Blank Check with Griffin & David: Wendell & Wild

Published 2023-01-15; 2:15:17 by the feed.

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

The extraction calls the show “Blank Check with Griffin & David” and the episode “Wendell & Wild”.

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims. Guests: Shirley Li (by phone, first 30 minutes, Airbnb story).

Subject films: Wendell & Wild (2022).

On the transcript: No speaker labels; the opening is a cold open and the first 30 minutes is a phone-call Airbnb story with Shirley Li. Three ad breaks (Video Game Town, Audible Dracula, Mubi) and an outro tourism ad were skipped. Most film titles other than the subject are transcribed correctly.

Films that came up

Claims (52)

unmapped (shadow): Henry Selick → Tim Burton. A host says Burton's name overshadows Selick; people hear Nightmare Before Christmas and assume it is Burton's.
“It does really feel like the Burton thing is a shadow.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:04:02 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
career (comeback context): Monkeybone → Brendan Fraser. Monkeybone is the film being skipped in the Brendan Fraser comeback conversation.
“It truly feels like the one that is being skipped.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:04:59 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (viewing schedule): Wendell and Wild → The Whale. David planned to see The Whale right after Wendell & Wild at TIFF but skipped it after the Airbnb ordeal.
“I was supposed to see the whale next.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:28:36 · David Sims (0.70 sure it was them)
unmapped (Netflix algorithm): Wendell and Wild → Wednesday. Typing 'Wen' brings Wendell & Wild up because of Wednesday's popularity, though JD Amato says Netflix never recommended it.
“Surely the algorithm's like, hey, you know, you might like Wendell and Wild.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:36:43 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
contrast (documentary type contrast): Claydream → The Sparks Brothers. David assumed Claydream was a Sparks Brothers-style career overview but it is really about art within capitalism.
“I assumed it was maybe more of a Sparks Brothers type.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:39:45 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
unmapped (takeover fallout): Will Vinton → Henry Selick. After Vinton was pushed out of Will Vinton Studios by Nike's Knight, the company (Laika) went after Selick.
“They go after Henry Selleck, who's like the other giant stop motion, at least in America, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:42:07 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (story analogy): The Shadow King → Dumbo. The Shadow King's long fingers become a gift, like Dumbo's ears.
“it's like Dumbo where like his terrifying, gigantic ears end up becoming this artistic gift.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:44:22 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (unfinished predecessor): The Shadow King → Wendell and Wild. The Shadow King combined stop motion with shadow animation; some of that is used in Wendell & Wild.
“And they use some of that in this film, Wendell and Wild.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:44:46 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (parallel Disney deals): Guillermo del Toro → Henry Selick. Disney gave del Toro a spooky-movie imprint and Selick his own animation studio, investing in artists to form new Pixars.
“And there was that Gimbla Toro Disney double dare you where they were like, we're giving you your own imprint to make spooky movies.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:45:17 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (creative conflict): John Lasseter → Henry Selick. Selick blames Lasseter's constant changes for budget creep that killed The Shadow King.
“John Lassiter couldn't help himself.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:47:32 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (blame): Alan Horn → The Shadow King. Selick says Alan Horn found the movie too weird to sell.
“said the movie was too weird.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:49:57 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (origin of film): Jordan Peele → Wendell and Wild. Selick saw Key and Peele on Comedy Central and realized they were Wendell and Wild.
“then it hit me, Wendell and Wild.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:53:45 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (story note): Jordan Peele → Wendell and Wild. Peele pushed to make teen Kat the protagonist instead of the nun, to make the movie accessible to kids.
“And Jordan Peele was like, cat should be the protagonist.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:01:45 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (protagonist note): Monkeybone → Wendell and Wild. Selick's pattern is to choose an adult / unconventional lead (retired pitchmen, a middle-aged nun) until a producer pushes for the kid.
“Anyway, with monkey bone, I wanted every character to be a 60s, you know, retired pitch man.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:02:01 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (studio-notes buffer): Jordan Peele → Henry Selick. Peele was good at dealing with studio notes and calming Selick down.
“He was really good at dealing with studio notes.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:03:00 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (studio-notes buffer): Tim Burton → Henry Selick. Burton played the calming intermediary on Nightmare and, less so, James and the Giant Peach; Monkeybone had no such figure.
“Burton doing that for him to a far lesser degree on the 2nd movie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:03:28 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (absent protector): Bill Mechanic → Monkeybone. Mechanic, who shielded Selick, was gone by Monkeybone, so it was chaos.
“He had Bill Mechanic and the Bill Mechanic was gone.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:03:32 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
