Hello and welcome to Development Purgatory!
This is the podcast all about the movies that were never made, the scripts that were never written,
and the ideas that never have made it to the page. My name is Daniel Kawka.
And I'm Lexcee Riley.
We are going over another superhero. Super hero fatigue.
We do a lot of superheroes here, but I think this one's a pretty good one.
Isn't it crazy that we are in superhero fatigue yet there are so many superhero movies that
didn't get made? Yeah, it's pretty incredible, but it is around that time where studios were trying
to figure out superheroes and just kind of throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks,
seeing what happens, and eventually the perfect superhero was made. We all know that that is blade
two. I want to throw a wet paper towel here. I stopped listening after.
And then you said blade two and I'm still going to make my joke.
Yeah, we are going over another superhero. This one you may have heard of. He is from the DC
universe. Have you ever heard of the superhero plastic man? Nope.
Do you know anything about plastic man? Not a.
What he looks like. In my head he's like Mr. Fantastic, but like.
In a way, yes he is. Oh, so this is the flip.
So you have no history with plastic man. There's a comic book store that's right next to us.
This is kind of his head store because the bench outside of there, a place was stolen,
but their bench was painted. To look like plastic man? Yeah, to look like plastic man.
But it was a very funny joke because if you know plastic man's ability, he can kind of morph
and make himself into a bench. Any shape and object that is necessary for whatever that moment calls for.
That's fantastic. Yeah, Mr. It's plastic. It's fantastic to be plastic, which will come up later.
The team up you never knew you needed. But as for me with plastic man, how I've known about him,
he has appeared in a lot of different like DC movies, like animated movies. I've never seen him in a
movie, although I guess I'm not a DC kid. Yeah, so DC, what they'll do is they make a lot of animated
movies, like kind of direct to video or like direct to streaming. Yeah, ones and they did one recently.
It was injustice that came out in 2021. The video game. Kind of based on that. Yeah. So they
kind of go hand in hand with each other, but that is the name of the video game. Yes it is. And plastic man
is just part of the Justice League. How will you punish people when they break whatever rules Superman
comes up with? I mean, I was a criminal. I needed second, third and fourth chances before turning my life
around. So what's the deal there? If you watch any of the Batman Brave in the Bold series, he
makes appearances here and there. When you said Justice League, it just made me think of a new Superman.
And like how he's sort of picking deeper cuts of comics to, I mean, I guess time for it's the
Justice gang now. But like, I mean, maybe we'll find out in this episode, but I'm like, it feels like
there's a good segue for Mr. Benchman. And in fact, like you mentioning that is literally the last paragraph
of my notes. So we're going to tie it all together. We're going to see how I didn't need to watch
anything about it. I get it real quick. Yeah. James Gunn, I believe that he's going to do it. How he's
going to do it. But the way that it was approached, I mean, you'll see what it is. But we are going to go
into plastic man kind of his history of how he came to be. But before we do so, we're going to go
into the history of these advertisements. And welcome back. I was like, we're waiting for the ad
and I was like, no, no, we make our own ads. All right. Let's get into plastic man. Cause I like
doing this question. How old? Oh God. Do you think plastic man is? When do you think he's about
he's a trap? I love it. I love this question. Always trap. Oh God. Kind of a hint. He came about around
the same time that Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. Of course. We're first published. I know that
we've talked about when Superman and Batman came out and you would hope at this point because we've
talked about it a few times. I would have locked it away, but I haven't. Or if it is as deep in there.
So like late 60s? No. So plastic man. He first appeared. He first appeared in police comics in
August 1941. Holy schnikes. Yeah. He old. He real old. He would have been fighting in World War 2.
Captain America. Yeah. Older than Captain America.
You know, there is a pocket of my brain somewhere that has all of these facts stored away. Because
every time I'm like, that is brand new information. And I like it. But like, I wish I could dig it
up at like a party to be like, did you know? So he appeared in police comics from issue number one.
But this wasn't under DC Comics or what DC Comics was when you say police comics. Was there a superhero
police team or so did we make comics for the police? So the run of comics was actually called police,
police comics. It's kind of like whenever you have a superhero, the run of the superhero issues is
always the name of that superhero or like, just a sleigh of America. It's always like J.O.A.
or Justice League America or the Avengers. That's what that's dance. Yeah. So this is essentially what it is.
It's police comics, but it was under the publisher quality comics. I feel like they didn't last long.
You'll see. Now this character was one of many that was introduced. So they're basically like
throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks. So on top of Plastic Ben, we also had Phantom Lady.
We had the human bomb. We have firebrand and mouthpiece. No. Just hard no. Phantom Lady though.
Right. I mean, I guess at least there's one lady and at least she's not the most ridiculous of the
bunch. No, she isn't. So Plastic Man, he was created by Jack Cole. Cole in his earlier career,
he worked for Harry A. Chessler Studio, which was part of Centaur Publications back in 1936.
The company was simply providing artists to illustrate four stories. And essentially like
whenever any published stories came their way, they brought an artist to draw out illustrations. Or if
it was like a comic book, they would be the ones who were in charge of putting that all together.
So for Cole's first assignment, he was actually asked to illustrate a few comics. One was Teen T Todd.
TNT? TNT as in Dynamite. Bam man. Teen T Todd.
And the FBI and little Dynamite bit of a theme here. So Bam man had a baby.
Essentially. With Phantom Lady?
In 1939, he joined Love Gleason's publications to be an artist and editor for Silver Street Comics.
There he assisted Will Eisner in his comic The Spirit. Later in his career, he would be an artist
for Playboy. He would draw comic strips in every issue from 1954 to 1958, which is when he died.
So he worked up until death?
Mm-hmm. He created the comic strip Betsey and me.
Jack Cole was later inducted in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Will Eisner award Hall of Fame
in 1999. Cole, he created and illustrated various characters, but Plastic Man is his biggest hit.
I mean, Bam man didn't go off well?
I wish.
There is a universe where Bam man was the thing.
Yeah.
Or mouthpiece. I don't even want that.
That's not the piece. Cole created and illustrated various characters, but Plastic Man was his biggest hit.
He first appeared in the Run of Police Comics, but Plastic Man, he gained so much popularity that he
actually took over as the main character by issue five.
God, the forties were a wild time.
And then he continued on until issue 102.
Whoa, whoa.
