Rada that he is going to eat her children,
and she tells him no, and then they dance and
make eyes at each other.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, there's a lot of like, no, for real, I'm
going to eat your brats, like he calls them. Brats essentially,
and he is pretty clear like I'm a predator there,
baby goats, I am going to eat your children. And
she's like, oh, no, you won't. But there's kind of
a wink there.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And so in the movie, kind of like
in the folk tale, there's a secret code that Mama
Rada uses to enter the goat castle, but in the movie,
it's a song. It's a song that Rada teaches her children,
and she has to sing it note for note perfect
to be granted access. And I'm sure anybody who's seen

(42:28):
this movie will have this song burned in their brain forever.
You hear it many many times, in both its correct
form and in its incorrect form when when crudely attempted
by the wolf and his companions, but he goes Mama's home.
Now you can open the door, and it goes on
with this whole thing about like I've brought you strawberries
covered in honeydew and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
And so the idea is the kids will listen, is
like that is that Mama, I don't know, let's hear yep,
that's her. Her voice sounds perfect, it's beautiful. Then you
open door and she comes in right now.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Sue Ru spends much of the movie trying to learn
to sing this song correctly. He's like outside the house
eavesdropping and writing out sheet music quickly as he hears it.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah yeah, yeah. So he spends a lot of time
like workshopping at with his his buddies, the Donkey, the
the What, the.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
The Lynx, the Lyne. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
So they're all working on it, and at times it's just,
you know, it's too it's too rock and roll. You know,
he is a rock and roll wolf after all, So
it takes him a while to really refine the performance
to the point where he can attempt to pull off
this this scheme.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah. Now, there's a subplot in the middle here where
one of the Goat children, the older boy Mattei, wants
to escape the house and go to the fair while
mama is out, even though it's dangerous and the wolf
is prowling around. So he runs out and then he
gets into trouble and he gets pursued by the wolf
and his allies. But that that's sort of a b
plot in the middle of the movie. Eventually, the wolf

(44:03):
and his goons kidnap a couple of the goat kids.
And even though early on it was suggested that the
wolf would eat the children, he doesn't eat them. It
seems what he really wants is to hold them for
ransom so that Mama Rada must pay him a bag
of gold. He's like, give me the gold. He has
this short speech about how much he wants gold. Of

(44:25):
what use is gold to a wolf? I don't know,
but he wants gold, gold, gold.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Well, I think one of his cronies ask him, like,
what are you gonna do with the gold, and he's like,
I'm gonna do what everybody does with the gold, baby,
which is spend it. But I mean, again, what's he
gonna spend it on? I guess I don't know. Food.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
The wolf in the Brother's Grim story does buy something.
Remember he goes and he buys chalk and then eats it.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, all right, so open question then yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
So anyway, Yeah, So a couple of the goat children
get kidnapped, but then Rada comes up with a plan
to get her children back in revenge. So she first
there's a lot of dancing, like ice skating and dancing
around on the ice, and the whole village comes out
to the frozen pond in the wintertime, and ice skates
around and dances and stuff. And then Rada dances with

(45:13):
the wolf and they're, you know, it's very flirty dancing.
But then also he's like, give me the gold, and
what the gold? And so she eventually uses what I
don't know if it's actually a bag of gold, but
it's something made to look like a bag of gold.
She uses it as bait to trick him into falling
into a trap that the villagers have made in the
ice of the frozen pond. So the wolf falls into

(45:36):
the water, and while he's drowning in the freezing water,
his co conspirators again, the younger wolf, the Lynx, and
the donkey, they sort of have a change of heart
and they bring Rada's children back to her. And then
mister Wolf is pulled from the water and allowed to live,
and he promises he has a changed wolf, will he
will never kidnap her children again, and everyone lives happily

(45:58):
ever after.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
That's it, and that's how it goes down. Nobody is
cut open, no stones are implanet in anybody's body, and
everyone learns their lesson. But we cannot stress how much
dancing and dare I say prancing occurs on the road?
Did this conclusion?

