Today’s Flop Story!

TOMORROW NIGHT is the premiere of Flop TV season 2! We’re kicking off our “Worst of the Best” season about questionable Best Picture winners with one of the most controversial picks of recent years: GREEN BOOK! Stuart will be hosting, Elliott will be doing an “educational” presentation, and Dan will be filing a special video report, in addition to all the movie talk and chatting with the (virtual) audience. Please join us by picking up an individual ticket or season pass here!

Who are you wearing?

Smalltember (Elliott: VEMBER) Cometh!

The smallest time of the year arrives tomorrow with our first Smalltember ‘26 selection (see listings below), and we’ve got small movie fever! Which is fortunately non-fatal and highly treatable!

Aficionados of Flop House lore know that Dan’s the one who most lives the bad movie lifestyle outside of the show, taking part in a weekly online bad movie night with his sicko movie nerd pals. It was a tradition started during covid lockdown, and they’re now well past 300 screenings in total (though Dan wasn’t there for ALL of those, don’t worry — he does have other stuff in his life).

Why do we bring it up? Well, because Dan suggested both of The Flop House’s Smalltember selections this year from the pool of recent Bad Movie Night picks. That way we could ensure pre-vetted weirdo crap of only the highest quality. USDA grade F-minus stuff (but in a good way).

Because the BMN crew are S-tier weirdo movie nerds, with an unreasonable passion for wasting time, they do an awards show every 100 screenings, with highlight clips from those 100 movies, and they vote on the five top movies of that last chunk (the Best of the Worst, unlike this year’s FlopTV) to screen in a two-night encore presentation.

So for funzies — if you’re looking for some bad movie recommendations beyond the two Smalltember picks this year, here are the top vote-getters from the most recent BMN awards (the 201-300 chunk) for your consideration, along with a brief synopsis and Dan’s letterboxd logs for each. Not all of these are BAD per se (when you do weekly bad movies, sometimes one that’s merely “weird” sneaks in as a treat), but they all have something offbeat or delightful.

#5 - MUTANT HUNT - “In New York City sometime in the near future, Z, the evil chairman of the Inteltrax Corporation, has taken a small army of cyborgs designed to perform hazardous tasks and altered them to kill humans for pleasure.”

Dan sez: Imagine it's 1987 and you see a VHS box for something called "Mutant Hunt." It's got a muscle man, a sexy lady, and a big stretchy mutant. This is close to the best case scenario of the movie young you is imagining. (4 stars)

#4 - IN GRAMPS’ SHOES - CONTENT WARNING: Christian ultra-conservative nuttiness. 

“After 20 years of praying for his daughter to let him back into her life, a 65-year-old Ty gets his wish when the prodigal requests his help in dealing with a financial bind and her rebellious teenage son.”

Dan sez: Slightly more tolerable than Gramps Goes to College, because it’s a bit lighter on specific terrible political views in favor of more general scenes of Gramps’ insufferable Christian judgement of his family.

There’s some funny stuff in here for the bad movie sickos — particularly the way people keep commenting on how young-looking and fit Gramps is (you won’t be surprised to learn that the lead actor is also the screenwriter, the way this script idolizes Gramps), and also the way the energy/dialogue between Gramps and his daughter and granddaughter always feels flirtatious. 

I was amused, but even with my totally whimsical “my star ratings are a reflection of my enjoyment” system, I can’t give this more than half a star, just because Gramps is the most insufferable asshole in all of cinema.

At least in this one Gramps…

Well. I don’t want to spoil it. But when Gramps had his final scene, I felt a lot of joy. (half a star)

#3 - YES, GIORGIO - “A famous opera singer, Giorgio Fini, loses his voice during an American tour. He goes to a female throat specialist, Pamela Taylor, whom he falls in love with.”

Dan sez: The heartwarming, romantic tale of an international opera star who wants to cheat on his wife.

Quietly demented. Come for this movie's conviction that Luciano Pavarotti makes the whole world want to drop its panties. Stay for the hot hot air balloon action. 

(Watched for Bad Movie Night -- shoutout to S. Fensom. A really special pick.) (3 stars)

#2 - A STRANGER IN THE MIRROR - CONTENT WARNING: sexual assault

“A naive young woman arrives in Hollywood to become a star, but after she gets drugged and raped during a shoot, she hardens quickly and catches the eye of a popular womanizing comedian who introduces her to his shady powerful agent.”

Dan sez: An absurdly-trashy bad (TV) movie delight, filled with melodramatic twists and turns, but none bigger than when I went to Wikipedia and discovered that the book this was based on was a roman à clef for Erin Fleming and GROUCHO FUCKING MARX.

*cw for a brief scene of sexual assault -- would rate this higher, but the victim winds up getting punished by life in un-fun ways that undermined the gleeful joy of the melodrama, but it's still quite something. (3 stars)

#1 - BINGO - “A dog named Bingo escapes a circus and befriends a young boy named Chuckie. When Chuckie’s family moves away and leaves Bingo behind, the brave canine sets off on a perilous cross-country trek to reunite with his friend, overcoming countless obstacles—including dangerous criminals and his own fear of fire.”

Dan sez: A parody of boy and his dog movies disguised as a regular boy and his dog movie. 

I think Bingo probably confused some people with its straight-faced affect. It's packed with absurd heightenings of the usual kiddie animal comedy stuff, but it plays them straight down the middle. That gives the movie a very weird tone, but I appreciate the commitment to its specific oddball vision. 

I wish I could rate it higher, but even with a hero as cute as Bingo, there's only so many scenes of mute dog antics I can take before my mind wanders. I need some human actors in the mix to shoulder the weight; so, to me, the most effective comic scenes were the ones with Kurt Fuller as a blasé crook, or (especially) David Rasche as the logical comic endpoint of a "no dogs in MY house" movie dad -- blithely and loudly domineering to such a degree that it almost feels like a joke that people aren't constantly talking about what an asshole he is. 

In case you're dubious that something a little extra is happening here -- the director, Matthew Robbins, helmed a bunch of other movies with minor cult followings (Dragonslayer, Batteries Not Included, and The Legend of Billie Jean) and wrote pictures including Mimic, Crimson Peak, and The Sugarland Express. 

He's not your normal kid's film hack. This isn't your normal dog movie. Bingo isn't your normal dog. Driving a car isn't even in the top 5 most impressive things he can do. You'll see. (3 stars)

—

And some runners-up for your further “enjoyment” — The Astrologer, The Carpenter, C.H.O.M.P.S., Robot Jox, and Black Scorpion

A tribute to the magnetic sexual power of Pavarotti.

Next on the Podcast

9/5 - We confront our fear of movies that exist at the far mountains of madness with an episode about the truly strange low-budget oddity, SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEAR. It’s about a surfer, who’s a teen, who confronts fear. But also so much more.

9/12 - Elliott BLASTS OFF with a mini about astronaut movies. What ARE “astronaut movies?”

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS

Elliott just appeared on the Full Moon Features podcast Puppet Masters / Castle Freaks to discuss The Day Time Ended, a picture that was also covered by Mystery Science Theater 3000 during his tenure. Are there behind the scenes stories? You better believe it, buster! And keep an eye out, because Stu and Dan are also gonna be on upcoming episodes!

And if you prefer your Kalan in comics form, his series Barbarian Behind Bars is now collected in a trade paperback edition!

CLASSIC PLUGS

Come see us LIVE at Whirling Tiger in Louisville, KY on Friday, September 18, when we’ll be discussing the Mariah Carey bomb GLITTER, with a special opening treat from Howell Dawdy. Doors open at 7pm, and you can get tickets now!

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author!

Stu does a model painting Twitch stream on Friday afternoons and a play-through of Silent Hill 2 on Monday evenings! Check out his channel!

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a no-context image from Dan’s bit for the upcoming FlopTV episode. Get tix to see it IN context!

Oh the shenanigans!

Today’s Flop Story!

FlopTV is just two weeks away! It’s a season of 6 VIDEO STREAMS, airing live on the first Saturday of each month at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific,from September 2026 to February 2027. You can get tix for individual shows or the whole season! Please join us!

The Flop House Had a Birthday

This past week marked the 19th anniversary of the podcast. To celebrate, Dan and Stu went out to dinner with their wives. Elliott would have been invited too, but he was busy being a traitor to the east coast.

We didn’t put it on the company card this time. You’re WELCOME, Elliott.

Next year, of course, is the BIG anniversary, since it’s a round number and we live in a society where significance is governed by the base 10 mathematical system, but it’s nice to find any reason to celebrate. For the 20th we plan on doing a giant anniversary show (shows?), so keep watching this space for information on that (memo to self: remember to plan a big anniversary show).

If you want to get us a birthday present, please go to iTunes and rate us five stars. I’m serious — we’ve been extremely fortunate to have a show with this kind of longevity, but one problem with doing a show for a long time is it can be much harder for older shows to get attention or attract new listeners to offset those who left along the way. Getting a lot of reviews, especially a bunch all at once causes the algorithm to sit up and listen (or whatever algorithms do). If you like us, but don’t have the $ to be a member right now, this is a genuinely great way to help. Thank you in advance for that kindness.

Anyway, since this is a movie podcast, I thought we’d use this space to look back at 2007 in movies — the year a scrappy little podcast burst onto iTunes with terrible audio recorded from Dan’s PlayStation karaoke microphone.

What were the highest-grossing American films of 2007?

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

3. Spider-Man 3

4 Shrek the Third

5. Transformers

6. Ratatouille

7. I Am Legend

8. The Simpsons Movie

9. National Treasure: Book of Secrets

10. 300   

Not a terrible batch of films overall. Some haven’t aged well due to the creator turning into an evil monster (*cough* Harry Potter) and some were already xenophobic nonsense at the time (yet somehow still one of the better Zack Snyder movies). But as a group, they’re a more varied batch of uber-blockbusters than we get nowadays.

