In this week's episode, Frank adds to one topic and clarifies another from recent episodes and feels that doing so is most appropriate for the show. Then he discusses a current issue in college sports that nobody talks about (well, at least from his point of view). He attempts to argue that we need this perspective to understand this whole issue (along with many other current ones) so that we can draw conclusions and find solutions. The subject could be a reflection of society's lack of priorities. He then gives a "disclaimer" about today's Priscilla Barnes review.
That review is a straight to video sci-fi/comedy movie called Fat Planet from 2013. He really emphasizes that it is NOT a good film, but there is some potentially comedic analysis. The movie also has a good message about the obesity epidemic, and that its only real long-term solution is found in more traditional and challenging, but time-consuming methods.
The theme song is called Retro Funk by SoulProdMusic and can be found at pixabay.com.
Fat Planet is available for streaming on Tubi.
--The best way to contact is:
Twitter: @frankwebertx
Web: frankwebertx.com
Email: frankoweber@hotmail.com
In this week's episode, Frank adds to one topic and clarifies another from recent episodes and feels that doing so is most appropriate for the show. Then he discusses a current issue in college sports that nobody talks about (well, at least from his point of view). He attempts to argue that we need this perspective to understand this whole issue (along with many other current ones) so that we can draw conclusions and find solutions. The subject could be a reflection of society's lack of priorities. He then gives a "disclaimer" about today's Priscilla Barnes review.
That review is a straight to video sci-fi/comedy movie called Fat Planet from 2013. He really emphasizes that it is NOT a good film, but there is some potentially comedic analysis. The movie also has a good message about the obesity epidemic, and that its only real long-term solution is found in more traditional and challenging, but time-consuming methods.
The theme song is called Retro Funk by SoulProdMusic and can be found at pixabay.com.
Fat Planet is available for streaming on Tubi.
--The best way to contact is:
Twitter: @frankwebertx
Web: frankwebertx.com
Email: frankoweber@hotmail.com
All right. Well, in this episode, I'm going to. Do a couple of clarification's and auditions. At the beginning of the podcast. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about. The topic that I have an interest and concern regarding college sports. There's a lot of things to talk about a cost for us, but this one. In particular as conference realignment. And then we're going to review. Priscilla's movie that she also co-produced called fat planet. It's not a good movie, but, I hope you'll stay tuned Hello and welcome to Frank Weber's party. One more time. This is Frank Weber, your host. So glad that you could be with us once again today. So glad that you're here. I just thank you for listening and subscribing or however you consume your podcast. I've got a great show for you here today. I'm gonna talk about a number of things, I think it's right to clarify things from the past or, add to them when appropriate. And I just wanted to go back to the last couple of episodes. I was listening to, Megan Kelly's podcast the other day, and she had Dennis on. And I just mentioned Dennis in the last episode. he and Priscilla were in the movie, the Seniors Together, and they may have done something else later. I don't know that for sure. But, the reason that I bring it up is that he's been in Hollywood about as long as Priscilla has and has been through some ups and downs. and he's. Still doing Hollywood and is actually singing, in fact, she played a sample of, I saw the light. It was very good. he's also part of, the Actor's Union that went on strike a few weeks ago. And I just wanted to say real quick that it's not just about ai, but it's also about, in part, getting residuals from streaming. And I think I even saw Fran Drescher, who's the head of the union, talk about this yesterday. that's understandable. I'm kind of puzzled though, because streaming has been around for a little while and I'm not sure why it's an issue now. I know they wanna, get paid those residuals when they're not working. It's probably only a few cents a month on certain works. I've even heard a lot of statistics in Hollywood that there's actually something like, less than 5% of actors are employed at any one time, and the average salary is about 13,000 a year or something really crazy. I mean, we always hear about the outliers, but we never hear about the other stuff. So Dennis Qua was explaining that a lot of it has to do with streaming. they're not really able to negotiate a lot right now with anybody. and I'm just wondering how that might affect my ability to go ahead and review. Priscilla Barnes works In fact, this movie that I am reviewing today was totally on streaming. I'm puzzled that the issue hasn't come up before,'cause we've been doing streaming now for a little while, but I just wanted to make that a little bit more complete and tell you that I had that little concern Another thing that I wanted to clarify, I listened to one of my podcasts, the Mallrats podcast, I thought was quite excellent. If you haven't listened to that yet, please tune in. I think all of my shows are good, but that one was an excellent show and it doesn't seem to have a lot of downloads to it yet. But in that show, I just equipped real quick that the Cannonball Run was not a good movie, but that I thought