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Oh? Unbelievable amounts of gambling and gyrating about Oh, And
I haven't mentioned this anywhere else, so I guess I'll
just throw it in here. I mentioned that the you know,
the visual textures of the movie are good, like the
costumes and the and the makeup and the sets and
all that are great. But I just really want to
emphasize again how much how much landscape texture there is

(46:40):
in the village set, which is a great is a
great compliment to the choreography and the dancing. So it's
in this lovely natural setting in the forest, but there
are just all these interesting little things for the dancers
to kind of move around and react to, all these
little pathways and gates and staircases and lap and railings

(47:01):
and little bridges, and it's all very rustic and pretty,
and it makes for a perfect landscape for these rambling
dance numbers that lead the characters from one edge of
the village to another.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Absolutely, yeah, it really the environment feels very authentic, you know,
like it's almost like they these actors, as these animals
lived here for months or something leading up to the
actual filming.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, okay, you want to talk about the individual scenes
and musical numbers.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, let's start with the beginning, because you know, Joe,
they pull a reverse Holy Mountain on us here, which
is kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Yeah. Yeah, So we start outside of the story with
the credit sequence taking place over shots of the actors
being introduced with credits as they get into costume and
have their makeup applied. Interesting choice.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, And for some reason for me, this really drove
home the nineteen seventies musical quality. I don't know why.
Maybe it's just because you're seeing, you know, guys and
gals who are clearly denizens of the nineteen seventies, like
in their casual clothing, being transformed into these timeless woodland creatures.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Yeah, there is a softening, kind of humanizing element to
it because, for example, one of the things we see
is the actor who plays the villain, who plays mister Wolf,
is like sitting in a chair in his makeup chair,
and the kids who play the goat children in the
movie are like play They're like putting funny makeup on

(48:35):
his face and they're all laughing about it. So it's like, oh, okay,
he's the bad guy in the movie, but in real
life they're all friends.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yeah, it's all in good fun. Children. Yeah, don't be
stressed out by anything. You're about to see.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Kind of interesting cinematography choice here in this scene where
we're meeting all the characters is that most often sometimes
we just get like a headshot where they smile at
the camera, but more often we see performers making eye
contact with the camera through a mirror, so the camera's
over their shoulder and we're looking into their makeup mirror
and connecting with them that way. Yeah. Yeah, Also, did

(49:11):
you notice how in this part, basically everybody is smiling
as they meet the camera except the actor who plays Donkey,
who's just grimacing and looking like, you know, why go
on with this masquerade of a life.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Well, he's method, you know, he's Donkey from the get go.
He showed up this morning Donkey before he even put
the makeup.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Or the ears on. He looks like he has just
about had it with this job. Sick of playing Donkey. Okay,
but let's go into the world. Now, we go into
the forest, into the village of fantastic magical creatures. And
what's our first song?

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Oh, the first one is I honestly don't remember what
the song is, but this one is by a parrot
and it's kind of an upbeat, prancing tune set to
some furious It's kind of almost Caribbean drumming, you know.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, yeah, this is the one that goes ladies and gentlemen.
So before the song even starts, I think one of
the first things we see is like the squirrel lady,
she's she's looking out at the road leading to the
village and she screams like here he comes. And then
mister Parrot, a twee voiced master of ceremonies type presence

(50:25):
in a teal tuxedo jacket, a red cravat and a
rainbow wig, is riding into town on this rag and
bone shop velocipede, singing a song I had to. This
is one of the many parts where when I went
back and I listened to the lyrics more closely, I
was like, wait, what is this about. It sounds like

(50:45):
the song is about artifacts he has stolen from various
places around the world. He says that he went to
Tehran where he got a rock that shows the future,
and from Bali he took something referred to as the
ancient magic tree.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Well, I've got news for mister Parrett. I feel like
those artifacts and tales of their exploits are gonna be
lost on this crowd because these animals are a little
more down to earth in their yeah, their needs and aspirations.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Yeah, I think they would rather have like some cakes
and stuff. Yeah, this is the Shire. In fact, this
is exactly this is the shire. Because the other thing
is the implication in this song is that everybody loves Parrot.
And it's like when gandhlf arrives at the Shire in
his cart, the children are all running around screeching with joy.

(51:35):
Parrot here does not set off any fireworks, but he
might as well. We also get several close up shots
of the various like lady animals of the village watching
Parrot's arrival with rapturous admiration, Like we see the lamb
lady looking at him like what a hunk. But anyway,
the whole number has this traveling medicine show quality to it.

