Hello everyone and happy spooky season, and welcome to Hold Up, the show where we dive deep inside your childhood nightmares, pull them out from your past to see if they truly hold up. And today I'm hold up with two spooky fellows themselves, Kyle and Andrew.  Howdy partner, how are you today? Yet again you have the, you are so presumptive to be the first one to talk.

 I don't know who you think you are. I don't know why you think you're important enough to talk first. I would never presume to talk first. Well I'm not you.  I don't really give a shit what you say, so I'm just gonna live my life and do what I want. , you just don't care about others. All you care about is hearing yourself talk.

, I'm not really hearing myself talk, , cause I don't really listen to this podcast unless it's for like editing purposes. So I'm not there to uh. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. I'm not listening. You never listen to this to edit anything. Ever. That's actually not true. At all. That's not true at all.

When was the last time? , Batman and Robin. You edited that one? No, but I listened to it. He sent it to us. , I didn't listen to it to edit. I listened to it to see if it held up. And as long as we disclose. And by held up, I mean the episode, not the movie, because we know the answer to that. 

Okay,  I'm going to take the reins here and say, we're going to kick off this spooky season  with a bit of something. It is a movie that was made, but before we get into all that, Kyle, .  Your energy level. What type of Halloween candy is it today?

Like a,  ,  an expired mounds, you know? Like the coconut treat that's not really a treat. Do those things even expire?  When they come off the assembly line they expire because they taste like fucking shit. Um, so. Well we just lost like twelve of our listeners. Good. We only have ten. I'm sorry.

If that's something that you like, then , you need to get fucking wrecked. Because that's just not a good candy. Never has been, never will be. It's more like trash. It fucking sucks. It's awful. It's nasty. And that's a resounding thing from two picky people who also, we don't like the same things when it comes to sweets.

So we both say we hate it. It's fucking shit candy. It's a little cheap coming from me because I don't like chocolate, but like chocolate with coconut? I mean, Jesus Christ. How could it get worse? Yeah. How could it get worse? I mean, I'm in agreeance, too.  It's a poor person's candy.

Yeah. And it's not even cheap. , if you go to the house that gives that to you, , and like you have inclinations to  make money by, , robbing people and home invasion, you already know that we don't need to go there. They don't have to do that.  Oh, facts. Well, speaking of not going there, today  we are talking about Ernest Gared Stupid.

Whew.  What a time. What a time. , I introduced this movie and  Andrew,  you have some relation to this movie, Kyle, I don't think, did you watch this at all? Did you ever, did you ever watch any of the Ernest anything? If you are from Ohio, this seems like a more of a Southern.

We had it, I remember, we had it, shh shh shh, , we had it at , at  the blockbuster, the Hollywood video, I remember seeing it there, but it was never something that screamed to me as in like, oh, I should watch this, because I never had a beat on what it was, and  Yeah, no, it was just other things.

Yeah, I mean, I never really watched it either, if I'm being honest. It was on TV, I remember, when I was a kid, but I couldn't tell you jack shit about it. What TV channel was it on? I don't even fucking know. I think it was Disney. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. It screams like something that would fall in that Disney landmark.

They'd pay for the rights just to, you know, broadcast that in the 90s, for sure. Yeah. And it's, yeah. , it is a children's movie too, so there is a like a level. Oh yes, very much. And very much a children's movie, and very much a children's movie of its time, which we will dive into. , it had to be fun though to watch it because of , the Lexington legend.

Well I, here's the deal, I didn't even realize that the main, the Varney, was from my hometown and went to my high school until like a month ago. So, I didn't even know that. Like, growing up, people talked about Harry Dean Stanton, and  Michael Shannon, because they both went to Lafayette and are from Lexington.

But no one ever talked about poor old Jim Varney. Uh, and it was, you know, it was kind of cool to see someone that, , grew up where I was from. Well, and Jim Varney  he was very much a beloved actor at the time. And I know Ernest was kind of his thing, but he was a great stand up comedian.

And he even, everyone knows him as Slinky. Slinky the Dog. , from Toy Story. And then he voiced someone in Atlantis, , I forgot the character, but.  He was a good voice actor. Great stage actor. Great stage actor. He's a classically trained, like, Shakespearean actor. You can tell, you can definitely tell in this movie that he is trained in Shakespearean acting.

, verse and also in physical comedy. Physical comedy, absolutely. Uh, very much. He was definitely a clown in the Shakespeare show. He had to be a fop or like something, something, yeah, he was weird. And there's points in this movie too where you're like, this dude has a lot of range. It's, it sucks we're wasting it on a, correct, a children's movie for him.

It sucked that it just, it's just wasted. There's just, I can think of so many other things that you could write that just have more of a through line to it or more  funny. Right. Like. They, they, there was a lot of misses in this movie with the script and how it was written.  To kind of preface a little bit of it, it, it definitely seems like they think the children that watch this are fucking dumb.

Which kids are stupid? Well, kids are kind of stupid. Kids are stupid as hell, but they're not that dumb.  And  if you assume they're dumb,  they're gonna be dumb. So that's why you have to give them some real fucking IP that's. , that has something that makes them think. Cause this is just, literally just surface level bullshit.

It's brainless. Brainless. It is very much a brainless kid's movie.  I have  lot of nostalgia for this movie.  My dad loved the Ernest movies. It is very much comedy of its time. He thought they were very wholesome.  He loved like watching those movies with me.

And we've watched all of them. I remember, there's too many of them. There's like, Ernest goes to jail. Ernest, Ernest goes to school, Ernest goes to Africa.   Ernest fails his driving test. is like, there's, Ernest gets parole. Yeah.  Ernest.

Ernest learns the in and outs of the criminal justice. System over the course of 15 years as a convicted felon who is actually innocent. Uh, and he's like a custodian in all of them. That's what's funny is Ernest never gets another job. Sanitation, sanitation worker. I think there was one called Ernest joins the army.

