Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. It was a run-by fruiting! Revisiting the beloved 1993 Robin Williams film Mrs. Doubtfire this week was a reminder to Tracie that you can never go home again. Though she was expecting some early nineties transphobia (and was mostly pleased at its absence), she was horrified to realize the film's plot relied on a kind of men&ap...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Two things I love to do: fight and kiss boys! This week, Emily revisits another of the silly Pygmalion movies from the Guy girls' childhood: Michael Gottlieb's 1987 film Mannequin , starring Kim Cattrall, Meshach Taylor, and Andrew McCarthy. While the story of an underemployed Philadelphia artist who falls in love with a...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. So, what would you little maniacs like to do first? This week, Tracie takes a deep dive into Weird Science : yet another of the John Hughes movies that helped to define Gen X pop culture. This 1985 teen comedy is a modern retelling of Pygmalion, the Greek myth that finds a sculptor falling in love with his artwork that comes to li...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Welcome to Earth. The 1996 Roland Emmerich-helmed film Independence Day was one of the touchstone movies for Emily's generation, so her flabber was absolutely gasted to learn Tracie had never seen it until a few years ago. Just in time for the 4th of July, Emily walks Tracie through what made this movie such a monumental hit...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. 25 cents per day, plus expenses. No case too small! Adam Gwon, Emily's childhood friend and award-winning musical theater writer, joins the Guy sisters today to share how Donald Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown had an outsize influence on his understanding of storytelling. The delightful format of each short Encyclopedia Brown...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. This is no dream! This is really happening! On this week's episode, Tracie and Emily are delighted to welcome award-winning writer/director and producer Ryan Cunningham to talk about Rosemary's Baby , the film that most influenced her own filmmaking and storytelling--but also made her wonder if she was a bad feminist con...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. They're heeeeere! In a moment that would echo through the 42 years that followed, Tracie and Emily's father let the girls watch the 1982 film Poltergeist on TV sometime in 1983, when the sisters were only 7 and 4 years old. This classic of pop culture horror drew the Guy girls in because of 5-year-old Heather O'Rour...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one. When Tracie first encountered the fan-favorite Western-in-space television show Firefly 20 years ago, she was delighted by Joss Whedon's subversion of tropes, his mastery of the written word, and his commitment to excellent storytelling. At the time, Whe...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. What was sundered and undone shall be whole–the two made one. On today's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t , Emily returns to a beloved film from the Guy girls' childhood: Jim Henson's 1982 epic fantasy The Dark Crystal . Though the film's main character Jen the Gelfling follows the familiar beats of t...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. All my life I've been waiting for someone and when I find her, she's... she's a fish. When Tracie and Emily saw the 1984 Ron Howard film Splash as little girls, they fell in love with the badass mermaid played by Daryl Hannah. She was smart, determined, and romantic--and she had a gorgeous tail she could unfurl in T...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy? Emily and Tracie always assumed their father loved the 1986 Rob Reiner film Stand By Me because the music and pop culture references were a delightful reminder of his childhood. Reiner’s period masterpiece features incredible performances from its...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. "Where are the people who know where the people are?" On today's episode, Tracie introduces Emily to the 1990 Barry Levinson film Avalon , the director's love letter to Baltimore and his own Jewish immigrant family. The movie follows the Krichinskys from 1914 through to the 1960s as the large, tight-knit, exten...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. “We say who; we say when; we say how much.” This week, Emily takes a deep dive into Pretty Woman , the 1990 blockbuster romantic comedy that catapulted Julia Roberts to stardom. The film was originally written as a tragic story about awful characters, and many people (including those close to the Guy sisters) lamented the Hollywoo...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. By Grabthar’s hammer, you shall be avenged! The 1999 film Galaxy Quest was almost tailor made for the Guy sisters and their dad–all lifelong Trekkers. The sci-fi satire pokes gentle fun at Star Trek , lightly skewering everything from the story tropes to the actors to the fans, all while offering a lovely tribute to folks who get...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. In 1989, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure introduced Emily to a baby-faced Keanu Reeves–and to the idea that two easy-going dopes could change the world by encouraging us all to be excellent to each other. In this episode, Emily shares how this surprisingly well-crafted comedy teaches...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten. In addition to dazzling her with its old-school hand-drawn animation and delighting her with its sweet and funny story, the 2002 Disney film Lilo & Stitch introduced Tracie to indigenous Hawaiʻian culture. The writing and directing team of Chris Sanders an...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Does anybody here know how many times I had to watch Funny Lady ? The 1997 film In & Out , directed by Frank Oz (yes, the one who voices Miss Piggy) and starring Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, and Tom Selleck, has mostly been forgotten–but this feel-good comedy had a lasting impact on Emily. When she saw it in the theater as an und...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. I talk to God all the time, and no offense, but He never mentioned you. On this week’s episode, Tracie traces some of her earliest ideas about romance to the 1985 Richard Donner film Ladyhawke . Although both contemporary and retrospective reviews are scornful of the anachronistic, Alan Parsons-produced, synthesizer-heavy soundtra...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. What is a place like me doing in a girl like this? The 1999 Brendan Fraser film The Mummy has an extraordinarily beautiful cast, a delightfully bonkers plot, and a whole heap of unexamined colonialism, racism, and othering. Emily shares with Tracie the historical background of the West’s fascination with Egypt–which led to little...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? When SpongeBob SquarePants debuted in 1999, 23-year-old Tracie was not the intended audience for everyone’s favorite absorbent and yellow and porous hero–but she was charmed and entertained by the show that became a Millennial and Gen Z touchstone. This week, Tracie talks about how SpongeBob...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. On today’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily revisits what is arguably the most influential pop culture of our lifetime: The Silence of the Lambs . Although director Jonathan Demme and lead actor Jodie Foster illuminate the spectrum of misogyny women ex...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. It's the karmic credit plan: buy now, pay forever. Tracie shares her deep thoughts about the 1991 Kenneth Branagh film Dead Again on this week’s episode. Branagh brought intelligence, style, and some pretension to this noir homage that tells the tragic love story of Roman and Margaret Strauss–who have apparently been reincarn...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Your mother’s a tracer! Emily was very confused by the 1997 film Chasing Amy when she was an undiagnosed neurodivergent 18-year-old–in part because she was (and still is) crap at reading subtext and in part because the film accidentally illuminates the reality of bi-erasure. This week, Emily tells Tracie about what this well-meani...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Okay…but I get to be on top! Tracie loved revisiting the 1988 Penny Marshall-helmed film Big this week. Tom Hanks’ performance of a 12-year-old boy wearing a grown man’s body is laugh-out-loud funny, and the film asks some profoundly important questions about how grownups can hold onto their childlike joy and wonder. But the love...

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Watch out for that first step, it’s a doozy! This week, the 1993 film Groundhog Day is the vehicle for Emily to talk about the three most taboo subjects: religion, politics, and money. Not only is Bill Murray’s Phil Connors a favorite of scholars and commentators who talk about religion and film, he also has some interesting lesso...