To All 7 of our Fans - Welcome to Season 2 of You Deserve Medals!

The year is 1989. Hollywood, in a sudden and brief burst of fascination with the deep ocean, produces two distinct blockbusters months apart, both dealing with the dark and mysterious depths of our undiscovered seas. One of those movies would be directed by an absolute legend and pioneer, leading an all-star cast through a deep and meaningful story while creating and utilizing groundbreaking special effects which forever changed movie production technology. The other one was...none of those things. A horribly written story with unlikable characters and a poorly conceived horror plot with equally horrendous special effects, all exacerbated by a one-dimensional lead actor who approaches every role sounding like a half-robot police officer.

Naturally, you can probably guess which movie we landed on for this episode.

Join Jay and Benny as we strap on our pressure suits and chug some alien-DNA-changing vodka and dive feet-first into the absolute gong-show that is Leviathan. A plucky crew of underwater miners find a sunken Soviet ship and unwittingly uncover...something? Is it an alien? A failed genetic experiment? Your guess is as good as ours. All we know is that this attempt at horror is so unintentionally hilarious and horrible at the same time that we don’t know what to do with our lives. Pro-tip: If you’re ever a mile deep into the Atlantic and find some old alcohol in a ship that was torpedoed under mysterious circumstances, you probably shouldn’t put it inside you.

Slip on those flippers and check your O2 levels as we discuss such hard-hitting details as:

Any time a character in a movie talks about how they have a finite number of days left before they get to enjoy permanent peace and tranquility, you know they’re going to die horribly. And this movie doesn’t disappoint

Carlos from Batteries Not Included makes an appearance, which is one of the spookier coincidences we’ve ever experienced. I mean, what are the odds?

Relentless, painfully obvious and neutrally received sexual harassment is almost its own supporting character

At some point early on, Peter Weller decided that he would approach every single one of his acting roles with the same sound and cadence as Robocop, and it just makes him sound unsettling

We get that the disease the crew catches is reprogramming their DNA and changing them into something else, but it definitely is one of the more visually disgusting illness portrayals in a movie  

There’s a reason why all of the computers and equipment in this movie look similar to Aliens. Mildly curious? Listen to the episode to be marginally satisfied!

Evil-Lyn plays generic heartless corporate leader, and has several head-scratching scenes which just seem to have been extended and cut without her doing something vital to progress the story

The weapons in this movie - futuristic chainsaws and flamethrowers - SHOULD be the most awesome looking things ever. Spoiler alert: They are not

For someone who just lost his entire crew of friends, the chief doesn’t seem to feel any of the weight of loss, what with his pithy one-liners and face punching after being rescued

Just like Benny stopping randomly in a supermarket and pinching his buttcheeks to prevent a pant-crapping, we all have things in our lives that we internalize. Whether we exchange whispers with close friends or shower Twitter with our hot takes, eventually those pent-up thoughts need to erupt and bathe passers by with a gooey dose of personal truth and perspective. In news that may shock and upset all 8 of our listeners, Jay and Benny are Star Wars fans. Not just “I saw part of that one with the little soccer ball robot and it was cute” fans, but “I just finished clocking over 80 hours in KOTOR, and I’m going to do it all over again but this time I’ll do all the bad things to see the dark side ending” fans. And, since everyone and their creepy uncle is posting their thoughts on the daily goings-on over at Lucasfilm, we thought we would toss our own two credits in and discuss the current state of Star Wars in our super special pre-season-two super special. Or something like that.

Join two grown men fighting off early onset type-2 diabetes as they take a deep dive into Star Wars today. From the early days, to the dark times of the 90’s when books and video games were all we had, to how horrible the new trilogy is (without using words like “wamen”, “cuck” or “SJW”), Jay and Benny talk about a truly childhood and industry defining IP - where it was, where it is, and where it seems to be going. If you’ve ever played TIE Fighter through dozens of times, took turns hammering away at Dark Forces while being berated by an OCD friend for eating chips outside of the kitchen, or watched Last Jedi and said to yourself “there are about 37,761 things wrong with this movie, and absolutely none of them are political”, then this episode is for you. 

