News Round-up, Spooky Season Recommendations, and a Sweet Tooth Smackdown
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And greetings and welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. It is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to Doonstar Spice Co., but to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today.

As always, now that she's swapped her still suit for her Halloween squid game best, it's my house of our, working title, co-host and ringer, senior staff writer, Joanna Robinson. Oh!

Oh, hi, Mallory. I'm glad to be rid of that still suit for many different reasons. Glad we're still making Dune references. Glad we're still making Squid Game references. You know, life moves fast. And I'm glad to keep the jokes of two weeks ago still alive on this podcast. We really lean into our passions here on the Ringer Podcast Network, as you know. We have a

Very fun, very weird show today. We're going to be hitting a lot of different things. A few programming notes for everyone before we dive in. There will not be a Midnight Boys pew-pew episode next Wednesday.

There will be one next Friday. Van and Charles will be with you on Friday, November 5th for their Eternals Instant Reaction Show. And then Joanna and I will be back with you next on Monday, November 8th for our Eternals Deep Dive. You can follow all of that by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, following our social feeds. We are on Twitter. We are on Instagram. The Ringerverse has a Facebook group. We're everywhere.

Bear in mind, as always, our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. We have a grab bag today, you know, a little variety pack. So it's tough to give a very specific spoiler warning. We're going to be talking about Dune, the MCU, Succession, a bunch of stuff. We're also going to be channeling our inner Midnight Boys for some nerd news at the top of the show. We're going to be answering your mailbag questions. We're going to be debating Halloween candy.

sharing our favorites, building a special Halloween shared bag together with a little candy draft. The segment that may break this podcast before it's barely even started. We're saving it for last for a reason. Who knows if we'll be able to recover after the fact. And in a very special treat.

Van and Joanna will be sharing their spooky season streaming recommendations today in honor of Halloween. I am a coward and can't handle any sort of scary movie fare.

So I'm opting out. Just thinking about candy for 30 minutes instead. Just prepping your candy list. Prepping your choices to crush me in the candy draft. Yeah, I'm really excited. And this is my first chat ever with Van. What an intro to this new podcasting relationship. First of many to come, undoubtedly. House of Midnight. Ring or verse. I love it.

What a podcast! Oh, spooky season. It's my time to shine. I love this. I can't wait to hear more of your Halloween and candy takes later. I'm so excited. Should we hit the news first, though? There's a handful of things that we wanted to quickly run through at the top of the show. You want to take us through the headlines? Let's do it. Let's do it. Speaking of candy, speaking of nerds, which is a kind of candy, as you may recall. I love nerds. Here's our nerds news roundup.

A little preview of the candy draft. We're going right back to Arrakis. You might have hung out with us for two and a half hours on Monday as we talked about Doom, but since in the subsequent days, I think just like less than 24 hours after they made it official that Legendary has greenlit Doom 2, apparently one of the sticking points in negotiation was whether or not it would get a theatrical-only release. They have successfully negotiated a theatrical-only release.

We don't even have to wait that long. October 2023. Mal, how are you feeling? Dune 2. I'm so excited. Dune. I mean, obviously we spent a...

decent chunk of our Dune deep dive pod talking about how badly we wanted to see this cinematic saga continue, how hopeful we were that Dune 2 would get a green light and get one soon. And sure enough, it did. I can't wait to get the next installment in the saga. I mean, I love the first film so much. And I think, you know, I would be excited no matter what, but particularly so because Villeneuve has been so forthright about how his vision for this was always to

a, at a minimum two part cinematic journey. And, you know, has, has shared that he's interested in making a potentially making a third, a third film based on do Messiah as well. So the fact that this is how he conceptualized and crafted this in his mind from the start makes me even more excited than I already would be. But we have, you know, the back half of the book that we so adore to still explore in full. And I just can't wait to be right back here with you on Mike.

Talking about sandworms and Chris knives. It still suits again. In two years, I'll meet you back here. I will say for all the people who are concerned about it, Zendaya is definitely going to be more prominent in this movie. Villeneuve, as we talked about on Monday, Villeneuve has said that he wants her to be like maybe even the protagonist, if not at least, you know, like the co-protagonist of the film. I think that would be a great move.

And then we cannot hop off this Dune news without taking a moment to celebrate my favorite part of this, which is mere minutes after they announced that Dune 2 is officially happening. You know, Timothee Chalamet tweets out the Dune 2, like, promo photo, etc. A young actor named Barry Keoghan, who you will see in Eternals if you see Eternals soon, tweeted out two emojis.

A little winky face and a little hushy face. Those two things together, which made people meet like five minutes after the announcement, which made people think, hey, perhaps Barry Keoghan might be in Dune 2. Barry Keoghan, the very person that I dreamcast for Feyd-Rautha. Just incredible. I just want to say, I hope that my Mentat powers made this happen. Yeah.

Obviously they didn't. Obviously this has been in the works, but it possible, probable, possible, who knows? Or maybe he just had a really good sandwich that day. We don't know what those emojis mean. What do you think, Mal, about the barricade? I'm just so thrilled for you at the beer prospect of this. I mean, the timing of it did seem to point toward a certain conclusion and

Though, as you say, who knows? I mean, it's not like he tweeted a gif of Sting in the diaper. Right. You know, there's still some room for interpretation. But I really hope this happens and I hope it happens for you. I hope it happens for all of us. I honestly just I'm so hyped about this. Can I can I have a 15 awkward seconds here to say something, please?

I would like to clarify, it seems that some listeners may be misheard or a trick of the audio in our last pod. For the record, I am fully vaccinated. I said I'm fully

vaccinated, but perhaps the audio just morphed or I mumbled or something. I am fully vaccinated. Do not worry. And hopefully this clears up any confusion. I am fully vaxxed and believe the vaccines are incredibly important. We are going to make an edit to the audio in Monday's Doom Pod so that I can state it more clearly. And there will hopefully be no confusion for anybody who hears that for the first time in the future. Thank you.

Are you a Moderna babe? Pfizer. Pfizer fam over here. Pfizer fam. All right. How about you?

Moderna. Okay. Got that good, good Dolly Parton running through me. So yeah, we are a fully vaccinated pair right here. I really listened to that section. I can sort of see how people miss her, but yeah, fully vaxxed. All right. And before we move on to the next thing, I just really want to quickly say, I'm not saying I'm the only person who dreamed Casperi Keoghan for Fade Rautha. I just want to swear to you that

that unlike some other actors that I mentioned on the pod, I did not see this on like Reddit or something like that. I pulled it from my heart and from my brain. You felt it in your soul. And here we are. All right. Let's talk about a little Marvel. A little, a little Marvel news. Let's do it. A little leak perhaps. Okay. So as we all know, Marvel likes to keep its secrets, but then sometimes they cast actors who are like, I don't give a fuck. And,

And the actor in question in this case, comedy legend, a Ghostbuster himself, Bill Murray, is apparently in Ant-Man 3, Quantumania. And he just straight up told Variety. I mean, basically, he's like, I can't tell you which one, but the director made a cheerleader movie, I believe is what happened here. So Ant-Man 3, Quantumania, Peyton Reed, it's happening. Mal? No.

How do you feel about Bill Murray going rogue here? I just get such a kick out of all of this. I have to assume that he was not supposed to say this. Absolutely. And that this cameo, presumably, supposed to be of a piece with JLD showing up and just delighting the masses. And that was, I mean, mostly a thrill just to have her

in Marvel, in the MCU, but also because I, at least, I had no idea that was coming. I was genuinely surprised by it. And that was with, like, teases from the Falcon team about a cameo to come.

Have to assume that Bill Murray was not supposed to say this. That said, I'm delighted to hear that Bill Murray is going to be an Ant-Man. How wonderful. And there are so many possibilities. I think that from the way that he talked about this, it seems unlikely that he's going to have a major or recurring role. He seems pretty uninterested in being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is, you know, his prerogative, certainly. The quote is, I don't think I need that experience a second time.

I love this. This is so funny. But...

Maybe his cameo, if it is in fact a cameo, will actually be a character. There are a few different possibilities that we consider, and maybe it's something that we wouldn't have considered at all. Perhaps he could just be appearing as himself, you know, pull an old Zombieland here. Yeah, I love a Zombieland moment. Have you seen Zombieland, Mal? Yes. So you can handle zombie movies? Zombies are a little bit a part of the rest of the horror genre for me. I actually... I don't know if it's just because...

I watched so much Walking Dead over the years that zombies feel a little more mainstream to me or because it's... I don't know. Some of the campier stuff I'm okay with. Pure horror, I really have a hard time with. I'll give you a 30-second aside here of personal history to explain why I don't like this stuff. Tell me. Tell me. There are a couple different reasons. One...

When I was a young child, like if memory serves and candidly, it may not. But my memory of this is that I was like in second grade. I was like seven years old. And I went to one of my neighborhood friend's house and his older brother was watching child's play. And it like fucked me up and scarred me. It was to the point where I

For years after that, like walking through a blockbuster with my mom, if I saw Chucky's face, I would get like very upset and unhappy. I didn't like to see him. I didn't like to think about it. So that was a big one. Then, as you know, I am married and my husband, Adam, is mostly pretty great, but scenes from a marriage.

He loves horror movies, loves them. And very early on in our relationship, turned out this was more than a 30 second aside. Who saw that coming? I'll try to wrap this up quickly. I, you know, it's clear that I didn't like them. He loves them. You know, early on in a relationship, you just can't, you know, you want to be around each other all the time. And it was like, all right, well,

What do we do about the fact that he wants to watch these movies and I don't? We reached an agreement that we would watch one horror movie together per year. It's like a little shared experience. And that we would do it on his birthday. The first one that he picked was The Descent.

That is not the movie he should have picked if he was trying to ease me in to embracing this genre again. Those people. So scared. I'm so unsettled. And I said to him, I need you to just like basically be nice. Be kind to me. Don't try to

Startle me. Don't make fun of me. Don't try to spook me. Let me try to fall asleep and ease my mind after this. Okay. Fast forward in the bedroom, getting ready for bed. Lights are off, ready to retire for the evening. Attempt to clear my mind. And I look over into the doorway.

I'm just going to get off and show you this. I need to, I need to, I don't know, I'll have to carry the mic with me here. I'm already, I'm already, I'm pre-upset. And I see like this like swinging kind of shape and shadow because again, the lights are off in the doorway and he goes, oh,

And he was imitating one of the creatures and it was cruel and it scared the shit out of me. And he thought it was hysterical. And guess what? We've never watched another horror movie together since. He did that to himself. Yeah. He did that to himself. You gave him the parameters. He plowed right through them. That reminds me of the time when I watched The Ring for the first time. Real quick aside, right? Steve's side. I watched The Ring for the first time. I was a...

