The Cheese Fry recently watched David Fincher's serial killer masterpiece Seven with the 16-year-old, who'd never seen it. We've watched it many times over the years, of course, but it's been a while. We were coming into it pretty fresh. And, of course, there's something special about watching a favorite movie with someone who's never seen it before. And the 16-year-old knew next to nothing about Seven aside from it being about a serial killer and starring Brad Pitt. Here's a few observations.
1. It's aged very, very well. True, there are no smartphones or flatscreen computers so it's definitely of the 1990s, but the movie has such a timeless, fable quality that it still feels very contemporary and strangely urgent. Morgan Freeman's big speech about living in a world where apathy is considered a virtue strikes a nerve all these years later. It's much easier to tune out with social media than engage with people around you.
2. The ending ("John Doe's got the upper hand!") remains unflinchingly genius. As shocking and tragic as it may be - the bad guy is more or less winning, the ending also feels completely inevitable and totally earned. It's very hard to watch the torture on Brad Pitt's face as he wrestles with what to do, gun in hand, John Doe cuffed on his knees in front of him. It's easy to say that a movie star like Pitt just coasts on charisma and charm, as in something like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He's fantastic in that movie, but it's mostly just Pitt being cool. When properly motivated, however, like in moments like this in Seven, he can deliver the actorly goods.
3. We realized for the first time that John Doe likely doesn't have a plan for the last two deadly sins (wrath and envy) until he poses as a news photographer and encounters Pitt. Pitt goes nuts, breaking the camera and displaying his character's hot-headed rage, which John Doe will use against him. What if Pitt hadn't done that? How might the movie have ended?
4. There's just the one traditional action sequence when Pitt chases John Doe through apartment buildings and into the street. Otherwise, it's mostly a seedier, grosser episode of your favorite TV police procedural with red herrings, high tech forensic geek-outs, and talky philosophizing about justice and crime.
5. Some interesting irony in that John Doe's twisted mission to showcase society's shameless evils more or less aligns with Freeman's view of the world.
6. There is no sanctuary in this infamously unnamed city. It's always raining, dark, and crowded. Everyone, in fact, seems in need of a bath and a fresh change of clothes. Note also that our main characters can't even find solace in their homes: Pitt's apartment is rattled by a subway every ten minutes, while Freeman has to use a metronome at his bedside to drown out the constant yelling of arguing neighbors. The one respite (aside from the bright desert sunshine of the movie's most devastating moment, although technically everyone had to drive for many miles out of the city to get there) is the city library after hours, where Freeman wanders the aisles in peace.
7. No surprise that Morgan Freeman turns every line into a polished jewel. A national treasure.
8. Kevin Spacey is so very young here, but he packs such a punch, the essence of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. It's an incredibly high bar to meet after so much build up with the gruesome, complicated deaths, but Spacey's creepy calm more than lives up to the hype.
9. We don't think Seven invented the "tired cop who's about to retire gets one last case" trope, but it certainly plays it out effectively. When we first meet him, Freeman is a cop eager to quit. He's seen it all and has had enough. But by at the end, he tells his captain "I'll be around." A big part of this transformation comes in the scene at the bar where Pitt loudly refuses to believe Freeman cares so little. Pitt's lines here are so, so great: "I don’t think you’re quitting because you believe these things you say. I don’t. I think you want to believe them because you’re quitting." You can see on Freeman's face - no dialogue needed - that there's truth in that.
10. We'd be remiss without also pointing out the insane title sequence of stuttering, skewed, overlapping images over grungy guitars. Brilliant tone-setter.
9.06.2025
Ten Points About 1995's "Seven"
8.16.2025
Knee-jerk review: "Weapons"
1. It's a great movie, but that is one terrible title.
2. Probably more unsettling than traditionally scary. There are a handful of old-fashioned jump scares for the traditionalists out there, however.
3. And one truly creepy moment that gave us chills. Okay, maybe two.
4. Josh Brolin is always great, isn't he?
5. The pop culture buzz for this movie is pretty strong. There's certainly a risk in situations like this where the actual movie has no chance of living up to the hype; everyone's expectations are sky high. But for the most part, we were not disappointed.
6. Very clever, novelistic structure, using a series of "chapters" from different character POVs (most of the characters interconnect in some way) to slowly reveal the whole story. The way it all comes together is pretty perfect.
7. Lots of interesting subtext (domestic violence, school shootings, addiction) simmering under the plot, which gives the story unexpected heft. These are all pretty flawed, miserable people doing their best, which isn't always good enough.