May the Force be with you...because it’s sure as hell on the ropes right now.

When is a sci-fi movie not a sci-fi movie? In this case, it’s when someone puts a computer brain into a lab-grown 10 year old human body husk, and spends the entire film showing it having human interactions while generating all the excitement of a filling at the dentist. Is the movie you’re left with serviceable? Yes. Is it about as memorable as the wet fart you ripped at your child’s birthday party six years ago? You betcha. Welcome to the latest episode of You Deserve Medals, featuring D.A.R.Y.L, a mid-80’s family romp with a story premise as ridiculous as the title’s acronym. 

Join Jay and Benny in our official last episode of Season 1 of the You Deserve Medals podcast, as we dive face-first into yet another movie that Benny remembers vaguely - yet fondly - as one of the greatest films he has ever watched in his entire life, only to discover that it isn’t any of that at all. It isn’t terrible...it really isn’t much of anything. It’s a movie, with a robot boy who wants to be a real boy in a real family. Will he age along with the rest of his family, or stay a young boy forever as he awaits the ravages of time to eventually claim his cortex? Will his intelligence and memory cap out like most computers? Will a 1993 Packard Bell Pentium II make fun of him for being a dinosaur? These are things that no one thinks about, because you’ll probably forget this movie a few days after watching it.

Grab yourself a copy of Pole Position, throw on a God-awful teal coloured baseball outfit, and strap into an SR-71 with us as we discuss such vitally important topics as:

This movie has one of the worst musical scores we have encountered thus far. And considering we barely made it out of Krull with our lives, that’s saying a lot

From the old couple who find Daryl in the woods wearing a fancy suit, to the adoption agency director, to the parents who adopt him, no one seems to give a hot crap about how Daryl got where he is. Like, no one is asking questions

Apparently, orphanages in the 80’s were like Chuck E Cheeses’ with a room full of cots. If you’re going to, say, lose your parents in a horrific accident, an orphanage in Daryl looks like an awesome place to land in

Pro tip to all movies - past, present and future - to show a character being really amazing at video games, speeding up the gameplay speed makes absolutely no sense

Turtle is the redeeming glue that holds this movie together. Every time we thought it was time to start loading the off-switch revolver, he said or did something that entertained us enough to stave off the sweet release of death a little while longer

You’re a foster family who have adopted a young boy. He’s become part of your life and you love him. Then some random couple show up with a few Photoshopped pictures of the kid and no one asks any questions before letting them take him. This seems normal

When the military decides to destroy an experimental AI android, the most effective path is to allow the creating scientist, who has repeatedly fought the decision, to destroy the AI behind closed doors with absolutely no witness or surveillance

This movie reminds us of just how cool the SR-71 Blackbird was. When it was being test flown, people all over the southern US spiked the number of UFO sightings, and there’s no surprise as to why

“Brain death! Brain death! Just so you know, we’ll say it an obscene amount of times!”

Most of the time, we both have memories of the films we choose, no matter how vague and nightmarish they may be. Then there is the odd occasion when one of us takes full blame for a disaster appearing on the wheel of fate. Last time, Benny subjected everyone to the skateboarding/murder mystery/Vietnamese tourism film Gleaming the Cube. This time, Jay dove into the dumpster of time and dragged out The Black Hole, a 1979 Disney romp through space and...well, black holes. We know what you’re thinking - the last time we threw on bell bottoms and strutted back to the 70’s for this show, things got...weird. There was horrible acting, romantically aggressive robots, disco dancing, and the hair...sweet merciful lord the hair. And while Black Hole retains those fabulous 70’s manes, it also manages to give you an absolutely solid sci-fi adventure. This movie is not only one of the best ones we’ve covered to date, but it left us feeling the same as when our wives and kids leave us the %$^# alone for an hour on a weekend - pleasantly surprised.  

