TOP FIVE: Favorite Fictional Presidents

[00:00:00] Hey guys, Ben here with a little bit of an apology.

[00:00:11] So I've recorded a couple episodes in advance of their releases.

[00:00:17] So I've got this one and then I've got another one that's coming out in a couple weeks.

[00:00:22] This one, the top five favorite fictional presidents.

[00:00:25] And then in a couple of weeks, I apologize for the way they sound in advance. The settings were wrong. It's my bad. I swear other episodes are going to be normal. I'm going to double check my settings before every recording, which

[00:01:40] let's be real, I'm a professional. That's what I Ben Beck and it is Presidents Day. So what better time than now to talk about our favorite fictional presidents in both television and film. To do that I of course need my guest. He is no stranger to Wilhelm. He has been on before.

[00:03:01] He'll be on again. He is the host of the Daddy Daughter Bookworms podcast as well as what there's a lot of great president adaptations, which after reading the topic, I realized that half of my list, I had to rework because I was looking at the wrong type of list. But no, you know, there's a lot of great presidential

[00:05:40] depictions. Yeah, depictions. And I just love it. So with your daughter, which was an amazing idea. And I'm so happy that's becoming popular. But man, you guys over in what is from is, you guys are killing it on that podcast. Well, all I can say is we got really lucky

[00:05:44] and I've had connection with Harold Pernod and he sent a video thanking us on, or congratulating us on our 50th episode. And I have to say, it was, and I surprised my podcast partner, Lizzie, with it.

[00:07:00] And it's just, it's a wild ride.

[00:07:03] Like, I don't even like, it's not even real,

[00:07:06] but you know, I was like, okay, that's pretty impressive. And I was like really smiling as I was watching that. And I was, it made me very happy. So I'm very happy that you've become as successful as you have. Well, one of these days, I'll have Wilhelm type show and I can say I knew, you know, you knew me when.

[00:08:21] Exactly.

[00:08:23] So let's get into it.

[00:08:24] Yeah, let's get into the president, is Donald Plesson. And he- Pleasants. Pleasants, I'm sorry. And he, first off, I love him

[00:09:44] because he was in one of my favorite movies,

[00:10:44] Escape from New York because I know you have thoughts. I love Escape from New York. I know you do

[00:10:50] I mean, I'll even say like I know it's not nearly as good as the as the as its predecessor But even like I like Escape from LA, I think that's just as fun of a movie

[00:10:54] New York did it better because New York did it first, but I mean it's you can't go wrong

[00:11:00] with Kurt Russell

[00:11:03] You know, Ernest Borgnine is such a legendary of mine to this day, obviously, which is the reason why it came on this list. And that is President James Marshall from Air Force One. Yeah, baby. Harrison Ford as not only an awesome president, I'll do it. But in this particular scene, you know, he says three and he's like, I don't want to and the moment he says two, he's like, I'll do it. Like doesn't even get down to one. And that is a moment that really shows like, what is more important to this character?

[00:13:42] Is it the presidency or is it his family?

[00:13:44] And of course, it should be his family.

[00:13:46] Of course. a satisfying ending. A lot of times you don't get that satisfying ending and that's totally satisfying and ending as it can be. Yeah. There are a couple moments that don't hold up technology wise, like when Air Force One crashes. Right. The CGI is a little off on it, but I mean, come on, like we're talking about a movie

[00:15:03] that was what, 1997?

[00:15:05] Yeah.

[00:15:06] So it's forgivable.

[00:15:08] I mean, he is, he's trying to always be on

[00:16:22] the right side of history, yet he can never be.

[00:16:25] And he's just oh god. It's so ridiculous of a character, but that's what kind of makes it humorous, you know, in relation to the one that you just chose with Stephen Colbert from Monsters vs. Aliens. I would seen that movie in forever either. I didn't either. And when I started doing like the research for it, I'm like, let me see what the list is. And then I'm like, Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. So, you know, I took a little, little glance at it. I'm like, Oh, yeah, this is really good.

[00:18:46] ones that we just love because, you know, they could be goofy, they could be stupid. Like that's the point of a favorites list.

[00:18:48] This is not, they're not, favorites are not always the best.

[00:18:53] So you know, uh, but with that being said, I'm going to go into my number four and I

[00:19:00] might get some shit, uh, for this one, he already made it to my top five.

[00:20:21] I'm gonna say, you know, the West Wing is kinda like,

[00:20:26] you're lost, I know tell you right now, varies before anybody says anything in feedback or anything like that. I will be finishing the West Wing relatively soon. And I'm starting over, like I'm starting from episode one

[00:21:40] and going until the end.

[00:21:42] I mean, you know, it's one of those shows,

[00:21:46] like I watch a lot of the Big Bang Theory

[00:21:48] over and over and over again. You know, when you hear about a show takes place in the White House and it's written by Aaron Sorkin, yeah, like it's a no-brainer. Number three on your list. Okay, so this is an older movie and it has two of the greatest comedians, actually no, it has more than two of the greatest comedians ever.

[00:23:01] It's my fellow Americans.

[00:23:04] That's in my honorable mentions list. know who James Robhorn is? James Robhorn, yeah. You'll know who he is when you see his face. I mean, it's just like, it's awesome. And it's just, it's a fun movie. And if you like, if you love those 80s type of,

[00:24:20] or I'm sorry, it was the 90s, it was the 96, I'm sorry.

[00:24:23] But it's just Whitford's character that's behind it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's the vice-president... oh no, Jon Hurd is the vice president. Yes, Jon Hurd. No, Jon Hurd is the one that's behind it. Yeah. That's right, the vice president is the one that's behind everything President Mitchell in the movie Dave. I adored this movie so much. I actually rewatched it last night.

[00:27:01] I've seen it more times than I can count that so many was this underlying love story where he basically courted the first lady. Yeah, the first lady. Yeah. And it's just it. There's just one word. It was just cute.

[00:28:20] Yeah, I can. That's a good report.

[00:28:23] There's not there's not anything bad about. Absolutely. And yeah, it's great when they do that kind of stuff where they can actually get the real people to kind of give it a little legitimacy, so to speak. But yeah, there's nothing bad about it.

[00:29:41] I mean, one thing, every time I think of Ben Kingsley,

[00:29:45] I think of him with that stupid hat going Number three, Dave, President Bill Mitchell, Dave Kovik. Like, again, I adore that movie, had to be on my list of top five. Of course. The one that I'm gonna tell you, again, I had him on my list. I had Dave as like number one or number two. So, but that said, I'm gonna go another different direction to Mars Attacks.

[00:31:02] Jack Nicholson.

[00:31:03] I mean, that's all you gotta say is Jack Nicholson.

[00:32:03] I mean, anytime you get to see Jack doing comedy, he's just so awful and just so good.

[00:32:09] And I just want to eat him up

[00:32:12] and beat the crap out of him all at the same time.

[00:32:14] So that's it.

[00:32:16] Yeah.

[00:32:17] It doesn't translate well at all.

[00:32:20] Like-

[00:32:20] No, I don't think that's true.

[00:32:22] I think that movie is still fun to this day.

[00:32:25] Okay.

[00:32:25] I mean, you look at the cast,

[00:33:24] too many boxing aliens going on. Yeah. All right. So what's your next one?

[00:33:32] So my number two, again, I'm sticking with the serious on this one, only because, again, this is another movie that I watched recently in preparation for this because it had been a long

[00:33:36] time and I wanted to watch it. I was reminded how much I loved this movie. I'm sticking with

[00:33:43] Aaron Sorkin again, and I'm going with to jumping right into how everything is in the White House with the staff meetings and dealing with everything, it's also a love story and a romance at the same time. You have this widowed president finding a love interest and kind of the humor that goes

[00:35:01] along with dealing with that. worse than it was today. Oh, yeah. I mean, you mean like with the social media, the way things went down? So in regards to, OK, so in particular, there's a scene where it's the first scene where a Ned Penning, where Sidney Ellen Wade spends

[00:36:21] the night with the president.

