[00:00:00]

We’re, we’re lookalikes. We don’t look like each other, but I mean, I know what you’re think we, yeah, we, people hire us to impersonate the president of the First Lady. We work out of an agency. That’s where we met. They sure. Lookalike them. Thanks. Well, we worked very hard at it. I mean, uh, she got her hair to perfect match.

We just, uh, we just played the Saperstein wedding. They loved us. We did, we did our, uh, did our club med routine where, uh, the first lady and the president, they go down a club med and there’s Bill Mitchell, you know, he is like at oh 700, I want an hour of volleyball. And then at oh eight 30, I want a complete briefing on the whole surf situation.

And then, uh, the big, uh, the big finale at, uh, at the, the, the talent club bus. I will come out tomorrow at your bottom dollar that tomorrow. [00:01:00] Okay. There’ll be sun just thinking about be, but you’ll be escorted to me through it. Oh, good. Do you do this often, sir? Well, this is actually only our second state dinner.

The first one was for the in from Japan, who died shortly after. So we stopped having them for a while just in case. I, I meant do you go out on the, do do you often do I date a lot? Yeah. No. How about you? Me? Well, lately I seem to be going out on a lot of first dates. Well, then your experience at this. Oh yeah.

Yeah. You can ask me anything. Well, how are we doing so far? It’s hard to say at this point. So far it’s just your typical first date stuff. Damn. And I don’t wanna be different from the other guys.

Todd: Sweetie. Am I different from the other guys? You sure are. Oh, that’s nice. Hi everybody. My name’s Todd, Adam, and this is Kathy.

Todd: I’m with Zen Pop Parenting. Uh, this is, oh, sweetie. Likes me to do the claps. I like the claps. I don’t know which uh, podcast this is, but I’ll figure it out. [00:02:00] What are you laughing at? Uh,

Cathy: because you, you say that a lot, you’re like, I don’t know what number it is. Yeah. So it’s not helpful in the big picture.

Cathy: No, but you know what is, what’s that babe? Where Gen X pop culture meets real life reflection. That’s what’s what’s valuable. Thats what this podcast is about. And what are we naming this podcast? Um, well, I just sent it to you. I think it’s, um, wishful thinking of Gen X politics,

Todd: the American President and Dave Wishful Politics of Gen X.

Todd: Oh yeah. The American president and Dave. So we’re gonna talk about both these movies and then what we wish we had in politics.

Cathy: Yeah, I guess, well, I think, you know. We had, our generation had some idealism, right? And there’s lots of, there’s, this is not a political podcast per se. No. So I’m not gonna dig into everything about the history of our politics, even though it’s tempting.

Cathy: It is. Um, but it’s more, I wanna focus, we wanna focus on these movies ’cause we love the American President and Dave. Um, and, but we also wanna talk about how [00:03:00] this was our idealism. Like, it’s so funny. To rewatch Dave. Mm-hmm. Because it’s like, did we even think we were close to this? Right. Or the American president for that matter.

Cathy: And of course, the obvious thing that’s missing from this podcast on purpose is the West Wing, because Todd and I are like, there’s so many seasons.

Todd: Yeah. Where do you go with the West Wing?

Cathy: Right. So we understand there’s a complete overlap with the West Wing, or The West Wing came after these two movies, but that’s part of it too.

Cathy: But we’re just gonna focus on these two shows and get a better understanding of where Gen X got their idealism and have some fun.

Todd: Let’s see, because I need some fun. Um, just a quick aside, uh, before I ask you to kind of talk a little bit about Team Zen Uhhuh and your book and everything, um, there’s so many podcasts out there, so many podcasts.

Todd: I know, and this is gonna sound, I dunno, probably it probably isn’t gonna land well with some people, but I really, I listened to our boy band one last week. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. I know it was, it was so long, it was like almost two hours. I know. [00:04:00] And, but I could either consume a bunch of news that I didn’t feel like consuming last week ’cause I had a heavier emotional week.

Todd: Um, or I could just listen to

Cathy: us laugh. Well, let’s think, I think about it this way. Part of the reason we changed this podcast from Zen Parenting Radio, which is what we did for 15 years to this, is you can tell when people have kind of run, like they’re, they’re done. They’re like, just kind of rehashing the exact same stuff.

Cathy: And Todd and I are like, well, what do we really wanna talk about right now? What is fun to us? What’s interesting? And where will we come alive? Right? Because that’s what we preach. I’m very big on practicing what you preach. Um, so we’re like, let’s talk about what we love and then that shines through, right?

Cathy: Because the fact that we did a podcast about boy bands is thrilling to me. Yeah. The fact that we did one about hair bands is thrilling. Yeah. That we talked about grunge, music, thrilling. These, um, movies that we’re about to talk about today. You and I love these movies, so this is fun. So on that note, um, if you do not already subscribe to my [00:05:00] Substack, um, you know, scroll below, it’s there.

Cathy: Send Parenting Moment is free. It comes to your email. It’s, I think it’s very in the, still in the vibe of Zen Parenting Radio, where I’m talking about really deep things and trying to support everybody and myself included. And then, um, also, I have a book called Restoring Our Girls. That is, um, I, it came out last year.

Cathy: It’s all about supporting our girls and all about understanding the dynamics of being a young woman and woman in society. So it’s not just for women, um, it’s for every member of the family. And with that, let’s, uh, set the scene.

Todd: What about 10? Uh, Team Zen?

Cathy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Team Zen. Um, you might’ve gotten an email from us because we, Team Zen has become these three things.

Cathy: Um, an old school Zen Parenting Radio podcast that you can show up live and ask questions, or you can just wait till it shows up in your podcast app. If you’re on Team Zen, it will show up in your podcast app. Number two, my paid version of [00:06:00] Substack called Ping, which is $50 a year, will be free to you if you’re on Timon.

Cathy: And then last my women’s circle that I’ve been doing for years and years and years. Um, we’ve been having really, you know, the meetings are always good, but there’s a lot of women in transition right now with empty nest kids going to college, kids going to high school, whatever it may be. And we support each other.

Cathy: And it can be just something that you come and listen or you can come and ask questions. So, um, plus access to everything we’ve done before. So Team Zen is also having a resurgence, which is lovely. And, um, and so join us

Todd: two quick, uh, personal plugs, men living. If there’s any guys out there that want connection and support, um, virtual or in-person, we do weekends, we do in-person meetings.

Todd: Um, go to men living.org or if you want one-on-one coaching, Todd Adams coaching.com coaching for guys. Alright, let’s go. Here we go.[00:07:00]

Todd: All right. Um, so we watched Dave about a week ago. Uhhuh, we have not re-watched American President in a bit. You

Cathy: have not.

Todd: Did you watch it recently? Well,

Cathy: I have watched it probably twice. I watched it when I had the flu. Oh. And I watched it at our last conference. I had it playing. Mm-hmm. And then I’ve been watching clips for, you know, to get ready for the show.

Cathy: So I feel pretty connected to it. Yeah. Um, but when’s the last time you watched it?

Todd: American President? I don’t know. Probably over a year ago, but I’ve seen it so many times. So many times. Yeah. I do feel, uh, kind of prepared. Okay. So, uh, but just as a reminder, uh, Dave, uh, Kevin Klein is Dave Sigourney Weaver plays the, um, first lead first.

Todd: Uh, Frank Ella, I don’t know how to pronounce his last name, Lang. Mm-hmm. Um, he plays a creepy power hungry guy from behind the scenes. Who’s the chief of staff? Uh, Ving Rames. The guy from Pulp Fiction. Yeah. It’s weird to see him as a normal person ’cause I just think of him as Marcellus.

Cathy: Yes. And he is the bodyguard,

Todd: uh, Charles Groden, who I love.

Todd: Rest in [00:08:00] peace. Being Charles Groden being is Charles Groden do anything other than Charles Groden? Oh, he does Charles Groden. He’s kinda like Ben Stiller. Yeah. As an actor. Yeah. Ben Stiller’s a wonderful creator of Show Severance, but I feel like Ben Stiller plays the same guy. Laura Linney is in

Cathy: Dave.

Cathy: Yeah, very briefly.

Todd: Um, so yeah, that’s kind of the headline on Dave and the headline on the American President. We got Michael Douglas, Annette Benning, Martin Sheen, who ends up playing the president in the Legend Leader. How interesting. Uh, your buddy John Mahoney love him. Why do I. Think he’s your buddy because I met him and talked to him one time at a bar.

Todd: Yeah. And my, one of my favorite people in the whole world, Michael J. Fox, yeah. Plays Lewis. Hello Lewis. Louis. Um, and those are kind of the big people. So Richard Dreyfus, don’t forget about him.

Cathy: Oh yes. He’s the, he’s the bad guy in American president. So Dave, uh, came out 1993, May 7th, 1993. The American president came out November 17th, 1995.

Cathy: Yep. So Dave was first then the American president, west Wing. I’m just throwing this out there ’cause it really is [00:09:00] integrated. Yep. It came out in 1999. So it went Dave American President West Wing, so, yep.

Todd: Um, anything you wanna say more about setting the scene?

Cathy: Yeah, I mean, just a few things about political backdrop because it is a little earlier.

Cathy: Um, so Dave, 1993, bill Clinton had just been elected after 12 Republican or 12 years of Republican presidents. So there was kind of a shift. Okay. Um, the Cold War was over. We were kind of optimistic about things. We were kind of done with being so cynical. We had just gotten through the Iran Contra scandals.

Cathy: We were, we wanted more decency. Mm-hmm. The irony. This is why it’s so interesting to look back. ’cause we were wanting more decency, what we had. And the thing is, is, I mean, there was just so much to come, um, the American president in 1995. So at that point, Clinton was halfway through his presidency and then he was dealing with the Republican dominance in Congress.

Cathy: Remember the whole contract with America thing? Um, the Washington was [00:10:00] becoming really partisan and really bitter. That was the Newt Gingrich era. Um, so government shutdowns were happening. Like that was when I think to me, that’s when things started to get really different. Okay. And again, I, I was young at the time, so I don’t really know how things were in the sixties or whatever, but in my lifetime I felt like, whoa, we’re getting into a really, um, you know, there’s some words being thrown around and people are not being kind to each other.

Cathy: And um, but the interesting thing was the economy was booming. And the people felt it was a prosperous time for many, not for all, but for many. So it was interesting. I did

Todd: a little research in 1993. First of all, sweetie, where were you in your life in 1993?

