04 Aug Giovanni’s Superfan Sidebar 08/03/2017 – Ralph Macchio and Derek Johnson
A real time blog where Superfan Giovanni does recap and commentary on the show as it happens and opines on all things ACS
Guest – Ralph Macchio and Derek Johnson
Recorded 08-02-2017 – Release Date 08-03-2017
Production Number #2132
Adam opens the show with a great “He’s the Best Around” intro, referencing not only the ‘Karate Kid’ but the KLSX ACS episodes that featured that song, then eventually they booked Joe Esposito who explained it was originally written for ‘Rocky II’ and was repurposed for The Karate Kid, explaining the lyrics that implied it was the 2nd outing for the protagonist.
Joe Esposito guested on the KLSX ACS on April 9th 2008 along with Isaac Hayes, the interview that is the source of the infamous drops.
Adam welcomes Gina and BB to the show after a quick plug for the podcasting master class, BB has a drop of Adam saying “I’m going to heal you with laughter” as today’s #TopDrop.
Adam is sharing the details of his trip to the racetrack in Sonoma, he says he had a two-part mission and discovered he’d never driven a Porsche before, BB objects and Adam admit he has driven one, but not for anything fun, just in traffic.
Adam is now talking about advice Porsche drivers give about the cars and how they handle, he explains he was getting the “oh boy” and “engine in the back” comments left and right, spooking him.
Adam says it’s akin to getting hernia surgery and someone telling you to prepare for the worst, Adam says why not just make it less of a big deal, Adam has a killer “page boy haircut” analogy, he has two answers, one if you got the haircut, one if you’re thinking of getting it.
BB says Dr. Drew is the worst at this and recounts the time he asked Dr. Drew about his Gallbladder surgery when he was overweight working as the LoveLine call screener.
BB told Drew about the hospital where he was having the operation done, Adam has a killer reply as Dr. Drew and BB shares his “good luck” remark that is no surprising.
“that’s writhing hour” – Adam, Adam is sharing the way Dr. Drew tried to scare him about the hernia surgery and recovery, Adam is recounting 2004 LoveLine when Drew was convinced Adam wouldn’t be able to record LoveLine that Sunday after the operation.
BB asks how long he was laid out for, setting him up for the reveal that he was hanging mirrored closet doors the next day, Adam explains how he gets energized for a build and obsessed with finishing it.
Adam says his daughter is much like him and desperately needs to break into things early, she ordered a “shag egg” and wanted to see it before bed even though they couldn’t set it up.
Adam shares his obsession with installing the doors and how he woke up at 6am to drive to the other house and install the doors.
BB has a funny retort and Adam jokes about being a rich guy with him, he’s now quoting Lynette who asked if he was fucking nuts for going to do physical labor at 6am the day after surgery.
Adam shares how Lynette asked him to ask Dr. Drew about her friend Jennifer who was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Drew declared she had 6 months to live and BB chimes in and explains Drew gave Adam the same grim news about Bald Bryan and his brain tumor diagnosis.
Adam shares how he was freaked out about Bryan due to Dr. Drew’s previous call that Jennifer wouldn’t make it longer than 6 months, Adam says Dr. Drew is wired like Candy Spelling, he describes how Drew will experience/interpret interactions.
Adam cites the woman Dr. Drew said was “screaming at him in the airport” and he explains how it really went down, Adam explains how other people will inform him of condescension and other things aimed at him during daily life, he just hears what people say.
Adam explains how Jimmy Kimmel and him were buying contact lenses solution so he could sleep over at Adam’s house, they ran into a guy Adam knew from his improv days, a guy named Bernie or Burn.
Adam explains how Jimmy told Adam that Bernie was unwilling to give it up that he knew that Adam was successful and on TV, Adam says he would have never thought in a million years that someone would do that.
Adam says this is what shocks him when people lie, it doesn’t come naturally nor occur to him.
Adam says it would never occur to him to pretend to now know of someone’s success, Gina chimes in and they move on.
HistoryVault.com – Adam mentions the Modern Marvels ratchet from the intro Edition
Adam teases the upcoming hooray for BaldyWood and the connection Chassy.com has to the documentary.
Adam tells them about a short clip he has of himself driving the Newman Porsche and Gina asks about Adam in the simulator, Adam says he has only raced the Sonoma track once and he needed to get some laps in.
They are now playing the insane footage of Adam driving this monster of a car on a super technical track, the sound is impressive and Adam is doing some live commentary about the car, saying it doesn’t steer how you want it to as the front end is so light.
Gina is asking him about opportunities to open the engine up on the track, she asks about the fire shooting out of the exhaust of the car in front of him.