Yeah, so like 97 issues after that. He was like the main character.
But Plastic Man, he actually got his own series starting in 1944 with a 64 issue run.
Damn.
Yeah, and then quality comics would continue until 1956 when quality was then acquired by DC Comics,
which is why Plastic Man is a DC superhero.
So he didn't start off at DC. He was bought by DC.
He started with QC.
Yes.
So who is Plastic Man? What is his origin?
And what is his powers?
Now Plastic Man's alter ego is Patrick Eel O'Brien.
You're going to be like his name is Schmiedschmitchers.
Oh, wait. Okay.
While we're on this joke though, Fantastic Four came out in the 60s, right?
Correct.
Schmiedschmitcher is a rip off of Plastic Man.
Not a rip off, but you know what I'm saying?
You know how they always have their like counterpart?
Yeah, there's a few characters who like have stretchy arms.
Tom Malacan. Yeah. So it is an a power that's like unusual.
It's kind of like the power of invisibility.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm just like, who's the first stretchy man?
The first stretchy man, I might say who it is,
but I could be wrong because there might be someone who appeared like
here or earlier. We'll find out.
Wait. So does Plastic Man stretch or does Plastic Man just form into a shape?
He stretches and forms.
Okay.
Similar to Gambit.
He was orphaned at the age of 10, fell into a life of crime in the streets of Chicago,
where he became a safe cracker for a burglary ring during a heist at the Crawford
chemistry works.
The Louvre.
His team was caught and they fled.
Unfortunately, Patrick got shot in the shoulder and a drum of unidentified acid spilled on him
and seeped into his wound.
What an origin story.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you got to get the chemicals in him somehow.
I mean, there's a combination of a lot of other things like you have the Joker,
you have Daredevil's like kind of putting those two together.
Daredevil gets shot and that's how he has...
He gets acid in his eyes according to the band-afflake movie.
As he is trying to escape, he sees his team drives off without him and they just leave him behind.
Or a dude?
Yeah, yeah.
He continues to flee on foot, but he eventually passes out in the foothills of a mountain
just outside of the city.
The next morning he wakes up to find that he's been tended to by a monk at a monastery.
The monk has found him, helped him out, and he has a sense that there is much good in this man.
When the police track down Patrick to the monastery, the monk has then turned them away.
Through this act of kindness and the team members leaving him behind, Patrick turns his life around
and he leaves this life of crime.
While at the monastery, Patrick then discovers his new abilities.
He could bend and stretch his body into any shape that he desired.
He promises to use his new abilities to fight crime and evil, although this is after he went back to
the criminals that he associated with and asked for his cut. He then donned.
Yeah.
He then...
By the way.
Yeah.
By the way, before turning to a life away from crime, he just did a little crime before getting back up.
I just need a little bit of cheddar to make it through my good life.
He donned a red, black, and yellow rubber suit with wrap-around goggles to hide his identity.
Which is strange if he can morph into any shape, you'd think he could just change his face.
But now, I'm going to put goggles on to hide his identity.
Okay.
His outfit has pretty much stayed the same with various degrees of how much he shows his legs throughout the years.
Yeah, so you get a little...
Actually, let's look up some images of a plastic man.
So you can see there's a plastic man with the short shorts.
And sometimes it's just like a speedy...
I need men to be dressing in this costume.
Yeah.
Hell, low legs.
He's kind of like some like 60s short shorts going on.
Yeah, it's very like form-fitting depending on who the artist is.
It'll be like long pants or like right up to the top.
Fascinating. I have so many questions.
Yeah.
None of them appropriate.
No.
A plastic man down the line would acquire a comic relief sidekick known as "Woozy Winks." His...
Comic-Con?
Yeah.
"Woozy Winks."
A plastic man is so descriptive of what this character does.
There's not enough money in the world for me to be able to be like,
"This is what woozy Winks does."
Well, his power is to actually enchant nature to protect him.
He's able to manipulate nature.
Although that power was then tossed aside so that he would just become this bumbling loyal friend.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
And then throughout the run of quality comics he was part of the police force and the FBI.
"Woozy Winks?"
No, the plastic man.
Oh.
Yeah.
Officer Winks is kind of great.
I'm sure "Woozy" was there in the background this entire time.
But the concept of a shape-shifting and bending character is no foreign concept to comic books.
There was "Flexo, the rubberman, and the thin man" both created before plastic comics.
Here we go. They answered my question.
Yeah, they were both created before "Plexic Man" in mystic comics.
And when later be attained by Marvel.
But the most famous stretchy man that's out there is obviously, we talked about it before.
"Mr. Fantastic, who was created in 1961, 20 years later, after plastic man?"
When DC Comics obtained quality comics in 1956, they stopped making issues of plastic man,
despite it being the face of the publication.
Instead they continued with Black Hawk, Robin Hood, Heart Throbs, and GI combat.
Heart Throbs.
Any knowledge of his existence was just put to the wayside.
He could have made appearance in the Flash issue 112, which was published in May 1961.
But instead they got Ralph Dibney as the elongated man who had pretty much the same powers
as plastic man.
Now the DC editor at the time, who was Julia Schwarz, admitted later that had he known
plastic man existed, he probably would have used him instead.
How did you not know he existed if he was so popular?
I mean, it's not like he's just Google it or anything like that.
Like you have hundreds of characters that you're trying to do.
Yeah, but I'm like, I guess if your company just took over,
I'm thinking about business and marketing of what we have to do.
Right, there wouldn't be an index card role in X of characters.
Yeah, you are just going through all these characters and you're just like,
who's sending a pretzel, which one pops up first?
And oftentimes, whenever you're creating a new character,
you create them as a side character first, see how people like them,
if you get rid of them, and people are just like, hey,
we really want that character.
Can you bring them back?
Then you realize, oh, you have something there.
Whereas for the most part, you're just creating characters left and right,
and you're just like, we need a character who's like,
bendy and stretchy.
A long-gated man has kind of like, I don't have it in my notes,
but like, he has continued as well.
And there are some comics and even TV shows where they like,
they cross paths with each other.
Now, if it isn't plastic, man,
and uh, uh, and uh, elongated man, you know the ductile detective?
I never heard of it.
It's so weird that that's like a fascination that there are multiple multiples.
Yeah. The first appearance of "Plasic Man" in DC Comics was actually in July 1966,
with Dial H for Hero.
