EPISODE 312: OUR POP CULTURE INFLUENCES
In this episode, Tyler and David discusses the movies, TV shows, and video games that influenced their current artistic sensibilities.
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Great episode and congrats on 6 years. I have been listening since around 2008 and would like to thank you for the countless hours of content you have provided for us listeners.
This weeks topic hit upon something I have often thought about, and can vaguely narrow down a few key films/moments which have have influenced me:
1999 was a formative year: I was 14, just started high school and watched about 90 films (we miss you video stores) that summer which made me fall in love with cinema. The films of 1999 are often lauded and hugely informed me of key filmmakers I continue to watch today. Whether it was the revolutionary impact of The Matrix, the raw nihilism of Fight Club (sorry guys) or even films like American Beauty and Being John Malkovich, these films seemed to be on a different level to what I had seen before.
There were three films in particular that I can directly point to as the reason I became a film fan: The Silence of the Lambs, The Usual Suspects and Se7en. These films made me realise that movies can be interesting, intelligent and dark. While the years have made me recognise that part of my appreciation was due to being a teenager and being easily blown away by twists and brooding film making it was a fantastic formative period to begin looking at films.
Also: Gremlins as a kid scared the shit out of me, I had a fear of shadows for years after seeing the spider-gremlin.
Thanks for this episode guys. It really made me re-evaluate some of my own comedy influences. I’m a bit older than you two and I remember going to see PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE as a nine year old and it changing my life. My friends and I did a double-feature of that and Teen Wolf and while everyone loved Teen Wolf I nearly fell out of my seat watching Pee weel. I rented the VHS copies of his HBO specials and watched his CBS Saturday morning show live every week.
After that I began watching SNL (the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman years), I also began to watch Kids In The Hall that aired after SNL ( for a while in the late 80s and both of those began huge influences as well. “Things To Do” was one of my favorite sketches.
Congratulations guys, six years is amazing!
It was such a fun episode. I have to say though I thought the scarier part of An American Tale is the “secret weapon” sequence at the end. There are several disturbing sequences in that film, but when at mechanical rat comes out at the end I was always petrified as a kid! The air conditioner in the Brave Little Toaster was always really disturbing to me as a kid too.
Having a big brother and cool parents was a big influence on my movie watching as a kid. My parent pretty much let us watch whatever we wanted (with in reason). My brother was a big comedy nerd so we watched a lot of Monty Python and Mel Brooks together. He was also a big Sci-fi fan so we watched all the Star Wars and Star Trek movies together. My mom was also a big history and war movie fan so we watched movies like Gettysburg and The Last of the Mohicans together. It is so fun to think back on all the great (and sometimes not so great) movies that influenced who I am today as a person and film fan.