Shreddies, Studs, and Stay Gold | Easygoing Company for a Quiet Evening

In Shreddies, Studs, and Stay Gold, Marco and Amanda ease into another softly meandering conversation that turns everyday mishaps and nostalgic memories into something unexpectedly calming. The episode begins with Amanda’s unfortunate toe-stubbing incident — told with just enough detail to be relatable, but not dramatic — before drifting into distinctly Canadian territory with reflections on bagged milk and its quiet cultural charm.
From there, cereal takes center stage, with Shreddies sparking a surprising connection to Campbell’s Soup and a gentle exploration of breakfast rituals past and present. The conversation then glides into the nostalgic world of The Outsiders, touching on behind-the-scenes tidbits and the enduring appeal of “stay gold” sentimentality. Rather than diving too deep, Marco and Amanda keep the tone light and companionable, letting memories surface without urgency.
As always, this calming podcast unfolds at an unhurried pace, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts. It’s perfect for background listening at bedtime or during a middle-of-the-night wake-up — just steady voices, gentle tangents, and a soft drift toward rest.

​Shreddies, Studs, and Stay Gold
(Original airdate: August 1, 2024)


Amanda Barker stubbed her toe on the way into the studio

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation about the mundane. Thank you for listening. I'm your host, Marco Timpano.

Amanda:  And I'm the mundane.

Marco:  And that's Amanda Barker, who stubbed her toe a moment ago.

Amanda:  Yeah, it was a dramatic event in this booth.

Marco:  Yes.

Amanda:  So when I have an incident like stubbing one's toe, my first line of defense is I don't want to faint. So it's always very confusing for Marco because I'M crazy all of a sudden. But I also don't want to take the. I don't want to respond to him. So I usually try to eke out and I'm okay of some level, so he can know, okay, this isn't, you know, whatever, and that'll be manageable. But I'm also trying to focus on my breath so that I don't faint, because that is a bigger problem. So I didn't faint, but now I have a really busted toe.

Marco:  She busted it, or she stubbed it on the way into the studio to record. And so recording later than we would have liked.

Amanda:  It was a little baby one. So it's already fat, and now it's very fat.

Marco:  Okay, well, hopefully it's not busted. Hopefully it's just a little bit bruised. And, And there you go.

Amanda:  Some people have a baby toe that, like, sits on top of their other toes.

Marco:  It's true. It's true.

Amanda:  That's a neat thing. I don't have that.

Marco:  But I recommend wearing slippers around the house and not be barefoot.

Amanda:  And by slippers, you mean like old lady slipp?

Marco:  I mean. No, I mean.

Amanda:  You mean you call your Birkenstocks slippers?

Marco:  Yeah, I mean Birkenstocks. I mean any sort of slipper type thing.

Amanda:  Well, I have slippers, and I was shooting yesterday and they wanted me to bring slippers, so I brought all my slippers to show them, and they went, none of these are usable. And then there was no. My feet were nowhere near the shot anyway, so that's where they are. They're in a suitcase for nobody to use.

Marco:  And what kind of slippers do you like to use?

Amanda:  Well, I would have. I was trying to find flip flops to wear down here, but I couldn't find any, so I came down barefoot. And we know how that ended. But, I just like a nice, comfy slipper. I don't know. I don't. I like, something with a lot of inside comfort, like, you know, a fake lambswool or something, or wool, whatever.

Marco:  What about, like, a Birkenstock? Like what I wear.

Amanda:  See, that to me is a sandal. It's not a slipper. For starters, I love a Birkenstock. the problem with backless shoes is sometimes they hurt the backs of my ankles because my foot's constantly gripping to hold them on. But a. Ah, good flip flop. Yeah, that's a thing. And you get shin splints from them often. A lot of people do.

Marco:  why is your back of your foot gripping My foot.

Amanda:  Well, I'll try to demo with my busted toe, but my foot's constantly gripping to hold the shoe on because nothing's. Because otherwise it'll fall off.