8. Aunt Gladys. Wow.
9. What's really happening with the missing kids isn't 100% spelled out, but there are a few throwaway background references that we think provides the answer.
10. Nothing good at all can be happening in a house with newspapers covering all of the windows from the inside.
11. "Your two o'clock is here." Indeed.
12. Always a fun moment in a movie when someone studies a map and starts drawing lines and circles to try and Understand What Is Happening.
13. The ending is bonkers in the most completely satisfying way.
14. The citizens of Maybrook are going to need a whole lot of therapy after all of this.
15. If you're going to see it, avoid spoilers so you won't know what's coming. 100% unpredictable.
Sidebar: To the teen girls in front of us checking social media on their phone 90 minutes into the movie, at least have the common courtesy to dim your screen.
Sidebar #2: If movie theaters are going to insist on running 20 minutes of commercials (we're not talking about "coming attraction" trailers, we're talking about the endless ads for insurance and cars and soft drinks), at least have the common courtesy to not run the same spot twice.
8.07.2025
Knee-jerk review: "The Fantastic Four: First Steps"
2. But we were hoping for more than "okay." The snazzy, candy-colored trailers had us pretty excited, but the movie was a let down.
4. To us, Vanessa Kirby always gives cold, brittle performances so casting her as a supposedly warm, maternal figure seems pretty questionable. Joseph Quinn also feels miscast as the Human Torch.
5. Considering how ridiculous their powers are, the Fantastic Four characters are pretty dull and flat here. They may be freed from the shackles of 20th Century Fox movies, but this cast is not that much of an upgrade over the Ioan Gruffudd (2005) or Miles Teller (2015) teams.
6. We do wonder about Pedro Pascal and his agent. What a time those two are having right now. He's literally everywhere.
7. Mole Man!
8. We will stipulate that this one is certainly more polished and epic-feeling than the Fox movies, which are pretty forgettable. But First Steps feels undercooked and weirdly slapdash in many ways (rumors of big reshoots and last-minute edits may be true). A truly awesome movie is in there somewhere.
9. Bonus points to the Galactus climax that was pretty satisfying and also to the clever teleporter subplot.
10. Perhaps most surprising of all is that there's so little humor. We kept wondering what James Gunn could have done with this ragtag dysfunctional family and the supposedly wisecracking characters of Ben and Johnny. We needed more gags like the car seat bit.
11. Thunderbolts* was better.
12. Meh.
13. Are we all just about done with these Marvel movies? This one is the 37th MCU movie. Holy cow. Even the big post-credits stinger scene here with someone who appears to be Doctor Doom - setting him up as the Big Bad for yet another string of movies - feels tiresome.
7.13.2025
Knee-jerk review: "Superman"
1. You've never seen a Superman movie like this. Take that as either a compliment or an insult. This is a world of flying cars, sentient robots, alien dragons, and black hole portals. Plus a Kryptonian dog. It, like, totally goes there.
2. As expected, with James Gunn writing and directing, it's a got a weirdo Guardians of the Galaxy vibe to it. Even with all the comic book strangeness, the movie's packed with real emotion and humor.
3. The most evil and awful Lex Luthor ever. We're way past the avuncular charm of a Gene Hackman.
4. There's definitely a lot going on. Lots of characters and plot, but it mostly all comes together.
5. Whether intentional or not, this is a movie with a lot of political layers, like the manipulative propaganda power of social media, the raging mistrust and fear of people who aren't like you, and the very real-world problem of countries invading other countries for secret, nefarious reasons.
6. But we remind you that it takes years to go from script to screen. Media can maybe comment on hot topic current events with something like "Law and Order" or a pop song, things with quick production turnarounds. Movies, on the other hand, are too slow and creaky. Especially giant movies like this.
7. The more we think about it, the more we like it.
8. That's definitely an interesting choice for Jimmy Olson's character.
9. Wendell Pierce sighting.
10. An "interdimensional imp" is a thing apparently.
11. Superman is tricky thing for us because the first two Richard Donner movies (especially 1980's Superman II, which we know, we know was technically credited to director Richard Lester) are a big pop culture part of our youth. We remember those movies with rose-colored glasses, willfully overlooking their flaws and occasional accidental cheesiness. As an 11-year-old we even tried hard to really like 1983's Superman III, but surely we can all agree that is an awful movie in spite of (or because of?) the countless times we watched it on HBO.
