We're celebrating 10 years of The Whatnauts with an end of the year "grand prix" because you can call anything a grand prix, there's no rules stopping you! Two people talking about pizza can be a grand prix!! Kyle sees a chicken. Melissa sees a big glove. Between the two of us, we've seen Tenet 3.5 times and Interstellar 1 time and we're going to try to understand both. We also give out the yearly Review Show superlatives, recap the F1 season finale and the Game of the Year awards, imagine a Scrabble game that takes up your whole house, and talk about cow cinema.
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Episode 310. We discuss the uncertainty of the F1 drivers championship going into the final grand prix of the season, and then get into our own show's "season finale" with the Rotten Tomatoes game! We predict the critics scores for 40 films premiering next year, and see how close our guesses were for the cinema of 2025. After being delayed multiple times, how was Kraven the Hunter received? Which family-friendly adventure and satirical horror movie both received a score of 93? What are our expectations for the tentpoles of 2026, some of which haven't even been officially titled yet? Will any movie include Lobo? How many distinct streets will be fought on in the new Street Fighter movie? Join us for the thrill of numbers!!!
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Episode 309. Is Louvre Detective going to be Teen Columbo's best friend or greatest enemy? What do you have to do to get a key to your city? Would you vote for a peanut over a human man? Could movie theaters drum up attendance by playing their movies in new weird colors? If you could schedule all of a year's sneezing into one day, would you? We also discuss night beef, big dumb action blockbusters like The Running Man and the Now You See Me franchise, the Miss Piggy movie, and Vegas, baby!!!!
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Episode 308. We didn't intend this to be an episode where we make up movie pitches, but here we are. Kyle has an idea for the romantic comedy of the year starring heartthrob Wallace Shawn. Melissa has a Hollywood meta-thriller about an actor acting as his own dad. We talk about both Ripley's Believe It Or Not and the Talented Mr. Ripley, the biggest paintings we've ever seen, the end of Bugonia, the difference between miniseries and limited series, the difference between beach goth and coastal goth aesthetics, and asking strangers for their favorite Mark Ruffalo movie when you run out of normal small talk.
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Episode 307. Your ghost hosts A Warlock and Bob Chili from Chili's are here to turn past anecdotes into "scary" "stories." Drink your exclusive Mtn Dew: Void Suck flavor, and listen to tales of: TV characters asking for your help, genetic crossbreeding experiments to make new sports mascots, a post-apocalyptic world where the only apocalypse is that everyone who knows how to make Taco Bell went to live underground, goo city, a Kitchenaid dough hook for a hand, winning Terrible Immense Power in a raffle basket, aliens who don't understand Uranus jokes, and some real pitches for M&Ms: The Movie.
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Episode 306. What real pieces of media are so strange and obscure that when you try to describe them, it sounds like an internet urban legend that you've just made up? We bring you endless circles, a scarecrow vigilante, little mouth guys, a robot in a mountain, and offbrand edutainment CD-Roms. We also read the notes written in Kyle's old high school copy of The Great Gatsby, learn about St. Louis wedding pastas, discover the pops, and argue about the proper division of items in fundraiser raffle baskets.
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Episode 305. New discoveries: putting stickers on a horse, an abnormal spike in Mimi per capita, and the secret of Taco Bell Shelter. Halloween is here with candy apples, baking competitions, new horror movies Him and The Long Walk, and the Korean drama Light Shop starting as a horror and then completely dropping that genre as the show goes on. We also discuss Movie Fantasy League strategy, the Emmys, the Game Awards, and how F1 races are either exactly what you expect them to be or wildly surprising.
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Episode 304. Friend of the show Jacquelyn returns for a fantasy draft of directors and their favorite actors to work with. A real film nerd's feast! Topics include: pairings so familiar they feel cozy like an old sweater, music videos, monster makeup, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, affable devils, chicken wing preferences, and Kyle MacLachlan making a fanvid edit of his and David Lynch's friendship.
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Episode 303. What did we learn this week? Kyle is too out of shape to walk 2 miles to the movie theater to see Honey Don't!, Dark Melissa comes out at fundraiser trivia nights, and there are hundreds of obscure and defunct M&Ms characters. We also discuss the animated series Pantheon, Buster Keaton gags still hitting, the possibility of Nicolas Cage as a True Detective, if you need to apologize if you call something "nightmare fuel" but then it never actually gives you a nightmare, and still feeling pain over the lack of a third season to finish off Mindhunter.
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Episode 302. Did you know you can't have an open comic book in your car in Norman, OK? Or that you must be fully clothed to be rescued by a firefighter in St. Louis? We go through weird local laws, then dive into the animated anthologies Eyes of Wakanda and Predator: Killer of Killers, new shocking horror movies Together and Weapons, and Melissa's tour of "a man has a dumb idea" movies The Hudsucker Proxy, The Swimmer, and Synecdoche, New York. We also discuss a fanny pack full of massage oil, new Spider-Man suits, racecar driver fight clubs, and the feel-good trailer for Rental Family.
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Episode 301. We've surpassed 1000 podcast episodes AND it's the 70th birthday of some unknown man named Luigi. Lots to celebrate! We enter our "burrito era" by bundling more of our podcast content together in a single episode, and dig into season four of The Bear and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Kyle praises the cinematography of Ripley and This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection, Melissa tries to explain what genre Eddington is, and we compare what trailers we keep seeing at the movie theater. Finally, we want everyone to know the inspirational story of an F1 driver who finally won a race on his 239th try.
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Episode 300. To celebrate episode 300, we present a special travelogue on Kyle's roadtrip to visit Melissa in St. Louis! We explore toasted ravioli, the Arch, Forest Park, the found art jungle gym that is City Museum, getting rained on at the Muny, seeing Superman in James Gunn's hometown movie theater, the real burgermobile from Good Burger, and Uranus Fudge Factory.
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Episode 299. For our annual trivia night, Kyle brings well-researched questions from across pop culture, and Melissa offers a quiz on the Captain's Log itself. Which two Muppets appeared in every episode of The Muppet Show? How much do the burgers cost on Bob's Burgers? What actor did we once fancast as a live-action Gumby? What limited edition McNugget sauces did Kyle eat with the McDonald's BTS-themed meal? We also add visual questions this year, where Melissa has to identify comic book creators and Kyle has to identify the Spice Girls. Join us for the thrill of competition, the joy of learning!
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Episode 298. Kyle received surprise bonus snacks with his Switch 2. Melissa fears being sent to a circle of hell for people who use too many plastic grocery bags. Our cinema corner features Friendship, Bring Her Back, The Phoenician Scheme, Materialists, and The Life of Chuck -- which, spoiler alert, is mostly about math. We also discuss new operas, a performance of Hamlet where he "does a Saltburn," Brits we expect to see knighted in the future, women in fast cars, and our deep excitement for Spaceballs 2.
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Episode 297. Melissa lists things Kyle can see on his upcoming trip to St. Louis: our local walk of fame, live outdoor theater, all kinds of big weird statues, classic Italian dining, the original Build-a-Bear Workshop, and a school bus where it shouldn't be. We also discuss speed-reading a sad book, if Black Bag could've been sexier, who will "win" San Diego Comic Con this year if there isn't a Marvel panel, and the first look at Wake Up Dead Man.
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Episode 296. Melissa went on vacation to House on the Rock, a sprawling junk drawer of a house in the forests of Wisconsin. We take a tour of its many baffling sights, and discuss optical illusions, centaurs with the wrong ratio of human to horse, and a statue so big that it becomes cosmic horror. We also catch up with F1 news, Met Gala looks, the filmography of Gabriel LaBelle, movies about musicians on the edge, and finally, our predictions for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.
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Episode 295. We celebrated May the 4th this year by designing our own dream Star Wars movies! Kyle makes a crime caper and Melissa makes a psychological horror, who's surprised? We talk about spending more time in this world's unique architecture, a starship so big you can't walk across it all in one day, food and beverage of the Galaxy's Edge theme park, and why Colman Domingo should be the first actor to play himself in a Star Wars project. We also discuss Beta Ray Bill, cooking classes, and real working cars made of LEGO.
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Episode 294. Finally, after years of doing our Cinema Corner, we add more Corners and build a full house. This house has everything: an observatory, a racetrack, and a bathroom with fancy soaps that's just for company. We discuss Star Wars news, current F1 standings, recent bloodbaths in movies and TV like Warfare, Sinners, and Daredevil: Born Again, the trailers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps and sports horror movie Him, the video game Blue Prince, and Mr. Darcy jump scares.
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Episode 293. Top questions this week: If "space opera" is a narrative genre, are there also "land operas?" Can you really taste subtle notes of oak in that wine, or are you just making that up? Will the four Beatles movies have four popcorn buckets that combine to make one big bucket? Why aren't there any original, non-franchise superhero stories on film? We also discuss Marvel's five-hour livestream of chairs, if the fight to save Coyote vs. Acme will give it a box office bump, trailers for One Battle After Another and Tron: Ares, the new Spider-Man trilogy, the crime thriller Prisoners, and the biggest Paul Bettany you've ever seen.
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Episode 292. Formula 1 racing begins a new season this spring, and we have Brad Pitt's F1 movie this summer, so it's time for Kyle to explain what the sport actually is! With a beautifully constructed slideshow, we give a primer to newbies about how the race works, fun facts about each driver, the evolution of the teams, and answers to Melissa's questions like "do they play jock jams at the races?" and "are there mascot costumes?" We also briefly discuss new films in theaters this month and what's on YouTube's own YouTube channel.
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