Cathy: I had just graduated from college, so I was living in Chicago.

Todd: You, uh, just finished being a Drake bulldog? I did. You were never finished. That’s right. Once a bulldog. Always a bulldog.

Cathy: Yes. I still follow their mascot. Griff. Griff. Two. He’s the second. Griff. It’s a bulldog. The first Griff, he died. So now we have Griff two.

Todd: One. Quick [00:11:00] aside, our daughter just went to visit Drake and we were there, uh, as a potential college selection and Kathy and I heard that’s called college

Cathy: visit.

Todd: Yeah. Some, some call it a potential, some people call it a college visit. And we went to the main, um, uh, classroom that everybody takes, like Math one in Meredith or whatever,

Cathy: Meredith Hall. Yeah.

Todd: And I, it was so strange being back in the classroom. I know. 30 years later. I know. And it was a lot smaller than I remember.

Todd: I thought it was a much bigger classroom and it wasn’t.

Cathy: No, it’s a very small school you and I went to. Yes. It felt like a big world.

Todd: And it wasn’t in a very small school because we’ve seen some of the big classes at Madison and Iowa. Yeah. And all those, we’ve been exposed now. Yeah. We’ve seen the lecture halls and then we saw Drake’s lecture hall, a little bit different other.

Todd: Remember when you were in Meredith, it’d be like, there’s so many people in my class, it’s nothing. Um, a few other things. I did a little research in 1993. Okay. Just, just to bring people back into a time machine. That’s when the Waco siege happened. Yes. And you’ve seen some [00:12:00] documentaries on that. I sure have.

Todd: Um, uh, don’t ask, don’t tell.

Cathy: Yeah. Yeah. Military. See, these were the paradoxical parts of Clinton’s presidency. Right. Yeah. You know, lots of, um, new things that were good and then some things that were not so good.

Todd: Um, Michael Jordan shocked the world by retiring from the NBA after his father’s murder. Yes, I remember.

Todd: And then finally, this was top of the charts.

Cathy: Sweet Whitney.

Cathy: Love you. I’ve never seen my bodyguard. It’s not called My Bodyguard. It’s The Bodyguard. Oh, my Bodyguard is the movie with Chris Makepeace. I thought it’s Chris Maker. Piece Maker. Peace. He Maker Peace. He was

Todd: in Meatball. He was in meatballs and he was in the My Bodyguard. My Bodyguard. That’s great. We gotta do, we should do a show on bullies.

Todd: We already did. We did. We did. Johnny from um, I know, but that was just about Johnny remember it

Cathy: wasn’t about Johnny. It was about bullies. [00:13:00] We

Todd: did the

Cathy: whole thing about bullies. Did we talk

Todd: about Matt Dylan? In the outsiders, but not about the bo My Bodyguard.

Cathy: So you wanna do like the, but if we were gonna do the quintessential bullies from our generation, we totally missed that opportunity.

Cathy: Yeah. When we did Johnny, you’re

Todd: probably right.

Cathy: Um, but yes. Smoke up Johnny. Smoke up Johnny.

Todd: Um, okay. Are we ready for the next one?

Cathy: Um, no. At the stage. Oh,

Todd: okay. No, not the

Cathy: stage. Yeah. So just a few more things. Um, this was a, do you know what a Capra esque movie is?

Todd: Sweet. Don’t be making up words.

Cathy: Okay. Well, it refers to Frank Capra, who was a director and he made Mr.

Cathy: Smith goes to Washington. Oh, you know, that was in 1939 and it’s a Wonderful Life. Okay. Both with our buddy, um, Jimmy Stewart, right?

Clip: Yep.

Cathy: And the whole idea of a Capra esque film is that it was optimistic about humanity. Um, there was like a small town hero. Um, it was, uh, corruption versus decency. Like which side are you gonna take?

Cathy: Um, a lot of humor and then a lot of faith in [00:14:00] democracy. You know, those, remember those days, uh, the

Todd: good old days.

Cathy: And so the thing about, you know, these, both of these movies kind of had a cap, you know, the American president and Dave had a Capra esque quality. Now Dave’s was more like, good, uh, what’s the word?

Cathy: It’s more folksy and more like, uh, com you know, it was a comedy and the American president was supposed to be somewhat serious. Yeah. But the end result was the same, which is faith and in community and in, in people and good versus bad and all those kind of things. So, um. You know, just to kind of set the stage before we move to remember when the American president, for those of you who haven’t watched it in a long time, is about a, um, a guy named Andrew Shepherd.

Cathy: He’s widowed and he’s in the White House, and it’s all about how he’s trying to navigate his love life with politics. He starts dating Annette Benning, who’s a lobbyist, which is interesting in itself ’cause that’s definitely gonna be a conflict of interest. Right. But, you know, [00:15:00] these are the nitpicks, right.

Cathy: Um, so it’s a romantic dramedy pretty much. I don’t think we had that word back then, but it’s got some humor and it’s a romantic, you know, sh movie and everything. Um, you know, the message is about even in this system, this corrupt system, um, decency and integrity and love is what everything is all about.

Cathy: And Dave, um, he came from outside the system. So Andrew Shepherd was inside the system. Dave is outside the system and. It was about, again, optimistic belief that everyday humanity can transform politics. Um, and maybe, you know, I’m a, I’m an eternal optimist, so I like that idea.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: Um, but it suggests that decency is universal, that the majority of people are decent.

Cathy: Um, and that, you know, I don’t know that, you know, somebody could actually come in off the street and be like, if we just care about people, everything’s gonna fall into place.

Todd: Yeah. Which, you

Cathy: know, kind

Todd: of utopia or,

Cathy: yeah. And to your point about its connection [00:16:00] to the West Wing, um, you know, Dave is. It’s the idealism, but the American president is written by Aaron Sorkin.

Cathy: Yeah. So it’s a direct, it’s like the DNA of the West Wing. Sure. It had Martin Sheen, you know, et cetera. It had the, that was the funny state.

Todd: Oh, there’s so many actors that were in both, uh, right, you’re right. The West Wing and I think the American president, but maybe some actors from Dave also got in the West Wing.

Todd: I’m not sure.

Cathy: Ash, I don’t know. We, I, but just so before we move on, Dave, what if an ordinary guy ran the White House with his heart and American president is what if the president himself was both noble and romantic and knew how to balance love and leadership? So this is what these movies are about.

Clip: I remember when.

Clip: You couldn’t.

Todd: Um, do you have any memories of either of these movies when you watched them originally? I think I saw mine probably on T-N-T-I-I definitely didn’t see them in the theater. I didn’t either. Yeah. I didn’t see ’em in the theater either. You grew at VHS

Cathy: and you [00:17:00] know why Todd? ’cause like we were in college.

Cathy: Yeah. You know what I mean? We weren’t watching a lot of movies. No, no. We weren’t going to the theater that much. Yeah, right. Um, in 1995, I probably, I was just poor. Yeah. That was when I was living in Chicago, making no money. So I’m sure I wasn’t going to the theater that much. But, um, I remember your VCR, sweetie, do you remember

Todd: the button in an apartment

Cathy: that was

Todd: Justin?

Todd: It was the biggest play button I’ve ever seen. It was like. Four inches squared. And it just was the most gigantic play button on a VCR I’ve ever seen.

Cathy: Well, two things I’ll tell you about that. Jess bought that with her own money when she was living at home, probably like, so she bought that for her family.

Todd: Probably like $150.

Cathy: Yeah, it was because it’s huge. You guys. Yeah. You remember when when the, it would open from the top. Yeah. And you’d slide it in and then the button was so big and it had like a plugin. Remote control. Yeah. And second, she wanted me to tell you she still has it. Does she really? She does.

Cathy: It’s in a box. Oh my. If you ever wanna see it, she could probably sell that. I know it’s a collector’s item. It is. But she was like, I’m like, Todd, love that thing. She’s like, tell ’em I still got

Todd: it. Um, I, [00:18:00] I have this under miscellaneous sounds. It’s called VHS Eject tape. Okay. Let’s hear it. Let’s see what happens.

Todd: Gotta hear that one again. Yeah, that’s a good sound effect for this show. There’s a few of ’em. Mama at this one.

Cathy: That’s the sound I know.

Todd: Oh my God. Oh, please be kind. Rewind. Remember that? Oh yeah. It was because they charge you like another dollar or something.

Cathy: Turn it in. They’d be like, you didn’t rewind

Cathy: Todd. Oh

Todd: my God. Oh my God. Think about if you’re a kid right now. Just explaining. Please be kind. Rewind. Okay.

Cathy: I have a story that is so ridiculous. So when I lived in Chicago, 1993, lived in Belmont, Broadway. Down the street there was a movie store. So be, you know, obviously there was Blockbuster and everything, but everyone had like a little family video, little movie store.

Cathy: So we would, we would go there and get our movies and you [00:19:00] know, when you like would rent from Blockbuster, whatever you’d get, you know, notifications somehow. I don’t know if they’d send us letters, I don’t remember. But we would know something was overdue. Well, at this place they didn’t tell us. So we’re like, man, they’re so nice.

Cathy: They just let us give these movies as long as we want them so we wouldn’t return them. And finally at some point we started maybe returning them in haphazardly or whatever. And then one time we went in and he’s like, you owe us like a hundred dollars. Yeah. And we’re like, what? Like a $25 tape? We thought the whole time they liked

Todd: us.

Todd: Oh my God, they’re so friendly. This place. That we have these movies. I loved walking through the movie store. Ah, was so fun. One of your favorite memories. It was. And what, and then at some of those movie stores, they had the curtain. Yes. Did you go behind that curtain, Todd? No. I was always too scared. I wanted to, you

Cathy: wanted to, of

Todd: course.

Cathy: Did you ever see people you knew behind the curtain? I don’t think so. And those, for those of you who don’t know what we mean, behind the curtain is there was a, a section of pornography?

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Or X movies. Yeah. [00:20:00] I don’t

Todd: know if everything was sexual. And then, and then they cleaned it up with Blockbuster.

Todd: What do you mean they cleaned it up? Blockbuster didn’t have the curtain.

Cathy: Oh, really? So where did, what did they do with their X movies? They just didn’t have ’em. They didn’t have ’em.

Todd: That wasn’t the market they were chasing after?