Now, it's not the official character, though.
In this, the premise of the comic is that the main character,
Robbie Reed, he has a magical dial, kind of think of it like a rotary phone.
And when he dials the word hero,
he'll like, he transforms into a random hero to help him fight crime for whatever...
That's cool.
...and in this issue, he just happened to turn into plastic man.
He is for plastic man.
So they actually took that character, the exact character plastic man.
He transformed into plastic man and then he fought.
Plastic man would get a reboot in 1966 in "Plasic Man" volume 2, issue 1,
in which the character was a bit wackier.
They did away with this...
"Plasic, you can't wack here, then who's he wings?"
Well, they did away with "Woozy Wings."
No, I know, but if that was your original cohort, where do you go?
"Plasic Man, if you are unaware of how he acts, he is very much like Deadpool."
Oh!
Yeah. He's kind of a very similar character.
He's kind of like one who makes all the quips always trying to...
If there's a serious situation, he's the one who's gonna crack a joke to break the ice.
Just broke everything I was thinking.
"This would be easier to put together. Let me see. Anywhere but I friggin' battle."
Yeah, he's not truly a serious character. He's very...
I didn't think he was necessarily serious, but with a name like "Plasic Man"
and a cohort of "Woozy Wings," I thought he was like, "Hi, I'm plastic man."
I didn't think he could be played by Ryan Reynolds, so...
No, but kind of knowing the character now, had we not seen him as Deadpool?
Dead who? He could definitely work as "Plasic Man."
Okay, so they did away with "Woozy Wings." He did get a few other side characters.
They were Gordon K. Trueblood. He was a petster or owner, and then there was the police officer,
Captain McSniffy.
He...
God, they were different times.
Yeah.
For him, he always believed that like "Plasic Man" was always a criminal. He was always suspicious
that he was a criminal. He's like...
There's no way that this guy is good enough.
I don't believe that monk for a second.
Yeah, exactly. In issue seven, there was a major twist in the story.
When it's revealed that the "Plasic Man" that we've been following was actually the sun
of the "Plasic Man" from "Quality Comics."
Bump, bump, bump!
Yeah, so we didn't even get the first appearance of Patrick Eel O'Brien in "Dasty Comics"
until November 1967.
What's his son's name?
His son's name is...
I don't know.
Like who were we seeing then if we weren't seeing him?
Yeah, he just went by Eel's O'Brien.
Yeah, when it first came out, so we just kind of assumed that it was him.
But later on, he just went by Junior after that.
So Eel's O'Brien Junior.
So that was just a way to like...
not give anything away.
Because if he changes his name, he would be like, "Oh, this guy is different."
This guy is not the "Plasic Man" I grew up with.
There was three more issues of "Plasic Man."
They were published after that, giving him a 10-issue run.
"Plasic Man" does have a crossover in "The Brave and the Bold" number 76.
This was in 1968, where he teamed up with Batman to defeat the "Molder."
Now, he was a villain.
"Mollinator."
Now, he's a villain who uses plastic-based weapons and gadgets.
The "Mollinator" it, not sorry.
The "Molder."
Do you know the "Mollinators" from?
Is that the Incredibles?
No, it's from Santa Claus.
Wait, really?
Yeah, in the second one.
I'm the "Mollinator."
It's the tooth fairy.
He wants a cooler name.
Wow.
I did not pay attention to those movies as closely.
So, the "Molder."
He made plastic-based weapons and gadgets.
What's notable about this?
Oh, the "Molder."
The "Molder."
M-O-U-L-D.
The "Molder."
Not M-O-L-D.
No.
Very different.
Now, do you see why I was confused?
Now, what's notable about this story is that "Plasic Man" is broken up into many pieces,
but Batman can actually simply put him back together as if he was like clay.
With their love.
And with friendship.
In the 60s, we weren't going to make a comment like that.
Wait, so in "Plasic Man,"
I find this character really fascinating.
Because with me, when you think about Reed Richards,
in my head, he's like silly, putty-like-he's goo, right?
Yeah, essentially.
When you say "Plasic Man," I think, like, "Topperware."
Yeah, it's not as malleable.
Yeah, so I'm like, he actually can be broken.
Yeah, he can be broken, but also just like...
Just like put back together.
Yeah.
So "Plasic Man"'s volume 2 stopped at issue 10 in June of 1968,
and when he get picked up for 10 more issues until March 1976, so about eight years later.
Between that time, he did make a few appearances.
There was the Justice League of America, issue 107, that came out in October 1973.
In it, the Justice League, from Earth 2, they team up with the Freedom Fighters from Earth X.
The Freedom Fighters consist of Black Condor, Doll Man, human bomb, he makes an appearance again.
Phantom Lady, she's back, Ray, and Uncle Sam.
These are all characters from quality comics.
I need to look up quality comics, human bomb.
In the comic, it is revealed that "Plasic Man" was with them, but he had died.
Or at least this would have been the "Plasic Man" that was on Earth 2 in the Earth X variant.
"Plasic Man" would make another brave in the bold appearance in issue 97 when he teams with Batman again.
"Oh yeah, the kick crusader prefers to work with one."
In issue 11 of "Plasic Man" volume 2.
Oh, Phantom Lady is fascinating looking.
That's gonna be my next Halloween costume.
Like, I'm just going off like original, like, the "Plasic Man"
suit kind of thing with green.
Yeah, it kind of looks like what Catwoman's costume used to look like when she had a cape.
And then she gets like, "Varavumd."
And then we go to the future and she has long clothes.
All right.
So "Plasic Man" would make another appearance in the "Brave in the Bold" issue 95 where he teams with Batman again.
For issue 11 of "Plasic Man" volume 2.
This would be a continuation of that character that we saw in "Brave in the Bold."
And that was considered to be from "Earth 1."
So issue 10 is from "Earth 12."
Issue 11 is from "Earth 1."
But both of the continuations are in volume 2.
It's, yeah.
And then from "Issue 11" on "Plasic Man" we get his old sidekick back, "Hoozy Winks."
"Gull Woozy."
"Plasic Man" would periodically appear in other comics.
And his volume 2, one would be discontinued in 1977.
Now if you think this is all confusing, don't worry.
The editors, the authors, and everyone I like DC, they thought it was confusing as well.
This is when they were just like, we want a new start of a superhero,
but we already have that superhero who's in circulation,
so we're going to put it on "Earth 5" or "Earth 6" or "Earth 7" or "Earth 8."