Join us as we dive into black hole science before it actually existed, as the Earth crew unravel a mystery and overcome impossible odds while fighting robots, human/robot zombie hybrids, and a mad genius hell-bent on flying into a gravitational anomaly because why the hell not. With a story, characters, and special effects as solid as I wish my stool was, The Black Hole is a hidden movie gem that absolutely deserves a watch.

Strap in to your launch chair and prep for a singularity like no other as we cover such cosmic topics as:

Vincent is one of the best sci-fi movie robots, hands down. From his dialogue, to realistic movements and general baddassery, he even gives R2D2 a run for his money

The evil robots, while a bit stiff legged, just look cool. Their commanding robot, with rapid blending blade hands and eerily expressive blank face, is even cooler

A little-known 70’s science fiction flick doesn’t typically enjoy acting of this caliber, with Hans Reinhart stealing the show countless times

The religious undertones sneak up on you and then hit you like a sledgehammer near the end, with everything from ceremonial robot funerals to Reinhart literally burning in hell

Apparently, ESP between human and robot exists for some reason, and it ends up being incredibly useful for the crew. And before you complain about ESP working with robots, here’s a little sacred...ESP doesn’t actually exist, so just enjoy the movie

This is honestly classic sci-fi at it’s best, with the crew exploring a massive spacecraft and slowly piecing the clues together. What it lacks in razzle dazzle, it more than makes up for with compelling storytelling

Vincent and his friend Dallas discover the secret behind the drones and have to kill a couple of evil robots, and hide their bodies. Apparently, hiding means casually tossing their smouldering corpses behind an open-concept desk for all to see

Eric, the science officer, gets completely gut-blended by evil robot captain’s blade hands, and manages to be incredibly brutal despite not showing any gore

 The human/robot hybrid drones thankfully stay fully masked for the vast majority of the movie, because whoever designed their faces deserves a special effects Oscar for “scariest crap we have ever seen”

The ending will leave you with some questions, to put it mildly

Are you ready for a heartwarming story about a young boy, befriending an alien lost and far from home while its relatives wander a frightening new landscape in search of their lost child? How about a lesson in friendship and determination, as two people from different worlds work together to overcome obstacles while discovering the true meaning of family? We would have LOVED all of that, but we already reviewed E.T. a few episodes ago, so now we have to slum it a bit. Welcome to Mac and Me, the nightmarish union of a certain fast food chain and feverish nightmares induced by tainted cocaine and decades of emotional trauma.

Reluctantly join us as we bravely march in front of you, shielding you from one of the most bizarre movies the 80’s ever produced. Is it a true sci-fi cult classic in the purest sense? Or is it an hour and a half of insanity that single-handedly paid many a psychotherapist’s salary? We aren’t sure, but we’re pretty confident that a healthy amount of recreational narcotics were involved in the writing and directing of this thing. Mac and Me is technically a movie, in the same way that Benny’s kids are technically children - they exist, but they disappoint everyone who lays eyes on them. 

Grab a Quarter pounder, crack laced fries and a bucket-sized cup of soda as Jay and Benny ponder such chicken nuggets as:

It’s 2021. If the NASA of Mac and Me can fly an autonomous probe to an extra-solar world, gather samples and entire alien families, and return to earth unscathed, when do we get our robot drilling into the oceans of Europa?

Can 80’s movies please find some kids who can actually act? Because this movie certainly couldn’t

Nothing screams 80's like a square van with shag benches and venetian blinds on the windows

We would be remiss not to mention that there are very few moments in life when a wheelchair-bound child falling off a cliff is hilarious. Welcome to one of those moments

Can the costume designers of this movie take it easy and dial the nightmare fuel down a few notches? The flesh-coloured naked aliens wandering the desert still haunt us to this day

The only thing more disturbing than a 10 minute dance montage in a McDonald’s restaurant is the gang of hoodlums aggressively attack-dancing at federal agents

We cannot stress enough how absolutely, mind-bendingly bonkers the last 15 minutes of this movie are. The entire tone and mood takes such a hard right turn that your neck will be sore for days

Seriously, we mean it. This movie goes from light hearted alien-buddy flick to what-the-actual-$@%# with guns, gas stations blowing up, aliens walking out of flames, and wheelchair kids dying

We don’t want to spoil anything, but there is an alternate fate for wheelchair kid. It is absolutely worth looking up, and will forever change your life

Some of our favourite movie memories from the 80’s and 90’s involve creatures that capture the imaginations of children everywhere - Dinosaurs. From the industry-shaking special effect innovations, through compelling stories invoking a sense of wonder and awe, to the wonderfully written characters only matched by their equally brilliant directing, dinosaur movies shaped our childhoods and set lofty benchmarks for what a true classic should be. Unfortunately for you, in this episode of You Deserve Medals, we drag our (and your) sanity through almost two hours of a dinosaur movie that is absolutely none of any of that.

Join Jay and Benny as they suffer through one of the more nonsensical and depressing adventure movies to come out of our memories - Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. A family of terrifyingly monstrous brontosaurus we’re supposed to sympathize with, and who spend the entire movie suffering horrible tragedies because why not - check. Anthropologists quite literally murdering one another in broad daylight because academia is a gang war - check. A married couple with no military or combat training, taking on an entire platoon of heavily armed soldiers without any consequence to them whatsoever - check. An ending that leaves you hollow and emotionally devastated - check. Eat your heart out, Spielberg - THIS is a dinosaur movie for the ages.

Swallow what little happiness you have left in your life and slog along with us as we discuss things like:

Was this movie written and directed by the Africa Tourism Board? Because the majority of the introduction looks like it’s straight out of a travel commercial

As two grown men battling severe spider phobias, we can’t understand how this ill-prepared couple can traipse around the African jungle, with no adequate survival gear, and never encounter a deadly spider, lizard, snake, scorpion, or bug, let alone malaria-laced mosquitoes. Their entire time in the wilderness gives us the willies

We hope the person responsible for designing the dinosaur eyes never worked in Hollywood afterwards. Good lord

Don’t worry, dad won’t let mom and baby get kidnapped. Just kidding! He’ll fail miserably and die in an absolutely brutal hail of machine gun fire, and proceed to rot in the sun over the next several days. Uplifting!

We cannot stress enough how disturbing this entire chunk of the movie is. From the dad getting gunned down, to him dying next to his mate’s body, to baby snuggling next to his rotting corpse days later, the movie leaves you with a sense of emptiness and sorrow

The married couple are very into one another, which is great. Their complete and constant lack of self-control, however, cost everyone everything

Can everyone in this movie ease up on the baseball bat-sized tranquilizer darts? They love drugging the mom dinosaur so much that it takes up entire scenes

Whoever played the tribe leader deserves all the Oscars ever. The man’s shoulders must have been aching from the strain of carrying this movie

The ending is supposed to be happy, but has some serious implications for the survival of the species

Are you ready to break out the latest issue of Thrasher magazine, kick off your airwalks, and down a Tab? Psyched to blast some Suicidal Tendencies on your tape deck while tightening the trucks on your deck and dreaming about landing that sweet 360 inward heel flip at the local abandoned swimming pool? Does absolutely none of this make sense to you? Well, it obviously didn’t to anyone involved in the making of Gleaming the Cube either, a righteously confusing movie about solving crime and uncovering strife in the Vietnamese community, while also featuring a little bit of skateboarding.

Join Jay and Benny as we backside heelflip face-first into this mind-numbing adventure, ant try our best to carve through the mess to find the story underneath while wondering what happened to our lives. Is it a carefree story about a bunch of skateboarding rapscallions negotiating their way through high school while fighting conformity? Is it a tale of a plucky young man defying the odds to solve a crime and bring closure to his family’s grief? Is it a gripping story about weird love across cultural boundaries and against all odds? Sure, what the hell.

Join us as we ollie onto a rail and pray for the sweet release of death while pondering such things as:

Benny’s opening joke being the greatest thing ever, despite Jay’s criticism

If a movie could define “well, that escalated quickly”, it’s this disaster. Things repeatedly go from “this might be trouble” to “aaaaand he’s dead” in record time

Movie songs that feature the name of the movie don’t work in the best of examples; this is not one of those best examples

The ongoing theme of “what’s the plan, here?”, with people breaking into places with little to no actual plan in place

Is there anything sexier than a cherry red convertible K-car?