12. We sort of appreciated what Superman Returns (2006) was trying to do as a Donner homage, but it was a pretty limp, forgettable movie.
13. The "Snyderverse" thing continues to baffle us. Man of Steel (2013) was at least a real movie with strong actors and a distinctive sensibility, albeit a humorless and dour sensibility. We really liked Henry Cavill as Superman. But no one can honestly and objectively look at Batman v. Superman (2016) or Justice League (2017) as anything other complete disasters of filmmaking, bleakly self-indulgent, narratively confusing, and completely off-putting and unsatisfying. And yet those movies have a sizable - well, loud anyway - legion of fans who act like they're the pinnacle of Hollywood storytelling. As a result, these Snyder fans are out there attacking this new movie. Right now there's a lot of online chatter about which film made more in the opening weekend box office, as if that's the only arbiter of a successful movie (plus keep in mind that the mass media entertainment environment of 2013 is way different than 2025, so it's apples and oranges anyway).
14. Christopher Reeve was perfect casting, no doubt, but David Corenswet has that same sort of square-jawed earnestness to him. He's pretty good, people.
15. "I'm not Superman" indeed.
16. That's quite a twist with Jor-El. Marlon Brando wouldn't have liked that.
17. Nice to actually get Lois Lane into the action to help save the day.
18. What you may have heard is true: Mr. Terrific steals the movie.
19. It's a solid B+, which isn't bad.
7.05.2025
Knee-jerk review: "Jurassic World Rebirth"
1. So look, this movie knew what it needed to do and it delivered it exceedingly well. Polished, competent, efficient.
2. We weren't really looking forward to seeing this, but the family decided watching dinosaurs eat people was the perfect way to spend July 4th.
3. All in all, a pleasant surprise. It's pretty dang good, people.
4. We weren't huge fans of the last three Chris Pratt/Bryce Dallas Howard Jurassic movies and can't even remember the storylines, but this one introduces a whole new (if familiar) set of characters and quickly strands them on a dinosaur island. Back to basics.
5. Jonathan Bailey looks like Guy Pearce's younger brother. Seems like he could be a real movie star.
6. No self-respecting Jurassic movie would ever miss the chance to put a tween character in harm's way.
7. Most of the movie is a string of exciting impossibly-close-call, escape-the-hungry-dinosaur set pieces. Good enough.
8. Shout out to the guy sitting next to us who had to keep explaining everything to his daughter. You made our experience so much better as a result.
9. Mahershala Ali is probably slumming here, but that's okay. He brings welcome gravitas. And he likely got a good paycheck.
10. We should talk about the sailboat family. It's good that the movie took time to develop their characters before the dinosaurs attack so we feel more of an investment in their safety, but their little cruise seems incredibly reckless given the exposition audiences were provided about the world of the movie. We also noted that without the family's side adventure, the run time would probably only 90 minutes.
11. When it comes to concocting a reason to undertake yet another dangerous mission to an off-limits dinosaur island, the one the filmmakers come up with (gathering samples from three live dinosaurs) is pretty good.
12. The D-Rex is a bit much perhaps.
13. Even after all of that, we're still skeptical of Xavier.
14. Sci-fi research facilities always have huge vent systems to allow for convenient hero escapes, don't they? They must all use the same architectural firm.
15. Scarlett Johannson, pony-tailed action hero? More please.
16. We appreciated the Jaws homage.
17. Ending is probably a little long, but the plot pieces all come together nicely. Ticking clocks are always welcome.
18. Honestly, it may be the best one since Spielberg's 1993 original.
Twenty "Howard Stern Show" Characters, Ranked
The dysfunctional collection of people on SiriusXM's "Howard Stern Show" are not exactly fictional characters, but they're not really regular civilians either. They're eccentric personalities (cast members?) that are either on the show payroll as staff members or calling in for free as infamous members of the Wack Pack, manipulated and managed by Stern to create the distinctive fabric of the show. Here's our current ranking of these folks from #1 (always instant entertainment) to #20 (hope to never hear from that person again).
1. Ronnie the Limo Driver, obviously
2. Richard
3. Sal
4. Sour Shoes
5. J.D.
6. Benjy
7. Chris
8. Pearlman
9. Wolfie
10. Jon
11. Samantha
12. Nowicki
13. King of All Blacks
14. Mariann
15. Jason
16. High Pitch
20(tie). Memet, Bobo, Blitt, A.N. Ed
**This list does not include the Fab Four of Howard, Robin, Gary, and Fred.
Six months of books
The Cheese Fry has been doing a lot a reading since January 1, possibly because we've been doing more traveling than usual and nothing goes better with plane rides and quiet hotel rooms than a book. Here's some one-line reviews.