Yeah, because that clears it up.
Yep.
Moving away from the comics,
we are going to go into his appearance in television.
Whoa.
Yeah, now "Plasic Man."
He almost got a show that was produced by Filmmation.
If you don't know, "Filmation," they did a bunch of DC animated series.
Back in the '60s, there was the new "Adventures of Superman,"
there was Aquaman, there was Batman with Robin, the Boy Wonder.
The show was developed in 1967, but then was cancelled before it began.
But in 1979, "Plasic Man" had his own animated TV show,
as "The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure" show.
Oh, man, I was hoping it was like the comedy adventure power.
Like "Plasic Man" had a variety show.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of these were variety shows kind of like what the
"Luney" tunes like they always had variety shows or like "Skippy-Doo."
That's what you think when you think, say "Variety Show."
I think Carol Burnett.
Oh, no.
This is nothing like the-
Live action.
And when it goes on with the "Win Curtains."
No, nothing like that.
The show was produced by "Ruby Spears Production."
In the show, "Plasic Man" had a new sidekick.
This was a bumbling, Hawaiian government agent,
known as "Hoola-Hoola."
Patrick had his own girlfriend, Penny, and his kid, "Baby Plas."
I don't like that.
Yeah.
B-L-A-S.
The series had run for two years in one into syndication.
When the show re-aired, a live action segment was added
where a live action "Plasic Man" which was portrayed by
Mark Craig Taylor would introduce and provide "Sekways" in the show.
I'm "Plasic Man."
Welcome to the show.
For those of you who don't know, this is my show.
I am a superhero, and quite possibly the best superhero there is.
Right, Chief?
No.
The voice of "Plasic Man" for the cartoon that was provided by Michael Bell.
You can actually look up the live action "Plasic Man" from 1980.
Oh my God.
Yeah, it's wacky and weird, and they had very early...
It's not CGI, but...
I'm so excited to get to the movie bit of this because every time I google something,
like fan castings are popping up, and I don't want to talk about it yet because we're not there.
No.
But I am excited?
Yes.
Now, back at DC Comics, they went through a major shift in 1985.
This is something that I mentioned before with Superman, Batman, One Roman,
and our Catwoman episode.
Do you remember what happened with DC Comics in 1985?
Big old crisis.
I don't remember.
I'm sorry.
It's called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Oh.
Crisis on Infinite Earths.
I thought you meant the company, not the...
I mean, it was kind of both.
So, long story short, DC had to do like a big reset, essentially.
And they figured out a storyline in which they took all of the different Earths,
all of the different multiverses, and they were just like...
Oh, got it.
...got to like restart everything.
We're going to hone it all in, and just like...
We're going to create this guy who like eats Earths, eats different planets, and whatnot,
and he just like...
poops out one Earth and be like, "That's the one that everyone is going to start on.
We're going to have Earth one, and that's it.
That's all."
So, whatever storyline was happening in the 80s, which is all reset,
didn't matter if you were in the middle of a story.
Yeah.
Whoa!
So, now everyone lives on Earth one.
Plastic Man is then reintroduced in November 1988,
in Plastic Man, Volume 3 with a 4- Issue Run,
which was written by Phil Folglio.
As for the origin story, it's actually the same origin that they took from
quality comics.
In fact, the panels of the original police comics were then recreated,
down to even what they said, and actually have this here.
So, you can actually see the comics right here.
So, the top one here, that is quality comics.
So, you can see like, that's the the gang.
They're going down the stairs.
You get shot, and they get away.
Same thing is here.
The gangs together, they're going down the stairs.
Yeah, they even put the like 10- little stairs in the corner of them.
Yeah.
So, like, he's even saying the same thing.
And his like profile is very similar.
It's just a little darker, a little more well drawn,
but like, essentially, they're like...
It's updated.
Yeah.
But now in 4K.
But they looked at, and they were like, the origin story is great.
Like, why fix that?
We're just going to redo that and just like go from there.
Especially if you were crunching a bunch and making everything go back to one.
Like, why wouldn't you take the best pieces of the original?
Yeah, it's a brilliant, brilliant idea.
Yet again, plastic man would make his sporadic appearances in other comics.
He's shown in a picture of All-Star Squadron issue number 60,
which was in August 1986.
He's in a flashback scene in Infinity Inc.
Issue number 39, which came out in June of 1987.
And as a cameo of the freedom fighters in the young All-Stores issue number 97 in July 1989.
In 1994, DC hit the reset button again with zero hour crisis in time.
Essentially the same thing.
And in this, plastic man is a hero from around the world where two era
and is still fighting in the modern day.
Because of his powers, it makes him unique and kind of makes him immortal.
Right.
Yeah.
He would make a lot more small appearances until 1998 when Grant Morrison,
he introduced plastic man as a prominent member of the JLA or the Justice League of America in Rock of Ages.
Now from there, yeah.
With Tom Cruise.
Yes.
From there on, plastic man would become more popular.
He became a more consistent member in the Justice League.
And this is where I'm going to discontinue the history of plastic man because this is kind of...
Because we're in 1994 now.
Because we're in the 1990s right now.
We existed.
And this is, yeah.
And this is essentially like all the knowledge that's out there that would have been available
to make the movie.
Got it.
But before we dive into that movie, we're going to dive into these advertisements.
And we're back.
Brought to you by...
Bluey.
We're diving into plastic man becoming a movie in the early 90s.
In 1992, a variety they did an interview with Steven Spielberg.
And which he talked mostly about the production of Jurassic Park.
But Spielberg revealed that his production company, Ambulin, was working with...
Wamblin, Blamblin.
Blamblin.
But they were working with Warner Brothers in creating a plastic man film with Brian Spicer.
Brian Spicer, he has written a few things like the mighty morphing power-rangers.
For Richard or poor, there is a lot of other tea.
He also wrote a lot of TV shows including one episode of "Once Upon a Time."
Yeah.
Which one?
Season 1, episode 11, "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree."
It was season 1, which is one of the best seasons of "Once Upon a Time."
So...
Not one of it is the definitive best season of "Once Upon a Time."
But I was like...
Because I've watched season 1 a lot.
And I know that what certain episodes are.
So I was trying to like guess.
And I was like, "My power!"
But this would have been his directorial debut for a feature film.
