Doctor Movie : Episode 307 : Short Circuit (special guest, Dan Bone)

Show Notes

Join Doctor Movie for a look at your favorite movies! Today we cover the 80s classic feel good masterpiece Short Circuit. Not only that, but the Doctor is joined by 80s enthusiast and Podcast On Hauted Hill creator Dan Bone. Its always a fun show when these two get together. Enjoy!!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is Doctor Movie! and Hail Ming Power Hour!?

Cinematic oddities and awesomeness under the watchful of the all-powerful Ming and Doctor Movie!

But it's a documentary in the Oregon Trail video game, which isn't very well known over here, but I know it because I'm a video game nerd, and I'm just interested to see how these guys came up with it back in the day when it was just writing code.

And now it's like this big thing that most American kids grow up playing.

I'm sure you played the Oregon Trail.

It was when they introduced computers into the school system.

That's the game you had.

That's the only game that kind of came with the system.

So yeah, everybody played it.

And it was educational.

Pretty educational as well.

And you all died in the same way, you know.

Dysentery, right?

Wait a minute, I hear something.

Hey, everybody, what's happening?

Welcome back to another episode of Doctor Movie, where we're not in a car.

We're actually at the house, because I got a special guest, also special guest with me.

It is the one and only Dan the Man.

His mama is not a snowblower, Dan Bone.

I was gonna use that line, too.

Yeah, of course.

What's happening, Dan?

No disassemble, I guess, is the first thing to say, really.

No, I'm good, thank you.

And thank you for having me.

I'm excited.

I'm excited to be on the show again and talking to you and discussing some 80s goodness.

Yeah, it's always a blast.

And I mean, if we could find time, I mean, we could have a banger of a show if we just ran with it, but we're both busy people.

Because I think it's pretty endless, the shows we could talk about, but we are together to talk about Short Circuit from 1986.

It's strange when you look at this movie and you put in perspective of that timeframe of how movies were kind of chugging along and the special effects were moving along.

This is right in that sweet spot, man, where it was getting to where the special effects were so good, you forgot they were effects.

And I said this to Becky a while ago when I was going through it again, I was like, you know, number five is amazing when you look at, even from today's standard of what we think a robot is, it's really impressive.

Yeah, because he looks like a robot, you know, he's not, I mean, obviously, it's 96, there's no CGI.

It's, they spent a 10th of the budget on just the number five robot alone, you know, and it looks incredible.

And certainly as a child, I had no qualms in believing he was just a character, you know, it wasn't until you get a bit older, you realize, okay, that's not the case.

The same with, you know, you recently covered in Anderson's.

And all these kind of movies that were coming out, like you said, chugging along, they made you believe, you know, in the mogwai, you believed that that was the creature, you know, it's just, and that's the beauty of practical effects, of course, but also something we passionately believe in, which was that these movies had heart as well.

You believed in the story, you know, as silly as it might be, you believed in what was going on.

I saw an interview with the director and he was talking about, if you believe in the character, if you like the main character, you're willing to accept anything that's the story because you've bought into believing in the character.

And that's exactly what this is.

You know, if you had a, well, it's just like the difference between ET and Mac and me, right?

I'm glad you brought up Mac and me.

Because there's that thing, right?

Even though Mac and me still has a charm to it.

But there's something about really relating.

And again, going back to an earlier episode, Harry and the Hendersons, you totally forget that those are effects.

You are so buying into, wait a minute, I'm watching this thing and I'm feeling affection for this thing.

It's not even real.

And you know, you got the same thing here and it's very robotic.

And it's, again, we keep throwing this around, that 80s magic, because this is a movie that not only adults could go and see, but kids could go and see and everybody could enjoy this.

Yeah, is it corny and cheesy?

Well, sure, but at the time it wasn't.

This is certainly, I mean, adult, I mean, rewatching this as an adult and even as I became a teenager, you realize there are a lot of rude jokes and little things sewn into this for the parents whilst the kids watching The Cute Robot.