And a friend of mine was talking to me beforehand. And then I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to go watch The Ring with some people. And he's like, okay. And we hung up the phone. He like went and looked up the ring time, the runtime of The Ring. And then like, there's a whole thing with The Ring. I don't know if you've seen it. I'm guessing not. But like, there's a whole thing with like... But I'm familiar with the story. There's a whole thing if you like watch the movie and then like someone calls you. Anyway, he called me immediately. Like right when it was over, he called me immediately because he looked up the runtime to scare me. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So back to our stuff. Nerd news. But yeah, there's a theory running around Reddit that maybe Bill Murray's playing Scott Lang's dad. Bob Lang. I think that's kind of just based on, I don't know, comedy chops. I could see the casting working like face-wise or whatever. But I think it's also based on a quote that Jonathan Majors gave where he said, you know, playing...

Kang in in Quantumania that he would be dealing with the whole Ant-Man family that could mean you know the Pimms or it could mean some more lengths we'll see interesting could see it also just being someone else from from Hank's

inventive past, you know? Oh, yeah. Getting some of those lovely little Pym flashbacks to Hank, giving somebody a salty retort about how superior he is. Oh, do you think they're going to run Bill Murray through the old DA-J-a-thon over at Marvel? You never know. Speaking of DA-J-a-thon, let's talk about a

Higher, faster, further, younger. Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger. We got a teaser for Lightyear, the film where Chris Evans will be voicing...

Buzz Lightyear. And let's clarify what we're watching here. I have a quote from one of the directors who said, set in the world of Toy Story is kind of weird. Another way to get at it, it's a straightforward sci-fi action film about the Buzz Lightyear character. In this Toy Story universe, it would be like a movie that maybe Andy would have seen that would have made him want a Buzz Lightyear figure. So like it's Iron Man, right?

If Iron Man, you know what I mean? I guess. Right. Right. Yeah. How do you feel? What's your hype meter level for Lightyear, this Pixar offering? My hype meter is high. I absolutely love Pixar movies. I adore them. We should absolutely plan on carving out some time next year to talk about Pixar. I love the Toy Story films. I love Buzz.

And the confusion around this movie, sort of baffling but very amusing. I guess in some ways it will just amplify the level of conversation that we all have about what exactly we are watching. It seems like maybe some of the confusion stemmed from

The well-intentioned but perhaps misinterpreted Chris Evans tweet in the wake of the Disney Investor Day announcement where he said, just to be clear, this isn't Buzz Lightyear the toy. This is the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on, which led some people reasonably, I think, to deduce that this was about Buzz Lightyear, a human astronaut character inside of the Pixar universe. But then, of course, many other people

immediately noted, well, if space exploration and that level of technological advancement, not to say that space exploration is impossible currently, just to be clear, but to that extent, she's vaccinated and she believes in space travel. Correct. Both of those things are true. Ex-pal. That some of that would have made its way into other Pixar films because, of course, there's this wonderful shared experience

across the Pixar movies. And so it, of course, makes sense that this would be akin to, you know, Star Wars or something, right? And then you have a Luke Skywalker toy after watching Star Wars. That doesn't mean the Jedi, sadly, exist in our actual universe. So I think we're clear on this ultimately, but there does still seem to be a lot of confusion. You shared a wonderful article from the Polygon crew in which they debated their interpretations. Very funny read. Yeah. Yeah.

Love the folks at Polygon. I have a theory. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Show me. What's your theory? So I don't know if you guys are outside like that, but remember the cartoon, the Buzz Lightyear cartoon? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So here's big galaxy brain Musa level take. Right. Okay. The cartoon is from like, you know, like the 80s, you know, the 90s, early 90s. Right.

And they rebooted Buzz Lightyear as a gritty, you know, spaceman. That's the movie we're getting, right? And that's the movie Andy saw to buy the toy.

Right? So it starts off with the cartoon. Then we get the gritty reboot. You know what I'm saying? And then Andy is like, I want Buzz Lightyear. I love Buzz Lightyear. Let me buy some Buzz Lightyear toys. Boom. I love this interpretation. I will just say overall, it is an unnecessarily complicated layering of IP. They've done this to themselves. Yeah.

This is incredible. I mean, I guess a lot of it will be unambiguously clarified inside of the movie itself if we just like have a closing shot of Andy turning off his TV or walking out of the theater having watched it. They said that in this interview. They're like, we're not going to do a shot of Andy eating popcorn in the movie theater or something like that. But maybe they'll have to add one. Why not? It's like putting part one behind Dune on the Dune. Anyway. Oh,

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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or the Peloton app. It's like having your own personal coach with you or right at home in your living room. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at one Peloton.com slash running. All right. We put a call out to our lovely listeners for some questions. And if you're wondering, I've, I've heard from some people, they're like, how, how can I get my questions on the ringer verse? Usually we're looking at tweets. Uh, that's, that's the best way to reach us. Uh,

Our lovely Jeremy will put out a prompt. Mal and I will usually retweet it. You can find it in one of the feeds. So, Jomie, what do we have in the mailbag this week? We got some great questions this week. Our first question comes from Kelly H. If you could swap any character in Dune with another character played by that actor, who would it be and why? Think Thanos for Gurney.

I love this. Incredible question. It's a great question. I loved this. And my favorite is that one of the people in sort of response to this suggested Timothee Chalamet's character from Lady Bird. Yes. In for Paul. I believe this was Zach, right? Yeah. Zach, who always says there's so many great mailbag questions. That was an amazing one. An inspired pick. What are you going with here? I have a few thoughts.

Hit me with your first thought. Let me just say, I'm having so much fun today with you. I mean, I always do, but I feel myself. I'm laughing a lot. I'm moving a lot. And I know Steve's going to yell at me because I keep moving away from the mic. Steve, hurry. Also have like a pumpkin, like gourd sized neck knot here. So I'll blame that. Let's go with that. This camaraderie is all just leading up to the end of the podcast when we get to the kid. Tear each other apart. Oh, God. Okay.

I'm going to throw out three nominations to you here. Okay. Yep. First, as much as I adored Jason Momoa's Duncan, Idaho. And as I, as I said on our dune pod, like one of the absolute highlights of the movie for me, I just thought he was sensational. I felt that I had to at least consider that we were compelled to at least consider that

subbing in Jason Momoa's Arthur Curry from Aquaman. Now you might be thinking, what are you talking about? What is Aquaman going to do on a desert planet, mom? Watch your ass. Watch your ass. Okay. So just broadly,

similarly charming and suave and insightful and just a great hang, okay? But also, crucially, resourceful. He can live on the land. He can live on the land. Let the record state that he can live on the land. But I wonder, would his aquatic, kingly half and those instincts...

From Atlantis. Allow him to discover, to suss out all of the secret water stores. I am deeply suspicious that what you are actually after is a slow motion shot of Jason Momoa swigging from a bottle of spice beer and stripping off his sweater so he can dive into a sand dune. No? I don't know what you mean.

Don't know what you mean. As the White Stripes and or something else plays. No, no, that's not what you're after. Oh, boy. I don't know what you mean. And you definitely won't detect any sort of pattern in my next pick. How about subbing in Oscar Isaac's Poe from the Star Wars films for Duke Leto? Leto said that he wanted to be a pilot. So let's just lean all in.

give him his X-Wing and do it. Plus, crucially, we know that our little Bubba, BB-8, is used to rolling around on the sands from his time on Tatooine. I think this would work. And then my third nomination that I'll throw out to you, and this one's a little, this one might seem odd.

Dave Batiste does Drax. Yes, that's mine. All right, because let's bring some levity to House Harkonnen, you know? And even amid the laughs, we know that it works because he can stay focused on a grudge. He can walk that vengeful path. So as the Baron is sitting there in his, like, hot tub of black goop of tar... The oil bath, yeah. And he goes...

Robin, I need you to squeeze. Then you have Drax being like, I don't understand. Physically squeeze? Say, how do you squeeze sand? Do you know what I mean? You'd be very literal in your reactions. Yeah, yeah. I also wanted to put Drax into this. And as we mentioned, like, I think we talked about this in our deep dive episode.

I wouldn't mind if there was a little bit more levity throughout Dune. I love the movie as is, but like if in Dune 2, if in Dune, they want to inject a little extra humor, I wouldn't be mad about it. I will just offer one other nominee, which is Rebecca Ferguson, Lady Jessica. Two options actually here.

Ilsa Faust, Mission Impossible, big fan. Big, big fan. Oh, yeah. She'd kill people with her thighs anytime she wants, a la Saeed on Lost. So we know Jessica can fight, but I wouldn't have minded her fighting a little bit more in the Ilsa Faust fashion. Secondly, Dr. Sleep...

that I love and she's great. She's very witchy, weirding way woman, Bene Gesserit in that movie. She's got some creepy witchy stuff going on. So really like any Rebecca Ferguson, except for Greatest Showman, any Rebecca Ferguson role that you want to draw in here, I'm for. So yeah, I love it. You could also slide Zendaya as MJ, right? And it works because she's also, you know, as in decapitated

the first Dune and the first Spider-Man barely in both of those films. So it works perfectly. Correct. And she's also like, I don't really think you're all that Paul Atreides in the same way. And she's like, okay, Peter. That's great. All right. Our next question comes from Jake. Jake, I love this question.

It's a great one. How would Kendall, Roman, Shiv, Tom, and Connor each handle having Arrakis taken from Logan and being granted to them as their fife? Spice addiction? Chome shareholder proxy vote? Who hires the bootleg Mentat and gets banned from the Spacing Guild for being a bad traveler? What an incredible question. I'm delighted to have a succession crossover moment here because if anyone listening is not aware...

We love succession here at The Ringer, and Joanna has been co-hosting a weekly succession pod over on the Prestige TV podcast, co-hosting it every week with Sean Fetasy, interviewing members of the cast. Check it out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Steve can tell you that we have been...

Driven to the point of looking for snake meat online and also telling like family deep family secrets. I don't know. It's it's it's a weird wild time over on the succession podcast Wednesdays. We're enjoying it. I'm having a great time. Sean's the best. And succession is amazing. I mean, these Roy kids would fuck everything up. That is for sure. But I just have two quick things to say. Number one, Tom would obviously make cousin Greg.

eat something very weird and wonderful from Arrakis. So we would find some horrible delicacy and make Cousin Greg eat it. I think he would use him in place of the poison snooper. Just use him as a human version of the poison snooper. I love it. I love it. Followed to that, if you're looking for like a spymaster, if you're looking to replace the fear of Hawat because he let the hunter seeker through, etc.,

Cousin Greg is always in the right place at the right time to see what's going on. He accidentally, haphazardly. So I'm just saying, you know, you would be wise to hitch your wagon to Cousin Greg because he has the intel and I think he would be able to suss out

Dr. Yue and the Harkonnen betrayal a little earlier than House Atreides did, which is not at all. I don't know. What do you think, Mel? How are the Roy kids doing on Arrakis? Boy, there are so many different ways we could take this. I mean, what a rich text of possibility. I'll say I foresee Connor falling into his readings, you know, falling further into his readings. So many new texts on offer. I think that he would quickly look to collect

More shriveled genitalia. That's what I see for Connor. I was thinking like a Shia Shia Lood preserved Shia Lood genitalia. Yeah. I think that also we have to consider given the issues that have stemmed from the sand mites in the Willa theater production.

