Episode 98: Monsters University

Attention, students! The summer session has just begun at your beloved and monstrous educational institution, and now it's time for class to commence. Apologies for the academic build-up, but this week, Josh and Gabe are going back to school with Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan, those lovable monsters from Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sulley, though, are a bit younger this time around, of course. Yes, it's time to talk Monsters University, Pixar's newest computer-animated feature. To do so, Josh and Gabe are joined by past guest Adam Kempenaar, from the Filmspotting podcast, to discuss prequels, Pitch Perfect, and...wait, Pitch Perfect? Yes, really. And you may be surprised by which member of this motley crew is most positive about a Pixar prequel. But you'll have to tune into this scare-ifying episode to find out!

Episode 97: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Anniversaries aplenty this week, friends. First up, we're at the two-year point of Mousterpiece Cinema's history! (Two years is a mix of silver and gold, right? We'll take all gifts of both kinds.) But more importantly, we're celebrating another anniversary on today's podcast, in which Josh and Gabe discuss the 1988 animated/live-action hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Walt Disney Imagineering intern and friend of the show Morgan Ditta. Yes, this episode is going up on the 25th anniversary of this classic, and you'd better believe that Josh, Gabe, and Morgan spent the entire show figuring out new ways in which to explain how great this movie is. Does it hold up? Is the Pope Catholic? Will we stop asking questions without answering them? Yes. (See?) Check out the new show today, and raise a glass to one of the all-time classics celebrating its birthday. (Also, make sure to honor Who Framed Roger Rabbit.)

Episode 96: Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two

Hey, folks! It's time for a brand-new, recurring DVD feature on Mousterpiece Cinema, as Josh and Gabe begin their long, slow wade through the world of the Walt Disney Treasures box set DVDs. This week, they start with the Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two set, covering Mickey's shorts from 1939 onward. (Had it not been for Josh's poor memory, they wouldn't be going backwards with poor Mickey in living color.) They're joined on the show by This Was TV contributor Anthony Strand, as the trio discuss Mickey's shift from being a character to being an icon, Pluto's prominence in the shorts, and how sacrilegious it is to show Mickey Mouse playing a Mortal Kombat-style video game about Dopey the Dwarf. Check it out!

Episode 95: James and the Giant Peach

What would you do if one day, you woke up, and saw a peach as big as your house in the front yard? Would you go inside of that peach? Would you make friends with whatever was inside? Would you travel to New York while fighting robotic sharks and skeletal pirates? Of course you would! Well, that is, if you were the lead character of James and the Giant Peach, the Walt Disney live-action/stop-motion-animated hybrid film based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, the topic of this week's all-new Mousterpiece Cinema. In this new show, Josh and Gabe are joined by Andreas Stoehr of the Pussy Goes Grr film blog to discuss this follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas, also produced by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick. Did they find it soporific? Slight? Splendid? Other words that begin with "s"? Listen to find out!

Episode 94: Pinocchio

We've been away for a month, but Mousterpiece Cinema is back and ready to go! Gabe and Josh are raring to go, and start off a slew of all-new episodes by tackling one of the greatest of all animated movies--let alone Disney movies: 1940's Pinocchio. This week, they're joined by Alexander Huls, contributor to The Atlantic, Film School Rejects, The New York Times Magazine, and more, to discuss the little wooden marionette who dreamed of being a real boy and son to his father, Geppetto. More specifically, the trio discuss exactly how traumatic this movie was to them as children, and as adults, as well as the film's music, animation, and style. Plus, at the end, a digression into the world of The Fast and The Furious series, because...well, why not?