Episode 955 – Indiana Jones | Tale of the Tape

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome patrons, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary ‘cause this is the podcaster that just mis-started his own intro.  So, what do you say we go back and say that again and get on with the show?  Thanks for supporting it, patrons.

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether that’s thoughts, things on your mind, thoughts, feelings, so any emotions coming up for you from the past, present, or future, physical sensations, changes in routine or weather or temperature, or just, you know, general baffling things.

 

Whatever it is that’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off of that and what I’m going to attempt to do…oh, I already said that but I am gonna say it again, is I…trying to create a safe place where you could set all that aside, a nice, safe place.  We may have…I guess we’re gonna talk about Nerf in this intro.  I don’t know…if I’ve talked about it, it was so recently or so long ago I forgot.  I mean, what could go better?  I don’t know if Nerf does any advertising anymore but somebody reach out to them and say yo…and they say well, actually, you’re not really our…I’d say well, I’m sure there’s…I’m sure…actually, I bet you our…the people that listen to this podcast have purchased Nerf products maybe as a gift before, because you’d say well, yeah, we at Nerf sponsor safe places.

 

Those are two things that go together, mostly.  So, where was I?  Oh, I’m gonna try to…oh, the way I’m gonna send…establish this safe place is I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  I’m gonna go off-topic — clearly, I’ve already done that — get confused, misspeak.  Those are point…that’s the…kind of what pointless…that’s what pointless meanders are made of, and other stuff; extra words, half words, three-quarter words, word fragments.  So, okay, so if you’re new, before I go on this Nerf tangent…Nerf tangent; it’s the newest thing from Nerf.  That’s just a pool noodle in a knot, Scoots.  I’d say mm, that’s what you think.  It’s so much more, though.

 

But, so what I’m gonna do…oh, if you’re new; that’s what I was gonna say.  Okay, a couple of things to know if you’re new…or if you’re a regular listener, I’m so glad you’re back.  Let’s all…you know, when you’re new…if you’re a regular listener, I know a lot of you already have your particular way you like to consume the intro but let’s just — and I’m not kidding, here — let’s open our hearts up a little bit and give a little bit of…say…in a welcoming way.  Let’s see if this sympathetic vibration can tingle across the universe and when you hear me say…when you hear me go to the new listener, let’s open our hearts to them.  New listener, here’s the thing; your…that way your heart does not have to be open and I’m not joking about that, either.

 

If you’re new to this podcast you’re probably skeptical, doubtful, unsure, and you have that Sour Patch Kid face on ‘cause you say I don’t know what this is.  Is this sweet or sour?  I don’t know what this taste is I’m hearing in my ears.  So if you’re feeling one of those feelings or all of them, that’s perfectly normal.  I’ve got tons of other people here that have been through that.  In fact, over 90% of listeners say it took two or three tries before I got used to the show.  So, kinda loosen up your focus or something, I don’t know, and kinda see if you could…this podcast is a little bit different.  That’s what I mean.  That’s why it takes two or three tries.  If you’re waiting for it to start or start making sense, kinda say well, oh wait, it doesn’t ever get…it’s already started and it’ll never get started.

 

So, and eventually that will make sense in a nonsensical way.  So, that’s one thing, is consume the podcast out of focus or just barely listen.  This is the one podcast you don’t really barely…you just barely need to listen to it.  So, that’s one.  The second thing is…what’s the second thing?  Oh, pod…oh, no pressure to fall asleep.  If you’re here, this podcast actually doesn’t really put you to sleep.  It keeps you company as you drift off and that’s why the show is about an hour, just to give you plenty of time to drift off.  I’m gonna be here to keep you company.  I’m your bore-friend, your bore-bae, your bore-cuz, your bore-sib, your bore-bud, your bore-bestie, your bore-friend if you’ll have me.  Eventually you could say well, this is a bore-person and I’ll see how I feel after that.  I say totally cool; I get it.

 

The shows are also over an hour or about an hour in case you can’t sleep.  If you need this podcast, it’ll be here.  I’ll be here ‘til the very end.  Some people listen all night, some people set a sleep timer, some people turn on the show when they wake up.  However it is that works for you, just kinda test it out and see, but I’ll be here.  I’m here to keep you company, to take your mind off of stuff and ideally, then you fall asleep.  So, those are two things.  The next thing to know is the structure of the show.  If you’re new, it’s a…very different than a normally-structured podcast, but we do have a super…I don’t mind saying; I think my…the structure of the show is based on listener feedback and I consider it a superstructure.  So, the structure of the show is…here’s how it goes; it starts off with a greeting.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends beyond the binary so that everyone knows they’re welcome here and that they hopefully feel seen and respected.  They say oh, okay, maybe this is a safe place I could check out.  It’s also pobody’s nerfect place.  You say okay, well, it’s not a perfect safe place but it’s pretty darn not bad.  That’s our most popular review; pretty darn not bad.  Sleep With Me, the podcast that I listen to while I fall asleep.  So, oh, so the show starts off with a greeting, then we have business.  That’s how we get it out twice a week on a regular basis, over 800…maybe even 900 episodes at this point.  So, that’s the business, then there’s an intro.  The business or the intro can throw people off.  The business is only a few minutes.

 

Then the intro’s around twelve to eighteen minutes of me rambling like this.  Again, it may…give it a few tries but you may discover oh, this isn’t for me.  The intro has indicated that this is not my cup of tea or not my taste.  So, it’s tough…it’s a grey area.  You say well, okay.  That’s why it takes two or three tries.  You say oh, okay, yeah, this intro is different versus oh, this isn’t for me.  If it’s not for you, I hope you find something that is, but what the real purpose of the intro is…so you say…you take twelve to twenty minutes to introduce your podcast 900-something times, Scoots?  I’d say yeah, well, it took about 150 episodes to get the intro dialed in to where it is today but yeah, there’s about 2% of listeners that start the show at twenty minutes.

 

So, some people skip ahead but the rest of the listeners; there’s new listeners.  I want them to understand what they’re getting into.  Then there’s regular listeners.  Now, for the regular listeners that listen to the intro, it’s part of their wind-down routine.  Some people are doing their skincare, some people are petting their pets, some people…listeners are doing a light bedtime hobby, and other listeners are already in bed getting comfortable and cozy, so kinda as you become a regular listener, you kinda see how it goes, but the whole goal of the intro is to ease you into bedtime and take your mind off of stuff as you start to drift away.  For me, literally, my…over the past…in 2020, I mean, you know what I’m saying about 2020.  I’ve like, started to stretch my wind-down routine to about an hour and a half.

 

That’s not just lying in bed; that’s like, sitting outside reading and drinking some tea, foam rolling, then…what else?  I think I’m already out of order.  No, sitting outside doing some reading, foam rolling, oh, meditating, maybe doing some journaling, and then reading for pleasure.  That takes me about an hour and a half to be at the place where I could fall asleep, so I…it has…I’ve leaned into it more because I’ve needed it more, that long wind-down.  [00:10:00] So, the podcast is just one part of that for a lot of listeners.  Other listeners just start it up and they get comfortable and they fall asleep or they start to relax.  Then after the intro we’ll do some business and then it’ll be a Tale of the Tape episode where I look back at what I can remember from the movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark which will be…I watched the movie…so, I recorded the episode last week, then I watched the movie.

 

Now I’m recording the intro.  I said wow, I missed a lot of that movie.  So, it’s just like a bedtime story version.  It won’t be very much like the movie ‘cause I barely remember most…a lot of the movie even though it was a huge impact to my life.  So, that’s the structure of the show, then there’s some thank-yous at the end.  The other thing to know is…there’s two important things I want you to know other than all of that if you’re new…or three things.  One, the podcast doesn’t work for everybody so if it doesn’t work for you, give it a few tries and see.  If it doesn’t, it just doesn’t.  Like I said, it’s not for everybody.  I hope you find something.  You can check sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou out.

 

But so, the other things to know is one, you deserve a good night’s sleep and I’d like to provide that for you if I can, because if you get a good night’s sleep and you start getting more quality sleep, your life’s gonna be better.  Then you might be in a position to flourish and the world…or your world that you have a impact on will be a better place and that means it’s a better place for all of us.  But really, I just think you do deserve a good night’s sleep.  The other side of it is I know how it feels when you can’t get a good night’s sleep, so that’s why it’s even more important for me to let you know that, or to try to help you get some sleep if you can or take your mind off stuff, ‘cause trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep, all of that stuff, I deal with it on and off because I have my nice wind-down routine, but I still deal with it.

 

So, yeah, if I can help, it’s my honor to do so.  So, I think that’s…so, that’s the…yeah, so those are the two…and that’s why I make this show, because I’ve been there and I want to make bedtime less of a rigmarole, less of a stressful thing, and ideally something either you can look forward to or say well, it’s not as bad ‘cause I got Scoots to take my mind off of stuff.  So, that’s why I make the show.  Then I guess I was gonna talk about Nerf.  So, Nerf is…I don’t know if it’s…I mean, I assume it’s a international company.  I don’t know if I’ve done research about Nerf before and I don’t know where they started.  I know back when I was a kid, the big Nerf products were the Nerf hoop, which was a foam ball and a basketball hoop you would hang on your door.

 

Then they had a Nerf football which was a foam football that I always loved because it wasn’t so hard.  It was easier to catch, it was easier to hold, it was easier to throw, and it was good for…people would throw it in the water, too.  Nerf soccer ball.  Dogs would always chew those up.  Those were the three big products when I was a kid.  Then Nerf has expanded.  Hopefully they’ll expand into podcast advertising, but to more things for playing tag, for practicing aiming, I think for splashing water.  I think they have frisbees.  They have all sorts of stuff.  I was just thinking it’s just a good word, one, and then two, usually I bring stuff up and I say well, you can’t have that in your bed or your bedroom.

 

So, for the actual Nerf part of the products, you could actually…like, I wonder if anybody said well, you know, I never got into…you say Peyton Manning; I don’t know if that’s who it is but I say what…do you sleep with any stuffed animals?  They say well, actually, I don’t sleep with stuffed animals but I do hold a Nerf…not a Nerf football.  I know that’s what you all think, but in one hand I hold a Nerf basketball and I like to have a Nerf soccer ball in bed with me.  Then I actually have a Nerf meander.  It’s hanging off the side of my bed, so when I roll down there, I squeeze it every once in a while.  It’s very similar to a stuffed animal; it does bring me comfort and sometimes de-stresses me or reassures me.  Yeah, that’s…so, I do sleep with Nerf products.  Yeah.  I say thanks, Peyton, for coming…oh, that was all imaginary.

 

Thanks for reminding me of that, imagination.  But yeah, it’s something to think about.  Again, you say well, Scoots, actually, this…I’d say okay, I understand.  It’s not for everybody for sure.  I’m gonna have to go online and look at getting something right after I record this, just for fun.  You say what do you got on sale?  So, I think that’s it.  I’m really glad you’re here.  Like I said, I make this show because you deserve a good night’s sleep and I’ve been there.  I appreciate you coming by.  I like check…give the show a couple tries but it doesn’t work for everybody.  I hope it works for you.  I work very hard on this show.  I yearn and I strive.  I want to help you fall asleep.  Thanks again for coming by or coming by all the time, you regular listeners.  Thanks so much and here’s a couple ways we keep this show coming out twice a week.

 

Alright, hey everybody, this is Scoots and this is a episode…style of episode called Tale of the Tape.  This is a style of episode called Tale of the Tape where I try to remember the plot of a movie that supposedly had a big impact on my life.  Those always kinda go interesting ‘cause I say wait a second, how did this movie that changed my life…what happened in that movie?  This one also has the potential for me to talk about some of the sequels to the movie just because I don’t know if I’ll do a…I don’t think I would do a Tale of the Tape of the sequels.  This is the…I think it’s the last big movie I saw as a kid when I was older…like, mid-kid.  I don’t know what you call that.  I wasn’t quite a tween yet.  I guess technically I may have been a tween.

 

I still played with toys which I mean, I don’t think there’s any age that kids should stop playing with toys.  No, I mean, I still watched Saturday morning cartoons and played with toys.  So, the movie we’re gonna be talking about tonight is called Runners of the…Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I guess that’s not that bad a word, Raiders.  It’s a movie featuring Indiana Jones.  I think it came out in the 80s but again, my mind…and those of you that listen to the podcast since the whole…the whole podcast since the beginning, you’ll have to indulge me ‘cause some of this might be…I don’t know if it can be repetitive when I don’t remember it but this was a big, big moment in my life.

 

Now, I didn’t see Raiders of the Lost Ark in the movie theatre, so it wasn’t big in my movie theatre-going life, but it was a huge moment and really one of those just unforgettable moments in my life where my mind was literally blown, my childhood mind.  So, I’ll set that up, then I’ll talk about what I can remember about the movie and maybe its sequels depending on our time.  So, okay, so I’m the oldest of six kids and I don’t know if all six kids…I guess one of my brothers probably would have been a baby, or two of them would have been young, but my brother Carl and my sister Sheila, they’re only…I think just under two years younger than me.  So, traditionally, the three of us, we were closer in age than my brother Ted is.

 

I don’t know, a few years younger than me than that, and then my next siblings…but this was when those kids were…I don’t think Ted was a toddler; Ted the toddler.  But so, let’s see, so we would get up on Saturdays…this was a very…and a very idealized thing; we would eat cereal and we would watch cartoons.  When I was a kid, we didn’t have streaming services but there was three or four…probably three…maybe two or three TV channels coming in over the air.  I don’t know if we had cable or not.  It didn’t really matter ‘cause the broadcast networks kinda dominated Saturday morning cartoons.  Saturday morning cartoons were a really big deal.  Not just to kids; I’m…think it was a pretty big industry.  I guess…I wonder if there’s any history of Saturday morning cartoons.

 

I guess I could do another episode about that ‘cause I don’t want to get too caught off on a tangent, but they usually ran from somewhere around eight in the morning ‘til eleven or ten, maybe from seven to ten, usually a two or three-hour block of cartoons.  As you…as the day wore on, the…probably the quality…and you’d probably change channels depending on what your favorites were.  Again, we’ll go into [00:20:00] that, but…so, we used to…we were hardcore Saturday…that was part of our Saturday morning for years and years and years, and a big part of the podcast, obviously.  It was a foundation for me.  But so, then what would happen is…’cause you, you know, kids…even back then, kids loved screen time.  It’s just, I don’t know if it’s because of…whatever.

 

I don’t want to get into the anthropology side of it but we loved screen time even though it was a tube.  We called it tube time.  So, as the Saturday morning cartoons wore down, we weren’t allowed to watch WWF which is now WWE which I think came on after the Saturday morning cartoons.  My dad was very against that.  I don’t think from a moral or philosophical standpoint; just as like a…just from a logistical standpoint because then me and my brothers and maybe my sister, we would start enacting what was going on on the shows.  So, it was more of a child management thing.  At some point we would usually have chores or other things to do depending on the day, or we would go play.  But after watching Saturday morning cartoons, transitioning to play is not easy.

 

You always kinda felt forlorn, like oh, I wish there was another hour or two of cartoons for us to watch.  Oh, and I guess we did have cable because…okay, so…and I talked about this in My Life With HBO a bit, which is a episode that came out and was rebroadcast a little while back.  So, I guess I don’t need to talk too much about HBO.  But so, during…so, okay, so let me talk about the Saturday morning cartoon part.  So, usually as Saturday morning cartoons ended, you had a decision to make because that’s when sports came…like golf or football or some other sport where you say well, this isn’t…or something else.  You say well, I don’t want to watch this.  I want to watch cartoons.  It’s funny as a consumer now that they’re basically like that’s it kids, it’s over.  Sometimes they would have something that transitioned.