it was funny. And I just wanted to clarify real quick what I meant by that. in terms of plot and story, it was very thin. I never got the feeling that I wanted a certain team to win. And I think if the story were better, you might've had that feeling. But, there's another video that I saw on YouTube. I don't remember the guy's name, but he basically did an analysis of the movie, discussing how. it would be pretty impossible to get all those stars and cars together in one flick again. And the fact of the matter is they did it a total of three times. There were actually three of those movies and, the third one was called Speed Zone. And, Jamie Farr, who played The Chic, was the only character that was in all three. But I think it is a good movie in certain respects. Because it was funny and it was just overall fun and it was mindless, and because of that you can really enjoy it. but like I said, in certain areas like plot and story, it was pretty thin. Probably could have been a lot better movie, I guess if you think about it. But, I just wanted to mention that I think that's the classy thing to do, is to either clarify or complete. Things that I may have said in previous episodes. So now switching gears once again, I wanted to talk about something I toyed with, whether I really wanted to talk about it or not it deals with sports, but not really a particular school or team or anything like that. And there's definitely some behind the scenes politics that go into it. but it's not gonna be I like this school, but don't like that school type of thing. And so we're talking about college sports here. Something that's been a concern of mine for a little while now. Every July and even this year into August, we're seeing a lot of schools jump their old conferences, leave their old conferences to go someplace else. That apparently is greener. At least monetarily. we've seen this for several years now in the past. I'm a big nostalgia guy, as you know. You've heard me talk about this on the show before and about the past, and maybe it's a little wistful or something like that. You could probably describe it but, this is really gonna be a discussion about. The intangible benefits of sports and not just like you would talk about how youth sports help develop character and responsibility for the players, but just being able to enjoy sports for sports, I think is important. And we don't seem to have a discussion about this anymore. We actually, in this country, the society, we're not discussing a lot of things. Anymore, and I think it's important to do so. but what's happened lately, and I'm gonna use the perspective of the Big 12 conference, which was originally Texas and some Midwestern states to the north, and also because that's where I live. But I also went to school at Texas Tech. that's my alma mater, but I'm not really gonna talk about them too much. But, in the last couple of years, the Big 12 kind of went through some difficult times. It's been an okay conference over the years, but it hasn't been a perfect conference. And a couple of years ago, two schools announced they were going to leave for greener pasture, and then the following year, I believe it was last summer, they announced the conference, got a new commissioner, and it announced that who seems to be doing a fairly good job, by the way. there's still some things that I think need to be worked on, but we can't cover everything in this little commentary. But then last year they announced they were going to get four more teams to come join the conference. And then this past week, or actually two weeks, we got an announcement that Colorado, which was an original, charter member of the Big 12, they were one of the original 12 teams is coming back. they were in the PAC 12 and bringing with them our three other PAC 12 teams, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah. And so now as I talk to you here in early August, the PAC 12 is decimated. They don't have a lot of teams that are gonna be left after this next school year. and now the Big 12 conference reaches almost to the west coast and almost way out to the east because we still have West Virginia on there. Who I assume is still happy. I don't know. I can't really speak for them, but, I'm just always puzzled by this jockeying around. I know it's all about money and college sports has been about money for a long time, but there's something about stability and the intangible ness of knowing your opponents. And looking forward to your game with them. something that is going by the wayside it seems, because my opinion is that what they're trying to do is build one super conference. Hard to say exactly how many teams they're gonna have in it, but there may be a total of 20 to 25 teams when it's all said and done, and those are the only 20 or 25 teams that are going to be eligible for the college football playoff is what's happening there. and so there's a lot of this consolidation going on. We used to have six conferences, and then it was the power five, and now it's looking like it's going to be down to four, and that's the progression that seems to be happening there with that one almighty consolidated power. So not only are individual schools through backroom politics looking to have more money, they're looking to position themselves for future potential moves as well. And in doing so, what a conference is supposed to be about actually gets lost. it's like joining a union. We were just talking about the Hollywood Union. When you join a conference, you join with teams that are in some ways like-minded with you and not just on the money front, but you join with them in order to. be able to have officials to officiate your games as well as to have TV contracts and to have bowl tie-ins. you develop familiarity with these other schools and then you develop rivalries and it makes college sports fun. and when you have this lack of stability and people who are always jockeying around everywhere, it makes it less fun. And people, like I said, we're not discussing this issue. we are destined to go in one direction, which in many ways may not be a good direction. I hearken back to even the old Southwest Conference, or of course the Big 12 was also made up of the old Big eight conference and. And back then, I remember at least with the conference portion of the schedule, you could point to a particular week of the season football and say, we're gonna play this team on this date. I love playing them. I can't stand playing them in another way, but I can't wait to beat'em and we're gonna play them this week. And you didn't have to wait for the conference schedule to come out because it was always the same week of the year, every single year. And that was part of the stability. Maybe not a huge part, but, you had these teams that were familiar. They were together 50, 60, 70 years. rivalries developed. it was really close knit despite the fact that the competition could get pretty brutal sometimes very competitive. I feel like we're really losing that in college sports. I'm kind of an old fashioned dude, as you know. it's August right now, so we still have about a month till the season starts. I'm looking forward to the season, but as the season progresses, you look forward to each game and who do you think has an advantage in it? And if your team is doing well enough and the progression of the season, you might be able to talk about winning some championships. And, instead all we're talking about, and we are actually talking about this since the end of last college football season. usually at that time into December, early January, people used to talk about recruiting. Mostly. Nowadays they talk about other things like the transfer portal, which is another big topic that, I like to get into but won't hear. But they talk about the transfer portal or they talk about the name image likeness thing that was handed down a couple of years ago through the Supreme Court and how that affects college sports. they didn't really talk much about any of those things though. After last season they started talking about realignment again, and that's been the primary topic on the message board that I frequent. And I'm just puzzled, where we're going. there's something more to it than just monetary return. I've heard people say sports at any level, you experience the highs and the lows and you learn from'em once you step away from that game, that gives you skills that you can take into real life with you. I mean, sports are real life, let's face it, but you develop these skills and they take you to the business world or, the world with your family, that sort of thing. That's an intangible benefit of sports, as well as my intangible benefits of being a fan, having some consistency. and who we play and who we know in our conference. And having a conference that is actually kind of like a fraternity despite the competition. So I'm very concerned with where that's going. I hope that made sense to you. I'm very puzzled by it and like I said, I don't talk a lot about sports or politics I don't really know where it's going. I know we all want to make a living and we all wanna. Make lots of money, but there's just, something else going on there. I'll tell one more story that I heard somebody say one time, but, rice University in Houston used to have a coach, in the fifties and sixties. He was there a long time. May have been their most successful coach named Jess Neely. And back then, that seems like a much simpler time. But he said that college sports was getting to be all about money even way back then. And I've seen it all throughout my life, but it's been so in your face since probably about 2008 or oh nine. And I'm telling you, there's other values for having these college football games or college, whatever, games. go to a game in Lubbock and there's tailgating and there's the band and the cheerleaders and the scenery and all these things. And of course there's a game which I want my team to win. I want tech to win. but then you see all this other stuff that's going on behind the scenes and how is it going to affect those old school nostalgic, intangible values that I mentioned Oh, and the last thing that I should say, so the Big 12 is now going to have 16 teams starting next year in 2024. that always puzzles me. I don't know how manageable that is. That's more teams than college football games are allowed by the N C A A in one season. I suppose you could go back to a division format, Some other conferences, oh, division formats, which is what the Big 12 used to have a long time ago, are a thing of the past. I don't know how you manage that and be able to see all these teams that you need to see or would like to see if they're gonna be part of the conference. and so that's a logistical issue that goes there. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. kind thoughts, respectful thoughts. Of course, I wasn't talking specifically about any schools. but it is something to think about. It is something to discuss and like I said, we don't seem to discuss very much in our country. There's many, many issues that need to be discussed, and they're never mentioned. They're never talked about, even from people that I like and admire and so that's just some food for thought there. Oh, and one other thing I should mention here too, for probably 30 years now, I've had this little hypothetical idea in my mind about. Sports, whether pro sports or college sports, maybe even high school or below, have separated the desire to win from the desire to make money, in a sense that making money seems to be more important than winning, even though they technically go hand in hand. I mean, you want to have a good product. You win more games than you lose. You make things more exciting, you're going to make more money. But if you understand like some of the economic systems that exist in college sports and especially the National Football League now, you really think do they really need to press on for a winning team or a winning program that much? Because they're always gonna have money because of these behind the scenes. agreements that they have in their conferences. I believe that's my final thought on that. before we get into the review of, a movie this week, starring and co-produced by Priscilla called Fat Planet, I'm going to tell you up front, this movie is a steaming pile of shit. Okay. I won't be beat around the bushes there. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what podcasting and this podcast in particular right now. I'm trying to do things comedically and I don't know if it's working out that well, but I think sometimes it is. That's why I was telling you about the Mall Rats episode from a couple weeks back. you have to have that niche or niche idea and the related audience to have a good podcast. But that right now is reviewing Priscilla Barnes episodes, whether TV shows or movies, and it doesn't really matter. Whether it's Priscilla Barnes or Priscilla Presley or Elvis Presley or naked gun movies or, it could be anything. I could review anything here on this show, but, not only am I trying to make it funny and entertaining, But I'm also trying to connect with you, the viewers, and so you don't have to know what these movies are or shows. That's why I'm going to tell you about them. in fact, I may be even be saving you some time from viewing some of them, like the one I'm going to talk about today. but I'm just glad that you're here and you're interested and you're listening. I really enjoy. trying to build a fan base and a brand here. and I appreciate your interest and your loyalty as well. So let me go ahead and take a break real quick and we'll be right back to review something. I'm not really sure what it is. I think it's a movie called Fat Planet. Okay, so I'm back. We're going to discuss a movie today called Fat Planet, which is available only on streaming. it was released December 24th, 2013. It looked like it was the quality that went straight to video, and I believe we had some streaming back then. This one is available on Tubi in case you're interested So Priscilla Barnes is the main star top build in this movie. She's also a co-producer. And, I'll tell you a little bit about the plot in just a second. as far as movies go, it is a real piece of shit. I don't know if I can emphasize that enough to you. I watch these movies by myself. My wife generally never really watches anything with me that has Priscilla in it, outside of, three's company or maybe a few other shows that she's been in. But I actually got this. Embarrassed feeling watching this, and how can I get embarrassed if I'm there by myself? that's how bad it was. Now, I will tell you at the end, I do think that the message that the movie was trying to convey was overall pretty good. Okay? So it's not without A very tiny bit of merit to it. there was something redeeming about the movie, so this is nearly 10 years old. I believe it has a PG 13 rating. I think that's according to Tubi. I don't really know why. There may have been some swearing in it, I think, but I don't even remember that. there really wasn't much objectionable in the movie. It was just a bad movie. And the crazy thing is there's really, very little information out there about it. I know we did American Girls several weeks ago. That was a very brief show. Six weeks I think it was on, and then it was gone and forgotten forever. that was 78, so that's nearly 45 years ago now. This is almost 10 years old. It doesn't have a Wikipedia page. It doesn't have anything about it on Rotten Tomatoes. And then I M D B had a little bit on it. it was very brief and pretty inaccurate. They said it was a documentary about fat people, and it wasn't a documentary at all. It was actually a scripted plot or attempt at a plot and story. but there was nothing. Documentary like about it. There was no narrator or anybody explaining things in a certain way. I M D B also said that it was somehow connected or had a reference to et the extra terrestrial in it. I didn't really see that. those two movies are not anywhere close to being in the same league. the point is that there's not much on it. Overall, the movie is very low budget. I would tell you that for sure. It's very low budget. The cinematography is bad. The special effects are bad. The acting in general is bad. I thought Priscilla may have had a little edge on most everybody else there. But it wasn't by a whole lot. when you watch this movie, And I know not everybody listening is gonna know what I'm talking about, but it reminds me of one of those movies that was on late at night, years ago. Well actually I think they still have them late at night on Cinemax or Showtime, basically what they call the soft core porns where. There was very little story when people broke out into random sex acts, but because they didn't show genitalia, it was considered soft core. Now this movie is not soft core porn, and like I said, there's very little to objectionable in the movie, other than the movie itself. but that's the feeling that I get watching this. I got this feeling that the characters were just going to break out into sexual acts or whatever. that's how I felt because it was solo low budget and everything was just not well made at all. the show opens, Priscilla Barnes plays a TV talk show host named Jill Strong. they are in a talk show there at the very beginning of the show, and she's talking to a couple of people Who are concerned about obesity or, fatness and what we can do about that. that is a real problem in our society today, you have an obesity epidemic and some people might even call me obese. I've always kind of debated that though,'cause I am working out and going to the gym and I have a certain buff look to me, She's kind of rude to her guests, maybe tries to pit them against each other to a certain extent. And so they're talking about the obesity topic, her character. I'm not sure who it was based on, I think it was maybe based on The late Morton Downey Jr. Who was a radio personality. And in the late eighties he had a syndicated talk show that. Didn't really get a lot of wide distribution because it was so controversial. But he would put his guests against each other and sometimes they would fight each other. And, it was so controversial that I think they eventually pulled the plug on it and took it off the air. that was back when talk shows were. Really starting to get big. some of them were calm talk shows like Oprah for instance. But then you had around that time, Geraldo got into a big fight with some skinheads and there were some other controversial ones that would come about later. This was before Jerry Springer, and I believe she's modeling her character off of. Morton Downey Jr. Who I used to think was related to Robert Downey Jr. They're not, but Morton Downey Jr. Is from a family, that entertained with a lot of singing and dancing and whatnot. But anyway, there's a lovely young woman we'll talk about in a little bit named Julie Sloan who comes to Jill Strong set after her show. And I was looking for her brother named Jack Strong, who is a diet and fitness guru, and Julie is trying to get him to endorse this energy drink. she works for a company and Priscilla says, well, I don't really keep up with them. They are sort of estranged and they never have a scene together. Jill and Jack Strong, or Jack and Jill. I think they did that on purpose, Jack and Jill Strong. But Julie goes and finds him at his gym and he's helping a lot of people. He's used doing common sense methods to get them back in shape through exercise and smart diet choices. drinking water or. Drinking sparkling water with real fruit juice to make a soda. There was one of his tips, but, he doesn't wanna do Julie's thing. He won't endorse it. Energy drinks are not actually that healthy. Because of sugar and caffeine. So he says, no, that's beyond my principle. No matter how much you pay me, I can't endorse that because that's not what I'm here to do. And what happens eventually is that Julie follows him out of the gym one night and they're abducted by these aliens. They beam them up to their ship and take them to a planet that is not very close by. That they uncreatively call the fat planet and they're on the fat planet. Everybody's fat. they're snacking all the time, usually off of this little donut or pastry like thing. They have'em at all the meetings and everything. they wanted to bring Jack Strong there because the king and the queen realized that they have this problem. the physician on the planet has said that, you can't continue to have a populace that has all these habits because they'll die off. and while they're eating as well, we're also burning up our natural resources, so there's an environmental aspect to it as well. And so the physician there gives'em that plan, and that's how they get Jack Strong. And by accident they get, Julie Sloan, to come with him to this planet. So when Jack Strong gets there and talks to this king and queen and their counsel and everything, and it's all a big goofball fucked up thing, it's really crazy, this show. But, Jack and Julie have been abducted and kidnapped. They want him to donate his time and knowledge. In fact, his, slogan, his knowledge is power to the populace there, even though he's been kidnapped and abducted. And like most people would wanna go back to earth instead of, having to work several months to get people back into shape. and he teaches them his techniques and his knowledge. And, it works on some of the populace there. I think. the actress that played, Julie had a sister who was, one of the people who was initially fat and worked it off. But the conflict there is that there's this, woman who works in the pharmaceuticals there, who is good at making a lot of pills, quick fix type pills. she teams up with this other guy named Styles. And so they're actually the main conflict on this fat planet. And, they're interested in just quick fixes And Julie actually at one point, since she was taken up by mistake, she just wants to go home. And has decided that, since she is a consumer of this energy drink, that if she can maybe give them the recipe somehow that they can create an energy drink that might be a good alternative and work faster than Jack's plan. And, that would allow her to go home a little sooner. So she works against Jack initially and, the whole. Show was a mess. But they eventually realized that there's, one best physiological way to lose weight. speaking of that, I had a teacher in dental school physiology who said, eat less and move more. And that was a little oversimplified compared to what Jack was doing exactly in this movie. but his. Technique worked versus creating a pill or an energy drink. In fact, the energy drink almost caused the pharma lady to die from a heart attack at one point in the show. And if you're going to have a good message, which I think this does ultimately, and I'll get to that at the very end. You need to make a good movie. I do not know any of the other actors in this movie. I don't know their names. whether in 2013 or now in 2023, Some mentions here, I don't know if I would call it honorable mention, but, the young lady that played Julie Sloan, a nice looking young lady. I thought her choice of dress in this movie was unusual. She had this strapless one piece, I think it was one piece, shirt and shorts together. And yet she was a saleswoman or worked for this company that was trying to promote this energy drink. And she's nice looking and I liked the way she was dressed, but it didn't make sense for what she was trying to promote to Jack Strong. and that's one of the many blunders that exists here. The only memorable scene actually was when Julie first goes to Jill Strong to find out where Jack might be. Jill asked if she's married, which she's not, and then she has her turnaround to look at her physique and says If you can find him, you can put his face on your can, which I guess was one of the few instances of any kind of innuendo in the movie.'cause she was carrying around this can, which had his face and was trying to market it to him. But like I said, out of principle, he wasn't going to endorse it or get money from it. but that was an interesting scene and funny. one of the few highlights of this movie. There was a guy in this movie named Styles. He was a black guy and he was the one who teamed up with the Pharma Lady on Fat Planet. he reminded me a little bit of Tommy Lister Jr. Who was an actor. He passed away actually just a few years ago. I know him and a lot of people from my generation know him. As the guy who played Zeus against Hulk Hogan in the, wrestling classic called No Holds Barred from 1989. we thought that for a long while, he was actually a wrestler. It turns out he only wrestled once or twice in order to promote that movie. and the rest of the time he was really pretty much a straight actor. the guy who played styles looked a lot like him. it wasn't him though. but it's fun to see people who, they're different people, but they remind you of someone else. the guy who played Jack Strong looks a little familiar, but then it didn't match up with the name. I would tell you that. the king and queen and the jester in this movie, the jester kept coming back. He was very annoying character. Oh my gosh. if there was somebody who could have, not been in it, it would've been him, they were very annoying characters. didn't care for'em at all. King and queen with their little crowns looked funny. And they didn't seem very convincing at all. it was a really bizarro thing, their situation there. before I give it a grade though, I'll give you the overall message of the movie is about eating less and moving more and getting people healthy. There are no shortcuts, whether it's a pill. which I think is an issue nowadays, Ozempic, which is a diabetes medication, the side effect of it is weight loss, which you would kind of expect from a diabetes medication. but you don't take these drugs for their side effects. I hear a lot of people taking it for weight loss. they have to get a prescription though. I guess doctors are doing that. but it's supposed to be primarily for diabetes. That's an example of a weight loss pill that is popular today and in some cases being used off-label. And then of course the energy drink that can get your heart going and maybe burn some calories that way, but that's not a healthy way to do it. You get big side effects from that too. So he's saying just do things the old fashioned way. It's a lot of work. Takes a little while, but it'll be worth it in the end. And he was able to accomplish his mission on this planet by the way. then we look at that as a larger society. we are not a particularly active society, spend a lot of time sitting down and on computers and whatnot, and it's been going on quite some time here and we just need to get our health back. a different planet that had two suns. it's not close by to earth. They actually blackmailed Jack Strong into to helping them, otherwise they were going to threaten Earth. That was another plot point that I forgot to point out, and he is already been kidnapped and now he's being blackmailed. another big part of the unevenness. Of the movie, but overall the message was pretty good. However, you gotta have a good movie if you're gonna have a good message. I think, I'm going to give, the movie a d and then Priscilla's part in it is, a C minus. I think she actually stood out, head and shoulders above everybody else in here. I believe that's about it for this week. talked a little bit about the show and those other things earlier, I'm really glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're, coming every week. hopefully you're enjoying the party. and, continue of course to listen or subscribe or download. you're my friends and, and look forward to seeing you again next week. for now, this is Frank Weber signing off from Frank Weber's party. We'll see you again next time. The theme song is called retro funk. Bye soul prod music and can be found@pixabay.com.