He would be like, okay, I see an opportunity here with all of this sand and probably would get arrested or murdered as a result of trying to smuggle this sand off world to be used on Broadway. Roman would get in trouble trying to start something with like Charlotte Rampling's Bene Gesserit character or something like that. I had the same thought. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Roman would ask the Reverend mother to call him a failure repeatedly as he jerked off and then he would collect the gift of his body's moisture to try to ingratiate himself with the power players anew. Absolutely. It's a lot. Recycle it in a still suit.

Just offer it back out to the world. Yeah. So it would be a mess. A bigger mess even than I think House Atreides, House Roy. I could see Tom. I think what you said about Tom as a student, I could definitely see him shouting, Mentats coming through! And then throwing sacks of spice at Greg as he's trying to process his own anxiety. It's mentat business. High-level mentat business. Yeah.

I think that Kendall would turn to the Fremen and the Spice for the pursuit of enlightenment, expanding his consciousness. But he would err, of course, in not waiting for House Harkonnen to kill Logan, but rather trying to align a la The Bear Hug and do it first, play a direct hand. Then he would leave the

them hanging after accidentally killing a spacing guild member at a dinner party or other family gathering, a wedding, perhaps align with his father anew. Then, of course, betray Lolito. I'll call him after Lolito decided that he had to sacrifice Kendall for the future of House Waitrades. That's how I see it going for Kendall.

I think that Shiv would have a path to something great in front of her and would be more than capable of walking that path. Become a reverend mother, a ruling duchess on Arrakis or any other planet. She could do whatever she wanted, but she would thwart her own progress as all of the Roy children do at some point. I could see like turning off her phone, you know, going off the grid, going dark after learning that the...

Kwisatz Haderach had to be a man. Oh, yes. Great point. Great point. Real, real Arjessi's moment. Well, if I can't have the top chair, I'm out. Why? Why would I do it? Who sent these poison spice donuts? I feel like the most the most damning thing that will happen with these Roy kids on Arrakis is

is the same mistake House Harkonnen makes, which is underestimating, discounting, underappreciating the Fremen, right? The House Atreides move is like desert power, right? Like they're like, hey, the Fremen are actually very useful to our, you know, the Roys would not be able to see it that way at all. They have no vision in that direction. So listen, it's just going to go really terribly. Yeah.

You think it's whip out of poorly for the house of trainees. Uh, worse for house Roy. That's what I have to say. So if anyone else has any thoughts and feelings about how succession would work on, uh, on Arrakis, please, please let us know. Tweet at us. Joby. What else do we have in the mailbag this week? We have a question from John at John speaks. Are there any characters that haven't been announced or rumored to be coming that you want to see in the MCU? Also, uh,

How would you like to see that individual or group be introduced into the fold? Okay. I insisted we do this one because I have like a very, very specific thing in mind. Also, I just forgot to say the phrase sandworm linguine, which is something I meant to say earlier. Okay. Anyway, for this question. Oh, God. She almost had a show. Then it got canceled for really shitty reasons that I will not get into right now. She deserves her own show.

She would fit in like a charm at Disney+. It's Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl.

TV series, Disney Plus. That's what I want. I want the recent run. I want that vibe on my TV screen. Give it to me. Squirrel Girl. She's the one I want. What do you say? I love this. That's a great one. That's a really, really, really great one. I won't surprise you here that I had a hard time with this question because I'm parsing every word of it. So like what counts? What is eligible for

Because haven't been announced or rumored to be coming. I mean, what's rumored and what's just...

fan theorizing and speculation. It's hard to say. So like, I'm guessing that the X-Men don't count here, right? Because even though they've not been announced, obviously there aren't more rumors about anything other than rumor has it. Yeah. You know, can't pick Mephisto because it's all anybody theorizes about on Twitter, much to Jomie's chagrin and sheer dismay.

Similarly, I always want to pick Namor for something like this, but I think that falls into the rumor bucket too. There have been Sub-Mariner rumors around the MCU for years. What's the current Namor custody battle situation? The IP rights, man. I think they're still with Universal. Yeah, that's what I think. I think Marvel doesn't have it. They don't have it anymore. What does rumor cover? And also, how long till they get all of this back anyway? You know?

I just, I remain hopeful. You're stymied. So you're just going to agree with me that Squirrel Girl is it, right? Here are a couple I'll throw out. What about Molecule Man? You know, connecting to the Beyonders, the Secret Wars plotline. And I think we all feel like Secret Wars is coming, right? There's a connection to the Fantastic Four that could come into play here. Kang,

So many possibilities given the multiversal phase of MCU storytelling. Let's head to Battleworld for Secret Wars. Let's get Molecule Man into the fold. But here's my actual pick for you. And I don't think this counts as rumored. I think this just falls into the fans would like it category. So I'm allowing myself to make the pick. Okay. Now and always, my pick will be Pet Avengers. Okay.

The Throg Easter egg in Loki felt like a little bit of a wink, a little bit of a promise. Here's how I'd do it in terms of the part of the question about how to do it. Bring in actual Redwing. Uh-huh. I would go Redwing the Falcon here, given that we'd be connecting this through Sam's storyline, not the Red Parrot, but...

We don't need to get into all that. And then have Red Wing build out an animal hero team with Lockjaw and Throg and everyone else to fight alongside Sam Wilson's Captain America and Sam's new Avengers. This should happen. The most Mallory idea I've ever heard. I love it. I stand by the pick. Can't believe we went all this way without mentioning the

The Young Avengers agenda. I don't think it's not eligible, Jomie. Why not? Because too many of the characters have been introduced already. It's just a lock at this point. So even though they haven't said, here's your Young Avengers show or here's your Young Avengers movie, we have too many of the characters. It's clearly going to happen. I mean, we don't know. Do we?

I just want to say really quickly that Mal and I can unite our causes because Cat Thor shows up in Squirrel Girl. So I'm just saying, if you want a pet Avenger and I want Squirrel Girl, we can have both. Why not? I love it. Why not both? Porque no los dos. Si, si.

Oh, boy. All right. Well, while we're on the Halloween frontier, I'm going to pop off for a few minutes. Van is going to join. You two are going to share your spooky season streaming racks. And then I'm popping back on after that. Talk candy. What could go wrong? For the end of the podcast. The end of our friendship. Here we go. Wow.

All right, we have sent Mal away into a closet somewhere to hide her eyes and ears from this segment because horror is not her jam. But we have a very special guest over from the Midnight Boys podcast. It's Van Allo. Van, welcome to the house of our working title. Hello, I'm very happy to be here. Pew, pew. Pew, pew. It is so great to be in the presence of such class and dignity today.

And not the scruffy people that I'm working with over there at the Midnight Boys like Charles. Take a shot at him, even though he's not here. Wow. Just like catching strays, even though he's not on the show. Scruffy looking. I just want to start by asking you, how into horror and Halloween are you in general? It's a complicated relationship. Talk to me about your complicated relationship. So I come from Louisiana, a place that can't really...

reconcile its relationship to Halloween. It's both one of the biggest Halloween places and also highly, highly Catholic place. If you go to New Orleans, it's Halloween all over the place, Halloween town, Halloween craziness happening. But then at the same time, one of your aunts always tells you it's the pagan devil's holiday.

So you have to know whose home you're going to in order to whether or not you're going to get trick-or-treating or whether or not you're going to get the Bible study aspect of it. Because a lot of people will go to church on Halloween, but it vacillated in our life. We went back and forth, but in the end, Halloween won. Wow.

What does that mean about your relationship with like Catholic horror, like film wise? Are you a big Catholic horror fan? Are you like an Omen fan sort of thing? Yes. Those are the scariest. And I'll tell you why. Those are the scariest because in order to reconcile this, this horror movie, the fact that they liked horror movies, but the fact that they were sort of taboo, my parents would tell me,

And I'm not sure I don't agree with them that there are some horror movies that are fiction and then some horror movies that are real. OK. And any horror movie that dealt with God versus Satan, any horror movie that dealt with demon possession or anything like that. Those are things that actually happen. These are real accounts of stuff that happened.

So there was an extra added bit of terrifying fear when your dad looks at you and he goes, yeah, that exorcist, that's all real. That actually happened.

It actually happened. So just make sure that you keep your heart closed to Satan and open to God. And you're like, Jesus, what does that mean? What does that mean? How do you do that? So, yeah. So, yeah. So the Catholic stuff, that's why in my adult life. Yeah. I don't watch one of none of that stuff. I don't watch that none stuff. I don't watch none of that shit, Joe. Okay. It's just too much. It hits too close to home. What did you find out that?

The Exorcist was actually about sort of like pea soup and all that. Like, when did you find out that it wasn't a documentary? When a movie called Repossessed came out. Did you ever see Repossessed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Repossessed, which was a send up of The Exorcist with Linda Blair reprising her role. Yeah. And Leslie Nielsen coming in as the priest. I'm like, well, they're making fun of it. So, you know what I mean? Like, have a good time. Repossessed, by the way, if you guys haven't seen Repossessed...

which just might be on my list, you guys should check out Repossessed. It's a really, really funny movie. Okay, I love this. So we are recommending a few streaming horror options here. We've got a couple of different categories, like depending on what your mood is. Like what mood are you in this Halloween? What do you want to enjoy? We've picked some faves here. I'll admit that my list has a bit of recency bias on it because...

I kind of got into the groove of wanting to recommend things that people might've missed recently that came out. You know what I mean? Like a little bit under the radar because like,

I assume people have seen Halloween, et cetera. But, you know, I think there's also room for classics, which is where we want to start. Right? We're starting with classics. We're starting... I have listened to you podcast. I am wowed and dazzled by your film knowledge. So I am excited to hear what you pick for... If someone's in the mood for a classic, what do you consider a classic of Horror Van? So...

This pick was both obvious and very painful to me. Okay. Because this is the first movie that I can remember actually watching. I'm not going to pick The Exorcist because there's a whole story behind me in The Exorcist and I don't have time to tell it. My mother knows the story. She's somewhere laughing right now. And it's just not, it's not funny to do to a kid. It's all I'll tell her. It's not funny. But the first horror movie I ever watched with my parents is one that I pain to pick right now because of the problematic nature of the filmmaker.