 

Maybe they…I don’t know if they had the noon news on the weekends back then but yeah, sometime around then, around…somewhere between ten and eleven, TV became anti-kid, basic…I mean, I’m not…I don’t…they said well, now it’s time for adults to get up and sit down and sit in front of the TV for a while.  Or it would become a land of waste where it’d just be like, we don’t have anything ‘cause the sports aren’t starting ‘til one.  I guess that’s when sports started on the east coast, huh?  So, usually as a kid, you…and I grew up in central New York, so it might have been rainy.  Now, this particular day, it didn’t matter; we were literally…I think the blinds were closed.  We had just got through a good batch of cartoons and this…we had free HBO ‘cause HBO would run a few different times a year.

 

They would have a thing where it’s like oh, HBO’s free for two weeks or whatever, and other things do it even now, and…or maybe it was a free trial.  But so, we…or maybe we just had HBO then.  I talked about that on My Life With HBO.  There was a period where my parents were paying for HBO, I guess ‘cause they were watching it at night.  But so, we turned on HBO.  Now, usually there was a Saturday movie that was not aimed at kids or youth.  It was…and you know, at this age you’re not really interested in that many movies or films.  We hadn’t developed any tastes.  We were, like…to go from cartoons to a non-animated movie is a pretty big jump.  But a lot of the times we would check or we’d just be running the TV.  I don’t know if this was planned out or was spur of the moment.

 

In my memory it feels like a spur of the moment thing and again, I feel like it was a spring or summer day.  It was a Saturday for sure, and we changed it to HBO at either ten or eleven or twelve, and maybe they have…HBO used to have this build up with HB…the HBO thing and a movie theatre going into a town, launching into outer space, just like the start of a film in a movie theatre because it was creating a home box office feel.  Then it would be…say, you know, special presentation, or Saturday movie, or whatever, feature.  This particular Saturday, the movie that started was the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.  To say we were riveted…well, I can’t speak for my siblings but to say I was riveted…and it was like, all time in existence stopped for the next two hours or hour and a half.  That would be an understatement.

 

Again, I think I’m just ballparking that I was somewhere around eight…somewhere between…even though I have a child, I was somewhere between eight and eleven years old, or seven and eleven years old, though I could have been fourteen or eighteen.  I don’t even know.  I have no idea what year it was.  I don’t even have the slightest clue.  I think Raiders of the Lost Ark was a PG movie and again, they kinda supervise it by like, oh, we’ll play this PG movie during the day.  That’s alright.  I don’t know what was going on with my parents; again, we were in the basement where our…our rooms were all in this basement and then the center of the basement was a common room where there was a couch and a TV.  If we weren’t making too much noise, it was like out of sight, out of mind for my parents.

 

So, and then my parents had their hands full, at least my mom did, with…my dad probably was doing yard work or something, and then my mom had three real little kids to deal with.  So, we were there; we were riveted from the moment this film started ‘til the moment it ended.  I’ll talk about after it ended first before I get into trying to remember the plot because I can just remember being shocked in the most positive way of where this film had just taken me.  It was the first time I saw a movie like this.  I don’t think I had seen any Star Wars movies, though I had wanted to.  I had probably seen some grown-up movies, but never something like this that was just targeted right at…as a adolescent youth, you know, or preadolescent, whatever age…like a Saturday morning thriller, or serial was what they were trying to recreate with that film.

 

I could tell that it was just such high quality and the story was great, the acting was great, the action, the sets, the set pieces, and maybe I had heard about it because it…obviously already been in the movie theatres and probably some of my friends or kids in my class had seen it.  There was probably already…yeah, there was already toys and stuff.  I didn’t have any toys but I remembered playing with some of the toys, ‘cause I think their toys were different.  Their action figures were a little bit different and a lot of them had…I don’t know.  But anyway, so, I didn’t have any of the toys so it was all new to me other than some of the marketing that might have touched me.  I just remember leaving my house in a daze and it was nice outside, and it was really sunny.

 

I remember…I…actually being in a daze, like being like holy cow.  Then the kids that lived across the street from us were our friends, or, well, yeah, there was a brother and a sister that was my age; Dave and his sister Erin that was a year older.  Then Brian that was a little bit…the same age as my brother Ted.  I remember seeing Dave and saying holy cow, we just watched…I can’t believe what we just saw, and then wanting to live out the movie and reenact it and probably doing that or me and my brother and sister probably doing that.  I think it’s instructive ‘cause it was like, one of those moments I wanted to keep with me even though it was transient and it was already gone.

 

As a child, I wanted to carry that moment with me and hold onto it as long as possible which is probably a good lesson ’cause it was like, that movie took me on such a journey and it was so…impressed me in such a way that I just didn’t want to let go of that experience right away.  Again, this would be a couple years after that where I was old enough to go to the movies by myself which is probably too young, but…and that’s when I had that summer where I was seeing a bunch of movies over and over and over again ‘cause I could pay for it myself ‘cause I had a paper route and it was only like, two bucks or two-fifty.  But I just remember it literally changed my life.  I was like, I can’t believe…just like the first time I read really good fiction.  It was like, I cannot believe this experience that was just provided for me, that I was just taken on by this thing that I totally underestimated.