(51:56):
He he comes in on his velocipede cart and then
they set up a kind of stage where he stands
there singing to the crowd. And Parrot's arrival is presaging
a fare that will be held I think the following day.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Now, he doesn't particularly have any role in the plot.
He's just here to facilitate dance numbers though, so unlike Gandalf.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Yeah yeah, yeah, that's right. Anyway, while all this is
going on, we also see another major character, the Wolf.
He's up in his tower. I don't know what you
would call this building he lives in, but he's in
this building that's like got a view up and over
everything else, and he's standing standing watching the celebrations suspiciously
through a wooden spyglass up in his wolf tower. So

(52:40):
he's there with his flowing mane of hair, a strong eyebrows,
strong mustache. He makes an impression the first time you
see him. And also he's keenly peering out at things
going on. He has he has a predator's gaze. You know,
he's ready. He's ready to eat some of the herbivores
of the village. And Wolf begins to watch a single
family among the crowd, that of mother Goat missus Rada

(53:04):
and her children, who are on their way home. The
children are begging to be taken to the upcoming fair,
and this leads into the second song, which is performed
by the wolf.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, this is a bold, sauntering number that it occupies
that place where comedic brass and seductive brass meet. It's
also it's based of his his allow me to introduce
myself toun where he tells you who he is and
what he's all about.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
This got funnier once again when I went and transcribed
the lyrics. He's saying, how do you do? I'm Titisuru,
friendliest wolf you've met. You'll hear the strangest things about me,
for it's been said that I could be responsible for
incidents unexplained. People do invent the oddest tales. That's not

(53:51):
what I would put in my cover letter. The first
thing you're hearing from him is people tell a little
lies about me. M Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
People will try to pin various unsolved murders on me,
but there's actually no connection. My alibi is pretty solid. Yeah,
it's not a convincing start.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
It's great when like, the first thing somebody says when
you meet them is like, my haters are all lying.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
Anyway, Titisuru goes out dancing through the middle of the
village with his posse, which includes his nephew, the young Wolf,
and as we mentioned earlier, also a lynx and the
town donkey who is a kind of dolorous clown. And
mister Wolf greets people in town and they mostly seem
to regard him with naive trust. Is that how you

(54:37):
took this in the beginning, Like everybody seems to be like, oh,
mister Wolf, Yeah he's handsome, he's a nice guy. He says,
he's nice.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah. Yeah. They have kind of this I don't know, Yeah,
this kind of like passive response to the predator in
their midst It's like, well, he's not attractively attacking anyone
right now, so I guess we'll keep grazing.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, But then Wolf comes up. He squares off with
Rada and her children. Rada, the way she reacts to
him is complex. It's like she sees through this and
she knows better than to trust him. So there's no
she doesn't have the naive reaction that the other villagers have,
Like she knows immediately what's up with this guy. She's

(55:18):
too wise, and so she rebukes him. But there is
also a constant, simmering underlying element of hubba hubbah.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, I mean it's basically like, I know you're a
bad boy, but I kind of like bad boy. And
that's basically that tension throughout the picture with the but
with the added detail that said bad boy wants to
kill and eat her children.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah. Yeah, so he explains in the song, well, he
doesn't say that at first. Instead, at first he says,
your children, uh, number one, they make too much noise
and they tease me, and I can't tolerate that. So
he says, this is your final warning, and also I
am a wolf and my wolf instinct will not be suppressed.

(56:00):
But then, almost as if to play down the danger,
Sueru just kind of like dances off. He does like
a little tap dance number with his goons, and he's
you know, running around the village dancing. And while he's
off with this guys, he starts singing about how ooh,
of all the children I've ever seen, missus Rada's kids
would be the finest cuisine. So he's like, I Am

(56:21):
going to eat those goats.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
So this leads almost immediately into the third song I
guess this is. This one's performed by Rada basically putting
the wolf in his place, saying, let my children be Basically,
we're gonna go into and out of a lot of
songs in this picture at the drop of a hat,
but sometimes just for like less than a minute even,
and then sometimes for longer. You never know how long

(56:44):
they're going to sing a particular song which keeps you
on your feet. You know, you don't get that. It's
easy to get worn out with musicals where it's like, oh,
I hear another song coming on. Well, yeah, you're gonna
get hit with him constantly, but some of them are
very short. Okay, where are we in the plot to

(57:07):
kidnap the Goat children?

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Well, I think there isn't a plot yet. We've just
had the conflict between between Wolf and Rada, like they've
had their square off. Its kind of flirting but also
threatening each other. Rada is seeing through the Wolf's suave exterior,
but she's wary of him, but she's also kind of
into him, and so that's strange. But yeah, yeah, so

(57:32):
so far, that's where we are. And here we get
into a medley that was one of my favorite parts
of the movie because it's just sort of a string
of songs that are mostly sung by the bad guys
but then interrupted by some good dance numbers by the
good characters, but the string of songs by the Wolf's
Gang goes on for like ten minutes, and it's just