Challenger, Adam Higginbotham - Top-notch exploration of the 1986 shuttle explosion (they knew about the O-ring problems for years but bureaucratic paralysis kept them from ever addressing it) from the same author who wrote the similarly powerful Midnight in Chernobyl.
Eruption, Steve Olson - A detailed, if brief, account of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption that apparently needed to add in long-winded history of the American logging industry to bulk up the page count.
Live from New York, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales - An excruciatingly thorough - and ultimately repetitive - oral history of "Saturday Night Live" that eventually wore us out with unending praise for the genius of Lorne Michaels.
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick - It took us a while to realize that, rather than a high concept sci-fi spy thriller like the Amazon series adaptation, this is more of a moody relationship drama that just happens to take place in a world where the United State lost World War II.
60 Songs to Explain the 90s, Rob Harvilla - A deliciously nostalgic andquirky trip down 1990s pop culture through the lens of popular music.
The Song Is You, Megan Abbott - While it's got an interesting seedy noir premise - 1950s Hollywood fixer gets wrapped up in the case of a missing actress - it's one of the few books that has gone right into our giveaway stack rather than on our shelf.
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel - A memorable mix of poetic literary style (although we didn't fully understand the comic book subplot) and post-apocalyptic suspense that ends on a supremely satisfying note as multiple plotlines converge in unexpected ways.
Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins - The entertaining prequel story of the Hunger Games experience of Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the movies), a much more deserving protagonist than Collins' last novel that weirdly spent 300 pages telling us how President Snow turned heel.
Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer - A dense, engrossing textbook-style look at the minutia (food, law and order, household chores, clothing) of life in 1300s England. For example, the water was so so dirty that, unless you captured rainwater in a cistern, you mostly drank ale all day every day.
Wake Me After the Apocalypse, Jordan Rivet - There's a whole lot of post-apocalyptic YA fiction out there that incongruously layers teen romance onto tragic end-of-the-world stories and, if done right like this one, we are there for it.
6.29.2025
Knee-jerk review: "28 Years Later"
1. Don't let the creepy marketing strategy fool you - this is actually a traditional sort of coming-of-age domestic drama that just happens to take place in a crazy post-apocalyptic setting.
2. That doesn't mean, however, that there's any shortage of scary, suspenseful sequences of "how will our heroes survive this?"
3. We'd somehow forgotten Ralph Fiennes is in the movie. What a treat to be surprised by his entrance.
4. There are plenty of good movies out there, but not a lot of truly great filmmakers. Danny Boyle movies aren't always great (see: Yesterday and the last 20 minutes of Sunshine), but there's no denying they are always artistic and exceptionally well-made.
5. Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later are top-notch, of course, but we always thought Trainspotting was way overrated.
6. Of course they'd eventually run out of arrows.
7. They're not zombies, you see. They're infected with the rage virus.
8. How does he still have a supply of tranquilizers? It's, like, 28 years later.
9. We don't want to spoil anything, but there's a rather shocking moment that Changes Everything about the infected.
10. There's always something tragic about that moment when you realize your parents are actually just flawed people who don't always make wise decisions.
11. Bonus points for the "Jimmy" call back at the very end.
12. Only in an English movie would the hero be called Spike.
13. The Swedish soldier delivers a welcome dose of humor in an otherwise very serious, dour movie of Important Themes.
14. The doctor may not be as crazy and dangerous as the villagers think he is... but he still seems to be little bit nuts. In a benevolent cuckoo sort of way.
15. Much better than you might imagine.
6.08.2025
Knee-jerk review: "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning"
1. We were getting worried because the first half-hour or so is exceedingly tedious with long info-dump exposition and table-setting. Eventually, though, it kicks into gear and becomes a proper summer action thriller.
2. We regret to inform you that Tom Cruise is genuinely starting to show his age. He's in his early 60s now.
3. We love Hayley Atwell, but the pointless death of Rebecca Ferguson's spy character in the last movie remains a huge unforced error. Did she insult the filmmakers somehow?
4. More and more, it's hard to dazzle us with an action sequence. Hasn't everything been done already? Turns out the answer is "no." This movie has two knockout set pieces - the submarine dive and the biplane fight, neither of which has any dialogue. Simply incredible.
