l.-r.: Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington
The Flop House is a podcast dedicated to talking about films that either flopped financially, critically — or, in the best cases — both. The podcast was started in 2007 by Dan McCoy, a writer for The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Dan enlisted his bartender pal Stuart Wellington to join, along with their pal and Dan’s then-coworker Elliott Kalan, who now is the head writer for Mystery Science Theater 3000. The podcast is a massive success these days, and sits highly in the MaximumFun podcast pantheon.
Over the years, The Original Peaches, as they are collectively known, have created hundreds of episodes and have covered everything, ranging from Aloha to Zardoz. Every year, people gather around their listening devices to huddle over a warm fire for Cagemas or scream in B-level horror during Shocktober. Not often are people fortunate enough to listen to the Peaches live. Luckily, they’re coming to the Wisconsin Union Theater on Jan. 26 for a once-in-a-lifetime event: pointing out all the...symbiote-ism (my bad joke, not theirs) in Tom Hardy’s house payment, 2018’s Venom.
The Peaches were gracious enough to answer some questions in preparation for their upcoming visit to our humble village, and they’re just as witty and engaging as you’d guess from listening to their podcast.
What is your relationship to cheese? I am contractually obligated to start by asking about Wisconsin's cheese products.
Elliott Kalan: Big fan. It tastes great, it goes well with other things, and you can have as much or as little of it as you want. I’m also a fan of paper, which Wikipedia tells me is another Wisconsin product.
I know Dan and Stuart went to school in Indiana, but have any of you guys ever been to Wisconsin before? When I say "Wisconsin," what do you guys immediately think of?
Dan McCoy: My primary experience with Wisconsin was when my friend and I were driving to Chicago and we overshot and ended up crossing the border. And my main impression was that, as soon as we crossed the border, there were a lot of billboards for cheese and adult bookstores.
EK: My sister went to UW-Madison for college, so I remember well helping her move in one year. My mother wanted to reward me for helping out, and tried to find a place where we could get fried chicken for dinner, but every restaurant we called had no idea what we were talking about. We ended up at a KFC, which considering the circumstances, I deemed acceptable.
Stuart Wellington: A high school buddy of mine moved to Madison during our senior year. We took a road trip up there for one long holiday weekend. It was during that trip that I first watched Head of the Family, so I obviously hold Wisconsin in pretty high regard.
What made you guys decide to talk about Venom for this event? What else is on the agenda for the rest of your time in Madison?
DM: We try and do a big blockbuster that people may have actually seen. It makes things more accessible than if we were talking about Pottersville. As for our agenda — we usually don’t actually get to see the cities we visit. We try and record an extra episode, to take advantage of us all being in the same room, so it tends to be all work all the time.
EK: Because I have a family that I like being around, I rarely spend more than 36 hours in the cities we visit. Which is too bad, because Wisconsin is a nice place to visit! I’m also excited to do Venom because he was my favorite comics character as a 13-year-old. I have a lot of nostalgic sentiment for that brain-eating half-man/half-alien-pair-of-pants.
Will Michael Caine, Daniel Craig or Sly Stallone be making an appearance in Madison?
EK: Probably? If it will get people to come to the show, then yes, they will all be there and they will wrestle anyone in the audience who’s interested.
You guys live in different places. Has the energy changed since you three don't sit in the same room anymore? How has that affected the podcast?
DM: I no longer have to watch Elliott strip every last bit of meat off his chicken bones.
How does it feel to know that you guys kind of pioneered the "bad movie podcast”? Does anyone really ever give you guys credit for starting the craze?
DM: No, they don’t. So why don’t we do it here, with me giving ourselves credit. WE STARTED THE CRAZE. You’re welcome, America.
Dan & Elliott: What did you two do together at Juvie Hall (a now-defunct sketch comedy theater in New York City)?
DM: We met on a show called Saturday Night Rewritten, where we took the previous night’s SNL as an inspiration and wrote and performed a whole original sketch show the next day. Then I started writing on Elliott’s live talk show The Primetime Kalan (an earlier-in-the-evening version of his previous show The Midnight Kalan), which he might have more to say about.
EK: For the record, we really met helping our friend Erik Marcisak — who ran Juvie Hall — paint the place. But anyway, I had been doing a show called The Midnight Kalan, which was an unscripted talk show where I’d ask guests about what was going on in my personal life and ad lib anywhere from 1 ½ to 2 hours of comedy for an audience of several, all of whom received free pizza halfway through the show. At a certain point, we moved the show from midnight to 8:30, and I realized that at that time of night people expected actual written material. I asked Dan to get involved and contribute his own segment I insisted be titled “The Real McCoy,” which I remember Dan hating.
