John welcomes back Dan Gregor and Doug Mand (Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, Pretty Smart) to ask, how do you revive a dead genre? Using their upcoming movie The Naked Gun, they look at why the spoof genre fell apart, the challenges of introducing it to a new generation, and why turning genre tropes into jokes will always resonate with an audience.

We also look at other genres they don’t make anymore, follow up on Dogma 25, and answer listener questions on complicated rewrites and whether or not to hire a publicist.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John, Doug and Dan look at the movies that Gen Z hasn’t seen (and whether they even need to).

Links:

The Naked Gun in theaters August 1st!
Dan Gregor and Doug Mand
Doug and Dan’s last time on the show, Episode 548: Made for Streamers
Bottoms and Dicks: The Musical
Melodramas: Now, Voyager, It Ends with Us, Spencer
Sexual thrillers: Body Heat, Jagged Edge, (Bonus: Altered States, Dead Ringers)
You Must Remember Thins: Erotic 80s
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Adult Romantic Dramas: The English Patient, Out of Africa, Past Lives, Materialists
Mid-Budget Adventure Films: Romancing the Stone, The Lost City
John’s Aladdin residuals
Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by Hatty Willmoth for BBC Science Focus
One dose of experimental drug nearly wipes out stealthy cholesterol in ‘remarkable’ trial by Erika Edwards for NBC News
The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology by Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha for WSJ
Calvin Kang on Ingstagram
Weekend Read 2
Top movies that Gen Z have never watched revealed – including Oscar-winning classics from The Sun UK
Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
Craig Mazin on Instagram
John August on Bluesky and Instagram
Outro by Ryan Gerberding (send us yours!)
Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

2: Laughter

Richard Wiseman's On Your Mind

The Frog's Guide to Humor

The AI-powered Podcast Player