verdict (freedom made best film): Coraline → Henry Selick. Coraline was made with Laika hands-off, and it is his best film, so maybe studio notes are not needed.
“It does seem like he was pretty unfettered, and that is his best film.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:03:53 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (Pixar brain-trust meddling): The Shadow King → Brave. Both were cases of the Pixar brain trust pressing a filmmaker's personal story into Pixar principles.
“which this is the same time that the brave thing goes down.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:04:06 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (technique evolution): Wendell and Wild → Coraline. Selick turned against slick 3D-assisted look after Coraline and kept seams visible and embraced artifice in Wendell & Wild.
“He said Coraline was maybe a little too smooth, and he wanted to go a bit backwards and show off the artifice with this movie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:08:37 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (artwork source): Henry Selick → Tim Burton. Nightmare Before Christmas brought Burton's artwork to life; Peach got Lane Smith; Coraline Tadahiro Uesugi; Wendell & Wild Pablo Lobato.
“Zalek is kind of bringing the artwork of Tim Burton to life.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:09:35 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Lane Smith → James and the Giant Peach. Selick brought Lane Smith's artwork to life as the look of James and the Giant Peach.
“James and the Giant Peachy got Lane Smith.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:09:37 · unclear (Griffin Newman or David Sims) (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Tadahiro Uesugi → Coraline. Coraline's look came from the illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi, whose art Selick brought to life.
“Coraline, we talk about Toddahiro, Use, Uzuki.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:09:39 · unclear (Griffin Newman or David Sims) (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (visual inspiration): Pablo Lobato → Wendell and Wild. Selick picked a flat, cutout caricature style that should not be adaptable to 3D and asked the team to build it.
“Wendolyn Wilde, Argentinian artist, Pablo Lobato, is the big inspiration for the look of a lot of these guys.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:09:45 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (caricature casting): Wendell and Wild → The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Making the characters caricatures of Key and Peele is likened to the Mr. Limpet trick of putting the star's face on the animated character.
“Like we have to make the characters caricatures of them, almost like it's the incredible Mr. Limpet or something”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:14:59 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (worked on): Lou Romano → The Iron Giant. Romano worked on Iron Giant and has worked with Selick before.
“Worked on Iron Giant, has worked with Selleck before.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:15:51 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (design lineage): Lou Romano → The Incredibles. Romano's Incredibles work has a similar 2D/3D look, which made him right for Wendell & Wild.
“Right, particularly because of the Incredibles, which has that similar kind of like 2D 3D thing.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:15:54 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (tone and structure): Wendell and Wild → Beetlejuice. Wendell and Wild are Beetlejuice-like in that the story is really about the human teen (Lydia/Kat) and they are the colorful characters.
“They're Beetlejuicy in the movie in that it's like, well, it's really about Lydia.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:16:53 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (same dynamic): Keegan-Michael Key → Toy Story 4. Toy Story 4 gives Key and Peele the same high-strung idea man / good-natured stoner dynamic as Wendell and Wild.
“Toy Story 4 gives them basically the exact same dynamic where the one guy's the motor mouth”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:21:20 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast of villainy): Wendell and Wild → Beetlejuice. Unlike Beetlejuice, who is purely malevolent, Wendell and Wild are babes in the wood whose ulterior motive is an amusement park.
“Unlike Beetlejuice who like operates from a place of like pure malevolence, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:22:16 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (tone): Wendell and Wild → Coraline. The kindness shown to Kat, with quiet sadness, is likened to the boredom sequences in Coraline.
“it's it's similar to the sort of the boredom sequences and core line where, uh, Everyone's kind to cat.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:28:33 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast of setup): Wendell and Wild → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Imagines Nightmare's Halloween Town opening as ten minutes of dialogue introducing each denizen as a plot function, to describe how Wendell & Wild feels.
“It feels like if in the opening, this is Halloween sequence of nightmare before Christmas.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:31:00 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (plot density): Wendell and Wild → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nightmare has one major objective everyone is on; Wendell & Wild is just so much plot.
“Night before Christmas has like one major objective that everyone's right on.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:32:50 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (unexplained underworld): Wendell and Wild → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nobody asks who Oogie Boogie is in the spirit world, but Belzer's role is questioned.
“We don't ask these same questions of someone like Oogie Boogie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:36:33 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast of setup): Wendell and Wild → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nightmare doesn't open with civic politics, so its underworld needs no explaining; Wendell & Wild front-loads dense plot.