Oh, maybe. Did he, did he just clean latrines the whole time or? I think so. I think 'cause there's always those shit jokes in there. There's a lot of poo. But  this one stuck out to me. That's why I picked this one. It's scary. And as a kid, this one was horrifying. It's very scary as a kid, like. This was terrifying  it's also geared towards kids, but They went really hard in the paint with some of  the scenery and the atmosphere.

Yeah, if you're like four years old Like that opening scene was probably a little bit creepy. I would say Even the end not not tension not suspense but atmosphere alone Like when you watch this movie,  there's certain like horror movies or halloween movies you watch and they don't have that You  That feel that you're watching a Halloween movie or you're watching a movie  in October during spooky season but this kind of captured that especially like with  well get to earth a kid's character in that junkyard mess you had but those like creepy vibes the vultures the The dead trees, the fog, the mist, like, it gives off like Hocus Pocus vibes, but just more stupid.

Halloween town, but a little bit more under that level, if you will. Yeah, it, it, I mean atmosphere, it nails. Yeah. But , it's hollow atmosphere. Yeah, very. To your point. There's no venom in it at all, it's just very, meh. But  if I like, had a fire going and I had like a bunch of ghosts, Like candles, and it's like October, and it's like chilly out, and I'm gonna put this movie on, and it's gonna fit the mood.

What about like , a pumpkin spice latte, and like some apples and a, and a fucking barrel. Pumpkin cinnamon bisque. And some donuts, some fucking warm ass cider,  and I'm just describing a white woman's what dream right now.

 I'm holding my,  mug with two hands and blowing on it. That's not cold though, but just in case.  It's just a bunch of marshmallows in it. Yeah, just, you know, just in case, you never know.

But, I say all that to say that my dad really loved this movie and he, when I talked to him over the phone before I watched this, and I was like, Yeah, we're about to do Ernest Gator and Stupid Things, and he's like, Oh man, I loved that movie, like, you loved it as a kid too, and I was like, Yep, and I think I'm not gonna like it much longer.

I think that this is probably one that's gonna stick in the past. However, Don't premeditate it. We got a lot to unpack here, so. I don't, do we have a lot or do we have very little to unpack? Well, let's find out, shall we? Shall we just get right into it?  You two don't have any memories for this movie other than Jim Varney going to and growing up in Lexington, Kentucky. Lafayette general legend. Oh, he died really young.

 He died at the age of 50. Yeah, he had like Cancer didn't he like cancer or something? He looked like he was a smoker. He sounded like he was a smoker So I bet he had like lung cancer. I don't want to like, you know premeditate how he died But you know, you're not gonna look that up if you're that curious Yeah, sure.

Why not? Yeah, we'll do that. We'll talk about it. Well, let's dive in  and get started and start october off strong with ernest scared stupid So kyle, do you remember where this movie begins? Because I know you were like half out of it when we're watching this movie is a fever dream for me because I was literally You Gaining a sickness whilst I was watching this movie, and I did pass out about halfway through.

You were ill, weren't you? You were under the weather. I was not feeling good. You had worked your little bum off that week. This movie, if you want to know, this movie is cursed. It did make me sick.  That is the first thing about this movie, is that it will make you sick. Or our three, three attempts to go to the Braves Reds game.

Let's go. No.  I think that started the whole down. I think it did start out all of it. It was very yeah What a tumultuous season that's a story for another podcast.  For God's sake but , the movie opens up with, it's like a, , a scene and we kind of gain a lot of exposition in this scene where  , there's a demonic troll. Right. But we're not at the demonic troll at this point. Are we? , we get the POV of , the troll.  It's shrouded in like mystery and like hair essentially.  You don't see it. , it's running after some children, it gets caught in the net. But , they say that it's , a long time ago, it doesn't even give us like a, a century.

No, it doesn't, I do remember that.  It says nothing. It says nothing about the time that this took place. It was probably like, Antebellum. 16, 1700s? It was Antebellum times, like, mid 1800s. But everybody's dressed in like, turn of the century, turn of the 19th century clothes, so like 1901 Titanic around that time.

That's, that's true. So like, they, they've already shut the bed, we don't know what fucking time it took. Yeah, we, we have no clue how long ago this is. And it's in Briarville, Missouri. We did know that it was in Briarville, Missouri Briarville, Missouri.  Probably fictitious place in Missouri of all places. There's no Briarville, Missouri. And we get this, , Jim Varney's, because he always plays multiple characters in all of his movies.

And, well, boy, are we gonna get to more of that. But he's playing, what looks to be like, Pastor? Pastor leader of this, like, village. But he's,, basically cursing this caught troll that's been eating children or whatever. And turning them into, he's been capturing them and turning them into wooden statues.

And, like, using their energy for the afterlife is essentially what it is. And we get all this exposition in two minutes. Yeah. , this guy is spouting it off. Yeah. And he's saying, I'm going to curse this troll, he's going to be destined to live under this tree for the next however many, I think he says 200 years, but at that point we were already falling asleep.

And then the troll himself places a reverse, , curse on, , the pastor character. And, , he's stating that he can only be released from this tree that he gets buried under on the night of October 30th by another Whorl, another Ernest Whorl, as it would be, and that each generation of Whorls would get dumber and dumber and dumber as the years went by.

And that's essentially what it boils down to. And then, right after we get a little bit of that exposition, we get the rest of that from the little girl with her, like, essay report. on that folklore. I don't know why she was doing her report on that particular folklore. And as she says, all of them will get dumber,  we flashed to Ernest in the garbage dump.

 He's, he created some sort of , I don't know, uh, cleaning, uh, mechanism with like a bunch of brooms or whatever, and it's like it's shamed,  it was mops, that's what it was, not brooms, mops. And he's cleaning his garbage truck because he's a garbage man. He's a sanitation worker for the city of Briardale, Missouri.

And didn't he say he was the lead sanitation? Oh yeah, , he's head of sanitation. He's the cock of the walk when it comes to sanitation. And  this man is not fit to  Stock shelves in a grocery store, much less like lead any government agency. Drive a fuckin garbage truck around town.