Now to write the film was the "Witchowski's."
Then, "No Another Time" as...
Oh, they were just writing, they weren't directing?
They were just writing.
So then, at the time, they were known as "Larian Andy."
Now they are known as Lana and Lily.
The script was leaked and their draft was submitted in 1995.
Now this is well before the Matrix.
And really, the only thing that they were known for was writing a Richard Donner film,
which was "Assassins," which starred "Selvestre Stallone" and Antonio Benderes.
Their career is fascinating to me.
Because so when was bound?
Bound is...
96?
96, yes.
So like, this is 95.
They've done the one movie.
I mean, I guess it's the mid 90s superhero movies aren't what they were a couple years ago.
But like, that's still a big like "Power Punch" movie.
And then they do "Bound," which is offbeat and quirky.
But still like "Bound" repushing.
And then they go to "Mate."
Like, wow.
Oh, because of really one producer, which was Joel Silver,
which we'll get into later.
Got it.
Yeah.
So...
I needed that answer.
Yeah.
I do want to jump ahead just a little bit in chronological order,
just to help you like visualize like who would portray plastic man.
Now, there were some rumors...
Jim Carrey.
Yeah, there were some rumors.
Yeah, that...
Jim Carrey.
Oh, really?
I was doing a joke.
No, like...
I mean, you saw him in the mask.
Yeah, that's what...
Like, I was thinking like 90s.
Yeah, they kind of envisioned him as like being that...
He's made her a...
Yeah, and if you were thinking that plastic man is supposed to be like a humorous character
or something like that, Jim Carrey fits the bill perfectly.
Well, and like the way he can mold his body.
Yeah, and the mask, like, that was a comic book.
That was a comic book movie.
That is brand new information.
Yeah, sort of off its comic book first.
It's a very darker comic book.
But yes...
There's your remake.
Mm-hmm.
But yeah, like if he could do that, there's like, this is perfect for it.
Another character who's had his face...
Anytime, anytime, I think of Ace Ventura, I always think of the sliding glass door.
Opening, closing, yeah.
Without fail, and I can't not talk about it without it like appearing in my mind.
I'm so sorry.
Now, there was another actor who is also had his face elongated in a movie.
And that was...
Can I make a cry?
No, it was Bruce Campbell.
At the time known as Ash in Evil Dead and the Army of Darkness.
Yeah, but he is...
He is this face elongated in Sam Remy's.
Yeah, those two different movies.
No.
It's the same character.
Yeah, when does he have his face?
Army of Darkness.
I need to re-watch Army of Darkness.
Yeah.
But that's like a moment that's not a whole thing.
That's not a whole thing, but it like happens...
Like that's makeup that they put on his face.
Yeah.
But also, you can't compare...
Like Jim Carey, I feel like is in a league of his own when it comes to body morphing.
Yeah.
So Glad is using it for Sonic now.
But like...
And you'll hear in the story like that they kind of had him more in mind than Jim Carey.
Jim Carey, like he...
Wait, they had Bruce Campbell more in mind?
Or yeah, they had Bruce Campbell more so in mind than...
Yeah, I think Jim Carey just was like...
He was such a high-ask at that point.
Like he had just done...
Yeah, we're in the height of his career, basically.
Yeah, I think in the span of '94, it was the mask...
Ace Ventura.
Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber.
And then all in the same...
When Batman.
That's '96, but like...
But like...
Yeah, he's in high demand.
And like for those three movies to come out in the same year, like...
Jim Carey is like the top actor at this time.
Throw in the majestic.
Yeah.
But to think like, oh, maybe he might be too much, but like Bruce Campbell seems more obtainable
and he's still relevant.
Where I'm gonna go out of order here is everyone thinks because this is what Chausky's obviously,
they're gonna choose Kiana Reeves.
Whoa.
But this is pre-matrix.
Now, right?
This is why I'm going out of order here because...
Well, now I'm confused.
So, the reason why I bring him up is because this was after 2008.
The Chausky's had established themselves with the matrix trilogy and they had done...
Oh, so...
Okay, hang on.
Reeve-ined.
So in '94, they...
Or '95, they wrote the script.
They wrote the script with Jim Carey or Bruce Campbell in mind.
With Jason Splycer, what is his name?
James Splycer.
Uh...
Directed?
Yes.
So if we fast forward to 2008,
are they intended to direct?
Are we still keeping...
Okay, great.
So in 2008, this is right after the matrix trilogy, they had done Speed Racer and...
Now I understand the Kiana Reeves.
Yeah, and they're like, we're gonna re-visit the script again.
Or at least the rumors of it was gonna happen.
And they're like, well, obviously, if they're gonna do this,
they're gonna choose their main boy, Kiana Reeves, to be plastic man.
I could take Kiana Reeves in some short shorts.
Yeah.
I don't think he's right for that, but I don't think so either.
But I wanted to put it in there just ahead of time so that you can kind of like...
Yeah.
...put in your head like, oh, who can I imagine in this role?
And you can kind of like, replace which one you want to do, like,
Kiana Beach and McCarrie, Kiana Beach, Bruce Campbell, Kiana Beach, Kiana Reeves, and just kind of...
But like, them in different era, so like...
Is that the one that we're gonna be talking about?
Like that story is what we're gonna be talking about is the 2008 version?
We are talking about the 1995 version because there was no revision of it.
Got it.
Yeah.
Now before we get into this movie, we are gonna get into these advertisements.
We're getting into the movie.
To the moving pictures.
This is "Plasic Man" written by the Wachowski's.
It was submitted on March 17th, 1995.
We opened an alab scene from the perspective of a lab mouse.
This mouse is in a cage with several other mice and a beautiful woman in a white lab coat
enters and opens the cage.
Inside the mice cower and position themselves into the corner of the cage.
The scientist picks up the mouse that we've been following.
She flips the mouse and uses an enormous hyperdermic needle to inject a sapphire blue fluid.
The mouse is then put into a tank, which is filled with a milky fluid.
The mouse is nauseous and gets blurred vision.
After the tank is drained, the mouse is picked up and slips through the woman's fingers.
The mouse hits the ground and bounces.
The mouse zips around the floor, evading the capture of the scientist and her assistant.
And the mouse slips into a drain, humbling down the rabbit hole.
And it's completely dark.
The hell?
So the mouse gets injected with "Plasic Man"
and gets all bouncy and rubbery or not.