“Yeah, it also helps that like nightmare before Christmas doesn't start with 10 minutes of like the political infrastructure of a small town.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:36:39 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (accept the lore): Wendell and Wild → Kingdom Hearts (game series). The hellmaiden rules are like Kingdom Hearts lore: you just accept them because those are the rules.
“Those are the rules because those are the rules.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:42:42 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (exposition style): Wendell and Wild → Avatar. Big sci-fi blockbusters like Inception and Avatar earn their virtuoso final acts with an hour of clumsy exposition; Wendell & Wild operates the same way.
“And they're things like Inception or Avatar, where you're like, you know what?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:52:28 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (exposition style): Wendell and Wild → Inception. The whole movie spends its running time on clumsy rules-exposition so the final act can pay off, like Inception.
“the whole movie is Inception style explaining to you, well, this is a kick, and this is a totem”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:53:13 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (oscar ballot): Wendell and Wild → Mad God. A host voted Mad God first and Wendell & Wild second on the Critics Circle animation ballot.
“I voted for Mad God of the Critics Circle because I was like, well, that's the thing I really think.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:59:08 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (stop-motion award field): Wendell and Wild → Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. With Marcel mostly stop motion, up to four of five animation nominees could be stop motion.
“You could have a good category where 4 out of the 5 nominees were stop motion.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:59:25 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Phil Tippett → Henry Selick. Tippett, Vinton and Selick are grouped as stop-motion animators of different temperaments who all drop into a Zen flow state while animating.
“Phil Tippett, Will Vinton, Henry Selleck. They're all different types of people.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:00:05 · David Sims or Griffin Newman (unclear) (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (merch): Wendell and Wild → Coraline. Coraline merch still lines Hot Topic while Wendell & Wild has none.
“You're like, Coreline stuff is still lining fucking hot topic”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:00:53 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (profit accounting): Black Adam → The Polar Express. Black Adam's profit claims prompt a Zemeckis recollection that in the DVD era studio movies could not lose money.
“it is basically impossible for a studio movie to lose money.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:04:25 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
industry (box-office rivalry): Smile → Halloween Ends. Smile, headed straight to Paramount+, outgrossed Halloween Ends, which was day-and-date on Peacock.
“Got crushed by smile.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:06:51 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
industry (oscar competition): Wendell and Wild → Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro). Netflix has two stop-motion films in one category; Pinocchio has the Oscar heat and likely cannibalized Wendell & Wild.
“I get them not wanting to cannibalize against Pinocchio, that they have like 2 movies in this one category in the same medium”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:10:31 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
verdict (ranking): Coraline → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Griffin ranks Nightmare over Coraline; both masterpieces, though Coraline is the greater auteur achievement; David flips them.
“I think I got to give the hair to nightmare over Core a lot.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:11:00 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
unmapped (magic alchemy): The Nightmare Before Christmas → The Wizard of Oz. Nightmare has a magical, alchemical quality that falls into Wizard of Oz territory.
“It just, it falls into like, like Wizard of Oz territory.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:11:18 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
verdict (ranking): James and the Giant Peach → Wendell and Wild. Peach is ranked third over Wendell & Wild because it is more straightforward and rewatchable.
“Peaches third.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:11:42 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
verdict (ranking): Wendell and Wild → Monkeybone. Wendell & Wild is 4th and Monkeybone 5th in both hosts' Selick rankings.
“Wendell Waldus 4th, monkey bonus 5th.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:11:43 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (rewatch effect): Wendell and Wild → Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Griffin hoped a second viewing would work like Glass Onion, with setup gaining meaning, but it did not.
“I was curious if watching it a 2nd time, it would have like a glass onion effect”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:12:32 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
craft (90s aesthetic): Monkeybone → Monkeybone. Monkeybone is steeped in 90s swing revival, Smash Mouth and chain wallets.
“Yeah, and it's chain wallets.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:13:52 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (makeup detail): Brendan Fraser → Monkeybone. In Monkeybone's end sequence Fraser is styled to look more monkey-like while fighting Chris Kattan holding balloon strings.
“they start styling Frasier to look more like a monkey.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:14:27 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)

