Gleaming The Tube

2016's "La La Land" is a musical about an aspiring actress and a jazz bro who sing and dance while chasing their Hollywood dreams and falling in love, and it has the bare minimum of skateboarding in it to qualify it for discussion on this podcast! Kevin and Mike talk about the movie's relation to the grand tradition of movie musicals and settle into a wider conversation about musicals in general,...

Kevin and Mike are joined by special guest Shaun Rosado to discuss 1989's time-travel classic Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure! Together they cover the film, the very tiny bit of skateboarding contained therein, its two sequels, Jane Wiedlin, Mike's experience living in San Dimas, Spicoli, "surfer talk" and quantum mechanics. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K, and Gleaming the Tube is here...

Bad Santa stars Billy Bob Thornton as a department store Santa who is, as the title suggests, bad. Bad at being Santa and bad at being a person. Will he discover a modicum of holiday spirit? Kevin and Mike investigate and discuss the great performances by John Ritter, Bernie Mac, and Lauren Graham, mall security, and what all of this has to do with skateboarding for our 2021 holiday themed episode...

2003’s GRIND, directed by Casey La Scala, tells the story of four skateboarding pals who try and get sponsored and go pro by roadtripping through various competitions and discovering that the real sponsorship is FRIENDSHIP ITSELF! Kevin and Mike discuss how much they hated this movie, how representative of skateboarding in the early 2000s it is, and why there's a weird detour to a clown college ru...

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child finds the be-sweatered nightmare killer Freddy Krueger attempting to enter people's dreams through the unborn child of Alice the Dream Master. We think. The movie doesn't make a ton of sense but Freddy does briefly ride a skateboard in one sequence which is why we're covering it on our show. Beth VanDusen from the great podcast EXECUTE CHAPTER 66 joins...

We're breaking format a little bit this week and discussing an episode of a tv show instead of a movie but we think you'll feel it's justified: Kevin Eldridge from The Flopcast joins Kevin and Mike to chat about "The Skateboard Wiz", from the third season of Wonder Woman, which finds the amazing Amazon (played by Lynda Carter, who is unimpeachably great in the role) investigating an underground ga...

It's a double feature this week as we take a look at the seminal 80s skateboard crew The Bones Brigade! Kevin and Mike watch the famous 1987 skate video "The Search for Animal Chin" (the first video of its kind to have an overarching plot) and also check out Stacy Peralta's 2012 documentary "Bones Brigade: An Autobiography" to get a larger overview of the Brigade and their place in skateboarding h...

We're back for season two! And we've got a doozy of a skateboarding movie for y'all: 1978's SKATEBOARD is a "Bad News Bears" ripoff featuring skateboarding instead of baseball and Allen Garfield instead of Walter Matthau!  Garfield plays a down-on-his-luck talent agent who sees dollar signs when he starts a professional skateboarding team with Leif Garrett and Tony Alva. Kevin and Mike dig into wh...

For our season finale we take a look at 1980's "Foxes", which has a young Jodie Foster trying to navigate the world of high school and boys and a young Scott Baio trying to navigate the world of Vans t-shirts and skateboard car chases. Also discussed: Mike's crush on Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid's giant KISS poster, the keytar, and where this film fits into the pantheon of both skateboard movies a...

2021's Skater Girl tells the story of Prerna, a teen in rural India who discovers a life-changing passion for skateboarding. How do the tropes of skateboard cinema work when transposed to a different continent? Is this movie any good? And what happens to the goat who mysteriously disappears partway through the film? Kevin and Mike tackle these questions and more as they dive into Netflix's first f...

2021's North Hollywood tells the story of Michael, who wants to become a pro skateboarder despite his working class Dad's objections - it's a plot unlike anything we've yet seen here on GLEAMING THE TUBE! Rejected from Sundance and spurned by distributors, North Hollywood went on to become a surprise hit on iTunes. Kevin and Mike dig into Illegal Civ (the production company behind the movie) and h...

2007's "The Simpsons Movie" took the beloved television program to the big screen - Kevin and Mike chat about how the movie compares to the show, engage in the time-honored tradition of figuring out when the show stopped being as great as it was at its height, and work in some skateboarding talk both around Bart's big skating moment in the movie and around Simpsons guest star and all-around legend...