Are there any on this list that maybe we should have covered on the show? Perhaps. Early on in the show’s lifetime I (Dan) was a real stickler for not covering movies I liked, because I didn’t want to besmirch them, but now I’m a lot more open to follow what seems interesting to discuss. As a group of Spider-Man 3 apologists, it might have been fun to make our pro-Spidey 3 arguments on the show.

We probably could have covered Shrek 4, because (sorry, Millennials) I fucking hate Shrek. And we’re GOING to cover Transformers 2007 this year in our bonus content. That boco doesn’t tape until early October, but you’ll see it very soon thereafter.

We never would have covered Book of Secrets, though. That film is a damn national treasure.

Next on the Podcast

8/22 - Star of the Show Hallie Haglund joins us to discuss Charli XCX’s (?)mockumentary/roman a clef/dramedy(?) THE MOMENT. Whatever it is, it’s brat.

8/29 - We’re joined by proprietor of The Gremlins Museum, Ian Grant, to discuss his important work in the field of gremlin preservation (seriously) and the nearly 3-hour restored Gremlins rough cut.

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS

If you can’t get enough of the STAR OF THE SHOW, Ms. Hallie Haglund, you should subscribe to her newsletter, That Hurts My Feelings.

CLASSIC PLUGS

Come see us LIVE at Whirling Tiger in Louisville, KY on Friday, September 18, when we’ll be discussing the Mariah Carey bomb GLITTER, with a special opening treat from Howell Dawdy. Doors open at 7pm, and you can get tickets now!

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author! Also check out his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stu does a model painting Twitch stream on Friday afternoons and a play-through of Silent Hill 2 on Monday evenings! Check out his channel!

“The Novelizers” is a podcast where comedy writers novelize hit movies. They’re doing their first live show in Los Angeles on August 27, and one of the featured bits was written by Dan and will be performed by the brilliantly hilarious Andy Daly. If you’re in town, check it out!

You Made it to the End!

Our friends from The Greatest Trek podcast dropped by Brooklyn recently and made time for a hang. Here’s Stu, Dan, and half of Ben Harrison’s face.

3 goobers.

Today’s Flop Story!

We teased Flop TV last time, and this time it’s a full-on plug! Flop TV Season Four is HERE (well, at least here in “you can now buy tickets” form — it won’t be here here until September). The theme is “The Worst of the Best,” meaning that every film we’ll be discussing won the Academy Award for Best Picture, deservedness be damned!

And, in case you’re joining us late and are wondering “What, exactly, IS a ‘Flop TV’?” allow me to quote from our own copy: FlopTV is a season of SIX MONTHLY VIDEO LIVE STREAMS, featuring your favorite bad movie podcasters in home-brew TV show form! Tune in on the first Saturday of each month at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific,from September 2026 to February 2027, to see us broadcasting live with all-new bad movie shenanigans!

Flop TV - You Guys Put Thought Into This Stuff?

Every year that we’ve done this little adjunct wing we’ve built onto Flop House Manor called Flop TV, we’ve gotten together and asked ourselves, what makes a season of our rinky-dink li’l “TV” show special? We don’t want to just do “Flop House but video.” We want it to be something listeners can get excited about. And that starts by giving each season a cohesive theme.

The first season was simple — what were some oft-referenced, but never fully discussed movies that we could tackle? Stuff we’d turned into punchlines because of funny titles (Hot Dog: The Movie, Hamburger: The Motion Picture), or had been the source of a classic bit (Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time), or just loomed large in our minds because of a hot toon lady (Cool World), etc.

For season two, we thought “We’re doing a sequel — let’s explore some of the worst sequels!” limiting ourselves specifically to the #2s in franchises (or would-be franchises that were killed by… say… the existence of Caddyshack 2).

For season three, we wanted to up the ante by allowing ourselves the freedom to go back in time further than we’d ever gone before. We dubbed it “Flopsterpiece Theater,” and traveled back through six decades, from the 2000’s to the 1950’s, where we took on the grandaddy of “bad movie culture,” Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Season four’s initial inspiration was our bemusement over Best Picture winner Out of Africa. It came out in 1985, so the Peaches are all, sadly, old enough to recall it being a big deal, but what IS it? Beyond Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Africa, what is it ABOUT? It’s left no cultural footprint. Does it actually exist?

Idle jokes about how we’d have to watch it sometime, just to confirm it’s real, turned into Stuart pitching that Flop TV season four should be all Best Picture winners, which seemed like a terrific idea, so we all quickly agreed. Did we feel a certain amount of buyers’ remorse when we realized that — because these are all “prestige” films — only one of this season’s movies is less than two hours long, and most are in the 2.5hr to 2:50 range? Yes. Definitely. Did we consider giving Stuart a wedgie? Perhaps, but have you seen how jacked that guy is?

This year’s slate of films to be discussed:

9/5 - GREEN BOOK

10/3 - THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

11/7 - GLADIATOR

12/5 - CRASH

1/2 - AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

2/6 - OUT OF AFRICA

Are these literally “The Worst of the Best?” No, of course not. Just as sometimes The “Flop” House will cover movies that aren’t true critical or commercial flops, occasionally we prioritize a clever sales pitch over total accuracy. Forgive us. “Some More Controversial and/or Undeserving of Being Literally Named ‘Best’ Movies as Awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” just didn’t feel quite as snappy.

Thus, you’ll see something like “Gladiator” on the list, even though Gladiator is a perfectly fine entertainment. Is it basically just an old-fashioned action revenge film that’s not worth ALL of the accolades? Maybe. The most important thing is, it’ll be fun to discuss!

These are the choices we have to make when planning a season. For instance, there was no way we weren’t gonna do Green Book, perhaps the most controversial winner of recent years. We also were definitely gonna do Crash, one of the most controversial EVER. Suddenly we’re doing two “big statements about racism,” which is arguably two more than three white dudes feel totally comfortable covering anyway. So, even though you could make a case for Driving Miss Daisy (aka: “Reverse Green Book”) we weren’t gonna do that one as well.

We wanted to spread out and not just do newer movies, so we included a couple of classics.The Greatest Show on Earth was a must, as it has emerged as a consensus pick for possibly the most undeserving Best Picture ever. We’ve never seen it, so we’re eager to see if we agree! Back on the exclusion side, we could have made an argument for American Beauty to go in the season, since the combo of Kevin Spacey + sympathetic sex pest protagonist makes it one of the winners that has aged most like milk. But were we really gonna have a fun, funny time pulling on those unpleasant threads? We decided… nah.

So that’s a frank (too frank?) peek behind the curtain at the kinds of choices we make when preparing a Flop TV season. The important thing is that we’re trying to make it fun for us to do and for you to watch, and we’re really excited about the stuff we’ve already been working on. We hope you’ll join us, whether just for a show or the whole season!

Live it. Love it. Laff it.

Next on the Podcast

8/8 - The three original peaches take on LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY, the movie that answers the question, “What if there was a mummy movie, but directed by Lee Cronin?”

8/15 - Stuart takes us on a trip to The Peach Pit, everyone’s favorite podcast about the podcast The Flop House, hosted by the hosts of The Flop House. Also HALLIE joins us, for reasons that make a lot more sense once you realize that she stuck around after taping a main episode that releases after these ones.

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS

On Saturday, August 15th, Stuart will be moderating a panel at FLAMECON, the world’s largest queer comic con! The panel is a retrospective on the Adventure Zone graphic novel series with guests Carey Pietsch, Ben Wilgus and Calista Brill. Tickets and more info here!

If you can’t get enough of Stu’s Twitch streams, good news! In addition to his usual model painting stream, he’s started playing through Silent Hill 2 for your amusement! Check out his channel on Monday, 6-8pm ET!

“The Novelizers” is a podcast where comedy writers novelize hit movies (but, y’know, in a funny way) and then their “chapters” are read by comedians and actors. They’re doing their first live show in Los Angeles on August 27, and one of the featured bits was written by Dan and will be performed by the brilliantly hilarious Andy Daly. If you’re in town, go check it out!

Final judgements day.

CLASSIC PLUGS

Come see us LIVE at Whirling Tiger in Louisville, KY on Friday, September 18, when we’ll be discussing the Mariah Carey bomb GLITTER, with a special opening treat from Howell Dawdy. Doors open at 7pm, and you can get tickets now!

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author! Hey, that’s him! The author is him! Also check out his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a peek at some shenanigans on the FH text chain.

We do have fun, don’t we folks?

Today’s Flop Story!

See the email headline! We’re coming back, baby! FlopTV will return on its now-regular schedule of 9pm ET/6pm pt on the first Saturday of every month, September thru February! More details and a ticket link still to come, but we CAN tell you that the theme this year will be Worst of the Best! We’ll be discussing some of the less critically beloved Best Picture Winners in Academy Awards history! We hope you’ll join us for another season of dumb hijinks!

Chill out Poe. Just get tickets and enjoy it.

Last Chance Mailbag

We get a lot of letters! And we appreciate that you care enough to write in, but there’s only space for a fraction of them on the show. So every so often, I pick one out of the bursting virtual mailbag to answer here. If you happen to know someone who wrote in who doesn’t subscribe to Flop Secrets, be sure to let them know!

On to a letter!