 

So, okay, so let’s go through the movie, I guess, of what I can remember about it.  So, Raiders of the Lost Ark stars Harrison Ford and that’s who it starts out with, and I’ll already be not remembering much.  So, I’m pretty sure it has…I don’t know if this is what a cold open is, but it opens already in [00:30:00] action but not high action, and mystery.  They don’t show Indiana Jones’ face, I don’t think, for a little while.  There’s a slow build where he’s adventuring with a bunch of other people, making his way through kind of a jungle setting into a temple.  I mean, I think another thing is looking back on it, is very problematic culturally that he’s taking…but I mean, it’s…I know it’s fiction but I…just thinking as a kid, you didn’t have that context to be like should we really be rooting for Indiana Jones?

 

I guess he’s a professor of antiquities so you’d say well, doesn’t that balance it back out?  So, first you just see that he has a leather jacket, hat, he’s got his trusty thing that he uses to swing on, his Devo, we’ll call it, where he Devos it good.  I don’t know how soon we realize what he…he doesn’t like.  Oh yeah, that’s not yet, I don’t think.  But so, he and a couple companions are adventuring into this temple and then he has to overcome these different booby things, booby steps, as Data…I don’t think Data would even say that…from Goonies.  But so, he goes into the temple, he loses some of his companions; one gets lost, one disappears…oh no, no, okay, so, he loses one, I think, then he gets…he has to…they have to jump or swing over something, and he does it.

 

The other guy does it and he says…Indiana Jones says hey, give me…my turn to swing across on my Devo.  The guy says boink, and he takes off.  You kinda see this combination of adventuring and deduction.  At least that’s…he’s a bit of a mystery-solver too, and eventually he overcomes that obstacle, then he catches up.  He finds another booby thing and he realizes oh, the other guy went to the big farm through this portal.  So, he gets through that one, and there was just so many layered on top of one another that as a kid you’re like holy cow, does this really exist?  This would be so cool.  As a kid, a story has stakes right away, big stakes for the hero and the hero’s sidekicks which, you know, they said well, we’ll prefer to visit the big farm instead of hanging with Indy, or the one guy said well, I’m gonna go ahead of you and leave you behind.

 

So, then eventually he gets by one thing, then he has to go across this path.  He says oh, this is impossible.  I’ll have to run, I think.  Then he gets this golden idol and then he even has to weigh stuff out.  This has, you know, been in…there’s been Simpsons episodes about it and everything.  He’s trying to figure out how to do it and then he thinks he’s successful but really, he triggers this part.  This is on the Disneyland ride, even, and then this giant…again, you say, was this real?  Did this…any…and I don’t know; historically, did this kinda stuff exist?  But like, this ten or twenty-foot-diameter sanded-down boulder rolls after him.  He has to run out.  It chases him out and he’s like…again, it’s like, high adventure.  Then he gets out and it’s like oh boy, he’s made it, he’s accomplished his victory.

 

Then he heads down to meet up with his buddy and I think you see his buddy; he’s like, waiting in a sea plane.  Then you see Indiana Jones again and he gets caught by his…the anti-Indy.  Anti-Indy, I guess.  For some reason, I usually remember his name but right now I can’t.  But he says…he’s waiting there and he’s actually kind of co-opted some indigenous people to corner Indiana Jones, some warriors, and he says hey, give me the title.  There is a famous line where he says…and I don’t know the line exactly but he says you know, there’s nothing you could possess, Dr. Jones, that I can’t take away, or something.  So, you get the idea this is his competitor.  It kind of…it’s so strong at the beginning that I guess…and it’s so impressive that even though he plays a part in the later part of the movie, you almost want him…I don’t know, I guess there’s a thirst for me to have more of him.

 

Oh, I just heard Indiana Jones say his name in my brain but I couldn’t hear what he said ‘cause now alls I can think of is Moriarty, but it’s not Moriarty, but a very similar-type relationship, like I can outsmart you.  So, he takes it, then Indiana Jones says…he makes a…he says well, I might as well get outta here at least with my stuff.  He heads out to get away.  Then he goes to the sea plane.  We realize that the person that flies the sea plane has a forest friend, a swamp friend, actually…no, in this case, a friend from the jungles that believes in constriction, a pet…constriction pet.  Indiana Jones says I don’t like those things.  The guys says it’s my pet, man.  But then they take off; they just barely get away.  Even as a kid you say wow, that’s how you open a movie, man.  Holy moly.  Like, wow.

 

Then you see a little serialized thing where I think the movie opens but they also show Indiana Jones traveling on a map which was cool.  So, there’s that.  Then…now I’ll get mixed up ‘cause I think there’s two different sets of scenes.  No, I guess there’s…the next scene…maybe there’s a transition scene but then we see a college.  I don’t know, is this the 1920s, I’m guessing?  Then…or 1930s?  I don’t know.  I’m not…nothing’s my strong suit except for lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones.  But so, we see…again, now we see Professor Jones.  So, he’s a button-down now.  He’s got a blazer with leather patches on the elbows, glasses, his…he looks more down to earth but obviously he’s very handsome.  You say oh boy, is this guy handsome.  He’s kinda talking again about…I guess artifacts and stuff.  I can’t remember.