Cathy: Yes. Well that I, that makes sense. I mean, it was kind, it’s kind of like, it’s really weird that there used to be theaters that played Triple X movies.

Cathy: Like what do you do when you’re buying your ticket? And like, there’s people behind you and in front of you, you’re like, yeah, we’re gonna go see this movie, aren’t we? Yeah. Let’s, we’re all gonna go watch this. Yeah.

Todd: I don’t even know what a peep show is. What’s a peep show? I

Cathy: think a peep, well, actually, I know from you remember that book I read, um, all fours by Miranda Deli?

Cathy: Yeah. She used to work in, in a peep show.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: And basically you’re just like in a box and people can pay to watch you. What was that Madonna video?

Todd: Uh, open your heart to me. Open your heart. And it’s, isn’t it like a little guy looking at her? It’s a little boy. Yeah. What’s going on there, Madonna?

Cathy: Well, she was always pushing the boundaries as, as [00:21:00] we all know about our friend Madonna.

Todd: All right. You know what I’m gonna invite us to do sweetie? What? Can you take a guess?

Clip: Talk about Mad Doc. Stay on target. Stay on target. All right. Back.

Cathy: Okay. So remember when, for me, the, what I think about is the idealism that I was like, man, I wish things could be like Dave and that I, um. In that year, so, okay.

Cathy: So 1993 was the first time I voted. Mm-hmm. Or whenever the, it was 1992. Yeah, right. It was the first time I voted. And Clinton had come to Iowa, as you said. We went to school in Iowa and it was kind of a huge deal. And if you remember, it wasn’t just Clinton Bush, it was Clinton per Bush. Oh, Ross. So if Ross Perot hadn’t been in the middle there, that may not have gone, no, Clinton wouldn’t have won toward Clinton.

Cathy: And it was kind of a, you know, it was a big deal. It was a lot of hope and a lot of, you know, changes. Especially as a feminist, [00:22:00] you know, there was a lot of. Things that, you know, his wife was really, um, you know, you guys know his wife, um, she was really involved in his politics when he was governor of Arkansas.

Cathy: And I liked that, but a lot of people did not. Um, she got a lot of slack. She still gets a lot of slack. You know, we’re gonna look, um, historically very differently at Hillary Clinton, but we’ve been, we’ve had to put up with a lot of, um, disregard for her. Yeah. Let’s just say.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: Um, but anyway, and, and when I say this, I’m very aware these are not perfect people.

Cathy: I’m very aware that there’s, they’re politicians. I’m very aware that they, you know, obviously the man was impeached by the house because they decided like everything that this administration’s doing is okay, but they decided that him having an extramarital affair. Or whatever that that was a problem.

Cathy: But anyway, um, I digress.

Todd: Can I give you a little Ross, uh, Dana Carvey doing Ross Perot.

Cathy: You [00:23:00] can, you can that

Clip: premise for a minute. I, I, I find it fascinating that everybody’s going bonkers about my height when this country’s going down the tubes like crap through a goose.

Todd: Dana Carvey what of a kind. Um, it

Cathy: was, he was, he did everything.

Cathy: So then the last thing I’ll say is this is my, Dave is my sister’s favorite movie. Yeah. So whenever I think of Dave, I think of my sister and it just kind of tells you a lot about her. ’cause she also has that kind of idealism it.

Todd: I love your sister.

Cathy: Yes, me too.

Todd: But I’m about to upset her.

Cathy: Oh no.

Todd: Yep.

Clip: Boy.

Clip: It’s hot. Hot take. This is hot. Never got this hot in Brooklyn. It looks like Africa. Hot Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.

Todd: Um, what

Clip: is it?

Todd: My hot take is. I give American President three and a half stars. I give Dave two and a half stars.

Cathy: You’re crazy. I think

Todd: the American president is such a superior movie than Dave.

Cathy: Well, they’re totally different genres.

Todd: Of course they are. I’m just saying, which of these two do I think is a better movie? Movie that I like to watch over and over [00:24:00] and over again. I, and by the way, Kevin Klein is one of my favorite all-time actors. It’s just there’s not enough. Like we re-watched it. I was like hoping for more in it.

Todd: I don’t know. It just, it just didn’t. Um, what about

Cathy: the ending? The girls had no idea. The trick ending.

Todd: Yeah. Uh oh. Yeah. We had to explain

Cathy: it.

Todd: Yeah. That was weird that they

Cathy: couldn’t No, no. It wasn’t the girls. It was your dad. And, and your sister.

Todd: That’s right. That’s right.

Cathy: Well, they were surprised by the ending.

Todd: Yeah. Like what happened? Yes. Yeah. Yes. A a teeny bit confusing.

Cathy: Yeah. I

Todd: guess especially if you’re not paying attention.

Cathy: Right. Like, if there’s pieces that you miss then, so

Todd: I’m gonna put you in the hot seat. Okay. Let’s hear which movie’s better. Um, I like them both. Oh my gosh.

Cathy: What are the

Todd: odd,

Cathy: different genres?

Cathy: I don’t for what? Star Wars and, okay. This is what I’ll say. I can watch Dave more easily. Oh, interesting. Because it’s passive. It’s like it’s humor. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s good vibe. It’s less serious. It’s less serious. He’s like, he does good things. He makes good choices. The [00:25:00] American president is intense.

Cathy: Yeah,

Todd: I think, I think the reason not, not because of movies, better or worse, but I am a bigger fan of dramas and I think Dave is more of a lighthearted. Funny, a teeny bit of seriousness movie and the American president is more of an intense story. That’s not really that funny at all.

Cathy: No, it’s not. There’s funny moments.

Cathy: Yeah. But based more in reality. Yeah. And I’ll tell you something, it’s funny because I tend to watch certain things to get geared up. I listen to certain music to get geared up to, but we’ve had about se we don’t do them anymore, but we used to have these conferences and we’ve had about seven or eight of them.

Cathy: And before when I’d be getting ready, um, like in my hotel room, before I’d go speak and everything, I would watch the American President. Oh really? Yeah. Like not as like, ooh, I wanna be like Andrew Shepherd. But just, it was one of those movies that I was like, this is gonna keep me on my toes. It’s, it’s, it’s giving me the vibe that I want.

Cathy: Yeah. Yeah. You put yourself in that space. Mm-hmm. Just like, you know, I, I, it sometimes we just need to match [00:26:00] a, a vibe.

Todd: Yeah. I get it. Are you ready for random facts? I am. Let’s go

Clip: eight pounds here. Do you know the eight pounds?

Cathy: I got a bunch. Okay. Me too. So you go first and then I’ll see what I got.

Todd: Um, let’s see.

Todd: These are dumb. First lady, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t scan through these. Let me go through the American president ones and then maybe, um, Michael Douglas originally didn’t wanna play the role because he felt too presidential.

Cathy: I can understand why he felt that way. ‘

Todd: cause he had been doing a lot of sex movies, like basic and things against things and, uh, fatal Fraction.

Todd: Uh, before the movie started shooting, Michael G. Fox was still keeping his Parkinson’s disease a secret. Correct. He felt he would lose a role of Rob Reiner, who directed a found out during a, a basic and routine fitness screening. Fox was terrified that clinicians would detect the periodic shaking in his left hand and eventually connected part dis.

Todd: Fortunately for Michael J. Fox, he took his meds [00:27:00] in time to quell the shaking and gut the part.

Clip: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Robert Redford, um, was originally cast in the lead role of the American president that would’ve worked, uh, but was replaced by Michael Douglas after a falling out with Rob Reiner. I don’t know if that’s true.

Cathy: Well, you know. I’m just going off of Bill Simmons here who does the re watchable and we, most of you know who Bill Simmons is. He is not a Robert Redford fan.

Clip: Mm.

Cathy: I don’t know if you’ve picked up on that, but a lot of his reasons are because of screenwriters. He knows and actors, he knows, he feels like he’s, he’s, he doesn’t like him.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. So not, that doesn’t mean I don’t like Robert Redford. It just means that there is some his, there’s some things that predate this. You

Todd: know what I think of when I hear Robert Redford, what I think of his voice and a river runs through it. Oh.

Cathy: Such a

Todd: good

Cathy: voice.

Todd: And it makes me want us to do a podcast on movies about rivers or something to bring in a river runs through it, because that just do a river runs through it.

Todd: But we usually do like. A few. We blend a few. Anyways. I [00:28:00]

Cathy: think that one, you know, what we could do is we could talk about brotherhood, we could talk about family. Now we’re talking, we can talk about, uh, addiction in the family. We can, I mean, it’s so funny because when I think about that movie, river runs through it, I also think about Legends of the Fall, which are two movies that Brad Pitt plays that kind of rebellious member of the family that everyone adores

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: But is also the problem. Yeah. You know, has all the issues. So he’s like, isn’t that so common? You know what I mean? Yeah. Like the person who is struggling is the most charismatic in the

Todd: family. Maybe we’ll do that next week. Who knows? Uh, the telephone number, president Shepherd gives Sidney to call him back.

Todd: Four five six. 1 4 1 4 is in fact the number to the White House Uhhuh. That’s kind of cool. Yeah. Uh, the Oval Office set was originally constructed for Dave. Oh,

Cathy: cool. Overlap

Todd: and used for the West Wing and the American president. Wow. Uh, so it’s on

Cathy: a sound stage.

Todd: I have no idea. Okay. I don’t know how it works.

Todd: Uh, it’s one American president is one of the few rare [00:29:00] PG 13 movies allowed to keep its rating despite using the word fuck three times, all within 15 minutes, 15 minutes of each other, but none of them are used in sexual context. I didn’t know that. Um,

Cathy: what about when Sydney spends the night?

Todd: Yes. I don’t think that they say the F word during that.

Todd: Okay, good. Michael J. Fox, by the way, she’s so sexy in that t-shirt.

Cathy: I know. Oh my God. For you. Steve’s such a beautiful woman.

Todd: Uh, Michael J. Fox based his portrayal on Louis of Louis Rothschild on Guess who an Ideas? Well, let me think when it was. Um,

Cathy: no, I don’t know.

Todd: George

Cathy: Stephanopolis. Oh, of course. Why not?

Cathy: Yeah, so, and George Stephanopoulos was the, an advisor to President Clinton and he was very young.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: And so, and everybody was like, thought he was really attractive and everything. And now we think about him being on Good Morning America, but he has a whole political history.