Dear Floppers,

On your suggestion, my husband and I decided to watch Gold Diggers of 1933. Since we don't have Criterion, I checked our local library, and luckily they had it! We walked over, grabbed Gold Diggers off the shelf: Dick Powell? Perfect. Lullaby of Broadway? How fun! We settled in to watch some pre-code shenanigans. Twenty minutes in, and there were no show girls, but the hotel is putting on a show so maybe they're on their way. Twenty more minutes and we double check the box. Yep, we've picked up Gold Diggers of 1935, which is not the same movie, and not pre-code. We were already in it so we finished right through the titular baby of Broadway plummeting to her death from her high rise, presumably leaving her kitten to starve. That will teach women not to be hussys. The next day we were able to exchange 1935 for 1933 and enjoyed a much better movie.

My question is this. Have you ever started watching a movie and realized a long way in you were watching the completely wrong movie? 

Yours in flopitude,

Heather lastnamewithheld

I believe I (Dan) mentioned on the podcast that, when we watched the most recent Jurassic World for the show, I accidentally clicked the wrong icon on Peacock and spent the whole opening scene marveling at how well Gareth Edwards was aping Steven Spielberg’s style, until Sam Neil (RIP to a lovely gentleman) showed up and I realized I was just watching Jurassic Park.

More recently — my wife was out of town for a work trip this past weekend, and I went on a bit of a movie watching bender. There was some raunchy comedy about female friends going on a trip that I’d heard was good, but couldn’t quite recall where it was on my various watchlists. At first I thought maybe it was Buffaloed, starring Zoey Deutch, but then I read the description, which said it was a comedic crime drama about a debt collector, so that wasn’t it. I decided I must’ve been thinking of Never Goin’ Back, which was described as a stoner comedy about girls getting into trouble trying to fund a beach trip. I watched it and mostly enjoyed it (although it’s a lot sadder in its depiction of living just one step from poverty than the wacky elements might suggest), but was still perplexed — the movie I was thinking of involved going on a road trip to get a morning after pill?

Turns out the movie I was trying to remember was Plan B, directed by the wonderful comic actor Natalie Morales. It also turns out, I’d already watched it. Apparently I gave it four stars on Letterboxd back in 2021. I remember nothing about it.

I guess I’m starring in my own little stoner comedy.

Answers from the Peach Gallery:

Elliott: “I’ve realized that the movie I was watching wasn’t going to behave in the way I thought it would, but I don’t think I’ve ever set out to watch a specific movie, started watching it, and then realized it wasn’t the movie I had intended to watch. Sorry I don’t have a more interesting answer!”

Stuart: “Back in 2005, I went to a screening of WAR OF THE WORLDS, and it took the entire audience at least 5 to 10 minutes to realize that the projector was showing SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS instead. They moved us all to a different theater so i’ll never know how far those pants travelled.”

Next on the Podcast

7/25 - We release our live show from SF Sketchfest, where we discussed the monumentally misbegotten Dana Carvey “comedy” THE MASTER OF DISGUISE. Come hear the tale of Pistachio Disguisey, and find out if you’re turtley enough for the turtle club.

8/1 - Elliott takes us on a tour of summer movies — specifically, movies with “summer” in the title — and asks us whether they were representative of our own summers growing up, and how much we wish they had been.

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS!

Come see us LIVE at Whirling Tiger in Louisville, KY on Friday, September 18, when we’ll be discussing the Mariah Carey bomb GLITTER, with a special opening treat from Howell Dawdy. Doors open at 7pm, and you can get tickets now!

Those of you who’ve always dreamed of sleeping with Elliott can finally make their wish come true. No, he’s not become a sex worker (yet!) — he’s on a recent episode of Max Fun’s own Sleeping With Celebrities, the show where famous (or “famous”) people discuss their boring fascinations to put you to sleep! Listen to him discuss the book Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials. And if your hunger for Peachy sleep still isn’t sated, you can check the back catalog for the episode where Dan talked about Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge comics.

Dan recently plugged the Flop House Discord without remembering the link, so he continues his penance by posting it here! Go hang out with fellow listeners and have fun with like-minded weirdos!

PLUGS CLASSIQUE:

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author! Hey, that’s him! The author is him!

You Made it to the End!

After claiming that we never remember to post any of the FH mini visual aids online, we actually did it for once. Here’s a slide from the presentation Dan did for the episode explaining Jem. Head to our Instagram feed to see more!

Today’s Flop Story!

The LOUISVILLE LIVE SHOW has a TICKET LINK and a topic! We’ll be discussing GLITTER, from 2001, starring Mariah Carey, who went on to have much better performances in other movies, so you don’t have to feel bad for her here! If you live in the Louisville, KY area, we hope to see you on Friday, September 18, at 8 pm for what promises to be a DELIGHT of a live show!

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

If you’re anything like me, or the hundreds of thousands of people who did NOT flood Washington D.C. for America’s 250th birthday (looking kind of tired, bud, maybe you should get some work done — and by that, I mean much-needed infrastructure repairs) you maybe didn’t feel much patriotic fervor this July 4th. Hmn. Wonder why?

Maybe you need a little pick-me up. Well, Dr. Dan has the usual prescription — MOVIES. Here are a few that might make you feel better about our country’s possibilities.

The Birdcage - It’s not perfect by any means, but during a retrograde time, it might be good to see something with a little gay joy, and a story where meeting different kinds of people actually leads to greater acceptance and understanding.

American Graffiti - A film about the essential American experience — driving around aimlessly listening to pop music.

Apollo 13 - Hey, remember when America cared about science and did things?

Rocky - An uplifting movie about an underdog whose big triumph is that no one knocked him down. Or you could ditch the sad undertones and just watch Rocky IV, a big silly movie about punching a giant blond Russian.

Malcolm X - Sure, not the happiest, but a film that doesn’t shy away from the essential truth that improvement always requires struggle, and encourages viewers to keep fighting.

The Muppet Movie - Take a trip across the country and enjoy the promise of what America COULD be — namely: filled with Muppets.

Or you could just go to PlutoTV and watch a bunch of comforting America’s Test Kitchen reruns. Just stay off social media. For the sake of your mental health, please!

Next on the Podcast

7/11 - We discuss Maggie Gyllenhaal’s fascinating fiasco, THE BRIDE! — the 2026 film with the most instances of Mary Shelley possessing an unrelated woman to yell gibberish… so far. And to help us, we’re joined by the utterly delightful Kenice Mobley. Check out her live show The Hot Guy Draft!

7/18 - Dan brings us a mini that’s truly outrageous. Truly, truly, TRULY outrageous.

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS:

We had our first planning meeting for FLOP TV SEASON FOUR about a week ago! That’s right; it’s returning this September for an all-new 6-month season of live streaming laffs! Watch this space for more details!

PLUGS CLASSIQUE:

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author! Hey, that’s him! The author is him!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

Dan’s just here, man.

You Made it to the End!

Dan’s household visited Newfoundland over the holiday weekend, to see some extended family. Here he is, standing in front of a painting of a moose, to look more Canadian.

“Does he look angry?”

Today’s Flop Story!

Just a TEASER for now, but if you live in the LOUISVILLE, KY area, mark your calendars for Friday, September 18, because we’re coming to town for a single live show at Whirling Tiger! Watch this space for a link to tickets when they’re available!

Summer Movie Roundup

It’s only June and (in the most technical, astrological sense) summer just started earlier this week — so what better time for an overview of summer movies (so far)? It just makes sense!

Let’s start in mid-May, because that’s when Obsession was released, and it’s still dominating at the box office. (1) I liked it quite a bit — it found ways of being about something without insisting on its metaphors above all, played the audience like a piano (or something more horror-appropriate, like a skeleton rib xylophone), and Inde Navarrette is every bit the new star people say; and (2) it continues the new horror renaissance we seem to be in — specifically horror-comedy, a genre which studios keep fearing but is HUGE when it hits (see also Weapons or, on TV, the great Widow’s Bay).

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrived soon after to get embarrassed by Obsession’s dominance. We did a whole episode on it, so there’s no need to go deep here.

May was rounded out by the release of Backrooms, the anticipated big screen extension of Doogie Howser-aged director Kane Parsons’ internet shorts. I was also taken with this one, although I found its thematic stuff a little wonkier than Obsession — this one’s far less about script than vibes — but if you’re looking for something that stays with you like an especially unnerving nightmare, you’ll be happy. As many have noted, both Obsession and Backrooms come from directors who built their skills and fandom online. I saw a video take somewhere from Griffin Newman, where he was saying that we were finally seeing projects that weren’t trying to take something that worked online and make it work as a movie so much as identifying talent online that could translate to the existing things film does well, and I think that’s exactly right. I saw both of these movies with packed, young, enthusiastic crowds, and (as someone who loves the theatrical experience and doesn’t want it to die out) I was so happy to see kids from a newer generation out at the movies.

June brought the exact opposite — people staying away from Masters of the Universe in droves, other than some stray nerds from my generation (what a weird version of the The Who song that would be, if it was about watching He-Man). I was never a He-Man kid, but I saw this one. Why, other than I host a movie podcast and shell out for a “Regal Unlimited” pass? I think I was seeking the candy blast high of big dumb blockbusters from my childhood, and on that level I liked it… fine. I kind of rolled my eyes whenever it reached for emotional payoffs, and thought the comedy largely sucked (saying that Fisto “fists” people doesn’t get any funnier the ninth time you say it, guys), but whenever it leaned into just being colorful sci-fi/fantasy designs whacking one another with swords, I had a fun time.

Lastly, speaking of birthdays and birthday movies, I chose to drag my wife to Disclosure Day to celebrate my birthday this year. It’s been a wildly divisive movie, but I came down firmly on the side of being delighted by it. I understand the issues people have with it (if you hated it, cool, no need to let me know), but as for myself, I was just happy to have our most naturally gifted cinematic storyteller back with a big sci-fi movie so I could luxuriate in the way the man crafts sequences. It had a giant drop in its second week, thanks to the mixed word of mouth, but it had Spielberg’s fifth best opening weekend (and best ever opening weekend for an “original” project from him).