 

He’s a professor of archeology, I guess.  Yeah, an archeologist and a professor of antiquities.  Then class ends and this guy is waiting for him who’s a little bit…not quite a mentor-type figure but he says…and I want to say this guy’s name is Llewelyn but I’m not positive about that at all.  But that name popped into my head.  He says hey man, let’s talk.  How’d things go?  Oh, well, I got busted by the jerk-face.  Oh yeah, totally.  Then I think he says hey, there’s a couple people from the State Department or something.  I don’t know.  There’s a weird thing where he says yeah, the State Department’s here.  They want to talk to you or we could use your advice on something.  Then they have this meeting and I guess we start to see some of his adventuring supplies.  We see his office and stuff like that.

 

Then the people from the State Department are there and they say hey, we’re dealing with the worst of the worst.  He says oh, and he goes yeah, them.  He goes oh, boy.  He goes A-X-I-S?  He goes yeah, yeah.  He goes, okay.  He says, what’s go…what’s up?  They go, have you heard of the Ark of the Covenant?  He says of course I heard of it.  That’s the ark where the Ten Commandments were held but it’s also rumored to have all these powers and that it could be used to…used in a non…that it could unleash a lot of power that’s not good, or that someone could use.  They say yeah, we’re thinking they want to use it as W-A-R, what’s it good for?  Absolutely [00:40:00] something, in this case.  Do you think that’s possible?  He says, I mean, probably.  Look at these pictures I have.

 

They say well, where would you find it?  He goes well, I think I’d have to find it out there…somewhere out there, beneath the sun and stars.  They say, what?  He said never mind, sorry; Scoots slipped in a Fievel reference.  He says, I think…I don’t know.  Then they say well, we heard that they’re doing this dig in Egypt.  Would you look into it?  He goes well, first I’d have to look into something else.  Then I think there…maybe there’s some transition scene, but then we get some scenes with Karen Allen and…that are amazing.  She’s having…she works somewhere high up in the mountains, maybe the Himalayas?  I don’t even know.  She runs a bar.  She’s having a drinking contest but apparently she can hold her own against anybody, so she’s having a drinking contest with a gentleman that’s much bigger than her.

 

They’re gambling.  Then it says…you see kinda that she’s an adventurer too but she’s saying maybe…does she have sad eyes?  But she has a victory.  She’s like, happy at this point.  She’s like, this is my place.  Maybe I have some sad eyes but I’m also happy running my place here.  She has her community.  Then who rolls in but this dude in a black raincoat and he’s also…he’s kinda representative…and again, I guess they layered these antagonists.  I don’t know, there’s one, two…maybe there’s three representative antagonists, or is there two?  I can’t remember off the top of my head…and then smaller antagonists, but he’s…he comes in.  I have no idea what his name is.  He says, hi.  You can already sense…I mean, this guy exudes not…antagonism but in a subtle, sour way.

 

A lot of people excuse themselves and he’s kinda spending time walking around.  He says yeah, I heard you have…I’m looking for this thing that you use to find this other thing, or something.  Oh, we also learn that Karen Allen’s father was an adventurer as well.  I forgot about that part ‘cause that’s kinda…and they…she…they say we think your father left it behind.  He was supposed to be working for us or something.  She goes, I don’t know what you’re talking about.  Then he says, I think you do.  She says I don’t know what you’re…I don’t.  He says, I think you do.  She says well, I think I don’t.  He says well, I think I’m gonna close your place down for business then, and gently write you a strongly-worded letter.

 

I’m gonna sit down and take this pen and write a strongly-worded review of your restaurant and pub and put it out on the door, ‘cause they didn’t have Yelp back then.  She says, why would you do that?  You’re not even a customer.  He says well, that’s what I need to do to teach you…otherwise you could tell me about this artifact I need to find.  Now, somehow she either had it on her or something and then all this trouble starts, and then Indiana Jones shows up.  The sound effects…that’s the other thing that stuck out to me.  I’ve seen this in the theatre a few times too as an adult.  It’s just like, the level of sound effects and, realistic or not, just the way…what they add to the film.  But so, she starts to…she says no, I’m taking the pens and paper away from you.

 

Then Indiana Jones shows up and they have this whole thing where they’re trying to write…he says all my minions, write nasty reviews of this pub and restaurant.  They almost lose the artifact, then he tries to grab it.  He actually…he had dipped…he put his hand…or no, it had fallen in ink, then he put his hand on it to grab it and it was like, the real ink, the stuff that doesn’t come out, I mean, without a lot of wash.  So, he was holding it in hand thinking he was gonna get away with it, then Indiana Jones takes it away.  They say oh, these letters were just a distraction so you could take this artifact.  Also, maybe Indiana Jones had already come and she had kicked him out already, and then he came back.  I can’t remember ‘cause then he…they all leave ‘cause they chase him away ‘cause they say didn’t you just hear your…you got called for dinner.

 

But he had picked it up with the ink on it, so he had actually had a version of it on his hand in ink…stained in ink.  Then Indiana Jones says hey, sorry about the time I thought…I didn’t bring any money for our date and then I…and she goes yeah, well, forget the whole thing.  They say okay, well, remember…and they say well, okay, anyway, what do you want?  I’m frustrated with you.  He says well, I need that…your dad was looking into something and I need to look into it.  She says well, we’ll look into it together; partners, or something like that.  Then they fly to Cairo, I believe, all as a group, or the two of them.  But so, they go there.  I think that’s where they go, but they go to meet…Indiana Jones has a friend there played by John Rhys-Davies.  John Rhys-Davies plays his friend Sallah, so they go there and they meet up.