Why is no one talking about how disturbing and wrong the love story becomes? Slater’s adopted brother was JUST put in the ground when he decides “you know what? I’m in love with his ex-girlfriend/widow”, who is equally into it. The thought of it makes Benny more and more unhinged as the episode progresses

Apparently, the best thing to do when you’re upset is to have a 5 minute-long Footloose-style dance montage on a skateboard, because reasons

Note to the movie producers: Your stunt doubles should at least remotely look similar to the actors or actresses they are representing

The detective/big brother in this movie is a walking fountain of words and phrases we can’t repeat in our episode, let alone a summary. It’s a fine wine you’ll have to uncork and enjoy for yourself

It’s 1983. You just broke the Galaga record at one of 5 billion arcades in your town, You crack open a cold can of Tab while using a stolen password to change your grades using a VIC 20’s ancient cousin. Ally Sheedy is at her prime and is throwing herself at you like a slab of steak to a hungry dog, but all you want to do is play Thermonuclear War with a semi-intelligent Pentagon AI. Fully articulated remote controlled flying pterodactyl are a real thing that actually exists. Life is good. Life is also Wargames, one of the hidden gems of the 80’s and a movie that should absolutely be on the top of your watchlist on a Saturday night, after the kids have gone to bed and you’ve finished sobbing uncontrollably over how your life has ended up.

Join us as we dive into an actual, honest to goodness classic, and bask in our growing surprise at how good a movie this actually is. From the depiction of hacking and teenaged life in the early 80’s, through before-its-time discourse on the dangers of artificial intelligence, to the horrifically realistic interpretation of how quickly the world could plunge into a globe-destroying war, Wargames is a fantastic movie that is wonderfully acted and doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’re in the mood for an above-average 80’s ‘memberberry buffet, you can’t do much better. 

Once Benny catches his breath from this episode, you can hear us chat about things like:

Arcades were one of the true goldmines of happiness for us, and one of the big losses we lament. Watching Broderick hack away at Galaga aggressively shoves us down memory lane

No sunglasses. No trenchcoats. No rave-quality EDM mixed with ridiculous one-liners. Definitely no Angelina Jolie sporting a questionable haircut and shouting “we’re in”. Wargames is one of the most accurate hacking movies we have ever seen, aided by the fact that it takes place in a time when computers can barely calculate Pi

Benny gushing over the nostalgia-shot to the gut brought on by all of the old computer equipment. He owned that exact modem, and participated in BBS discussions. Pro-tip: “BBS” translates into “old as a sack of dinosaur crap” to all you young listeners

Jay becoming increasingly concerned with Benny’s rapidly growing affection for Ally Sheedy, and his equally evolving bewilderment at Broderick’s complete lack of interest in her

Our quiet recognition of the fact that the almost-accidental nuclear war in this movie almost happened a number of times in real actual life, because of significantly less complex computer glitches. Sleep tight!

GUESS WHAT?!? (If you’re one of our five regular listeners, you’ll get this when you listen to the episode)

For real, there’s a radio controlled flying pterodactyl and it is the greatest thing we have ever seen in our lives

Would you like to sit back with a big bowl of popcorn, toss on a snuggie with the kids, and watch a heartfelt family movie about old people in an old building being old? No? How about we toss in a generous helping of awkward relationship building and a confusing pseudo-villain? Still no? Okay...now we add a very limited amount of adorable flying robots from outer space? If your answer is still “no”, then welcome to the two hours of our lives we’ll never get back - and at our age, two hours is more precious than the health and happiness of our children.

Join us as we explore the real danger of Benny over-selling a movie in this whimsical and baffling sci-fi-adjacent movie about relationships, the importance of community, the eternal battle between heritage and progress, and how everything can be fixed by cute flying robots. It’s a movie that depends very heavily on the audience’s life experiences; if you have a relative who suffers (or suffered) from a form of dementia or Alzheimer's, this movie will hit you right in the feels and charm the absolute crap out of you...and if you haven’t, then you’ll look at this movie with the cold, dark, heartless, soulless eyes of a serial killer. Just like Jay!