Todd: Um, and lastly, I’m the American President.

Todd: Annette Ben Benning was supposed to start with [00:30:00] Michael Douglas in disclosure the previous year, but had to do bow out because she got pregnant and

Cathy: Demi Moore took her place. You know what? I, I kind of like that. I think. Have you seen disclosure?

Todd: Forget about it. She’s so, she’s so good looking.

Cathy: Let’s gonna talk about how women, this topic.

Cathy: Oh my God. So to me, more works in disclosure. Very well. And not, Benning could have as well, like he’s for, she could do

Todd: anything.

Cathy: Um, but I like the, I like her in the American president. Yeah. I like who she is. I remember one, I’ve never wanted to be in politics per se. I don’t think I could do that. But I re I remember you remember the board.

Cathy: Do you know when she’s like, okay, I’m gonna go. You know, and they’re like getting numbers. Yeah. Right, right, right. And I remember being like, basically what she does is she just goes out and has lunch with people, talks to them. Mm-hmm. You know, educates people on what she’s doing, why it’s important. Do you remember what her, um, her bill was?

Todd: Environmental something.

Cathy: Yeah. It was about the environment. Yeah. I can’t, I’m forgetting what it was. I wanted to test you and I’m forgetting. But [00:31:00] anyway, she really wanted that to be um, I know he was focusing on the crime bill. She was focusing on her like clean air, fossil fuels.

Todd: Something about that. Yeah.

Todd: It’s got something to do with that. So

Cathy: something about environment. But she, I just thought she had such a cool job. Yeah. Like it

Todd: is fun

Cathy: and so well respected. ’cause she was getting it done. Yeah. She had the gift of, she left it out. Um,

Todd: explaining to me, um, I do have a few on Dave. Okay. And then you can fill it in.

Todd: Sure. Uh, then President Clinton approved of the film and gave, uh, Ross, I don’t know who Ross is. Uh, the screenwriter Gary Ross. Oh. A framed script, which Clinton had autographed writing that it was a funny often or. Accurate lampooning of politics. Clinton also gave him a picture of himself holding a Dave mug.

Todd: That’s nice. Thank you. So Clinton liked Dave. The Gorney Weaver’s hair is short because she shaved her head for her previous movie Alien. Of course. And then lastly, the events of President Mitchell’s stroke during a sexual encounter with his young female assistant are a reference to the real life circumstances surrounding the death [00:32:00] of Nelson Rockefeller, a former USBP and New York Governor.

Todd: He died in 1979 at the age of 70, during an encounter with his 22-year-old assistant Megan Marshak. She really loved him. She did. She loved the 70-year-old guy, the 22-year-old.

Cathy: Well, I guess we don’t know that’s mean of us, but she’s 22. Odds are Bill

Todd: Belichick. You

Clip: know,

Todd: we’re judging we’re we are, we are making assumptions.

Todd: Yes, we are. Um, so that’s what I got. You got anything?

Cathy: Uh, let’s see. Um. So this is, these are like so deep cuts, but I’ll say ’em anyway. In Dave, do you remember when he, um, talks about having, um, a romance with a woman who is half American and half Polynesian? Uh, no. Well, people thought that was cool because Phoebe Kates, his wife in real life is half American, half Polynesian.

Cathy: Okay. Um, you like Phoebe Kates too.

Todd: Forget

Cathy: [00:33:00] about it. Everybody loves Phoebe Kates. Yes. Um, and we don’t see her that much anymore, but she and Kevin Klein had been married for a very long time. They have children, et cetera. Um, she’s a fame. I wish she would come back.

Todd: She was in, um, I Love You To Death, which is a hilarious movie.

Todd: Kevin Klein movie. That may be where

Cathy: they met. You might be right. Yeah. And that was a long time ago, Todd. Yeah, that was like the eighties. Yeah. So anyway, you were just talking about the set. Um, you know that and it was also used in the Pelican Brief.

Todd: Oh,

Cathy: interesting. Yeah. So that set was in Hot Demand. Um, let’s see, that was, that’s Dave the American president.

Cathy: Um, it got five Golden Globe nominations. Mm-hmm. Including, uh, for best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, and best screenplay. And received an Oscar, uh, nomination for best original music or comedy. Okay. Score. Um, let’s see, and obviously we already said this. Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the American President, uh, it became the blueprint for the West [00:34:00] Wing.

Cathy: Um, a lot of the plot ideas and character traits and everything were from the American president. And this is interesting. It got a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s ranked numbered 75 in the hundred Greatest Love Stories. Um.

Todd: I don’t understand Rotten tomatoes. I feel like that one guy from Ity. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Todd: Like. I don’t, why do we? I

Cathy: don’t like it. I think it’s because it’s a little bit like, is it like a general population survey thing? Mm-hmm. Okay. It’s one of those things where if you have a high Rotten Tomatoes rating, you wanna tell people, but if you don’t, it may not be because your film sucks. It may be because people are like, oh, you didn’t end it the way I wanted to.

Cathy: It’s kinda like an Amazon review. Like I write books and for a living and that’s part of what I do. And sometimes I read people’s reviews, not necessarily always of mine, but people will like write a review of a book and they’ll say, my book arrived late and it was wet and that has nothing to do with the book or the writer.

Cathy: It’s your

Todd: fault. How dare you? I’m

Cathy: like, how is that? That’s got [00:35:00] nothing to do with the book. Or they’ll be like, I was in a bad mood when I read this book, so I’m only gonna give it two and a half stars. I’m like, okay, thanks. Thanks for that help.

Todd: Um, I don’t know if this is true, but Highest ranked,

Clip: no,

Todd: that can’t be right.

Todd: Highest ranked Rotten Tomatoes movie Minority Report. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Clip: Why not?

Todd: I don’t know. It says 89%. Isn’t there movies that are like 99%?

Cathy: Well, I just read to you that it had a nine. It, it said it holds a 91% rating on Rotten Tomato. I think I’m giving you bad information. Um, did you wanna do any lists?

Cathy: Like, I have two lists like Todd and I are getting into lists. Only lists I have

Todd: is favorite movies. Take pla taking place in Washington, DC

Cathy: Okay. I have. Favorite, also favorite movie speeches.

Todd: Oh, that’s good. I didn’t do that one. So let me do my favorite Washington DC movies. I’m just gonna do my top three outside of these two.

Todd: So these two are, are in my top three. Okay.

Cathy: Well you go in normal order though. Lately. You’ve been doing like, I’m gonna do number one [00:36:00] first,

Todd: my third favorite. So,

Cathy: so start from five, even though it includes Let’s go five. Yeah.

Todd: Um, so I’m gonna say five. Is Dave

Cathy: Okay? Like it.

Todd: Number four is a really underrated movie, in my judgment called No Way Out.

Todd: Ooh, that’s a good one. I like that movie. Such a good movie. Uh, my third favorite is also a Kevin Costner movie. You have any guesses?

Cathy: Uh, let’s see if it’s Kevin Costner. It’s not. No Way Out. It is,

Todd: and technically it, it’s more in Louisiana than dc. JFK.

Cathy: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. It’s really

Todd: not a DC movie. They have certain parts of it Sure.

Todd: Where he’s talking to Donald Sutherland in DC but

Cathy: it’s, uh, it’s a little iffy, but I, it’s a little

Todd: iffy. Um, number two is the American President. Sure. And number one is Wedding Crashers.

Cathy: That’s good. Yes. That’s good. Thank you. I should have put Wedding Crashers on my list.

Todd: How dare you.

Cathy: So mine, starting with number [00:37:00] five, again, everybody, these are our favorite movies based in dc.

Cathy: Number five is Primary Colors, which was based on a book written by Anonymous. We figured out That’s a good one. Later.

Clip: Yep.

Cathy: But it was totally based on the Clintons, but they, he changed their names. And then they made a movie about it. And it had John Travolta and Emma Thompson, love that movie. Haven’t seen it in a long time, but was so excited when it was coming out.

Cathy: Like obsessed number four. Uh, all the President’s men, um, which is speaking of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman based on, you know, the Watergate scandal. And they played, um, the guys from the Post who are named, God help me.

Todd: Uh, the guys

Cathy: who did the, they broke the story on Nixon.

Todd: Oh, that’s Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Todd: Sweetheart. I

Cathy: said that, but you, you think of their names ’cause we know them. Okay. We’re just having a brain problem. Um, number three, A, a brain Bob, Woodward, Woodward and Bernstein. There you go. Yeah. Brain problem means we’re [00:38:00] 53 or 54. How old am I?

Todd: I think you’re 54. Yeah. And I think I’m 53.

Cathy: I take lots of vitamins to keep my brain sharp.

Cathy: You know what else I do to keep my brain sharp? This show. And I write. And I had to stop playing the drums for a little bit ’cause my leg hurts. That’s just, I’m just sharing with everybody. Number three, American President, did I already say that? Number two, the Pelican Brief.

Todd: Oh wow.

Cathy: I love the Pelican Brief.

Todd: Do you?

Cathy: Yes. I watch it the way I did hear

Todd: Roberts and Denzel.

Cathy: Yeah. And I watch it a lot and I meaning like background, you know, like I’ll be folding clothes or something. Two grand. Uh, John Grisham movies that I watch a lot are the firm, which has a lot of funny parts in it to me, which it’s not supposed to be.

Cathy: And the Pelican Brief. So that’s number two. And then number one is Dave. Oh wow. Very good. Yeah. You

Todd: really do love Dave. I do. Mm, that’s so interesting. Can I, uh, just throw a few different, uh, lines from Wedding Crashers? Sure. You hungry?

Clip: Hey

Todd: Ma, can we get some meatloaf? Hold on. Let me give you

Cathy: err. Erroneous.[00:39:00]

Cathy: Erroneous on both counts. You shut your mouth when you’re talking to me. Oh my God.

Todd: So

Cathy: good. It’s our favorite line from that movie. You shut your, and it’s in the first two minutes. Yes. You shut your mouth when you’re talking to me. But I like saying erroneous too. Yeah. To people who get it.

Todd: Erroneous.

Todd: Erroneous,

Cathy: erroneous.

Todd: Um, okay, so we did the list. Are we ready to go to WTF?

Cathy: Yes.

Clip: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got outta hand fast.

Todd: It jumped up a notch. It did, didn’t it? Um, the only WTFI have is for Dave.