 

He says, what are you looking for?  Then he says yeah, this is what I’m looking for, and he says okay.  Then we realize that there’s somebody else…there’s multiple people watching for Indiana Jones.  We see Sallah has already figured that out.  He says hey, this guy was trying to give you sour grapes.  Indiana Jones goes, I hate sour grapes.  It gives me a headache.  He goes yeah, good thing I had helped you with that.  Then Karen Allen makes…and he says okay, well, I think I can find…I know they’re doing it outside of town somewhere, so we’ll go over there.  He goes okay, let me just have a action sequence or something, or he goes maybe I’ll go down to the market.  Then we see Karen Allen comes out and she looks beautiful, so we kinda have this romantic moment.  He says oh, boy.

 

She says oh boy, you’re…don’t…if you like it, put a ring on it.  He goes, okay.  He goes, let’s go for a walk or something.  They go for a walk and then there’s this great…this is one of the more famous action-comedy sequences.  Again, you get the sense that this is a movie that does not take itself too seriously; it’s a serious movie but it use…also uses a lot of comedy and high-quality acting with…comedic acting ‘cause there’s this action sequence in the market and in…around this town…around the city.  Karen Allen and Indy get separated, then they have to deal with a bunch of people they were hired to…oh, actually, they get away with her.  I didn’t even think about that.  I guess that’s what happened, yeah.  Then Indiana Jones just barely gets away.  He kinda uses…there’s just a lot of action-comedy.  So, he can’t find her.

 

Then him and Sallah meet again and they say okay, well, I think what happens is they say let me get to the bottom of this.  Let’s go figure out what they’re burying or uncovering first.  He says, this is actually the only time we’re gonna be able to find it, is…we gotta go down to where their dig site is.  We need this thing and we gotta translate this.  ‘Cause I think it was a headpiece, the item that Karen Allen’s character Marion had.  Like, it reflects the light.  So he says okay, we gotta go down.  Now meanwhile, Marion’s become the guest of all people, Belloq, who’s Indiana Jones’ rival and working for the not-good people.  So, she says you’re working with these not…these is not good.  He goes well, highest bidder, baby.

 

She goes, that’s a mistake.  He goes well, that’s a mistake I’m willing to make to get to the bottom of this.  Where’s the thing and Indiana Jones?  She goes, you’ll never find them.  He goes well, we’re trying to get to the bottom of something ‘cause we had this thing with the ink on the guy’s hand and we still can’t get it to work right.  [00:50:00] Oh, and that’s the difference; so then Indiana Jones, they have both sides.  Only one side printed on the guy’s hand because, you know, it was only on one side.  So, they realize oh, they’re using the long…wrong sized staff.  So then Indiana Jones goes down…is this what happens?  Yeah, I guess he goes down there and again, he has to deal with some things that he doesn’t necessarily like.  He has to overcome that.

 

Then he finds the…huh, maybe…I may be doing this out of order but that’s pretty typical.  But he goes down, he says let me get this thing free, or let me find out if the Ark of the Covenant’s down here.  I want to say there was one more scene but I think that yeah, I guess there’s two more locations.  So, he finds it.  Then I think Sallah joins him and then they start moving it.  I think they eventually start raising it up and then they say hey, thanks; you’re gonna stay down here.  Then Indy has to get outta there which I think he finds his way out somehow.  But again, they say oh boy, I have to overcome the things I’m not comfortable with.  But they thought he was stuck there, so he gets out and I don’t know, Sallah…maybe that’s it for him in the movie, I guess.

 

I can’t remember if he comes back in the movie, but basically then Indy says okay, they got Marion.  Maybe they have Sallah, and they have the ark.  Now I gotta figure stuff out.  But I think he says well, first thing’s first; I gotta rescue Marion.  In this case, maid Marion.  Then she says, I don’t need rescuing.  He goes and finds her tent and then they say…she says okay, let’s get outta here, and she’s the one that does that.  Then they have to…then they get on this thing with this biplane…not a biplane but a single-winged plane which is very advanced for the time that the not-good team has.  That’s when there’s all sorts of action that actually the stunt show in Florida has.

 

So, there’s this big action sequence, tons of cool stuff, and a whole thing of one-upsmanship and him…Indiana Jones trying to outsmart and out-dance and all that.  Then I think right when…at least my memory serves, right when they were about to get away, something else happens.  I can’t remember.  I guess maybe I’m missing a sequence and maybe some of this is out of sequence, but they don’t manage to get away.  Belloq and maybe that dude in the black raincoat and maybe one other…I’m pretty sure there’s one other…or maybe it’s just Belloq says no, you’re busted; B-U-S-T-E-D, busted by the antagonists, and so sorry.  Then they say okay, you’re gonna come with us ‘cause we’re gonna actually test this out to see if we can use this Ark of the Covenant as a W-A-R, what’s it good for?