Fun items (23)

fun, about Henry Selick: Everyone hearing the name asks who; he is just the Nightmare Before Christmas guy, then people say Tim Burton.
“And I'd be like, he's the guy who did Nightmare before Christmas.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:04:13 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / David Sims: David saw the film at a TIFF 9 AM press screening after a night of fire alarms and an accidentally armed security system in a Toronto Airbnb; he says it healed him.
“I'm gonna put my clothes on, and I'm gonna walk my ass over to the light box and just watch Wendolyn Wild, because at least there won't be a fire alarm.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:26:55 · David Sims (0.80 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Netflix: JD Amato says Netflix never once presented the film to him; hosts call it a stunning indictment of the algorithm.
“That's a stunning indictment.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:37:27 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Claydream: The Will Vinton documentary is called phenomenal supplemental viewing: depositions, the Nike takeover, and Vinton once being offered Pixar shares that Steve Jobs eventually took.
“He would have been Steve Jobs.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:41:50 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about The Shadow King: Pitch: nine-year-old New York orphan Hap with long fingers makes shadow hands fight a monster that wants to eat New York; Selick wanted to blend stop motion with cut-out and shadow animation.
“a deliciously magical tale about a nine-year-old New York orphan named Hap, who hides his weird hands with long fingers from a cruel world.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:43:53 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about Henry Selick / The Shadow King: Disney shut down his Pixar-campus stop-motion film a year into production with 40 percent animated, took a $50 million write-down, then handed him the rights; nobody bought it.
“Disney took a $50000000 write down on the Shadow King.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:45:58 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Key and Peele: Selick was channel-surfing, saw Key and Peele's sketch with 3D-printed guns and insane wigs on the plane, and decided Wendell and Wild were a comedy duo vehicle.
“He likes the, um, the sketch prepared for Terry's, which is like the guys getting on the plane with the 3D printed guns”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:54:01 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Comedy Central / Review: Comedy Central refused to license to streaming after Broad City boomed on Hulu, so shows like Review were stuck on a bad app.
“We are never licensing any of our shows to a streaming service ever again.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 0:55:45 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Jordan Peele: Originally the nun Sister Helley was the protagonist; Peele's note was to make teen Kat the lead so kids can identify. Selick: it took a while to convince him.
“It's the easiest note in the world, Henry Selling.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:02:20 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: Most of the film was animated remotely during the pandemic; animators moved sets into their homes.
“Like animators moved sets into their homes and were in isolation working on their own section.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:08:20 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Phil Knight: Selick kept the replacement-face seam lines because he is free of Nike's Phil Knight, who reportedly hated them.
“Phil Knight, apparently, really hated the seam lines is one thing Selak said.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:09:04 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Pablo Lobato: Selick chose a flat, cutout caricature style almost perversely, then told the team to figure out how to build it in 3D.
“here are Pablo's flat drawings, figure out how to build this.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:10:24 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: A hellmaiden's cold open: the car crash, the punk boombox with a bloodshot eye, and X-Ray Spex on the radio ground the first seven minutes.
“She's listening to x-ray specs on the radio.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:24:46 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild soundtrack: The punk and new-wave soundtrack includes X-Ray Spex, Fishbone, The Specials, TV on the Radio for the finale, and Special Interests.
“Their song, Young, Gifted Black and Leather fucking rules.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:30:04 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell & Wild / Buffalo Belzer: The giant puppet heads were built so the faces are articulated; Belzer's hand is built to scale, about 15 feet tall, and you can see it in the credits.
“The hand is like 15 feet tall.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:35:06 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: The undead city council members are skeletons from past centuries, which David finds a clever, laugh-out-loud idea.
“Like, what if you brought back New York's city council from like the 18th century”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:40:33 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: Griffin and Ben saw it at the Quad in a nearly empty theater and walked out invigorated about its social commentary.
“There was one other person in the theater, and we walked out and we were like pretty fucking invigorated by it.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:54:25 · Griffin Newman (0.70 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: The trans character Raul's identity is handled quietly through context clues, which they praise over self-congratulatory progressive films.
“It's basically like stated only through context clues, you know?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 1:55:14 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: No merchandise exists for the film, which the hosts find baffling given Selick's merch history.
“No merch for this movie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:00:26 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Wendell and Wild: Griffin says a Republican version of the council skeleton gag is that they could consult dead founders to learn exactly what they intended.
“We now know exactly what our founding forefathers intended because we brought them back to right here.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:01:17 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Black Adam: Hosts mock a leaked-documents campaign to prove Black Adam profited, noting half the profit is Warner paying itself through HBO Max and billboards.
“Half of that profit is the amount of money that Warner Brothers pays itself through HBO Max.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:02:36 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Monkeybone: Bit about Monkeybone's final sequence: it looks like rear projection, and Brendan Fraser is made up more monkeylike with a unibrow, bigger teeth and organs falling out.
“It looks like deliberately artificially like they're just in front of a screen kind of shit.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:14:22 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Danny Boyle: Next miniseries announced: Danny Boyle, the first proper English director; first up is Shallow Grave. Griffin was going to joke he was Irish.
“So next we're doing our 1st British filmmaker.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Wendell & Wild · 2:15:38 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)