(57:53):
one wacky, hard hitting Tommy style rock opera song after another.
And I was thinking about how, you know, sometimes people
say that a Batman movie is really only as good
as its villain, Like, you know, Batman's always you know,
I don't want to discount differences, but Batman's always just
sort of Batman. So it's really the villain that defines

(58:13):
the film.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that translates into musicals too.
Like in Disney musicals, the villains always have the best songs.
In Rocky horror, all the best songs are sung by
the villains. I mean, I guess they're villains and so forth.
I mean, yeah, if you're gonna have a musical film
like this Phantom of the Opera, he's got all the
great songs, obviously.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
I absolutely so. I was gonna say, I think the
same thing is often true about musicals, musicals, and especially
rock operas. The villains get the best songs, and so
it's the villain songs that end up kind of sticking
with you and defining how the musical feels, and that
is definitely how I feel about this part of the movie.
So the first tune in this Bad Guy medley is

(58:56):
the Wolf's gang singing a song about the confrontation between
Rada and the Wolf, and we see all like the
townspeople running and hiding, slamming their doors shut after watching
the altercation. The squirrely squirrel lady is very upset. You
can see she's nervous. And it's this song. It's the
one that goes where they're seeing like wahhoo t Tsuru's furious.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah, this is the one where they're like, mother, goat, Rada,
better run away, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, Rada's future is dubious. It's sort
of like like there has just been a rap battle
and they're their guy lost, and so they're walking away
being like, oh, next time it's gonna be it's gonna
be really bad. We're gonna get you. But interestingly, while
everybody else runs and hides, Rada and her children do

(59:45):
not hide at all. They're not afraid, and they do
a frenetic dance number on their front lawn. They're very happy.
They're like sliding down this extremely splintery looking wooden plane
and playing on all kinds stuffy. They go swinging, all
seven of them on one wooden rope, swing all seven
at the same time, and then they get on the

(01:00:07):
rooftop sea saws, which god.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
What Yeah, Like I meant to go back and rewatch
this sequence because my recollection is there's no way they
faked this. I mean, there may not be actual children
up there, but there might be, I don't know. It
looks like a sizable building with kids on seesaws up there,
you know, at the most extreme height, they're what twenty

(01:00:32):
thirty feet off the ground or something like. It's intimidating.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Yeah, it's at the apex of the roof is the
fulcrum of the teeter totter, and the kids are just
going up and down. And maybe it's adult stunt performers,
but it looks not faked.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah, does not look like a model.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
So Rata is not one of these safety obsessed helicopter parents.
She's like children. We will now be playing on equipment
that is illegal in most countries and all, so you're
going to have to defend the goat house on your
own against wolf attacks. While I am gone at the fair.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
But anyway, while the children are playing, the bad guys
kind of peep over the fence and watch the goats
at play. And there is an interesting moment here where
we see a lot of this throughout the film, where
we get a close up on Donkey and at first
he's smiling. It's like he's having a lot of fun
watching the goats play. Oh, isn't it nice? And then
suddenly his smile just fades. It melts into the saddest

(01:01:31):
face you've ever seen yours if you will, Yeah, exactly,
And so this is kind of establishing a theme upon
rewatching for me. I didn't catch it as much the
first time, but Donkey was really emerging as one of
the most interesting and subtle characters. But from here we
get into one of my favorite tracks, which is a

(01:01:51):
rock number where the members of the Wolf's Gang introduce
themselves and sing about their loyalty to Titisuru. I think
it starts with kind of a chant where they say
like one for all and all for Suru. So there's
it's very top down, you know, leader oriented kind of
friend group.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Yes, he has big followers of Suuman here, you know,
we have links Donkey and oh yeah, yeah, Little Bad Wolf.
I believe he's referred to either one way or another
in this bit the nephew, and yeah, there's a lot
of snarling, moderate cartwheels added to the general prancing. And yeah,
there's some great lyrics in here, like tears our occupation
well into helping hand, into Suru's operation. So they're just

(01:02:35):
all like trying to really get it out there that
they're as close as friends, and they also throw in
some added little tidbits like one of them's like, I've
never read a book.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Okay, Well, they're contrasting that little I think Little Bad
Wolf says I've never read a book, because he's contrasting
with the fact that Donkey says he does read books.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
M M yeah, I think they're getting a little off
track in their commitment to speech here about Okay, so.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
We hear from the links he says, I'm Rascuel the Lynx.
My missions are nocturnal. When your eyes start to blink,
my role becomes essential. And then the donkeys verse goes,
he haw he haw, he haw, I'm the donkey Patrica
he haw he haw, I'm rather a good kicker, and

(01:03:22):
so he's bragging about how good at kicking he is,
but then he also mentions I like to read books,
And so there's tension in the gang. Rassul the Lynx
and Little Bad Wolf mock the Donkey first of all
because they think he's he's delusional for thinking he's very
strong and a good kicker. They don't agree, but they
also mock him by saying I've never read a book.