It is Rosemary's Baby. Now, look, I understand that sometimes when we're in the pod world, we just have to forget about Mel Gibson and all of these other guys and just this is the movie. I'm sorry. I apologize for picking it, but the movie is Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary's Baby marked a shift in Hollywood, right?

When you look at Hollywood and you look at some of the stuff that was going on, you're talking about movies like, you know, movies around Jesus, movies around Moses, big biblical epics. Rosemary's Baby marked a shift to where people were looking to explore the other side of that. To where it was like, you know, you're going to get Rosemary's Baby, then you're going to get The Exorcist, then you're going to get The Omen. You're going to get all of these movies that explored the more sinister side of religion. And so in that way, it's a very, very

important movie, but it's also incredibly like well-made, terrifying, expertly paced, well acted, you know? So it, as much as it pains me,

As much as it pains me, I'd have to choose Rosemary's Baby. I mean, I'm with you. Like there are films that you can throw in the bin when a director gets a certain way. And then there are films you just kind of feel like you have to hold on to. And Rosemary's Baby is one for me as well. The creeping paranoia, the gaslighting, like all of that. Yeah.

Great performances from everyone. And iconic in a way that you'll see it in so many other movies. You're like, oh, they're doing Rosemary's Baby. Okay. You know what I mean? That's where it is. All right. My classic pick. So neither of us went black and white Vincent Price or anything like that. And that is fine. My pick is...

an icon of the genre, John Carpenter. It is the thing 1982. I am a huge, the thing fan. And I think, I think one thing that helps you understand like why the thing is such a classic is that they tried like a dismal remake and you're like, okay, it's not, it's not it. It's not the premise. It's the vibe. It's the vibe that John Carpenter created. I think similar to Rosemary's baby, there's a real paranoid,

Paranoia, lockdown, creepy, suspicion sort of thing as this thing to premise that it's scientists in a snowy outpost and there is some sort of creature sort of tearing through them. Shapeshift can look like any of them, so they don't know who to trust. Iconic Kurt Russell performance. The Great Wolf of Brimley. Iconic. Yeah. The Great Wolf of Brimley is also here and it's just...

There's some not great, but also great, like special effects. Do you know what I mean? Like that kind of early 80s claymation that you're like, this isn't good, but it's great. You know, so yeah, big The Thing fan. I watched a lot. I was a big John Carpenter fan. Yeah. Oh my God. So many of the Carpenter movies just got me, man.

You know, like even the one that he made, just special shout out to Vampires. Remember that joint? Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's the thing about John. Like you're always going to have a good time with John Carpenter. Always. Always. Obviously like they live and you know, other stuff like that. But like special shout out to Vampires. Vampires was just, go watch that this Halloween. Just the kookiest vampire movie that you ever want to see. Just go check it out. I love, I love kooky. The thing is,

When I give movie recommendations, I also sometimes like to say where you should be. The thing is best... Let's say you go to a Halloween party and you have some cocktails, some adult beverages, hang out with your friends, whatever. End of the night. Everyone's kind of tired and maybe a little drunk or buzzed or whatever. Or high on candy or whatever you want to be. Put the thing on and just soak in that. Yeah.

Let's do slasher next. Gore slash slasher. This is like, you know, if you want some blood, if you want your protagonist soaked in blood somehow by the end of the movie, what do you have for me here, man? Okay. I thought about this one very, very deeply. Okay. Because for best supernatural, I want to recommend a movie that a lot of people probably haven't seen. So for this one, I'm going to go, this is both supernatural, but slasher.

And it's the movie that wrecked my childhood. And if you listen to Higher Learning this week, it continues to wreck me. It is the frightening, the terrible, amazingly haunting A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yes. I can't explain my relationship to Freddy Krueger. I can't explain it. Does he live in your head? He was the villain of my childhood. Okay. Everyone knew this.

It's like, hey, Van, do your homework. If you don't, Freddie's going to get you. Wow. Hey, Van, go to bed. If you don't, Freddie's going to get you. Not understanding that Freddie gets you when you go to bed and you sleep. And by the way, Joe, you got to sleep. Like, do you have to have sex at summer camp? No, you could not.

You could not have sex at summer camp if you didn't want to. Yeah. Do you have to like stay out late and smoke weed and do all of these things that attract Jason? No. Do you have to babysit? No, you could decide to never babysit. You could decide to never babysit. Yeah.

You could decide. You have to sleep. And then they would do this thing in A Nightmare on Elm Street where they didn't do it in the original, but in the sequels where the person would just nod off and then they would catch themselves like they were actually up, but you didn't know that they actually were in the dream now. I'm like, Jesus, I can't do anything. I can't do anything. And...

It's one of those childhood things that I can't shake. I cannot be comfortable with Freddy Krueger. He was a slasher. He was looking for retribution for being killed, even though he was a piece of scum. There was a whole mythology, but I couldn't get enough of it. I read comic books about Freddy Krueger. I used to call the Freddy Krueger line. I tried to make myself okay with it. Couldn't make myself okay with it. I think Freddy Krueger is the single most terrifying character in horror.

I was talking to someone the other day about like, you know, which one of us would survive a horror movie or something. And he was talking about how he would beat Freddy Krueger by, I don't know. He came up with some sort of like drink a lot of coffee. I was like, do you think they haven't tried that? Do you think those kids in the, in the Freddy Krueger movies haven't tried every single thing? Dream warriors is just wall to wall attempts to like, try to stay awake while Freddy's talking. It's an Avengers movie. They tried to unite with their powers, which is by the way,

Cause we gotta be honest with you. Rest in peace, Wes. Wes got a little kooky too. Like they got kooky. And I'm like, I don't even know if he did those. I actually don't remember, but like, but,

But that Dream Warriors was kooky, too. They all had powers and stuff, and they still couldn't get rid of Freddy. They can only subdue him for a short amount of time. Freddy Krueger gets slasher for me. He'll always come back. All right. So my pick here, I really struggled with this one, but I decided to go with one that I first initially wrote off when I saw the trailers. And then I finally caught it, and I was like, oh, no, this is really...

So much fun, which is Happy Death Day 2017. Did you catch that one, man? I didn't get a chance to watch that, but I never saw it. Yeah. So this is like if you watch the trailer, this is like basically Groundhog's Day. But she's stalked and slashed every day. She wakes up. It's like a college co-ed. She wakes up every day on her birthday and every day she dies as she's trying to figure out how to stop.

this from happening. I thought it looked so stupid. And that's some of the best times is when you finally catch something that you were so judgmental of. And I was like, this is stupid. And I had friends go see it. They're like, it was actually kind of like funny and clever. And I was like, it's stupid. It looks idiotic. But it's actually really, really fun.

Jessica Roth or Roth, I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name, is sort of our lead like final girl character. And she's fantastic. She's like one of the best like

slasher final girls that I've seen in a long time. And I just, I had a great time with this movie. So it's like, it's one of those things where people liked it, right? They made a sequel. Did they not happy death day to you with like a number two and the letter U it exists. It's not as good as the original. Um, but yeah, people, people liked it. I didn't believe them. Then I watched it and I became a fan. So I'm just saying, I'm like, if you're sitting at home and you're like,

I am way too cool for happy death day. I'm here to tell you, you're not, it's great fun. And I think you'll enjoy it. And it's great because it's like a groundhog's day thing. You get to watch this girl die in a lot of different ways. And, um, you know, and that, that has its own charm. So Jomie's chiming in to say, uh, he approved. Both movies slapped. He likes the one and two. Two,

To you. Number two and the letter U. So those are slasher picks. I love that you picked Freddie, and I love knowing this. Like, if you hear the...

The little like jingly song from Freddie. Okay. Relax. You know, like, like relax, Joe. I'll keep that in my backpack. I gotta, I gotta do a whole day today and I'll be hearing it when I'm driving. You know what? People think this is cap. You can go at any point in my life, call up anybody randomly right now in my life, call up anyone.

and go, how well do you know Van? Has he talked to you about his fear of Freddy Krueger yet? I love we're starting here. What if you see, out of the corner of your eye, what if you see someone in a striped sweater? Is that triggering? Like a striped sweater? I've told this story already on Higher Learning, but I'll tell it really quick right now. There was some show in the 80s. I can't remember what this show was. And

The show had Robert England on as a guest. He was coming up in a later segment, but they introduced Robert England and teased to him being on the show that

But of course, if you guys don't know, Robert Englund is the man who played Freddy Krueger originally. And then, you know, they went on to they rebooted it and Jackie or Haley was right. It was Freddy Krueger. But they threw to the audience. It's like we're going to have Robert Englund himself coming up. But when they threw to the audience in the audience was Robert Englund in full Freddy Krueger makeup.

And the entire thing, like he was on set. I never watched that show again. Canceled. Like I, it was too jarring. I was like, I had a mini anxiety. I can't even remember the name of the show. And I've looked for it on online, but it was one of these shows, maybe like a whatever, but I never watched that show again. Like I, I can't remember the name now. I put it out of my mind. I was terrified. And it was an unprompted Freddie attack.

Listen, you never know when Freddie's going to find you. You could be listening to headphones on your bed, like Johnny Depp in his like crop top or whatever. And Freddie could come for you. You don't even worry about that one because I'm just not that handsome. Yeah.

Like, Freddie, go back and look at Johnny Depp from Nightmare on Elm Street. It's a joke. So, like, if there's another, if Freddie sees me in the crop top right now, he's going to be too sad for me to kill. He's going to be like, let me leave that brother. Go out and work on his pandemic situation. It's not.

He's going to be too sad. He's not going to happen. Rejected. I reject the premise. I reject it. All right. My other... I had a backup for this one. Have you ever seen Peter Jackson's Dead Alive? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That one is really hard to find on streaming, and we kind of tried to pick things that you could easily find on streaming. So Dead Alive was a backup for me, but if you've not seen that, that is...

It's a lot. It's a lot. If you want gore and goop, it's a lot. So special shout out to hostile to hostile. Fuck me up a little bit too, but I did. I had to. Yeah. Yeah. Yikes. All right. Haunted house. Hit me. The Amityville horror. Great pick. Great pick. The original though. Yeah.

We're going, we're going Margo Kidder, James Brolin here. James Brolin. Okay. Forget Thanos. Thanos is dead. Hot man. My mother, my mother loved her some James Brolin. Damn. Yeah. Look at him. My mom, we're watching Peewee's Big Adventure. Like you can't, you know, you can't, you can't like, you know, but the Amityville horror. Once again, this is another one that my mother told me was real. Documentary. Documentary. Documentary. And this is like,

You guys think, but this is, remember, the community I come from is very spiritual in a way. And so we believe in evil in Louisiana, not just bad people, but evil.