Marco:  But it wouldn't fall off if you have like a double strap like the one I have here.

Amanda:  When I had Birkenstocks like that, that was the biggest problem, so I had to stop wearing them. I see. Yeah. But I like wearing them around the house because they're good support. I love. Listen, I love Birkenstocks, but I have a pair of Birkenstock boots that I wear all winter long. They look. They're huge because Birkenstocks just have that wide sole. So imagine that in a leather boot. I look like I'm going to. I'm stepping off of a motorcycle and Blade Runner or something. But. But I do. But, no, I have a pair of flip flops called Archies. Yes, they offer really great support.

Marco:  Trevor was telling me all about Archies.

Amanda:  Trevor and I like to buy things that are pitched to us online.

Marco:  But Archies, do you have to grasp with your heel?

Amanda:  No, I mean, I've gotten better over the years with that. With wearing backless shoes. But that's the problem with backless shoes. And me, like, I can't wear them every day.

Marco:  These are slippers or sandals as you call them. They're not shoes.

Amanda:  Yeah, they're sandals. Yeah. Okay, well, flip flops aren't. I mean, they're their own category too.

Marco:  I don't like a flip flop. You have the flip flop that goes like. Like a thong flip flop. Is that what we're talking?

Amanda:  Yeah, thongs.


Can you wear thongs on your feet and underwear at the same time

Marco:  That's what Aussies call them, right?

Amanda:  I think we, Yeah, I've heard them called thongs before. But then obviously thongs are also underwear, so I don't know. AKA the Thong song.

Marco:  Can you wear both thongs on your feet?

Amanda:  What happened to Cisco?

Marco:  Can you wear both? He sang the Thong Song, in case you're wondering. And he's not the one who delivers food to different restaurants and whatnot.

Amanda:  Cisco with a C. Or Cisco as it might be called.

Marco:  Are you able to wear thongs on your feet and thongs on your underwear at the same time?

Amanda:  Thongs on my underwear?

Marco:  Well, thongs as underwear.

Amanda:  Me or the theoretical you? Because I think both are true.

Marco:  The royal we. Do you think we could do it?

Amanda:  I don't like feeling like I have a wedgie every day of my life, so it would not be me, but the royal we could do it. I'M sure someone in royalty has done such a thing.

Marco:  Fair enough. It's just a funny, funny thought. There's no other thong other than those two instances of thong. Right.

Amanda:  There's tongs, salad tongs. You could use them while you're wearing your thong. And your other thong.

Marco:  Do you use salad tongs? We have a few of them, and they drive me. They always drive me a little bit crazy because they expand. These ones we have now are pretty good. They kind of hold their place when you're not using them.

Amanda:  What do you mean? They expand?

Marco:  You know how if you.

Amanda:  Oh, you mean like. Yeah. Is that what they're called? Tongs? The thing with the thing on top that holds the two pieces together. You mean?

Marco:  Yeah, it's a little thing that allows you to pick up stuff.

Amanda:  That's a.

Marco:  That's a. That's a tong.

Amanda:  I guess it is. I was thinking salad. Like we have a salad fork, big fork and spoon combo made out of wood. That's what I use.

Marco:  I don't like the bear claw thingy that we have. They're kind of like. They look like combs. They're, like, short. Is that what you're talking about?

Amanda:  Wait, we have short ones? Yeah. No, there's like a bit like a big wooden thing. What are you talking about?

Marco:  Don't we have little.

Amanda:  What are you making, salad?

Marco:  No, it's true. But you know the two wooden ones that we have that don't have handles?

Amanda:  Yeah, that's what I prefer to use. So that's the one you don't like?

Marco:  Yeah, I don't like them. They don't have handles. It seems weird to me. It feels like you're.

Amanda:  They don't have handles.

Marco:  They don't have long handles.

Amanda:  They have handles, though. Those. I mean, there's some don't, but those ones do.

Marco:  I don't like them.

Amanda:  My toe hurts.

Marco:  I'm sorry.

Amanda:  Now I'm trying to use the tile to cool it because I can't move away from the mic to ice it. So I'm just trying to find a cool tile moment to put it on. It's all swollen.


Canada is the only country in the world that has bags of milk

Marco:  Amanda had a bag of frozen milk on her foot a moment ago.

Amanda:  So that's a very Canadian thing, Frozen milk. We should probably explain that frozen milk

Marco:  is a Canadian thing. Bags of milk, both.

Amanda:  Because you can't really freeze a carton of milk, can you?

Marco:  Sure you can. If you have room in your freezer, you can freeze a carton, I suppose,

Amanda:  but I've never tried. But yeah. No, Canada is Canada, the only country in the world that has bags of milk?

Marco:  I believe so.

Amanda:  Yeah. I don't know how that happened or how that started, but in Canada. Very practical people, for those who are not here. Well, yeah, I suppose. But they're plastic. But they sell. You buy your milk. I mean, you can buy it in a carton, you know, like a civilian or if you're the rest of the population. The majority of the population. I think what you do is you buy a bag, and in that bag are three individual bags.

Marco:  Correct.

Amanda:  Of milk. All like a liter, I would say. Of milk. Each one.

Marco:  Sure. Yeah.

Amanda:  I don't know.

Marco:  Anyway, I'm gonna go with that. I guess it's either 750 or a liter.

Amanda:  Sure. it's four.

Marco:  No, wait. It's four liters for three bags, I believe is what it is.

Amanda:  Okay. Well, there you go.

Marco:  I'd have to look at the big.

Amanda:  A liter 25. I think that is what it is. Actually, it's 1.25. Anyway, but you should explain what

Marco:  the bag is like, because.

Amanda:  Yeah, I'm trying. so then you get this bag. It's a clear bag or it's blue. One company makes them in, like, a blue plastic. The rest are clear. And you put it in a separate plastic container that you just use and wash. That looks just like a little pitcher. And you put the bag in the little pitcher, but you keep everything in the bag. And then you just cut a little hole in the corner of the bag and pour it out that way the

Marco:  bag looks like a rectangle. Like a. Like a. I'm trying to think of something that looks like that bag. So people. Because people think bag, they think like a little sandbag.

Amanda:  Like a baby sandbag filled with milk.

Marco:  Yeah, I guess a sandbag. I'm trying to think of other things. Like, they're rectangular and kind of long.

Amanda:  Well, it's a rectangle. Yeah, for sure.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  Yeah, it's a rectangle of milk. Good old rectangle. Anyway, and you buy them. And now, here's the thing. A lot of adults are like, oh, I don't drink a lot of milk. I put cream on my coffee or whatever. Well, Marco and I do drink milk for cappuccinos, but it is mostly just for coffee. We're not big into cereal or anything, but we like having milk in the house.

Marco:  I don't mind cereal, but we don't often buy it in this house.

Amanda:  No, it's true. I don't know. I fell out of the cereal train once I hit my Adult years, and I kind of never looked back. But, in any event, we drink it enough that we about half the time have it in the house, I would say.

Marco:  Full disclosure, we have two boxes of Shreddies that were on sale. Honey Shreddies, My favorite.

Amanda:  Also very Canadian. So explain Shreddies.

Marco:  Shreddies are a cereal that look like a little square that have almost a pattern, on them. Like a crisscross pattern.

Amanda:  Yeah, they're almost like, Chex, but better, like American Czechs, but dense. But they're not as puffed as American Chex.

Marco:  They're dense and tasty.

Amanda:  So that's a thing.


Your sister and you love Canadian things, I would say

So anyway, you know who likes Shreddies? Your sister. Yes, it's true, apparently. And you. Yes, you like them. your sister and you are very interesting because you guys really do love really purely Canadian things, I would say.

Marco:  We do.

Amanda:  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You both have, like, a real love of, like, really Canadian things. Because I think you kids that grew up in Canada, yeah, we're Canadian.

Marco:  I know, but I don't understand.

