The Flop House is a fortnightly audio podcast about movie flops, which are defined as generally-recognized failures of the financial and/or critical variety. On the appointed day the hosts assemble at the Flop House Studios, watch a movie, and then record the episode.
The podcast began in 2007, and is hosted by professional comedy writers Dan McCoy and Elliott Kalan (both of whom have worked on The Daily Show, Elliott serving as head writer until his departure for greener pastures) along with their equally-funny bartender pal Stuart Wellington. Originally, McCoy and Wellington (who went to college together), hosted the show with their friend, comedian Simon Fisher. However, after the first 6 episodes, Fisher later moved away due to business, leading to his exit from the series. After a time filled with guest hosts, Elliott eventually stuck.
The trio usually confine themselves to major-studio films advertised and released within the past year or so, which tends to keep things current. They do this partially to differentiate from other podcasts that traditionally focus on riffing on the worst films of all time, and partially to reflect on what's recently burned its way into critical scorn.
Because the guys are close friends and their corpus spans the better part of a decade, their podcast is rife with inside jokes and callbacks — hence the challenge facing new listeners yearning to be brought up to speed.
The show has proven extremely popular to podcast listeners, due to its laid back comedic tone, the knowledge and insight each of the hosts have on movie history and tropes, the series of running gags, and the wonderful chemistry between McCoy, Kalan, and Wellington.
Trope Namer for Evidence Dungeon is from Episode 8 of the podcast.
Has a wiki
of its own for some reason.
Also has a site listing all the good movies recommended by the hosts.
The Flop House contains examples of:
- All Men Are Perverts: It's frequently joked that Dan gets a bit excited whenever something sexually arousing is about to occur, to the point that he's officially been nicknamed "Pervazoid Number One".
- Berserk Button:
- For Dan, any time that a film injures a character via the leg, due to his own real-life knee injury that was sustained in a skiing accident.
- Likewise, Stuart tends to get riled at the thought of 40 Days and 40 Nights, due largely to the infamous scene of the main character getting raped by his ex-girlfriend, which is played up in a way that makes the rape victim out to be the bad guy.
- Elliott hates stupid prophecies in supernatural movies or any movie that has a council of elders. Stuart has also noted that prophecies are probably his least favorite plot mechanic in movies.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Dan's frequent verbal missteps are instantly jumped on by Elliot and Stuart but they get away with the same since Dan rarely reacts as quickly as they would.
- Celebrity Impersonator:
- Michael Caine? What are you doing here? And what happened to Dan?
- Inverted with their collective impressions of Daniel Craig, which consist of them speaking in the thickest of Cockney accents.
- At one point, Elliott attempts to imitate Christopher Walken. However, he soon realizes that it sounds more like Woody Allen... so he and Dan just spend the next few minutes pretending to be Allen, as if he starred in The Dead Zone.
- Other recurring impersonations from Elliott include Sylvester Stallone and Tom Brokaw (the latter as part of a Running Gag where the veteran newscaster is presented as being completely obsessed with Dune). These are generally treated as though those persons have actually stepped into the room and joined the podcast.
- Christmas Episode: The episodes released in December are traditionally a part of "Cagemas", where they center on a movie starring flop-house fave Nicolas Cage. Though as of 2024, the show has actually skipped Cagemas for the past two years.note
- Comic Trio: Subverted somewhat. Stuart clearly fits into the role of The Fool, with Dan often taking the Only Sane Man route. However, the role of The Leader is in some ways shared between Dan and Elliott. Notably, even though Dan is ostensibly the one to head the podcast (as all of the episodes are recorded at Dan's apartment and he's been a part of the show since it's inception), Elliott tends to have the more dominating personality of the group, and is generally relied upon to do official summaries of the films they cover. He also tends to share the role of The Fool with Stuart, exploiting Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies with his various songs during the letter reading portion of the show.
- Comically Missing the Point: Stuart's incredulous reaction to the ending of Mirrors, in which the Canadian guy from 24 wakes up after his demon-battle to discover himself in mirror-land.Dan: Stuart, did you notice anything strange about the words after he woke up?.
Stuart: Well, I mean, uh, it looked like everything was backwards but I thought I'd just been drinking a lot.
Elliott: No, everything was backwards 'cause now he's trapped in the mirrors.
Stuart: Wait... what? C'mon! - Destination Ruse: Dan tells Stu they're going to the park and then stage whispers to Elliott that they're actually going to the vet. Stu plays along by acting like an excited dog for the bit.