Much like sanitation. Sanitation is a big, big fuckin deal. You gotta be able to do that stuff, because if not, you're gonna have shit where you eat diseases. But, I will say, and what does Briarville, Missouri have to offer? What, uh, what are the stakes in that little town? Probably nothing. Probably the same stakes as everywhere else.

They're probably cows, angus, you know, maybe some bison. It didn't look like a town town of like fifteen twenty thousand people. I mean it didn't look Maybe. Yeah, because that's a small town, but it's not like You can't just not have a sanitation commission. Yeah. You should just hire some random And how did he get that job?

Everyone hated him. It's probably a small enough town. Hey, remember he He was probably the only one that wanted it. The Whorl ancestry seemed to be big in Briarville.  Right. Seemed to, you know Because remember his great great great great whatever was the leader of that town back in the Whatever 1800s or early 1900s or whatever the fuck it was.

The worlds go way back. Yeah, they were way back. The world of the worlds, I don't know. Yeah. I don't fucking know. So he had a right to have something to his name.  He's like spouting shit off. Now, did you both notice , he has great  diction when he's talking, so he doesn't come off as a babbling idiot, he just comes off as more of like a, a clueless.

He's a clown. Yeah, like a clueless. He's literally a slapstick. I would say he's a willy, like, more than willing and  cognizant fool. And  I think he at a certain point is like purposefully being dumb. Yeah. ,  I honestly thought the opening scene with him in his garbage and that when everything starts going around I thought that was the funniest scene in the movie Because I believe that the most everything else.

I'm like you're just you are literally just Being forcibly stupid just to progress this plot along because it because he gets trapped inside the I don't know I forget how I guess I think he's cleaning the dog helps him out Yeah, it gets  trapped in the garbage truck and it's like The dog is  trying to murder him. 

He gets caught in like the compactor in the back of his garbage truck and it starts to shrink and shrink and he's in there trying to like Hold up like a broomstick to like keep the the wall from like, you know smashing him together And he's yeah, he's using a broomstick and then he finds a muffler.

Like where did that muffler come from? Who's throwing a muffler in the trash? Who are you? Not in this economy. God dammit, I'll take that and sell it.  Yeah, like, it's scrap metal or something. No one's just tossing that in the background. And he's trying to use the muffler to stop the compactor and he's like yelling, and what was the dog's name?

The dog had a stupid name. Oh, something shot, , Rimshot. Rimshot. Rimshot. Hey, Rimshot!  That's the adult commentary,  where the director's like, we gotta give the adults who are drugged here  something. So let's call the dog rim shot. And because, you know, there was like 16 people in that theater and that was probably all that was in that theater, like elbowing each other and be like, yeah, rim shot.

Am I right? I paid good money for that.  , Little rim shot, anyway, is kind of like the savior to him. , It's a little Jack Russell. Jack Russell hitting all the buttons, ends up shutting down  the garbage truck, I think. Yeah no, no, no, he doesn't. He, he shuts it down for a second, and then Ernest, Still gets crushed because it starts back up.

Isn't, don't, isn't that the kids that hear him like screaming or something like that? Yeah, and the kids And they run and he pulls the lever and it shoots out the nice compacted like rectangle or a cube of garbage And he's like folded in half. Yeah, his legs are touching his forehead. Yeah, he's literally Folded in half and still alive and this yeah, I'm still talking and this movie is called Ernest goes to the hospital  Ernest gets green green.

That's to have a limb amputated  Becomes a paraplegic  but  that The scene just kind of set the tone for the movie as to what to expect and what you should suspend and Everything. These kids show up to help him And these are the kids like one of the one that the girl was given the book report or whatever it was About the troll folklore.

That's right. And then the other kid just happened to be Her friend, and they're just neighborhood kids, , and , they help Ernest out and then they, and they know Ernest by like his first name. They know him well, they, they're a pal. They've, they've been hanging out with Ernest.

Yeah. Which down by the town dump. You know, it's a little.  It's strange. Yeah.  It's strange from our adult perspective, but I guarantee you if we were kids , we probably wouldn't think anything of it. No,  I didn't think anything of it as a kid. I was like, yeah, 47 year old man hanging out with two eight year olds.

Yeah, I get that. But he himself pretty much is a kid. You know what I mean? Like, he is, his intelligence level and just his social standing is that of a fucking kid. That's what, that's what we're led to believe with the writing, but his acting does not sell me on that. And that's where it was, that's why it was weird.

Yeah, exactly. That's fair. . He's very aware. I blame the writing if I'm being honest. The writing's bad, but these kids, anyway, these, we can get into like the psychological stature of earnest.

We don't need to.  We do not need to do that. It's not worth the time. Nor do I think there's anything to go there. I think they were just like, he's dumb, we're gonna make a dumb character. And he's like, no, he's kind of just a fool, like Kyle said, like just kind of a clown. And now he's like hanging out with children.

It's just weird. And these kids show up.  Help him out and  As they're doing that  the police chief who's being yelled at by the mayor being like hey  That old lady's house down the corner is a complete wreck You need to go down there and get Ernest to clean that up and he hadn't cleaned it up yet Get send him send him and so the police chief finds Ernest hanging out with his kids  Driving them around town.

He's just like Oh kids get in the car go home Not again , so, he sees that and he's telling Ernest to go clean up this house, right?

And it's the creepy house in town. Old Lady Hackmore, played by the great Eartha Kitt. Eartha Kitt, uh, yeah, how could we forget? Then Ernest goes and tries  to convince her that he's gonna clean up her house and her house just looks like it's a Bunch of metal sculptures, and it's so bizarre.

 There's like multiple brush fires within her house It's like how is this that was this not been burnt down? How is this and they're trying to make her out to be this like Haitian? Voodoo like witch doctor type things like yeah, it's like very like  Definitely written by white guys. For sure.

Yeah. For sure.   They couldn't even Google it. Maybe they just like, looked at an Encyclopedia Britannica and , copied out , the voodoo article and just were like, yeah, we'll make this. Like, we'll make her very weird and dirty. 

