Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

We are down the pipe and out of the box. Welcome to

Dear Watchers in Omniversal comic book

podcast, usually question mark, where we do a deep

dive into the multiverse.

We are traveling with you through the stories and the

worlds and the dream houses that make up an omniverse

of, fictional realities we all love.

And your watchers on this journey are

me, Ken and me.

It's me, Aravio.

I knew that was inevitable today,

that I'd have to hear you do say.

You did for me. That's

so lovely of you. And before we begin our

trip today, guido, what's new in our little section of the

multiverse?

Last week, we wrapped up our Age of Apocalypse, parts

one through three. So you now have a complete three

part episode, the first time we've ever done that. So you

can go listen to the multi parts, listen to them together, listen

to them again. But that's not all. There's more on Age

of Apocalypse coming soon with a very special guest.

So keep an eye out. It's also still our

summer of giveaways. It feels like summer's ending, but

still is. And we have one more

giveaway, as our regular listeners know.

And as always, we want to hear from you. So send us your

emails, send us your DMs. Reach out to

us on all social media at dearwatchers or

podcast@deerwatchers.com for email.

And if you're joining us for the first time, we have three parts

of our journey through the multiverse today. Origins of

the story, exploring multiversity and pondering

possibilities. So thank you for joining us on today's

journey.

And remember to please leave a review wherever you're

listening or maybe even someplace else that you're not listening. Just

review us. Thank you.

And with that, Dear Watchers, welcome to episode

112. 112? Yeah,

that's how you say it. And let's check out what's happening in the

Omniverse with our travels to today's alternate

universe.

Today we are hopping in our pink convertible

and traveling down a big green pipe to find

out the answer to the question, what if Barbie

and Super Mario Brothers blew away Hollywood

with multiversal mayhem?

I should have downloaded some sound effects for each, but

I didn't. So listeners, prepare yourself.

Should I just do.

That one's? Easy, but I don't know for Barbie what we're going to do. Can you

do a Lizzo singing, the pink song?

Oh, I was just thinking now I can't remember those, but

I'm just like, I'm still Ken.

All right, today we are talking about the

2023 films, barbie

and Super Mario Brothers. They are two

of the biggest grossing films at,

the domestic box office and abroad. And both

are kind of multiversal stories. They

don't interconnect. We're not treating them as one

multiverse. Our multiverse

today, I guess, is actually our current

Earth, where there is an influx

of billion dollar making multiversal

movies. And we

talked a little bit. We've talked a few times in the past

about the influx of multiversal

content. And on our hundredth episode, we looked back at why

we think Hollywood might be so obsessed with

multiverses right now. Is there anything new you're thinking

about generally before we get into these two

pieces?

I think just why Hollywood approaches it

is it can take these other

worlds and still give them a level

of familiarity. So it's not just

placing us in these other universes,

just dropping us in.

It's kind of easing us in because, oh, we're still kind of in

our world, but now we're in these other worlds. Do you think that's kind

of part of it? It's a little bit of a spood feeding

us the multiverse?

I don't know. I don't have much to say

because I want to save it because it has to do with these two

pieces. I think these two pieces might

represent a shift,

in our culture of.

Yeah, well, these two pieces are

Barbie and So or Mario,

depending on how you say his name.

Yeah, I'm sure that's controversial to say.

I was told in New Jersey, we say Mario, even though it should

be Mario, so maybe that's my New

Jersey roots.

But we are talking about those two, properties.

And before we get into each of their histories, let's talk

about our histories with them.

So, Guido, what was your background with

Barbie?

Barbie I played

with as a kid because I have two pretty

significantly older sisters, so they had

their 70s Barbies and the

dream house, and they were all in the attic, and I

would play with them. And, my next door neighbor, who

I mentioned on the Gem episode, alex

and I would sometimes incorporate her Barbies

into our play, but I was never

into it. It's not like I craved having my

own Barbie. I certainly

never watched any of the other Barbie media

that was out there. I saw it as bland and

boring. I think it wasn't obviously a

gender thing. I liked Gem, I liked she

RA, but Barbie did not feel like it was

a thing for me. What about you and

Barbie?

I never played with Barbie because I had no

siblings, so I can't even use that as

like, oh, I got it from my know. I was able to play with my

siblings.

And even you have two close, extended

family members who are boys.

Yes, that's true Barbies, and I think

you just said it, which I kind of agree with. I

think even if I could have played with him, I don't

think it really interested me, because

Turtles ninja Turtles ghostbusters, we

were dealing with, like, the fantastical. There was

mutants, there was powers involved. I don't know if I

really wanted to just pretend to be a

doctor or an astronaut. I don't remember

doing that much in make believe play, either.

I think I always wanted to be a superhero. So

maybe Barbie almost seemed too

earthbound for me, though.

I played teacher as a kid, and look at me

now.

and I still didn't like Barbie, even though I was playing really boring

things like school teacher.

But what about Mario for you?

Mario, though, was a completely different

story. I was super into Mario, I

think. No pun intended, or that's not a pun, but

play on words, whatever. Super

Mario world. The one for the

SNES. That was maybe

my first video game period. And I

played the heck out of that. Beat that

then Super Mario 64. My first

game for that console. I remember

watching the live action TV show, which we'll talk a little bit about,

but overall, I was just always a

big Mario fan. What about you?

Because you even had the NES that predates me a

little too much.

as, our listeners know, I am older. And so I

got the better experiences of

the that in this case

included NES. And yeah, I mean,

Mario was just a staple of

anyone my age's life. And

for me, I did own an NES and play

all of the Marios on it. I would play with

friends. It was that kind of thing where you would just watch each other play

for hours and then totally watch on and off because there

wasn't co op at that point in

Mario. And I loved

it. It was it's

to this day, I mean, they don't really make side

scrolling platformers, that are not,

mobile games so much today. But that

is my type of game, I think, because

I just grew up with that two dimensional,

totally scrolling. And

so I watched a TV show. I, owned some of

the comics. I was very into Mario.

But Mario didn't have much of a world

to get into, actually. And, I'll,

want to talk about that with the movie. So

my love died when I walked away

from the video games. I wasn't thinking about

Mario anymore, which is not true, obviously. I was

thinking about she RA, even when I wasn't watching the TV show or playing

with the she RA action figures.

So even his, contemporaries in

video games like Legends of Zelda and

Starfox, they had like, deeper

benches of worlds and other places and more

backstories. Mario, you never even really

knew what his backstory was. So

it wasn't a world that you could super

easily get into.

No, you keep saying super, super easily get into

super on this episode because you're going to run out of, chances

to use it. So yeah, I

think, more familiar with Mario than

most people, but certainly not a super

fan and not at all familiar with

Barbie. So I think we're about the same on each of

those.

Well, let's get familiar by

powering up to our first

segment origins of the story

right now on this very show. You're going to

get the answer to all your questions.

Our amazing story begins a few

years ago, of

course, before they became films. Both Barbie and

Mario began their lives in other mediums.

So before we get into their movie backstories, we're

going to give you some very

abbreviated histories of these two

iconic characters.

Multiple episodes.

Oh, my gosh. Write books, of course. But

yeah. Let's start with, Barbie, perhaps the world's most famous

doll.

Yes. Well, as people who've seen

her movie got some of, we know she was created by

Ruth Handler, and the company that Ruth

founded with her husband Elliot and business

partner Matt. Mattson. Mattel.

And Barbie, you could say, perhaps

has her comics, her root in comics,

because Handler based Barbie on the German

Lily doll, which was based on a comic strip.

I had no idea a lawsuit.

The Lily doll had put

against Mattel. But that was settled out of

court a long time ago. So Barbie was

very successful, very early, and one of the first

toys to have a television ad campaign

became a, staple, probably, of every

girl young girl at that point.

And Barbie's boyfriend,

Ken, debuted in 1961,

named for another of Ruth's children. So that's a little

strange.

But.

by 2006, Mattel claimed that three Barbies were

sold every second. So at that point, there are

thousands of the dolls. Yes,

and just hundreds of

thousands, I'm sure millions at this point, being

sold. And Barbie became

more diverse starting in the

1980s and in

2019. By 2019, the best selling

Barbie was black. And Barbie has,

at this point, over 35 skin tones and over

255 jobs.

She can't hold one generations.

And in recent years, Barbie's sales had been

sagging and interesting to

wonder why and if know is

the American Girl doll or some other I mean,

that's not a new phenomenon or just cell

phones or iPads.

There's a lot of competition out there.

Girls away from Barbies. Yeah. but I'm sure

that is definitely changing. The market is

surely growing, thanks to the movie. And there's a

whole backstory to the character, including

a life in Wisconsin and a last name and parents,

but it might not be canon. Who even knows what Barbie

cannon is? And we're not going to get into that at this point.

And I had no idea that she even had a

background in comics. I want to check out that

comic to see if there's any Barbieisms that I

can even pick up from the Lily character.

Yeah, I'm assuming you have to read French to read

it.

That's true. Or German.

I know neither. But I do know

Brooklynese as a New Yorker. So let's head to Brooklyn

and learn a little bit more about Mario, who was

created by the high guru of

Nintendo, guido, do you know how to pronounce his name?

shiguro miyamoto.

Miyamoto. Everyone knows Miyamoto. Any

nerd knows Miyamoto.

M not nerdy.

First name lesso but Miyamoto

legend.

And he also created legends of Zelda, Donkey Kong and

Starfox. So as you said, complete legend.

Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong,

in 1981, but his name was Jump Man

in the English Instructions. There's a little Easter

egg of that in the new movie. And Miyamoto

planned to actually name the character Mr. Video.

And he himself said if he had named the character of Mr.

Video, you would have never heard of this character.

And Mario was given his own arcade game in

1983 with Mario Brothers, followed by the

NES game Super Mario Brothers in

1985. Since then, Mario and his

brother Luigi, who premiered in 1983,

have appeared in countless games, many of which are

some of the most beloved and acclaimed titles of all

time.

And as of 2020, like Mario Paint.

And I loved Mario

Paint.

People who had it, loved it. But like, that game will never

have a resurgence.

No, there was a little side game in it where you had to kill a

fly with a fly swatter. I loved it. Obsessed.

But as of 2022,

Mario games are estimated to have sold over

830,000,000 units.

So that is a lot of video games.

I wish we could find the total number of Barbies ever sold and

see if it's comparable.

There is one every three or three every 1 second

or whatever they said. I don't know how just verify

30.

Million Barbies out there in the world.

That's true. So I know Guido, both of

these characters have had big histories in

comics, but we're not going to really maybe that will save that

for a future episode.

Yeah, but there's other media. They're similar

because they're both IPS that have been pretty

tightly controlled by their owners. And their

owners are the corporations where they were created. So they

haven't passed hands, they haven't been bought, they haven't

been split up. And they are hugely

licensed, but very tightly controlled. So for

Barbie, she has had, ah, a large presence, of course,

in the license of books and apparel and music

and cosmetics and video games and a lot more.

There are apparently 16 classic

animated films starting at

the relatively late date of 2001. Perhaps

I was the advent of computer animation

with it.

I was super surprised that we didn't really have a Barbie

film as far as I could see until 2001

for a character that premiered many years

earlier.

Yeah. And so then there's another

20 or so animated films through

2017. There's a Netflix

partnership that was started for Barbie and Stacy to the

rescue. And more is apparently on the way.

But in terms of that live action film which we'll

get into, there were some

rumors of development dating back to

2009. From Sex in the City.

Writer Jenny Bix later from Juno, writer Diablo

Cody. Then a few years after that, 2016

Amy Schumer is attached, later Anne Hathaway,

finally 2018 Margot Robbie. But perhaps

with Patty Jenkins of Wonder Woman Fame directing

and in 2019, Greta Gerwig and Noah

Baumbach came on board. So

I'd say that's a small amount of time in movie

development land, first of all, the fact that it

only had rumbling starting in 2009,

but then also for those two to be on board in

2019, knowing that the pandemic started

shortly after. And that movie is out in

2023.

Totally. And I remember the Amy Schumer announcement

that was like the one. I was like, oh, that's perfect casting.

But, I'm, still glad we got the movie. We got, of course, yeah.

And Barbie has made over a billion

dollars worldwide at this recording.

The highest grossing film by a woman ever. The highest

grossing Warner Brothers film ever.

Domestically, it's going to surely keep

breaking records because they're rereleasing it in

IMAX in a few weeks. And so this

movie is wild. And

there are, as you mentioned, comics with some pretty

famous creators, but we're not discussing those today.

So maybe another day.

Well, Mario's on screen life is,

I'm going to say, a little weirder

than Barbie's.

More varied.

Yes, very varied. His first appearance outside

of video games was in animated form on

Saturday Supercade in 1983,

alongside such characters as Frogger and Donkey

Kong. And then in 1989 was the

premiere of the Super Mario Bros. Super show.

This featured animated Mario sequences as well

as animated Legend of Zelda segments. But

it became definitely probably much more well known, or at

least that's how I remember it, for its live action

framing sequences, which featured the wrestler

Captain Lou Albano as Mario and Danny

Wells as Luigi. And I

don't know if you agree, Guido,

these sequences really give you very

hard public access vibes to me.

Yeah.

And they actually feel like two different shows,

which is fun. I mean, the animated parts, I think, are

great, but they are like kitty cartoons.

And then the live action ones are

strange and definitely

akin to stuff like Peewee or

Elvira.

Yeah, we've been exploring some peewee and some

Ernest, and I think they're definitely all of the same.

Ilk because the live action sequences featured

cameos by a huge

amount of people, but some of them were Patrick Dempsey,

norman Fell, ernie Hudson, sergeant

Slaughter, vanna White, cindy

Lauper, moon Zappa and of course,

as you mentioned already, elvira M

then in 1993, things got even

weirder because then Mario came to the big screen

with Super Mario Brothers, starring Bob

Hoskins john Leguizamo as the Plumbers

dennis Hopper as King Cooper the

weirdo outsider musician mojo Nixon as

Toad. They wanted Tom Waits, but I guess they couldn't afford him,

so they got Mojo Nixon. And that film was directed

by the, people behind the cult TV show Max

Headroom. Many A listers like Danny DeVito

turned it down, and that film was really met with a

lot of confusion over its dark tone. The fact it really

doesn't look like the video game at all. Feel like the

video game did not do well at the box office.