Amanda:  What makes Shreddies is one for sure. Tasty bagged milk.

Marco:  Bagged milk. That's the best way to have milk in a bag.

Amanda:  So anyway, you can recycle these bags for those who are like, wow, this is a lot of plastic. Which it is. But, the glory of it is for people like us who are not gonna go through what we used to buy in the states when I was a kid. Those big jugs of milk, the gallon of milk or whatever. You can just have one bag on the go, but you have those other two bags, and you can throw them in the freezer, and then you just defrost them, and it defrosts perfectly fine. You can even throw it in the little pouring jug, and it'll slowly defrost there. So that's kind of the glory. Well, this week, I hit the frozen milk jackpot.

Marco:  It's true.

Amanda:  Because, I don't even shop at the grocery store that's near us because we just. Our food needs are not really organized in a way where I go to the grocery store is the truth. We do box meals, and then we do a big box Costco, store.

Marco:  But we used to have two grocery stores very close to us. Now we have or three with the other one that opened down the street. Actually, four, to be honest.

Amanda:  Four. We actually had four. We're in a grocery store zone.

Marco:  Zone. And one is now turning into condos. So it's gone. My Sobeys Yeah.

Amanda:  Another one. Another condo. Put a grocery store in a very. Like, our version of a Whole Foods, I would say.

Marco:  Yeah. And I don't love it. I don't love getting to it. I don't love it.

Amanda:  It's niche. It has some. It's try. It's Canada's answer to Trader Joe's. So, it's not Trader Joe's. it does its best. That's the best I can say.

Marco:  And so, anyways, the one closest to

Amanda:  our house is, just the biggest one of Canada. And so I don't go there a lot. and so I don't need to. We go to Costco. We have box meals. We're only two people in this house. You know, I don't need to shop. Like, we're a family of six. We're not. So I've learned, you know, I love to grocery shop, but I've learned that it's. It's not. Especially in the summer. We've been away a ton.

Marco:  We go to food stands. We have beautiful peaches right now.

Amanda:  Yeah, yeah, we got corn and peaches from a food stand. I made a gorgeous corn chowder out of local corn and potatoes. So you know it. We don't need to do that as much.

Marco:  Amanda subscribed to some service where you can go pick fruit off people's trees.

Amanda:  I know, and we have to do that because I've gotten a lot of updates of, like, fruit picks available.

Marco:  What fruit picks are available?

Amanda:  I don't know where we are. We're at. I think we're almost out of cherry season. I don't even know. All right, so, yeah, we got to do that, but we haven't been around. So I haven't committed to a fruit pick because we haven't been around.

Marco:  We had to go, out of country for work. That's why you didn't have an episode last week.

Amanda:  So, anyways, very unexpectedly, to be honest.


The bagged milk for $2 at this grocery store is unheard of

So all this to say the more important thing. Of course, the country. Going out of country is interesting, but for us, what is most interesting for this podcast is our bags of milk. Bags of milk. So I hit the bagged milk jackpot. I saw on one of the groups I'm on. Hey, everyone, they got the. The bagged milk for $2 at this grocery store. Now, that's unheard of because usually you buy these three bags and it'll run you around six bucks. Yeah, between five and six on a normal day.

Marco:  I don't remember when they sold them for two bucks. I always remember Them around three bucks.

Amanda:  Yeah. And now they're definitely five dollars would be sale. Yeah, it's between five and six, generally speaking. And so. And of course, the reason being because the milk was, set to expire, I think, next week.

Marco:  I see, I see. So they had a surplus of milk. They had a run on milk that they had to get rid of, in other words.

Amanda:  Yes. So I bought four of these bags, which, remember, contain three bags each of milk. So our freezer is just milk, Milk, bags of milk. So we do have peas from my poor wounded toe, but they are way behind some frozen milk that I haven't managed to get to yet. So you and I are drinking a lot of cappuccinos, I guess.

