The podcast corpus
12,078 claims and 5,127 fun items from 206 episodes, about 7,690 films and 5,411 people, with 657 personality sketches. Search reads claims and fun items (SQLite full-text search).
34 lines
Showing 1–34 of 34 lines.
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unmapped (weirdest on network TV):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Two and a Half Men (Charlie Harper death episode).
A joke contender for weirdest TV episode, noted as odd for what is happening outside the episode, and Charlie is shoved in front of a train.
“The episode of 2.5 men where Charlie Sheen dies is up there.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:07:03 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (weirdest-ever):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Twin Peaks season 2 finale.
Part 8 is Lynch topping his own season 2 finale as the weirdest thing ever on prime time, building something weird in relation to the template of weirdness he already set.
“he's like, no, I need to make the thing that is weird and relation to the template of weirdness I have already set, much like the season 2 finale”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:07:53 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
Viewing conditions: Connor first saw it around 2 a.m. on an iPad mini with wired headphones in a Four Points Chelsea hotel during the Del Close Marathon; the hosts insist it must be watched at night.
“I'm watching it in like probably after 2 in the morning.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:15:24 · Connor Ratliff (0.80 sure it was them) -
theme (imagery echo):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Eraserhead.
Orb imagery in Part 8 is traced to Lynch's earlier orb imagery such as Eraserhead.
“Sure, there's like eraser heads. Right, things like that.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:17:19 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (viewing conditions):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Quibi Spielberg night-only show (never made).
Part 8 feels like the one episode that could only be accessed after sundown, like the Spielberg Quibi show that could only be watched at night.
“It almost feels like if any episode could only be accessed after the sun goes down, it would be this episode.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:23:49 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
craft (mood):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Lost Highway.
The opening night drive with Mr. C and Ray evokes Lost Highway's driving through total black.
“Sort of lost highway vibes, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:42:11 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
lineage (alt-cut riff):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Anchorman (Wake Up Ron Burgundy alt cut).
Lynch's deleted-scene habit is riffed as making his own Wake Up Ron Burgundy.
“Lynch loves wake up Ron Burgundy.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:45:43 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (rhythm bridge):
Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The Missing Pieces prepare you for the Return's storytelling rhythm, less worried about moving the story forward and more about putting everything in.
“this is why I think the missing pieces is such a perfect bridge between firewalk with to the return.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:48:50 · Connor Ratliff (0.40 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
Lynch uses a digital double exposure, one of the first building blocks of film language, to make the woodsmen emerge, and the long glitching sequence at the store exploits the feel of a malfunctioning disc.
“I am watching this on a disk. And my brain cannot stop going like, is the player malfunctioning?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 0:56:24 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
theme (joke comparison):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Celebrity Deathmatch.
As a ten-year-old the speaker treated every Celebrity Deathmatch episode as if it were Part 8, rewriting the rules of TV.
“I treated every episode of celebrity death match as if it were part 8 of Twin Peaks the Return, where I was like, the rules have been rewritten.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:02:28 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (recurring figure):
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The woodsmen appear goofily as flannel guys in Fire Walk with Me and the Missing Pieces and seriously in the Return.
“we're such a big part of Twin Peaks the return, but of course they're in Firewalk with me in this sort of kind of goofier way where they're like guys in flannel.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:07:05 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (setup):
Twin Peaks → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
In season one the supernatural is first hinted by talk that something is in the woods, which the woodsmen embody.
“I would say like the 1st indication when you have season one of Twin Peaks, the 1st sort of indications of the supernatural things that will immediately start happening in season 2 is them talking about, there's like something in the woods.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:07:27 · Connor Ratliff (0.40 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
Part 8 is the weirdest explainer episode: a bomb unleashes evil, the Giant and Senorita Dido create Laura Palmer, and a frog-moth enters young Sarah Palmer, who is only credited as young girl.
“she's just called Young Girl.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:12:57 · Connor Ratliff (0.50 sure it was them) -
people (casting):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Blue Beetle.
The boy in the Los Alamos date scene is played by the actor who plays Blue Beetle.
“and that actor is the kid who plays Blue Beetle.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:13:42 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (practical vs digital):
Christopher Nolan → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
A joke riff wondering whether Lynch's bomb shot is practical like Nolan's claimed in-camera Trinity test, with the speaker admitting the particle shots could be either.
“I don't know, like, Christopher Nolan made such a big deal of like, I'm doing this all in camera, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:14:12 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
craft (craft):
BUF → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The VFX house BUF did the episode's computer-generated atomic sequence, with a page documenting the work.
“I'm looking right now at the visual effects house, BUF has a big page on all the work they did on this episode.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:15:58 · host (Griffin Newman or David Sims) (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (same subject, different approach):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Oppenheimer.