Cathy: Okay. Thank you. We just need to spend all of our dime on this.

Todd: The entire movie, the

Cathy: entire movie doesn’t make

Todd: sense.

Todd: Is WTF

Cathy: how is this other human getting away with this? Yeah. Okay.

Todd: If it’s so hard to step in the shoes of any human being. Yeah. I’m imagining that it’s even harder to step in the shoes of the president, right. Because the president knows a lot of people. The president has a lot of different personality [00:40:00] styles, like

Cathy: he’s face-to-face with so many different people.

Todd: Like, think about how hard it is to just know everything from decades of experience. This would never, ever work at all.

Cathy: No. And again, it’s one thing to be a doppelganger. It’s like, wow, this person looks like you. Which is the premise. Right. But it’s another thing to be able, and again, they try and set you up like he knows how to do his mannerisms.

Cathy: Remember when he is practicing his speech? Yeah. And they’re like, this is what you need to do. And he’s like, don’t worry. I know how to do Bill Mitchell. Yeah. You know, that’s the president. And he does, but the stuff with his wife and the stuff with like, and they don’t have kids, so that helps. That would’ve been a nightmare.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: Um, but that is staff, like the Laura Lenny character who was having an affair with him that she wouldn’t catch on. Right. Like that. She’d just be like, he’s back and he doesn’t talk to me anymore. Yeah. Like so weird. And you know, the whole. There’s a confusing thing to me with, there’s a scene where Sigourney Weaver is really mad at him.

Cathy: So she comes in and he’s in the, in the shower, and she says, turn around. I’m talking to you. So [00:41:00] she obviously sees him naked and she has a moment where she kind of looks away. Mm-hmm. Like, what’s going on? And then when she figures out he’s not her husband, he said, when did you figure it out? And she said, in the limo, you looked at my legs.

Cathy: Yeah. And Bill hasn’t looked at my legs forever. And he said, I thought it was the shower. And she’s like, no. Which happened? How is it not the shower?

Todd: Which happened first, the limo or the shower? Not the legs. So the, okay, so the legs happened first. Yeah. So that he’s saying, that’s when I figured it out. That precludes her from, if she already knew it, when he looked at her legs.

Todd: And if the shower scenes happened after that, then she didn’t have, but she go in and yell at him in the shower if she knew. Knew. That’s not going at, you wanna see what his package looked like? You are, you, your mind is

Cathy: in an interesting place to think Her eyes go down

Todd: there. I know. Well, it’s a whole part.

Cathy: That’s a whole point of

Todd: that

Cathy: scene. I get it. But is she, why is she yelling at someone she knows is not her husband?

Todd: Oh, that’s a good question. That is a, you see what I mean? That is [00:42:00] if, if in fact the limo

Cathy: is

Todd: first

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: And you’re pretty sure the limos first. So interesting.

Cathy: And either way it sucks because if she saw, if he saw her legs fir if, if he looked at her legs first and then she knew Yeah.

Cathy: Then the whole shower scene doesn’t make sense. And if she saw him in the shower and still didn’t know. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Yeah. So what Dave requires is a lot of suspension of belief. Yes. You’ve gotta just quite a bit run with it. So

Todd: that’s, that’s a big thing. Um, so yeah, my, so my WTF is the whole premise of the movie, Dave.

Cathy: Well, and I’ll add to that. Once Sigourney Weaver finds out that he is indeed not her husband, I just,

Todd: I’m looking, I’m scanning through the movie. The limo is definitely before, right? It’s early,

Cathy: right?

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Okay. So she, he tells her, you know, I am, this is what’s going on. And he shows her, he takes her downstairs, way downstairs in the White House, shows her that her husband, bill Mitchell is actually [00:43:00] on life support.

Cathy: ’cause he had a stroke and they, like that night are like, okay, what if, let’s move on. Yeah. Like her husband. And again she says, I can’t keep this a secret. Right. But then, then I think he says to her. She says to him, what would you do if you could be president? What would you do? And he’s like, so many things.

Cathy: And then she goes along with it and it’s her hus. It’s just weird. Yeah. But again, suspension of belief. Um, obviously another WTF is the best scene of the movie, but the most hard to believe. The cabinet, you know, balancing the budget scene that he could just be like, let’s, let’s get rid of that $60 million.

Cathy: Instead

Clip: of giving them money for something they haven’t finished, we could hold back that cash. Stick it in some interest bearing.

Clip: Yes.

Clip: [00:44:00] Great. Uh, like I was saying, if we took that cash and stuck it in even an ordinary savings account, we’d be making $23 million a month in interest. Well, technically that’s true, but uh oh. Uh oh ma’am. I suppose it’s true. Okay. Okay. Okay, so that’s. 23 million. Right. He’s like

Cathy: doing it on like the back of an envelope, basically.

Todd: Right. It’s, uh,

Cathy: I love it though. I, I don’t like, remember this is the WTF, this is not like, oh, what’s bad about the movie? It’s why we love the movie. Yeah,

Todd: yeah. It’s fun to watch him go write his things on the back of the, the envelope and balance the budget.

Cathy: Right. And the, and the other, the last part of Dave, that’s WTF and in a good way is all the cameos.

Todd: Yes.

Cathy: There’s so many cameos, including the most WTF cameo is Oliver Stone talking about that. He thinks that Bill [00:45:00] Mitchell, it’s not really Bill Mitchell that someone has replaced him and he’s a hundred percent right.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: So, because Oliver Stone was so into conspiracy theories back then, you know, having come back from the Vietnam War and being disillusioned and such, and he was doing platoon and all these movies, he was kind of, he was kind of the guy.

Cathy: Um, so I thought that was funny. And then my big, and then one more WTF about Dave. At the very end when Sigourney Weaver comes to his office where he’s running for councilman or whatever, and that they could really date.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: They can’t, no, she’s a fa like, what’s going on? They could date sweetie. Love, love has no boundaries.

Cathy: I mean, it was just, I love it and I love that she shows up in her little baseball hat and it’s so cute. But again, there’s a lot of wtf, so suspension of belief. So the American President, do you have any for that? Uh, I don’t,

Todd: before we move on. Um, so in 1993, our deficit, and I don’t think it includes military spending, [00:46:00] was $255 billion.

Todd: Wow. And what it is today is 1.6 trillion.

Cathy: Well, and when Clinton left office, the deficit was gone.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: So when Clinton left office, the budget was balanced. He balanced it so. I don’t, I hate to get on a political rant. Go ahead. But it 10. If we look back in the last however many years when there’s been a Democrat in office, we’ve gotten closer to balancing the budget.

Cathy: Just saying. Okay.

Todd: Um, one last thing, and I hope my, uh, Google helps me with this, but the idea of a trillion dollars is almost an inconceivable, uh, number.

Cathy: Okay? Yes, it is.

Todd: And I just said this in Michigan, somehow we were talking about the deficit. Mm-hmm. Or whatever. So guess how many, how much time? Elapses for 1 million seconds.

Todd: Okay. 1 million seconds. Take the best guess. And doesn’t matter if you’re right. I don’t know, 11 days. Okay. A million seconds is 11 days. Okay. So a trillion

Cathy: seconds.

Todd: Now we’re going to a billion.

Cathy: Oh billion.

Todd: A billion seconds. So think of this in [00:47:00] terms of dollars, okay? And the relationship between a million billion and a trillion.

Todd: A billion seconds. Take a guess. If a million is 11 days, how many is a billion seconds?

Cathy: I don’t know. 20. I don’t know,

Todd: 31 years. I was gonna say 20 years. So manageable, 11 days, 31 years. A trillion second. Trillion

Cathy: second, because this

Todd: is exponential stuff. So

Cathy: that was 31 years. So I will say, uh, 200 years,

Todd: 31,000, 710 years.

Todd: Holy

Clip: crap.

Todd: So just, just think about that. Like a trillion dollars is so much money. Um, I, and whenever I think about it, I feel sad for my kids and my grandkids. I know. ’cause us Gen Xers and boomers effed this whole thing up. We can figure it out. But we certainly didn’t make it easy on them. That’s all I have to say.

Cathy: We haven’t had a, had a Gen X president.

Todd: No, we haven’t. So are we really to blame? There’s a lot of Gen [00:48:00] Xers in positions of power.

Cathy: I understand there’s a lot of them and that is true. And a lot of ’em are governors and mayors and everything. But for the most part, gen X hasn’t had its time to lead. Uh, let’s go.

Todd: Yeah. Well, I say skip over our generation. Just let’s get David, just go to the millennials, get Kevin Klein, maybe even the Gen Zers or get the, who’s below the Gen Zers? Gen Alpha, the alphas. Let’s get like some 15-year-old kids in there.

Cathy: Hey, you know what? Some young people are running for office and they do a phenomenal job.

Cathy: Good. Like there are 28 year olds, 30 year olds, and they’re more, they’re better than the boomers. Yeah. Okay. And again, I love boomers. My parents were boomers, my aunt’s boomer, like I love the boomers, but not the boomers who are in charge. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so the American president, let’s talk about, um. Uh oh, the crime bill and the environment bill.

Cathy: Oh, yeah. You know, we, you know, having, they’re both landmark bills. Like, again, it’s the way this, that Sorkin wrote it, um, [00:49:00] you know, having one instead of the other. Like, aren’t bills, like, isn’t there a bunch of stuff packed into one bill? It’s never about one thing. Right. You pack a bunch of stuff. I remember John McCain would always call it pork.

Clip: Yeah. Do

Cathy: you remember? Yeah. But no. Is that what they called it? Uh, something like that. And I’d always be like, what is that? Yeah. But it was just packing stuff. The other stuff to a bell.

Clip: See other stuff. Yeah.

Cathy: Um, let’s see. A, the fact that at the end of the American president when, you know, Michael Douglas is president, figures out, what’s his name again?

Cathy: Shepherd Andrew Shepherd. Figures out, sorry.

Todd: Don’t you see it in my, uh, YouTube thing? Look at my name. In, in, in. Andrew Shepherd,

Cathy: Todd and I on our YouTube thing, it’s, it’s uh, will they be able to see this?

Todd: Only if they’re watching on YouTube.

Cathy: For our names Todd put Andrew Shepherd and I put Kathy wants Dave to be press,

Todd: I would love for Dave to be the president.