It's not the origin story that...
Down the hole.
But I do want to emphasize because they did write this in the script that the mouse goes down the rabbit hole.
Because if you...
It isn't that the whole point of the matrix?
To go down the rabbit hole just like Alice.
I watched the matrix for the first time recently.
That is astonishing that you have not seen the matrix before until the year of our Lord 2025.
Also, it was really hard to get me to see the matrix.
I don't understand.
This is like a staple of the film industry.
Honestly, it was kind of refreshing to watch on my own.
The VFX really holds up in a way that I was surprised.
Yeah, it's a really good movie.
It really changed the trajectory of the use of special effects in movies.
I feel like I need to watch it like six times to fully understand it because I'm still real confused.
But like, it was something.
Yeah. Off screen.
We hear a man sneeze.
He's in a dime store and we see a man step out of a photo booth.
He's speaking to himself, trying to find the right words before he talks to Dr. Susan Bright as he grabs his photo strip.
We see multiple photos of his face, resembling a comic strip with the last photo of him sneezing.
We cut to the exterior of an upscale brownstone apartment.
This is Susan's home.
Are we still in the mouse's perspective?
No, we are not.
Yeah. So we followed the mouse to get...
Down the right hole.
Yeah.
And then he emerges to get to the dime store.
Got it.
This is Susan's apartment.
When she opens the door, we see it's the same scientist from the first scene.
She's juggling her belongings as she gets into her car.
And we hear a man's voice.
Hello, Susan.
This is Daniel Eel O'Brien.
They changed the name.
Damn Daniel.
Yeah.
This is really weird because I went through this whole script as the main character, Daniel.
So it's going to be like me talking to their person.
It's a weird feeling.
I'm going to try and get over that.
The description of him is that he is a black leather activist.
We cannot tell if he is dangerous or if he just looks dangerous.
Through this conversation, we learn that these two used to be together.
And she's not looking to get back together.
Daniel has been in prison for the last six months.
He tells her that he's been following her work, reading every article about her,
and her polymerization experiments and the nanotechnology.
And he's noticed that she hasn't published anything lately.
She's flattered about his attentiveness.
It's all women want.
Yeah.
We want you to pay attention.
Yeah.
But she ends the conversation because she needs to go to work, just like women do.
I lost my mouse.
I got to go.
Yeah.
And Susan takes off in her car leaves Daniel behind.
We get an establishing shot of Kalamot City, which is a fictional city made up for the movie.
I was like, I don't know what it was.
Yeah.
It is an industrial wasteland towering,
smokestacks in warehouses of corrugated steel.
Vactories and chemical plants built around a small lake that shimmers
of an oily iridescent sheen while its shores turn into a frothy green bile.
So it's just like a very toxic city.
No, thank you.
In the center of it all is argon laboratories and argon tower.
Inside the argon tower, we follow Mrs. Poppy walking down the hallway.
Quote, she is a stunning woman of cosmetic perfection in a body that might have been
surgically cut from a comic book.
She designs her own dresses made from argon rubber or PVC.
Usually red to match her collection and high heeled shoes and boots.
If you remember the lady dressed in red in the matrix,
kind of something along the lines of that.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, or like Jennifer Tilly in Bounton.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of their style to have like a woman made up.
Perfectly cut out in the letter.
Yeah.
Even in the matrix, there's a lot of like leather.
So if you think about Trinity as well.
Yeah, that is clearly a theme.
Yep, which is why I had you watch those movies to be like,
not for that moment specifically, but you know, like, just for the letter.
But there are just like some moments in there where you just like.
No, I thought I watched both those movies.
I think it really gives me a perspective of their directing.
Yeah, yeah.
She's searching for her husband, Icarus argon.
I know.
I heard the name and I was like, you are not being subtle about this metaphor.
I am a villain.
Yeah.
I've flown too close to the sun.
In his office, we see his face on the cover of People magazine as the sexiest man alive
in time as the man of the year.
He's no Jonathan Bailey.
There's also a 1989 Mr. University trophy.
When we see President A. Icarus, he's wheelchair bound and described as,
quote, an unwrapped mummy, brown flesh drapes over stringy cords of muscles,
like a wet paper bag.
His eyes, hard white marbles lined with red cracks.
So he's like, definitely been decrepit over the years.
In my head, when I was reading all that, I was picturing Arnold Schwarzenegger because of like,
the time.
And then as soon as that description started, I was like, I'm so wrong.
You know, he's in a very, very bad spot in his life right now.
Is he living?
He's barely there.
Poppy needs Icarus to sign off on some papers.
Icarus is suspicious that Poppy is withholding a cure from him, but she assures him that she's not.
And when they lost the first mouse, it was purely an accident.
Poppy gives Icarus his meds.
She blows him a kiss and she leaves.
Outside the lab, Susan pulls up to the gate and she can't find her security card.
She tells the garden and he says that he'll just make another one for her later and just lets her in.
We cut to the admiral hotel where we find Daniel forging Susan security card to look like his.
He uses the photos from the photo booth to make his profile picture.
Ah!
Sneaky, sneaky.
We zoom out to reveal that Daniel is obsessed with the work that's been done at Argonne
and we see articles of their work plaster all over his face.
He cuts full Charlie day.
Yeah, it's, man.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the red string, there's a whole episode of Decodering about the red string
and how it was completely made up.
It's fabricated.
They don't use it in police investigations.
Detectives don't use it.
They don't use it in the FBI or the CIA or the CIA.
They ran out of air.
And it is so passionate about this.
And they just completely made it up.
They found like the turning point in which every movie in TV shows like have to do this
and it is a beautiful mind with Russell Crowe.
Like it is because of that movie that we have so many like red string boards in movies in TV shows.
And it's just a shorthand for like, they're either a genius who is about to figure it out
or they're completely batchit insane.
Yeah.
Charlie day.
But this is way before beautiful mind.
So it's just like him plastering up all these things to be like,
oh, I'm just going to research all of this stuff.
My brain wanted to say like unsolved mysteries because I could remember
watching those terrifying episodes and seeing stuff like that.
Yeah.
I feel like it existed before a beautiful mind,
but a beautiful mind is the moment it's like it exploded in the air.
Yeah.
So back to the lab.
We find Susan and her assistant Dr. Nigel Neibumman.
Oh, the race.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Dr. Nigel and Neibumman.
Oh my god.
I've.
Yeah.
Nigel is thinking about plan to capture the escape mouse, but Susan is not paying
the attention.
That mouse is gone.
Yeah.
She is distracted thinking about Daniel.
We cut to a flashback of Daniel on the street.
A businessman tosses a surf from cup on the ground.
Daniel picks it up and confronts the litter bug.
I mentioned that because like he keeps on calling this guy litter bug.
Like it's a slur.
Many, many times it's kind of uncomfortable.
How many times he says it, but yes, okay.
Kips on to you.
After nagging the guy for a while, the litter bug beats the shit out of Daniel.
We cut back to the lab and Susan is telling a story to Nigel about how Daniel,
about five years ago, he was at Pernell Labs.
He released all of the monkeys that were being tested on.
I'm so confused like where they pulled all this from.
I am not sure.
The character has definitely shifted.
He's not a criminal.
He is a activist.
Which is fine.
Yeah.
And I get it, but it's so far from the lab.
Jason Gow.
Yeah, it's so far from this source material.
Outside of the facility, we see Daniel drive past security with his counterfeit badge.
Inside, Susan goes to see Sim, who is the head of security.
She warns him that Daniel O'Brien might have stolen her badge.
Sim suspects that if he did, he might have already used it and he's in the building right now.
We cut to Daniel using the badge to get into the lab.
He puts on a lab coat sunglasses and a fake moustache to disguise himself.
Susan comes back to the lab.
She spots Daniel, but she's not entirely sure that it's him.
Because of his moustache.
Shows of the moustache.
Before she can investigate, Nebelman informs her that Poppy would like to speak to her.
Poppy asks if the second nano-bot would be ready soon for human experimentation.
Susan tries to explain that it's not ready yet, and there could be major consequences.
The reason is that they don't know how to deal with the waste that the nano-bots are creating.
The right row.
Poppy pushes for the experiment to be ready in Susan threatens her,
telling her that she could expose what they are doing to the EPA and the press.
Does Daniel over here this?
He does not.
No.
Yeah.
He's fixed his dwelling as moustache.
Yeah, moustache.
Day turns tonight.
In a storage room, we see a barrel labeled explosive materials.
Contains Trino, Trotutlin.
I'm pretty sure that's made up for this story.
I don't know what that is.
That might be an actual element, and I may pronounce it very wrong.
Trina, Tripoline.
Trinitrotutlin.
No, you're saying.
Not gonna get it.
Anyway.
But the lid pops open.
And Daniel crawls out.
He sneaks through the building and back into the lab.
This movie is, I like,
to go from bound and matrix to this.
Like, I see all of the connections,
but this is also like, who framed Roger Rabbit?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Like, yeah.
So he finds the mice, calls them POWs, and he lets them free.
In the security room, Sims and another officer, Dabby,
sees, yeah.
Dabby is a free L.
It is exactly how it's pronounced, Dabby, yes.
It is.
Dabby got a sound.
They see movement in the monitors and leave to investigate.
Daniel locates the nano-bot containment system.
He uses graphite dust on the feet.
What else are nanobytes in?
Nanobytes are in a lot, right?
Nanobots.
Nanobytes.
Nanobots.
Then you'll look at the nano-bot containment system.
Nanobots are just like little...
Are those the things from Big Hero 6?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, just like anything.
That's like a small robot.
Cool.
That's what I thought.
I'd been sitting here being like, Big Hero 6,
Big Hero 6.
And I was like, just ask.
Yeah.
And we kind of see nanobots in the matrix as well.
Using graphite dust on the keypad, he figures out the pin number and he opens it.
In it is a glass tube filled with a sapphire blue liquid.
Ah!
The guards open the door.
Daniel bolts and runs into Dabby's chest.
Dabby fist hammers on top of Daniel's head.
Maximum out.
With the test tube?
No, he's just like, Dabby is just like Lenny and he's just like,
"Bulk."
Just a big little wonk.
We fade into the point of view shot from Daniel where we see Poppy,
Icarus, and Sims.
Daniel is trapped on a table.
We get a better look at Icarus who's described as
"cracked, lipless smile revealing, ulcerous gums, and stained teeth."
Icarus holds Daniel's face with one hand in a hyperdermic needle in the other.
He tells him, quote, "For every environmentalist, anti-industrialist,
animal activists that has shoved their myopic,
pretentious cause of the mouth crap down my throat."
I shove this down yours.
In Icarus sticks the needle into Daniel's neck.
We zoom in.
In your neck?
We zoom inside the needle and into the liquid.
And we follow a nanobot as it gets injected into Daniel's bloodstream.
That's straight up me, Dr.
The nanobot looks like a snowflake and it starts to, in fact,
multiple protein cells.
We fade into a flashback of Daniel and Susan in a grocery store.
It's implied that they're together.
She's telling him about the nanobots, how they're the future.
And he warns her about how corporations are going to use it to abuse tech,
and they have nefarious reasons behind it.
He goes on a rant about processed foods and spots a kid who's trying to get trick cereal.
And Daniel goes, yeah, Daniel goes and pushes the cereal box further back on the shelf,
so the kid can't reach it anymore.
But different kids?
Yeah, it causes a scene. He tries to give him shredded weedies and said,
it's a mess, yeah.
I don't think that would have made it through clearance.
Tricks would have been like, no, more specifically for the babies.
Yeah, we fade back to Daniel in the test tube tank, where we see him going through a transformation.
The tank gets really hot and explodes.
Daniel's point of view is very blurry and wobbly because if you think like his eyeballs now,
they're just like, they're not solid anymore.
I don't like it.
The flesh on his face seems to sag.
They grab him and they pull out his arms like they're spaghetti.
Daniel stands up, but he's standing on a floor drain and actually slips into it.
Igris orders the guards to get them.
Quote, behind them, the tank core continues to melt down.
Gelatinous waste is splattering up the room.
Daniel emerges from out of the storm drain like toothpaste.
His body begins to assemble itself in its normal proportions and he stands up.
He's naked, confused, and he walks away.
His body seems to be expelling some kind of waste like he mentioned earlier,
but it's not clear where it's from and Daniel heads back to the admiral hotel.
So now he's become ziplastic man.
This is a plastic man.
That's a lot of imagery and you're going to have so much fun picking this down to fix for that.
Yeah, and I keep thinking like, this is 95.