Elliott: I don't mean this in a mean way at all, but when you were younger, were you ever turned down for a date for being too short? I was a few years ago, and, boy, I've never felt more incensed in my life. I’m trying to raise awareness of heightism.
EK: I was turned down for dates many times for being too short. My minimal height continues to be a reason some people look down on me. (Pun very much intended! AIRHORN! AIRHORN!) I’m constantly amazed at how now, in the 20th and 21st centuries, the caveman instinct of “tall means can reach better food, maybe also closer to God?” still holds an amazing sway over people’s decisions.
Stuart: I’ve always been curious about your comic inspirations. Do you look up to any stand-ups or comedic actors in particular?
SW: Well, my hair, style and life inspiration is Kurt Russell. For comedy, I’ve always admired Phil Hartman. He could play pompous jerks better than anyone. Even his small, straight man performances had a little extra personality. The years that Phil Hartman was on SNL were the ones that I grew up with, and I think that had a pretty big effect on me.
What is the most bad-but-earnest film you guys have ever seen?
EK: Any movie by madman auteur Neil Breen has a certain level of earnest intensity to it — it makes the movies fascinating to watch, even if they aren’t exactly fun.
SW: The movie A Little Bit of Heaven was pretty wild. It’s about Kate Hudson’s character recovering from colon cancer, and is named after Peter Dinklage’s gigolo character.
What's the original inspiration for The Flop House?
DM: Stuart and I used to get together and watch bad movies for fun, like the Jenny McCarthy movie Dirty Love, which involves her slipping on her own menstrual blood in a grocery aisle. I thought: 1) Stuart is pretty funny, and he has no comedy ambitions. I need to get him on tape and share him with the world, and 2) How can I make this fun thing we do seem more like work? A podcast was born.
SW: I don’t really have any ambitions, comedy or otherwise.
Stuart: We all know you’re a Castle Freak freak. Do you have any other hidden gems that you don’t often talk about?
I don’t know if it would classify as a “hidden gem,” but I don’t spend enough time championing Night of the Creeps. It kind of set the template for horror-comedies. It’s funny, gross and genuinely scary. Night of the Creeps should be just as popular as Evil Dead 2, Shaun of the Dead, etc.
What's the best and/or worst fan interaction you guys have had?
DM: We’ve gotten wonderful gifts from fans, like blueprints of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin signed by Don Rosa, or a Talking Heads album signed by most of the band. Worst interaction? Maybe the guy who really wanted to talk to me about his wife’s ovarian cyst surgery?
EK: A lot of fans reach out to us and tell us the podcast helped distract them while they were going through rough patches in their lives, and those are always very special interactions.
How's the Flop House housecat these days?
SW: Currently pitching a variety of animated projects featuring him, the Housecat: original party animal. After his inception as a mouth sound, his career has really taken off.
Hallie Haglund was my favorite of the guest hosts you guys have had over the years. Who is the dream Flop guest host?
EK: Probably Orson Welles.
SW: Nic Cage.
Have any directors of any of the films you guys took on ever reached out for a follow-up?
DM: We’ve actually become fairly good friends with Twilight: New Moon director Chris Weitz. He was a fan of the show, and he reached out after we made fun of that film. Stuart and I have shared a meal with him in Brooklyn, as has Elliott in L.A., and Chris invited Stu and his wife and I to the premiere of his latest movie, Operation Finale, which (thankfully) we all liked.
Talked to Ms. Hathaway recently, Elliott? I know you guys are besties.
I’d like to once again quash these unfounded rumors, Ms. Hathaway and I are only good not-even-quite-acquaintances-really-to-tell-the-truth.
I loved your crossover with The Adventure Zone a few years ago. If you guys had to pick one other podcast to do a swap with, what would it be?
DM: Personally, I’d choose another McElroy show, and do My Brother, My Brother and Me, because I think it would be fun to give advice to people. I’d be terrible at it, but I still want to boss them around.
EK: Similarly, I’d love to swap with Judge John Hodgman so I could lord over people with an unearned, yet somehow completely natural sense of authority.
SW: I’d be happy to swap with the Doughboys so we can eat trash food and be mean to each other.
So Elliott is the know-it-all, Stu is the OG Party Dude, and Dan is the straight man keeping it all together. If you guys had to trade personalities, what would the swap be?
DM: I would be Hallie, and just drunkenly giggle semi-coherent jokes.
EK: I’ve tried being other people in my life, and it never works. I always revert back to myself. But that being said, I do envy Dan’s ability to go from zero to “violently irritated” almost instantly.
SW: I’d love to be the smart one for a change.