(01:03:42):
The implication is like, that's for nerds, and I'm not
fully grasping the significance. I think there might be some
kind of cultural archetype coding going on with Donkey, but
like he's one of the bad guys, but he doesn't
really fit in with them. The other bad guys mock him,
and and there are scenes of him with conflicted emotions

(01:04:03):
that the other bad guys don't show, or at least
Little Bad Wolf and Links don't show. You get some
some conflicted emotions from the main bad Wolf. But anyway,
I just think it's interesting the way Donkeys is set
apart from the other villains.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Yeah, that is something to contemplate. He Yeah, he seemed
I don't know, like maybe we're really supposed to put
ourselves in donkey's shoes.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Now we eventually go back to the house here, right,
And I want to point out that the inside of
the goat household it looks like a cat cafe. If
you've ever been to a cat cafe, that's kind of
the vibe I'm getting here. Lots of little shelves and
places for cats or I guess goats to walk around on.
That would make sense, you know, goats like to be
up high. And then they have like cool what hanging

(01:04:48):
beds or loungers here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Yeah, the the young goats sleep in these like pendulum beds.
They're dangling from the ceiling like a I don't know,
like a like a planter.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Yeah, they put a lot of thought at the end
of this. I'm I'm actually a little bit reminded of
the kids rooms in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, you know,
where they're like, what did the Martian children's bedrooms look like?
How do martians sleep?

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
And so forth. But this scene also has an interesting
part where one of the kids asks Rada, why does
the wolf want to take us away? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, And the answer is, well, because he's lonely and childless,
is an interesting way to view predation, but that's what
she tells them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
One of the children ask she says this, and one
of the children says, is it wrong to be lonely?
And Rada says, no, it just makes you feel bad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Maybe something's was lost in translation a bit into the
English version.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
I don't know. Oh, but then after this we go
straight into a psychedelic disco dance number by the Bad
Guys who oh yeah, there's no singing. They're just like
out in inside a five dimensional kaleidoscope doing some real
like Saturday night fever move.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Oh yeah, this is like the dark disco scene. And
I was really hoping this would erupt into vocalizations as well,
but it's just you know, darkness prancing. It's like a
raven mordor or something. I'm not sure, but it's fun.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
I like it. In some parts of the choreography here
reminded me of that Okay Go Treadmill video.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah, they really get into it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
They get some moods, but they're like standing out on
some kind of bridge in the darkness, with like the
night sky behind them, and sometimes there's this aurora in
the sky and sometimes it looks like a giant fish
pig face. But then here we go into a lullaby
sung by Rada, which we sort of go around and

(01:06:42):
see all the villagers going to sleep. I gotta say,
I've been playing some of the music from this movie
in my house and my toddler is obsessed with this
lullaby song. She asked me to play it like ten
times yesterday. It's the night night song to her, and
she loves it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
This is the You know, one of the great things
about early parenthood is you get to choose what really
obscure nonsense you inject into your child's life that will
become a part of their wholesome recollection years later that
no one else in their friend group will share. They'll
be like, Hey, did you guys watch that weird Russo

(01:07:20):
Frank Romanian family animal picture every holiday? And they're like, no,
we have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
Yeah, out on the playground, you don't know the tickets
Tickets song. But okay, yeah, So this is a lullaby.
But there is an interesting moment here where the wolf
comes in and sings along at the end of the song.
So it's Rada singing to her children and She's like,
close your eyes, I'm here beside you. And then suddenly

(01:07:49):
the wolf is outside the house and he's like singing
at Rada, And I thought this maybe is playing up
on the idea that like, underneath his wickedness, he really
is just lonely, like Rada was talking about. Maybe the
subtext is that if he had someone to love, he
wouldn't be trying to harm the goats, which plays directly
against what he himself said, which is like, I have

(01:08:11):
a wolf nature and it will not be suppressed.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Yeah. I don't know. I also wasn't sure if we're
supposed to think that she can hear him, and because
she has kind of like a you know, winky smile
thing at the end here, and I don't know if
that's more of her like oh suru, or if I'm
just reading into it because we have been spending so
much time already with their sort of teasing predator prey relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
Yeah, oh right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Then we get a song about equilibrium from the children
where they're playing on a pair of enormous seesaws, and
we see a lot of other children there in the scene,
their sheep children of course, the squirrel children, Donkey grinning
like an absolute maniac. Donkey, Lynx and Little Bad Wolf
joining into the song. They dance and prance around. The
dance becomes cocky and aggressive till finally what one of

