Episodes
Ep. 233 | The Beatles "Help!" (1965 Film) Part 2
Help! I need somebody once told me the world is filled with Kaili, but some folks call her Kylie instead. (#SmashMinogue)
What does any of this have to do with the “Help!” film? Good point, Buck O(wens); but, then again, what does anything in “Help!” have to do with “Help!”? I mean, the boys are skiing, they’re fighting villains at restaurants, they legit own multiple vending machines… Talk about privilege! #DefundTheBeatles
60 years on, “Help!” presents some of the most iconic scenes and songs in any Beatles-related film not named “Broad Street”. And gentlepeople, this week, Tony & T.J. have got the tapes on “Help!”- specially, the original MPI VHS - and they begin to break down the Fab’s second movie. They also break down emotionally, as they ponder:
🍬 Does P3Z-CASZ represent a dystopian future, or merely a few (legal) edibles?
🐣 (Angry Chicago Guy, after a few Malorts and general sadness because he hasn’t seen Diane since the series finale of “ER”): HOW COME THE LONDON HARRODS DON’T SERVE NO FRIED CHICKEN LIKE THEY DO AT THE HARRODS CHICKEN SHACK ON SOUTH WABASH? AND HOW COME THESE BEATLE BOZOS MAKE SO MANY DUMB JOKES ABOUT REGIONAL CHICKEN RESTAURANTS BUT DON’T GOT THE BALLS TO SOLVE NO BROWNS MURDERS?
🎸T.J. here - real Untitled Beatle Peedles have already streamed “13 GREEN POTATOES”, the new kick-ass album from our very own MENDOZA that just dropped, right? RIGHT? Don’t make P3Z-CASZ find you! (See below for link!)
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13 Green Potatoes by MENDOZA on Bandcamp/Apple Music/Spotify! (and other streamers)
Ep. 231 | The Beatles "Help!" (1965 Film)
“Help!” It’s the second smash film, from the biggest band in the world, released when Beatlemania was still at its peak. It’s filled with great - and in a few cases, top-tier - Beatles music. Its cast includes well known actors, and the director was an expert in maximizing the boys comedic, personable on-screen talents. It satirizes the burgeoning Bond franchise and, it’s in color! (Take that, Boxing Day 1967 UK airing of “Magical Mystery Tour”)
And yet the question must be asked all these years later: is “Help!” a classic? A great movie? Merely a good one? And in the grand scheme of Beatles excellence, what’s wrong with that?
UBP’s Medved and Maltin (which one’s which??) ask these questions, and also ponder:
☠ Is Poison’s “Every Rose Has Ken Thorne” the most famous power ballad about the “Help!” incidental music composer?
🎿 Are The Skitles Obertauern’s most famous skiing-themed band? No? Cool, go ahead and name a few more, since you seem to know so much about ski-bands from Obertauern. We’ll wait.
🦁 (Angry Chicago Guy): HOW COME MACCA DEEP CUT “ZOO GANG” DIDN’T GET NO LOVE AS THE THEME SONG TO ED ASNER’S SHORT LIVED 1987 NBC DRAMA, “THE BRONX ZOO”? AND HOW COME CBS DIDN’T GIVE MARTIN MULL’S “DOMESTIC LIFE” MORE TIME TO GROW AN AUDIENCE BACK IN ’85? AND HOW COME WOR SUPERSTATION OUT OF NEW YORK DON’T SHOW “DOMESTIC LIFE” NO MORE LATE AT NIGHT AFTER MARTIN MULL DIED AND DIANE STILL AIN’T HOME FROM BOWLING LEAGUE?
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Ep. 224 | "Backbeat" Soundtrack (1994)
“Nevermind”. “Ten Summoners Tales“. “The Backbeat Soundtrack”. Sensing a theme here, fellow alt-rocker?
Perhaps more than any other record not named “The River Of Dreams", these three albums are at the very heart of the alt rock/grunge/post-chillwave scene. Going to Metro in 1994? Better bring your cassingle of “Fields Of Barley”. Because at Metro, they don’t take American Express.
And yet, of all the great grunge albums, none is grungier than the motion picture soundtrack of “Backbeat”.
Was (not was) that a little too much? Cut me some slack! The Backbeat Soundtrack really does have some of the early 90’s most notable alt rockers, tearing through a selection of early rock standards that the pilled-up, live Beatles once adored. This week, Tony & T.J. travel back to a time when the world was still mourning the painful assassination of “Cheers”, and ask about Backbeat:
Does the soundtrack hold up? Did it ever? Did Wilson Phillips hold on for one more day? Is our angry Chicago friend still upset that they closed the Phillips gas station on Wilson in 1982? AND HOW COME CHANNEL 9 STOPPED RUNNING “PHYLLIS” IN STRIP SYNDICATION ON WEEKDAY AFTERNOONS, IS CLORIS LEACHMAN’S TONED ARMS TOO WOKE FOR SKILLING? And is one full-length paragraph of questions the new format going forward for these blurbs? I mean, does anyone even read these? If so, stay tuned all holiday weekend to Appleton’s Home For F**K Rock, WFUK, 96.69 FM. Kathy and Judy will return, in oil, after these words from the Sheboygan County Correctional Center and Drive Thru.