Marco:  I guess that milk will last us. The interesting thing is when you unfreeze a bag of milk, it doesn't froth the same way as prior to frozen.

Amanda:  That's true.

Marco:  Unless someone has a tip on how to froth reconstituted thawed milk.

Amanda:  But other than that, it's perfectly the same milk. It's not like there's nothing odd about it. Weird or chunky or anything about it. but, sometimes I can get it to froth.

Marco:  I was gonna try to make ricotta with the milk, and I, just didn't have time or the desire. I've been busy.

Amanda:  Yeah. Ah, well, you use a whole. How much to get, like, a good

Marco:  cup of ricotta, you need those three bags. Or ricotta, you need three bags. For sure. There's a lot of.

Amanda:  It's not economical.

Marco:  No, it's not. Like, I thought at one point, I'll make my own ricotta. We don't have to buy it, but it actually costs more to make it than.

Amanda:  Although making your own and when you eat it warm is like nothing else. Yeah, but. Yeah, we know. I don't think our ricotta needs are as such that we need to be funding them.

Marco:  I'm still curious on what me and my sister do. That's very Canadian that you said.

Amanda:  You say converter for the.

Marco:  That's what it's called.

Amanda:  you reference Canadian things. I think you say chesterfield for the sofa.

Marco:  That's actually a British thing. Thank you very much.

Amanda:  But it's also a Canadian thing. Can you do it?

Marco:  I would like to get a Chesterfield.

Amanda:  You guys like actual Chesterfield? Okay, well, we will.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  you both like craft dinner and call it craft dinner?

Marco:  Who doesn't?

Amanda:  what else do you guys do that's Canadian? I don't know. She likes drip coffee.

Marco:  Okay, fair enough.

Amanda:  I think she likes Tim Hortons Now,

Marco:  Amanda, anytime me and my sister do something together that's very Canadian, she'll point

Amanda:  it out to us. But to me, Shreddies is a very Canadian, like. Oh, I love Shreddies. Is a very Canadian thing.

Marco:  Because they're boring. It's a boring cereal. Right? It's not like a Sugar Puffs or a Fruit Loops or anything.

Amanda:  Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I'll have you know.

Marco:  But at that point, it's no longer cereal.

Amanda:  Well, this is why Amanda needs to get her sugar levels checked as an adult, because that's. She lived on as a child. What can I say?

Marco:  Oh, fair enough.

Amanda:  yeah, listen, I was. I was raised in the, heart of America.

Marco:  It's true.

Amanda:  Not the heartland, the. The revolutionary heart, man.

Marco:  If. If you haven't.


You identify as a Torontonian, right? I think so

Amanda:  This is your first podcast, folks. I'm from, just south of Boston. That's really just south. Like we call it Boston, but south Shore. The South Shore. That's where I'm from.

Marco:  That's right.

Amanda:  with my busted toe and I'm from Wicked Hurts. Oh, man. I'm from Swelling Up.

Marco:  just north of Toronto is where I was born.

Amanda:  That's true.

Marco:  And then I live just north of Toronto, but now I live in Toronto.

Amanda:  So you identify as a Torontonian?

Marco:  I think so. I think so.

Amanda:  I think you're as much as anyone is a Torontonian. I mean, you've lived in Toronto proper, not the suburbs, for 20 plus years now.

Marco:  Right, right. But I grew up always, like, in the suburbs. Mississauga Vaughan, you know, that was sort of my world. but it's changed. It's changed quite a bit. I was talking to someone about that. It's like you go back to where you were raised and it looks totally different.

Amanda:  Yeah, it's true. Well, nothing gold can stay. Ponyboy, I guess.


Marco Cranieri says the original Karate Kid holds up remarkably well

Marco:  Speaking of that, that's on Broadway right now.

Amanda:  And I saw the original movie the other day, and for me, it holds up.

Marco:  Oh, you watched the Outsiders?