(01:08:58):
the kids has enough, maybe the oldest kid, and he
starts riding Donkey around and then like somebody has come
break it up.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
This is Matteia, the oldest goat son who will sneak
out of the house later. You know he is up
to mischief. But yeah, he rides Donkey around and I
don't know, Donkey really gets put in his place.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Yeah, yeah, somebody they just send the ref end to
break it out. The out of hand.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Rada comes in. Rada always puts a stop to the nonsense.
And then the next scene is we get one of
the main themes of the movie, which is the song
that Rada sings teaches her children in order for them
to know it's her at the door and not someone else.
So this is the Mommy's home. Now you can open
the door and don't be afraid children anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, it is a beautiful little number about stranger danger
for latchkey kids. You know, it's like, don't open don't
open that door for anybody, anybody except for me.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Except for me. I'm here to protect you, right. So
she sings the song, and meanwhile outside the wolf is
listening and furiously scribbling notes on how the song so
that he can get into the house when Ratta goes
to the fair. So she goes off to the fair.
What's going on at the fair?

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Oh, tickets is what's going on at That's the main
thing I got. Because we run back, we meet parrot
guy again, and we're in this fun house of mirrors.
We're gonna spend a lot of time in this set,
and it's pretty gorgeous. It feels like it feels like
we're inside a disco ball, and there's, yeah, a lot
of general discussion of tickets. I don't know if you

(01:10:26):
were able to make sense of this when you went
back through the lyrics, Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
No, I did not understand at all. The parrot is
like throwing little like ticker tape, you know, bits of
you know, confetti. Basically, tickets are in the air, and
he's standing in these mirrors with silver tinsel all around.
He's still in his rainbow outfit. And the lyrics are
like tickets to your life, tickets to find your Wife.

(01:10:51):
I think maybe the idea is that, I don't know,
it's some kind of commercialization or commodification, like is selling
a kind of shallow promise of good fortune. But I
don't know. Parrot is not really presented as a villain
of the film. It's just kind of like, Oh, here's

(01:11:13):
what's going on at the fair. There's some kind of
there's some kind of nonsense happening.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
All right. Now, I have to point out that at
this point the episode is probably getting a little long,
and I feel like I could probably talk about each
and every little musical number because I made notes about
all the weird little things they threw, and like, suddenly
there's a trampoline for the squirrels and I love it. Yeah,
So I'm gonna let you drive here, Joe, and just
I'm gonna follow you through your favorite moments of the

(01:11:46):
rest of this film, and I'll jump in if I
have some thoughts.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Well, we've already talked about the general outline, so you
know that the wolf is going to keep trying to
sing the song and sneak into the house. He fails
the first few times. We know that Matis sneaks out
of the house he runs around outside, he gets chased
by the bad guys. Of course, while we're here at
the fair, some various things will happen. There's a bunch
of just like songs and big ensemble numbers where everybody's singing.

(01:12:14):
We get a ballet sequence where the people that you
thought were spiders but I think are actually supposed to
be sparrows. These are played by ballet dancers. I think
these might be the Bolshoi Ballet or some Moscow based
ballet dancers who do a very good but I don't know.
Ballet might not exactly be my thing, but you can

(01:12:35):
tell that they're great at what they do, and they
do it in front of these very interesting painted backdrops.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Yeah. Yeah, the effects are very cool here, like it's
not just a performance of dance on stage, and we've
been seeing a lot of actual dance performance, but here
we have high level ballet with cool effects.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
And I think maybe in some parts of these songs
they're like balancing on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Tethers or whatever you call that tetherwalking, or it's made
to look like I couldn't tell if this is a fact,
So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
Yeah, at the Fair, there's more of a wolf following
Rada around being like, hey, let's dance, and so first
they don't dance, and then they do dance. But one
thing we definitely should mention is the the Sheep and
Donkey song.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Yes, this is a mid movie romance between the two.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Yeah. Would you characterize this song as like a seduction
of Donkey by the Lamb character?

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
I think so. I mean, he's into it, but it
kind of comes out of nowhere, like I wasn't really
thinking about Donkey's romantic prospects. And likewise, you know, Lamb
is one of the many cute animal ladies in the film,
but you know, she's very much been in the background
and we're just like, oh, there's Lamb lady, you know,

(01:13:50):
much like Squirrel Lady. You know she's there, But I
didn't know that she was actually gonna do anything other
than jump around and maybe do a trampoline flip.