1993's "City Hunter" features the great Jackie Chan in a bonkers action comedy based on a popular manga series. (And yes, Jackie does jump on a skateboard at one point.) The film is sort of like a live action cartoon with impressive stuntwork and martial arts - it sounds great on paper but is it any good? Tune in to see what Kevin and Mike think of this one. Also discussed: which character from "T...

1993's "The Skateboard Kid" has everything you'd want in a movie about a magical talking skateboard voiced by Dom DeLuise - Timothy Busfield playing a hapless television station manager, the mom from "My So-Called Life", disputes about whether or not a water tower should be classified as a utility or a dwelling, YOU NAME IT - and yet it's somehow still not a very good movie. If it was the early 90...

"Citizen Kane", the debut feature from the legendary Orson Welles, is considered by many to be the finest motion picture ever made, and its pioneering use of deep focus camera shots and really sweet kickflips and ollies has entranced fans of both the cinema and skateboarding since its initial release in 1941. Kevin and Mike go deep and discuss the film's impact on both the world of cinema and the...

2012's "Hardflip" tells the story of Caleb, a troubled 18-year-old played by a clearly 30something actor, who seeks solace in skateboarding before discovering that the sweetest kickflips of all can be found in THE BIBLE. That's right, it's a Christian skateboarding movie! Kevin and Mike delve into this movie, which features born again pro skaters Christian Hosoi and Brian Sumner in small roles as...

2021's "Moxie", directed by Amy Poehler, tells the story of a bunch of contemporary teens engaging in some Revolution Grrl Style after one of the characters get inspired by her Mom's collection of riot grrl records and zines. Joining Kevin and Mike to discuss the film is Kevin's wife Emilie to provide some background on the whole riot grrl scene. There's not a ton of skateboarding in this one, but...

2001's "MVP 2: Most Vertical Primate" finds Jack, the hockey-playing chimpanzee from the first "Most Vertical Primate" film, leaving his ice skates behind for the exciting world of professional skateboarding. Along the way he befriends both a wayward orphan boy and former "Family Feud" host Richard Karn, competes in a skateboarding tournament, and still finds time to play a ton of hockey as well....

Rob Dyrdek conquered reality television with his MTV shows and then set his sights on conquering skateboard cinema with 2009's Street Dreams, a movie he co-wrote and produced. Street Dreams tells the story of young Derrick Cabrera and the forces that try to keep him from skating, from his parents to his girlfriend to jealous olde skaters. Will skateboarding prevail? Kevin and Mike find out. Hosted...

1999's Mumford is a bizarre comedy/drama about a small town and the fake therapist who shakes it up and we mostly discuss it because it features Jason Lee skateboarding in it. We also talk about Lee's big breakout role in Kevin Smith's Mallrats (which features no skateboarding) and his days as a pro skateboarder, including his work in "Video Days", the seminal skateboarding video directed by a you...

1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (based on the independent comic book series) was the most successful independent film of all time when it was released. A bonkers hodge-podge of pizza, ninjutsu, toxic waste, and skateboarding men in giant rubber turtle suits. Kevin and Mike discuss the history of the franchise and dive into their first live-action big-screen adventure. Discussed: pizza snobs, R...

It's a double feature! Kevin and Mike watch the 2001 skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys and then also watch the 2005 movie Lords of Dogtown which tells the same story using actors, stunt doubles, and a bizarre Heath Ledger performance! Thrill to our hosts' examination of what gets lost in adaptation and what skateboarding enthusiast Mike and non-skateboarding enthusiast Kevin think of bo...

Kevin and Mike watch and discuss 1987's "Back to the Beach", a parody of and homage to 60s beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. This movie has everything - beach punks, an adolescent kid who dresses like Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, Dick Dale's unfortunate haircut, Pee-Wee Herman, and even a modicum of skateboarding. Also: Annette and Fishbone invent ska music! K...

It's a holiday spooktacular as Kevin and Mike watch the made-for-Netflix feature "The Christmas Chronicles", which features Kurt Russell as a Santa Claus who delivers Bones Brigades skateboards and engages in impromptu blues numbers while stuck in jail. Also discussed: Whether or not Clarence Clemens ever got that saxophone. Pour yourself a mug of hot chocolate and get ready to be immersed in yule...

Jonah Hill's directorial debut "Mid90s" is both a coming of age story and a love letter to skateboarding - Mike talks about how the journey the characters take in the film mirror his own experience as a young skateboarding enthusiast and then he and Kevin talk about the universality of discovering a subculture that you really connect with. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio...