Raised by Rentals

Horror and sci-fi fans of the VHS era had an impossible choice: Who's better, the Xenomorph or the Jungle Hunter?! So of course Hollywood cashed in and gave the fans what they wanted with canonical crossovers and bigger, flashier movies...to mixed reviews. For the first part of our first two-part episode, Josh and Mike the SUPER GUSHERS critique the dual-franchise films of ALIEN and PREDATOR!

Genre switches and mash-ups are always a good time, especially when it comes to the Hollywood badasses of the 80s and 90s. In this episode, Josh and Mike try to find Marion Cobretti's friendlier, squishier center with a PG comedy sequel to the 1986 action classic COBRA!

Audience choice! We asked our friends and listeners to participate by submitting clichés, tropes, genres, styles, etc.--random storytelling elements for a blind challenge game. Because no one demanded it, Josh and Mike fire up the randomizer to improv a story in real time from your suggestions...and boy, is it a doozy!

These days it's hard to just like what you like with so many negative-nelly armchair-critics poisoning the fun of being a pop culture fan. In the 10th RENTAL RANT episode, Josh and Mike brave the tip of an unfortunately deep iceberg to call out the evils of TOXIC FANDOM.

Save the community center! The "greed is good" trope of the 80s led to one of the now-forgotten genres of the 90s: the social activism comedy. For the 40th episode, Mike and Josh revisit that era and once again dare to dramatize a story-less board game with a film pitch for MONOPOLY!

John Hughes movies are mostly classic coming-of-age films that set a standard for the VHS generation...but do they hold up to the scrutiny of 21st Century hindsight? In this episode, Mike and Josh extrapolate a ridiculous premise to its extremes by brainstorming a sequel to WEIRD SCIENCE!

We remember our favorite childhood movies as awesome classics everyone should watch...but do they really hold up? It's the return of the SUPER GUSHERS special feature as Mike and Josh ramble down rabbit trails and eventually head down memory lane to revisit GHOSTBUSTERS!

Two of the best things about 1980s pop culture are the kickass action movies and the 8-bit video games. But why have one without the other? For the first episode of 2023, Josh and Mike imagine a world where the sci-fi action hit of the decade was a film adaptation of the Atari classic CENTIPEDE!

Ever since Ash Williams found the Necronomicon in an old cabin in the woods, he's been cursed to endlessly battle the Evil Dead. But can he and his trusty boomstick catch a break at the most wonderful time of the year? For the first episode of Season 2, Mike and Josh improv a soon-to-be holiday classic: ASH SAVES CHRISTMAS!

The VHS era was over by 2007 but director Eli Roth nailed the 80s holiday slasher movie trailer with his contribution to Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse double feature. Tune in as special guest Mike O'May (Count Kreepyhead) joins Mike and Josh for a very special Raised by Rentals THANKSGIVING!

In the 80s, only a loveable star like Michael J. Fox could make a sports movie about a teenage werewolf a hit at the box office. So of course Hollywood tried to cash in with a sequel that was just a copy of the original...only worse. So much worse. Guest Justin Von Strasburg joins Josh and Mike to imagine what-might-have-been with the sequel to TEEN WOLF.

After an aborted attempt at a holiday anthology series, the creators of the HALLOWEEN movies leaned hard into an origin story for the original iconic villain. But the so-called Thorn Trilogy became a thorn in the franchise's side that led to remake after reboot. For our big spooky season finale, Josh and Mike take a stab at spinning a more interesting legacy for MICHAEL MYERS.

Pop culture fandom today is plagued by a serious problem: 9 out of 10 fans are affected by the evils of gatekeeping. If you've been the victim of a gatekeeper, it's important to know you're not alone. The new RENTAL RANT episode of RAISED BY RENTALS is here to help. Together we can heal...and kick some gatekeepers in the nuts. Who's with us?!