Cathy: Yes. So his, the speech he gives at the end is actually just kind of a love speech to Annette Benning. Yeah. Sydnee, Sidney Wade. Um, and so, you know, that would be really interesting. Um, [00:50:00] I think that’s it. There’s not as much WTF in the American president.

Todd: Yeah. Um, okay. Are we ready for the next one? All right, let’s go.

Todd: Um, um, a scene. Yeah. I mean,

Clip: hey Dad, you must have jumped this thing about 50 Yard. That’s nothing to be proud of. Ruy Yards.

Todd: I don’t think I’m going to, um. Surprise anybody with my favorite scene? Okay, because I’m definitely going to American President and I’m certainly not gonna play the whole thing, but I’m gonna play this part of it.

Clip: Ever taken the fight to reverse the effects of global warming? The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I’m throwing it out. I’m throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense,

Cathy: make it make sense. You

Clip: cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and [00:51:00] handguns.

Clip: I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right and I’m gonna get the guns. Oof, we’ve got serious problems. We need serious people. And if you wanna talk about character, Bob, you better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card.

Clip: If you wanna talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when and I’ll show up. This is a time for serious people. Bob and your 15 minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd and I am the president.

Cathy: He’s got goosebumps. He’s sounding like Gavin Newsom.

Todd: Um, so I think that’s everybody’s favorite scene in the movie.

Todd: I could be wrong. Um, do you, do you want me to go to any scene?

Cathy: No. My favorite scene in the American president is the montage. Um, the montage. The montage. Montage. How do you say? Say it. The montage. Montage. I don’t, it [00:52:00] doesn’t matter. My, some of my, uh, people in my life make fun of the way I say things. JC says, I say milk, weird and eggs.

Cathy: Oh, she’s like the way I say eggs and you say, I say hamburger. Weird

Todd: hamburger. You like to stress the burger more. I don’t even know which montage. So

Cathy: the montage when they’re kind of like falling in love and they’re like showing the background of what’s going on in politics and they’re showing them together and remember his daughter’s playing her trombone and they’re like clapping.

Cathy: Yeah. And then they’re going on a date. And so it’s kinda like a montage of them falling in love and being on the phone and everything like that. It’s kind of a cheesy Okay. Typical eighties, nineties montage. Right. Um, I like that. And then it’s very similar. I guess I’m a montage gal because I also like the learning to be President Montage and Dave.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: You know, like where he does the, I caught a fish this big. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody that part. Um, you know, and he’s just learning all the mannerisms and has funny moments and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it sell, you know, it helps us get invested. So those are my favorite scenes. All

Todd: [00:53:00] right. I wanna find the bit, the, this big thing, but I can’t find it.

Cathy: The fish this big,

Todd: the fish. Yeah. It’s kind of a funny scene. Okay. Are we ready for the next category? Uh, sure.

Todd: Deep,

Cathy: deep.

Todd: Um, go

Cathy: deep about Dave.

Todd: Uh, why don’t

Cathy: you start, uh, did you have something? I

Todd: don’t think so.

Cathy: Okay. Well, you just, I just, I’m trying to keep these simple ’cause I can go on and on. Yeah. And I do not stay on target. Yeah. As you would say. Um, so stay on target. So I’m trying to bullet point my idea. I love bullet points.

Cathy: I know. So let’s just talk about authenticity. Right. A big part of Dave Gen X lessons is about be genuine, be yourself. And if you’re yourself, you know, being decent and honest and empathetic, um, you know you’re gonna win. Right? You’re gonna win. If you’re Luke Skywalker, [00:54:00] you’re gonna win for Gen X, it’s like coming out of the Reagan bush politics into, you know.

Cathy: The idea of our favorite bands selling out, you know, and how sad we all are. And then we’re like, it’s our fantasy about authenticity and being real and not being cynical anymore and everything. So I think that’s a big part of being Gen X. Some people in Gen X are still very cynical. Yeah. And we still have cynicism in us.

Cathy: We speak cynicism, but this was a time of like shifting that a little bit and, but at the same time we had, we developed, or maybe it trickled down to us as skepticism in institutions. Um, you know, the idea that we would even buy that, you know, I conspiracies were kind of becoming a thing. Yeah. If they weren’t already, um, you know, that we would buy, that a man could actually come in and be a doppelganger and, you know.

Cathy: Become the president of the United States. I was actually just reading a book, [00:55:00] um, about nineties women, like nineties famous women. And one story about Avril Levine is that she, and again, that’s music I know and not politics, but there’s this whole Reddit belief, Reddit meaning, you know, that app that Avril Levine when she had Lyme disease and was like, not.

Cathy: Around a lot. Yeah. That she actually died. Oh, wow. And that this woman named Melissa took her place and is now living as Avril Levine. And that’s why Avril Levine’s so different and you know, has different music. Instead of believing Avril Levine actually grew up and started singing different kinds of songs.

Cathy: There’s a belief that Melissa is, and, and that’s like very it, the theory, gee, I know it is. And it’s a little, you know, it’s definitely Gen X. I mean, Avril Levine is a little more millennial as far as people who liked her. Yeah. But it’s that kind of belief that we think that those things happen. Right. You know?

Cathy: Um. And, you know, the last part of Dave that I [00:56:00] think is important is that ordinary people matter. I think that, and not everyone in Gen X believes this, um, you know, there’s a lot of people who are just, you know, this is kind of depending on your political affiliation a little bit, but that, you know, an everyday person can come in and make a big change.

Cathy: Sure. Right. It’s kind of our, um, optimistic belief that ordinary people can make a difference and they can, that’s true. But there’s also a lot of obstacles to that. Sure. Um, and then the American president, that’s all about balancing, um, idealism with compromise. Right? We have to, I like the idea of being idealistic.

Cathy: JC and I just went out to, um, eat a little bit ago, a few days ago when we were talking about politics. And because of her age, she’s 22, she’s still very much like, especially around things around the war, very much like, this is right, this is wrong. And I love black, black, black and white thinking. Yes. Even though she is an expansive thinking thinker in the big picture, I think she’s not, she’s not, she doesn’t get stuck on [00:57:00] things.

Cathy: But there’s still this feeling of, we all know this is wrong, so let’s just not do it. And when you get older, you just understand all the history and why things are the way they are and how you can’t just make a sudden shift and everybody globally is gonna be okay with that. Yeah. Like the, these are things my dad tried to explain to me that I was like, whatever.

Cathy: Um, and I have, I now understand it hasn’t really shifted my political viewpoint very much. I just have a better understanding of how things go down. Um, you know, like just that words matter. I think something that. You know, that’s important to me. My love language is words. Um, I listen to what people say, I take them at their word, and I don’t mean I about promises.

Cathy: I mean, the words people use mean a lot to me. Like, how are you saying this? And I like the written word and. I, I think that that’s a big part of the American president, especially because Aaron Sorkin wrote it. Like, what kind of speeches are you gonna give? What are you gonna say? What are you gonna [00:58:00] stand up for?

Cathy: What do you mean? You know what I mean? Instead of being cryptic, like politics is so cryptic. Like politics is all about having a, uh, you know, a soundbite that you say no matter what someone says to you, you switch it and you say a soundbite. It’s why it’s so grading to watch any kind of interview of a politician, because they’re never gonna say anything off the cuff.

Todd: I know, I miss Tim Russer.

Cathy: Me too. Oh my God. Tim Russer. Tim Russer

Todd: got me. He got me interested. So for if you’re young and you’re like, who the hell is Tim Russert? He was, I’m sure he did a lot of things. I met him as the moderator of Meet the Press on NBC on Sunday mornings, and he. Lovingly just held politicians’ feet to the fire.

Todd: Sure did. And really did not let them off the hook, but in a very kind way. He was a good

Cathy: man. He was a good man. And he was smart. Yeah. And he knew his stuff. So you’re not going to, and I don’t think he cared as much about that. I mean, of course he probably cared about how he was perceived, but you [00:59:00] didn’t feel like he was social climbing.

Todd: Yeah. Um,

Cathy: so, um, are you playing something or can I keep, keep going. I

Todd: was gonna play just a little Tim Russer ’cause I love just, I just want to hear his voice a little bit. Okay. Let’s hear Tim.

Clip: More challenging job I ever dreamt of. Uh, I signed a 12 year contract with NBC, which is unheard of. People say you’re in television, you should play the market.

Clip: I just missed his voice.

Todd: He was so calm. He was a good man. I think he was a Buffalo Bills fan for some reason. I don’t know why I know that. So he died abruptly? Yeah, he died all of a sudden. He was young. He was probably like in his fifties. I know. And we’re in our fifties. Yikes. I know.

Cathy: Um, so, you know, for Gen X, for us, you know, the MTV generation, we grew up on irony and all these sound bites and everything.

Cathy: Um, it’s just a reminder that words matter and that we and, and Aaron Sorkin loved. To have a good speech written. You know what I mean? He loved it. He was very good

Clip: at it.

Cathy: The things I think about, um, oh, I didn’t [01:00:00] inc include, oh, it’s because we did movies. I was gonna say, I didn’t include this speech, but if anybody has seen the newsroom, uh, which he wrote, you know, there’s this speech that Jeff, um, flap flap, what’s his, Jeff, why Daniels Gives About America.

Cathy: And I remember listening to it ’cause it was before all of this Trump era stuff. It was like, you know, prior it’s decade and more ago where he, someone says, stands up and asks him like, why are we the greatest country in America? Or something like that. And he gives all these stats that demonstrate were not, and I remember being like, whoa.

Cathy: Like I had never heard that before. Like obviously part of me knew that. Um, but the way that he. Shares it so clearly. And Sorkin has a thing about speed. You have to like be really quick. Like you don’t slow down.

Clip: Yeah.

Cathy: Um, he makes people do many, many takes as we’ve talked about with, um, the social network.

Cathy: It was directed by Fincher, but Aaron Sorkin wrote it and there’s like all these things about that, that opening scene [01:01:00] of, um, Jesse Eisenberg and, uh, Rooney Mara. They filmed it like 92 times, just like keep going faster, faster. Do you have the newsroom thing?

Clip: I do. Okay. Play it. It costs boats, it costs airtime and column inches.

Clip: You know why people don’t like liberals? ’cause they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, can they lose a goddamn always? Hey, and with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star. Spangled awesome. That we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom. Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom.

Clip: The uk, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. So 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of ’em have freedom. Alright? And yet you, uh, sorority girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. And one of them is there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world.

Clip: We’re seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy 170 eighth in infant mortality. And on

Todd: and on, on and on and on. I dunno why there’s an

Clip: echo. [01:02:00] That’s not

Todd: a good audio clip, but you good enough? So

Cathy: yeah, so I remember hearing that and being like, oh my God. And it’s like just things, you know, it’s the truth.

Cathy: Was that a good show? I never watched it. I didn’t either. Why didn’t we watch? I just know that clip. I don’t know. I don’t, in

Todd: 2014. I dunno.

Cathy: Yeah. Two years before things really changed. Are we

Todd: ready for parental guidance? Um,

Cathy: sure.

Clip: Like you,

Todd: um, so there’s not much parenting going on in this movie. It just didn’t, but yeah, there’s no kids. I just wanna Oh sweetie. Bite your tongue. Don’t forget about our friend. Aw, the sweetie pie with her trombone.

Clip: Sounds good. That’s progressive. I’ll say, dad, what’s wrong with Sydnee? Did you guys have a fight or something?

Clip: What do you mean? I mean, she seemed pretty mad. You saw her? Yeah. She’s here. Where in your room, dad, why is she mad? Don’t worry about it, honey. Were you a dork? Practice your music. You know, if you were a dork, you should [01:03:00] say you’re sorry. Girls like that.

Todd: Remember li remember you dork. A dork. Dork used to be such a heavily used word.

Todd: What hap berk. Be a doric. I’m gonna use that today.

Cathy: You know what, there’s this great thing on TikTok where this guy, I think a lot of people do this ’cause everyone copies from each other. They’ll, they’ll put up foursquares and it’ll be like, um, you know, gen, alpha gen, uh, millennials, whatever they are, gen Y, and then Gen X and you know, boomers or whatever, and they’ll put up what the different words that we have that really mean the same thing.

Cathy: Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, the word we used was awesome. And like there were like they say, bro, yeah. Right. And we or bro, or you know, little bro. And we say, I still say dude Yeah. To people all the time. I’m like, dude, he’d say, dude, no, I’m, that’s my point is like, that’s a Gen X word. Awesome. Iss a Gen X word.

Cathy: You know, these are things that we say that we still include in our vocabulary and it means the same thing as bro. Hmm. Because it’s just us [01:04:00] saying, come on, like, you know, we’re saying, Hey dude, but we’re also just saying like, dude, like, oh my gosh. So anyway, I love those little clips that people do. I wish maybe you could find one.

Cathy: Do you, are you looking for it?

Todd: Well, I’m just, I’m just asking Chet GPT to gimme the equivalence to the word dork, but it’s not really coming up with anything. Good.

Cathy: Did Dork did that also, like if you’re a dork, I know what it means. It’s like you’re being a jerk. But there was some, is there any sexual kind of in the door?

Cathy: Yeah, I think was a penis. That’s what I thought too. Which is, makes it interesting that there’s

Todd: a word

Cathy: called simp.

Todd: Uh, it’s a Gen Z word. Yeah. Simp. Not exactly dork, but sometimes using some playful, endearing, ribbing way.

Cathy: Simp like, um, you’re, I, when I hear simp, I think like, you are like a beta, you’re like a, you’re, you know, I don’t know.

Cathy: Uh,

Todd: it’s definitely not positive. Anything else on parenting?

Cathy: Um, just that my, again, bullets really quick. Um, our generation real is better than perfect. You know, both characters. The, um, [01:05:00] Dave and Andrew Shepherd. Not perfect people, but we appreciate that. We appreciate their flaws, um, that we should question authority.

Cathy: Um, but we should stay engaged, um, to be skeptical of politics, but to not walk away. These are things we’re teaching our children, is what I’m saying. Um, and that this is a big one that people debate a lot. The personal is political. There’s nothing that’s not political. Whenever anyone’s like, I can’t believe you’re politicizing this, or you’re being political here, what.

Cathy: Isn’t political.

Clip: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: Because any rights, anything that we’re concerned about in the country, anything that’s going on with our family, anything that we don’t have access to, not making enough money, not getting a job, um, worrying about our communities, a school board. It’s all political. And so I don’t like that debate.

Cathy: Um, and I try to, you know, just talk about that any, all of our private choices are political. I’m being told I can’t do things as a woman.

Clip: Yeah. You

Cathy: know what I mean? Yeah. Because I’m a woman. [01:06:00] Um, and so raising our children with an awareness of fairness and gender and justice at home, um, because that’s how they take it into the world.

Cathy: So that’s all I

Todd: got. I, I have a generational map. Okay. Let’s hear of slang. Okay. So the idea is cool. What we used was rad or wicked. We did not sweetie. We Cool. We said rad. Sometimes he never said rad, but go on. Uh, millennials say on Flee. Yeah. And Gen Zs say fire lit or drip.

Cathy: Definitely.

Todd: Uh, lame to the idea of lame.

Todd: We used bogus or dweeb.

Cathy: I feel like this is Gen X.

Todd: Like do Right. Are you telling me you never use the word bogus?

Cathy: I said bogus, but I also said lame.

Todd: That’s so lame. I know. But sweetie lame is the idea on this chart. I thought you meant that was like a different generation. Like No, no. Lame. The, the idea is lame.

Todd: Okay, lame. And I’ve given you the three words. Got it. So the idea is lame. Lame. Gen X says bogus. We did, we did say bogus. Millennials say [01:07:00] fail or lame, whatever. Okay. And then Gen Z says cringe or NPC. What’s N pc? I dunno. Uh, friend. So the idea is friend. We would say homeboy or homegirl

Cathy: did not

Todd: millennials.

Todd: I don’t

Cathy: like this

Todd: as my homeboy.

Cathy: You did not. Sweetie. Stay sweetie Boy. As my homeboy.

Todd: I have never heard you say that. Millennials say B Fff. Yeah. And Jen C says fam.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: Fam

Cathy: or gang.

Todd: The next one is to agree. We would say totally

Cathy: right? I say totally all the time.

Todd: Millennials said Cool beans. Then Gen Z says, bet or no cap.

Cathy: Correct? Um, I would say, I say more now.

Todd: Totes, totes, magos.

Cathy: I don’t, I say totally, but if I’m texting and someone’s like, oh my God, can you believe this? I’m like, totes.

Todd: All right. I’m gonna, I’m gonna quiz you now. What would so, so boy say, oh boy. Oh, I say homeboy all the time. The idea of attractive. We said, I’m not even gonna quiz you.

Todd: We

Cathy: say hot.

Todd: [01:08:00] Um, actually we said fox.

Cathy: Oh my god.

Todd: No, sweetie. She’s a fox.

Cathy: I said fox when I was like in elementary school. Yeah. And you’re Gen X. Okay. We did say fox.

Todd: Um, they say hot or sexy. The mo the, the millennials.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: And Gen Zs say snack or Riz.

Cathy: Correct.

Todd: What’s snack?

Cathy: Like? The, they’ll say like, oh my gosh, that’s, he’s a total snack.

Todd: Just like to, to show off. They say we would strut.

Cathy: Sure.

Todd: Uh, millennials say bling.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: And, and Gen Z says flex or drip.

Cathy: Sure. Do you remember the song Strut by Sheena Easton? I

Todd: do. I think I remember that video.

Cathy: I don’t remember the video, but I remember the

Todd: song. Wasn’t that part of a commercial too?

Cathy: No, I don’t think so.

Cathy: Yeah, play a little bit of that. She, and did I say Sheila Easton or Sheena Easton? It’s the same thing. No, it’s not. Sheila E is one person, Sheena Easton.[01:09:00]

Cathy: I guess we were using strut. See, sweetie, I didn’t say it. I didn’t say homeboy and I didn’t say dweeb. So you didn’t say homeboy? You said homegirl. I never While your BFFs I didn’t say, I didn’t say rad. I said cool

Todd: sweetie. You’re too cool to use. Rad.

Cathy: I did say bogus.

Todd: Yeah,

Cathy: but that’s so bogus. Um, I, but I say dood a

Todd: lot.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: And, okay. Are there any more in there?

Todd: No, that’s all I, that’s it. Oh, it’s, I mean, we went through it. I’m kind of You’re done with it. Yeah. Let’s move on.

Cathy: Okay. So now we’re doing cringe Classic.

Todd: Um,

Clip: nobody puts K me in the corner.

Todd: Nobody. No. Um, what do you got? I kind of, uh, none of this, neither of these two. They’re, they’re both classics. They’re classics. No doubt about it. Period. Um, did you do best quote or no? I do. I have best quote for both. All right. Let me, uh,

Clip: may the force be with you. May the force be with you.

Clip: May the force be with you. May the fool be with [01:10:00] you.

Todd: May

Clip: the force

Todd: be with

Clip: you.

Todd: All

Cathy: right. Okay. So do you have best quotes? You go

Clip: first.

Cathy: Okay. So for Dave, um, my favorite quote that I like to get to, it’s like in that scene that we’re talking about, like balancing the budget, um, with the first guy, you know, who he’s like trying to get him to cut back on the marketing budget for cars, and he says, do you wanna tell the American people they can feel good about a car they already have?

Clip: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: And then the guy’s like, no, I guess I don’t, it’s just a good like wake up call. Like, why are we spending all this money on making sure people feel good about the car they’ve already bought? Right. Okay. Then my one from the American president, which I’m sure is the one you have as well. Are you ready?

Cathy: Um, uh, I think I’m ready. Okay. Am I supposed to have something queued up? You don’t have to. Okay. But it’s from Louis, uh, Rothchild. Okay. Played by Michael J. Fox. And it’s a pretty famous Sorkin, you know, soliloquy. You ready? Sure. Go ahead. People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence [01:11:00] of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone.

Cathy: They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it. They’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand. I mean, is that not true? That is, we got a serious mirage going on right now, and people are drinking sand. You know, if someone, it’s like a very interesting, people just want to follow, they want someone, and the thing is, is they either follow because they’re afraid.

Cathy: They follow because they feel hopeful and both of them are strong. I feel like we just talked about hope and fear. Maybe I wrote about it this week on my substack, I can’t remember. But they both are a very powerful influence. And you some people use fear and really twist it and make people think if they don’t follow this person, that they’re in trouble when really it’s the other way around.

Cathy: Um,

Todd: I think I have

Cathy: it coming up.