You've got Fisher Stevens saying some quite obscene things here and there, which fly over the kids' heads.

You've got all this stuff happening.

And again, it's that sweet spot.

I noticed this a lot growing up in the UK.

A lot of these movies were on TV and they were heavily edited because they would just drop curse words into these PG movies.

You don't really get that as much now.

And I'm not saying we need swear words in our movies, but it was just the way that we spoke and the way that people talked about them as well.

And it just made it feel a little bit more grounded.

And if you saw a robot, you're probably gonna use a curse word.

If you see a robot telling you it's alive, you're not gonna say, oh gosh darn, what's happening here?

That's a very good point.

Here's something.

It only got a 6.6 out of 10 on IMDB.

I don't think I agree with that.

I don't agree with that.

I mean, obviously, I've got my nostalgia goggles on.

And I was eight years old when this came out.

Probably saw it at the age of around nine maybe on the Renzo.

I didn't see this one in theaters, but it's incredible.

I put this in the same league as Harry and the Hendersons, you know, all those movies that came out in a space.

Once just these crazy movies that just happened, and they kind of, a lot of these had sort of science fiction or slightly supernatural elements in them, which added to the weird fantasy world that you were just looking into for 80, 90 minutes.

And as a kid, that's all you needed.

You know, that was, it's that brilliant escape.

And we were getting plummeted with them too, because, you know, Back to the Future, Cocoon, Short Circuit, I mean, this battery's not included.

I mean, there was a ton of these coming out.

Yeah.

You could, you can always go back and say, maybe ET was kind of the start of getting into the interest of technology, futuristic stuff on Earth, which as Star Wars took us, you know, to another galaxy, that kind of brought it back home and made it relatable in the 80s.

In case you don't know what this movie is, I'll read a synopsis.

When one of the experimental range of military robots is hit by lightning, it's given consciousness.

It escapes from the military and befriends a young woman, Stephanie Speck.

Its creator, Newton Crosby, is desperate to find it or his entire project may be scrapped.

There you go.

Yeah.

Number five is alive.

Number five is alive.

And it's a great concept, you know, especially back then before we really knew about AI.

Well, more AI.

But back then artificial intelligence was a robot.

Now it's not.

It's an actual conscious thing, more or less.

So it's a great idea, you know, and it's taken that little bit of Frankenstein style, the lightning striking something and making it alive, but it's scrambling the circuitry of this robot, this highly advanced million dollar military, you know, and it's very sort of 80s, because it's there really to take down the Russians, because this is the 80s American military.

That's what they wanted to do back then.

And that's all it was, but they're hit by lightning and he starts learning.

And again, that's why you fall in love with this guy, because this Johnny Five, because you're watching him almost grow up through this 80 minute movie.

He understands what life is, he understands what death is, you know, he understands beauty.

And that moment is quite heart wrenching actually, when he realizes what disassemble means and what death means.

You know, as a kid especially, you're like, wow, okay.

And what he was created for, he was created to be a disassembler, you know.

And, you know, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting take.

And I know I keep bringing up the ET thing, because the three stories here, Short Circuit, Here in the Henshins, ET, very much follow the same plot line, when you think about it.

I mean, there's a little things different here and there, but it still comes to somebody that's not used to being around where they are, befriending somebody, learning about society, learning about people, learning about emotions.

And then the military tries to come and take them down.

I mean, that's pretty much all three movies.

But at the same time, they all have such memorable things that happen in them.

Even the TV stuff in this one reminds me of, kind of ET does this thing where he's watching the TV and taking stuff in.

And here, I mean, but he's in fast forward, right?

Cause he's super intelligent.

Oh yeah, like when he's reading the books, it's absolutely brilliant.

Like I need more input and he's thirsty for it.

He's like, ah, I need more.

And she's like, oh, I've got all the volumes of the encyclopedia on my shelves.

Why don't you just read through all of them?