, and then we're like, oh, we need to make her intimidating. We'll give her a welding torch. And so she's like running around with a welding torch in her back.  What, I'm like, wow, she just needs to get a job at that point. Damn. Yeah, she was, she was doing great work. She was doing great work. Great, yeah.

This is fucking awesome.

So Andrew,  after we meet Eartha Kitt and she basically tells Ernest to fuck off, what do we get next? , when he goes into old lady Hackmore's little,   not mansion, what do you, what do you want to call that? Like, Poor people's like it's literally like a place where a bunch like homeless people look like they convene and live  There's not much to it  It looked like a museum in downtown, Chicago  Yeah, but she I remember she helps earnest discover about  the old you know wives tale of that Evil troll thing that's called Trantor.

We should we should know that his name is Trantor. Trantor.  It's on a stone tablet But it's like in some like old ass book or whatever  while she's doing all that with Ernest the kids are  Off building their own haunted house.

That's right. The cardboard haunted house and there's this These two bullies. These two bullies who don't look like they should be bullies. They should be the ones who were being bullied. Especially the kid with the mullet. Yeah. Man, it was rough.

Yeah, he was like, Hey, lame wads! That was funny when they ripped , the haunted house down, just destroyed it. But that haunted house lacked a lot, like it lacked a lot of creativity, it lacked a lot of imagination.  And it needed a stronger foundation, concrete pillars underneath.

 Honestly, these kids needed to understand that they need to build a better shelter next time, if they're gonna be residing in it. So I think really the bullies did them a favor.  It was a shit haunted house. A shit haunted house. They're ten years old, they know better.

They run to Ernest, and they're like, Ernest, , these bullies, blah, blah, blah. And then Ernest tells one of the kids this long, drawn out story about the Ottoman Empire.  And as I recall, there is not one slice of storytelling in this that connects.  He's telling this story in , Eddie Murphy style from the Nutty Professor, like He's going from one character to the other, like changing, you know, changing costumes, obviously Changing genders Changing genders, literally.

 I don't know the point of why they threw that in there, but It was very dumb.  It was a really stupid decision and it just seemed like He was like, hey, I can tell you this funny Thing that happened with the ottoman empire and we can do a whole thing about it Now i'll dress up funny and that'll be it.

Yeah, and i'll be i'll be a woman And four and five year old kids might have laughed at it. Probably. Yeah, because he was a woman  But no, no, he was a man dressed as a woman. Yeah, and he was doing funny voices. He was doing You  It was so weird, and then he did blackface. Yeah. That happened at one time. Yeah, he did do.

Where was it? Brownface. Yeah, brownface. But it would. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it's just. Doesn't really matter. Yeah, it's just.  . Hey, but this is 91. They don't care then  It's weird  that was still a thing in 91   I mean, I  understand in the back of my mind that we're not that far removed from it.

And that it's still a thing. But it still surprises me that it wasn't that long ago that people were still doing it, you know. , keep in mind, the one thing , I want to say before we go any further with this movie, this movie has a huge cult following. A lot of people talk about this movie and say it's underappreciated, X, Y, and Z, the horror elements are good in it, which we're about to dive into the troll and all that stuff in the folklore. 

There's a lot of people that love this movie and  Sure, you know some dating is fine, but you I mean Can't you can't justify no this whole scene.  I don't know how anyone can watch this scene, and I'm not talking about the black face alone, but I'm just saying it's just, there's not a single joke that made me laugh.

I was confused. I was getting mad. I was honestly a little upset as well, because I was like, why the fuck do I have to sit here and watch this? There was nothing that connected it to the movie enough to make me go like, oh that was clever at the end. It just seemed like they were trying to add three minutes in the movie.

And because the only thing we get out of it is he was trying to tell the kid to build a treehouse that he needed the higher ground, basically. You need the higher ground, Anakin. , that's what he was trying to tell them with this long story about the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, what a good Here we are.

And  now he's, hanging out with the kids more.  No one's raised suspicion at all. And then they've constructed this new treehouse. Which they constructed that in, what, 45 minutes? It was quicker than that. It was quicker than that. Very, very quick, with a lot of, like, high end building materials and ideas.

 A lot of red roof inns don't even build their structures that sturdy  But  they also built it in the tree in which the the little troll creature was buried under which is a huge huge plot point Right because Ernest,  was trying to find the perfect tree and he went into the forbidden forest.

It was,  I guess it just fogs up yearly. Yeah, it looks just gray, just naturally. And this is where this forest though, I will say the atmosphere of this forest for a kid's Halloween movie, this really set the tone of like, oh, I'm in October, I'm in Halloween. So , props to that, but you could see where the fog  was dissipating, where they were filming certain scenes and Ernest had to kick some of it up on set.

They get their treehouse built and then the bullies somehow find them.  Yeah, they have like a tracking device or a lojack on one of them, I mean, good god. They just like hone them out, sniff them out, like what the fuck. , and then the kids, Throw pizzas on him and like dog food.

That'll show him. Yeah, shoot him with  the gun or the Water gun, but that's it. That's a reversal  But then at that point, you know, we're on  the eve of Halloween it's October 30th Ernest accidentally Awakens the troll. Yeah, I don't remember how he did it, but he does it  he goes in and tells the kids You Yeah, I just had a long conversation with her.

And basically, he's having a conversation With Ms. Hackmore. With Ms. Hackmore, because he thinks that she's mad at the kids for building the treehouse on her property, . She is mad, but she's mad that they built it in that specific tree.  She told him that. And she told him specifically what not to do and why she's mad.

And he goes up and he goes, She told me this and then does verbatim what she says not to do and awakens the troll. And that's how the troll But what, what was it that awakened it? It was like, it was stupid. It was like, knock on the tree, Say I summon the troll name. That's right, that's right. So like, if you think you want to keep this thing hidden forever, not summon it, let's make , the task to summon it, , a lot harder. 