Despite the drop off, I think the combination of Disclosure Day, Obsession, and Backrooms’ performance vs. that of Mandalorian and Grogu and Masters of the Universe tells an encouraging story about a box office swing towards original stories over recent years’ overwhelming glut of recycled IP. One can dream.

Next on the Podcast

June 27 - We discuss Emerald Fennell’s (actually shockingly financially successful) adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Or, sorry — as the title accurately calls it — “Wuthering Heights” (quotes included). No guest, just classic Peaches. Dan even read all of Wuthering Heights in preparation. That’s commitment, folks!

July 4 - We celebrate the holiday with a mini that has nothing to do with Independence Day! Instead, Stuart quizzes us on which movies by some of our most revered film directors are the highest rated on IMDb and which are the lowest, then we discuss our own opinions!

Plugging Away

NEW plugs:

Dan has a new piece on McSweeney’s, the place that keeps actually-funny prose humor alive! (Looks meaningfully at a certain revered New York periodical). Take a read!

Elliott’s book, Joke Farming, is now available in audiobook form, read by the author! Hey, that’s him! The author is him!

Classic plugs:

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

You Made it to the End!

Longtime listener/lovable madman Bill O’Donnell made a podcast app ONLY for listening to The Flop House, with sections sorted by popular guests and clips of favorite bits alongside all of the full episodes. Find it here or search for “Peach Keeper” on the app store (iPhone only, for now)!

Art by the inimitable Tony Ochre

Today’s Flop Story!

Joke Farming is now available in AUDIOBOOK, READ BY THE AUTHOR! That author? (Checks notes) Why, it’s our own Elliott Kalan! Hear the voice that some assholes on iTunes have described as “annoying!” (Personally, I’ve always found Elliott’s reedy tones energetic and expressive.) Either way, there’s no better man to deliver the silly jokes you’ve come to expect, while teaching you how to write silly jokes!

Mr. Kalan, showing off his recording technique of “making enemies with the microphone.”

Summer, Summer, Summertime

It’s summer, when a young man’s thoughts turn to travel, and so do those of old Peaches. We’ve been banking several episodes ahead (and have a live show release coming down the pike, because the Peaches have/will be SCATTERED TO THE WIND.

Stuart’s somewhere floating in Europe, because he’s a good son and is taking his parents on a river cruise for their anniversary. We presume he’s maintained his sanity, being on a boat with family for two weeks, but if he returns a gibbering wreck from a Lovecraft novel, let’s all cut him some slack.

Elliott made it to New York shortly after Stuart left, to attend Ghostbusters Day and take part in some important announcements. It was too bad we weren’t all there at the same time, but at least Dan got the chance to have dinner with Elliott and Flop House listener Ruben “Tom the Dancing Bug” Bolling, and see some of the shenanigans at Ghostbusters HQ (more on that later in the newsletter).

Dan’s travel is still coming up. He’s gonna be in Canada over Independence Day/America’s the 250th, which — given the way the country is headed — seems wildly appropriate.

Segues? Segues are for WIMPS. Hard cut!

Next on the Podcast

6/13 - Most of the time we discuss movies that are new to streaming, or an occasional bad movie classic, but — rarest of all — sometimes we make it to the theaters for Flop House in the Aisles. Well, the time has come again! We discuss THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU. Yes, it’s currently the 7th highest-grossing movie of the year, but it’s the worst opening for a Star Wars picture since Solo, and had a 70% dropoff in its 2nd week, the worst ever for a Star War. (Plus we just wanted to talk about Star Wars!)

For this rare occasion, we welcome a rare guest — WILL HINES, back on the show for the first time since episode 31, in 2009! If you like podcasts, check out his great shows, Screw it We’re Just Gonna Talk About Comics, and Screw it We’re Just Gonna Talk About The Beatles!

6/20 - Our old friend ALONSO DURALDE joins us for a special June PRIDE mini. Many queer people have shared stories of the first time they saw themselves onscreen, but Alonso, a gay man, was curious to ask three cis hetero dudes about the first time they saw gayness depicted onscreen, and what they made of it.

And if you wanna know more about queer cinema history, there’s no better resource than Alonso’s wonderful book, Hollywood Pride A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film.                                                    

Plugging Away

NEW(ish) PLUG!

The official art show event is over, but Dan (and a ton of other great artists) still have their He-Man themed pieces on display at the wonderful Museum of Nostalgia, vintage toy store and museum, in Astoria, Queens. Prints available for purchase in-store!

Not a self-portrait.

CLASSIC PLUGS:

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

You Made it to the End!

Here are a few images from Ghostbusters Day!

They ain’t afraid of no ghost.

Last Chance Mailbag

Let’s keep things TIGHT this installment and jump into another edition of Last Chance Mailbag, where we get to address letters we don’t have time for on the show!

Hey Peaches,

I was listening to your episode on Return to Silent Hill with Steven Kostanski recently, and I was struck by how well he seemed to fit in with the general vibe of the show. I've always been impressed with how easily your guests usually seem to work within the personality of the show, even if they are new to it. I listen to a lot of podcasts and that is definitely not always the case.

I'm wondering if you all have a method you use to prepare guests to be on the show. Do you ask them to listen to a certain episode that represents the show well? Do you give them a heads-up on bits ("Stuart talks about Warhammer a lot!" "Sometimes Elliott spends twenty minutes doing a Columbo impression" "Dan likes butts!")? Or do you just throw them into it and see what happens?

Also, are there guests you all thought worked really well on the show? (besides Hallie, of course!) And who would be some of your dream guests in the future? 

Thanks guys! Keep on floppin'!

Kevin (Last name withheld) - Next on the Podcast

Thanks for the question! We’ve been blessed to have a ton of amazing guests on the show. We try to make it a priority to have a mix of guest-free episodes alongside the ones where we welcome someone to come play with us, because we know there’s a contingent of listeners who vastly prefer all-Peaches episodes (and speaking for myself [Dan] I do think there’s a special rapport we have from being friends and working together all these years), but one of the great honors of doing this show has been getting to meet a lot of creative people — including many who are personal heroes.

The truth is, we don’t do a whole lot to prepare guests beyond the absolute basics. We give the premise/structure of the show, any listener question they might need to weigh in on, and let them know they’ll be expected to recommend a movie and that they should say their name at the end when we sign off. Other than that, prep is mostly just making sure they’re tech savvy enough to record themselves if they’re not recording with us! (Note to self: should we be preparing our guests more?)

The essential thing is that we have a rapport with the guests — that’s far more important than getting the absolute biggest names (which is good, because it’s hard to get the biggest names)! Some of fans’ favorite guests are on the show because they’re comedy people who are also our friends (Hallie Haglund, Zhubin Parang, Josh Gondelman). If they’re friends who are ALSO podcasters, that’s fantastic (John Hodgman, Jesse Thorn, Jordan Morris, Griffin Newman, and others).

Having someone on with NO context can be more dicey, but there have been several wonderful guests we didn’t know who were wonderful for various reasons — we didn’t really know Linda Holmes, Alonso Duralde, or Jamelle Bouie before the first times we had them on the show, but they’re all (1) talented broadcasters in their own rights, and (2) they were already listener/fans.

On that note — we’d never try to require a guest to listen, but knowing our show is extremely helpful. Chris Weitz came to us through listening to the podcast (including us taking on one of his movies), and the fact he was willing to come on spoke to what a great dude he would be. None of us had ever met Gillian Flynn, but she tweeted at us about bad wigs once, we invited her on, and she was wonderful — in part because she was a fan (which creates enormous comfort). She also happens to be a bad movie lover in her own right, and we’re a fan of hers which helps. Even if we don’t know someone personally, having that context and respect for their work helps tremendously. None of us had met Barbara Crampton, but we were all such fans that we were delighted to have her on (it helps that Barbara Crampton is a fucking delight— similarly with Archer’s Amber Nash).

Occasionally, just one of us knows a guest — Stu pitched The Gilded Age’s Ashlie Atkinson to us because he’s bartended with her. Elliott and I hadn’t met her or seen her most significant work, but we trust Stuart, and lo and behold, another goddamn sweetheart. It’s a tremendous security blanket to know we can all trust one another like that.

So, the short answer is: comedy/talking experience, familiarity, and/or rapport are the KEYS TO PODCAST GUEST SUCCESS ™. (And there’s no way we’d name less successful guests — I’m already worried that I’ll have accidentally offended someone wonderful by not including them, just by virtue of limited space/a bad memory! It’s truly been our honor, everyone. Thanks for doing the show!)

Next on the Podcast!

5/30 - Speaking of great guests, we’ve been wanting to have our pal J.D. Amato on for while (podcast fans might know him as a frequent guest on Blank Check and the showrunner for the MBMBaM Seeso show), but we needed an EXTRA SPECIAL MOVIE, and he found one — the mysterious, nearly scrubbed-from-existence AFTER LAST SEASON! It’s Smallvember in May!

You may have noticed J.D. on a lot of your favorite shows recently. That’s because he has a wonderful new graphic novel for young readers out, called THE ENDLESS GAME! If you have a young person in your life (or if you just like fun comics) consider buying a copy!

6/6 - Dan’s in charge of the next mini, and he’s let the power go to his head — he quizzes Elliott and Stu about movies he saw on his birthday!

Plugging Away

NEW PLUG!

Dan will have a piece for display/sale at this art show at The Museum of Nostalgia, a hybrid vintage toy store/museum in Astoria, Queens, as will John “Creator of FlopTV’s The Cassettis” Holt!

Any resemblance to a famous cartoon/toy line is strictly intentional.

CLASSIC PLUGS:

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a dumb thing Dan made.

Today’s Flop Story!

Max fun drive 2026 is over and WE HIT OUR FIRST STRETCH GOAL. That’s right, we made it to 1600 new, upgrading, or boosting members, so we’ll be adding TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN and TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON to this year’s bonus content! We didn’t make the furthest goal of 2000 n/u/b members, so our Transformers journey ends there (at least for now), but — honestly — 2000 was a number based on previous performance, which may not apply in the scary, weird times we’re living in. We came pretty damn close, so I think we’ll try to add SOME form of additional bonus material to the pot.

We mentioned it before, but because of subscribers falling off, “adding” 1600 members really just means that we’re back to where we were at this time last year. But in such turbulent times (see above) sustaining steady levels counts as a win! We’re so grateful that so many of you showed up for us as new or boosting members, and we’re also eternally grateful to those of you who have been steady supporters for years. So if we haven’t said it enough already: THANK YOU.

May the Fourth Pass Without Comment

Let’s face it. “Star Wars Day” is tired. It was some cute little wordplay, but Star Wars got overexposed and the Internet took the idea of “May the fourth be with you,” and ran it into the ground, in the way the Internet ruins everything that’s mildly amusing (exception: The Flop House).

So let’s invent some NEW movie-related days to celebrate!

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR — Every odd numbered day in May is now a celebration of The Hunger Games! Seems like a lot of days, but there are a lot of movies (five now, with a sixth coming in November) so we can spread the fun around! Celebrate by finding a teen and making them fight another teen!

MARCH FORTH - On March the 4th it’s time to March forth, by watching the 2002 Nick Cannon marching band dramedy Drumline, while parading energetically around your living room!

JANUARY JONES (celebrated in August) — Deep in the dog days of summer, you might long for warmer weather — have a “January jones” as it were. So it’s time to celebrate with all of January Jones’ finest movies. Like X-Men: First Class; Love, Actually and… um… American Wedding. Or maybe… Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights?

TOO AUGUST - On August 2 we take a brief break from January Jones to honor Ben Kingsley, an actor who’s often “too august” (in the adjective sense of august: “marked by majestic dignity or grandeur”) for the movies he appears in! Enjoy a marathon of Self/Less, A Sound of Thunder, The Love Guru, Thunderbirds, and Suspect Zero, and wonder to yourself “Did he have gambling debts or something?”

JULY WON - On July 1, we celebrate the fact that Miranda July won the Camera d’Or for Me and You and Everyone We Know by watching that movie, back and forth, forever!

I’m tired of writing this! So let’s stop!

Next on the Podcast

5/16 - We welcome a comics hero of ours, Evan Dorkin (who just released an omnibus volume of all of his Dork, Milk and Cheese, and Eltingville Club work under the name Nerd Inferno) to discuss his bad movie pick, the legendary 2003 mega-flop DREAMCATCHER. Did we find a guest even chattier than Elliott? Mayhaps!

5/23 - The minis are back, and Stu’s in charge of this one! It’s about Stephen King! He’s one of our most prolific and successful writers, and thus there are a ton of movies based on his work, but a lot (most?) of them aren’t very good (see: Dreamcatcher, above). We separate the King wheat from the King chaff!

Plugging Away

NEW PLUG!

If you live in NYC, Stuart wanted to announce a big weekend for JIGGLE STUDIO, his Sharlene’s size-inclusive, all-bodies, movement-based fitness studio.

This Friday the 15th (spooooky) they've got the monthly PRIDE SALSA POP-UP. Part dance class, part dance party, great for all skill levels with or without partners! 

Saturday’s the first ever KITTEN YOGA! Ever thought that your yoga session was missing a certain something? Maybe adoptable kittens running around during class?!? Tickets are going fast, but they’ll likely have another session soon! Part of your entry fee goes to the local cat rescue providing the 'yoga experts.’

Finally, Sunday is the 5TH AVENUE STREET FAIR in Park Slope, Brooklyn and it runs right past COMMONWEALTH BAR! They’ll have drinks, a DJ and fun all day long. AND in collaboration with Jiggle — a free "STEP AEROBICS IN THE STREETS" class!

CLASSIC PLUGS:

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Dan’s just chilling, y’know?

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a gag from a livestream we did during Max Fun Drive. If you want to watch the whole thing, it’s available here!

Today’s Flop Story!

If you’re reading this newsletter on the day of release (Friday, May 1) then be sure to tune in to the official Max Fun HQ YouTube at 7pm ET/4pm PT for an hour of Flop House livestream fun — part of a drive-ending MARATHON of livestreams from your favorite shows! What will we be doing? Who knows, but Dan keeps threatening bits! BITS!

It’s like Max Fun Christmas in here!

Max Fun Drive Wrap-Up

We’ve been hammering the drive hard, and with good reason — it really IS the thing that ultimately keeps this podcast going, and when times are tougher in the world it’s 100% fair and reasonable that folks may need to allocate their money elsewhere… but it also means it’s harder to reach our benchmarks to keep the show healthy. So if you want to help us meet that 1600 goal that helps us fight year-to-year attrition and churn and unlocks more bonus episodes, this is the last time you’ll see this link in a newsletter this year: maximumfun.org/join.

But since we HAVE been hitting the message hard (if you like a clean inbox, sorry for the extra newsletter!) we mostly wanted to take this moment to say…

Please enjoy this boardwalk-quality caricature of The Peaches.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for caring enough about our silly little show to make it a part of your life — let alone for continuing to support us with membership. It means the world to us, both emotionally and, quite honestly, practically.

Thank you to all who became members for the first time. Thank you to those who increased or boosted their membership. Thank you to the generous folks who gifted a Max Fun membership to others, or who matched other listeners’ memberships.

A special thank you to folks who have been steadfast listener-members for years. There are very real practical, math reasons why we have to focus on increasing membership during the drive period, but please don’t mistake that for neglect of our core listenership. Many of you have been members for years and you’re the unsung heroes who keep the show going. Thank you so much for your loyal support.

And thank you as well to those of you who enjoy the show but can’t afford membership right now. Here’s hoping this year brings better things.

THANK YOU!

Next on the Podcast

5/2 - We wrap up Max Fun Drive ‘26 with a discussion of 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS. Will Stuart’s sanity survive?

5/9 - What’s this? Shouldn’t there be a FH Mini in this space? NO! Our MFD largesse extends past the drive, with one more bonus full episode. Friend of the show Steve Kostanski (director of Psycho Goreman, Frankie Freako, and Deathstalker) returns to The Flop House to discuss another return: RETURN TO SILENT HILL!

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a behind the scenes shot of Dan acting against himself (to be added later) for a MFD promo video!

Movie magic

Today’s Flop Story!

It’s the MAX FUN DRIVE! The time when the network pulls out all the stops, we put out extra shows and fun doodads, we celebrate our listeners, AND we ask you for your support. Because, quite frankly, this is how we survive as both a show and a network. So if you’re interested in becoming a member or boosting your membership, head over to Maximumfun.org/join (and if you’re only a Flop House listener and want a streamlined checkout, we’ve got that too, at Maximumfun.org/joinflop)!

A Few Words About Creator-Owned Media

We’re very fortunate to own our show. Way back when The Flop House started, with three of us huddled around a single old PlayStation “Rock Band” microphone, directly fed into Dan’s laptop, it didn’t seem possible that it could matter, but now? With media consolidation and the decimation of traditional creative careers, it means everything.

We know you come to us for silly takes about… I dunno… The Cocoa Puffs Movie or something (we’re sure that’s coming sometime in 2027) so I won’t stay serious for too long or puff our dumb show up too much, but I’m gonna briefly get Marxist and say it’s never been more important for the workers to control the means of production. Big media companies keep consolidating and consolidating like some kind of billionaire controlled-Borg, all with the goal of somehow making more money by creating less — and meanwhile firing as many people as possible to replace with AI slop, or employing folks as permanent “freelancers,” while capitulating or actively cozying up to a government that wants to control what gets said or made.

The Max Fun model allows us to be creator-owners who can profit from our own work, made the way WE want to make it. There’s that old saw, “There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism.” Well, I honestly think this might be the closest we’ll get.

We don’t make ANYONE pay for our work. We put it out there for free, with the blind faith that, if people find it valuable, they will choose to support it. Meanwhile, we’ve partnered with Max Fun in a handshake deal (they don’t own any piece of our show; we’re here because we like like their artist-and-worker-friendly ethos) wherein they get a portion of revenue in return for finding us advertisers, lending production support, and creating a community where we all share the risks and rewards. And they, in turn, are a worker-owned collective, who make key management decisions via the input of the group and share in the company’s successes.

So. Yet again, we’re asking non-members to consider becoming supporting members, and current members to boost if they’re feeling able. We know it’s a particularly hard time right now, so if your dollars need to go elsewhere, either as charitable giving or because you need to tighten your belt, we understand! Do what’s smart for you, and then think about what else is possible. But if you have the means to, say, buy a fancy coffee once a month, consider supporting the shows you love, at maximumfun.org/join.

Doesn’t exist… yet.

MFD Mythbusters!

MYTH: Maximum Fun does a drive every year, accruing more and more members, so that the hosts can fall asleep atop a giant pile of listener money.

FACT: Every subscription-based service goes through something called “churn,” where previous subscribers let their subscriptions lapse, for any number of perfectly understandable reasons, on top of any baseline audience loss that’s natural for any long-running enterprise.

We try to mitigate uncertainty by encouraging year-long subscriptions, but this truth is why we need to make a big yearly push, hat in hand, for listeners to support the shows that have become an important part of their lives — because, once you figure in member fall-off due to churn and other factors? What on paper might look like gains, actually end up just sustaining the status quo, or (thanks to the state of the world, inflation, etc.) actually being losses over time. Thus, even a successful drive can be like running to stand still (or even slip backward).

