PODCAST: MISSING RICHARD SIMMONS

On February 15, 2014, fitness guru Richard Simmons disappeared. He stopped teaching his regular exercise class at Slimmons, cut off his closest friends, and removed himself from the public eye after decades as one of the most accessible celebrities in the world. Nobody has heard from him - and no one knows why he left. Filmmaker Dan Taberski was a Slimmons regular and a friend of Richard’s. Missing Richard Simmons is Dan’s search for Richard - and the deeper he digs, the stranger it gets.

MY VERDICT: This podcast has been around for a long time and I put off listening to it for a while because I didn’t really know what to make of it. Part of me thought that Richard Simmons was a tacky has been and I wasn’t really interested in knowing much about him. I was wrong.

There’s so much to know about Simmons, he’s a fascinating character, like did you know he was in a Fellini film? No? Neither did I until this podcast. Being English, I didn’t have as much coverage as those in the States and so he wasn’t as much as a legend to us as to the people who are interviewed in this podcast, however I knew who he was and I knew he was a larger than life character but I didn’t even know he was missing.

This podcast seemed to set itself up to be a kind of investigation, more like a true crime podcast with a goal than an exploration of a personality but that’s what it turned out to be. The fact is that Richard Simmons was never missing but decided to withdraw from public, and the investigation started to focus on why.

The why wasn’t too complicated either, he seemed to have just had enough, and I don’t blame him, he seemed to be doing a lot. An amazing amount of Richard Simmons’ time seemed to be devoted to others, he’d call people he’d only met once every Sunday to check they were doing okay, he set up a chat room to talk to people about how their lives and weight loss were going. He’d jump out of his mansion to have photos taken with tourists on a celebrity house tour and he spent forty years teaching an aerobics class at his own gym, even driving some of his regular older clients there himself.

So the oddest thing was that he gave up the class, he stopped going out all together and he stopped the phone calls. And the saddest thing was that he said he didn’t have any friends. These people were very upset about the sudden withdrawal, upset that they considered him a friend and he didn’t see them the same way, and most upset that he didn’t give anyone an indication that this was going to happen or a reason.

The podcast doesn’t end up getting an interview with him, it doesn’t get any reasons, Richard Simmons himself released a statement to say he was fine. My thoughts were that after years of giving his all, he had nothing left to give, he couldn’t get in touch with everyone to give them all a personal farewell because he didn’t have the energy to be the old Richard anymore. I think he just wanted a proper rest, after all he gave to his public persona, I think he just wanted to be him, maybe a him that no one else knew, not the person that all his ‘friends’ loved so much.

The most profound thing about this podcast is that because it doesn’t give you any answers it lets you think about reasons for withdrawal yourself. It makes you think about emotions and personality like no other investigation podcast I’ve listened to before and it makes you emotional even if you had no interest in this person, a personal you never knew. It makes you wonder how you would feel if you seemed important to someone who you spoke to everyday and all of a sudden they just stopped and didn’t tell you why and that’s so sad to think about.

Maybe his dog died, his last dog and he just couldn’t be bothered any more, maybe he was ill, and maybe he wanted the freedom to grow a beard? Who knows, all I know is this podcast is uplifting, thought-provoking and desolate. I would recommend it for the stirring ride alone.

FILM 1390: INSIDE OUT

TRIVIA: According to director Pete Docter, each emotion is based on a shape: Joy is based on a star, Sadness is a teardrop, Anger is a fire brick, Fear is a raw nerve, and Disgust is broccoli. He noted that he likes broccoli very much, however.

Some of the memory balls in Riley's mind contain scenes from other Pixar movies, such as Carl and Ellie's wedding in Up (2009).

The writers considered up to 27 different emotions, but settled on five (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and Anger) to make it less complicated. Some of the major emotions that ended up being cut included Surprise, Pride, and Trust.

Psychologists and other experts were consulted so the writers could make the way Riley's mind works scientifically accurate. For example, it is believed that short-term memories made during the day are converted into long-term memories during sleep, which is what happens in Riley's mind.