 Basically all he had to do was just go and throw up on the tree and then the I'm surprised he even remembered everything that she told him. Weird shit starts happening. Yeah, , they say goodbye to each other.

They're like, Oh, I gotta go home and, , do my homework and eat dinner. , mom made spaghetti. I'll see you later. And they leave. And then , the one kid, Joey, I think it's, I think his name is Joey. He's the last to leave and he gets out of the tree house and he hears some like ruffling and like the. The bushes or whatever.

Yeah, and what did Ernest learn  if the troll gets  five children's souls by midnight the next night?  He's gonna  unleash his troll army on the world.   And he's gonna turn the kids into like, wooden, wooden statues. Wooden, that's how he stores their energy or whatever, which was pretty horrific. 

It's kind of creepy. That part was a little creepy. So the, not only does he not, does, does he get like a wooden statue, but it takes them and it shrinks them down? Yeah, it's like a doll size in the position that they're caught. So it was, which is also pedophilic as fuck. 'cause you could just.  We're going there aren't we.

We already went.  So, , that was a very creepy element and let's also talk about Let's talk about the troll here, because we get the first glimpse of the troll.

The troll is glorious, built, looks amazing, is horrifying. Pretty gross looking too. Yeah, I wouldn't, I would not say it looks horrifying, I would not say it looks scary, but it was well done. In the minds of a kid. It was well done though. I will say it looked, like the production value on it was well done.

For, for the movie that we're watching, I thought it was, it passed. And I'm saying it looked horrifying for a kid.  Maybe, yeah. For a kid, cause this scared the shit out of me when I was a child. And this was, this, this animatronic was made by the Ray Liotta's brothers, correct?  Nicky Otter Brothers. Sorry, Ray Liotta's Brothers, Nicky Otter Brothers.

You know, same thing. Yeah, same thing. Yeah, that was gonna be my next thing. Nicky Otter Brothers did the special effects in this movie. Ray Liotta's Brothers. That's not it. Um, but they did all the special effects, and they are known for killer clowns from outer space, which is a personal favorite of mine.

They also did, , The puppet work in Critters, which I don't know if either one of you have seen Critters. Have not. Well, they also did the puppets in, , Team America, World Police. Mad respect for that. I didn't know they did that. They did, , they've done a lot of, a lot of work. They did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, , certain, like, offshoot, , Commercials and stuff.

Ray Liotta's brothers are talented. I never knew Ray Liotta had such talented brothers like that. Runs in the family, I guess. Good job, Ray Liotta's brothers. Those are different last names.  It's just, they just rhyme. I don't know. I don't know where the joke is going. Yeah, I don't know, Chase. I think you're missing something there.

It's okay. I am.  The special effects in this are really well done, and I'll get to some more tidbits, but, , as we move on. But, basically one kid is missing now, Ernest is awakened by the troll, and he sees the troll, and Ernest as he's like scrambling through the treehouse as the troll's like next to him, cause the Ernest fell asleep in the treehouse.

Yeah. Fell asleep in the treehouse. Got too drunk. That's what they do. Passed out in the treehouse. That's what they do. Essentially what happens here is What are you, what are you saying, Andrew? Ernest took too many barbiturates.  The tranquilizers are stronger than usual. .

 Oh, God. , but , Ernest, , when does Ernest find out that it's actually the troll? Cause he doesn't find out Right away, because this Joey kid goes missing and , no one knows. No, no, no, he, he, he finds out, he finds out instantly. Does he? Yeah, cause Oh, that's right, cause he has like a little like one off with him.

Yeah, as Ernest is scrambling, the troll looks like it's trying to kill him. Ernest spills some milk. And then you're like, oh boy, this troll doesn't like milk, cause the troll spills it. Scurries away, and that's where he kills our fir kills our first kid. I'm air quoting. He takes the first kid.

He doesn't kill. He just takes him Exactly. I'm air quoting. What do you got you? A  dead kid's not worth much to a pedophilic troll, you know? No. So you gotta keep them alive somehow. . We're tarnishing Jim Varney. , his and his,, reputation. I'm not tarnishing him. He did, he just acted in this's and he needed money's. This is, that's fair. We're tarnishing the right. , I just want to keep him separate from this 'cause he's a precious soul. 

 So Ernest then immediately runs to the police chief and tells him about the troll and he's like, You're a fucking idiot. Get out of my office. You work garbage and sanitation. I don't fucking want to hear you. Yeah, and it's like, And he says it just like, he curses.

Like, he's very aggressive. And you're like, he's not even in your office. He's in your home. Like, That's right. He comes to the home. That's right.  In this instance too.  I think, , kids start vanishing at this point. Yeah, I was about to say, three go quickly in, , the next, like, day.

Well, the one scary scene I thought was when that troll popped up in that kid's room and it just fucking, like Hey, I'm here now. I was laying in the girl's bed. Yeah, just laying in the bed right next to her That was I was like as a kid that would be pretty scary So essentially what we can say is this Ernest is going around town telling everyone that hey the trolls back We got to do something and kids go missing one, two, three And they don't believe it until  the fourth or fifth one.

, that's what I'm saying is three kids go missing And while all this is happening, they're planning this big Halloween gala. At the high school.  Classic, you know, like, bobbing for apples, costume contest,  I think it was the elementary,  but I'm Yeah, whatever, it's a fucking school.

But it was like a kid's  Halloween gala, but the parents could come too. And they all dressed up. All the parents dressed up too. The funniest part of this movie to me, though, , after the third child goes missing, the parents go to the police chief, and there's like six of them, and they're all dressed in their Halloween gala costumes, yelling at the police chief, being like, this is, we got kids missing out here!

And, and all, like, keep in mind,  you have this man that's been hanging out with children this whole time.   And Now kids are vanishing, and no one is questioning Ernest. Yet he's the one who's claiming a troll came and kidnapped them. Wouldn't he be, like, suspect number one?