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Ep. 223 | “Backbeat” Film (1994)
1994 proved to be one of the most fertile years for Beatles-inspired filmmaking. The titles of cinematic classics either directly about The Beatles (“The Secret Of Roan Inish”, “Blue Chips”) or clearly inspired by their music (“Ski School 2”, “Wesley Snipes’ Sugar Hill”) were ’94’s dominant cultural and commercial hits. (Yeah, go ahead and f off, “The Air Up There”.)
Perhaps the most notable fab film from that year was “Backbeat”, which focused primarily on Stuart Stucliffe’s brief but incredibly/debatably important tenure as a Beatle. What does the film get right? What does it get terribly, offensively wrong? How do Beatles (and cinema, damn it) EXPERTS Tony & T.J. feel the film holds up on its’ 31st anniversary? (Forgot about that milestone, huh, Calderstone/Polydor??) The Gab Two deep dish “Backbeat”, and more, including:
🤜 Before he became a brilliant artist and bassist, was Klaus Voormann an eminently punchable German street urchin?
🍻 (Angry Chicago guy:) How come the fellas who wrote the musical “Hair” didn’t make no song about R.E.M. bass player Mike Mills? And how come The Lemonheads didn’t fix that when they had the chance? And how come the White Sox ain’t got no more dollar beer nights, why don’t Steve Dahl do something?
🐓 Would there even be a Hooters without “Backbeat?” And does that make The Beatles technically responsible for Hooters? Or vice versa? Like, could there even BE a Beatles without Hooters, man? Why are you so afraid to consider all opinions?
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Ep. 213 | “One To One: John & Yoko” (2025) / Touring the Shanoff Collection
As our beloved US quickly descends into cruel authoritarian idiocy, the UBP crew reunited IRL to wax fab on new RSD purchases, old Reckless Records purchases, and then attend an IMAX screening of the new Magnolia Films doc One To One: John & Yoko.
Within the fortified safety of their top secret Meigs Field Beatle Bunker Bag, T.J., Tony and Producer Casey hunkered down to opine freely about anything (¿🇺🇸?) and pre-game with some DEEP HARDCORE MACCA. Owwwoooooo!!!!
It wouldn’t be a UBP field trip without a visit to some kind of ROADHOUSE. And while no one got punched completely through the stomach at this particular establishment, the atmosphere was lively with the CRUNCH of real pub-style appetizers AND the PLOP of real hard-hitting questions.
Questions like:
🤮 Does your pronunciation of the Wrigleyville wing-stitution Yakzie’s depend on which side of the tracks you were born?
🎧 How come streaming services don’t feature an XDR chime and 27 seconds of hiss to start off every album?
💰 Why did John have so many copies of Abbey Road in his re-enactment apartment? Was he reselling them to Bleecker Bob’s for rent money???
Sadly, our fact-checking robot P3Z-Nutz was kidnapped by ICE agents on the way to his favorite oil store, where he has been disappeared without due process to be re-tariffed for Government Bitcoins using taxpayer dollars. I think Gary Numan put it best when he said “Is everything stupid?” (Fact-checking currently out of order)
Remember, if you voted for the scrotum-faced man-toddler wannabe-Putin, you’re either in on the grift (rich psychopath), or you got grifted (poor mark). Binary world, right?
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Ep. 197 | Beatles ‘64 Documentary (2024)
George Harrison's tribute to Smokey Robinson, "When Smokey Sings", isn't just Rob Sheffield's favourite solo Beatles tune. The Motown legend, arguably best known for covering "So Bad", is a huge part of "Beatles '64", the Mouse's latest entry in the world of Beatles documentaries.
1964 is THE seminal year in Beatles history, so surely this Scorcese-produced doc provides a comprehensive look at the full year? Clearly, the talking heads are relevant and used sparingly? Obviously, this release comes in concert with expanded, cleaned up footage improving on what we all really want, a reissued "The First U.S. Visit"?
Our own Medved and (Mister) Roeper explore the highs and lows of yet another Beatles holiday gift, and along the way they ask:
📆 If Leonard Bernstein discusses "She Said She Said" in "Beatles '64", should Dave Grohl and Questlove discuss "Now And Then" in "Beatles '67"?
💿 Why did director David Tedeschi opt to open with a whispery YouTube cover of "All My Loving" over one of Tears for Fears' celebrated Depeche Mode covers?
📓 If this doc was trying to attract a younger audience, how come it didn’t include an interview with Matt Gaetz?
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Ep. 189 | “Daytime Revolution” Documentary (2024)
In 2003, The Redwalls, a really good band hailing from Chicago suburb Deerfield, IL kicked off their album “Universal Blues” by encouraging a “Colorful Revolution”; in a most Beatle-esque Banger fashion.
By coincidence (?), a mere 31 years earlier, there was a colorful “Daytime Revolution” as John, Yoko, and friends took over a week’s worth of “The Mike Douglas Show” - a.k.a. the guy all of us, if we’re being honest, initially confused/conflated with “The Dick Cavett Show”.
This new, soon-to-stream documentary examines these historic episodes, and had a brief in-theaters showing on what would’ve been John’s 84th birthday. Tony saw the film solo in Chicago suburb Glenview, IL, as T.J. handled the un-related, un-paid improv rehearsal many miles from his home - and even further from #GlenviewsFamousDawgPark. The result is a new-ish phase Beatles podcast, reproduced for streaming by Producer Casey. Roll up for this special UBP field trip, an aural journey (cue: “Faithfully”) of Tony documenting a documentary, as documentary commentary from T.J. documents Tony’s documentary commentary of the documentary's documentary commentary.
ALSO: The UBP’s Medved + (Helen) Roeper ask:
🔥🏡 Does a movie with too many talking heads stop making sense? Or does it get nothing but flowers? Is Wings Wild Life > Wild Wild Life? Sick Byrne, qu’est-ce que c'est?
⚾️📻 (Chicago guy - a Sox fan, but he doesn’t hate the Cubs; only Wrigleyville and their fans, and maybe he has a point): “How come the unique single mix of Steve Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” - pressed, my friendt, on WGN Records! - ain’t been made available anywhere else since the original 45? Maybe Dean Richards will return one of my many handwritten letters and tell me what exactly woke WGN is trying to hide?
🥪 Would former American Idol Reuben Studard have been more successful if he’d been slathered in extra 1000 Island and better swiss?
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Ep. 187 | “One Hand Clapping” Film Screening
As Marla Gibbs (look her up, Boomer. Did I get that right?) once said, “there’s no place like home!” And she was obviously singing about Skokie, Illinois - home of a cookie cutter AMC Movie Palace so glorious, it rivals only Chicago’s famous Esquire Theater, now home to a shuttered Dallas-based steak chain. (#Progress)
Usually, Tony and T.J. only go on post-Bears game movie dates when it involves seeing the latest Marvel sequel to a Marvel sequel. (Turn up the volume on those explosions, projector man!) But a special field trip was made after a SEASON-TURNING BEARS WIN, to go see the limited, first ever theatrical release of Paul McCartney’s “One Hand Clapping”. Is the film better on the big screen than tucked away on the “Band On The Run” Archive Collection DVD? Does the music rock even harder in the theater? What’s the deal with popcorn prices these days, Obama? Tony and T.J. ask these salient and Soily questions, and also ponder from the backyard (of the theater):
📚😭 Is the Half Price Books in Skokie, IL this generation’s Tower Records? And if it is, is society in more trouble than we previously ever imagined?
🍿💩 Did “The Popcorn Kid”, the 1987 CBS flop about teens working in a movie theater, that T.J. used to videotape for some weirdo reason, ever have an episode about cleaning human feces from an exterior wall?
🍔🤮 (Angry Chicago Guy): “How come woke Tony don’t ever get no Ohio-based Red Robin Gourmet Burgers on Hulu/FX’s “The Bear”? Some Chicagoan, NOT!” (He laughs a little too hard at his own use of “NOT”, and begins to cough up Old Style from acid reflux. He vomits on his worn shoes. It’s quite sad, actually. His son doesn’t even call him anymore on Christmas; and after the hell he went through as a kid, damn right he doesn’t. And yet, this man needs help - especially after this White Sox season - and y’all laugh? Like your life is perfect? What do you get out of this abject cruelty? Maybe that’s a better question.)
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Ep. 178 | “A Hard Day’s Night” Film (1964) Part 3
The Untitled Beatles Podcast 60th anniversary celebration of A Hard Day’s Night is in full swing, all thanks to Producer Casey’s decision to have an open bar. It is a classic film after all and… oh great. Tony just shaved his head to resemble Gene Siskel and now T.J. is trying to squish into his childhood Q-bert costume. Cheeky! And while these pie-eyed faboons intercept every drink (and jam butty) intended for the Fabs, they ponder:
💿 Which agency would you trust to protect your 1984 mint condition Criterion AHDN Laserdisc: Paw Patrol, Moon Patrol, or Snow Patrol?
👃🏻Is John’s nose very?
🔕 If 10-year-old David Janson’s pal Ding Dong is in fact “a bigot”, does that mean we need to cancel George Harrison’s holiday nut rocker of the same name?
Today’s episode is also a public service announcement, brought to you by Mothers Against Drunk Podcasting.
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Ep. 177 | “A Hard Day’s Night” Film (1970) Part 2
All right, cool, so a lot of y'all like "Head", whether giving it, or getting it, on DVD. Fine! But without question, A Hard Days Night - like Jets Detroit pizza - is better. Because it has to be. #PizzaMarketingTruths
Tony and T.J. continue to explore this still-vital film and its unbreakable impact on pop culture, and also ask:
🌇 Why were The Jeffersons always movin' on up in such a Rush?
🎬 Is "A Hard Day's Night" to the 60's what "From Justin To Kelly" is to the 00's?
🧸 Is it time for poor Paddington to start a Hims subscription?
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