Has since though, has really been kind of, reevaluated

by fans and now.

We just have to treat it, I think, as something different.

I mean, I loved it. I was twelve years old,

I saw it in the theater. I was a big fan of it. But

it's definitely telling that I've

never rewatched it past. I'm curious to

rewatch early adolescence. No,

could be good, could be bad. But it's telling that I

don't remember. Even though I loved it when it.

Came out, I think I had the general

thoughts when it came out was like, this doesn't look like Mario at

all, so why am I watching this movie? But now I think I might

appreciate it for that reason. But I

think the stink of that movie kind of held

over Mario in film world for quite

some time. He's kind of really finally come back,

of course, this year with this new movie from the creators

of Teen Titans, Go. And there are lots

of Nintendo comics, including Mario,

that fetch quite a pretty penny in the market. But we

are going to cover those on another maybe,

maybe not today. Well, for

now, we are going to throw on our

raccoon costume and fly into the

stratosphere of exploring multiversity.

I am your guide through these vast new

realities. Follow

me and ponder the

question,

what if?

And today we are asking the question, what if Barbie and

Super Mario Brothers blew away Hollywood with

multiversal mayhem?

they kind of ended Hollywood, right? Right now.

Yes, they have ended Hollywood. But

first up is the Super Mario Brothers

movie from Universal Illumination. And

Nintendo came out this April

2023.

Instructed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelaneck written

by Matthew Fogel produced by Chris

Mela, Dandry Shigaro Miyamoto

voices of Chris Pratt, Charlie Day amongst many

others So before we dive too far in,

what was your first impression? And I'll note we saw this

late. We did not see this when it came. We actually saw this after

Barbie in sequence. So we were

late to the Super Mario explosion. That

also seemed to take the studio by surprise. I remember a lot

of news about the amount of money it was making

being surprising and a lot of

people.

Were, ah, Chris Pratt, he's not really that's a weird

choice, but I actually really enjoyed the

movie a lot. I thought it was a lot of fun as a player

of the game. I thought it's full of Easter eggs, which is

great. Is it a movie that surprised me or I'm going

to want to go back and watch maybe even one more

time? Maybe not, but I thought it was a perfectly

lovely Friday Saturday night flick to

throw on. What about you?

Yeah, I think I have the same level of

fondness for it. I think

one of the things well, the Easter

eggs are great. I like that they really

operate on multiple levels, but don't take away from the film.

And that's something that I think is true for both of these movies we're

talking about. So I think there's something in that and the

multiverse, which I want to

explore a little more. But one of the things that took me by

surprise in the movie was its

epic fantasy feeling like it had these

worlds and these species and these

characters and even some rules in the world

that I want to know more about. I was watching

and I was like, oh, that cute little wizard thing.

I want a movie about them.

I don't remember those penguins very well. I want to see them.

It made me want more. Which I think

for me, good epic fantasy

world building does that because it

means I'm interested in facets of the

world.

Yeah, the opening sequence actually reminded me a

lot of Thor Love and Thunder that

opening because you get that opening battle sequence there

where Thor and the Guardians are trying to

save that one alien race.

And I kind of got that same thing here where oh, now

we're introduced right away, not to the Toad

Kingdom, the Mushroom Kingdom, but to these penguins. And I

think it did do a great job there of really

building up this world and kind of embracing the Lord of the

Rings ness. Almost. You almost get

a Sauron, or

wherever Sauron lives from, where Bowser lives

in this place. All molten lava and that kind of thing.

Mount Doom.

Yeah. Mount Doom. Yes, of course. And I was

surprised I mean, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that it was

a multiversal story, because

I guess we don't really know. How does Mario,

this plumber from Brooklyn, end up

in the Mushroom Kingdom? But

I'm curious, did you want more

backstory on the creation, the connection

between these two worlds? We also know, like, Princess Peach

probably came from Earth, but it's never really

explained well.

I'd call it more

multidimensional than multiversal And

it's interesting because I think this is going to be

one of the pieces of data I have

for my grand thesis on the shift in

Hollywood. But I

guess the question then it begs

is what's the difference? What's the difference

between a multi dimensional story and a multiversal

story? And I'd say, for

argument's sake, there really isn't one. I think

we have, in many past episodes,

argued about differences because

in comics, there are always tons of dimensions. But an

alternate universe tends to

have much bigger rules, bigger stakes, or

contort something about the prime universe. So I think

this story is a little more on the multidimensional side. But

yeah, the warp pipe definitely has potential

for a quote unquote multiverse here.