Wouldn't he be interviewed, taken out of the police station? He would've been he would've been arrested at this point. They would've beaten him senseless to get an answer out of him.  I don't know about you two. I don't know how protective your parents were.  I grew up in a household where my dad he knew where I was at all times. He knew,  if I went to a friend's house, it's like who's there? Where are you going?

 What time will you be back? You better be back at the overprotective parents, right? To a sense, you know, my dad was very overprotective and but like at the same time  even the parent that's not overprotective I didn't know them just let their kids hang out with a 45 year old All day and then who looked older than 45, but and whoever and these kids go missing  And now no one in the town's like, Hey, let's talk to , the guy that's always hanging around our children. 

Who screams that this ancient troll's back, taking it. Ancient troll. Ancient of  150 years. We gotta protect your kids. Give me your kids. I'll protect your kids. They keep on going missing, but like, I'll protect them. I'll help. I got a tree house.  

  In this part of the movie, there is absolutely nothing going on. There's not much to like, we can't go scene by scene. People wouldn't be mad at us if we did that. There's like 45 minutes of just kids, it's just three kids go missing and it's 45 minutes and it's literally the same shit.

Kid goes missing, Ernest tries to convince him he's a troll. People don't listen. They're like  And people don't seem to care. This is a small town. If three kids go missing, they're not hosting that gala. But Right? And they're yelling at everybody else and they're all dressed up in their fucking Halloween gear.

What was it For the gala. Yeah. We gotta do this gala. You gotta go find the kids. What was it that changed everyone's mind? That, okay, maybe we should listen to Ernest. Maybe we should start doing some Searching for this troll. It was the mayor's son was the fifth kid that was taken and then the mayor was like, all right Uh, we're gonna listen to earnest now.

Let's let's go look for this troll and he was taken at the gala He's taken at that. They could have shut down so they could have saved the fifth kid So the mayor's son's taking rise of trolls like waddling his  ass in there and take this So they thought that he was a person in the costume, but it was just the fucking and there was a troll It was oh and then  there was also a little fight So , not a fight but like a little driving scene between the troll , and Ernest and he was like jumping on the top of the truck or whatever and him and his dog Rimshot were trying to like throw shit at it and then he turned Rimshot into, a wooden statue as well.

Do you remember that? The saddest part, and that statue did not look like a dog at all, like a dog with two asses. Yeah, it was really, it was well, poorly, poorly made. That one, that one they just kinda like they were like the budget cuts. , at this point, , the town's, like, got their pitchforks and, like, you know, torches, and they're ready to fuck this troll up, because , they believe Ernest now.

 So , they all try to take on the troll. But it's too late. We've got five kids.

So now the troll army's showing up. Yeah. Yeah, they're poppin up all over the place. And treehouse. And the funny thing about it is, they were reused Killer Klowns from Outer Space costumes. That's hilarious. That is, that's, that's pretty cool. , I read where, there's not much on this movie like behind the scenes.

Like there's no Really fun facts But they made that the main troll like its own Unique thing and spent a lot of time and effort on it And then they were getting ready to do the rest and they were like no We do due to the time we're gonna speed this up.

So the Kyoto brothers who you know, Ray Liotta's brothers. Yeah  So ended up going through their workshop and they're like, hey, we have these old killer clowns from outer space You , that's costumes. And, and that movie was not that popular then. It's a great movie and it's more of a cult following now. But at that time they were like, yeah, no one will notice.

Yeah. And so, and they, they kind of spruced them up a little bit. Made 'em more like trolls. But you can see the costumes.  , it's a funny one-to-one. But, , those clowns show up, or, those, Are they? Those trolls show up. Trolls show up. The trolls show up and they start beating the shit out of everyone in the town.

They literally start beating the townspeople up, like throwing them to the ground.  During the whole time, the main troll's, like, running through town, and the kids are, like, chasing him, and they see he hates milk.  They start putting two and two together because they spill a bunch of milk and the troll's like, Oh, and it runs away.

So the kids are like, give me all the milk you got. They go into the, that grocery store. And, , the clerk there who runs it was very, , aggressive towards this kid. He didn't pull out a gun, did he? 

 , , before that we had like a cleric scene, where Ernest is, what, he was buying something at the, I don't remember what he was buying.

Was he buying milk himself, maybe? I think, oh, I think he was just buying like, ho hos and snacks, and it was like on troll, like he said it was on troll patrol. Oh, yeah, troll patrol. Yeah, that's a really hard thing to say. Yeah, you gotta pay the trolls toll. Yeah,  inside this boy's soul.  But he's like, he's like buying snacks. 

And the clerk sees the troll enter. Yeah, because the troll's following, wasn't that one of the kids with him and the troll's following? Or something like that? I don't know. The troll was inside the convenience store. The troll was all over the place. Grocery store. Grocery, it's a convenience. It's a grocery store.

They have groceries at a convenience store. Yeah, well. It was a convenient grocery store. There we go. I'll accept that. Um. I don't care. Um.  So, basically,  cashier, the clerk is  behind this counter. And he sees the troll enter and he goes,  and then he gets a shotgun out from underneath, like a saw off shotgun, which is already a felony.

So that's awesome.  And clearly they have a lot of break ins because they just armed their front staff with shotguns dangerous place.  This guy's like trying to it's probably earnest like the police are not doing anything about it. It's just earnest Yeah, they don't care. Well, he's our sanitation officer.

We can't nobody else. Let's clean it up  He's cleaning it up by stealing it  So this this clerk And when I say trying to shoot the squirrel, or squirrel.  Trying to shoot the It might as well have been. It might as well have been. Trying to shoot the troll. He is trying his utmost to just aim the rifle.  I can't tell if he's scared or if he just can't get, he's never looked at the shotgun before.

He's just, he's just all over the place. Can't aim it. The troll goes away. He's like, oh, I missed it. .  He completely fuckin he coulda ended everything right there with, you know, some, some 12 gauge slugs or some buckshot. Coulda blown his face off. He coulda just fucked that troll up.