Todd: I’m not sure.

Clip: 4 million people don’t give a damn about your life. They give a [01:12:00] damn about their own. Alright, that’s enough. Mr. President, you’ve raised a daughter almost entirely on your own, and she’s terrific. So what does this say to you that in the past seven weeks, 59% of this country has begun to question your family values?

Clip: The president doesn’t answer to you, Louis. Oh, yes he does. Aj, I’m a citizen. This is my president. And in this country, it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it’s our responsibility. But you already know that, don’t you, Mr. President? Because you have a deeper love of this country than any man I’ve ever known, and I wanna know what it says to you that in the past seven weeks, 59% of Americans have begun to question your patriotism.

Clip: Look, if people wanna listen to Bill, they have a choice. Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking. People want leadership. Mr. President, in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it. They’ll [01:13:00] crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.

Clip: Lewis, we have had presidents who are beloved rock solid.

Cathy: Yeah. I mean he’s, and this is the part that makes it difficult, like that conversation I was having with jc, like, this is a movie. I know, but it’s reflecting something real here he is. He is a good president. He’s doing his best. He’s a genuine person.

Cathy: He’s raising a daughter on his own and he is just trying to go out on dates. Right. He’s trying to date a woman who’s very upstanding, lovely human being. And because of the way it’s getting, like talked about in the press, he, 59% of people don’t think he has good family values anymore. It’s a, it’s a game.

Clip: Yeah. Of

Cathy: trying to figure out how to be genuine within a system that can be duped into thinking you’re something else.

Todd: Your quote is definitely better than mine, but this is when they started asking him about Sidney, Ellen Wade, after they just dropped the bomb on a, on a embassy or something like that.

Todd: Okay.

Clip: [01:14:00] Sir, would you kinda a comment on the status of your relationship. We don’t have a relationship. We just had dinner. Thank you. Could you tell us if she spent the night at the White House or folks? A lot of people were killed last night. Let’s try to keep our eye on the ball. Okay. Thank you. Boom.

Cathy: Yep.

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: Okay. Are we ready for the next category?

Cathy: Yep. Uh, music game.

Todd: Oh, music game.

Cathy: That

Clip: song.

Todd: I’m a little worried that I might not win this week’s music game. I wanna win. I think I’ll win. Mine is a little silly. Okay. And I’m pulling it up right now. I think most Gen Xers,

Cathy: you’re coming up with it or you’re pulling it up?

Todd: Uh, no, I already have it. Oh, you have it. I need to pull it up. Okay. Uh, most Gen Xers are familiar with this.

Clip: Just a bill. Yes. I’m only a bill and I’m sitting here on Capitol [01:15:00] Hill. Well, it’s a long, long journey to the Capitol City. It’s a long, long wait. All right. Sitting here, that’s a good

Todd: one. It’s kind of silly. Not necessarily the best song, but certainly appropriate for Dave and the American President.

Cathy: I hope and pray that I will, but today I am still just a bail.

Todd: Uh, what do you got?

Cathy: I chose a song called Peace Train. Ooh. But not by Cat. Stevens By 10,000 Maniacs. Oh, okay. Because I started listening to this song around this time in the early nineties. Maybe it was more like 91, 92, but it was in this time, and I love 10,000 Maniacs, and this is a great song that talks about.

Cathy: Wanting to have a country that is run by someone like Andrew Shepherd or Dave.[01:16:00]

Todd: Um, I love anything that Natalie Merchant does forget about. It

Cathy: Isn’t that great version of that song.

Todd: So I’m gonna tip my hat to you, sweetie. I think you beat me.

Cathy: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I loved yours too. Really frustrating. But it is a really good song. So I don’t think yours is a song.

Todd: Uh, well it is sweetie.

Todd: Bite your

Cathy: tongue. It is, it’s schoolhouse rock, but it’s not it, we don’t usually use that in the music game. Yeah, we’re usually going for a song. Alright. Um,

Clip: I’m

Cathy: nervous. Are you?

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: Um, don’t be nervous. Okay. No, no reason to be nervous. All right. Uh, let me see if I can find it. I think I put it in the Dave document.

Todd: Um, what does Dave have before being? What, what job does Dave have before being recruited to impersonate the president?

Cathy: He worked at a temp agency, which I did as well. I could relate to Dave. That was my first job. Like Dave.

Todd: I know. What kind of activity do Dave and Ellen do together? That rekindles their connection?

Todd: What kind of work do they do together? What, [01:17:00] what activity do they do? They

Cathy: go get ice cream.

Todd: Uh, they like go for a drive? Nope. They’re doing kind of a official thing where there’s reporters. Oh,

Cathy: with the kids? Yes, they’re doing the homeless shelter. Very

Todd: good. Who directed Dave?

Cathy: Uh, Dave was directed by Ivan Wrightman.

Cathy: Very

Todd: good. Which famous reporter appears as a White House reporter and Dave, uh, Helen. Helen, what’s her name? Maybe there’s many. But my answer here is Bob Woodward. Is he in the movie?

Cathy: Yeah. But also Helen, what The woman who is like, who was in the, um, the, the Press Corps for the longest amount of time.

Cathy: Helen’s something. She’s in it too. Okay. And they make a, he says hello to her and everything. Oh, nice. So I think,

Todd: um, how does Bob Alexander get exposed at the end of the movie? Uh,

Cathy: sweetie, you know what? You did not play what it’s beginning to like. I know I

Todd: play that.

Cathy: Okay. Um, what, say that again

Todd: now. How does Bob Alexander get exposed at the end of the [01:18:00] movie?

Cathy: Uh, let’s see. So Dave gives a speech and talks about how Bob Alexander signed off on all the illegal stuff that they did together.

Todd: The savings and loans scandal, sweetie. Yeah.

Cathy: That they tried to blame on the vice president who was Gandhi.

Todd: Yes. I mean, not literally. Gandhi was not No,

Cathy: but the guy who played

Todd: Benton Kingsley.

Todd: Ben Kingsley. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of like, what the hell is he doing? He’s like, uh, didn’t he get an an Academy Award?

Cathy: I don’t think he had done Gandhi yet.

Todd: Oh, of course he did. I he did. I saw Gandhi when I was a little kid.

Cathy: Oh, really?

Todd: Yeah, I fell asleep.

Cathy: Well, maybe it’s just a good, like what a perfect person to play the Noble.

Cathy: Right. You know? Yeah. Role. ’cause the vice president’s a good man. Remember? He is like, is he a good man? He’s a very good man.

Todd: Um, in the closing moments of Dave, what new job does he take after leaving the White House?

Cathy: Well, he doesn’t have a job, but he is running for like a, like a local councilman

Todd: city council.

Todd: Very good. Which actress plays the White House Tour guide in Dave?

Cathy: We’re walking, we’re walking. We’re stopping. It’s

Todd: Bonnie Hunt. Very good. From Chicago.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: What policy does, we’re [01:19:00] going over to the American president now. What policy does Sidney push that causes political controversy? Uh, environmental bill.

Todd: Yeah, missions bill. Um, the song, what song is playing when Shepherd Dances with Sidney at the state Dinner? I don’t remember. It’s called, I have Dreamed From the King and I Oh, I didn’t know. What instrument does, uh, Lucy play? Trombone. What flowers does Andrew Shepherd famously order for Sydnee?

Cathy: Doesn’t he order her like a Georgia something like a, this might be wrong, something from a home

Todd: state.

Todd: It says roses, but I feel like is a Dogwood or something. I feel like Dogwood is somewhere in there.

Cathy: Yeah, he, I think he tried to do some, I don’t remember. Yeah.

Todd: What happens to Shepherd’s approval rating after his romance with Sidney. So how low does his approval rating go? It goes low. Well need something a little more specific.

Cathy: Lewis was just saying it dropped by 59% or something. I don’t remember.

Todd: It drops into the thirties.

Cathy: Wow. That’s low. Come on. That’s ridiculous.

Todd: That’s why it’s a good movie. Okay. [01:20:00] Um, how old is Lucy? 12. Very good. Sydney works for which organization? She’s a lobbyist for the

Cathy: environmental people. I don’t

Todd: know.

Todd: Global Defense Council, sweetie. Oh,

Cathy: that’s really specific. I know. Um, global Defense. GDC. Very good. Yeah. Well, they call it that through the movie. I didn’t, anyway, keep going. Uh,

Todd: very good. I get the acronym American President was nominated for how many Golden Globes? Five. Oh Jesus. How’d you know that?

Cathy: Because it was in my, uh, set the scene.

Todd: Um, what does Shepherd say when criticized for ordering flowers for Sydney? Uh, I don’t know. He says it’s just flowers. Bob and Roses at that. Oh, so he did get her roses? Yeah. Um, what famous actress was considered for Sydnee before Annette Benning? I’ll give you a hint.

Todd: Bill Simmons really likes her. Michelle Pfeiffer. Very good. Um, that’s a dumb one. This one you’re not gonna get. Okay. What foreign leader attends the opening [01:21:00] state dinner?

Cathy: The Fran French guy.

Todd: What’s his name?

Cathy: French guy.

Todd: Rene Jean Labu.

Cathy: Because Annette Benning or Sydney can speak French, so

Todd: she talks about she can, she crushes it.

Cathy: She’s like, he’s getting bored.

Todd: Yes.

Cathy: Um, that’s all I got. Any parting thoughts? No, but this was fun. This was Todd and I kinda came up with this one outta the blue. Like this wasn’t on our original list and I really liked it. So if there’s something, speaking of if you’re listening to this point, then you must like this show.

Clip: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: So if you have a movie or an idea, just email us, uh, Zen Pop Parenting. You can go to the website or you can go to Kathy at Zen pop parenting.com or Todd at Zen pop parenting parenting.com and tell us what you want us to talk about.

Todd: Um, and Team Zen restoring our girls and already said it all. I know, sweetie.

Todd: But sometimes you have to tell people and then you have to remind them

Cathy: reminder,

Todd: because people aren’t remembering what we said.

Cathy: I know.

Todd: An hour and 19 minutes. I just don’t like to sell again. I do. I don’t like marketing. Let’s [01:22:00] just, I buy a book. Sign up for her Substack and join. Repeat that. And we’re gonna close out with some more of sweet’s.

Todd: Peace train.

Todd: Together.

Round two. Change a little bit. And change a little bit. Pretty pleasant.