Like you said, if Peach

has not peach? Daisy peach

in this. Oh, it's peach. If

Peach has been taken from Earth to the

kingdom, right, then we do have this rich backstory to

explore of the warp pipe being used to

conquer different dimensions and stuff. So yeah,

I'm very interested in

that multidimensional

dimensionality, if that's a

word of it.

Who built those

pipes that I don't.

Think we're ever going to get in this story?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, that could be a good story for

the next movie. Like, who built this connection

between the two worlds? Was it just like an

unseen? Was it Miyamoto? Did he just the

unseen they go.

Meta and ah, they have Miyamoto as

the hand of God. I could see them doing

that.

Yeah. And it's making me think you've got, like,

multidimensional stories, multiversal stories

and time travel stories. And they all

intersect in little ways, but they

also have different rules. That's ultimately

our major project, I guess, of the podcast is,

like, come up with an, overall thesis or a handbook

is, like, explaining each of the three of those

different storytelling types. Yeah. and I

thought the other thing here that I found interesting was

the multidimension, the other

dimension, other world does not stay

a secret because Bowser then comes

into, I guess, what is basically

our world, and everyone knows about it. And

I'm curious where that could go in another one is like,

oh, now everyone knows about it. And I feel like that's even another

subgenre of these stories is like, now

everyone knows about the multiverse, or

multidimension, what do they do about it now? Do

people want to go as like, do they want to

be tourists to the Mushroom Kingdom?

Yeah, and I'm curious if any of the

later games, which I should have added in the

intro and I think this is true for you, too, I

haven't played, past retro games. So, like,

mid 90s, perhaps. And I've replayed some of

those or will play them in bits and

pieces. But I haven't played too many of the

modern there was a wi one I tried. But my

point is, I'm curious if any of the games like Galaxy

or Universe or these different games that are out there ever

do that, ever put a real world

take on it, or ever try to fuse together

different aspects of the

lore. I'm just not sure. but

there's definitely potential with the way they constructed it in the

movie. And I can't imagine we won't have a

sequel.

Yeah. And the 90s movie really had a very

similar plot device as well. They could have just

kind of set the whole thing in the

Mushroom Kingdom, but they also played with this

multidimensional.

But yeah, I think you probably need it in

a Mario Brothers story because you have these two

plumbers from

a you can't just go to the Mushroom Kingdom because then

you're like, what are these two people doing here? And

why? So you have to have

a multidimensional story, I think, with the Mario

Brothers yeah.

Built in. And so if you've played those later

games and want to let us know, you can write to us on

our email or hit us up on social media.

But why don't we go to the movie

that's on everybody's lips, this

gigantic blockbuster known

only as Barbie. And that is

from Warner Bros. Heyday Films, lucky Chap

Entertainment, Nbgg Pictures, and of

course, Mattel from July

2023.

It's directed by Greta Gerwig, who co wrote it with

Noah Baumbach. It's produced by David Heyman, margot robbie

Tom Ackerley, robbie Brenner and Stars. Margot robbie

Ryan Gosling and so many other amazing people.

And, all right, I don't

know how to start this well, overall thought, but

my gosh, I'll say I

think.

This movie, as soon as I saw it, it felt like there's only

a few movies every few years that are

really going to be the movie that you think about a few

years from now. And I was thinking, like, okay,

The Shape of Water was a Best Picture

winner, but are you really thinking about.

The Shape of Water talking about it for like a month?

Exactly.

Yeah, it's gone.

Top Gun, Maverick, like, huge movie at the box

office. Are people really going to be talking about that, like, years

later? But this reminded me, the movie I thought

in my head was like, get out, actually.

Because maybe it's something about satire

as well. But those movies are

instant classics. 25, 30 years from

now, people are going to be treating

those movies as the movies we think about from 30

years ago.

Well, what's true is they

don't just hit the Zeitgeist, but they

operate on many levels.

And what's true for both of them, and I think this

is always the thing that will be cemented

in culture. And I always think about Buffy in my history

of this, the things that not

only as a fan can you obsess, but

academics can do stuff with totally.

People who like to think, because even those of us who are not

academics, who are not cultural critics, who are not

sociologists, who are not doing this kind of

work, enjoy, thinking. A lot of us

do. And these are all products. Get

out. Buffy, 30 years ago, and

now Barbie, where you can think so much

about the material, in so many different ways, and

that's why it will exist. But not only that,

for this movie, because that makes it sound heavy

handed, but I think this is the

most fun version of that ever to be

made in the history of the world. I think this is

the best 50

50 smart, has

something to say and

fun movie that's just ever been

made. And I loved it. It's like a gender studies class

in a super fun wild Zany

movie.