[00:36:22] And when they wake up in the morning, Lewis is there,

[00:36:26] AJ is there, everybody's who plays the other woman. Oh, jeez, I should know this. Wendy Malick. Yes. And when the mouse decide in her own Wendy Malick way, he doesn't know what that is. Yes, of course I do. Because I mean, that's his job to know that because everybody probably says the same thing. And I think it was really kind of neat, because you really felt as though

[00:37:40] you were going to the White House for the first time with

[00:37:43] her. And I just think that, you know, it was it was yeah, I love it. I know I just think it was a it was a good movie and it was my one and two were kind of Looks awful. Yeah, I mean they're like I said, there's no bad movie. So that was your number one as well then Yeah, pretty much. Okay So then I guess that leaves me with my number one

[00:39:02] Yeah, I mean unless you have anything else you president Andrew Shepard in the American president gives a great one But man president Whitmore speech is to the entire world and it's so Motivational and again anybody as Alex kind of mentioned it, you know jokingly I

[00:40:21] Went on the run for your lives podcast with pagan Daphne and it is at the tail end of the podcast I mean, that's all you do is talk. I know. We know you like independence day. I know. We know. I do not talk about independence day that much. No, I know you don't. I don't talk about it that much. So what are your animal mentions? I love it when you take over my podcast anytime. You know what? I'm so used to it. I'm sorry. Yeah, President Lindbergh from fifth element and president of the of the earth Yeah And then of course, you know if we didn't mention him He really should be on the list. I just played by Kiefer Sutherland in the television show designated survivor. He is he is a president not by choice In that the president as well as everybody above him is killed in a bombing and he is the next in line

[00:44:24] But he steps up and he does the job and he becomes a fantastic president Exactly. With him. But that's all I have on my honorable mentions as well, I think. Yeah, because you mentioned, you know, President Kramer and President Douglas from my fellow Americans, and you mentioned President Dale from Mars Attacks, which were also on my honorable mentions. Oh, that's so funny how we...

[00:45:40] I really tried to stump you a couple of times and we still managed to get to where we were.

[00:45:45] I'm just... this topic because like I knew like talking about fictional presidents and talking about it on President's Day there's so much you know turmoil and strife in the government today. Disagreements between people I didn't want this episode to get political and it didn't so I was really happy about that we focused on the entertainment aspect of it and that's what I really wanted so. Yeah no I mean that's that's what you have to do because you know like the West Wing

[00:48:02] of that scene, I was like, yep, I'm in. I don't care what the rest of the series is about, I'm in.

[00:48:05] And I think that's Aaron Sorkin again, too.

[00:48:07] Yeah, it is.

[00:48:08] Yeah, that's, yeah.

[00:48:09] But what I love about that speech, more than anything,

[00:48:13] and what does he say at the end?

[00:48:16] He says, but it could be.

[00:48:18] But it can be, yeah.

[00:48:19] And I think, you know, I'm gonna make it political

[00:48:22] in this sense, okay?

[00:48:24] What I love about that scene, they're trapped in this town, we're going to be starting to do some lives in person podcasting. We're going to one of our local libraries, and we're going to review a book, and then probably interview the librarian as well. And, you know, it's funny, because when you start this whole thing, you just get a mic. And now she wants to podcast. Now I have a zoom difference from the rest of the MCU. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not the hugest MCU person, but we'll thank God we have people like Kirk and Penny, who, you know, Kirk Manley, who's the most knowledgeable person I think I know,

[00:52:22] I don't know about you, when it comes to Marvel.

