Episode 164: A Couple o’ Lads Who Were up to Nae Good

The Overthinkers tackle eighties remakes.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, and Jordan Stokes and special guest Matt Silver to overthink 80’s remakes. This episode was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

And… Don’t miss the first Overthinking It Meetup in New York City on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 9pm. Find the Facebook Event for more information.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/mwrather/otip164.mp3]

→ Download Episode 164 (MP3)

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Rejected titles for this show include:

  • Anderson Cooper: Friendship is Magic
  • A Futurama Solution to a Jetsons Problem
  • Dora’s like, “How my hair look?”

14 Comments on “Episode 164: A Couple o’ Lads Who Were up to Nae Good”

  1. Paul #

    Okay, Matt, you’ve been saying that your West coast LA location is the bleeding edge of the country for a while and now that you’re recording in NY you are calling the East coast the trailing edge. Given the direction the Earth rotates, isn’t the East coast really the leading/bleeding edge of the U.S.?

    Also, Roy and Zack always share the recipe for what they’re drinking, and I appreciate them for that. Now to finish listening.

    Reply

  2. Anthony Abatte #

    Thanks for reading my Twitter comment guys. I love the remarks about the name Bruce Wayne Brady.

    I was bored at an old retail job and decided to change my name tag. I came up with Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Wayne Brady (only because I’m black) and there you go! I guess I’d be a horrible character named “Blackman.” I envisioned it as a Wheel of Fortune puzzle, such as “First and Last.”
    (Did I just overthink my Twitter name?)

    Love the site and podcast guys.
    -Anthony

    Reply

  3. Pasteur #

    I have to report the sad, sad news that there has been no progress in the The Last Unicorn live-action film for several years now. I’m sure we’re all still working on our guest OTI article submissions on the original, but it seems we’ll be lacking in new material to work from.

    Reply

    • Gab #

      The Dude, saying, “That’s what heroes are for.”

      Reply

  4. Redem #

    In the 90’s show episode of the simpsons where Homer invent grunge music they actually do a “kurt listen to this” joke

    You know if Homer Simpsons invented grunge music how come he has to be a freak when he goes to Allopaloza (joy of continuity)

    Reply

    • Chris #

      You beat me to my well actually about “That 90’s Show,” so as a riposte, allow me to say that Homer is a freak at Hullabalooza.

      Reply

  5. Timothy J Swann #

    Re: Rooms you weren’t allowed to go in because you might spoil them – where I grew up, and possibly more widely in England, there would be a room in the house called the Parlour or Front Room, which was only used at Christmas. This was usually in poor houses that would only have three downstairs rooms. I have no idea why it was a thing.

    Yeah, if you were Scottish (and hey, those accents were pretty convincing, far more than any attempts at English ones!), Lockerbie would make comical uses of Libyans a bit… not okay.

    Oh, they did remake Quantum Leap, they just made Al Calavicci an evil robot called John Cavil.

    Reply

  6. JosephFM #

    I think the obvious choice for the car in a Back to the Future remake would have to be the contemporary (albeit slightly more successful) equivalent of a DeLorean – a Tesla electric luxury sports car. And since it’s already electric, the plug would just have to be readjusted to handle a 1.21 gigawatt charge.

    Reply

  7. Leigh #

    It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work out this time, but I’d love to hear the girlfriend episode. Actually, adding a lady to the usual cast of characters would bring a welcome balance.

    Also, on the topic that Futurama is our replacement for the The Jetsons, Mark Lee said that the thing Futurama lacks is a focus on the nuclear family. I think the trend has been toward dysfunctional families, and the Simpsons really took the lampshade off, proving that even nuclear families are totally dysfunctional. Futurama’s dysfunctional family is what makes it a normal contemporary show. My point being that the nuclear family of The Jetsons is so archaic that it could only be played ironically – kinda like the Brady Bunch Movie from the 90s.

    All the podcasts are great, but this one was exceptionally funny. Thanks.

    Reply

    • L6 #

      On the subject of the lack of female protagonists in modern children’s cartoons, there’s an exception in the form of The Last Airbender franchise. The original series had a cast that was, after its first season, equal in gender representation. The upcoming sequel series, Legend of Korra, centers on a female character.

      Reply

      • L6 #

        Ack! Sorry, Leigh. I meant to make my comment a general reply, not one to your post specifically. My bad.

        Reply

  8. Gab #

    I heard a while back that somebody is planning on redoing Fraggle Rock in an “edgy” way. As in making it more for adults that were kids when they watched it by giving it more grown-up themes. I think they were aiming for at best a PG13 rating, actually. I could be wrong, though. Hm…

    Dinosaurs also took a quite pro-environmental stance in its last few episodes, providing a pretty forward-thinking social commentary, substituting the dinosaurs in the show killing themselves by pumping toxins into the air for humans.

    Well, if they did a Darkwing Duck movie, they could do an Avengers-type thing with Duck Tales because Launchpad is in both. And all the planes? Tie in Tailspin, too. FRANCHISE!

    Reply

  9. Daniel K. #

    I just wanna point out that while there haven’t been any new tv series, there HAVE been new DuckTales and Darkwing Duck comic books that have been put out recently, continuing the adventures of the characters. They’re both quite good from what I’ve read.

    Reply

    • JosephFM #

      DuckTales actually began as a comic, actually – Carl Banks created Uncle Scrooge in the 1940s, and Don Rosa won an Eisner in the mid-90s for his contributions to the series. If they wanted to do a series or movie revival, obviously using the comics as source material would be the way to go.

      Reply

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