Amanda:  Yeah, when I was sick a couple weeks ago. like a month ago now. I just had this urge to watch the Outsiders. I hadn't seen it since I was 7 years old, but I had sort of memories of it. It's interesting. Like, Tom Cruise is a very small role in it. Like, you think of the cast, and they all went on to have incredible careers, really. except for maybe, C. Thomas Howell, the lead. Yeah. See, Thomas Howell, I mean, he did in the 80s.

Marco:  He was. He had a lot of movies. He was doing.

Amanda:  I bet you, he, if you looked it up, he's like a big director or something. but the rest of them, I mean, Patrick Swayze, Tom. Patrick Swayze, by the way, is great in it. Tom Cruise, obviously Ralph Macchio, who's had a nice resurgence with, the Karate Kid series, Cobra Kai, which I love, by the way. We have to. We're behind on that. We're a couple seasons behind on that. We did, I think, up to season two or three. It got a little. I couldn't follow which dojo was which, who were the good guys or whatever, so I kind of stopped watching. But we should get back into that because it had a very promising beginning. And I have to say, that original Karate Kid movie, since we're on that also holds up. And I have a theory on why.

Marco:  Why?

Amanda:  Okay, here's my theory on the Karate Kid that everyone has been dying to hear. my theory is improv.

Marco:  Oh.

Amanda:  My theory is improv.

Marco:  Oh.

Amanda:  So when you watch the Karate Kid movie, there are parts of it. Obviously it's scripted. It's a scripted movie, but there are a lot of parts of it that feel really real and organic and like they just happened for the first time, which is what any good scene or acting should feel like. But that's hard to do when you've been rehearsing and, you know, and a lot of movies in the 80s do not feel that way or didn't feel that way. So this one is, I think, unique and it's why it holds up. And my theory as to why is because Ralph Macchio did the Outsiders. The Outsiders, we remember, was Francis Ford Coppola.

Marco:  That's right.

Amanda:  Which is an interesting. Was an interesting choice. Which, by the way, tangent on that. Apparently Francis Ford Coppola made that movie because a classroom wrote to him and said, we love this book. Would you please make it into a movie? No, this is a true story. Yeah, like a. Like a third grade class or something wrote to him.

Marco:  I think that book's a little bit intense for a grade three class, but

Amanda:  okay, see, grade three Canadian. Okay. Anyway, Okay, maybe they're in middle school.

Marco:  We love this. This very violent book where kid, I

Amanda:  was seven, I was grade two when I saw it. But anyway. Okay, whatever.

Marco:  Fair enough.

Amanda:  I don't know.

Marco:  But anyway, the lore is that.

Amanda:  No, it's not a lore. If you look it up, the Internet is real. you can find the original letter and all of that.

Marco:  Oh, really?

Amanda:  Yeah, they wrote to him and said, we think this should be your next movie after The Godfather. And he read it and went, guess what? We're going to do it. We optioned it. Good, idea.

Marco:  How does a grade three class find his address to write him a letter?

Amanda:  Because the 80s.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  I don't know, Marco. When I was in grade three, our teacher had us write to companies asking for free samples. It's actually brilliant as, a way for us to practice our letter writing skills.

Marco:  And did you get free samples?

Amanda:  I did. You know the company that really. I did from a few companies, but there was one and I, like, hit the jackpot.

Marco:  I'm gonna say Ocean Spray. Cranberries.

Amanda:  No. Such a good guess.

Marco:  McClaws lobster rolls.

Amanda:  That hadn't come out yet. Okay. Campbell soup. Oh, Campbell soup sent me a box of, clam chowder. No, actually, I don't think any of it was soup. I think it was like, it was all like the Campbell's kids. So it was like coloring books for classes. Coloring books, stickers. They had all of this paraphernalia. And the main thing for us as kids were in that age wasn't necessarily like, are we gonna get, you know, we just wanted to see what we could get out of these companies.


Amanda Barker says grade three teacher encouraged improv in school

Which is funny because I ended up being on the other side of those letters, years later for a big pizza company here. And that was my job for a long time, was answering those letters. But, that's what we did. But it was really brilliant, actually, because it was for us to practice our formal letter writing skills to, like, where the address goes. To whom it may concern.