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
Yeah, so I was Why is Lamb so into Donkey?
The framing implies that that Lamb is like the most
eligible bachelorette in town, but so far, Donkey has been
portrayed as a pitiable loser, like he is the outcast
of the village's criminal gang, and yet Lamb is coming
on to him very strong. So I don't know, like

(01:14:20):
what what makes Donkey attractive to her? Maybe the fact
that he reads books, Like is she into a a
well read ass?

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Perhaps?

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
Perhaps?

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Uh, you know, I want to I want to throw
in here because I'm looking at one of the I'm
looking at the still you have of lamb Lady and uh,
the attention to the curling hair on her lamb ears
on her sheep ears here absolutely top notch, like they
would these costumes they do. You know, they're very much costumes.

(01:14:50):
You're not going to believe that this is This is
not like you know, werewolf an American werewolf in London
here or anything when it comes to combining the animal
in the human form. But on another level, it kind
of is because at these ears. Look at the amount
of tension they put into this hair. There's this is something,
this is something. This is a key part of the
movie's alchemy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
I'm sure. I totally agree. Yeah, the costuming and the
makeup effects that they are all so wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Like you didn't have to do that for this film.
But someone's like, no, no, no, these ears need to
look percent authentic. They need to be warm to the
touch Now.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
I think somewhere in here is we when we get
that scene where the wolf is explaining to his goons
that he no longer wants to eat the goat children.
He wants gold. We've got to get gold, gold, you fools.
It's very out of nowhere, but I like it. I
wonder if the commercialism of the fair, like the whole

(01:15:46):
tickets thing, inspires Wolf to switch his switch up, like
his animal nature, his desire to just eat prey animals,
and instead become a more civilized kind of villain that
wants money. Do you think that? Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
I guess so. And it ties into a number we're
gonna see later where we have this real after after
the kidnapping has been carried out, Rada has this bit
where she's like, you know, why is why is the
world like this? Why do people want to hurt you?
Why are they hurting you still? Why are they going
to hurt you in the future? And it's got kind
of this real, you know, dark somber number, But you

(01:16:23):
know it, It makes sense then that you would have
the wolf change his predatory approach from something that is
purely an animal world activity into something that is you know,
more akin to human crime.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, Okay, just a couple of little
texture observations as we go along. There's one scene that is, uh,
obviously this came earlier, but it feels straight out of
the first Lord of the Rings film, where the you know,
the mattee is hiding from the bad guys and they
go looking out over the edge of the there's like
an outcropping and they're looking out and he's hiding right

(01:16:59):
underneath it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Yes, yes, this and you know, and I think just
must be an accident because I think the main framing
of that that we're familiar with the Peter Jackson Lord
of the Rings is based on a sequence in the
seventy eight animated Lord of the Rings. But yeah, we were.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Before that here, so this is seventy six.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Yeah, yeah, so it's just I don't know, just just
great framing. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
There's a sad scene at some point where Rada comes
home and she's been like out in the storm in
the winter and she can't sing the song to get
into the house. You know, she's trying to sing the
password song, but her voice is all torn up, and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Yeah, she sounds like she's been hitting the bottle a
little bit grief, and they're like, that's not mama. Mama's
voice is good. I don't know what this thing is
out there, howling in the darkness, but we're not opening
the door.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
Yeah, And there's also a very sweet part where I
think it's the oldest Goat daughter. The child sings a
song for it's like an inversion of the mother's song
to the children. She sings a song about mommy. It's
extremely sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Oh and then at some point we get the song
about modern decline. The children today are not the same.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
Yes, the same, not the same.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Children today don't even know how to sit on a shovel.
They don't say that, but it made me think of
that moment and Jeff Ross.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
Now, there is a part here where Mattee has run
out into the wilderness and gotten lost. He's like stranded
on some kind of rocky spire in the middle of nothing,
and the snow is falling, and it's like, what's going
to happen to him? Well, what happens is we get
one of the musical numbers from the Star Wars Holiday Special.
It's like when the old Wookie puts the VR goggles

(01:18:39):
on and he sees Diane Carroll's singing to him that
kind of thing. Or no, it's those acrobats jumping around. Yes, yes,
very holiday special stuff. But what we see instead is
all these like silver ice skaters who are fairies. These
represent the presence of the Winter Fairy, and they come