BB jokes about that being a relaxing day in wine country, Gina agrees and says it seems stressful, Adam is telling them about never sweating that much in his life and feeling that depleted, he contrasted himself to the guy in front of him who isn’t that up in his head worrying about the track and has probably driven it many times.
Adam is now sharing his logic for the day and race, he got the track instructor to drive him around for 5 laps so he could feel what it was like to be in the car, Adam goes step by step.
“like he’s feeding a retarded kid a cracker” – Adam on the brake hand-sign given by the track instructor.
Adam further explains his lowered expectations and Gina asks if he was happy with his times, he says he was and will get into it later, Adam doesn’t want to step on the stuff done for Jay Leno’s Garage.
Adam says flyting home with Jay was awesome, Adam tells them about a private airport they used to leave from Sonoma.
Adam says it was less than 10min from the time arrived onto the property before they took off, BB confirms how superior that is for air travel.
SNHU – Common financial aid mistakes you can avoid Edition
Hooray for BaldyWood
BB saw ‘King of the Underdogs’ the very movie today’s guests Ralph Macchio and Derek Johnson are in studio promoting.
BB has the background on the film, he talks about John G. Avildsen and his career, he mentions the movie ‘Lean on Me’ which meant a lot to him as a child.
Adam is talking about how John G. Avildsen would pre-shoot scenes, which ended up being “found gold” for the documentary.
BB is going over the various big actors who got their start with John G. Avildsen, BB is saying he doesn’t have the notoriety that other directors of his era have.
BB sets up the clip of John G. Avildsen talking about how the emotional scene from ‘The Karate Kid’ touched him, even as the director.
Adam is now mocking dumb executives and industry types who don’t have any real input and just tell you to “pace it up” removing the pathos and weight that then hurts everything after it.
BB has them play the clip from the documentary.
Adam has a killer joke about Mr. Miyagi being enough to replace his own father, BB mentions another scene and recommends people check it out. BB talks about the human evolution of John and how it bled into his career, how he wouldn’t play the Hollywood game etc.
They wrap the review and Adam is now bringing up the calling that some people have, citing Sonny and football season, Adam says he can summon some semen when the topic of prime rib comes up, let alone when he smells/sees it prepared.
Adam is going over the way things could go if they were shot differently or if the studio got their way to cut key scenes.
Adam is now citing the scene from ‘Rocky’ with the ice rink, Adam goes over the various choices that could have ruined these movies.
Adam is now making a point using how they wanted to hire him as Mr. Birchum to cohost LoveLine as an analogy for how people can’t fathom someone doing something until they see it, ala Stallone’s casting and performance in ‘Rocky’ and Gina cites Adam and his work in the ‘The Hammer.’
Adam jokes about Jimmy Kimmel being Cable Ace Award nominated for ‘The Man Show’ “Man-Pons” commercial.
True Car – Chris Laxamana got a barely used Prius Edition
They Head to Break
They’re back form break with a ‘Nicaraguan Name That Movie’ intro from Ozzie, from ‘Karate Kid’ of course.
Adam welcomes both Ralph Macchio and Derek Johnson to the show, making their ACS debut(s) as neither guy has ever been on the show before, not even a KLSX phoner for Ralph even though I vaguely recalled one, either unlisted or I guess it never happened.
Adam asks them how the documentary came about, Derek says that John G. Avildsen was his favorite director and shares how he wrote a script and sent it to John, John asked for a 1k check along with the script to help script doctor it if it sucked, which it did.
Derek says he realized he couldn’t make a movie with him and instead decided to make it about it him, Adam brings up John’s recent passing and Ralph explains how he got to see the documentary before he died.
Ralph shares his personal connection to the man and the documentary, he says he’s here to help open up people’s hearts and minds to the life of John and his work.
Adam is talking about how much John filmed behind the scenes and Ralph is getting to his first audition at John’s apartment, which is available on YouTube for anyone to see.
Ralph was hoping they would change the title and Adam asks if he trained at the Jet Center, the martial arts studio.
Ralph says that his martial arts trainer was the guy cast as the referee, he did all of the fight choreography and Adam says he’s still the scariest guy on the mat and compares him to Big John McCarthy from the UFC.
Adam asks Ralph if people tried to test his martial arts skills after the movie, Ralph quotes the second AD who warned him about the shit Sylvester Stallone had to deal with, with people wanting to fight him after the movie came out. Ralph credits his smaller stature with saving him from many an ass-whooping.
Adam asks Ralph about his work in the Karate Kid trilogy, Ralph jokes about their being 3 movies but only 2 that he talks about.
He is of course referring to ‘The Karate Kid Part III’ for which Adam Carolla and Kevin Hench recorded a Basic Cable Commentary.