5. A vast improvement over the disappointing and confusing Dead Reckoning, Part 1, but still not in league with the very best of the series (Ghost Protocol 2011, Rogue Nation 2015, Fallout, 2018). Those three are action near-masterpieces.
6. In the real world, Cruise's character would have died four times over in this movie. He makes a ridiculous "hail mary" decision, rolling the dice, and then just hopes for the best. No one is that lucky.
7. The world needs more smart submarine thrillers. Can we please have a sequel set entirely on the Ohio?
8. We almost laughed out loud when someone mentioned that a purely theoretical super-advanced piece of next-generation computer hardware was finally built by... Ving Rhames' character Luther.
9. Ditto the moment where Simon Pegg's character Benji explains in detail to computer novice Hayley Atwell's character Grace how to hack into a hyper-secure government facility. How can Benji possibly know anything about that system? These movies are crazy and often succeed in creating their own reality where anything can be hacked by Luther and Benji. This was not one of those moments.
10. Nice Fail Safe call back. If you know, you know.
11. Angela Bassett can be an acquired taste. She's gives off that same steely, angry edge in every role. But that's exactly what is required here.
12. After the disappointing (relatively; it still earned $570 million) last movie, you can see that the filmmakers tossed out all of that mumbo-jumbo philosophical AI nonsense and went back to basics: in The Final Reckoning, Cruise and his misfit team have to find and mate together two pieces of hardware to save the world. Simple is better.
13. Clever and completely organic return of a character from the very first movie all the way back in 1996.
14. There's no way Paramount lets this golden goose die. Cruise can totally return as a sage mentor figure and let some other young star do the action work.
15. Go see it.
5.26.2025
Knee-jerk review: "Final Destination Bloodlines"
1. Yeah, this is a pretty hard R. A whole lot of blood and gore. If you're into that sort of thing, you won't be disappointed.
2. We remember the first three pretty well: the one with plane crash (Final Destination, 2000), the one with the logging truck accident (Final Destination 2, 2003), and the one with the roller coaster derailment (Final Destination 3, 2006). A check with Wikipedia reminded us there's also the one with the NASCAR race crash (The Final Destination, 2009) and the cool twist where the characters in Final Destination 5 (2011) ended up on the plane crash from Final Destination in 2000. Oops.
3. The whole premise of this franchise is ingenious - it's not only easy to understand the rules (escape death in a mass casualty event, death will come after you by any means necessary as soon as possible), but the movies get the chance to concoct all kinds of elaborately grisly accidental deaths. Aside from horrific "OMG!" deaths so completely insane you almost have to laugh, however, the movies all sort of run together.
4. That said, this one feels different. Bloodlines takes more time to develop the characters, all of whom are related. These aren't high school acquaintances or grumpy strangers; these people all have long histories and complex relationships with each other. Which means the threat they're facing packs a much bigger dramatic punch.
5. The whole generational "bloodlines" thing also adds a fresh spin to the premise.
6. You make a movie in Canada to get those tax breaks, you end up with a no-name Canadian cast. Decent, but vanilla.
7. The lead actress in particular is a little bland. She looks 35 but is playing a college student presumably in only her sophomore or junior year.
8. Opening 20 minutes are pretty incredible if you like disaster scenes. Wow.
9. We spent the whole movie thinking the mom character was played by an older Lara Flynn Boyle. No, it's someone named Rya Kihlstedt.
10. Bonus points for a couple of very fun plot twists involving how (if at all) one might cheat death.
11. Of course, most of these deaths go beyond horrible happenstance. An MRI machine isn't going to turn on, for example, just because a clipboard falls onto a keyboard.
12. Not to get all film theory on you, but movies - like any art - reflect the cultural zeitgiest from which they come. This is a series of movies that reminds audiences over and over that death is not only inexorable and inevitable, but extremely painful and awful. That's a pretty dark sentiment. Smarter people than us will have to explore why a movie with this hopeless a message has resonated with such a wide audience ($187 million at the box office and counting) in 2025. No movie exists in a vacuum. Choices were also made to revive this franchise after a 15-year absence from theaters. Yes, it's all about the business decisions of the filmmakers and the studio rights-holders. Pre-sold brands are always appealing. But there are always also other forces at play, whether the filmmakers know it or not. All art - even the cheesiest TV show or most disposable pop song - is political.
