[00:00:18] Speaker A: Welcome to Friendly Competition, a podcast discover the best of all time. I'm Nick Carey alongside my co host and best friend, Cody Lena. Discuss various pop culture topics and narrow it down to truly the best of all time.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Or as we like to call it, the boat. Before he gets a foot on the boat, we put him into a sweet 16 style tournament. We argue each round till we decide a winner.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Nick, what criteria do we use when.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: We decide he steps foot on the boat?
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Whatever the hell we want. Cody, you want to tell him we're talking about this season?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. We're talking about everyone's favorite. He gives me strong uncle energy. Right. I don't know how he'd be as a dad, but he'd be the best uncle on earth. Six foot three. You know, he's making that movie money, so he's always going to have candy. I assume Will Ferrell knows basic sleight of hand magic as well.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: I would be shocked to find out that he doesn't have just a couple tricks.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Just got to have at least one coin trick and a couple of card.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Tricks up his sleeve, and he probably stumbles through now, it's probably been a minute, but he's like, he still got it.
He could still entertain because also from my understanding, too, because there's a lot of comedians who people will say, mike Berbigli is the first person to say, I'm not a fun person to be around if I'm not on stage. Yeah, exactly.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: I'm fucking in my own head all the time.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: I am not that dude. I am not the class clown. But everyone is like, oh, no, will Ferrell.
He's on another level. He is just so funny all of the time.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Hanging out with Will Ferrell would be awesome because he's funny. He's always on doing his thing. Or would it be exhausting?
You have to have a time limit. You can hang out with people like Will Ferrell. I feel like hanging out with me and you together.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Well, that's fair. That's fair. So I definitely have more of an appetite for it. I think he's very generous of spirit, though. Even in his own movies, he's really about making sure that everyone's getting a piece of this funny pie.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Agreed. I feel like if he's making sweet jokes and me and you started playing around in the space with him, he would enjoy that.
Some people who are, like, the center of attention don't like it when you get in.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: I don't. I don't get that feel. Once again, I think that goes to the greatness of this man and why we're celebrating him here today on friendly competition podcast and going through.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: He's a defining moment of our childhood. Will Ferrell molded me in ways that we have to thank him for.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Well, I think especially know if you're following the. Because I always believe we basically hand off the baton to a funny white dude for a while. So it's like there's the handoff between Adam Sandler to Jack Black, Jack Black to, you know, and then Will Ferrell.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Back to.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: They both. They kind of ran in tandem there for a little Zach. We handed it to Zach Galfinakis for a movie or two. We're like, you get to be the dude.
So I think it's one of those things where it's just like, if Adam Sandler was your middle school, high school education, Will Ferrell is the next step. You're like, of funny.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Will Ferrell tried to hand, especially with step brothers and stuff, he tried to hand the stick off to John C. Reilly, but we collectively as a culture were like, no.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Also, I think John C. Reilly really likes being a dramatic actor. I think he's one of those people who's almost burdened by how funny and funny he is.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: It must be so fucking awful to be so funny all the time.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he genuinely. He does so well in dramatic than. Honestly, I think he's sometimes better as a dramatic actor than he is as a comedic actor. But everyone's like, but you're John C. Riley and you look like that. Why wouldn't we do funny things with you? Come on, man.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: He's the perfect storm.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Was he in the perfect storm? Yeah, he was.
I was like, wasn't he in that?
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Wasn't that. I got fucking jokes, Nick. Don't worry about it.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: You got up to date pop culture references. Perfect storm, I think. 2000.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: 2000. Straight up.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, straight up. 2000 movies. So your references. 24 years old. Perfect. Great. You're in that sweet spot.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: We got some of Ferrell's fucking classics in this one, though.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, we're in group B of Will Ferrell's best movies. We went to rotten tomatoes to get an understanding for what are the best movies. Fiddle just a little bit so we can get bangers in here like old school. But here in group B, we have the four seed Talladega knights going up against the 13 seed Zoolander. And then we have the five seed old school going up against the twelve seed Eurovision. Cody, where do you want to start?