Marco:  I love it.

Amanda:  Best regards, Amanda Barker, grade three student, Mrs. Hough's class.

Marco:  And were you the only one who got, a mother load of return?

Amanda:  A couple kids did. But I remember being so proud because no one else had done Campbell's soup. I see a lot of kids hit up like Johnson and Johnson. Of course, I, don't remember. We weren't allowed to do, like, medicine brands, so I can't really remember, which that probably is.

Marco:  So nobody wrote to Ozempic or anything like that is what you're saying I did not exist?

Amanda:  It did not exist. But, yeah, I think there was a lot of, like Procter and Gamble. Like, there was a lot of that. Because we'd be like, oh, who makes this toothpaste? And it would be some. And we learned, oh, a lot of companies make a lot of things and they come back to the same company.

Marco:  Isn't that your teacher was pretty brilliant?

Amanda:  Listen, I stand by the education I got in Massachusetts. I got a good education. I don't. It wasn't easy. like, they would give you a date. They wouldn't think twice about it. But we. We learn, man. anyway, I don't know how I got on Campbell's suit, but, The Outsiders, of course. yeah, they wrote to. They wrote to him, and so he made it. But m. Anyways, my m. Oh, Karate Kid. It all comes back to Karate Kid.

Marco:  I never liked the Outsiders. The book or the movie?

Amanda:  What? Yeah, I read, the one after it. I can't remember what it was.

Marco:  The Insiders. No, there's a book after the Outsiders.

Amanda:  Yeah. It's like, Then Again or if Only Then or something.

Marco:  Sounds like the Sex and the City remake.

Amanda:  No, it was. It was arguably better than that. Not arguably. It was better than that. and what's funny is Essie Hinton, who's in. She's in the Outsider. She has a cameo as one of the nurses that's treating Ralph Macchio. Yeah.

Marco:  Good for them. Yeah.

Amanda:  Yeah. And they're, like, really. The. The actors are, like, really rude to her, and the. Matt Dillon is, like, really rude to her in the scene. But she's the. She's the author of the book. She wasn't old. She wrote it as a teen. Wow. So she's only in her, like, 20s in that movie. It's pretty incredible. Anyway, she wrote it in her teens. Yeah. And she used Essie Hinton because she thought nobody will take a girl seriously. So she. She used that. Her name's, like, Susan Hinton. Yeah. So. And she plays one of the nurses. Like, she has, like, one line, but they purposely. Coppola did a cameo. Pretty brilliant, really. Anyway, so he. On the Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola, that is encouraged. He really had them. You know, it was coming off the 70s, off of Pacino and obviously the work in the Godfather and De Niro and that school of acting in the 70s. It was very method. So he had the. The boys all living together and had them improvising, together, and, really just fostered this culture of improv with all of them. And the next movie Ralph Macchio did was the Karate Kid. So he was coming from Francis Ford Coppola, the spirit of improv, and just. He had. Which most kids would not have. And I know this to be true because I work with kids in acting every day, wouldn't have the courage to just go off page and just become the character and improvise a scene and think that that's okay and that's a thing they can just go for on set. But Ralph Macchio did, because he had just been coming from a set where that was the norm.

Marco:  Right.

Amanda:  And then you pair him with Pat Morita, who had been a lifelong stand up comedian, long history of, you know, stand up. But in Stand up, there's a lot of improv, obviously, if you're good, if you're good at it.


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And so the two of them just met comedic beats together, even though it's not a comedic movie.

Marco:  Right.

Amanda:  They found the timing and the improv organically together. And that's why it holds up. The Karate Kid. There you go.

Marco:  And there you go. I feel like we did a tour of the 80s today. as well as a cup of Campbell soup. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please tune in and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe or just give us a really positive review would be really helpful. And we hope you did not stay awake till this part of the podcast, but if you did, thank you for staying awake with us and we will see you or you will hear us next time.