Basic Cable Commentary #2 – ‘The Karate Kid Part III’ (buy it now, Carolla click through link applied)
Ralph reminds them of ‘The Next Karate Kid’ and the remake, BB has a funny “Oscars between you” comment and Derek teases his next documentary about Frank Stallone.
Derek is unaware of Frank Stallone’s history of guesting on the ACS, he would be wise to track down those old episodes and the Basic Cable Commentary with Frank.
Basic Cable Commentary #4 – ‘The Specialist’
ACS #134 (feat. Frank Stallone)
ACS #211 (feat. Frank Stallone, Teresa Strasser & Bald Bryan)
ACS #462 (feat. Frank Stallone)
ACS #913 (feat. Frank Stallone and Dave Dameshek)
ACS #1159 (feat. Frank Stallone)
BB has an anecdote of dining out recently where he overheard some of Frank singing the standards, Adam is now addressing how people need to extract a pound of flesh from the siblings of celebrities.
Adam is sharing the lunch with Seth MacFarlane story from ACS #503 (feat. Dr. Drew and Jeff Ross)
Adam and Derek further discuss the quirks of Frank Stallone, Adam says Sylvester probably spends more time writing his stories down, unlike Frank who just shares them into the ether.
Adam is bringing up how enthusiastic Sylvester Stallone was telling old stories, he wants to know about that drive and if it’s genetic/cultural.
Derek says the Frank Stallone documentary is coming out in 2018, Adam says he can’t figure out if we should all be insanely jealous of Frank’s life or if we should try to avoid it, one of the few guys who you could argue that idea either way.
BB brings up Frank’s role as a bartender in ‘Barfly’ and Adam brings up Frank’s follow up song to the ‘Rocky’ soundtrack and now Ralph is telling them about the Karate Kid Theme first being written for ‘Rocky II’ and Adam is recalling finding out this trivia, Ralph continues to explain how Bill Conte was involved and composed it.
BB recalls they learned from Joe Esposito, BB says ‘Rocky III’ and Dawson has the Frank Stallone song, asking if this is the one he was requesting, ‘Far from Over’ and Adam confirms it’s 110% the song he wanted.
Adam talks about Frank having to fight the semi-unfair perception of him just being a celebrity hanger on instead of a talent who can get by on his own merits.
Derek makes a point about Frank training boxing after ‘Rocky’ and asks Ralph if he pursued his black belt, he confirms that’s not the case and Gina has a nice anecdote about The Crane Kick from the movie and why it’s an ineffective technique, even in point combat.
Derek has some closing thoughts about filmmaking and the accessibility of documentary filmmaking in reply to Adam’s excellent point.
Gina’s News
1st Story is on a Florida prison escape completed with the aid of peanut butter, Adam is riffing about never seeing this many white criminals since the last ADT commercial.
Adam asks if any of these dudes don’t look insanely guilty, Adam says there are bragging rights in being the last person recaptured.
Adam says since the invention of the clothes dryer prison escapes have dropped dramatically, you can’t use clotheslines to steal stranger’s clothes from the neighborhood in closest proximity to the prison.
BB shares a naked beach theory for how someone could escape from prison, Derek shares an anecdote of his mom witnessing a surfer change into his west suit and Gina says she only went to nude beaches while she lived in Greece.
Adam says if he was to escape from prison, he would immediately head to the side of the road and pick up trash, Derek references the Halloween sequence from ‘The Karate Kid’ and apologizes to Ralph, he’s totally cool with it as he didn’t write the movie and the costume is still insanely popular, everyone agrees it’s a classic.
2nd Story is on a 17-year-old airline passenger who opened the emergency exit upon landing and used the slide to exit onto the tarmac.
Adam says that this is why he only flies with Leno, Gina says this made her think of BB as it was a friend owned airline, Copa Airlines.
Adam is trying to figure out the details, it was at SFO airport and Dawson gets on mic to explain the routes Copa operates.
Adam is now adding a bad sign for your nation to the growing list, when prisoners are kept in prison and the bars are made of rebar, that’s a bad sign, practical but still a bad sign.
Adam says we could use the same rebar and save a few bucks instead of using the prison bars we manufacture just for locking people up, but it’s not a good look. It implies poverty and a lack of in-depth thought and analysis.
3rd Story is on a story about Donald Trump dictating a speech for his son while onboard Airforce One, Gina has clip of the press secretary talking about it.
Adam doesn’t care, he doesn’t care about any of this stuff, Adam says everyone is vying for everyone’s attention and you only need to look back a week to see the story du jour that was a waste of your time then like this is a waste of your time now.
Adam asks about the jingling keys, why do we keep falling for it and taking the bait.
“he said he would like to have sex with his daughter” – Adam making a point about Trump’s character and how a dictated statement can be shocking after that.