Both stage the Trinity test; Lynch's all-CG digital particle sequence conveys the terror of matter being pulled apart better than Nolan's practical fireball, which works for buildup rather than the explosion.
“I feel like this granular digital thing that lynch is getting at somehow evokes more of the like matter is being like pulled apart.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:17:53 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
lineage (location callback):
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The convenience store was only seen inside, upstairs, in Fire Walk with Me; Part 8 shows its exterior and it is where nasty business happens.
“Wait, so we've been to the convenience store and in the past?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:21:40 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them) -
craft (structural echo):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The abstract atomic-origin sequence is likened to 2001 for television, and the speakers note 2001 also comes after two hours of conventional narrative.
“you're like, oh, we're watching something that is 2001, a Space Odyssey for television.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:22:42 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them) -
craft (visual joke):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Dune.
The purple sea gets a joke identification as Dune, with the worm floating by.
“The worm floats by. That's the planet Dune.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:25:56 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
The Giant (credited as ??? ) and Dido sit in a castle on the purple sea, a place first glimpsed in part 3; the speakers say Lynch and Frost themselves did not know what the Giant was.
“Even even David Lynch and Mark Frost were like, we don't know what the fuck this is.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:27:07 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
theme (joke comparison):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
The Giant dreaming a golden cloud that becomes Laura Palmer to go fight Bob is likened to Captain Planet.
“it is like it's some real Captain Planet shit.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:29:58 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (role growth):
Sheryl Lee → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
Laura Palmer began as a wrapped-in-plastic day-player prom photo and became so central that Part 8 treats her as the counterweight to Bob.
“But for like the the twin peaks the return to be like, yes, Laura Palmer is the fucking Iron Man to Bob Thanos.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:32:18 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
theme (plot payoff):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Twin Peaks.
Part 8 finally ties up Jean Renault's season 2 claim that Cooper's arrival ruined Twin Peaks by showing the evil predates him.
“So like episode eight, finally, it's like we've tied up the genre now plotline from season two.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:34:19 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
lineage (callback):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Blue Velvet.
The teen walking-and-talking scenes in the last 15 minutes recall Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern strolling in Blue Velvet, with Dern looking like she is from another decade.
“I always feel like the scenes where they're walking and talking remind me of the scenes of of com McLachlan, Lord Dern walking in blue velvet, that sort of innocent conversation.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:41:57 · Connor Ratliff (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
The 15-minute final black-and-white sequence is a self-contained horror story, with blood poured on a receptionist after only a hand pushing her head down.
“it's one of the best 15 minutes of his whole career.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:43:39 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (black-and-white CGI):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Mad Max: Fury Road.
Fury Road in black and white, heavy on CGI and wordless, feels like a silent film, the same illusion as Part 8's black-and-white digital effects.
“The one I find entrancing is Fury Road for that reason.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:45:14 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (black-and-white CGI):
The Mist → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The Mist's black-and-white cut makes perfectly professional CGI bugs read as vintage, like Part 8's black-and-white digital effects.
“It's also like the mist is kind of like that where you have these CGI bugs that look like perfectly professional CGI special effects, but in black and white.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:45:33 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (counterexample):
Godzilla Minus One → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The black-and-white version of Godzilla Minus One does not get the same trick because the audience already knows black-and-white Godzilla was a guy in rubber.
“I do think the Godzilla, like -one minus color thing.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:45:51 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
lineage (callback):
On the Air → Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8.
The woodsman wanting to be on the radio and finding the people find him boring is read as a callback to the Lynch-Frost sitcom On the Air.
“I'm like, oh, this is a callback to on the air, the Lynch Frost sitcom.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:50:51 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
Mark Frost wrote a roughly 15-page script and knew the half-page atomic bomb would become 15 minutes; they wanted something that would stand apart and blow your mind. Half the episode has no dialogue.
“we wanted something that would stand apart and blow your mind.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:53:13 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
unmapped (bit):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Wonka.
A running gag predicts Wonka 2 will have Willy Wonka meet the Fockers.
“My prediction is we'll find out his middle name as Nelly.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 1:59:01 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them) -
fun, about
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8:
The Return was always watched by about a quarter million live viewers; Showtime was happy as it drove signups. Part 8's night had more viewers for Good Witch (2.3 million).
“They were like, this is embarrassing.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 2:11:14 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
theme (scoring analogy):
Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 → Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
Adding Badalamenti cues to the Return's silences is compared to adding John Williams to a quiet-space-battle Star Wars.
“It would be like if they made Star Wars movies without John Williams music all of a sudden and it was just sort of like quiet space battles.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Twin Peaks: The Return (Episode 8) with Connor Ratliff · 2:20:40 · Connor Ratliff (0.70 sure it was them)