For years, slasher movie fans begged Hollywood to see the two titans of the genre duke it out on the silver screen in the ultimate fan-service showdown. In 2003, they got their wish with a knock-down-drag-out slash-fest...but was it everything it could be? In this episode, Josh and Mike crack each other up with a fun re-imagining of FREDDY VS. JASON!

Lewis and Gilbert were excited about college, until they got there and found out--oh no!--they were nerds all along. Fans cheered when they got their revenge on the popular pretty people who made their lives miserable...but this 80s classic is problematic at best. For their first double-feature episode, Josh and Mike bust out their calculators to solve the problems of REVENGE OF THE NERDS!

We've all seen the blockbuster movies, read the bestselling book series, and jammed out to the newest viral song...but what about the hidden gems that take some digging to find in the dark corners of pop culture? For the first episode of the new SUPER GUSHERS special feature, Josh and Mike gush about 90s comics, direct-to-video movies, and the shame-free fun of shutting down the haters by letting...

In 1993 Hollywood took a chance with the first live-action movie adaptation of a video game, but it disappointed fans, riled up critics, and eventually became a joke. Only...was it actually pretty good? In this episode, Josh and Mike imagine an alternate world with a successful film franchise based on SUPER MARIO BROS.!

Arnold Schwarzenegger became one of the biggest action stars of the VHS era starting with spot-on casting as a musclebound barbarian and he stayed on top long enough to poke fun at himself in one of the genre's most misunderstood satires. For this episode, Josh and Mike continue their experiment to combine every Schwarzenegger movie into a shared universe by mashing up CONAN and LAST ACTION HERO!

In the 80s there was a batch of low-budget horror movies based on creepy little monsters running amok. But were any of them actually scary? In this episode, Josh and Mike improv a story to take the comedy out of horror-comedy and try to actually scare people with a serious take on CRITTERS!

The raunchy teen summer comedy movie was a staple of 80s and 90s cinema, and the legendary Carl Reiner made one of the era's best. In this episode, Josh and Mike daydream about how rad it would've been to see more of the horror SFX-obsessed duo of Dave and Chainsaw in a genre-bending sequel to SUMMER SCHOOL!

Image Comics exploded onto the comic book scene in the early 90s, quickly becoming the number 3 comics publisher in the US based on the popularity of superstar artist-creators like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, and of course Jim Lee! It didn't take Hollywood long to come calling for characters to bring to life on the screen, big and small...with mixed results. Putting comics in the spotlight for th...

John Carpenter made some of the most iconic horror and sci-fi movies of the VHS era, and it's obvious he loved having fun mashing up genres. But what if he'd made a mafia movie? And what if he'd teamed up with Kurt Russell again? That's a Venn diagram of awesome for 80s fans! In this episode, Josh and Mike ponder what ol' Jack Burton would do in a silver screen sequel to BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHIN...

They said it couldn't be done! You can't make a good movie out of a board game...but Hollywood proved them wrong with CLUE. Then RAISED BY RENTALS proved them wrong again with TROUBLE, the only (completely imaginary) horror movie with a Pop-O-Matic bubble! But can they do it again? In the 14th full-length episode, Josh and Mike venture into the karmic dangers of pitching a movie adaptation of...SN...

In the 80s it seemed like everyone was getting mutated by toxic waste! Of all the horror movies in that sub-genre, the one with the best title was maybe the worst of the bunch. How can a film about cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers end up so boring?! For the 13th improv-improve episode of RAISED BY RENTALS, Josh and Mike imagine how great John Heard and Daniel Stern could have been with...

We've all felt the pain of getting excited when our favorite book or comic gets adapted to film only to walk away bewailing why? WHY?! For the 8th RENTAL RANT, Josh and Mike complain like grumpy old men about piss-poor adaptations and Hollywood alienating a built-in audience when they change things for no good reason. Plus, a couple of mini-rants about The Wheel of Time and X-Men! Come get angry w...