And he's going around the house pointing, going, oh, there's a whisk and there's an egg.

And there's a, he loves it.

Yeah, I mean, it's a brilliant way to show that he's learning, you know, he's learning what everything is.

And the fact of, well, for first thing, encyclopedias.

How many remember those?

Right?

The encyclopedia salesman's at the door.

He wants you to buy RS&T today.

Now, you know, a robot that this would happen to, would just plug into a local computer and just go over the internet and figure things out.

Just like Neo in The Matrix.

Yeah, he literally had to take books and flip the pages faster than humanly possible.

To learn every page and every detail.

And I feel like that was done by Neo in The Matrix, you know, similar concept and the same with, if you've seen any of the Transformers movies, which I know you have, Bumblebee only communicates through song clips and adverts and commercials.

And that's how he initially starts to communicate, you know.

So it's definitely influenced, this movie is definitely an influence on future movies and pop culture.

Absolutely.

Well, we even get a guitar player named John Five that's playing with Molly Crew now.

There we go, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's just right there on the nose.

And I strongly believe that this film was remade when they did that movie.

What was the movie by Wichato Copley, the South African guy, and they've got the robot.

And do you know the one I mean, I can't remember the name of it now, for some reason, it's gonna really annoy me, but it feels like that was remade almost because it was a military robot that was rewired by some hoods in the ghettos.

And then he started to realize, I don't really wanna chappie, that was it.

Yeah.

And that feels like almost like a short circuit remake, but just a little bit edgier.

Well, that's that thing, right?

We have to push a little further.

So when we started this conversation, that's the first thing Dan wanted to talk about is, like I said, with this 80s magic and how we just have such a lack of now.

I went on it pretty hard about the Harry and the Henderson's episode, but what is wrong with a feel good movie that you don't have to have everything spelled out for you?

Just take the ride, man.

Take the ride.

Yeah.

And I said to you, well, I'm pretty good at, there's a button in my brain when I know that I need to just take the ride with a movie and I'm happy to hit that button.

It doesn't always have to be deep.

I don't need the backstories of every single character.

This is a very simple story, but very clever and well written, good script.

Throw in Steve Guttenberg and a few other great people here and there as well.

And some top notch effects.

And some genuinely funny scripting, you know, all the way.

Heartfelt as well.

Yeah.

I love that he latches on to the Three Stooges.

And you kind of get to see a playoff of that later on in the show, like when they send the other military robots to come take him down and, you know, he outsmarts them because he has human intelligence and knows how to build a snare and all this kind of stuff to trap them.

And he rewires them and they become robotic Three Stooges.

I mean, I should imagine he also watched a lot of Wile E.

Coyote and other one of Looney Tunes movie cartoons as well, because yeah, he seems to be heavily influenced by that type of comedy, doesn't he?

He was full of the pop culture of that time period, the stuff that was on TV while we were growing up.

I'm a little older than you.

So yeah, I mean, Three Stooges were on every day when I was a kid and yeah, he's just taking all of that and rolling it together and becomes his own person, just like we all do.

Those miniature influences all mixed together is who we are.

He just does it over the course of a couple of weeks rather than 10, 12 years until he's not realizing what kind of a person you are.

Well, I think I caught it a while ago is when Gutenberg's character finally catches up with him and they go up to the mountains and spend some time together, she makes the point of, I think he speaks really well for a four-year or a four-day-old.

So he's only four days in at that point.

So yeah, let's talk a little bit about the cast.

We got Gutenberg.

I mean, when you talk about mid-80s, is there anybody that was hitting it anymore than Steve Gutenberg?

Yeah, he's been in some of my favorites from this era.

I'm a big fan of the Police Academy movies, although there were especially ones he was in.

The Cocoon movies, Three Men and a Baby, Three Men and a Lady, and there's a, you mentioned one the other day.

Bad Medicine, yeah.

Bad Medicine, that was it.