Which again is a big, bigger story hole to me. If the police know about it, let's just fuckin shoot him. Let's just execute the trolls. , they did try to shoot him and the troll Like absorbed it absorbed it  And this is going back now to where the big battles happening between the townsfolk with their pitchforks and their kitchen knives Versus there are a bunch of mystic trolls They're half half gallons of milk to it's trust me ladies and gentlemen It sounds more entertaining than it really I did remember waking up at this point because again I had passed out with a sinus migraine at this point on the floor While me and Andrew are just making quips the whole time.

Or just like, when is this over? Yeah, that was our quips. It was just like, when can this There was complaints. Can this be quickly over? Please, God. Uh, kill me. Kill me, kill me. Where's that store clerk to fire a rifle at me? .

Yeah. Anyway, so. They're battling, the kids show up with their squirt guns of milk and , their dad's like trying to force them away and his son handcuffs his dad in this battlefield to a car.  And I remember thinking to myself, it's like, that's the one thing I wouldn't want my son to do, is like, is handcuff me, , to a car while all these trolls are trying to kill people.

 Then the kids start, obviously. Killing off all the trolls with the milk. Yeah, but, and they, they do kill off a lot of them, but then like the main troll like evolves into like, like a super like evolved form. Yeah. He and he is not lactose intolerant this No.

He, he gets to a point where, where , milk doesn't do anything to him and even says, so I don't remember his, he had some like shit poison. I think he said fuck milk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fuck milk, fuck dairy. , you can't penetrate me. ,  More in his jokes.  Uh, but yeah, , they're fighting and then somehow, , man, what's her name?

Old Miss Hackmore like announces or  tells Ernest that you can only kill the troll with the true heart of a child or something like that. Isn't that right? Yeah. It says,  and you're like, oh, here we go. Here's where they say, oh, Ernest has the heart of a child.

I can't wait.  And then they spin it around a little bit and make it even dumber than what you're thinking.  So he's like, the heart of a child. ,  True love.  And it's like, because Ernest remembers seeing  this kid and her mom arguing over a costume. and the mom's like, you're not wearing that.

And she's like, ah, fuck you, mom. And is like, that's exactly what she said. But then she like turns around and goes, but I love you mom's. Like, I love you too.  Love you too. What an awful cutaway scene. Oh, it was terrible. And then, so Ernest remembers that, and he's like, oh, true love. That's the heart of a child.

 He like.  Looks at the trolls like oh come here you and he goes up and like hugs and like Kisses it and gets like troll snot all over his face.  Which is not true love That's just fake love.

 And it ends up what, what is it? It ends up killing him? And then bringing back all the wooden statues? Yeah, the troll  like disappears in like Jedi style, where like, the fur is there, but  there's no like physical body or something.

Just like melts away, and then all of the wooden, you know, children are brought back to life, and no harm, no foul. There was a couple of children in during the battle that turned into wooden statues, like the, the main kid character, Alex, or whatever the hell his name is, he was the cop's son. Yeah, and if he didn't handcuff his dad to the car, his dad could have grabbed some milk and saved him in this situation.

I had to save my dad! I'm totally more capable than a full grown man with a gun. . , there were also , the kids from like the 1800s that were brought back to life too. Yeah. Wow. So that's what I was gonna get to. They were really displaced. So I don't, you were, I think, unconscious again at this point.

But like, which I wish. , she started taking the wooden statues, the old, Lady hack more, Ms. Hack more met Eartha kit. So she takes all the, the wooden statues and puts them in the tree as well. And , it's like characters we remember from the beginning of the movie. So God knows what time period. 'cause again, that was not established.

No, no, we have no idea. So these 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. , I would say it's even earlier than that. And , these characters come up  , in the nineties now with all this modern technology. But they're like, they're not faced, they're like, oh, it's.  It's Ole Miss Hackmore who is like our great great great great descendant.

Oh, I was so happy to see you I freed you I freed you and I was like You freed them and now they don't know who the fuck you are. I can't wait for them to like have this eternal meltdown like when they found out what a computer is. Existential crisis.

When they realize that people aren't churning butter. And there's a cure for smallpox. And you eat mold to get better from a bacterial infection. Who would have known?  And then that wraps it up. That's pretty much it. And the town of what, Briarfield? Briarville, Missouri rejoices and they can Briar's Ice Cream, Missouri  Is all Briarpatch, Missouri All saved now, thanks to Ernest and his, , Quick thinking and hard real and a heart. True Heart of a child. Heart of a child, baby.

 That's Ernest Scared Stupid,  Chase feels stupid after watching this one.  I feel, , a little pent up angst at you for making us watch this. Yeah, and I wanted to go down this road too, because I kind of knew, I knew what to expect with this one, but again, I've been seeing in the community,  The last two years a lot of people talk about this underappreciated is a word that gets thrown around a lot great horror movie like  Great special effects.

Yes  Actually scary like all these other things that these people have been saying and I was like I remember that movie when I was a kid. I remember it scaring the shit out of me as a kid I didn't know diddly dick about the plot other than the troll  And that's it. That's all I remember was there was a troll So I wanted to watch this and be like, okay, is this really just like one of those  niche movies that turned out to be way better than it was expected?

It did not. It was not.   Dumb plot Didn't exist and again,  It's hard for me to look at this movie as like this is a children's movie There's so many people who are not children It's still like it still love it and I don't think they've watched it as adults  there's these movies out there  that were good when you were a kid,  and  you have not watched them in a long time, and you're going out and you're spouting off how good these movies are,, and getting the IMDB ratings all juiced up.

Let us do that. We'll tell you if it's good. You just shut up and listen to us and stop talking out of your ass because this was honestly, it get, first of all, I, again, it's cursed. It got me sick. Okay. This movie made me sick. Okay. I was out for an entire week. You lost your voice. I had to get antibiotics.

My voice. I had to take time off work. You almost lost your life. Actually. It was, this is, this is a truly bad movie. And one of the only ones that I have to say it's so bad that I know we're not even here yet But I'm not gonna be able to give it a rating.  We'll get no rating. Yeah, I don't think we need to rate it That's how bad this, that's how bad we should.