BB has a point about this being further evidence towards impeachment, Adam is now riffing about getting results and hitting the specific beats instead of a volume of incidents that overwhelms people.
4th Story is on the planetary protection officer position at NASA, Gina has all of the details and BB says the 150k a year is far too little to protect the whole earth from alien death.
Gina further describes the details, Adam isn’t too worried about contaminating other worlds, it cracks his top 20 but not his top 10 and Adam says if there is alien life it’s going to be algae or something.
BB points out how it could be that or far more advanced life travelling through space, Adam is talking about the NASA jumpsuit and boots.
BB brings up the movie ‘Outbreak’ and Ralph pulls Peter Coyote in ‘E.T.’ a very apt reference.
Adam wants some kind of badge if he takes the job, hilarious example of being pulled over and using the badge to get out of it, very nice word choices from Ace.
5th Story is on ‘Jiffy Tip’ the new product that allows men to block their urethras during intercourse, Adam asks about anything getting out or if it’s just for getting in.
Adam has a killer “so you’re saying the golf tee is broken” one liner and Gina has the details of the product that doesn’t seem to do much.
Adam says this is destined to go over like the “dental dam” that never got used, Adam shares how unlikely someone is to use one and Gina has a killer reaction.
Adam says the dental dam says “I know you incredibly well and not at all, simultaneously” and they all go over the product, Adam mentions his condoms with a birthmark idea to protect you in legal cases.
Legalzoom.com – Geragos hates this, they don’t do the billable hours Edition
Adam explains the birthmark condom to Ralph, letting him know the benefits and BB has a killer one liner, nice use of “dong” from Ralph.
Gina is now going over the process of plugging the jiffy tip into the penis, hilarious “cartoon duckbill” example from Dawson, Adam jokes about your balls exploding like when Yosemite Sam swallows dynamite.
6th Story is on the most popular way to order steaks, Adam says he has a great reality TV idea where Jimmy Kimmel takes everyone out and they order steaks overcooked and well done.
Gina has the list of results and says a lot of her friends order bloody steaks, Adam says the older he gets the rare steak sounds better.
Adam tells them about ordering a tomahawk steak, he describes it and says it’s a very good cut of meat.
Gina polls the guests about their steak preference, Ralph brings up his wife who orders it well done and how he feels it’s a waste of money and good cuts of meat.
Adam is now sharing his theory about James Babydoll Dixon and “The Yummy Phase” and he asks if Ralph’s wife only eats yummy foods.
Ralph explains how his wife won’t eat food that could have parasites and Adam jokes about the double-edged sword of a wife that won’t eat sushi and how much money he could save.
Onnit.com – Adam did Take a Knee with Aubrey Marcus, all Adam Talking Again Edition
7th Story is on the new Video Archive video store/bar in Ohio, Gina has all of the details of the bar and how it pays homage to Quentin Tarantino’s work.
Adam has a killer tampon one liner as Gina describes the drink options, BB shares his lifelong fandom for the guy and Adam asks how much of a weirdo he is.
Ralph says he met Quentin Tarantino at an awards show, they were one table apart and Ralph kept getting finger guns from him, Ralph shares how complimentary QT was and how much he knew about all of his work and the cinematographers he worked with.
Gina brings up a movie Ralph did where he played a character who had progeria, Ralph explains the movie was titled ‘The Three Wishes of Billy Grier’ and jokes about hoping he’s not aging like in the movie.
Adam compliments his youthful visage and brings up the Deaf Frat Guy joke about his buddy with progeria they used to buy beer while underage.
Adam just brought up Brian Austin Green and how Megan Fox must’ve first seen him as a kid watching TV, Adam tells Ralph he’s always got a one up on Quentin Tarantino as he was in the Karate kid and had a career before QT, Adam calls him “The T man” and Ralph seems invigorated by the realization, Adam asks Ralph to tell them about his new project.
Ralph explains it’s an 8-episode series called ‘The Deuce’ for HBO, created by David Simon of ‘The Wire’ fame.
Ralph tells them about the series and how his character joins the cast for episode two.
Geico – Get a Karate Kid IV Blu Ray, the cinematography is amazing! Edition
Adam is plugging the podcasting master class, BB interrupts to explain that he’s working with Chris Maxipada at the Podcasting Master Class to show people how the drops work and how he integrates them into the show. Gina chimes in and they talk about the “secret sauce” that BB will be sharing.
“I’m keeping all of my secret sauce, I got one of those pepe stickers… bring a slicker front row, the sticker is off” – Adam
Adam has Derek give out a final plug and the wrap up the show to Gina saying “The Crane Move is Bullshit” and Dawson gives the closing plugs after stumbling for a moment.
Great Episode! I hope Ralph and Derek come back on again very soon.