In Riley's classroom (No. A113), a map at the back of the room has pins plotted at different places all over the world. They are references to where all the Pixar movies are set.

When Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera pitched the film to Mindy Kaling, she was moved to tears and said, "I think it's great that you guys are making a film that shows it's difficult to grow up and that it's okay to be sad about it." According to Pete Docter, they exclaimed, "Quick! Write that down!".

For the voice of toddler-age Riley, the producers simply recycled old dialogue of Mary Gibbs, who provided the voice of Boo in Monsters, Inc. (2001). She is even listed in the credits under additional voices.

"Yeast of Edin" is based on a bakery located near Pixar Studios. It only serves one kind of pizza each day, and broccoli is one of the toppings.

In the middle of the control console, the top three buttons form Mickey Mouse, otherwise known as a hidden Mickey.

PIZZA PLANET TRUCK: Director Pete Docter confirmed that the truck indeed appears at least three times in the film, but it is hard to find.

This film marks the fifteenth time John Ratzenberger has made an appearance in a Pixar film, and a second time as a construction worker. He also voiced a construction worker in Up (2009).

There is a scene in Dream Productions where a camera filter called the "reality distortion filter" is added. This is a direct reference to former Pixar CEO Steve Jobs, where he would do anything to convince his employees they could get the job done: they called it Steve's "reality distortion field."

The scene with the two guards discussing whose hat belongs to whom while guarding the Subconscious is a nod to the hat-swapping scene between Vladimir and Estragon from Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot".

Riley's classroom is No. A113., sharing the same number as the room at the California Institute of Arts where many animators, including John Lasseter and Brad Bird, graduated from. A113 is a common Easter egg in Pixar's films.

When Joy, Sadness and Bing Bong are in Cloudtown, A talking "memory cop" references Chinatown (1974) by saying, "Forget it Jake, it's Cloudtown".

The long-running British children's comic The Beano has, since the sixties, featured a strip called The Numskulls, which revolves around little people living inside a "real life" person, and being responsible for all his functions, both emotional and mechanical. After the release of Inside Out, The Beano issued a tongue-in-cheek reaction in which the Numskulls (inside their "host") watch the film and criticise it.

Both Riley's mother and father have brown eyes, but Riley has blue eyes. There is only a 25% chance that a baby will have blue eyes if both parents carry the recessive blue-eye gene. But if only one has a recessive blue-eye gene, and the other has two brown, dominant genes, then there is a less than 1% chance of the baby having blue eyes. Riley has her first memory shown in the film, so she was not adopted.

The memory balls are based on George Rhoads' "Kinetic ball sculptures"

One of the various aspects of Riley's mind that was cut from the film was a department called "Faces & Names". This was the department in charge of pairing up names of people Riley has met with their respective faces, but the leaders of either department dislike each other and do not speak (which explains the lapse in memory people get when they cannot remember someone's name).

As of Summer 2015, it holds the distinction of owning the largest opening weekend gross without taking the #1 spot on the box office charts. It took in a respectable $90 million its first weekend of release, falling short of the $106 million grossed by Jurassic World which set a new U.S. record the previous weekend with over $208 million in tickets sales.

FILM 1206: MARY AND MAX

TRIVIA: It took 2400 teaspoons of lubricant to create the ocean when Max imagines himself on a desert island.

One Tomb Stone over from Ruby's reads "R.I.P. Adam Elliot", the writer/director of the film.

The street, Lamington Drive, is a play on words: Lamingtons are an Australian cake. They are sometimes used in fund-raising activities by schools and other organizations, whereby they are sold in bulk. Such activities are referred to as 'Lamington Drives'.

This is the very first animated film to open for the Sundance Film Festival.

Principal photography lasted over 57 weeks, using 133 separate sets, 212 puppets, and 475 miniature props, including a fully functional Underwood typewriter. This took 9 weeks to design and build.

The postage stamps in the film used by Mary feature an image of Dame Edna Everage, a character played by comedian Barry Humphries, who also narrates the film.

Barry Humphries (The Narrator) and Eric Bana (Damien) have both previously lent their voices to Finding Nemo (2003), playing the sharks Bruce and Anchor respectively.

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