Quite frankly — with the state of the world as it is? We’ll take running to stand still any day. We are SO grateful that people care enough about our work to support it. But if you’ve ever wondered why we have to push the drive so hard year after year? That’s the reason!

Bustin’ makes them feel good.

Next on the Podcast

4/25 - In our second drive episode, Dan takes us back to 2002, to discuss FEARDOTCOM, one of the most notorious of the "THE INTERNET’S GONNA KILL YOU” horror films.

5/2 - Elliott wraps up Max Fun Drive 2026 with another 2002 movie pick — this one specifically designed to hurt Stuart! We discuss the movie he’s frequently cited as his least favorite of all time, 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS!

Plugging Away - All MFD Edition

Just as we strip away all external ads in the shows during Max Fun Drive, this plugs section is just about all the stuff going on during MFD!

UPCOMING LIVESTREAMS:

On the day you’re getting this, Friday, 4/24, at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET, we’ll be doing an AMA over on Stu’s Twitch. That stands for Ask Me Anything, so ask us anything. We may not ANSWER, but you can ask! (We’ll try to answer, unless y’all get wild.)

Then, on Tuesday, 4/28, at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET, Stu and Dan will be doing their cooking stream, THE SLOP HOUSE, also on Stu’s Twitch. Come by and watch Dan cook and Stu make cocktails, and hang out in the chat!

ALSO, we’re gonna be taking part in a series of streams on Friday, 5/1, leading up to the big official Max Fun HQ drive-ending streamtacular! We’ll be in the 4 pm PT/7 pm ET hour, over on the Max Fun YouTube channel!

THINGS TO WATCH OR LISTEN TO:

As of now all of FLOP TV SEASON 2 IS FREE over on our YouTube channel! Thank you for your support!

Dan joined Jesse for a Jordan, Jesse, Go! stream discussing niche subreddits, and you can watch the video here!

We kicked off the drive with CASTERS ON CASTERS, a little “Actors on Actors” interview show about the “art” of podcasting, where Dan and Stu talked to John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn, from the Judge John Hodgman podcast!

ALL-NEW MEMBER BOCO:

If you’re already a Max Fun member, check your bonus feed! Our discussion of TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986) is available on the Flop House feed. We had a lot of fun trying to understand the frenetic animated madness. Plus, over at the bonus feed for Feeling Seen, another great Max Fun show, you can hear Dan talk to host Jordan Crucchiola about Wonder Boys and the curse (and joy) of nostalgia

You Made it to the End!

Dan made a very silly video to promote the new ad-free feed you have the option of using, if you are or become a member at $10/month or more. Even if you’re not interested, check it out and have a laugh.

Today’s Flop Story!

It’s Max Fun Drive time! Well, not QUITE yet — the drive technically starts on April 20 (stoned voice: “4/20 woooooo!”) — but our first of THREE special drive episodes drops tomorrow! As a reminder, this year each of the Flop House hosts picked one movie to inflict on the others for the most maximal time of the year. Dan dared the others to log on to FEARDOTCOM and Elliott opted to torture us for 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS, but it’s all kicking off with Stuart’s pick, EXIT TO EDEN. It’s a legendarily strange critical and commercial flop, crossing Anne Rice’s BDSM erotica with Garry Marshall’s broad comedy sensibility! And if you enjoyed the loopy in-person energy of our Mercy episode, good news! We recorded this one on the same night!

What’s Next on the BoCo* Feed?

Maximum Fun operates on a listener support model not unlike public broadcasting. We don’t require anyone to pay for the shows they love. We make the overwhelming share of our content free for all, while hoping that — if listeners find our work valuable — they’ll “tip their podcasters” for providing entertainment and company over the hours and weeks and years. Does that make us cockeyed optimists? Perhaps! Only our optometrists know for sure.

That said, we do offer thank-you gifts to sustaining listeners, and the most popular gift comes at the lowest membership level — our BONUS feed. Just $5 a month gives you access to MORE of the show you love, with tons of Flop House bonus episodes, as well as bonus eps from shows across the network.

Enough preamble! What’s on tap for Flop House BoCo this year?

A trip down TRANSFORMERS turnpike, true floplievers!

We’ll be doing at least three episodes, each covering the first (and in some cases only) movies in various Transformers timelines! That’s TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986), the only film in the mainline TV series continuity; TRANSFORMERS (2007), the first of the Michael Bay monstrosities; and TRANSFORMERS ONE (2024), the not-bad computer animated prequel! We’ve already recorded the episode on Transformers: The Movie — it’ll be in your bonus feed on day one, and it’s a corker!

One of these is gonna be more painful than the others.

But wait! There’s more than meets the eyes! That’s the bonus content we’ll release NO MATTER WHAT. If everyone just sits on their hands, Max Fun members will get those episodes. But if we make our stretch goals, that’s where things get interesting!

If The Flop House get 1600 new, upgrading, or boosting members, we’ll do TWO ADDITIONAL EPISODES covering TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN and TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON! We’re not super up on our Transformers lore, but we’re pretty sure those are the one where the fallen get their revenge, and the one where the moon is dark, or something.

More like dark of the POSTERS. Why so murky?

But we’d never decepti-con you. It’s at 2000 new, upgrading, or boosting members, that things get really interesting!

If we meet our furthest stretch goal, that unlocks the goldmine of FOUR ADDITIONAL EPISODES. We’re talking TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (a rare Flop House revisit), TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT, the actually-critically-liked spinoff BUMBLEBEE, and the (so far) end of the Bay timeline (tho he just produced this one), TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS!

By this point, we will have gone quite mad.

“But guys!” you cry, “What if I don’t care about Transformers?” Well, we hope the episodes are funny no matter how you feel about the residents of Cybertron, but fair enough. If this year is anything like the last one, something else will probably end up on the bonus feed along the way, but also you’ll get access to all the great bonus content we’ve made in the past — stuff like Stu’s RPG adventures (over the years we’ve been original flavor D&D characters, paranormal investigators in the 1930s, cartoon dogs, and restaurant service workers), discussions of bad TV, live shows, DVD commentaries, a whole episode that was just Radio Zork, and much more!

It’s an awfully tough time in the world right now. Believe us, we get it. But if you’re able, please consider supporting independent, creator-owned media in general and The Flop House in particular in this year’s drive!

_{*”Bonus Content” —Smilin’ Dan}

Speaking of BoCo…

CURRENT MAX FUN MEMBERS - Check your member bonus feed for the grand finale of SlopTales - Founder’s Day! The second SlopTales arc wraps up just before MFD ‘26 with more food service shenanigans. Will Dan, Zhubin, and Elliott pull out a win in the annual crab cake competition, or will this be their “Empire Strikes Back” sequel, with our heroes in disarray? Listen to find out!

Next on the Podcast

4/18 - Stuart takes The Flop House on a vacation to a sex island for the first of our Max Fun Drive 2026 episodes, about 1994’s misbegotten erotic farce EXIT TO EDEN.

4/25 - In our second MFD ‘26 episode, Dan takes us back to 2002, when the movies knew the internet was scary, but didn’t quite know why yet, as we discuss FEARDOTCOM.

Plugging Away

NEW PLUGS:

All three Peaches will be on Stuart’s Twitch channel doing an Max Fun Drive AMA at 8pm ET, on Friday, 4/24! And check out the calendar below for more MFD ‘26 shenanigans!

If discussions of Exit to Eden and Feardotcom aren’t esoteric enough for you, listen to Dan guest on his brother John’s podcast, SOPHOMORE LIT, as they discuss the newspaper column/free verse poetry of Don Marquis, Archy and Mehitabel!

CLASSIC PLUGS: Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his all-new original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a calendar of events for The Flop House during Max Fun Drive! More may be added, but this is what we’ve got for now!

Choose your own flopventure.

Flop Secrets, Abridged

We’re about to blast you with a few extra newsletters over MAX FUN DRIVE 2026 (comin’ at you from 4/20 thru 5/1), so we’re keeping this one extra short so as not to over-tax your delicate reading peepers. Watch this space for more about all we’ve got cooked up for this year’s drive, including three new full episodes, a pair of livestreams, a thank-you release of some vaulted material, and other sundry items!

Next on the Podcast

4/11 - The moment we saw the trailer for MERCY — aka “the movie where Chris Pratt sits in a chair for 90 minutes, trying to solve his wife’s murder before AI judge-and-jury Rebecca Ferguson executes him” — we cackled in glee and rubbed our hands together, awaiting our chance to discuss it like it was Flop House Christmas. Special BONUS — Elliott was in NYC for a visit, and we got to talk about this movie and the next one, all three in person!

4/18 - Stuart picked the first of our THREE full new episodes for Max Fun Drive 2026, and he was not playing around. Did you ever read an erotic BDSM novel written by Interview with the Vampire’s Anne Rice and think, “I know who should make this! The king of holiday-themed romcoms, Garry Marshall! And it should star Dan Ackroyd and Rosie O’Donnell in leather!” If so, you’re in luck, ya weirdo! The movie’s called EXIT TO EDEN, and it came out in 1994 (Dan saw it in the theater!). We do our best to untangle this legendarily misconceived flop!

Plugging Away

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his all-new original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

Dan appeared on some upcoming member bonus content for Feeling Seen, so keep an eye out for that, once the drive starts. Otherwise, he’s been busy gearing up for Max Fun Drive!

You Made it to the End!

Dan made this dank meme.

There’s a reason his handle is “dankmccoy.”

Today’s Flop Story!