So it's not hard to make a kid in Louisiana believe that there's actually a house somewhere that's terrorizing these people that are in the house. The movie was incredibly well made. It lived up to the mythology that my parents told me about. I remember watching it thinking that, hey, ghosts and paranormal stuff are real. And it was only reinforced with my second pick,

uh, my runner up pick, which is of course poltergeist. Ooh, I can't, I can't, I can't, you know, you want to talk about things that, that horror movies have ruined poltergeist kind of ruined like pools, not pools, but like places you swim where you can't see the bottom of. I, I am a real thing.

about that since Poltergeist. It's tough stuff. Really, really made swimming tough for me, I think. Well, the enemy of a whore had a bigger effect on my childhood, for sure. So I'm choosing it. I'm being fair. But...

Outside of Freddy Poltergeist, it's the scariest movie I've ever seen. I think these are really good picks. Again, I've got a lot of recency bias running through my list, which I think makes it a good pair of what we're doing. And you were talking earlier about how Rosemary's Baby ushered in this let's center Satan sort of era. These waves of horror in Hollywood. So right now we're in this wave of, what would you call it, like,

I think some people like to call it elevated horror. I don't know, which is like a phrase I really love. I call it universal horror. Universal horror. Because you're getting plunged into a whole horror universe that has one through line of story or feeling or mythology. And it's actually, when you look at it, it's pretty ambitious and pretty amazing what they've been able to accomplish. And I think you know, I think I know what movie you're going to choose that started the whole thing.

Oh, I didn't start it, but it's a recent... Well, what's... Okay, I'll say mine, and then you tell me what you're thinking of. Just came out 2020, His House, which is currently on Netflix. It was like a big Sundance hit, BAFTA nominee, starring Wumi Masako, who...

you know, ringer verse listeners will remember from Loki. She crushed it in love cap country. She's so good in this. And it's about some like Sudanese refugees who moved to the UK and bring some of their, like, you know, the special ghosties from their home with them into their new home in the UK. Matt Smith is here as like the iconic inbred British man. And it is just, yeah,

It's a great, great, scary movie that touches on a lot of questions, commentary on refugees and their experience in the UK and elsewhere. And I just thought it was killer. And Wumi is like, I think she's one of the best things going anywhere. So I just, I love this movie. Did you catch this one? I actually didn't see it. I haven't watched a lot of recent horror movies.

I've watched the big ones. Yeah. I've watched, and you know, I tried to watch that nun one.

I watched the doll girl. I watched Paranormal Activity. I've watched a lot of these, but I've really been trying to stay more serene in my life. So I would rather rewatch shit that already scared me than open up a new whoop ass of anxiety. I have not seen that movie. To be honest with you, Joe, I've never even heard of that movie before. But I think that's the kind of one... Now hold on for a second. Just to ask a question about the movie. Are they like refugees who are like

working magic on white people and stuff? Is that what they're doing? Because if that's the movie, I'm fucking in. Yeah.

It's more like they bring a special kind of ghost from back home with them. And it's about sort of like the things you carry with you when you move from one place to another. I'll give it a try. We have to eventually do, and I would like Joe's new horror pics. Yeah. And then I'll pop out a van and I'll sit down and I'll watch the movies.

Yeah, I think I did. I did get a little, a little recent with my picks here. All right. Supernatural. Best Supernatural. All right. I'm going to do everybody a favor right now. I'm going to put you guys on a movie that you maybe haven't heard of. Came out in 1990. Man is old. Remember this. The movie is called Death by Temptation. Never heard of it. So excited. Okay. Okay. So excited. So the movie is directed by James Bond III. That's this motherfucker's name. Okay. Okay.

James Bond III. There are two James Bonds before him. Black guy. He also stars in the movie. It also stars Kadeem Hardison and a very early appearance in a film by Samuel L. Jackson.

OK. OK. Now, Samuel L. Jackson is not in this movie very much. So if you go and you you you you Google the movie is going to say Samuel L. Jackson, you're going to think, Jesus Christ, it's not that many. It's not that much Samuel L. Jackson in the movie. Right. This is when he was making his rounds around rising as a New York actor and he was popping up here and there and almost everything. But the film is about this eons old demon vampire slash demon type of creature that

that there is literally one line, it's all black, all black movie, that there is one line of people here on earth that can stop this demon from coming and killing everyone. But the demon is a succubus. It's a woman, it's a succubus. And there's one preacher's kid who has to combat the demon. And there is one scene in this movie that is one,

So scary. It is a really, it's going to be cheesy now and it's going to look 80s and it's going to look, but there is one scene in this movie

involving Kadeem Hardison. That is so scary. And the film does a decent job. If you're into stuff that's going to look a little cheesy now, but that has a real strong narrative, and it's an all-Black horror movie, which there are not a lot of them out there, Death by Temptation is a movie that I loved when I was a kid, and I re-watched it before we jumped on this podcast. It's

And it's, it still holds up for me. It's amazing. I've never seen it. I love Kadeem Artisan, so I'm going to check it out. Before I get to mine, which is another like recent modern horror, but I do want to shout out my favorite sort of like, I know how cheesy it is, but I love it anyway movie, which is, do you ever watch Wishmaster? Yes. Of course. I'm a big Wishmaster fan. Wishmaster's great.

So, uh, I'm just going to throw that out there. I don't know. You just mentioned like, it's, it's cheesy, but it's nineties and it's great. And it's just like, that's how I feel about wishmaster. But, um, but I'm going to pick, uh, another one that, that probably folks might've missed is on Netflix. It's called cam and it's, it's about a cam girl.

sex worker played by Madeline Brewer, who a lot of folks know from Handmaid's Tale. And just some creepy stuff happens with like a girl who looks like her, like sort of doppelganger creepy through the video sort of stuff happening. It's really good. Madeline Brewer is freaking phenomenal in this. I first saw this at Fantastic Fest. Have you ever been to Fantastic Fest, Van, in Austin? No.

Fantastic Fest is like this genre festival that they put on, uh, in Austin every October, September, October. Right. And it's just got a lot of like weird horror shit happening. And that's where I've seen like a lot of like the weirder modern stuff there. And it's just like, if you're into horror at all and you, and you've never been to a film festival, but you want to go to one that's not like real uptight, that's just like really fun and, and genre. Um,

I really recommend Fantastic Fest. Great stuff. Austin, Texas. But yeah, Cam. It's on Netflix. I don't want to go into it too much because the premise is sort of the point, but I...

I just, that one got under my skin. Creepy the fuck out. Madeline Brewer is one of those actresses who she's like gorgeous, obviously, but also has like kind of a creepy face too. And so like, you know, you know, so like those powers combined, you're just like, you're into it, but then you're like terrified. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. That's my thing. All right. Last but not least, certainly not least.

If you want a little levity this Halloween, a little, a little, some laughs with your screams, best horror comedy. What do you, what do you got for me? So this is a horror comedy, but it's not really a horror comedy at all. It just has horror characters in it. Okay. It's one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. Wow. The monster squad of the monster squad. What a great pick. What a great fucking pig. The monster squad. Like if you guys don't know what the monster squad is, all of these monsters are,

Coming to the real world, nobody believes that the monsters are doing what they're doing except for the kids. So it is up to the kids to fight the monsters. And you got all the monsters here. You got Frankenstein. You got the Wolfman. You got the mummy. You got Dracula. You got a little, even a little help from Abraham Van Helsing getting involved in the whole situation. You know, Dracula is your big bad there. Um,

So, yeah, the monster squad is just a fantastic romp that me and my sister used to watch with some pizza and some soda. And you just couldn't get enough of the movie. And it really, to be honest with you, it is low key, low key. Like it's a low key philosophical movie. Hit me. Why? It makes you look at these monsters a little differently because through the eyes of kids,

Like the mythology of the monsters becomes a little bit more important to the characters, right? Like you see the Wolfman as somebody who's super tortured,

Like one girl, one little girl, like Frankenstein becomes a friend of them, right? Because, you know, Frankenstein can see the innocence. They see the innocence in Frankenstein. Frankenstein doesn't know. Frankenstein's a monster. Frankenstein doesn't know who he is. And so he connects with the kids and ends up becoming their friend.

And they have a different view. The creature of the Black Lagoon is in it. They have a different view of what monsters are and really a different view of their mortality. Like their innocence as kids is their main weapon against these monsters of like these like classic monsters. They don't know what they're up against so they can defeat anything. And that's something that like, that's the part that you lose when you're an adult, right? When you're an adult, you realize, hey,

If I run after that mugger, like, you know, it might go bad for me. And also I could just, it could just be like something minor. I could pull a hammy, you know? So, so, so, but as a, but as kids, um,

All you know is protect life, protect innocence and get rid of the bad guys. And that's what made the monster squad like so amazing. And that's what brings me back to my childhood. Every time I see it. I love it. This, this is the one that I'm going to watch off your list. This is the one, like the way you just described it. You know, there's some movies that are like really fun to rewatch at home or whatever. And then there's some movies where it's just an added, added like level of amazing to see it in a,

And I've seen Monster Squad in like a rep theater and like a rerun with like a big crowd of people. That is a great way to watch that movie. If you've never seen it or if you've seen it before. I've never seen it in theaters before. Yeah, it is a great one for that. Hold on for a second. I gotta say something. I just Googled the Monster Squad while we're talking. Yeah. Written by Shane Black. I didn't know that.

Somewhere in my head I knew that, but I had forgotten it. I really never knew that to this point. So that's why the movie moves at such a fast pace. It was written by a guy who's coked out of his mind. Yeah. Running on coke and childhood dreams.

My pick was not written by a star of the Predator franchise, but it is another recent film. 2019's Ready or Not. Did you see this one? I guess. Yeah. I did see this one. I loved this movie. This is Samara Weaving, great, great, you know, rising actress. Andy McDowell.

Adam Brody and it's about a girl who marries into this eccentric family and then they have a game that they have to play on her wedding night and it is just like I just rewatched it

last week. And I just, I think this is a really fun movie. It's so fun. Yeah, just fun. You know what I mean? It's not like, I almost put like Shaun of the Dead on here or something like that, which like is good to do because Edgar Wright has a new movie out. It's good to like go back and watch the, you know, the older Edgar Wright stuff. Like Shaun of the Dead is always a good one, but I don't know, ready or not, just in case people missed it, I just wanted to recommend it. I think, I think you'll enjoy it. No, it was really good. And yeah,

You love a killing, biting horror movie that's really at its core about family. Yeah. Yeah. The ultimate horror story. Exactly. Family.

I agree. All right. So do you have any, any, any like alts, any runners up that you want to like run through before we. Yes. Hit me. Like I have a couple of them. Okay. We did not mention the lost boys anywhere in this situation. Oh, wow. Do you know, can I, sorry, can I just tell you, I just watched that for the first time three weeks ago. I'd never seen it. What? Yeah. Yeah.

I know. I know. I know. What are you talking about, Joe? But here I am. A convert. A convert. What was sexy, sleek, crazy. What a movie that embodies the 80s and embodies the 80s and possibly good looking vampires in a small northern California town with the two Corys.