Yeah, I totally agree. And it's funny. I

think it's a thing that Get Out does, and I think,

everything everywhere, all at once does for me as well, where

you can really think about it. There's stuff to study, but it's

putting it in the package of a horror movie or

an action movie or a fish out of water

comedy, in Barbie's case, almost like

it's taking those really complex ideas,

but putting them in this other super

fun, wild, fun

package. Yeah.

it's masterful.

Now, on the multidimensional

multiversal element, I thought one thing that was

really interesting about this movie was

there's some people that know about this other

world and some people that don't. So, like America

Ferrara and her family, the general

population does not know about land,

but basically everyone, it seems, who works at

Mattel does. So, like, what did you kind

of think about that? That there's

some people who know about this world and there's some people

that don't?

Well, it's funny, I hadn't thought about that

point as in and of itself being somewhat

meta. but I'll now make it meta. The movie is

sexual. But because what

my thesis in this episode is

what I have observed about these

two movies, and I think some people might think I'm

coming late with this, but I don't think I am.

I think I'm right, frankly. which is,

I think these two movies show us that we

have past the point of critical mass

on multiversal storytelling, that

the world now can just understand and

accept it. That the genre, if we're

calling multiversal storytelling a genre that had been

so well developed in superhero

storytelling and as big as superhero movies had

come, was still relegated to superhero

storytelling. Everything everywhere, all at once,

I'd say was like the first crack in that and

sort of broke through hit people, but

was still on the edge of

a mainstream thing. These, two movies

are completely mainstream,

completely digestible. Everyone and

anyone can, has and will see

them likely. And

your point you just made about in the movie, that

some people know about Barbie Land, some people don't, and

you just accept it. Right. We never need to

have some moment with America Ferreira

where she's completely shocked

that this could be happening and she needs some

rational explanation. No, she just accepts

it. And I think that's what, to me, these two

movies are telling us audiences are now ready

to do, or at least content creators are ready to do

for audiences, which is just say, we can

just accept it. We can just accept Barbieland,

and that's it. We don't need to explain it. It doesn't

really matter in the movie. It doesn't matter. Yes,

Mattel knew. Mattel kept it a secret. But as soon as other

people know, they don't question it, they don't care. They just move on

with their lives. And I think that's how we, as audiences now can

deal with multi dimensionality, multi

versal storytelling.

yeah, and maybe it needed to be a

property like Barbie that everyone knows.

So when these characters, like

America farah's daughter, hears about,

like she knows who Barbie is, and then we

even conceptualize, okay, then there's a Barbie land where they

all live. It's almost something that we've all thought about as kids,

where it's kind of the basis of Toy Story, right?

Like when we're gone, our toys are

conversing only in that movie, they're talking in our

reality and not in another reality. Like

they kind of are here. But it's almost something that we've

all thought about a little bit. Barbie's all a

character that we know. So maybe this was the

perfect movie property to really

crack that code for everybody.

Well, because of what you're saying, I think because

not everyone in the movie knows that's sort

of what makes it I don't know if it's

accessible, but that's

putting our world in this movie.

Whereas The Avengers, it's

slightly adjacent to our world. All

Sci-Fi movies are like near future

slight variations on our world. But

what this movie has done is it's said

like, our world exists. Oh, and there's this other little

world over here and the two can connect. So it

almost places, our reality

in the text of the story.

So I think that might be one of

the powerful things. And I think you're right, it had to be Barbie

who did that. It had to be something people know and are familiar

with both in the movie and in our world.

That had to be true.

Now, would you want more,

even explained about Barbie

land? Like, we get a little bit of info from the narrator at

the beginning of the film, but would you want to know more

about why this place even exists

or the rules there, or exploring? Is there a

Mount Doom of Barbie land that we haven't really

explored? Would you want that?

Absolutely not.

No, I think the reason it works

m so well for me, and the reason

I imagine it's so accessible to people, and the reason I

think it's indicative of this tipping

point that we've reached is that

you don't need that. Not only do you not

need that, but I think in some cases that would take

away from

the fun of it. It would take away from the depth of

it, perhaps, because then I'd be able to fit

it, relegate it to some rational

other place. I mean, it's almost

like in everything, everywhere, all at once, which is a

great third movie to bring in, in this

discussion. There's

a rational explanation given, like, a

pseudoscientific explanation given for how you can

traverse the multiverse, but there is never an

explanation given for why this suddenly happens

now, or why it ever is allowed to happen. There's

no origin given, and I think an origin

would also take away from this aspect of

Barbieland that it just exists. And we can sort

of think maybe it has to do with imagination. And that's

sort of the realm of imagination and everything that,

big ideas that humans have dreamed up have

taken become, personified in some other realm.

That's what I like to imagine it. Yeah, me too,

but I don't want that explained to me.

Even the Ruth Handler scenes, like, why.

Is she a ghost there? We don't really know.