Like, how do you do something like that?
This is back in the day where it isn't at that point where they're like,
"Oh, CGI can do everything because that's where I'm like the late 90s."
This is around the time where it's just like,
we have to make as many practical things as possible.
Well, let's be clear, CGI.
I still can't do everything.
Okay, so I think this is written in '95.
Like, we let things take longer back then.
This movie wasn't coming out before '97, '98 at best.
I would imagine that it would look something similar to the mask.
Yeah.
Like, you have that mix of CGI from like,
ILM that they're creating, but there was so much practical that they had to do as well.
So like, I imagine like when his face is sagging,
like they would have to made some sort of prosthetic on him to make it look like that.
Well, I mean, they hired the people from Army of Darkness.
Hmm.
You do that.
We're going to find out in part two,
what happens to Daniel O'Brien?
What does he do with his newfound powers?
Ooh.
This Icarus could have come up in for what he did to Daniel.
We'll find out.
We'll find out next week.
In the exciting conclusion of...
Plastic Man.
Part two, Matrix, Boo-Galoo.
And now for our favorite part of this week.
In every week.
What is your recommendations?
Hacks.
What is...
Not even going to wait for you to finish.
What are you watching?
What do you want other people to watch?
What are you judging people about not watching?
Hacks.
I've mentioned it a couple times this season.
It now has 24 Emmy nominations.
It has beat out shits Creek for most Emmy nominations.
So go be a big brave girl and watch Hacks.
And if you don't know what that means, you haven't watched Hacks yet.
I remember you showing me that drone shot in How They Did It.
And basically how they did it was like a dude grabbed the drone and kept the shot going.
Yes, I believe their DP is Adam Bricker.
I just started following him on Instagram because I think the cinematography is so beautiful.
It's genius in the way that some things are shot for social media
and fit in that sort of vertical spectrum.
I don't even know that he's doing it intentionally where it's the perfect kind of framing
that I think is intelligent.
Where yes, you could frame it for vertical
and you get the main cast in there and sure, sure, sure.
But if you look at the entire frame on your television set,
it tells a story and a complete painting that you could never get by just looking at that
like vertical chunk.
And so to me, that is sort of a genius of cinematography that we're not talking about yet.
I get it. We're hating on the fact that you don't have perfect ratios and all of these things that we have
on like a big screen.
But I do think there are ways to be smart about it and make both of them like hold hands and tell a story together.
And I think he does it perfectly.
And there are two shots in season four and there are two characters that mirror each other.
One person is at a big table and the other person is at bar tables.
But if you look at them, the actual curve and everything is pointing to their chest.
It's like their heart is their horizon line.
It's beautiful.
So hex.
Well, if we're talking Emmy Noms, super heroes, I would like to recommend Spider-New War.
It's got your boy, Lamor and Morse.
He is fantastic.
Yes.
And if you really want to lean into him being colorblind, watching the show.
I did not think about that.
In black and white, I will say is stunning.
It is a show that knew that it was going to be in black and white.
They shot it to be black and white.
It really does lean into the noir.
Yeah.
It does feel like this is Nicholas Cage really burrowing into cinema history
into his James Carykney, into his Humphrey Boe Guards.
Just pulling from all of old Hollywood, like all of the gangster films, all of the detective films,
it feels like he's really just wanting to just live in that moment.
I have watched the pilot and the second episode of it.
It is to me exactly what I thought it would be.
Ironically enough, for a woman that loves old Hollywood and noir and that kind of thing,
was not enticed to watch the show.
I actually watched it because my VFX friends worked on it.
This is my favorite role of his.
It's one of his better roles.
Makes the most sense.
And it's his opportunity to like pale mosh to a lot of the films that he loves or like the films
that he grew up watching.
So he can definitely tell that he's tapping into it because he does that a lot.
He is a character actor at the end of the day.
Like he wants to play a big character.
Yeah.
And this is his opportunity to do so.
And then on top of that, the more and more, I want more of him.
He does a lot more in the show.
But just in general, I'm saying like I want him to be a leading man in everything.
I know in the like the pilot episodes or even like the first few episodes because they're still
sitting up like the whole world, the characters and whatnot.
He leans into a more leading role, especially in like the third or fourth episode, I believe,
where like you see him being a reporter.
You see him being a journalist and you see him being a photo journalist as well.
And like he really takes the lead in that.
He also does an impression of Nicholas Cage.
Oh my god.
Pretty funny. And he does it like two mock Nicholas Cage or at least his character in the show.
And it's pretty great.
That's a delight.
And if you do watch Spider-Newark, watch it in black and white.
I know why they offer the color just because a lot of people are just kind of turned off by black and white just in general.
You know, I know that we are seeing a lot of trailers and things lately that look
a little logged and gray-scaled.
And the color of Spider-Newark, it feels like that Panavision 60s.
The Technicolor.
Technicolor.
Thank you. That's what it is.
Yeah. I will say that when they do bring in the color, it feels like they cranked up the saturation in a good way.
I've been thinking a lot about saturation lately.
I feel like we blanket statement saturation in so many ways.
But Technicolor almost is its own let.
Like it almost has its own color spectrum.
They're like yes, it's spectrum, but it's also specific vivid.
They have collectively defined an era.
And so I think in our heads feel like an art piece.
Nowadays, sometimes it's just like, oh, I'll just crank up the saturation to fix something.
And it's like, no, no, no, you still have to create like a color panel.
You still have to like create your own unique artistic color for this thing.
Yeah.
And they do.
It looks really good.
The color looks really good.
But like I said, it was shot for black and white first.
And it looks good in black and white.
And you can find us on many social media platforms.
We are on Instagram and TikTok at development purgatory.
Blue sky is at dev purgatory because they wouldn't allow us to put our entire full name on there.
You can find us on patreon development purgatory.
Therefore, $5 a month, you can get ad free episodes and the full recording of our episodes as well.
Also something that I have kept forgetting to mention, we have a new email because we have a new name.
Name.
Oh, yeah, that's fair.
We still get emails for not get made at gmail.com.
You can still use that one, but we have a new one that we will also be checking.
It is development purgatory@gmail.com.
Yeah.
So go out, see a movie.
Watch a show.
Don't stretch yourself too thin.
Plastic man here reminding you that the next time you land somebody a helping hand,
be sure you get it back so long.
(shuddering)