 

I think Indiana Jones tries to reason with Belloq.  He says listen, man, you’re talking about…a spiritual item can’t be used as…for what’s it good for?  It’s good for doing good.  If you do this, it’s just not a good idea.  He says you know what?  I work for this…we believe in…we’re co-opting spiritual forces for our own means.  Indiana Jones says that’s a bad idea, man.  Then they go to this remote location where they have all these lights set up and energy boosters and all sorts of stuff like that and Indy says again, you’re making a big mistake.  They say well, I don’t think we are.  He says okay, and then they set it up.  They kind of…Indy and Marion and maybe Sallah are there.  Belloq is like, gets all dressed up ‘cause he says well, I have to be in a fancy headdress and stuff to co-opt this energy.  It becomes this great build.

 

He’s, like…almost like he’s weaving spells ‘cause he’s reading all sorts of stuff, I think.  Then there’s a slow build-up.  Then Indiana Jones realizes okay, he’s still deducing or unpuzzling one last mystery, I think.  He says okay, don’t…close your mouth, your eyes, and your nose, and don’t open them for any reason because that’ll counter the spiritual W-A-R try.  ‘Cause he says you’re unleashing something…power you don’t understand, which ends up happening.  Then Belloq releases this power.  There’s a lot of special effects.  It’s a bit like…all…so, they had all these…they ended up…for some reason they were also collecting candles, so all their candle collections got melted which is frustrating to all of them and they say booty-boo-boo, man; all our candle collections got melted, so we’re really unhappy.

 

We were gonna use those as part of…and they all go away.  They’re so frustrated; they say we’re going to the big farm where we could have…I don’t think they were going there, though.  They were probably not going to the big farm if you know what I mean.  Then Indy and Marion and maybe Sallah are left and they get away.  They say okay, well, let’s bring this thing back.  Then they return and I think they say…he says I don’t know, maybe we should go our separate ways.  I don’t know how they end things but he ends up giving the ark to the US government who just…I guess in another piece of…thinkpiece or a comedy piece, they put it in this giant bureaucratic warehouse and they just store it away in the middle of nowhere.

 

That’s like oh, this is this great discovery and it just gets put away to never be used or discovered again and forgotten.  I think that’s how it ended.  Then it says Coming Soon; Another Movie.  Then the movie after it was called Indiana…I guess the movie started as Raiders of the Lost Ark, then it became Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, so then the next movie was called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Achoo.  That movie was the first movie that had a rating of PG-13 and I remember that just because it was a big, big deal back then.  I don’t know if it impacted the box office as a movie positively or negatively but that movie was a little bit different.  Again, some of the main cast was not there.  I haven’t seen it in a long time so I’d have to rewatch it to kinda get a sense of like, is that movie good or not?

 

I’m curious to rewatch it.  I mean, I think it was not quite on the same level as the first movie but again, how are you gonna capture that again?  I mean, I think it had some interesting parts and stuff like that but so, I guess I can’t really talk about…then I remember that I wasn’t allowed to see it because it was PG-13.  I was definitely not thirteen.  I don’t know, I might have been even eleven or twelve.  Wish I knew what ages I was, but so…but I just remember that it was a big deal and that all the kids were talking about it, especially kids whose parents let them go see PG-13 movies or were like oh, I’ll take you to the movie.  ‘Cause up until that time there was just G, PG, and R.  PG meant you could go; you were supposed to ask your parents but you could kinda go.  Then R was like, under 18 or whatever, under 17 not admitted.

 

Then they said well, we need…again, this was the 80s.  It was a very different time.  I think it’s…we were kinda trying to decide hey, what are our value systems?  There was a big push at that time for traditional value systems.  They said well, I’m not sure about this new world we’re moving into.  So, some people…and I don’t know if that’s what caused this or not, to be honest.  I have no idea, but that’s just my memory of the 80s, saying well, we need something that’s a little bit more…we like vanilla and saccharine.  Do you have those two things?  And saltine crackers; we prefer a film like that, or as far as the rate…we can’t have…wait, does that have sugar?  You know what I mean.  So, yeah, that’s my memory and then I remember the next sequel…what was it called?  I don’t know.

 

The movie after that, the third movie, had Sean Connery in it.  I saw it too many times.  [01:00:00] One of my friends was…we all…the first time we all saw it, we loved it, then one of my friends was like, trying to dig in…we went to the library ‘cause we were so obsessed with the cookies that were in the movie.  Then we went and saw it again, trying to be like, what does that painting mean?  We were all obsessed with the different hidden symbols in the movie which now you could just look up on the internet and stuff.  But there was a lot of hidden symbols in the movie that would pay off later in the film.  Then I…so, I saw…I just saw…it was one of those movies I just saw too many times in too short a period where I don’t think I’ve seen it in a long time and I don’t know if I can.

 

I don’t know, maybe something like…I associate it with some other thing where I’m like, oh.  So, I’m not sure.  It’s been a long time since I saw that, but Sean Connery always makes everything great, and Harrison Ford obviously is great in all three movies.  Most of the other cast…Denholm Elliott…I don’t know if he’s in all three movies or not.  Is that who that is?  Yeah.  But you know, really good.  I don’t know, and again, just a big experience as a kid for me, the first one.  Interesting too, because Steven Spielberg talked about kind of trying to capture that Saturday serial-type feel from Buck Rogers or other stuff.  So, it’s just like the positive echoes of childhood, how it’s like oh, this impacted me somehow and how I viewed the world, and then I…maybe this led to me making the podcast.

 

You say well, you also remembered the movie, and I say yeah, you’re right, I totally misremembered the movie as well.  So, I hope you enjoyed that ‘cause I enjoyed telling you about it.  Goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

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