Yeah, why does she have this quote unquote office in

Mattel that Barbie can see, and can anyone else

ever see it? Is she actually there? Is she

another figment of imagination that people can see

or not? They can clearly see her at the end when she's in Barbie

land. I like

not having an origin of it,

because obviously you need something to be really well

developed, to not have an origin

and be effective. And I think this is that it's

so well developed that I'm

good.

Well, let us jump in our

convertible, into our

snowmobile, into our boat, into

our roller skates, and head into the world of

pondering possibilities.

Will the future you describe

be averted, diverted,

togo? What are we talking about for our pondering

possibilities?

Well, let's just talk about these characters or the

future of these stories,

both specific to Mario and Barbie, and then

more loosely inspired or influenced. And

I just talked for a while with my thesis. So

why don't you talk about what you

think these two mean

for the future?

Well, I think for terms of seeing

Barbie on screen or continuation of this universe,

I know Greta Gerwig has said that she really put

all every idea she possibly had on this into

this movie, and that she doesn't really want a

sequel. And, I'm of the same way, I think, actually

going back to get out and everything everywhere all at

once are those movies we could continue to go back to.

Yes, but what also makes them so powerful is

that they are standalone. And I think it'd be

great to just leave this world here

and maybe find other ways to

explore the Barbie verse, taking

this as inspiration, but going in a different direction. Like,

I'd love to see maybe some of the

aesthetic and style and tone

of the Greta Gerwig world, but do it in

animation. What do you think about something like that? That kind

of takes some of the elements that we've been introduced,

but putting them into a different world,

maybe even comics.

I don't know. it would

be hard because it would be

canon, it would be

hard to do. You'd have to

remove stereotype Barbie out

because she's human. Right? So you'd want to keep it

unless you do a prequel story. But what I

can't tell and I'm okay not being

able to tell this, I can't tell if I want a story set

entirely in Barbieland. And, it would have to be

because you're

retreading that story or you're disrupting that story

if you tell some other story that has to do with the

intersection of Barbieland to our

world. So I imagine you'd need

a story set in Barbie land, and then

maybe I wonder if a Barbie fan could watch this

movie and take all of the other Barbie

stuff we described in history as canon. Maybe it all

happened in Barbie land.

There could be a multiverse even

within.

Then there's another multiverse where Barbie

is a professional woman living in Wisconsin,

perpetually engaged to Ken. So that's

a whole yeah.

Yeah. I don't it's because I guess

this is also the cool thing I'm just realizing about the

device where they're all barbie is. Like,

they've sort of built the multiverse into Barbieland,

where it's not actually a separate universe, but

it's almost like the variance of Loki,

but very similar on a much bigger scale,

where it's just like all of these yeah,

the astronaut Barbie you had as a kid

exists, and it's here in Barbieland. It's just not Margot

Robbie. It's like the other one. So

there's, all of those

different versions built in, which is

cool, but I don't know that there's story

potential in those as much as I would I mean,

Issa Rey as president was one of the

most wonderful things in the movie. but I don't need

more of that now.

We mentioned at the top that sales of

Barbie before this movie had dipped a bit, probably because there's

so much competition from other things. And I'm sure

they have or will be going up.

well, because we started buying them, I know for a fact that they started

going up.

That was kind of my question. Did

this movie make you interested more in the

world of Barbie?

Wildly, oddly,

wildly, unexpectedly, and

I'm a moderately easy

mark. I'd say,

give me some good world building, and I will want to

consume. Like, I will want that world.

But for that to have happened with Barbie

is, I'd say, pretty extraordinary

because we were at a yard sale

yesterday, and I was digging through the box of

like, you and I, we bought King Kong Barbie, and it's

sitting on our shelf. I never imagined I'd be willing

to own Barbies, and now I bought a book that's a catalog

of the history of collectors edition Barbies. So I

can basically go through it and decide which ones I want to track down on

ebay and buy.

And we should clarify, barbie is not a giant gorilla,

but it is,

in the fist.

So cool. But, yeah,

it's extraordinary to me. I mean, would I want to read

a Barbie storybook or would I want to read a Barbie comic,

like you said? No, absolutely not. But now

I am totally into buying some

of the dolls. They're pretty they're cool, and I just

feel a connection to that world that I've never felt

before.

Yeah, and there's a Netflix movie that is going to

be coming out and I'm just

curious if that it's called Barbie, and

Stacey to the Rescue. I'd imagine it's going to be

for kids, but animated, but

definitely be for. But see, that's not something that

you're not going to tune into Netflix to watch Barbie and

Stacey.

Absolutely not. Which I'm fine

with watching kids cartoons, but that absolutely

has no appeal to me as into the

world as I am at this point. That does not

appeal to me.

Well, what about our little plumber

brothers?

Because I think where

do you think that's going? I mean, that's an

easier one to have a sequel, to have this ongoing

story that sort of sets itself up.