5.12.2025
Notes on the Mid-80s Bob Barker Era of "The Price Is Right"
We've known about the 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel for a while now, but a recent household change to the DirecTV Stream provider (our roof dish is now just a useless artifact of technologies past) has made it much easier for us to tune in. It's pretty much what the name implies: an unending string of "The Price Is Right" reruns from the Bob Barker years. The channel has been playing as background noise around Cheese Fry Headquarters for about three weeks now. We've slowly progressed from 1982 to 1985, which is right in the heart of the Cheese Fry's formative years where watching Bob Barker meant either: A) you're home sick from school or B) it's summer vacation. Childhood nostalgia overload, audio-visual comfort food.
Here are a few thoughts about our ongoing experience with "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel.
* Obviously, there's a very appealing time travel effect at work in watching these episodes. The crazy fashion; the poofy, teased haircuts; the charmingly low-tech prizes (lots of grandfather clocks and groovy stereo systems) are all from what sometimes seem like a different universe.
* It's always tricky to evaluate legacy media from a contemporary perspective. Bob has that polished, tanned, Johnny Carson-style charm. He's got a quick wit and a pretty dry sense of humor. But, as a product of that era (he was born in 1923 and started hosting the show at age 49), he's also... a little sexist and condescending to the women contestants. Just when we think we're imagining it and being overly sensitive, Bob says something overt and we'll do a "did he just say that?" double-take. Lots of housewife jokes, lots of "husbands are the boss" jokes. Sometimes he leers, sometimes he flirts. This came as a shock to us, spoiling our 1980s innocence. It also probably runs counter to America's more recent fond memories of Bob as the spry, white-haired elder statesman during the last few years of his run.
* All these youthful contestants jumping and running around in their 20s and 30s? They're all now senior citizens.
* Kind of a bummer to consider that the show no longer tapes in the CBS studio in Hollywood.
* Some things never change: the show today still uses a lot of those goofy synth music cues. And a lot of the games are not only still being played, but look the same. Like, zero facelifts or redesigns of any kind.
* In elementary school, our crush was redhead "Barker Beauty" Holly Hallstrom. But now, looking back, there's no question that it's blonde Dian Parkinson who was truly deserving of any and all schoolkid crushes.
* The "Ten Chances" game has always seemed really to hard to play.
* This stretch of episodes includes the rather unexpected death of genius announcer Johnny Olson in late 1985.
* There are almost no cars given away that cost more than four figures.
* A lot of these prizes remind us of our fashionable aunt and uncle who lived in a swanky part of Houston. The brass beds, the chrome and steel dinette sets (is "dinette set" even a term any more?), the polished cherry wooden secretaries (remember those?), the mustard yellow garbage disposals, the big color cabinet TVs. These are the 1980s trappings of the upper middle class.
* The show gave away a surprising amount of mattresses and carpet. Were those also considered luxurious perks? Maybe back then there wasn't a mattress store on every corner.
* Apparently, the presence of air conditioning and power locks are distinctive enough to be merit mention in Johnny's "a new car!" script.
* So there's this big green train that the models use pretty regularly to present the items for bid for the folks in contestant's row, slowly rolling out from the wings and onto center stage. (Trivia: that game the four contestant prospects play has a name: "One Bid.") There's a green engine that pulls a green platform. There's fake steam. It's all steeped in mid-80s cheese. But the best part is the "waaAAH-waaaahhh!" wolf whistle sound effect.
* We can verify here that Bob does indeed sometimes wear the same suit more than once. This is a detail that would only become apparent to a screwball like us watching multiple episodes.
* These shows are really, really old, but we still recognize almost all of the pricing game grocery store item brands. The breath mints, cleaning products, soups, spaghetti sauces, snacks, cold medicines. These things you can still find on the shelves at your local grocery store.
* In those days, for whatever reason, the contestants definitely skewed to white women. Also, we're not hardcore obsessive Drew Carey-era fans, so we are speaking with very little authority, but it certainly seems like the Barker shows welcomed a lot of military folks in uniform.
* We're all the way up to 1985 and still we're not seeing any gag T-shirts with funny "pick me!" text and pictures. When did that become a thing?
Another treat on this 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel is that sometimes they'll show really old episodes from the early 70s when it first went on the air. Bob looks and sounds really young; the contestants all tend to be sheltered, slightly dim housewives; the color scheme are these horrible yellows, oranges, and browns; and - get this - there is no Big Wheel. Three people play and the top two stick around for the Showcase. Heathens.
Come on down to the the rabbit hole!