Aside from wishing a debilitating memory-destroying disease specific to watching this movie hit us, some of the things we discuss are:

How Jay totally phones in the intro clip

Seriously, to any listeners who grew up in New York City...did New York actually look like this back in the 80”s? In BNI, it looks like a Syrian warzone!

Dementia is one of the leading characters in this movie, and it deserves an Oscar. Benny’s mom went through something similar, and Jessica Tandy brought that all back. Fair warning - If you had/have a relative who suffered from something similar, this movie will hit you in ways you won’t expect. I’m not crying, you’re crying

I get that the robots are grateful for being given a nesting home, but do the people have to use them as menial labour and berate them for not making a hamburger properly?

Carlos Superman-ing a guy through a $#%@^! Wall like a savage, in one of the greatest over-reactions we have ever seen

The awkward and absolutely unnecessary love story between Mason the artist and the pregnant lady whose name I can never remember

Jay’s story of childhood innocence shattered because of another movie featuring the previously-mentioned pregnant lady

Harry the boxer is an adorable character until you realize he’s a damaged boxer with a permanent brain injury

Why everything about the robots? Why did they crash land on Earth? Why did they cook meals for human restaurant customers? Why did the entire robot civilization come to Earth within 24 hours to rebuild a house? Why do they eat metal? So much why

A harrowing tale of a monster terrorizing a small town. A dark government shadow organization hell-bent on capturing it. A neighbourhood shaken to its very core, and only a small group of children standing between them and a universe of horror. And a horrific looking, wrinkle-fleshed creature with super powers. Are we describing a typical cheesy 80’s horror movie? No. How about Benny’s emotionally and financially crushing divorce and the children driving him to an early grave? Possibly. Or is it the beloved family-friendly classic E.T. The Extra Terrestrial? 

Join us as we revisit a true legend of a sci-fi masterpiece and relive all of our childhood trauma and nightmares, by exploring some of the subtle reasons why we will never watch this movie again, nor will we ever subject family and friends to it. Is E.T. an absolutely undeniable work of cinematic art? Of course it is. But it’s also an extremely rare case of an 80’s A-list movie being weird and unsettling enough to make a couple of middle aged men want to delve deeper. And that’s really the key here...E.T. is unsettling. Just like Benny’s microphone quality.

“But Jay and Benny, your show is supposed to focus on the has-been and also-ran movies of the 80’s and 90’s, not extremely popular and beloved classics. Why did you break your own rules? And why does Jay have a buttery smooth voice while Benny sounds like a hyperactive 12 year old?” you may be asking. To both questions, our answer is simple: Shut up, that’s why. 

Listen to us treat one another like therapists as we relive the horror movie that is E.T. by discussing things like:

Can John Williams create anything but an absolute majesty of a score for every movie he’s involved in?

Everything about this movie is dark and misty. Try playing the first 5 minutes on mute, but add music from Friday the 13th. Mind = blown

How many times can Elliott be a stone-cold killer and sleep in dark cornfields and eerily lit sheds, knowing full well that there is a mysterious and terrifying creature out there?

E.T. has lots of sweet and funny moments when he and the kids exchange surprised screams, but man, they really ended up with a horror show of an alien

Based on the above, I think it’s reasonable to say that Drew Barrymore falling apart mentally after this movie is completely understandable. Cocaine is a hell of a drug

Can someone - anyone - tell us if Audi cars were always luxury cars? Because the 80’s Audi sedan is visual vomit

E.T. is not a Jedi. I don’t care how many Easter eggs you think you’ve seen or how many Reddit posts you’ve forwarded

Dude, that ravine scene...if we could pinpoint the exact moment in our lives which drove us to be the sloppy and damaged men that we are now, this is it

We’re 8 movies in, and this is the second time that NASA is presented as a paramilitary shadow ops organization, instead of 300 nerds in a control center doing long division