As your basic protagonist, I mean, obviously Jason Patrick is your protagonist, but I love The Lost Boys, love it so much. And I have to throw in another New York vampire movie featuring Kadeem Hardison, and that's Vampire in Brooklyn. Vampire in Brooklyn is actually a fun movie to watch, but it's also perfect. It's perfect because it's like, what the fuck are you doing, Eddie?

He was just doing that phase. Eddie still had enough pull to get you to theater to see anything. But when you got there, you was like, yo, man, what the fuck is Eddie doing? What is this? Eddie Wildin. Eddie just made a whole... Eddie is a vampire. Eddie would just wake up, hey, you know what? Fuck it. I played the fucking finest guy in the world, Boomerang. I was going to

Right. I played the finest guy in the world in Boomerang. I played a politician. I'm just I'm surprised Eddie didn't come out with a superhero movie. Just go ahead and round out the whole thing. Now I want to be a vampire. And then they made the movie. But I love Vampire in Brooklyn. I legitimately love the movie. But it took us a while. It was a second viewing film because when we saw it at first, we were like, yo, man, Eddie, just give us another Axel Foley and chill. You know, but I love that movie.

So those are our recommendations. I think we did it. I think we hit all the corners. Whatever people want, I think there's something here for them. Do you have any big Halloween plans this year? What are your plans? No. We're just kind of chillin'.

Chilling. Yeah, there's a lot scarier things out there right now than ghosts and goblins and stuff like that. So I'm trying to protect my peace, Joe. I think that's true. Something that we did last year and this year, which feels safe to do, is we have like a carport towards the front of our house and we project movies on the side of it, like family-friendly movies. So if there are kids around and they want to like have, like see Ghostbusters or whatever, like we put it on the side of the garage in the front of our house. So we'll be doing that again. You should switch that up.

You should tell the kids that they're going to see Ghostbusters and then like 10 minutes after their parents leave, just fucking switch on hostile. Or bring Freddie into their lives. If they've not met Freddie, maybe now's the time. Yeah, do it to them. I don't want to be the only one.

Well, Van, thank you so much. So nice to meet you. And we will bring Mallory out of her closet. She can take her headphones off and come back and join the podcast. But I'm so excited to be on this feed with you. And I think we're going to be talking about some Disney stuff together coming up soon. And I'm excited to do that. So thanks so much. No problem. Thank you for having me.

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All right. For those with even just like a passing working knowledge of Mallory Rubin, we'll know that she is a candy aficionado, an expert in the field. This is the... Well, is this the most... I mean, this is the most candy forward. There's like Easter and Valentine's Day, but this is the candy holiday, right? Would you say? Your time to shine? Your time to shine for anyone? To me, candy consumption is a year-round sport. Sure. Sure, sure, sure. But...

I do, of course, cherish Halloween specifically because of the excuse it provides to order a ton of candy that I wouldn't necessarily have around throughout the rest of the year, though increasingly now part of part of being an adult.

I said, I don't necessarily wait for Halloween to order the candy I want. I just eat it all the time. And people listening to the Ring of Earths may not know me as well as they know Mal, but the thing that I love the most is turning things into games where the stakes are high and feelings might get hurt. So here's what we're going to do today. Mal and I are not just listing our top favorite candies. We could do that any day. What we are creating together here in this moment is a collaborative idea

ideal Halloween bag. This is the bag you wish you had come home with. Only these...

Eight candies. I've decided eight is the varietal we're going for here. Eight candies. Okay. Okay? Okay. You have to deal with my choices. I have to deal with yours. However, we each, and our lovely producers on the line each, have one veto that they can throw in if they're like, get this trash candy out of the bag. That's going to be where we eat.

Where we fight. Where the fractures set in. The only question will be whether we can ever repair them. If someone vetoes one of the candies, I really love. I mean, listen, we all have to share this bag is the point. So like, you know, the guys don't have as much. We have the power to choose. The guys have the power to reject. So here we go. Wait, can I ask one more question? Of course. So when you were...

a kid and trick-or-treating. Yeah. What was your approach to candy collecting? Did you have like one of those little pumpkins? Did you have like a... I used to use a pillowcase so I could get as much as possible. It wasn't like quite full-size pillows, sack size, but I had like a bag that was like decorated with glow-in-the-dark ghosts on it. And it was like a sack that I used every year at Halloween. My sister had like a magic one. Did you engage in a candy trade after the fact? I don't know why we do this. I used to go with my friend Lydia...

Um, like my parents didn't like to take us. So I would go with her and her folks and we would go around her neighborhood, which is a better neighborhood for trick or treating anyway. Something we did at the end of the night. And I don't know why we would weigh the bag. Like it was like, what was your haul? Like sort of pound wise, how much did you like pull in? And then we would dump all the candy on the ground and swap.

And trade and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. How about you? How about you? The trade was an essential part of the experience. And as I think will become clear as we go through this exercise, I think I like a lot of the same candy that people like

almost every other day of the year, but my Halloween list is specific to Halloween. What I mean by that is like, good. Okay. So there are some candies that I just associate with getting. And again, now you just go on, you know, you go online, you Google something, you order it, you can have it whenever you want. But like when I was a kid, there were certain things that I really only got to have.

or only saw out in the world on Halloween. And so I associate them so fully with that day. And I would work hard to acquire them in the largest volume possible by swapping out the more run-of-the-mill candies that I could get any day to my less discerning friends.

Totally. I hear you, my candy overlord. I appreciate your skills, Mallory. I want to say I pre-gamed this a little with Arjuna and I was like talking to him about peanut M&Ms, which are my favorite, like one of my top candies all the time. But I'm like, but don't worry, guys. Don't worry. You shake your head. Don't worry. I can get peanut M&Ms any day of the week from the vending machine. So much head shaking on Zoom. Right, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I didn't include them even though I love them. I didn't include them because like for the Halloween bag, I didn't include them.

That's right. You want to have like, I'm not saying all my choices are weird, but there's another element to this, which is size. Because on Halloween, you often get your fun size, your mini size, and that, we talked about this a little bit off pod, the idea of the ratio, like what that does to a candy in terms of altering the ratio of it. Can't fuck it up. Can't fuck it up. So, yeah.

So here we go. Who wants to go first? I don't. Ladies, ladies first. And I'm saying that that's you, Mallory. Do you want to go first? It's your first pick for the bag. No fresh. Okay. So. Jomie has a look like he's going to destroy you. I'm locked in. Right. I take my candy very seriously. If someone knows this one, it will be, it will be tough for us to recover. I'm just putting that out there. Their faces. I'm so excited.

Steve looks alarmed and disturbed. So this is I'm on the record with this because a couple of years ago, I don't even know how many I had the pleasure of chatting about Halloween candy with Joe House on the House of Carbs pod. And I can't exactly recall what my full list was then. I'll be curious to revisit it and see if my preferences have changed over time. But I have no doubt that my top pick was the same. This is a lifelong love and it will remain so until the day I fucking die, which is

If I keep eating this many of this thing, it won't be too long into the future. So are you starting at the top? Tootsie Fruit Juice. Yes. Number one pick. Tootsie Fruit Juice. So these are the Tootsie... An unassailable Halloween candy. These are the Tootsie rolls that are like blue and orange and stuff like that? They are...

Lemon, lime, orange, cherry, and vanilla. And they are fucking flawless. Yeah. When you get the regular chocolate Tootsie Rolls and you get them, they're always there at the bottom of the bowl on every porch. It's like, okay, fine. Yeah. But if you hit a house that had the Tootsie Fruit Chews, this was Halloween candy mecca for me as a kid. I love these so much. I really, I mean, I enjoy all of them.

One of my favorite things in the world to do is to combine a vanilla and a cherry or a vanilla and an orange and make like a creamsicle. It's amazing. I have teeth. It's just, I love them so much. They are delicious. They are multifunctional and you can buy them in like five pound bags, which is,

I can't claim to have never done. I love this choice. This is an iconic only at Halloween choice. It's great. I think, I mean, I knew that you would go hard on this prompt and you have truly delivered. I knew last night when you texted me that you were revising and revising and revising your list.

that this would be an incredible, incredible journey for us. I had a moment of absolute crisis last night when I attempted to sketch out my top five or I ended up sketching out my top 11 and then realized I had forgotten a couple, had to redo the entire thing. It was like, do I even know myself? This is terrible. But that's what I'm going to, I'm about to, to do something a little dangerous because Steve is just an expressed person.

An anti-Starburst opinion, it seems like, in the chat. It's not anti-Starburst. It's more pro-fruity Tootsie Fruits. Starburst, that's a good example of what we're talking about, right? Starbursts are delicious. I love Starbursts. You can get Starbursts all the time anywhere. And now you can get Tootsie Fruits on Amazon five pounds at a time. But when I was a kid, that was not the case. However, I agree with you. However...

I'm starting with a starburst option and it is this. The two-pack...

that comes in the candy bag, right? Not a thing, a two-pack. And it's a two-pack with just a pink and a red. None of this yellow or orange bullshit. Just a pink and a red two-pack of Starburst. I think you avoided the guillotine by those two flavors alone. It's certainly not. It's a great snack. You were toeing a line there. I know. I was close. I understand. Imagine if she had said a duo of lemon and orange. Lemon and orange, bleh.

Just give me two yellows. Just mess me up with two yellows, please. And that's the beauty of the two-pack Starburst is you open it, you don't know. You don't know what you're going to get in there. Is it going to be a winner? Like a solid gold, pink, red? Or are you going to get double yellow? That's the first Squid Game. That's the original Squid Game.

Yeah. And I know, I mean, you're right that like now you can order just the reds or just the pinks in a bag of Starbursts and like, you know, options, the internet options have rendered some of these like, but I just remember as a kid, like, oh, when you hit that pink red combo on the two pack of the Starbursts. So that's my first pick. I made it through. Mal, number two, what's your number two? I don't want to tempt fate, but I'm worried this is going to

net the veto. I'm concerned. Okay. Okay. I hope I'm wrong and that we have enough affection and frankly respect for each other to avoid that outcome. My number two. We're not here to make friends, Mal. We're here to craft the best candy bags. Mounds. Coconut. Absolutely not. Chocolate. Absolutely not. Hold on. I want to say something else. Not almond joy.

Get that almond out of here. Keep my mound pure, okay? These are the soft ones, right? When you say soft, I mean it has the texture of...

luscious silk and joy. Is that what you mean? By the soft ones? Here's the thing. I'm not, I'm not exactly anti coconut in my candy. I'm not, I'm not that kind of guy, but Joey, what do you, what do you have to say about this? I'm, I'm anti coconut everything. I hate coconut. I won't go that far. I'm not here for it. I'm not putting mouths. Like it,

if we're doing like trading, I'm sending mounds for a six round pick. Like it doesn't really matter. Just get them off. Get them out of here. A conditional back and show me up. Are you backing Joe me up? All right. I'm getting it. Damn it. I knew this was going to happen, but I had to risk the veto outcomes to state for the record that mounds are wonderful and that this was one of the areas where

The fact that I had an advanced and discerning palate as a child and my peers did not worked really to my favor because all of those other people saying, I don't want this. It was great because I could collect mound after mound after mound.