But what do you think it's going to

do? And how multiversal is it going to be?

Well, I think they really set up a lot, as you

said. And we were mentioning a potential with a sequel

by really setting up what is Peach's origin story?

How did she get to the mushroom kingdom? Is

she actually human? So I think that

would be really interesting to explore. So I definitely think

we'll see a sequel. And it was so long before we got

Mario in a film in

between the failed live action

film and this one. So I don't think we're going to be

waiting that long for a new

sequel. But I'm wondering too, in terms of

multiversal or multidimensional,

could the next movie even be

a backdoor pilot, if

you will, to, Nintendo,

connected universe?

I do always wonder if like Metroid

or Link from

Zelda or Kid Icarus, which he's

playing in Mario Brothers. I wonder

if these Nintendo properties,

should we know they could coexist? Because

again, Nintendo has always kept a great

deal of control of their IP. There's an example of this

in Captain and the Games Master from the 80s, where

they overlap and link up their different,

worlds. But I wonder if

it should be what do you think? I

mean, should Link

be in a world with Mario or should

Zelda just be its own world?

I think it maybe should just be its own world

because, yes, as you

were mentioning, this new Super Mario

world was very mythological and

had a lot of kind of Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings

kind of feel in terms of expansiveness. But

that doesn't mean that Zelda has to be in another

kingdom over there. I would like to see that be

its own world rather than

struggling to interconnect. How is

Starfox in this world, too? You could easily

put fucking animals.

I guess Metroid would have to be on some alien planet.

Yeah, but I think they should almost be

their own world. And maybe this was more just functioning

to ease people back into the world

of what a more family

oriented video game movie

adaptation could really feel. Like, and really also

staying true to the video game, because I'm sure there were many

people over the years saying you can't really just

adapt Super Mario to the screen. It's

silly. And that's what exactly they did. And it's

the second biggest movie of the year. We're just going to have power ups.

We're going to have him in the raccoon suit.

We're just going to homages even to like,

Mario Kart.

You and I both played Mario Kart and Mario party over the

years. And they do such a good job of pulling ah,

that in without turning it into

they could have done a standalone Mario Kart race car movie, and it probably would

have been awful. Instead, it was fun to have

sequences that remind you so much of that game and

the world of that game and the mechanics of that game. But within

this movie now I.

Think we might see spinoffs with the Donkey

Kong characters and stuff like that. That's within kind

of the I guess that's the thing about Nintendo. They do have

their own interconnected worlds

of like, with and

Donkey Kong and stuff like that. And then you do have other characters

like Lincoln, Zelda and Samus that

are completely separate.

Yeah. And so moving away from

both Mario and Barbie, do you think

I'm right? do these two movies tell

us that we have moved past the tipping

point and we're just

in a post multiversal world?

I think so, because you made a good point

referencing some of the other movies. And I'm thinking there's that big

sequence in I think it's endgame right. Where they kind of need

to explain time travel again and

what they're doing. And I think you could almost get by

now just like skipping that altogether. Because

we just all as you were saying, we

just embrace this device.

And, I think we're at peak, but I don't think

it's also fully been

mined yet.

No, I think at this point, what will

happen I imagine this happened with probably

with time travel stories, maybe even with like, Back to the Future at some

point or something. I'm not a cinema historian in that

way, but I think,

yeah, we're at peak. We've passed the

tipping point, I think. That doesn't mean they're

going away, nor does that mean they're going to be at

the top of everything. It means there will just now

always be multiversal stories. They're just going to

always be a part of some stories

that get told. And they're no longer

relegated to even the fringe, large

fringe that it was, but the fringe of superhero

stories. They're now able to be in

anything, thanks to everything, everywhere, all at

once. Mario and Barbie.

And now, before we wrap up, Guido, I had one final question

for you. So of course, we

had Barbenheimer this year

taking over everyone. The word on everyone's

lips was Barbenheimer. But of course, today we were

doing Barbie and Mario. So what would it be for you?

Would it be Marbie

or Barrio? What would their

couple name be?

It can't be Barrio because that's the neighborhood

in Spanish. So it has to be Barbio. And

I think it's barbio.

Barbio, okay. There we go.

How about you?

Oh, no, I love it. Barbio. There we go.

So that was, the new trend, the new celebrity

couple of Barbio.

That'll be the name of the movie when they cross over in

20 years.

Which is just inevitable onto.

Itself. So that then is

a wrap. Dear.

Watchers.

That is enough. There is

no other giveaway this week. We do have that one final

one lingering and I recommend you listen

to the last few episodes if you have no idea what we're talking about with

our giveaways.

Yes. And I have

been Robio.

And I have been Ken. The reading list

is in the show notes. You can follow us on all social

media at dear watchers.

Leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon

with another trip through the multiverse.

In the meantime, in the words of Watu, it's

a dream house, mother.