MAX FUN MEMBERS! Check your listener bonus feed for the 2nd part of the all-new “Founder’s Day” SlopTales RPG arc! Will Dan, Elliott, and Zhubin succeed at gamemaster Stu's fiendish challenge and take top crab cake honors at the town’s annual seaside festival?

“We’ll Swap Flops. Criss-Cross!”

Max Fun Drive 2026 is about a month away, and (as has been tradition) we’ll be doing THREE FULL EPISODES over the drive period, rather than our usual main/mini alternating schedule. Wait a minute — THREE episodes? And there are THREE hosts? Is there anything special we might be doing with that?

What if I set up that rhetorical question and the answer was “Nope!” That would be wild, wouldn’t it?

Thankfully, I remain a pillar of (relative) sanity in this crazy world, and I wouldn’t do y’all like that. We ARE doing something special. For this year’s Drive episodes, we’ve each chosen a bad movie to torture the others with! To paraphrase a show listeners might be familar with: “We’re sending each other cheesy movies. The worst we can find. (la la la)”

In (probable) episode release order, here are the picks, and a few words from the pick-ers about why they’ve selected these films.

Stu’s Pick: EXIT TO EDEN* - Mr. Wellington sez: “I’ve never seen Exit To Eden, my movie choice for torturing my cohosts. At the time of its release, the movie seemed a bit too “adult” for 14 year old Stuart. And by the time i was interested in that sort of thing, the critical consensus was very… negative. So i thought that i could fill a gap in my film knowledge while also make the fellas suffer through what seems to be both a bad comedy AND an insensitive portrayal of kink.”

_{*Dan note: I saw this IN THE THEATER.}

Dan’s Pick: FEARDOTCOM - Mr. McCoy sez: “I gotta admit. I picked this one less as pure torture for others and more because I think it would be a hoot to discuss. I love bad late 90’s/early 2000s thrillers/horror based on the terrors of the INTERNET (turns out those terrors were real, but different than the movies imagined). Plus I’ve got a nostalgic fondness for the terrible nu metal horror vibes of the 2000s. This one was shot by Fassbinder’s DP, so at least it’ll look good!

Elliott’s Pick: 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS - Mr. Kalan sez: “When I thought about torturing my co-hosts, only one movie came to mind: 40 Days and 40 Nights. It was a staple of early Flop House lore that Stuart could not abide by this movie, that it seemed to cause him physical pain just to think about it. The choice was obvious. I care about Stuart too much not to force him to watch it. And if that means Dan and I become collateral damage as well -- SO BE IT!“

The things we do for y’all.

Next on the Podcast

3/28 - Should three middle-aged men ever make time to watch GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE: THE MOVIE? Of course not. Don’t be weird. But we’re not normal men. We’ve made an oath to Flop. And this episode captures a little bit of that giddy, wtf, Bratz energy. We think you’ll like the madness.

4/4 - Elliott exhibits some minor sports knowledge by acknowledging March Madness (even though this episode is getting released at the beginning of April!) — we do a bracket of “movie fantasy worlds,” deciding once and for all which would be the best to live in!

Plugging Away

Stuart just appeared on the great Talking Simpsons podcast, to discuss the bartending-themed episode Mommie Beerest! And, as always, he paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel!

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his all-new original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Dan’s currently focused on some spec projects and gearing up for Max Fun Drive. So there’s not much new to check out. But he appreciates your support in a more general, intangible way.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a li’l grab bag — a pic of Stu out for cocktails in his awesome “guest check” shirt, and one of baby Dan from a video he made back in college.

The Mirror Has Two Flop-ces.

Today’s Flop Story!

Dan and Stuart are presenting a screening of the fun-but-dumb 2001 hacker action thriller SWORDFISH at Nitehawk Theater Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY on March 26 at 9:15 pm, as part of our friend Cristina’s often-referenced screening series Ridiculous<>Sublime. This isn’t a “Flop House show” — we’re just gonna give a brief intro before the film (no riffing or anything) — but please come on out and see a silly movie with us and say hi!

Extra, Extra! Man Has Headache! Shirks Work!

Last night John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn took Stuart and I (and our wives, who are whole human beings in their own right) out to dinner. Jesse was in town because they were doing two live Judge John Hodgman “Night Court” shows at the Bell House, and Hodgman was in town because, of course, he lives here.

It was a lovely night, but as often happens when I see Hodgman and/or visit a steakhouse, I had two martinis, which is arguably two more than a middle-aged man should have. Thus, today I have a headache, and was having trouble thinking of what the newsletter should be about, so the newsletter became about having a headache and having trouble thinking of what the newsletter should be about. I’m a regular Charlie Kauffman.

I ask for no sympathy, as this story essentially boils down to “man’s kind friends take him to dinner, and now, through his own choices, he is mildly impaired at work.” I simply offer this explanation for why the remaining part of this “body of the newsletter” section will be cut-and-pasted facts about pheasants.

• Rainbow Roosters: Male pheasants boast a stunning array of colours, like red, green, blue, and gold. These vibrant hues are a dazzling display during courtship rituals.

• Speedy Survivors: Don't underestimate these birds! Pheasants can take flight at impressive speeds, reaching up to 60 miles per hour when needed to escape predators.

• Masters of Many Mansions: Pheasants are surprisingly adaptable. They can thrive in diverse habitats, including farmlands, woodlands, wetlands, and even grasslands.

• Global Guests: While native to Asia, pheasants have been introduced to many other parts of the world, including the United Kingdom. This is due to their popularity as game birds

_{Source: 12 Fascinating Facts about Pheasants!}

JJHo and 2/3 of the Peaches, seen here giving Elliott FOMO by going to his favorite restaurant.

Next on the Podcast

3/14 - Sorry all you ELLA MCKAY-heads out there. Sometimes we talk about a movie not because we’re mad at it or want to ridicule it, but because its flaws are so fascinating. We had a great time discussing a movie whose heart is in the right place, but whose good intentions don’t save it from being… kind of a mess.

3/21 - Stuart leads a mini all about stand up comedy in the movies. Which pictures get it right, and which are total nonsense? And to help us, we’re joined by Matt Koff, longtime friend of the show, former Daily Show colleague of Dan and Elliott, former web-series partner of Dan and winner of New York’s Funniest Stand-Up at the NY Comedy Festival.

And speaking of Matt and stand-up, Matt has a new stand-up special! MATT KOFF CAT MAN just premiered on VEEPS, an artist-friendly service that makes sure most of the ticket price for viewing ends up in the pocket of the performer! Wow, Matt launched a stand-up special right when we had him on to talk about stand-up! It’s almost like that was planned, to help him get the attention he deserves!

Plugging Away

Dan wrote a “chapter” for The Novelizers, a podcast where comedy writers turn movies into the novelizations that never existed. In this edition, the Joker takes a potshot at Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight, and the hilarious Mr. Chris Parnell (SNL, 30 Rock, Rick & Morty) reads all of Dan’s silly take on the material.

Look at all those floating heads!

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, and his all-new original comic series, Barbarian Behind Bars!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel, and the Jiggle Studio online store is now open, for all your body-positive exercise wear needs!

What a lovely couple.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s Stu and Sharlene, as the “ringers” on Judge John Hodgman’s competition that was entirely legally distinct from The Newlywed Game.

“In the butt, Bob.”

Today’s Flop Story!

Elliott has an ALL NEW ORIGINAL COMICS SERIES! It just debuted, and it’s called BARBARIAN BEHIND BARS! A barbarian from a fantasy world appears in our own, chops the head off an evil wizard, and finds himself locked up in prison! What happens next? Only Elliott knows for sure — and you, once you read the comics!

And remember, you have just until the end of February (that’s only a couple of days!) to watch FlopTV if you haven’t already! _{Well… there’s a small grace period. But I don’t want to encourage people to rely on that, because then they’ll just miss it again! So forget I said anything! Only a couple of days!}

Snow, Snow, Snow

Like many folks on the east coast, we were hit by last weekend’s storm.

The view from Dan’s living room, during the height of the storm and once it was (mostly) over.

If you’re able to stay home (and many are not, unfortunately), a blizzard is a wonderful reason to stay inside and give into your primitive burrowing instincts (I recommend digging into blankets rather than actual dirt — it’s cleaner).

Movies are a wonderful choice for snow-laziness, of course, and on-theme for The Flop House. But there’s something EXTRA cozy about cracking open a book on a snow day. So to mix it up a bit, here’s a short FLOP HOUSE BOOK NOOK, with a few recommendations of what we’ve been reading.

DAN: Confessions of a Puppetmaster: A Hollywood Memoir of Ghouls, Guts, and Gonzo Filmmaking, by Charles Band, with Adam Felber - A fun, light account of Charles Band’s life, focused mostly on his work as a movie producer, studio head, and sometime director. It can be inspiring to read about cinema’s great artists, but sometimes it’s even more instructive to read about the scrappy hustle of low-budget filmmaking. As the founder of Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions, Band never missed a chance to make an exploitation buck, and never missed a chance to wildly overspend and get in over his head (he shares a fondness with Nic Cage for castles). Filled with fun anecdotes about the movies he had a hand in, including such oft-referenced by the Flop House titles as Ghoulies, Re-Animator, Puppetmaster, and Castle Freak.

ELLIOTT: Boswell, by Stanley Elkin - Elliott sez, “It’s a rambling, shambling, plotless jumble of a book with anger in its heart for the whole world, but it regularly delivers satirical insights of penetrating intensity.”

STUART: The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett - Stu sez: “A murder mystery set in a fleshed out, oddball fantasy world filled with poisonous flora, biologically enhanced humans, and massive creatures that threaten to rise from the ocean and destroy civilization — like a Sherlock Holmes story in a Jeff Vandermeer setting.”