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Let's start with old school versus Eurovision. Nick, I have a dark sin, I have to admit to you and only you, no one else. Everyone don't listen. I've never seen old school at all.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: That's fair. I will say I almost shared in this sin with you until, like, two or three years ago. It was more recent than it would have usually have been. The thing about old school is this is before we're all sure that everyone knows will ferrell's funny from SNL, but we're like, is he, like, leading man funny? Can he do a whole movie? Can he do it? And the reality was, the whole story around anchorman is that no one thought he could. No one wanted to have him. No one was paying to do anchorman until old school came out. And then they're like, oh, this guy can do it. He actually. Is this the one? He is the one who was prophesied.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: I've never seen Eurovision either. I've never even heard of Eurovision. So wild to me, that will Ferrell, actor of his level, can release a movie that I just don't know about.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Well, to be fair, this is a Netflix exclusive. And this did come out on June 26, 2020.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Okay? This feels right in the fucking thick of it.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Deep in the thick of it.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Because.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: At this point now, this is like a month into too. Like, what? The uprising and all the protests. I really wonder, are they like, you know, what's going to really quell this? This will keep people back in their homes.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: There's only one way we can bring together this fractured union.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah. They just want to laugh. And so we're going to give them a movie about a european competition. Are you familiar with Eurovision?
[00:06:31] Speaker B: I am familiar with Eurovision.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Okay. I figured you would be.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: But, like a european music competition where they send each country except England, because England would win hands down. Can you imagine if England just said, ed Shereen to Europe?
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Every time.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Every time, Ed, get in there and they don't let us compete, we'll send one of our b list people who's one of our lower ranked.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Here's the thing, though. I think the problem is, well, a, we did try to do a statewide one in America last year. It was awful. Because the thing about Eurovision is, I don't think it's always about talent. Sometimes it's like, which one of y'all got, like, the weirdest? Who here? Yeah.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: They go into it.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: If you've ever seen. For know, if you're on the Internet and you see, like, a very big. That's a lot of production value to go into this incredibly weird song. The guy who does it like, yeah, that's Eurovision. That's a Eurovision thing right there.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Legendary saxophone thing.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Eurovision, I think, is just too weird for America because what are we going to do? Sending Bruce Springsteen into Eurovision?
So out of place.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: We do Eurovision. This is how we do the United States version of. We just call it the vision because we have it all. Here's what we're going to do. Everyone just gets. You get a letter in the mail that says. It's like, what if we got pulled? We have to do Eurovision music. I don't know how to do music.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: I think that's the only way to do it because then at least we'd go in there like fresh babes. We would just be like, you know what? This is just cool. And we're just fiddling on garage band. And wouldn't that be wild if they gave you a full production studio, all of the instruments you could ever imagine.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: You get, like, a mentor. So me and you show up to the production studio. We won the nick. Yeah. Dr. Dre and Lady Gaga.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: It's like, what this team now? Okay. I do think the four of us, a lot of it is Dr. Dre and Lady Gaga. I want to give them their flowers.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: We may be the make a banger, though.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I think between the four of us, we could put together a true Eurovision.
Weird, weird, weird movie or not movie song. Sorry, I'm thinking about this movie because here's the thing.
So this movie has Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams playing two small town singers. This is just literally the synopsis. Two small town singers chase their pop star dreams at a global music competition where scheming high stakes and onstage mishaps test their bond. So, you know it's about to get weird. You know it's going to get silly.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: But old school, on the other hand, I mean, this is the beginning of it. And for those of you aren't, this is basically three old kind of. They weren't ever originally in a frat, but now they start their own fraternity on a campus.
It is funny, but there is a point where you're like, oh, man, these are probably not good fathers or good husbands, if you're like. Because it's very much rooted in that comedy of, like, got to get away from the wife, the old ball and chain. And now I'm going to.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: The 2000s were a different time, dude.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Men just needed to, apparently, because this is very much in the age of the manchild. Right. And I think Will Ferrell does Manchild almost better than any.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: He's the perennial Manchild.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: I can't think of one that was better than him.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Big baby. Big old baby. You know what saying? And so that's really what it is about. But you also have. Vince Vaughn is classic in it. You get a Wilson brother. Pick which one? It's one of them, Luke. Three of them. How many Wilsons do we have?
[00:10:10] Speaker B: All of them are in there.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: They all got in. They all got a hand on the ball.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Everybody got a hand on the ball.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Everyone's there. It is very funny. They. Because then they get together to, they get the younger guys, the new college to make it an actual fraternity.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Here's the thing, it's hard to root for your vision, a movie that slid under the radar. And also, I'm sorry, Will Ferrell, you didn't do it. You didn't bring the nation back together, not with.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Racism.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: You had huge goals, you shot for the stars and you missed. And I respect that so much. But I think we got to go old school because this is what opened the door for Will Ferrell to get in the game.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to say something now that I don't know if it's true, and I don't know how many movies we have to prove this theory, but I think Will Ferrell, when he's in a wig, is less funny.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: I think there's something about. I think he wants to just get lost in a weird character.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: I think that's funny hair, though.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And. Exactly. He's got the little Brillo pad up top. So he's like, I want to just give me some fun hair. I want to get lost in a character. But honestly, Will Ferrell is like, honestly, sometimes at his peak when he's really just kind of a dude making jokes, that's where he hits. When he gets to play a little bit closer to himself than diving in full blown into a character, because then it's just more about the weirdness. And it feels like he just wants to see how weird he can get versus like, he's like, well, the weirder I get, the funnier it's going to be. Right? And you're like, dog, you've never been funnier than when you were on SNL after 911 and you came and it's the Patriot Day wearing the speedo. And he's like, why is this not okay? How is this not okay supporting America? You're like, dog, he's so good. So I'm with you here. I think old school is the right move here where it will go up against Talladega Knights, the ballad of Ricky Bobby, or know. Obviously he's not the main in Zooler, he is the main villain, though.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yes, but without him, he is the rock that keeps Zoolander from flying into space with its absurdity. He's the straight man in the movie, and he's so necessary.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: It's funny that you are right. He is the straight man. But once again, weird character, though. But it just is. That's his way is like, I'll be the straight man, but I have to be an absurd character then.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: But no wig. No wig, though, so it works out.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: So it still holds. And yes, I mean, he definitely is the reason. Like, that movie. If it's just about Ben Stiller being a weird male model going up against our other Wilson brother, he got to hang out with all the Wilsons.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Do you think he has a favorite Wilson?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: I think we all have a favorite favorite.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: We all have a favorite Wilson, and it's just.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: That's the way it is. Who's yours?
[00:12:57] Speaker A: I'm an Owen guy.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I think we all are.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: I know we want to be anyone who's like, I'm a Luke Wilson. You're like, okay. Not okay. West Paul Anderson or wherever the. Like, we get it. You're cooler. You're the indie Wilson. Come on.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: No. Okay. Luke Wilson looks like the guy that he would if we're at a big party, right? And Luke Wilson's like, yo, anybody hungry? Order some pizza. Everyone throw in some cash. And then he'd be like, yeah, I just made the order. The pizza was $80. So everybody, let's get to 80. But the pizza total is actually 60. And he pockets to 20 a little bit.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: He got that.
Whereas Owen is like, hey, man, you guys, I ordered pizza. He's like, it's $80. If you guys got cash, that'd be cool. Here's my venmo. But he's just there to make sure everyone's vibing, having a good time.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Just their eyes.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: They got that ambition, baby. They got that pizza eyes. You know a lot about someone by.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Them, by the pizza.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: I will say a lot about a.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Man by how he orders pizza.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Exactly. How does he handle this situation amongst his friends? What's he doing? I remember seeing Talladega nights in theaters because now we're on the will Ferrell run. We're on the are. He's. He's only been putting out go. So Talladega nights comes out and I will say, this is my first experience where I watched it. The first time was like, what are we doing here? What was all of this for?
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Who is this for?
[00:14:26] Speaker A: What did we make? And being like, I don't think this is any good. And then coming back to it, like, years later, because we're coming back, everyone's drunk from a party, and it's like someone just sees, like, talladega knights. Like, I'll put talladegonites on. And then watching him be like, damn it, will, you did it again. You son of a bitch.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Did it again.
There's a gift Will Ferrell has where the more you watch the movies, the better they get.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Every single time.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Every single time. What is up with.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: So the jokes are so fast and so dense in his movies that, yeah, your first pass on it. And especially, too, because generally speaking, the premises aren't great.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: It's like whoever's writing, it's like Stephen King with his books, like, why a big, angry dog?
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Okay, I guess if that's where you wanted to start. We want to start the movie off at NASCAR driver who feels inferior to a french man coming in and taking over his role. Okay. I guess if that's what you guys want to make. And so the first time you watch it, you're just kind of watching it just for it being a movie and plot wise, and you're like, not much really going on.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Not great, dude. Okay. If you look up Talladega nights right now, just google it. Talladega nights. Just type in Talladega nights.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Okay. I'll even let you see what the Internet tells me.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Okay, so we got the cast. Leslie Bibb, beautiful, looking great. Will Ferrell. Looking great as Ricky Bobby. Amy Adams, beautiful picture as Susan. Luke Bigham. Young Ricky Bobby. That is a fucking jail shot, dude. He is so hard. He peaked in.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Second arrest. No, Luke Bigham. No Luke big. How do you.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: I think you can get this changed, too.
I think you can go and ask them to not use your mug shot.
Why would that have to be the picture? That's so rude.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: It's got to be just the most searched.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Guess I don't imagine these are the most searched pictures of these actors, though. Like, if we type in, what is Bibb? That's. See, that's not the first picture of Leslie Bibb. Someone is Madam Luke. I mean, who? I don't know what happened to you, big guy? And I'm sorry.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: The Hollywood trapping, it's looking like domestic violence. So maybe you did deserve your picture.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Okay, never mind, never mind. All right, thank you. Thanks for doing that research. Never mind. You suck, dude. Your picture should be sucked.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Fuck you. So Talladega Knights, Zoolander. Here's the thing we got to think about. Are we going to. Zoolander is Ben Stiller piece that has Ferrell. He's. I think Will Ferrell is like one of the best parts of it. He grounds the movie, he makes it believable, and he's like the best villain. But Talladega Knights is Will Ferrell. Every scene, all the will Ferrell you can get up in your grill.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: It really does feel like this is especially, like I said, this is them at the height of their powers. Hollywood can't tell them no. They can put whatever they want into this movie, and they do.
It starts to get that, like, judd Apatow drift, where they're like, nah, man. Every joke's hilarious. Keep them in. And you're like, the movie's like 20 minutes longer than it needs to be. And they're like, nah, don't worry about that. That's fine.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Is there a sport that. Why didn't he do a soccer movie? He did everything else.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: He did do a soccer movie, kicking and screaming. We didn't include it.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Will Ferrell in his sports era. I didn't even know about that.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Will Ferrell just wanted to get his hand on any kind of obscure sport. So whenever that sport gets big or gets talked about, there's always going to be, I guarantee you, I don't watch NASCAR, but I guarantee you every NASCAR race, there's some kind of Ricky Bobby reference.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Oh, for sure.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: You know what I'm saying? Like, there's someone making Ricky Bobby Blades of glory. Come on now.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Can't miss it.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: They're not going to talk about that. How many things are there to talk about an ice skating competition? Not much. So of course you can pro.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: You got to have the basketball one in there.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: You got your basketball reference. I mean, he crushed it. He wanted to make sure that no matter what, if you're talking sports, you're talking Will Ferrell.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: He covered all of his bases.