Who's talking

Griffin Newman (host): Loves Selick's visual inventiveness and thinks Wendell & Wild eventually satisfies despite its density; steeped in film-business history and trivia. Defends big sci-fi blockbusters with heavy exposition like Inception and Avatar. Rankings: Nightmare 1, Coraline 2, Peach 3, Wendell & Wild 4, Monkeybone 5.
David Sims (host): Critic who covers festivals; liked Wendell & Wild at TIFF after a sleepless night. Loves how it looks and the punk soundtrack, appreciates its political point about prisons, and is fond of Monkeybone. Rankings: Coraline 1, Nightmare 2, Peach 3, Wendell & Wild 4, Monkeybone 5.
Shirley Li (guest): Friend of the show; critic who attended TIFF with David and saw Bros and The Woman King. Not a viewer of Wendell & Wild yet and says she will watch it.

The show's recurring bits

The box office game: Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against.
The sung theme: "Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it.

Names the transcriber got wrong

Henry Selleck / Selleck / Sellick / Salic / Zalek / Silicon = Henry Selick
Wendolyn Wild / Wendell and Y / Wendolyn Watt = Wendell & Wild
Lyka / Lica = Laika
Lassiter = John Lasseter
Will Wilvin / Will Vint / Wilvin = Will Vinton
Clay Dream = Claydream
Key and Peel / Kim Peele / Keen Peel = Key and Peele
Toddahiro Use Uzuki = Tadahiro Uesugi
Pablo Lobato (likely correct as spoken)
Tantu Cardinal = Tantoo Cardinal
Igal Nahur = Igal Naor
Ving Reimes = Ving Rhames
Maxine Peak = Maxine Peake
Gimbla Toro = Guillermo del Toro
Shirley Lee / surely = Shirley Li
Cinder biter = Cinderbiter Studios
Brendan Sans / Brennan Sans = Brenaissance
Mamafuku = Momofuku
movie = Mubi
Black Trump = Black Adam? (unclear), 'Lane Black' likely a Claxon voice credit
Eso Tiger = Esso tiger (Exxon-style mascot)
Jane Schoenberg = Jane Schoenbrun
Quad = Quad Cinema (correct)
pod Mare Before Cast Mess = Pod Mare Before Cast Mess (miniseries pun)

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Wendell & Wild

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

Films that came up

subject (1)

compared (16)

passing (30)

anecdote (15)

recommended (3)

dismissed (1)

Claims (52)

Fun items (23)

Who's talking

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong