[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City,

[00:27] where we still live and where we.

[00:29] Meg: Podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:33] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:36] Meg: Oh, my God. We're in the same room again.

[00:38] Jessica: Who did you. So long. I feel. I feel like my house is a home again.

[00:45] Meg: It's nuts. I mean, you've been back for a while. I just got back yesterday.

[00:49] Jessica: I've been back for two weeks and you just got back. So. Yes, it's. It's so it.

[00:54] I've been saying it over and over to you before we began podcasting, but I'll say it now. So, so good to see you. I've missed you terribly.

[01:01] Meg: And we're gonna have a nice makeup. Makeup. Makeup dinner.

[01:05] Jessica: Make out. Make out. Are we gonna make out? Yes. Reunion. A reunion dinner.

[01:10] Meg: Reunion dinner.

[01:11] Jessica: Yes.

[01:12] Meg: Where we have to catch up on.

[01:13] Jessica: Catch up. That's where you were going? Catch up dinner. A catch up dinner. Yes. Thank God. Start thinking now. Where. Where should we go?

[01:22] Meg: Such a blur. The last.

[01:24] Jessica: And it's so hot here. Just the idea of eating any place is so revolting. We need to go for so slushies someplace.

[01:32] Do you know that next. That next week it's going to be like a hundred here?

[01:36] Oh,

[01:37] I know.

[01:37] Meg: Interesting. You know, I was in Denver, and then I was in Tampa.

[01:42] Jessica: Tampa.

[01:43] Meg: And those climates are very different from each other and very different from here.

[01:48] Jessica: Did you get sick?

[01:49] Meg: No, I didn't. But I did notice in the first rehearsal I had in Denver,

[01:55] I was like, am I having a panic attack because I was shallow breathing? Oh.

[01:59] Jessica: Cause there's no oxygen.

[02:00] Meg: There's no oxygen. Oh, my God.

[02:03] Jessica: That's so crazy. That is a very, very weird thing.

[02:06] Meg: It's crazy to live like that, but I guess you get used to it.

[02:09] Jessica: Do you think that maybe the whole, like, weed culture is linked to the not breathing? I don't know where that came from, but I'm just thinking, don't know. Colorado, Rocky Mountain high,

[02:21] no oxygen.

[02:23] Everyone's a little lightheaded. Exactly. Making strange life decisions. I don't know.

[02:27] I got sick in London because God knows I can't go to London without getting a bronch feeling.

[02:35] I hate that. I know. But it did not put a damper on my good time. It just made me disgusting to be around.

[02:42] Yay.

[02:43] Meg: I have something to share.

[02:44] Jessica: I'm very excited.

[02:45] Meg: One of Our favorite viewers. If I were to say viewers. Oh my God. Favorite listeners.

[02:52] Jessica: A listener. Who is it?

[02:54] Meg: Ben. Original Ben.

[02:57] Jessica: Original Ben. Outstanding.

[03:00] Meg: Okay, Ben,

[03:02] I just finished listening to your story about the red haired bandits.

[03:07] Omg,

[03:08] so good. It should be a movie. Barbara and her network of unstoppable Karen Society Sleuths vs. Carol Lee Jenkins and her ring of socio political minded thief geniuses.

[03:21] Barbara's Westchester detective saga reminded me of a movie I just re watched because it finally popped up on streaming after being unavailable for many years. I'm sure you've seen it or read the the book.

[03:34] Compromising Position.

[03:36] Jessica: Oh my God, what a great movie.

[03:39] Meg: Susan Sarandon plays a Long island housewife former journalist trying to solve the murderer of her dentist who was sleeping with all of the local society dames. It's so good.

[03:50] By the way, I loved hearing that Barbara went to Sarah Lawrence, my alma mater.

[03:56] This story is so Sarah Lawrence on so many levels.

[03:59] Jessica: All I will say like. Oh Ben.

[04:03] Meg: Oh my God.

[04:04] Jessica: Compromising Positions. That was such a good movie.

[04:08] Meg: Yeah. Now I wanna see it again.

[04:10] Jessica: Maybe, maybe next week.

[04:13] Yes, we can. We can have a watch party.

[04:16] Yeah. So that we avoid the heat. We can stay in the air conditioning here, watch it and drink slushies.

[04:22] Meg: Sounds great. Love.

[04:24] Jessica: Love it.

[04:25] Meg: Well, shall we tell some stories to each other?

[04:28] Jessica: Yes, I would like that very much. Let's do it. O.

[04:41] Meg: My engagement question for you is what is your pain reliever of choice?

[04:49] Jessica: Well, that's a very complicated question. I think the only reasonable response is to ask first, what kind of pain?

[05:00] Meg: Headache.

[05:01] Jessica: Oh, a headache.

[05:03] Tylenol. Okay. Tylenol. I was gonna say Excedrin because the caffeine kick does you good, but I actually think that Tylenol with a cup of coffee is better.

[05:14] Meg: Okay.

[05:15] Jessica: Yes. So, and. And a glass of water. It's like a whole thing. I have a lot of pain.

[05:21] Meg: I love that you're like, which pain?

[05:24] Jessica: It's like, is it psychic pain? Is it physical? I don't know. So that's my answer. Water, coffee, Tylenol.

[05:32] Meg: My sources are. I'm not going to give the top source. We'll come back to that. Because it gives it away. You know, I like a reveal.

[05:40] Jessica: I know you do.

[05:41] Meg: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Mindhunter. You know, I love Mindhunter.

[05:47] Jessica: I love that. Why do they not have a third season?

[05:50] Meg: It's coming. I think. It is coming. Are you kidding me? I'm actually referencing the book, which I have read a number of times because it's amazing.

[05:58] Jessica: Okay, well now I have to Read the book. I'm so excited to hear that review. I did not. No, you would.

[06:03] Meg: You'd be okay with it. It's really graphic. Jessica.

[06:06] Jessica: Probably not.

[06:07] Meg: Okay. I mean like really graphic.

[06:10] Jessica: Like her intestines were X, Y, Z long and lying on the ground and.

[06:15] Meg: It'S just taken out of her body. Yeah.

[06:16] Jessica: Why is it that's the first thing that we went. It's like. And that's. That's like. And that is. This is what you've taught me about serial killers is that they like to remove the innards and put them on the outards.

[06:29] Meg: And look, you can talk about it now. You used to not even be able to hear about. Now you say it out of your own mouth.

[06:36] Jessica: You have desensitized me successfully. Very good. Anyway. Yes.

[06:40] Meg: Mine. Under the book and New York Times. On Friday night, February 7, 1986, Diane Ellsroth and her boyfriend Michael Notar. Nicola. Notar. Nicola.

[06:56] Jessica: Notar. Nicola.

[06:57] Meg: Yeah. Headed to the movies in Yonkers. Diane was.

[07:02] Jessica: Say it right. Yonkers. Yonkers, Yonkers.

[07:05] Meg: Diane was a stenographer in Peekskill and was visiting Michael and his parents for the weekend. They had been dating for three years. And she stayed in the. I'm gonna try it again.

[07:17] Notarnicola's spare bedroom when she visited.

[07:22] Just too many letters in this last name.

[07:24] Jessica: Yeah, fuck them and their name.

[07:29] Meg: Now I don't know what movie they saw that night. I tried figure it out. The Central Plaza Cinema in Yonkers was very popular and it had just converted its 1700 seat theater.

[07:43] Jessica: Whoa.

[07:44] Meg: Into a quad.

[07:46] So it was probably pretty nice, newly renovated.

[07:50] Maybe they saw down and out in Beverly Hills or the color purple or fx.

[07:57] Because all three of those movies were playing in in February 1986.

[08:03] Jessica: Do you remember how like exciting fx was when that came out?

[08:07] Meg: It's a friggin incredible movie.

[08:08] Jessica: It was so amazing. I wonder if that stands out magical to a reviewing. I think it would put that on our list.

[08:15] Meg: Yeah.

[08:16] Jessica: Okay.

[08:17] Meg: Whatever show they saw,

[08:19] it gave Diane a headache.

[08:22] Not the show's fault.

[08:24] She was recovering from an infection.

[08:28] And when Michael and Diane got back to his parents place,

[08:33] Michael opened a new box of 24 extra strength Tylenol capsules.

[08:38] Jessica: Oh, Diane.

[08:40] Meg: That his mother Harriet had purchased at the A p in Bronxville, New York on February 4th.

[08:46] He gave Diane two capsules and Diane went to bed saying she wasn't feeling well.

[08:52] To be clear,

[08:54] the bottle had a glued outer box,

[08:57] a plastic seal around the cap and neck of the bottle. And an inner foil seal covering the bottle's mouth. Why?

[09:08] Because back in 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking extra strength Tylenol capsules.

[09:17] It was determined that someone had tampered with the bottles,

[09:21] which were crazy easy to open at the time.

[09:25] I do not have a memory of the bottles being really easy to open.

[09:29] Jessica: Well, the reason I started having a meltdown was I thought I got the dates wrong. I thought that you were talking about the Tylenol poisoning. And yes,

[09:38] I do remember not, I mean, in my child's brain. I can't, you know, I wasn't like, oh, wow, that was really a mistake that they packaged them that way. But I do remember afterwards being like, I can open a fucking thing.

[09:52] This is ridiculous.

[09:54] Meg: It's true.

[09:56] So in Chicago, 1982, the poisoner had put cyanide in a couple of individual capsules in a number of bottles and replaced them on the shelves of a few stores around town.

[10:10] After the deaths, Johnson and Johnson recalled 31 million bottles and introduced what was called tamper evident packaging and went to work to rebuild the trust of the American people.

[10:25] In the meantime,

[10:27] the FBI tried to figure out who was behind it. John Douglas of Mindhunter fame had an idea.

[10:36] He asked Bob Green, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, to write a story about Mary Kellerman, who was the first and youngest victim as far as they knew, because honestly,

[10:49] somebody else could have died and they thought, oh, well, that person died of a stroke, right.

[10:53] You know, who knows how many people actually died, Right?

[10:56] Jessica: But from what was traceable, yeah, she was it. How old was she?

[11:00] Meg: 12.

[11:01] Jessica: Oh.

[11:02] Meg: Douglas was trying to trigger the poisoner's guilt, hoping he would visit her grave.

[11:08] Back on September 28, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman was given a Tylenol capsule by her mother because she had a sore throat.

[11:19] She instantly collapsed, was taken to the hospital, and died the next day.

[11:23] That day,

[11:25] September 29,

[11:27] six more people in the Chicago area died very soon after taking Tylenol. Three members of the same family?

[11:36] No, the Janice family died before they figured out it was the Tylenol.

[11:42] So like, uncle collapses and mom goes, oh, my God, this is awful. Give me a Tylenol. And she collapses. Isn't that horrible?

[11:51] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[11:52] Meg: Yeah. Helen Jensen, a public health official, is credited with identifying the cause of the sudden epidemic. Kind of a genius.

[12:02] Jessica: How did she do it?

[12:04] Meg: She went into the Janice's home and she interviewed everybody who was still alive. And that's how she traced it. But she like went through their Refrigerator. She went through everything in the house and then she was like, you know what?

[12:16] It. I think it's the Tylenol.

[12:18] Check the Tylenol. And she figured it out very quickly. So they were able to not poison.

[12:23] Jessica: Anyone else in the family.

[12:25] Meg: Exactly.

[12:25] Jessica: Holy.

[12:26] Meg: And so they drove through the streets with loudspeakers saying, don't take the Tylenol.

[12:34] Jessica: Really?

[12:34] Meg: Yeah.

[12:35] Jessica: Wow.

[12:36] Meg: Because how else are you going to tell people not to do it? They can't.

[12:39] Jessica: Not online.

[12:40] Meg: And what, Read the news the next day? No, no, no, no. We need to know this now.

[12:46] Jessica: Isn't that amazing?

[12:47] Meg: Yeah.

[12:48] Johnson and Johnson issued its recall on October 5th.

[12:53] Despite local police and the FBI's best efforts, no one was ever charged for the Chicago Tylenol murders.

[13:02] A super creepy guy, John Lewis,

[13:05] sent a letter extorting Johnson and Johnson for a million dollars, claiming to be the killer.

[13:12] He was sentenced to 10 years for that extortion, but they couldn't pin the actual poisoning on him.

[13:19] Now, my other source is this Netflix documentary, which is called Cold Case the Tylenol Murders.

[13:26] And they go into great detail about John Lewis and all this. So if you're interested in what happened in Chicago, Totally check it out.

[13:35] Jessica: Yeah.

[13:35] Meg: Suffice it to say,

[13:37] John Lewis looked really good for the Chicago murders and many still believe he was behind them, but the authorities just didn't have enough to charge him.

[13:47] But that was back in 1982. And by 1986,

[13:51] Tylenol had miraculously rebuilt customer confidence.

[13:56] In fact, it somehow managed to be known as the safest pain reliever because Johnson and Johnson had been so proactive in creating tamper resistant packaging.

[14:09] And they. I don't know if you remember these commercials,

[14:11] but they would go really close on somebody like a housewife or a doctor,

[14:19] and they would say. And these people would say something, you can trust our good name.

[14:25] Jessica: Oh, I do remember that hospital Trust.

[14:29] Meg: Tylenol. They just. You hammered the word trust.

[14:33] Jessica: Wow.

[14:34] Meg: In fact, Tylenol had already regained the highest market share for over the counter analgesic. Is that how you say that?

[14:43] Jessica: Analgesic?

[14:44] Meg: Analgesic.

[14:45] Jessica: Although it's tempting.

[14:46] Meg: Analgesic.

[14:47] Jessica: Yes, I know it's tempting in the.

[14:49] Meg: US but isn't that incredible?

[14:52] Jessica: Yes.

[14:53] Meg: Like what a comeback? That is huge.

[14:56] Jessica: I wonder what ad agency was behind that.

[14:59] Meg: But Diane Ellsroth didn't wake up on Saturday morning, February 8th, in Yonkers.

[15:05] Jessica: Uh oh. Not good.

[15:06] Meg: No. Harriet Michael's mother was understandably very upset to discover the dead girl in her home. And she took a Tylenol fortunately she survived. Very fortunately, because the police eventually identified three more poisoned capsules in the same bottle.

[15:27] Jessica: Holy shit. So interesting. She took one Tylenol or two.

[15:32] Meg: The mother.

[15:32] Jessica: Yeah, I think it said one because the recommended dosage. Dose dosage. I wonder if that's what that's about. No, I'm sure it's not.

[15:43] Meg: I don't think so.

[15:44] Jessica: I think I just haven't slept in three days. Never mind. Scratch it. Okay.

[15:49] Meg: Yonkers went nuts when Diane died. Yes, many suspected the family of poisoning her rather than some crazy guy. And rumors flew,

[16:03] According to Owen McLean, the Yonkers deputy Chief of Investigations,

[16:08] quote, automatically you assume it has to happen in the house.

[16:14] Everyone said the mother did it or the father did it or the son did it. They said the mother was jealous of the son, the father had it out for the mother, the son wanted to kill the girl because she was pregnant.

[16:26] I think it's weird that everyone assumed that happened in the house when the last poisoning didn't happen in the house. The last poisoning?

[16:34] Jessica: You mean in 82?

[16:36] Meg: Yeah, in 82. It's just very interesting that everyone in Yonkers went. It's like they didn't want to think that there was a crazy.

[16:43] Jessica: Well, I, I think, I think you just hit the nail on the head that it's like the complete lack of control if it's a lunatic rather than one family being,

[16:54] you know,

[16:54] horrible in a self contained way.

[16:57] Meg: I mean, by the way, she wasn't pregnant. Like, these were just crazy rumors that were based on absolutely nothing.

[17:03] There was a huge recall of Tylenol in the area.

[17:07] And on February 13, the US Food and Drug Administration discovered the same type of cyanide in another bottle of Tylenol from the Woolworths in Bronxville, just blocks from the A and P.

[17:22] Oh, my God.

[17:23] Jessica: Even with all of the tamper proof packaging. Yes, yes.

[17:29] Meg: Oh, my God. Isn't that terrifying?

[17:32] Oh,

[17:33] incidentally, the cyanide was different from that used in the Chicago murders.

[17:39] The Yonker cyanide had silver in it,

[17:42] which suggested it came from a container that was used in manufacturing or photography.

[17:47] But cyanide is very prevalent and very easy to come by.

[17:53] This is again, quote from Owen McLean. There's no control on it. It's like buying a loaf of bread.

[18:00] Jessica: Yeah.

[18:01] Meg: Huh.

[18:02] Jessica: Who knew? Did you know that there is cyanide in apple seeds?

[18:07] Meg: You know, I think I did know that. Is that like an Agatha Christie thing?

[18:12] Jessica: It has to be because. Yeah.

[18:14] Meg: Anyway,

[18:15] the FBI investigated employees at every step of the Manufacturing and distribution chain.

[18:22] They looked into people who had sold Johnson and Johnson stock before the poisoning.

[18:28] An employee at the plant that manufactured Diane's Tylenol called in sick when her death was announced and was immediately under suspicion due to the John Douglas theory that the murderer would exhibit guilt.

[18:41] But he was cleared.

[18:43] They thought maybe creepy James Lewis was targeting his estranged wife, but that didn't pan out.

[18:49] A 21 year old new Rochelle kid was arrested for credit card fraud. And they found a draft of an extortion letter he'd written in which he claimed to be Tylenol killer number two.

[19:01] But investigators determined he was too stupid to have committed a successful tampering.

[19:06] I love that they brought him in.

[19:08] Jessica: And they're like, nope, no mastermind here.

[19:13] Meg: There were hundreds of copycat medication poisonings all over the country in the 80s. Did you know that?

[19:21] Jessica: I did not know that.

[19:23] Meg: Stella Nickel killed her husband Bruce and his girlfriend with Excedrin.

[19:28] Joseph Melling put his wife in a coma and killed two strangers with Sudafed.

[19:33] Kenneth Farris committed suicide with Aniston.

[19:37] A stockbroker trainee put rat poison in contact trying to manipulate the stock price.

[19:44] Jessica: Whoa.

[19:45] Meg: Thank God no one was harmed.

[19:47] All this led to tamper resistant packaging and induction seals in both pharmaceutical and food products.

[19:57] This is why you practically need a chainsaw to get into most manufactured consumables.

[20:03] Also, product tampering is now a federal crime.

[20:06] And the replacement of capsules with caplets,

[20:10] which you just gave me right before we did this podcast.

[20:14] Did you know what a caplet is?

[20:17] Jessica: It's meaning that it's a fully sealed. Like you can't pull it apart like the other ones.

[20:21] Meg: Or you can't pull it apart.

[20:23] It's a tablet shaped like a capsule.

[20:26] So that's. They were like, people want that shape.

[20:31] Oh,

[20:32] they want that shape.

[20:33] They want it,

[20:35] but we can't have it. So you can pull it apart.

[20:38] Jessica: So it's a portmanteau kind of word. It's a capsule and a tablet. A caplet. Huh, huh.

[20:44] Meg: Yeah. And they're harder to tamper with.

[20:47] Or, you know, if you did tamper with it, it would just be kind of obvious.

[20:51] Back in the 80s, the FDA put out radio spots telling people to, quote, check the integrity of packages before purchasing them. Just as we' learned to look left and right before crossing the street.

[21:04] Jessica: I do remember the public education campaign that you described. Yes. Look at the packaging.

[21:11] Meg: The case of Diane Ellsworth's murder remains unsolved. Well, dun dun, dun.

[21:18] Jessica: That is spooky. Yeah. And the fact that Mr. Mindhunter did not come up with the murderer is also.

[21:27] Meg: He kind of thinks it's John Lewis. And the reason why John. I mean, by the way, John Douglas.

[21:32] Jessica: Is really into himself, as noted from the show. Yes.

[21:38] Meg: So he said about the Tylenol thing that John Lewis happened to be actually in New York at the time that they wrote the column about Mary Kellerman and said where her gravesite was.

[21:53] So he wasn't in town to visit the gravesite because. Yeah. John Douglas thinks if he had been in town, he would.

[22:02] Jessica: Well, that's a little sudden.

[22:04] Meg: I know.

[22:04] Jessica: It is congratulatory. Like, if only the criminal had been adhering to exactly the rules that I have invented, then it would have happened.

[22:15] Meg: Right?

[22:17] Jessica: Jonathan Groff, you can do better.

[22:21] Meg: If you're interested, do watch. It's a very, very interesting documentary. And it doesn't really talk about Diane Ellsworth at all. It just. It mostly talks about all the stuff that went down in Chicago.

[22:33] Horrible.

[22:34] Jessica: Creepy as hell. Thank you, Meg.

[22:36] Meg: Oh, and that guy really is creepy. And he's dead.

[22:38] Jessica: John Lewis.

[22:39] Meg: Yeah.

[22:39] Jessica: He does not walk amongst us.

[22:40] Meg: Nope. Dud.

[22:42] Jessica: All right, bye.

[22:57] So BFF of the podcast,

[23:00] Kate got in touch with us and told us that she had just seen a particular movie and that it featured a particular building in New York City and said,

[23:12] you should look into this. And we both said,

[23:16] definitely. Which normally for me means no,

[23:22] but this time I did.

[23:25] And let me tell you what she suggested. Just this film wound up being the,

[23:33] like, the bath bomb of topics. It has everything that I love the most in it.

[23:41] And those things are. Or at least for this podcast.

[23:43] Meg: Are you gonna name the movie?

[23:44] Jessica: In a second. But my favorite topics. Women's changing roles, changing social mores, and real estate. What could it be?

[23:54] Meg: Our favorite topics.

[23:56] Jessica: Let's take a moment, shall we, and cast our minds back to 1987.

[24:00] A great year. The year that we graduated from high school, the year that we started college, and the year that Three Men and a Baby premiered across the United States, blowing people away with the unlikely melange of Tom Selleck,

[24:19] Steve Guttenberg,

[24:20] and Ted Danson.

[24:22] Meg: Crazy.

[24:23] Jessica: This film was based on a French film that won the Academy Award in 1986 for Best Foreign film. Huh. You'd think that this would be some heavy hitting thing,

[24:33] but no.

[24:35] It was originally called Trois Hommes et d'. An. Cousin.

[24:38] Meg: All right.

[24:39] Jessica: Three Men in a cradle. All right.

[24:42] Meg: And it's One baby for three men.

[24:45] Jessica: Yes. I'm gonna take you through the plot because it does seem A bit perplexing.

[24:50] And there are a lot of things it takes. Well. Mm. So there are a lot of things that happened in this movie where I was like, not even with the social mores.

[24:59] Like, that would not happen today.

[25:01] So there's a whole. Like, this is.

[25:03] Watching this. I can't say enough about watching this movie.

[25:06] Meg: And they're roommates. Well, okay, so I'm trying to.

[25:09] Jessica: No, no, no. So here's what happens.

[25:11] Three men who are men.

[25:15] These are not 22 year olds. These are right out of college. These are three grown men.

[25:22] Tom Selleck, by the way. I also noticed from watching this that his eyebrows and his mustache are all the same size.

[25:32] I kept staring at the screen and I was like, there's a weird symmetry here. What is it?

[25:36] Oh, so there's Tom Selleck, who I think at the time that this was made was 42 years old. Okay, so these are men. Ted Danson is about 38 when this is filmed.

[25:47] And Steve Gutenberg is the baby at 29. Okay, these are grown men.

[25:54] And yet.

[25:56] Yet they live as roommates.

[26:02] It's the kind of apartment where, you know, you get out of the elevator and you're in a tiny vestibule and there's just the one apartment. Okay, right there.

[26:10] And you know, like one door, and then you're in it and you're in a massive apartment. And this takes place.

[26:16] Meg: Oh, maybe they're roommates so they can have the massive.

[26:18] Jessica: Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[26:20] The prasada of the Upper west side, gorgeous pre war building, which I did a little research about.

[26:28] And there's a. Like, there's a weird kind of explanation that I think is entirely of my own devising.

[26:36] So in the original film,

[26:38] three men are roommates living together. They also seem improbably old for this, but they're actually roommates in a single apartment.

[26:47] And they are womanizers,

[26:52] as are these three. Although bizarrely, they set up Steve Guttenberg, like, has no luck with women.

[26:59] And then they quickly discard, like. So this is the ultimate movie for. We're gonna introduce a topic and then forget about it. Okay, so you're like, Steve Guttenberg can't really.

[27:07] Like, he gets a woman into his room, while the others are all, like, they have a big party. They're all, like, bedding women left and right. And Steve Guttenberg is giving a woman advice in his bedroom, and they're kind of making fun of him, but then you never hear about it again.

[27:21] Okay,

[27:22] so the three.

[27:23] These three men who all live together,

[27:26] and one of Them is an actor, one is an architect, and one is an illustrator.

[27:31] Meg: All right, let me guess.

[27:33] Jessica: Okay.

[27:33] Meg: Ted Danson has to be the actor.

[27:35] Jessica: Yes.

[27:36] Meg: Okay. He looks like a soap opera actor, obviously. Tom Selleck is the architect and Steve Guttenberg is the illustrator. Just kind of girly.

[27:43] Jessica: Exactly. It's femme.

[27:46] It's femme to be in the arts.

[27:48] The symmetry in the movies is really pretty much spot on.

[27:52] They're womanizers. And one day,

[27:55] the actor goes off to work someplace, as you actors do.

[28:01] Goes on set someplace. He's gone.

[28:03] The other two are there, and they find a baby on their doorstep.

[28:08] Jacques has said to them, there's going to be a package left here and just take care of it until I get back. As though their roommate would refer to an infant the package.

[28:21] Like, where is the leap of logic, fellas?

[28:23] Meg: And they didn't call him.

[28:26] Jessica: They can't get him because he's in Turkey. Oh, okay. On location in Turkey, where there are no phones ever.

[28:35] They also, bizarrely, living in the prasada, have a landlady question mark.

[28:42] So the landlady shows up as the baby is on the doorstep with their mail for them. Again, has anyone lived in New York? Does anyone how things work here?

[28:52] So this woman shows up and she's like, oh, here's your mail, and here's a thing. And just, like, they take it and they throw it on the couch because they're so overwhelmed by the baby.

[29:02] She doesn't say,

[29:04] why do you bachelors have an infant?

[29:07] She's just like, oh, I love babies. If you ever need babysitter. They're like, great. And off she goes,

[29:14] what?

[29:15] There's a note in with the baby that says, jack,

[29:19] here's your baby.

[29:20] I can't hack it anymore,

[29:23] Sylvia. Oh, no. And they're like,

[29:25] this is clearly Jack's problem. This is clearly Jack's package.

[29:30] And now what are we gonna do? And thus ensues two grown men acting like the biggest fools you've ever seen.

[29:39] Like, what do we do? It's a baby.

[29:43] Oh, my God.

[29:44] Tom Selleck goes off to the grocery store, and he's like, what do you feed a baby?

[29:49] Oh, hamburger.

[29:51] No, he doesn't. That's that. I swear to you. That is the attitude. And there's a woman who works at the grocery store who's like,

[29:58] her entire performance is.

[30:02] Well,

[30:03] formula is a good place to start.

[30:06] No, you don't give them baby food when they are,

[30:10] you know, a matter of, like, four months old.

[30:13] P.S.

[30:15] they only have the baby for about a week. And by the end of the film they're feeding it baby food. I'm like, whoever did come continuity on this stinks. This is the worst.

[30:25] So anyway,

[30:26] and the actress who has this role is playing it fully with the intention of like, my character has nine kids and knows that you are mentally disabled. That you can't figure this out by reading the side of the formula.

[30:40] Can. But okay,

[30:42] they're, you know, like morons with this infant. Now out of nowhere,

[30:48] some very rum looking gentlemen show up asking for the package.

[30:53] And they're like, what did you call them? Rum. Like they're, they're, they're like shady characters.

[31:01] And they look.

[31:01] Meg: What form of shady?

[31:03] Jessica: Like 80s shady. Like one of them is big and hulking and the other one is the poor, if you can believe I'm gonna say these words,

[31:13] the poor man's version of.

[31:15] Oh God, what was his name in Risky Business? The killer pimp.

[31:20] The pimp, okay.

[31:22] Joe Pantoliano plays him. But I was like, he's the poor man's Joe Pantoliano.

[31:28] Meg: Very sketchy.

[31:29] Jessica: But like,

[31:30] really, you couldn't just get Joe, who is clearly available,

[31:34] like, are you joking me right now?

[31:37] So they show up and they're like, he's like, he's not mafia looking. Really, he's just like, like he's got a chain on. Yeah, he's, he's scuzzy, but not too scuzzy, which is also weird.

[31:48] Like, cuz the whole thing is so kind. It's Disney looking. It's so Disney. So they're like, oh, okay, we'll give you the package back and hand him the baby.

[31:58] Meg: They do not. Yes, they do not give the baby.

[32:02] Jessica: They're like, I guess you mean this package. And as they rest them and they take and they put.

[32:08] Meg: And they, they.

[32:08] Jessica: The ski surprise gets better.

[32:11] Yes. Because Tom Selleck in his infinite wisdom puts a can of formula in the thing and they're like, oh, thanks for the package. They then go downstairs and they're trying to like put the baby in the trunk of a car.

[32:28] And a cop shows up and is like on a horse and is like, maybe you shouldn't do that.

[32:33] Hold on a second.

[32:35] Meg: Because you know that all cops in New York city in the 80s were on horses.

[32:39] Jessica: Always.

[32:41] That's great optics.

[32:44] And police horses are gorgeous. So. Yeah, okay.

[32:48] So Tom Selleck realizes.

[32:52] Wait a minute, he looks at, he's like, this doesn't seem right.

[32:56] Maybe I shouldn't have given these men, I don't know,

[33:00] a baby.

[33:01] He then happens to look around, looks at the mail and sees that there is an unmarked small package.

[33:09] Meg: Oh, God.

[33:10] Jessica: Which he is like, wait a minute, what's this? And he opens it and realizes that it's filled with bags of heroin. And so Ted Danson.

[33:21] Meg: What are you doing, Jacques?

[33:23] Jessica: Well, at the party where you see all the womanizing, you see Ted Danson being. Danson being told by his friend who's a commercial director,

[33:32] there's a package coming for me. Will you hold it?

[33:35] And da, da, da, da, da, da.

[33:36] Meg: You know, it's heroin. It's not.

[33:38] Jessica: Well, it looks like coke. I only know that it's heroin from my research afterwards. But, you know, who knows what that person knows? I don't know. It just was little, you know, baggies.

[33:48] So he somehow goes running downstairs,

[33:52] he. He gets the baby because the cop gets involved, but he doesn't give them the heroin.

[33:59] And he's now holding the heroin and holding the baby. And bizarrely, he says to the cop, who's like, who the fuck are you? He's like, wait, I'll get my id.

[34:07] You've gotta come upstairs. He leads the horse into the building. No, he doesn't. And then I'm like, is he gonna put the horse in the elevator?

[34:14] How is this gonna work? And then the next thing you know, he's up in the apartment, he checks his ID and is like, thanks, Mac. And off he goes.

[34:22] And then the landlady who gave them the mail is back. She's like, you know, there's the horse that did a number in the lobby. And you're like, how do you know it's them?

[34:33] Like, why.

[34:34] Who are you?

[34:35] Why are you here and bothering these men who clearly have much bigger fish to fry than some horse shit in the lobby? Go away.

[34:46] So this is all going on. They now realize what's happening. Mind you, we are now pretty much frame for frame with the French film. Film.

[34:57] Film.

[34:57] Meg: Cinema.

[34:58] Jessica: Cinema.

[35:00] Yeah, well, so that's. We're stretching, calling it cinema. So this is truly a popcorn movie.

[35:08] And the one thing that I did read which really entertained me was that in the American version of this film,

[35:16] minute the baby arrives anyplace, everyone loses their shit. And they're just like, it's a baby.

[35:24] I love babies.

[35:25] Meg: Is it cute?

[35:25] Jessica: It's fine.

[35:29] It's not the cutest baby I've ever seen. It's not the ugliest baby I've ever. It's sort. It wasn't like the Seinfeld episode where you don't. You never see it. But everyone's like, ah.

[35:39] But it's not, you know, like a chubby cheeked, cherubic angel of any kind.

[35:44] It's fine,

[35:45] it's a baby.

[35:46] But in the French movie,

[35:48] everyone is like, ugh, a baby. Get it away from me.

[35:52] Total.

[35:53] Like,

[35:54] French versus American. So the French are all like. Throughout the entire movie, they're like, phew, what an inconvenience. Get that thing away from me. Why do you have this thing?

[36:03] It is leaking.

[36:04] Get it away.

[36:06] Meg: By the way, that sound is Jessica fake smoking a cigarette.

[36:11] Jessica: Bourgeois businessmen in their packages.

[36:13] Do you remember that FedEx ad that it showed, like, why you need FedEx? Because you don't want a most xenophobic ad ever. You don't want to have the local package delivery service.

[36:25] You only want FedEx. And they would parody all of these different nationalities and, like, all of their worst qualities. And the one for France was they had a courier,

[36:36] like, with his bicycle in the road with all the packages attached to it, sitting at a cafe, smoking, going. And like. Like all in nihilistic black with a beret going.

[36:46] Bourgeois businessmen in their package.

[36:49] So anytime I see anything that is like a parody of Frenchness, even if it doesn't mean to be, all I think is businessman.

[37:00] Which is only.

[37:01] Only matched in real life by Anthony Jones.

[37:06] My dear darling first husbands.

[37:08] When he worked at. He was an IRS attorney. And when he worked at the IRS and he only, like, put criminals away, he wasn't like, you know, going after the average citizen, right?

[37:19] So much so that I was like, don't be in any photos. Don't ever be in a photo. And he's like, but they're gonna put us on the newspaper. I'm like, are you retarded?

[37:29] What is wrong with you?

[37:30] Anyway, he had this.

[37:32] This assistant named,

[37:34] like, Colette something that. Out of central casting.

[37:37] And he came in once really early in the morning, and she was already at her desk, staring vacantly into space.

[37:46] And as he passed her desk,

[37:49] she went,

[37:51] I'm not making this up. She goes,

[37:54] and so it begins.

[38:02] I swear to God.

[38:04] So that's the other thing that runs in my head every day is.

[38:10] And so it begins.

[38:14] And Anthony being Anthony, sort of like, did a double take but kept going. Because he was like, don't engage, don't engage, don't engage.

[38:25] Isn't that amazing?

[38:26] Meg: Yes, that was quite the tangent.

[38:30] Jessica: If we're gonna talk about French film,

[38:32] that had to happen.

[38:34] Anyway,

[38:36] so I loved that in the descriptions. Cause I read so many reviews of this movie. You wouldn't Believe for both French and American.

[38:44] And everyone was like, in the French, they seem to hate the baby.

[38:48] I was like, that's my kind of film.

[38:51] This is per. As I pat Alfie on the head like, you're the real baby.

[38:56] Oh. And Jack returns,

[38:58] and eventually. And he's like, oh, my God,

[39:01] I have a baby.

[39:03] And he's like, could you help me look after it? And they're like, we're done.

[39:06] No. But then, of course, they have a nervous breakdown because they leave the baby with him. And they're like,

[39:11] oh, my God,

[39:13] he's gonna kill it.

[39:14] Exactly. So it hasn't dawned on them yet that they love the baby. They just know that they don't want him to kill it.

[39:20] So that's something they decide in the French movie. They have to deal with this heroin,

[39:28] and so what are they gonna do?

[39:30] So they work with the criminals to outwit the cops that are on their tail because it'll be worse for them if the cops catch them.

[39:39] So they're like, all right, look, criminals. We're gonna open up a diaper, a pamper. We're gonna stick the heroin inside it. We're gonna put it in.

[39:48] In a garbage can outside,

[39:51] and you go find it there. That's how it works out in the French version, in the American version, and it takes 10 seconds. And that's it for that part of the movie.

[40:00] In the American version, it's easily a quarter of the film.

[40:04] Meg: A caper.

[40:05] Jessica: It's a caper. And inexplicably,

[40:08] Ted Danson has to leave the prasada in drag with the baby strapped to him underneath a giant trench coat, as though anyone was watching him and needed to have him disguised taking the baby out.

[40:23] All right, I don't. I mean, they're like, he's very pretty. He. Not as a lady, actually. He's. He looks. You know, like how the worst thing you can say about some older women is that they're a handsome woman.

[40:33] Meg: He does have a very square jaw, so.

[40:35] Jessica: Oh. The only reason that he. I can imagine that he would do that is they're like, if you don't give us the heroin, we'll get you and your little dog too.

[40:43] Your little baby too.

[40:46] So apparently, he needs to stay.

[40:48] I mean, he could have just stayed at home with the baby. I mean, I don't know what they're doing with this,

[40:52] but their whole thing is that they have to catch the heroin smugglers and they get them onto the construction site where Tom Selleck, the architect's building, is going up and they trap them in an elevator.

[41:07] And then the cops come and get them.

[41:09] It's very confusing and very anticlimactic.

[41:13] Meg: So another elevator, just like in Moonlighting.

[41:16] Jessica: Well, funny you should say this. We're gonna get there in three seconds.

[41:21] So the movie winds up with the mother coming back and being like,

[41:26] yes, in French. In the French version, Sylvie got it. She's like, I made a mistake.

[41:33] I think I want my baby. But I'm an actress. Because that's how she met Jack.

[41:38] I'm an actress. I don't know how I can have a career and a baby at the same time all by myself.

[41:45] Steve Gutenberg says,

[41:47] we totally understand. It took three of us and we still had a hard time.

[41:52] And the solution is,

[41:55] after she goes, like, she goes to the airport, they chase her, they do that whole shtick.

[42:01] They lose her. Airport chase, they lose her, they come back, she's sitting outside with the baby. Okay, great. Go upstairs. But wait, we'll help. The movie ends with they offer to have her live with them.

[42:14] Meg: I think that's a wonderful solution.

[42:15] Jessica: And the baby, no one has met her before.

[42:18] Like, Jack slept with her. No, but they were not, like, together. They like. It was. She was like a one night stand. Okay. Or like, he was at a play with her.

[42:26] That was it.

[42:26] Meg: They don't love the baby, and she'll take care of the baby.

[42:29] Jessica: Okay? But here's another thing again. This is. Now I'm starting to get into my.

[42:33] My commentary in this film,

[42:37] which was directed by. By.

[42:39] You'll never guess.

[42:41] Leonard Nimoy.

[42:42] Meg: What?

[42:43] Jessica: In his first directing job after the Star Trek films, okay, Leonard Nimoy directs this.

[42:51] Meg: Why are you saying Nimoy?

[42:53] Jessica: Because that's Nimoy.

[42:55] No, I like it better the other way. I don't know why. It just rolls off the top. I don't.

[43:02] Leonard Nimoy.

[43:04] But it's not even a name.

[43:09] No.

[43:10] So anyway,

[43:11] Leonard Lenny directs this.

[43:15] And at no point does anyone comment on the fact that leaving your baby with a bunch of men you don't know without even talking to them at all, just leaving a baby in a basket like Moses at somebody's front.

[43:30] Meg: Front.

[43:30] Jessica: At somebody's front door without any idea are they even there, Even home. Who? What is it? Who knows? He wasn't home. Turkey. What if he didn't have roommates?

[43:45] Meg: That would be.

[43:45] Jessica: And how did he know that that's where he lived?

[43:49] Right, right. Because, like, when he realizes it is his child, he does the math and he's like, oh, yes,

[43:55] who knows how long they were living.

[43:57] All unknown.

[43:59] Not once in the film does a single person say,

[44:02] maybe that was a little irresponsible.

[44:05] Maybe that wasn't great.

[44:07] Right?

[44:08] Meg: They're giving her some grace. It's very hard to.

[44:10] Jessica: I don't. I. No, no, no, no, no, no. But my point is that it's the 80s and at no point is the woman chastised.

[44:17] And from movies like Baby Boom, we know women are put through the ringer in these movies because it's like, oh, you're making. I mean, she made a choice for her career,

[44:29] right?

[44:30] So she's making, like, why is Sylvia getting off scot free?

[44:34] I don't know. But wait, now I have to go to my notes because now we're gonna get into some fun facts about this insanity.