(01:19:00):
and they help Mattei magically and send him back home.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Yes, the time has come for every start of shine on.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Where you are.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
The angels, the fairies, the stars, And I was looking
this up. We have a lot of ice skating to
round out the picture. And I believe this is a
combination of the Moscow Circus and the Moscow Ice Ballet
according to the credits.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Yeah, so skipping ahead to the final confrontation, So of
course the wolf does eventually kidnap the children. We have
this big showdown in this frozen pond where everybody's ice skating,
and as we said earlier, Rada outsmarts the wolf in
the end and tricks him into falling in into the
water through the ice and his lackeys give up and

(01:19:42):
they're like, okay, here are your kids back, And in
the end the wolf learns his lesson.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
That's right, everybody. Everybody comes around, but they really threaten
him with cold drowning in the lake. Rod is like like,
we'll just let you drown right here, wolf, unless you
come around like your cronies just did. And they're like, yeah,
we've changed, and he's like, you know, I've looked at
deep inside myself and I realize I need to change
as well. That's right, And he does, and.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
We get a kind of seasonal transition as well, don't we.
That's right. That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
There's this idea that it's like we're coming out of
winter now it's becoming spring. So this alone, we alluded
to this earlier Like this, I can see why this
film would make so much sense as a holiday movie,
even if there's nothing directly related to, you know, ideas
of a Christian Christmas and so forth or Santa Claus. Like, no,

(01:20:32):
it's still getting into that deep, primal idea of the
winter holidays. Like what is the magic be it? You know,
you know, capital M magic or lower case magic that
is going to help us through to the spring.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
Yeah, but if the ending is a spring festival, I'm
a little disappointed that we did not put the wolf
in a Wickerman.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Yeah, you know, if you had had like the ritual
disembowment of the wolf, the removal of the children, the
assertion of the stones, and the throwing of the wolf
into the water, like I guess that would have this
more of a wickerman asque ritualistic vision. And you know,
I can very much envision a sort of I don't know,
Midsommer esque horror movie in which someone visits this small

(01:21:17):
town perhaps in perhaps in Romania, where hey, everyone is
dressed as animals and they've made me wear this wolf
hat for some reason, and what is this big, big
festival that I've been invited to, and you know it's
going to have absolutely horrifying results.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
Christopher Lee in a big wig with pigtails?

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
Who would Christopher Lee? Would Christopher Lee be Donkey in this?

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
Oh no, I think Christopher Lee would be the wolf
of course.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
Oh okay, so he would get sacrificed.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Well. Spoilers for The Wickerman if you haven't seen that.
I mean, it's an old movie, but it is great
to see it without spoilers if you get a chance.
But here they come at the end of The Wickerman.
You know, the inspector what he yells at Christopher lee Is.
He says, it's you know, this is not going to
save your crops, and when it doesn't work, next year,
they'll put you in this thing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
That's right. I forget. It's been a long time since
I've seen it. I forgot about that twist. Yeah, but
it is worth noting that. Yeah, film like this, as
wholesome as it is, it's really only two or three
degrees removed from Full Car. So that's one of its charms.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):
So that is Mama aka rock and roll Wolf. I
did not know how much I needed this in my life,
but I love this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
A film that I feel just inevitably spread the seeds
of furry fandom throughout throughout Europe.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
To be clear, that's not the appeal for me. I'm
not judging, no judgment there, no, no, no, that's that's
not what I'm saying. But I think it has appeal
beyond that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Yeah, so this is a film that can be enjoyed
on multiple levels and is and is very very kid friendly.
All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
this episode this Yeah, I get this was a holiday episode.
We'll go ahead and make it official of Weird House Cinema.
Just a reminder, let's see if you enjoy our Weird
House Cinema episodes. These are curved Friday and the Stuff

(01:23:13):
to Blow your Mind podcast feed primarily science and culture,
but on Fridays we set most of that aside to
really just dig into a weird film. And if you
want to see a list of all the movies we've
covered so far, go over to letterbox dot com. You
know letterboxed. Our user name there is weird House, and
we have a nice, big old episode list of everything
we've covered so far, and sometimes there's a peak ahead
at what's coming up next. There's currently a peak ahead

(01:23:36):
at what's coming up next and it is another technically
u technically a holiday film, So to go check that
out if you're if you were interested, and likewise, if
you were on the Instagram, we're on there as stbym podcast.
That's our that's our main account, that's the one that
gets up updated frequently. Uh. You can follow us there

(01:23:56):
and keep an eye on what's coming up on the
the core episodes, but also what's happening in Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.