Next on the Podcast

2/28 - He’s back! Our Chief Hedgehog Correspondent (and also writer for the NY Times/opponent of our criminal administration/snappy dresser) Jamelle Bouie returns to the show to discuss SONIC 3! Just when you thought we’d forgotten, we ZAGGED ON YA!

3/7 - Things are bleak out there, so for his turn at the mini, Dan leads a mental health check-in for his co-hosts/himself. Don’t worry; it’s still funny (we think?), but also maybe heartwarming.

Plugging Away

Dan appeared on Keith Phipps’s (The Reveal, The Dissolve, The AV Club) “The Laser Age,” a podcast about sci-fi movies from the 2nd half of the 20th century, to discuss the giant ant classic, Them! AND he has a new short story on Deathbed, “Noted to Death.” If you’re a fan of comics like Tales from the Crypt, this one’s for you!

Stuart just let us know that the Jiggle Studio online store is now open. If you like the idea of a body-postitive exercise space that’s more about movement than looking any particular way, this is a great way to show your support.

Check out Elliott’s book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, and his current run on DC Comics’ Harley Quinn!

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a picture of The Master of Disguise as Riddick that Dan made for no particular reason.

“Am I not chronicley enough for your chronicles?”

Today’s Flop Story!

Max Fun members: CHECK THE BONUS FEED for part one of an ALL NEW “SlopTales,” role-playing arc! Last time Dan, Elliott, and Zhubin Parang were the hapless staff of a seaside restaurant during the busy summer season! This time gamemaster Stu has sent our food crew to a tent on the beach, where they’re trying to win the annual crab cake competition!

Flop House Valentines

Because we’re never ones to let a good bit die, here are another round of Flop House Valentines to send your beloveds this year!

Next on the Podcast

2/14 - Speaking of John Travolta — for our Valentine’s episode, what could be more romantic than a discussion of HIGH ROLLERS, the film where Travolta does a whole heist, just to save his movie-wife Gina Gershon, and… Okay, fine, we didn’t really realize this would release on Valentine’s Day. BUT it’s a hell of a fun episode, thanks to longtime fave guest host Jordan Morris. Love really IS all around.

2/21 - With the Oscar nominations out, and the ceremony approximately a month away, Elliott gives us this mini all about BEST PICTURE WINNERS. We know they’re the best, because the Oscars told us so, and they cannot legally lie. But which are the BEST of the best?

Plugging Away

Flop TV Season 3 is sadly over, but you can still watch ALL of the episodes thru February before they’re packed away in the vault for a while! Individual tickets and season passes are both available!

Elliott continues to make the podcast rounds, to discuss his book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, but also just have fun and gab about nonsense — you know, what we call “The Elliott.” He was just on friend of the show Andy Beckerman’s podcast “Beginnings.” (And if you like Andy, check him AND his hilarious wife actress/comedian Naomi Ekperigin out on our Mortal Kombat episode, and listen to the show the pair does together, Couples’ Therapy!).

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel. If you’re in Brooklyn, drop by the holy flop bar trinity of Hinterlands, Minnie’s, or Commonwealth. Or do a podcast pub crawl!

Dan just appeared on the excellent “What a Cartoon!” podcast, from the creators of the equally-excellent Talking Simpsons. He was there to discuss one of his strange fascinations, and one of the ultimate 80’s cartoons, Jem! It was truly, truly, truly outrageous.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a collage of your Flop-Valentines through the years!

Aging… not too bad, all things considered.

Today’s Flop Story!

We’re rapidly approaching the SEASON FINALE of FlopTV S3! Just a day and a week from now, on 2/7, we’ll discuss legendary “best worst” movie PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE! It’ll have all our usual shenanigans, plus at least one extra end-of-season treat! Tickets here!

Thank You Sketchfest!

I’m writing this newsletter just three days out from our show at Sketchfest, after returning to a (very snowy, but thankfully open for incoming flights) New York two days ago. Sketchfest is always a wonderful time, and this installment was no exception, other than me (Dan) getting some mild food poisoning from conveyor belt sushi the day before our show. That meant there was less “sightseeing” on my plate and more “reading and quiet people watching in the lobby of our fest-filled hotel” (so many Futurama voice actors wandering around!), but that was great too!

Speaking of shameless fangirling, we were preceded at Cobb’s by one of the festival’s more star-studded shows, Celebrity Autobiography, and when we crossed over with the cast in the green room they were all incredibly nice, individually wishing us a good show. Jennifer Tilly even said “I think I’ve heard of your podcast!” — which short circuited my brain enough that I retreated into my protective lack of self esteem, thinking “She’s just being nice.” But you know what? She didn’t say she LISTENED to it, and she could have said nothing, so I’m going to choose to believe her!

Anyway, it speaks to the high-spirited summer camp feel of getting to do something like Sketchfest and mingle with others in the comedy world. We got to chat with old friends like Hodgman (who we get to see in Brooklyn too, but a hotel bar hang across the country just hits different, as the kids say), and also mix with new folks — I invited one person to be a guest on a future episode, so look forward to that (it’s not Jennifer Tilly; my apologies).

And the show went well! Elliott kicked us off with a presentation that mixed political rage appropriate to our times with big laffs; my presentation managed to psychically predict one of Elliott’s jokes, and Stuart ably helmed our discussion of The Master of Disguise, with a stripped-down summary that steered the ship only enough to allow for a lot of nonsense shenanigans. Then we all went out for a nice pasta dinner! Look for that episode in your feed sometime in the future! Probably when scheduling needs demand it! The pasta dinner won’t be part of the episode!

Next on the Podcast

1/31- We discuss vulgar auteur and wife guy par excellence Paul WS Anderson’s latest collaboration with his spouse, Milla Jovovich, IN THE LOST LANDS, based on some stories by Stuart’s best friend in the whole world, George RailRoad Martin.

12/7- We’re all a little worried about the coming years these days, so Stu helms this mini exploring various cinematic versions of the future, and we weigh in how likely it is they’ll come to pass.

Plugging Away

Dan was a guest on a bonus episode of the excellent Pure Cinema Podcast, discussing some of his recent “film discoveries" — movies not made in 2025, but under-seen films he happened to catch this last year. Unfortunately it’s for Patreon supporters only… but if that’s you, you’re in for a treat!

Elliott’s was just on sister show Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, discussing his book Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense. You can also check out his ongoing run on Harley Quinn and his work as host/writer for Smartless Presents Clueless, a bite-sized puzzle podcast!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel. And if you live in NYC, stop by the bar he co-owns, Minnie’s, on February 1st for some Guitar Hero Burlesque! Try to play while burlesque artists perform distracting routines backed by your video-game-shredding! And if you fail your song, they stop dancing!

You Made it to the End!

Some Sketchfest photo booth follies! (Elliott was already on a plane by this point; we didn’t shove him out of the booth.)

some photo strippers

Today’s Flop Story!

You only have a couple of weeks to get tickets to see us LIVE at San Francisco Sketchfest! We’ll be at Cobb’s Comedy Club on Sunday, January 25th at 4pm, with presentations and discussion of the turtle-y-est member of the filmic turtle club, MASTER OF DISGUISE. And we’re told we’re the last Cobb’s show on that date, so we should have a little more time than previous Sketchfests to hang out a bit afterwards to chat and sign merch!

weirdest fetish vid ever

A Serious Interlude

Frankly, it’s a difficult month to write anything silly. (Damn you, 2026, you failed us almost instantly!) So instead, I’m gonna use this space to remind folks that it’s never a bad time to donate to charities fighting the overwhelming wave of cruelty that threatens to swamp the country. Here are a few:

Americans for Immigrant Justice

Al Otro Lado

Human Rights Campaign

Transgender Law Center

Planned Parenthood

Democracy Forward

And just so this isn’t DEVOID of fun, here’s a link to a silly video I made.

Next on the Podcast

1/17 - We discuss the Rebel Wilson vehicle BRIDE HARD, one of the most baffling “action” “comedies” of recent memory.

1/24 - Dan quizzes his co-hosts about the cultural impact of a bunch of movies that made over a billion dollars at the box office.

Plugging Away

Join us Saturday, February 7 for the SEASON FINALE of FlopTV season three! We’ll be discussing arguably the most famous bad movie ever, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE! Individual tickets and season passes are both available!

Are YOU prepared?!?

We somehow missed Elliott’s appearance on The Marx Brothers Council Podcast, but we’re rectifying that now. If you love Elliott or the Marxes, this is a show for you! He discusses all things Marx, but also his new book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense. Pick up a copy!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

Dan is an elusive whippoorwill. Which is to say he doesn’t have much to promote now, but he just taped a couple of podcast guest shots that aren’t out yet — he’ll list ‘em here next time!

You Made it to the End!

Dan’s parents digitized a bunch of old slides to give to the children at Christmas, and we don’t have any new Flop House-specific pictures to share, so here’s one of those instead! Here’s Dan as a kid, showing an early flair for fashion!

Cookie Monster, meet Cowboy Monster

Today’s Flop Story!

Join us tomorrow, Saturday, January 3 at 9ET/6PTfor an all-new FlopTV about 1967’s legendary musical flop Doctor Doolittle!

We’re mostly taking the holidays off from things like “writing newsletters,” but we WILL let you know what’s…

Next on the Podcast

1/3 - We kick off 2026 by going back to basics with a “Peaches Only” episode about a great big honkin’ blockbuster that was also a great big honkin’ “Meh.” JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH!

1/10 - Elliott hosts a mini taking us through some of the intellectual property that’s entered the public domain in 2026, and we brainstorm ideas for new movies based on valuable IP like “original dog-face Betty Boop.”