Coconut delicacy after coconut delicacy. You know what I had the other night for a snack while I was watching Survivor? A bowl full of Halloween candy, including numerous mounds. I'm not going to tell you what else was in the bowl because it'll spoil the rest of my list. They're fucking delicious. Do you want to go again or do you want me to go? God damn it. No, you go.

So they can't veto another one of my picks, right? I can't. Jummy's out. I'm done. Steve still has to veto. Hold on. Okay. Each veto one of our picks. So four total vetoes. Do we then continue to build till we get to eight total candies? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. My heart was racing for a minute. You're good. You're good. Guys, I shouldn't be allowed to do things like this. I so pissed. I just lose it. Mal is pressed right now. I am following closely in Mal's footsteps. I might also pull a veto on this. I don't know. This is genuinely on my list. It's an Almond Joy. No! I'm an Almond Joy person. No, this is where I'm putting my hammer down. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No, I can't allow this. Oh, man. Fun fact.

Almond joy. There's no fun in it. She can't do it. The almonds are fun. It's the joy. Almonds are not fun. Listen, you can't have, you can't eat a full-size mound. What monster has ever eaten a full-size mound or a full-size almond joy? That's too much coconut. I do that all the time. I did that last night. That's the first person I've ever heard of eating mounds, let alone enjoying them.

Oh, my God. I just can't believe what I'm witnessing here. So the mounds of the Almond Joy are out? Okay. I will say in the defense of the Almond Joy, I do, you know, the milk chocolate coating instead of the dark chocolate coating. Archie chiming in in chat to just say this is tough.

I do enjoy the milk chocolate on the Almond Joy, but the almond, I like almonds. They don't belong in that candy. They are fucking up the texture. This isn't like a smooth or chunky peanut butter calculation. It doesn't belong. By the way, you guys reacted to peanut M&Ms that I was in trouble with my like pro nut in candy stance.

there's some nuts that can work here but like even i i know that i have bias because i'm allergic to almonds but like we can't be doing this this is a fact i didn't know i know i would have insert last name jokes here but i could i could easily oh my god steve allergic to his own name all right okay okay there's no d in my name but yeah all right all right so two vetoes used two together yeah

Who technically used the veto there for Almond Joy? Steve did. And Jomie used it for Mounds. So it's a coconut-free bag right now. You guys were in the pocket of Almond Joy. Mel, you have a veto for me, and I have a veto for you also. Okay. Oh, my goodness. All right. My next pick. I think it's a great pick, but now I'm afraid. This definitely falls into that larger category, that bucket we're talking about where...

Wasn't really a part of my life like the rest of the year. Probably wasn't a part of your lives the rest of the year. And then on Halloween, what a burst of deliciousness and dare I say possibility. Hundred grand. Valid. Yeah. Just a great one. Chewy,

rich, little bit of crunch, but not too much crunch like you can have in some other bullshit Halloween candy offerings. That rich caramel core, just right. We talked about ratios, just the right balance of ingredients, just the right balance for a perfect morsel and a perfect mouthful in a Halloween bite-sized form.

What is this response I'm seeing? What's happening? I use my video. I'm tired. 100 grand? What is this, the 1930s? What's going on? I'm old! Not that old. You might as well pick the Werther's original. What's going on here? Hold on a second. Why are you slandering Werther's original? I will tell you a true story. I used to get Joey

I used to keep those at my desk. I swear to you. I love those. They're wonderful. I always have a bag of Werther's Originals next to me. I would reach down, take one. Delicious. So a hundred grand. I don't want to spoil anything that's on anyone's list. And I don't think I'm spoiling mine, but this has, this is, this is one of several candies with the, with the crunchy crispy rice thing. Nestle's crunch can go fuck itself is how I feel about that. That's in my bottom five.

Crunch and Crackle are at the bottom of the list for me. And so to be clear, it might seem confusing. But a Nestle Crunch always tastes stale. Never have I tasted a fresh tasting Nestle Crunch. I think the only thing below it on the bottom is candy corn. That's it. That being said, a hundred grand bar is basically like what you get in payment after you've sold a man a newspaper in the 40s. Like that's... Here, son, have a hundred grand bar. Sounds wonderful. Thanks, Newsy. Thanks.

Like they have hieroglyphics of Egyptians sharing a hundred grand bars. It's a classic. A hundred grand for me last. You wash it down with a phosphate. Or an egg cream. Wow. Egg creams are also delicious. Okay. We got to keep this moving. Yeah. Let's, let's move along. Let's not get out of here. I'm here to talk to you about ratio. Okay. Again, our old friend. Okay.

You have the fun size that shows up in Halloween candy bag, but you also have the mini size, the little square size of a candy, right?

And that is the only size in which I personally enjoy a Milky Way. And I will add on top of this Milky Way Dark. Milky Way Dark mini size. It is the right ratio of those ingredients. These are like the size of like a die, right? Yeah, exactly. Yes. You can play D&D with a Milky Way Dark. Okay.

and have a great time. It's an always a high initiative role for fun size. Those are good. I,

It's a fine pick. They're good. They're good. I'm a little surprised to see it in your top three, but they are tasty. Well, I just don't have them outside of Halloween ever. I was like, can we use Vito's retroactively? Like if we get to the end and I didn't use mine, can I apply it here? Because it just, it strikes me that this might be the one that I, I, I feel least moved by, you know, again, nothing wrong with the pick. Yeah.

But I don't know that I, so I can't, I don't really feel called to use my veto. What if I don't use my veto? Then you didn't lose, then you didn't, don't use it, you lose it. I can't be here with you and have you all veto my picks and sit in silence. It's personal, it's not about. It's personal now. I lost the Almond Joy. The Almond Joy is out of my bag. Yeah. No joy or almonds for me. Milky Way Dark only.

Mini size. All right. Fine. Okay. All right. What World War II candy do you have next, Mel? Is it an Amazon? Abraham Lincoln wrote in his diary how much he loved your next candy. My next pick. Uh-huh. Again, I think it's unassailable, but based on some of the commentary, you may not agree. A fun-sized pack of Milk Duds.

Standing ovation. I mean, fabulous. I'm not going to veto it, but I just have to say that like I get mug duds at the movie theater. Movie theater. Yes. Yeah. I get Starburst and Milky Way at fucking CVS. No, but like, but the fun size of the milk duds is not changing the actual ratio of what you're eating in the candy. I don't agree and I'm about to explain why. Okay. Jaw and molar preservation. Really? Yes. Preservation? The Halloween

portion of a milk dud allows you to enjoy the wonderful flavor and texture of a milk dud without tempting fate if you get that whole box at a movie theater have i done it i have will i do it again i will can i open my jaw afterward not for a while you know

And so that Halloween size is just perfect. I love it. They're delightful. They're one of my favorite things to see in a variety pack bag of Halloween candy. I think that's fine. Milk Duds, to me, is in this rarefied air. What's that like? What are we talking about here? It's in this rarefied air of these mid-tier movie theater candies where, under any other circumstances, they're kind of whack, but you like them in certain circumstances. I can't talk shit because I kind of love **** for that exact reason. Put a pin in that one. Haha!

I'll censor what I just said. To say that under certain circumstances, they don't work, but I like this for Halloween specifically. Yeah, I'm rolling with this one. I'm not personally a fan of Milk Duds, but there's the fun side that always comes around Halloween. So it's a staple. So I'm going to let you roll on that. Milk Duds are actually my top movie theater candy, but I hear you on Jaw Fatigue. But then also you're just sort of like...

Did I earn this candy? You've been through like the candy trenches. Your mouth hurts for reading it. All right. Speaking of candy that can hurt your mouth. I'm here to preach the good word of the Jolly Rancher. However. Okay. One specific Jolly Rancher flavor. Joey's leaning in. You got to get this right. Got to get this right. The use of a veto hinges on the flavor pick here. For me, no.

It's a cherry Jolly Rancher every time. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. Okay. Everyone's okay. Steve, you're not going to. I just don't personally like Jolly Ranchers, but I can't ignore the universal appeal. I'm not allowed to veto this, even though I wouldn't personally put it in mine. No. To be honest, it was honestly tough because there was only one wrong answer, right? There's watermelon. There's blue raspberry. There's cherry. Those, I think, are all unassailable. If you say grape, then it's like, that's tough.

Also, I feel get green apple out of here. Get green apple out of here. Fuck a green apple. And they also, when I was like, I don't know, in like second grade or something like that, they started doing like, there was like peach. There's all kinds of Jolly Rancher flavors. Unnecessary. Keep it simple. Keep it cherry. That's what I'm here for. The little cellophane wrapped nugget of joy. Cherry Jolly Rancher. Done. I think we have one pick left each. This is it. Okay.

And you haven't used any of your vetoes, Mal. Distracted. I'm thinking about all the candy. My final pick. I feel compelled to list a bunch of honorable mentions, but I guess I'll wait to see if anyone vetoes this one. Dots. Another fucking classic. Delicious.

The fun-sized Halloween pack, wonderful. I will eat the large packs and I will eat them days and days and days in a row. And just the stomachache is part of the joy. You know, I grew up in Maryland and eating steamed crabs. It's a thing we do over there in the Mid-Atlantic. And as you're...

Joanna's disgusted right now. I just can't believe you brought crab into a candy conversation. So upset. I don't really know why. Viscerally upset. When you're cracking open the steamed crabs and the shells are slicing open your fingers and the old bay seasoning is entering, literally entering your bloodstream and you feel that burn. Do you think it's time to stop? No, you think.

I've earned this. And the meal is a part of me and I am a part of it. And when I'm like 60 dots deep,

And I can barely stand or see straight. That's how I feel, too. Also, Dots, that's a candy my mom loves. She loves Milk Thuds, too. I feel like this love and affection for Dots was passed down to me. This was another candy that when I was a kid, trick-or-treating, was not very popular with many of the other Reisterstown, Maryland children. And so I was able to collect and, dare I say, hoard the Halloween Dot offerings. And did I tire of them?

Did I, did I get sick of them? No, my affection along with my stash grew and they're a big part of my life to this very day. Dots. I don't care for dots, but here's why I'm not going to veto this. First of all, I don't know you dot lovers in this conversation. Do they not like come for your feelings? Like the,

These are like one of the... Straight shot to the filling. Me and my dentist, you know, we see each other, you know, every so often. You know, he sends me Christmas cards. Sure, sure. We're close. So yeah, it'll mess up your teeth real good. I walk into the dentist like it's a Clint Eastwood movie. We got guns drawn.