[44:40] Oh, by the way, along with the 80s drug deal where everyone's in an Armani suit kind of thing, this movie has the other 80s stamps of approval of a sax solo.

[44:51] Frequently.

[44:51] Meg: Lovely.

[44:52] Jessica: Many montages either with the bab or the mother. And there's dressing up involved and running around the city and playing Frisbee and montages with hot chicks.

[45:03] Just so you know, if these are draws for you, Meg,

[45:07] letting you know, this is.

[45:08] This is the film for you.

[45:10] Okay? So I'm looking at this movie and I'm like, these men are being celebrated for looking after a baby. So I was like, huh? This is really interesting because is this the great moment in American culture in 1987, when suddenly the Reagan era,

[45:28] everyone has to be like two person family,

[45:31] blah, blah, blah. Is this the moment where it's, like,

[45:35] strangely configured as per 1980s standards? Families are okay.

[45:41] Like, what is this?

[45:43] The men, of course, are completely inept. So they're still the boys will be boys, but they're looking after a kid. Like, is this breaking ground? And then I was like, no, it's not 1983.

[45:53] Mr. Mom.

[45:55] Meg: I love that movie.

[45:58] Jessica: Also watched that. It doesn't age as well as.

[46:01] Meg: You gave chili to a baby.

[46:03] Jessica: Yeah, it doesn't age well.

[46:05] Meg: I mean, I don't believe you.

[46:07] Jessica: It's in the same way that Three Men and a Baby is charming because of the actors.

[46:11] Michael Keaton, this is his first big role. Michael Keaton is adorable.

[46:16] He's adorable. And Teri Garr,

[46:18] amazing.

[46:19] But it's still this. Like, it's so excusable for these men to be morons and not even be able to ask for, like,

[46:26] I'd like some formula to feed my baby.

[46:30] Meg: But he ends up doing such a Great job.

[46:31] Jessica: They all wind up being great in the end. Right? But there's still this, like.

[46:37] It just is very annoying.

[46:39] Do you know who wrote Mr. Mom? Who? John Hughes.

[46:42] Meg: Huh.

[46:43] Jessica: And it's what led him to get the deal to do all of his teen Molly Ringwald flicks.

[46:49] I know.

[46:50] Think about it. 1983 is when Mr. Mom came out.

[46:53] Meg: By the way, Alice went to go see Pretty in Pink in Bryant park, because they were doing it on the big screen.

[47:00] Jessica: She hated it.

[47:01] Meg: She left early and she came home. I mean, she thought it was fine, whatever, but she was like, what happens at the end? And I was like, what do you think happens at the end?

[47:10] Jessica: And she thinks. She go. He goes. She goes with Ducky.

[47:13] Meg: She was like, she has to end up with Ducky. But I don't really like that is what she said.

[47:19] Jessica: And you were like, funny. But you are exactly like the test audiences.

[47:23] Meg: Test audience didn't like it either. But you're right. It makes no sense for her to end up with Andrew McCarthy. But that is indeed what happened. Blaine. Blaine.

[47:31] Jessica: Blaine isn't a name. It's a kitchen appliance.

[47:35] So Three Men and a Baby.

[47:38] Lenny's first big outing after Star Trek.

[47:41] Biggest box office of the year,

[47:44] ahead of robocop. Wow. The Untouchables. What?

[47:49] Moonstruck and Lethal Weapon. Oh,

[47:53] my God. Most commercially successful of 87. Exactly.

[47:59] And, yeah, they were in the mood for a comedy, obviously, but I think that this whole subversion of gender roles, people were really.

[48:06] It was the perfect time because that is also the year that baby boom came out.

[48:11] So those were like. Like bookending. Like, men can be parents,

[48:17] I guess.

[48:19] Meg: And they're sort of funny.

[48:21] Jessica: And a woman can have a career, but it can't be on Wall street or whatever, but she can have a career and have a baby. Appleson.

[48:28] The other thing about them never chastising the mother and the thing that's a gender role thing is that at the, like, we never really knew anything about her. We just know that she's crying a lot, has abandoned her baby and can't handle anything,

[48:41] and she's saved by three men.

[48:44] Think about that for a second. Let that sink in.

[48:47] They save her. If they had only saved the ugly baby, that would have been something else. But they had to save her because she was inept.

[48:56] Yeah. And there's no explanation.

[48:58] Meg: She's a place to live, too. Again, I think it's a great solution.

[49:02] Jessica: The other thing that was interesting is that Tom Selleck's girlfriend is the one person who's like. He's like, can you help me? She's like, absolutely not.

[49:10] She's a career woman. And she's like, not only do I have no interest in this, but you're an adult.

[49:15] Go figure it out.

[49:16] The other person who says, go figure it out is Jack's mother, inexplicably played by Celeste Holm. Huh. What is she doing having like a three minute part in this insane movie?

[49:29] I don't know.

[49:30] Meg: But she's also like, I don't want my grandchildren.

[49:32] Jessica: Well, she's like, no. She's like, I love my grandchild. You're not a total moron, but you.

[49:36] Meg: Are a fuck up.

[49:37] Jessica: So why don't you go learn to be a parent? I'm not gonna,

[49:40] you know, mop up your mess.

[49:43] Fascinating. Now,

[49:45] another fun fact. While we're talking about actors who are in movies in certain years.

[49:50] Celeste Holm,

[49:51] sort of a contemporary of Philip Bosco, who plays the detective who's supposed to be going after the heroine, but is like, like, dazzled by the baby.

[50:01] Meg: He's the one on the horse.

[50:02] Jessica: No, he comes in later. He's the detective, not the cop.

[50:06] Meg: Made to imagine Philip Bosco on a horse.

[50:08] Jessica: No. But interestingly, he shows up the next year in 1988, as Mr. Trask in working Girl. Yes. Radio. Trask. Trask, Radio, yes.

[50:22] Meg: So I was like, Staten Island Fairy.

[50:24] Jessica: Exactly. And I was like, let's do a little bit of a deep dive on Philip Bosco, another major actor. And I was like, I know that he's a major. But like, what was.

[50:31] Was he in and why is he in this movie?

[50:34] Did you know that he won a Tony Award in 1990 for Lend Me a Tenor?

[50:39] Meg: I did not.

[50:40] Jessica: Did you know that he had. And this is my favorite, and this is really on topic for this podcast.

[50:45] So he. If you look him up, he's like, been in everything, but he's a major Broadway actor.

[50:49] Meg: I do know that, yes.

[50:50] Jessica: What I didn't know is that he won a Daytime Emmy award for his appearance in the ABC After School special Read between the Lines now.

[51:00] What do you think? Dyslexia gets better than that. Are you ready for the description?

[51:07] When an illiterate toy maker.

[51:11] Wait, he can't read.

[51:14] He's like.

[51:14] Meg: He's a grown man who can't read.

[51:15] Jessica: Why? How is he gonna read between the lines that he can't read the line?

[51:24] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So when an illiterate toy maker has the right to his inventions stolen his grandson and the Harlem Globetrotters Team up to get them back.

[51:38] What?

[51:39] He won a daytime Emmy?

[51:41] Yes. I'm an illiterate toy maker. Globetrotters and the Harlem Globetrotters are going to get my patent for me.

[51:49] Meg: We, we have to do a series. We are watching that on the Harlem Globetrotters.

[51:54] Jessica: I think I'm putting it on my list. Number one, you're right. But we need to do it about like, because the Harlem Globetrotters, what was so great about them is that huge, that brand,

[52:03] the Globetrotters brand got licensed so many. There was a, there was a cartoon of them. I remember they showed up in so many different movies. Did you ever see them live?

[52:15] No, I did.

[52:16] Meg: That's. I love that.

[52:17] Jessica: And it was Madison Square Garden. It was dazzling and magnificent and totally confusing.

[52:23] Meg: We. Yeah, we have to do a story on that because if no one has heard of the Harlem Globetrotters and I.

[52:29] Jessica: Assure you, my many of our listeners.

[52:31] Meg: Don'T have any idea when I describe what they are,

[52:35] it's going to blow their mind. They're going to say, no, that's impossible. That could never have happened. And I'm going to say, boy did it. And it was huge.

[52:43] Jessica: I like that you're doing it. It. Can we do it?

[52:46] Meg: Sure.

[52:46] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We can shoot for it.

[52:49] It's so delightful. I think it's a two person job.

[52:54] But anyway, the point is there they are. And they are helping Philip Bosco read.

[53:00] I don't know. Okay, so let's now go back to my other favorite. They are so talented.

[53:05] So the. Okay, back to real estate. So I was like, why would these three jokers be living together? And I thought the same thing that you did. I was like, maybe,

[53:14] maybe they can't afford it.

[53:16] Meg: Ok, so they want the huge apartment.

[53:18] Jessica: Yeah. Well, guess what?

[53:19] We're both wrong. And let me give you a few statistics about the Upper west side in the 80s and apartments and the prasada in particular.

[53:29] So I wrote in my notes,

[53:31] what the fuck with this apartment.

[53:34] It's actually in my notes.

[53:35] Why are they living together?

[53:37] Is it three? You can't tell from the film. Is it three apartments?

[53:42] And they've somehow created like a central area. Like because, you know, Tom Selleck is an architect. So I was like, is this three apartments? And he's like configured it so that it's like a suite in college.

[53:54] You've got three rooms. Right. So I was like, maybe that's what it is. Why do they have a landlady in a New York City apartment building?

[54:01] Here's What I learned the Prasada. When this movie was filmed in 86 and released in 1987, it was still a rental property.

[54:11] It did not go co op until 1980.

[54:15] So in 1987, the cost to buy a three bedroom apartment in a luxury building on the Upper west side,

[54:23] and luxury at the time meant a new structure would be between 300 and $600,000.

[54:31] At the time, the Upper west side was still filled with junkies and all kinds of problems.

[54:38] Right. And the subway line on the west side was particularly bad. Hmm. What unit you were in and exactly what building and what street would dictate where you fell in that range between 300 and $600,000 a rental would be between 1500 and $3000 a month.

[54:57] The Prasada was a rental at the time,

[55:01] $3,000 a month. And then I looked up what these people were earning. They were earning roughly because they're, you know, except for Jack,

[55:10] but the other two, one of them was the Michael character is a syndicated cartoonist and the other one is an architect. Right. So they're earning between 125,000 and $150,000 a year.

[55:25] They can afford the top dollar for a rental. Right.

[55:29] And it would have possibly been on the cheaper side because a pre war building was considered less desirable.

[55:36] Got it.

[55:37] They were not renovated. Right.

[55:40] And in the Prasada,

[55:42] each floor had three apartments and each apartment was either eight or ten rooms.

[55:50] Whoa.

[55:51] So could you imagine a 30 room apartment for these three? It's too big. It was very, very kooky. Kachoo choo.

[56:00] When these buildings on the Upper west side, the pre wars, went co op. And this is what happened with the Ansonia. They wanted people to buy so very much that they offered them a 60% discount.

[56:13] Wow.

[56:14] Finally. And then I found this from the west side Rag,

[56:18] written by janine Jones in 2013,

[56:21] she wrote this. She was doing her dissertation, I think, at Columbia, about the Upper west side. The history of the Upper west side. Cool. And she wrote,

[56:30] today, the Upper west side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City.

[56:35] People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars.

[56:39] The rental apartment upstairs from my mother with the same layout was recently listed for $9,900 a month.

[56:47] But in 1976, when my parents moved to Broadway and 79th street with three small children,

[56:53] no one in Manhattan lived above 72nd Street. If they could avoid it, which you've talked about about your parents buying their.

[57:00] Their brownstone or townhouse, rather,

[57:03] people were afraid to ride the graffiti streaked, crime soaked subways.

[57:07] The sidewalks teemed with alcoholic homeless.

[57:11] And this fascinated me because, of course, Vietnam vets haunted by their own nightmares and hopelessness,

[57:18] Locals knew to be inside their locked apartments by nightfall. And you were safe.

[57:23] Neighborhood volunteers took turns watching out their windows, reporting any crimes to the well meaning, overworked and understaffed local police precincts.

[57:32] The doormen were alert and ready to menace unwelcome visitors with a baseball bat. Anywho,

[57:39] the wild distinction between the Hollywood fantasy and the real New York City is highlighted so beautifully, Even though in 1976, obviously it was worse than it was by 1987.

[57:52] We've talked many times about how it wasn't great. And I think that the only real distinction was that because there were more people looking for more apartments,

[58:03] we were starting to edge farther and Farther uptown.

[58:07] So 86th street, as we have talked about this before, was the cutoff, but on the west side it was more 79th Street. Okay.

[58:15] Meg: Which makes sense when I think about that strip.

[58:19] Jessica: Yes. So anyway, that's everything that happened in my head when I sat down to watch Three Men.

[58:26] Meg: I'm so glad you did.

[58:28] Jessica: At a baby.

[58:28] Meg: Thank you, Kate.

[58:29] Jessica: Thank you, Kate.

[58:31] And. And there's so much more. And if you're very lucky, next week I'll discuss Three Men and a Little lady. Yes, you. Love you.

[58:51] Okay, tie in.

[58:52] Drugs. Tylenol. Heroin. Go.

[58:56] Meg: Yeah, I mean, cyanide. Yeah.

[58:58] Jessica: Cyanide.

[58:58] Meg: Drugs that are bad for you. Cyanide and cyanide.

[59:03] Jessica: Kids don't do drugs.

[59:07] Meg: Welcome back, Jessica.

[59:08] Jessica: Welcome back, Meg. It's so good to see you. Yay.