[00:52:24] And I mean, he's perspective, in the set, in the way the Princess Bride was told, but okay, that in the same way that the that the grandfather was in there

[00:53:43] telling the story to Fred Savage, right Deadpool this will be the last thing I have to say, too. But I did notice, too, to anybody, and again, spoiler for anybody who hasn't seen Loki, if you haven't, what the hell are you waiting for? If you notice the tree of life or the tree of time,

[00:55:03] whatever it is, when Loki takes his seat at the throne that on there. How can people find Daddy Daughter Bookworms? You just go to daddydaughterbookworms.com and it's on all the platforms if you search at daddy daughter bookworms on Instagram as well as your favorite podcasting platform. Oh, perfect. That's that's easy enough. Alex, thank you so much for coming on and doing this. I'm glad we got to do this. I'm

[00:56:21] glad I got the podcast with you again because it feels like it's

[00:56:23] been forever.

[00:56:24] It has. Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[00:57:24] my fault. And again, I have a future episode coming up. The top five favorite baseball movies coming up in a couple of weeks is going to be the same issue. So I'm apologizing ahead

[00:57:28] of time for that. And I'll apologize to you again during the post credit for that. So

[00:57:32] thank you for sticking with it. If you got this far, I appreciate it, but it is time

[00:57:37] to go into some listener feedback for this episode, which the feedback is starting to

[00:57:42] come in more and more. And I'm loving when it was on for the first couple seasons and I fell out of it I know President David Palmer isn't the president the whole time but you know I'll get to it. I got a lot as I mentioned in the podcast I still got to finish the West Wing and I did learn something I mentioned that I know that you know, Jeb Bartlett is not the president the whole time. Other notable ones for me would have to be Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact and Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Jill, as I mentioned, and to anybody else out there, that speech, still one of the greatest movie speeches of all time in my opinion, and if you wanna hear me do a rendition of it with music and everything,

[01:00:22] go check out the Run For Your Lives podcast

[01:00:24] over on podcastica.com.

[01:00:26] Paikin Daphne had actually going to be on the top five favorite baseball movies episode with me.

[01:01:41] We already recorded it.

[01:01:42] And again, same microphone issue.

[01:01:45] Apologize him again ahead of time.

[01:01:47] Alex was a great guest and it was his first ever podcast. You want to run through a brick wall, Jeb can get you there. So in summary, Jeb Bartlett is all five of my top five selections and I have no problem with that at all. Bartlett for America. Hey look, as I mentioned, he ran as he was president for eight years and eight seasons So he could technically be your top eight. I guess maybe each year of his presidency

[01:03:02] He just chose like five years of his presidency very nicely. I've got all the tiers outlined. I just kind of have to finalize a couple more things and I'm really hoping that by the end of the month, the Patreon is going to go live and the Patreon is purely just to support me and support the podcast. And by support me, I don't mean help me make money. It's basically just to help me offset costs of doing this because I love doing this Presidents Day or sometime shortly after hopefully I'm going to an advanced screening of it this coming Tuesday September with September 20th Tuesday September 20th so about a week and a half before the movie releases I get to see the movie and I'm I can't wait I'm so excited some advanced reviews are already saying

[01:05:43] it's one of the best science fiction movies Island Comic Con. He is the man.

[01:07:01] So I'm totally looking forward to him coming on.

[01:07:03] We haven't figured out exactly what the theme of that one's gonna be, but

[01:07:06] it's gonna be coming on he's currently the voice of grimace in McDonald's commercials and the current voice of Donald Duck in Disney and he's just a great guy so I've worked with him he's gonna be a lot of fun so there's a lot of things in the works if you can't tell trying to get through this without you know kind of stretching things out

[01:08:23] so I'm gonna wrap it up here I want to do it on a podcast platform, you can always go to willhumpodcast.com and leave me a review there too. Those reviews help just as much. But thank you guys so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for everything else. Go over to podcastica.com. Check out all the great stuff over there. Be sure to follow revisitedpod.com,

[01:09:41] which is the Revisited Podcast, my other podcast I do

[01:09:44] with my friend, Kristen, where we're currently,