I think that's the fun part. I think that's what people look forward to. That's and that's good But they won't be getting that for me this time because if you keep on saying that these movies are good and then we watch Them and they're really really bad. And a waste of my time. There's not a lot of merit to it I'm not going to be able to give it a rating.

So, again, .. Let us do the heavy work for you. Thanks for recommending it, but shut up.  But also, thank you. Thank you. Well, thanks for listening. Thank you. I love you. Actually, don't go anywhere. I love you.

Please. I mean, it's, it's not. Subscribe to our Patreon.  Three dollars a listen, please. Please, Kyle. Kyle needs supportive antibiotics now. I want that. I'm dying.  Yeah, but great great recommendation though across because it is fun to talk about these shitty ass movies But there's not much that needs to be said more about this.

We've already wasted enough time on this It's not a good movie, but it's made for children and it had a place in time Where people at that juncture probably didn't enjoy it, but Andrew does it hold up? No  No, it doesn't. No. No. He knew that. We didn't even No. I do want to go and look at the IMDB. I can tell you what it is.

And I want to know, do Rotten Tomatoes even do this one? I don't fuck Rotten Tomatoes. So, let's start. I will say, why don't we guess I'll guess it.  You're not rating this one. I'm not going to rate it, but I will guess. I'm going to rate this one a 3. 1 on my own scale. Wow! But I would say the three points are just from the special effects alone because that troll makeup is worth 3.

4. It's funny you say 3. 1. Sorry, go ahead. They did a lot of good work with the trolls in this, I will say. Raylio's Brothers. Raylio's Brothers did a really good job. , and they just, they honestly, they, that, that part does hold up. , those are very well done. And like, There's a couple of scary scenes in it.

Yeah, and the special effects, again, I've worked on movie sets with heavy special effects. That's , a whole other world that you're not even privy to. It's so hard and time consuming to get those made and get them touched up so that continuity looks, it's like, it's just, respect to that.

That's it. And like we said this before, as people who've,  I've been on movies.  Kyle, I know you've been A couple. A couple. Andrew, you've been on some and like, some stage acting. It's really hard to make something that's good. Yeah. Like, it's way harder to make something that's really good than It's much easier to sit here and shit on it and talk about how bad it is.

So I can't ever give like a movie a zero. Zero, no. , because there is effort in this and there is some good points and inflections in it. So 3. 1 to me is fine. And I'm sure like as a kid, I probably thought this, I thought this movie was awesome. And I'm sure in the 90s, if I watch this movie in the 90s, we're talking six  a profit.

Because there's nothing else to hold it up against. It's just, it's a movie of its time period. And that's why those movies need to stay there. Yeah. And I will say if I had watched this movie, like Thoroughly as a kid and  knew of it and had a nostalgic, you know connection to it I probably wouldn't feel so,  angsty about it, but I didn't I went into this fresh So it just kind of you know shit the bed in that regard But I was gonna give it the same score as you 3.

1 I said 2. 9 But then, you know Jim Varney being from Kentucky being from Lexington and actually probably being a pretty talented, dude I'm gonna give him that that level of three and above so  Kyle's giving it a, did not finish, because I did not finish the movie because I did pass out, so I don't, I don't also think it's fair for me to, to rate it.

It's not, it really isn't, that's respectable of you, But also if I had, I probably still wouldn't rate it because it made me upset. Yeah, respect.   I would rather watch Batman and Robin. Again. Ooh, that's uh, that. I didn't even finish that movie. The thing about Batman and Robin though, was it's run time was 45 minutes longer.

Yeah. And I don't think This was, this was like 90 minutes, exactly. Yeah, this was like, right at 90 minutes, and that's what I appreciated. So that's why I like, , I don't even know what I rated Batman and Robin. Ooh, it was, it was bad. It was It was like, like,  Below, like, one, honestly. I think it was like a decimal.

I could be wrong, but Yeah, I can't  Listeners out there, you'll know. Hopefully. Hopefully you've been listening long enough. Hopefully. Please listen. Patreon.  Subscribe to our Patreon. Smash and like that bell.  Um,  I, yeah, so this one to me is like on that same scale. I think this one's, I would watch this one again before I watch Batman and Robin just because of the runtime.

I agree with you. That's like being waterboarded. I agree with you. , but they're both equally bad and I agree with Kyle on that one. So do we, uh, Kyle, do you want to guess what the IMDB score is for this one? 4. 2.  You're way off. I think this is another one that's going to get the nostalgia bump where people are rating it based off their past and not watching it and rating it.

And I think it's going to be in the sixes. It's not in the sixes. Thank God.  If it's in the sevens, I'll, I'll, I'm going to jump into traffic. It's not in the sevens. It's in the eights, isn't it? It's, it's in the nines.  I don't know, he's lying. I can always tell he's lying. No, I'm not a bad liar. Is it 5? Is it like a 5?

. Is it a 5, 3? It's 5. 8. . Are we gonna sit there and let people rate this movie a 5. 8?  If this is a 5. 8, then I'd be more okay with 4. 2 than 5. 8, for sure.

Absolutely. 4. 2 is an accurate rating. . That's almost a 6. You're so wrong. That's not that's not even if we're talking about a 10 scale and five is exactly mediocre Or is it five is just meh like  Then you're talking about it this is above meh, this is not above meh, this is like well below Yeah, that a 5.

8 is what I would give every single roger moore except for live and let die james bond. That's and that's bad . I think that about wraps it up. I don't, I think, I don't think there's anything else left to say, Ernest Scared Stupid does not hold up, and we just dove deep inside your childhood nightmares today, pulled out Ernest Scared Stupid, and realized it does not hold up.

Probably didn't hold up at the time. Please don't watch this. Drink spoiled milk. I think that is a better use of your time. Get sick like Kyle did. I got sick and  that was better. Yeah, Kyle got sick to avoid watching this in the middle of it. So That's it. , we'll see you for the rest of spooky season.

Have a good rest of your day.