And he is a charming, funny, could deliver the lines, every man, but also, I don't know, he had that magic.

There's a glint in his eye.

He's just very good at what he does.

Yeah, I mean, you don't confuse him for anybody else.

He's kind of his own thing.

And I can't think of anybody else that even kind of fits that category.

I think they try to bring other people in and kind of shoehorn them in there.

He's kind of like Bill Murray light.

He's like Bill Murray cute.

Yeah, because he can be sarcastic, but he does it in a really charming way.

Whereas Bill Murray can be quite cutting.

Since we're talking about Gutenberg and Police Academy, we got GW.

Bailey in this as well, right?

He's pretty one-dimensional, always has been.

Plymouth plays the same character all the time, but nobody does it better.

If you need an a-hole who works for the police or the military and is a bit too big for their boots, then GW.

Bailey is your man, whether it's in Police Academy or even in Mannequin.

Now, we talked about Mannequin together, so this is our second GW.

Bailey discussion.

In fact, I have a theory that when he gets fired at the end of Short Circuit, he then goes on to work in the department store as a security guard, changes his name, because he's exactly like that character, really.

Still over the top even for the job that he's in, right?

Today, today.

Oh, we got Allie Sheedy, I mean, one of the Brat Pack here, stepping up.

Not, how am I going to say this?

It's not a spectacular performance.

No, but she's cute.

But she's cute.

I mean, she plays it perfect.

But I guess I was used to seeing a little more out of her.

And this one's kind of dialed back for that character.

She's a little more airheadish, but that's fine.

She's playing the part for what she wanted to be.

I saw an interview.

She said she always wanted to be in a movie like this, where it was more fantasized, you know, dealing with, you know, those kind of subjects.

So, you know, I'm not saying she did a bad job.

It's just, I don't know.

I've seen her do some things that make me go, wow, OK.

I guess all of the cast knew they were going into a movie where they knew that the main star really was going to be this 1.5 million special effect.

Good point.

Yeah.

You know, so they knew that that was going to be front and center.

All right.

And we'll talk about the elephant in the room.

Oh, boy.

Fisher Stevens.

I'll be honest with you.

I had never seen Fisher Stevens before this movie, so I didn't know he didn't talk this way.

I think that was a revelation for a lot of people when they realized he was not an Indian gentleman.

Not a South Asian gentleman.

He is in fact a white guy.

But yeah, I mean, it's the elephant in the room.

You know, let's call it what it is.

He's brown facing it.

You know, he went for the job.

He got the job.

This was 86, probably 85.

This film was shot maybe even earlier that it was started, you know, getting put together.

He went into this, you know, he went and lived in India for three years, for three months, not three years, that's commitment, three months to learn the culture.

And he actually wanted to try and portray the character as less of a stereotype, but the studio pushed him to become the comedic side, you know, sidekick.

It's incredibly funny performance, but yeah, it doesn't, it wouldn't fly.

Yeah, it's just a different time, you know.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of those things, right?

And, you know, even in this situation, like I said, if I didn't know any different, I mean, most of them, if you go back into the 60s and 70s, it's pretty obvious that this person is not this nationality, you know, with him.

I was shocked when I found out that he wasn't.

Yeah, I mean, he does a brilliant job.

And I think he's a very memorable character, you know.

Maybe that's shocking to say, but I'm a big fan of it.

Obviously, yes, OK, you could say he was taking away the role from somebody who was actually from that part of the world.

But you didn't have access back then like you.

I mean, you just didn't.

Bollywood was not at the level that it is now.

You didn't have all the way that we're all connected.

You stuck with who you had and who you used and you were either in the system or you weren't in the system.

And, you know, it was just a different just a different time.

And the character was popular enough that it was more or less front and center in the sequel.

Yeah.

I mean, that whole the whole sequel is here.

It's just him and number five and then Fred, the other guy, doesn't it?

I can't remember his name, but but yeah, no, but it's the elephant in the room and good job.

We talked about it, but yeah.