I think I got to go. Talladega Knights. I think a Ben Stiller piece.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: And I don't even. Honestly, I think I've liked Zoolander the first watch more. But the more you watch him, Talladega Knights gets better and better.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: It does age very. I mean, Zoolander is still solid, but you're right, nothing ages quite like Talladega knights. So I'm with you here. We will move it on. So we have Talladega Knights going up against old school. Literally. You can't have one without the other. You have to have old school to get to Talladega Knights. What I'll say is this really, I think goes down to, like, a preference here. Do you want a more grounded but very funny will ferrell. That's going to be your old school. Or do you like when he's a little bit closer to his anchorman era? Right. Like step brothers is him being pretty anchored in a character, but it's pretty normal. Right. Whereas then you have your anchorman, which is him being somewhat of a character, being playing actually something. He does both very well. No wig. Unless it involves a wig. I'm still holding to this theory. We're going to test it.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: He got the wig in increment.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: You think that's a wig?
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Dude, you don't have that hair.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: You don't think so? You don't think they could get his hair that way if they teased it.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Flipped it, dipped it? Absolutely not. Dude, with that Brillo pad, this guy's rocking up there.
Next thing you tell me he had real cornrows and get hard.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: You could cornrow that hair.
You could cornrow his hair. I guess the haircut's so short in Anchorman, but you're probably right. That's probably a wig. Okay, I'm now absolving this theory because Anchorman, if Anchorman is a wig, then the whole theory goes to shit.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: It goes to shit, goes to shit. I'm leaning toward egg and knights. But my problem is I've never seen old school. I don't know if I need to go to this well and sup from its know, do I need to bathe in the old school well, because without it, we wouldn't have Will Ferrell as we know him today.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: I will say, I do think of the two movies that are going to, because actually, I did just watch Talladega nights. It's so good. I just recently watched it. I was like, this movie rips. So there's a part of me that just wants to be old school because I just haven't seen that. But I think at the end of the day, too, I think, I think Talladega nights is going to hold up much better than an old school. I think old school probably at this time feels dated. Feels like it's very similar to like a wedding crashers where at the time, this is hilarious. But then the more you watch, oh, these, these men are sad.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Like, these aren't happy men.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: This was supposed to be a comedy. These are very sad, sad boys in.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Old school, too, I think. Like you said, he was controlled. This is Will Ferrell trying to earn his stripes in Talladega nights. It's Will Ferrell, unadulterated. This man gets to run wild over the film. The script for Talladega Knights could have been two pages long, the way they improv this movie.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Shocked if it was any more than that, because, yeah, you just look around and every actor they have are just murderers.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Everyone's a murderer's row of actors.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: So you're just like, why would you come up with this? What was the point? We're just going to say, this is the scene, just a set of scenes, and be like, all right, and you all know what to do here. Get after it. Let's have fun.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Why don't we give more good improv groups, just a baseline script and let them run a wild?
[00:21:53] Speaker A: I do think there's got to be some level of talent to it versus just running wild on a movie. And also, movies are expensive.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: You kind of want to trust the team. You can't let the upright Citizens brigade have $10 million just to go fucking.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Wild and just be like, would you give us.
This isn't the 80s. We're not doing that. Executives aren't doing that much cocaine anymore to just be like, how much?
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah, they're just doing cocaine at night to party. They're not doing it to fuel their actual work anymore.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah, unfortunately, theoretically, we used to be a proper country.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: I'm leaning Talladega knights, too. I like the idea of a Will Ferrell that's off the chain, off the leash. Let him run wild and see what he brings. Know.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yep, I'm with you. Think? I think we got to move Talladega knights into that final four. And that is it, folks. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of friendly competition. If you want to watch your boys, a few things that you can do, as always, share with a friend, tell a friend, wherever you're listening to us, make sure you hit that. Like that. Follow that. Subscribe and give us those five stars, please.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. Follow us on all of our social media, on Instagram X and Facebook. Just look up at friendly compod if you have an idea for a whole 16 team tournament you'd like to see us do best color for Will Ferrell's wear. What brings out his eyes, whatever.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Email beautiful blues.
[email protected] as always, shout outs to Charizard for that intro music. You want to hear more of their stuff? Head over to Bandcamp, type in Charizard and replace the vowels with sixes. That is going to be it for us, folks. We got a new episode coming out on Monday. But until then, I've been Nick Carey. And I'm Cody.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Lena. See you on the boat.