Are any of these candies like great for our dental health? No, but I think Milk Duds and Dots are two of the fiercest competitors. I'm in distress often, but you know, delicious. Well, that Absinthe Reflux origin story you gave with the crab is insane. When you were like, I am one with the pain and the pain is one with me. Like, what was that? Anyway. What vow were you taking? Here's why I like Dots in here. I...

Mal and I are both, I think, very pro-gummy people. We are gummy fans. Gummies are tough gummies.

Sit on Halloween. Usually the gummies that you get in a Halloween bag are stale and disgusting. Dots does you the favor by pre-staling his gummy. It's just sort of like, I put, there's a crust on it that you're just sort of like, it's supposed to be this way. It's fine. So yeah, a dot. What's your final pick? My last pick. It's not, I don't know that it's that creative.

Maybe he'll just veto it just to veto me. I don't know. But again, ratio. I've never had a full-size one of these, I think. Fun size. Favorite of the Goonies. Baby Ruth. Baby Ruth's fun size. Veto! I'm sorry!

I honestly feel like a palpable sense of relief that I say my veto. I don't know what I would have done if I had used my veto here. Baby Ruth bottom five Halloween candy. Are you kidding me? Awful. Yeah, get Baby Ruth's bottom five. I'm offended by this. Why? Why would you want that? The ratio is part of the problem. There's too much nougat. Too much? No, it's the right amount of nougat. You can't have a whole bar of nougat. You have just the fun size amount of nougat and it's delicious.

I don't know what you're talking about. So like, Steve, are you the only one who can hang with baby Ruth? I had a baby Ruth regular size and I was like, this is terrible. But I've never actually gotten to know the ratio that you so mentioned. You're not missing much, bud. Can't do it. That's the bottom line. So you get to make another pick, right? Yep, I do.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. Are you going to pick like Charleston Chew? Put something really disgusting in there. Also bottom five Halloween candy. Wax lips. If you get a Charleston Chew in your Halloween bag, where are you? Unless you're in Charleston, I assume. But other than that, that's bizarre. I'm doing a CSI reverse investigation to see whose house it was. Who did this to me? Yeah, who did this to me?

All right. I think I figured out what I'm going to do. It's a nerd. It's the, it's the little box of nerds. Love those. They're great. Little box. Just missed the cut on my list. I'm really glad they're on your list. Cause a full box of nerds. You're like, you can't see straight. You're, you're just running on sugar. You feel like your heart's going to explode. You're upset, but a little box of nerds. What's your favorite flavor? Strawberry, grape, strawberry, lemonade. Uh, I,

I think actually this is one instance where grape grape kind of rules for me. Yeah. Great nerds are great nerd. Yeah. Agreed. I love also banana Laffy Taffy. I just have to throw that out there. It was really hard. Okay. All right. Cancel the pod. The pod's canceled. Steve, this is the last episode. I had 12 of those the other day.

the other night. I'm really glad that we got to do this together as a family. This is the last episode. We're never doing this ever again. I just need to say for the record too that score bar are my favorite candy, but I've never had them on Halloween, so I couldn't pick them, but I needed to say it out loud. Wonderful. Banana Laffy Taffy? Really? You said that? On my

on my shit list, number one, banana anything. Number one, above candy corn is banana anything. I can't believe this. Oh, come on. Above candy corn? Yeah. Frankly, how dare you? Banana is a disgusting thing.

Because the banana lingers in you. I'm with you, man. Candy corn is number one gross. Don't even bring that around me. Don't bring that. I don't fraternize with candy corn people. Shout out to my best friend, Erica. I love you. But candy corn, that's a bad take. Banana Laffy Taffy is some real criminal. Banana.

The FBI should be looking into your financials right now. That is suspect. They'll see you have long order history of Laffy Taffy. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I have a thing that I think is maybe even worse than banana Laffy Taffy. And it is a banana now and later.

What the hell is a now and later? You've never had a now and later, Steve? A now and later is like where Laffy Taffy went to die and got calcified in a mummy cave for a century or two. Now and laters are the dots of Laffy Taffy's.

This is something like your dentist will never see you again if you put a now and later in your mouth. Some Dollar Tree ass stuff right here. Part of why the banana Laffy Taffy are so delicious is because they're actually a lot softer than some of the other flavors of Laffy Taffy. Oh, for real? Oh, for real? Oh, really? We got scientific evidence? I'm going to send you guys a picture of my candy drawer later and you'll never speak to me again. Oh, my goodness. Laffy Taffy.

The children of the neighborhood are going to hate you. They have cherry-flavored Laffy Taffy. They have strawberry Laffy Taffy flavors. It's not for the children in the neighborhood. It's for me. They're just the excuse to order it in the first place, and then I can consume it all.

This is honestly baffling. I'm shocked. I don't know how I'm going to continue my day with this knowledge. Sour Patch Watermelon also have to say delicious, but I now just order them year round. I have them all the time. That's just your constant. I literally pour them into bowls and eat them with spoons. That's your Desmond Hughes. That's my movie candy. Oh, Sour Patch Watermelon. Yeah, so good. So good. Okay. Well, that went off the rails. Let's just plow through it. We've already talked about candy corn. I'm going to throw Whoppers in here. I think they're disgusting.

I think malted things are gross. And I'm anti-whoppers. I'm anti-snickers. Does Steve not know what a whopper is? No, no. Whoppers are bad. Whoppers are bad. I'm double checking to make sure that I know. There's a lot of verbiage going around with ludicrous names. I need to make sure I'm getting everything straight. Whoppers are bad. Snickers are bad as well. Snickers are bad? Snickers are bad. Oh, I was going to say this. You don't mean that. I mean that with all my heart. In the neighborhood that I used to trick-or-treat in, there was one house that did...

full entire size Snickers. And it's like, you got fun size, everything you use is one house. And they're like, here is an entire got, actually, I think they were king size, king fricking size Snickers bar. And you're just sort of like,

Okay. So it's the gold bar standard. But all Snickers are bad? All Snickers are bad. I think part of it is I hate nuts. Like I can't do nuts. I think that's unfair and harsh towards Snickers. But here's the thing though. If there's a candy with nuts, it's usually Snickers. Right? Like sometimes you get the baby roofs, you know, whatever. But for the most part, it's Snickers. Now I'm like, I've got all these Snickers. I don't like Snickers. What

How am I supposed to trade these Snickers for Skittles, for Starburst, for whatever? Everybody wants big return for Snickers. I'm like, bro, you know what I'm saying? It was tough for me. So it also brought my hate towards Snickers as more than it really should be. But I'm just not there for Snickers at all. I'm waiting for my trash take to somehow merge its head. No, Steve, this is a safe place, man. It's just the four of us. No one's listening to this. All right, let's go.

Butterfingers are trash. I'm with you. Butterfingers are pretty bad. That's a good take. Butterfingers are pretty bad. That's not a bad take. That's a good take. If you have a very specific craving or are really desperate for candy, they'll do in a pinch, but it's like a once every six years indulgence for me. Have you ever had a Butterfinger...

Again, you're here with the small sizes of things to justify its existence, and I don't appreciate Butterfingers in any stance here. I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying it's the only size I would... I want a Butterfinger in the quantum realm so I can't perceive it at all. Put that shit in the quantum realm size. I think my last hot take...

Is any cinnamon flavored candy. You can, you can, you can like, we're going to have to fight. Like a hot tamales in my bag. It's going to have to be hands. I'm sorry. Don't disrespect me with hot tamales. Like, come on. I love a cinnamon jelly bean. Love jelly belly, jelly beans. Again, that's not really part of like any loose candy for Halloween. Not really acceptable mini packs. What else is on your trash pile?

I think we covered it all. Bottom five has to be Candy Corn, Charleston Chew, Crunch, Crackle, Baby Ruth. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Craig is going to be so mad at us when he listens to this pod and sees the Candy Corn disrespect. Shout out to Craig Gangs.

Jemmy, do you have any other candy hot digs that you didn't get out? Ever had a Toblerone? Toblerone at the airport only. That's the only place I ever have a Toblerone. We're talking about airport candies. That's a sad, desolate world. That's worse. Airport candy. They only had fruit snacks. I had to buy Welch's, which I love. Welch's? So sad. How sad do you look? How sad do you look at departures? Eat on some Welch's. Steve, it's $3.50 a bag, Steve. Looking like a sixth grader.

Two essentials for every flight. Welch's fruit snacks and beef jerky. Can't get on an airplane without them. Okay, beef jerky is tough. Beef jerky is tough. Dots combo. Why do you keep doing this? Some sort of ideally like pretzel or chip interlude. Beef jerky? Yeah.

when you were talking about dots and then you started talking about crab? Do you remember? And Old Bay seasoning? I like to alternate. Like, I will routinely have a pint of ice cream at the end of the night and then be like, you know what I need now? A bag of popcorn. Often. I can't let this conversation go without one more kick in the shins to a Necco wafer. The worst candy that was ever invented. Necco wafer? Terrible. It's taste of dust and despair. Terrible.

I feel like Oh my god That's like It's basically tubs See this is the part of the podcast Where I have to say I'm too young to know what Necco wafers are I was not outside For the Necco wafer

It's like from 1847. I'm looking at the origins here. It's from 1847. And they still wrap them in like wax paper, basically. What are we doing? Who's making money off of this? And the smartest people are still making money, man. So put some respect on them, bruh. I stand behind it. Well, happy Halloween to everyone. Please feel free to cancel any and all hosts on Twitter if you disagree with our candy opinions.

This is going to be a hard one to like capture on a tweet. You know, we hope we hope that you will listen to the entire conversation for all of the nuance and context.

I'm welcoming the discussion of my mentions. Please at me if you don't like my candy takes because I'm right. So please. Well, I welcome a free flowing discussion where you're wrong and I am ultimately correct. Thank you. Isn't the whole point is that we need to like different candy so that when we jump our bags out on the ground and trade things, we have things to trade for. Exactly right. Exactly right.

Beautiful. What a lovely communal note to end on. Give me all your Alma joys. Give me all your Alma joys. We worked our way back, happily. All right, friends. We're about to glue our jaws shut with candy here, so it is time clearly to wrap today's episode. Thank you, as always, sticking with the monikers from last time. Our Kwisatz Haderach, Steve Ullman, for producing this episode.

the Duke of House of R working title, Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work and frankly, rude contributions in the Zoom chat during this episode. And Armenta Jomia Deneron for his work on the social, the mailbag for this episode. Remember to follow The Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow The Ringerverse, cross our social feeds and head back into The Ringerverse next Friday for The Midnight Boys' instant reaction to Eternals. Until next time.

To infinity and...

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