- The Ditz: Hallie Haglund can occasionally give off this impression, given the loopy way that she tends to sound when on the podcast, and how often she tends to backtrack through an anecdote. Notably, in the Temptations: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor review, she had to double back several times in order to either clarify or remember what her mom does for a living. There was also the time when she almost stopped from telling the story of how she accidentally watched one of her parents' sex educational videos because she realized that it would seem embarrassing just after she started mentioning it.
- Double Take: The verbal "wait... what?" version sees generous use in the podcast:
- A fairly common running gag is Stuart either Comically Missing the Point or ignoring a plot point and when confronted with the obvious, he responds with a quizzical "wait... what?"
- In the Pass Thru episode, Stuart refers to the famous Godzilla dropkick in Godzilla vs. Megalon as, he assumes, "propelling him forward like a slug might propel a human body forward" which elicits an immediate "Right" from Dan and a couple beats later a baffled "wait... what?" from Elliot, leading to a tangent of tangents on slugs as a means of locomotion.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Simon Fisher era is a bit more disjointed in pacing, due to the podcast just finding its footing and not having Elliott around to drive the plot summaries forward.
- Evidence Dungeon: Trope Namer. Stuart Wellington was worried (pre-marriage) that his apartment could be taken as an Evidence Dungeon, if you looked at it with the wrong set of eyes.
- Family-Friendly Stripper: The original peaches always point out when a movie features these strange strip clubs wehre the strippers only get down to a bikini, much to their chagrin and to the detriment of their suspension of disbelief.
- Halloween Episode: Similar to Cagemas above, the reviews in October tend to be a part of their "Shocktober" month, focusing exclusively on horror. The guys have mentioned how bemused they are that Shocktober generates so much interest in fans, given how frequently they review horror movies at other times of year, as well.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Stuart's cohosts frequently point out that the nerdy hobbies that he partakes in just make him more appealing to women whereas the same attributes in them would just make them seem like losers.
- Once an Episode: A list of words that sound like other words.
- Only Sane Man: Dan McCoy. (Cue a sigh).
- Overly Long Gag: Elliott's letter songs, which tend to come up after the guys have finished reviewing a film and just as Dan is about to read listener e-mails. They are completely improvised by Elliott, and can go on for almost a minute at times. This tends to drive Dan (and, to a lesser extent, Stuart) up the wall, given how much they tend to eat up time.
- Stuart's infamous "Wait, what?" bit that occurs after hearing the climax for Mirrors.
- The Porthole of Time (it's on a cruise ship! Definitely not Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time)
- The Alan Ruck tangent.
- Elliot's deconstruction of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" in the Monster Trucks review. This goes on long enough that Stuart eventually wonders if he bought a ticket to a one-man show.
- Ragin' Cajun: Played with in their review of Serenity (2019), when Elliott workshops his character "Crawdaddy". Crawdaddy well remembers growing up on the Louisiana bayous, and speaks of it often, but is currently a soccer dad in suburban Connecticut.Elliott: [thick Cajun accent] In my youth I wrestled gators. Now I drive a Kia.
- Reference Overdosed: Sometimes comprehension requires (for example) a fairly thorough knowledge of comics, 'Thirties movies, now-decanonised Star Wars Legends novels, old show-biz clichés, and whatever was playing on Cinemax at 02:00 in 1994….
- Review Ironic Echo: In the 1941 (1979) episode, Elliot highlights Toshiro Mifune's character's line "This has not been honorable" as summing up his thoughts on the movie itself.
- Running Gag: They've compiled quite a few over the show.
- The hosts fleeing to a tangent about Duckburg whenever the movie they've watched is too boring or terrible to hold their interest.
- Stuart flamboyantly mispronouncing things ("sam-yoo-rai"/"Sammy-rye" or "dino-sours").
- Stuart concluding his film recommendations with irrelevant or misleading instructions on how to see the movie: "Go to your computer, then drag that into your queue, click save, then sign out... pop some corn, put your arm around your favorite girl or boy..."
- The hosts gleefully mangling the names of people starring in the movies (for example, Gerard Butler gradually becomes Gremlin Battler)
- Dan is the Leonardo or the Cyclops of the group.
- Elliott's fictional relationship with Anne Hathaway, since they went to the same high school.
- Elliott and Dan will take any excuse to go into an imitation of The Crypt Keeper. Also turns into a Hurricane of Puns.
- Elliott's spontaneous pitches to write movies for exactly $700,000, like Terminator 5/Short Circuit 3 (a double sequel movie), an adaptation of Ziggy, Rocket Crocodile and the World of Tomorrow (which had its poster defictionalized), Million Dollar Getaway, and so on.
- "Is this a bit?"
- Elliott singing a song at the start of the "Letters from Listeners" portion of the show.
- During the recommendations portion of the podcast, Stuart became notable for consistently listing off the obscure horror films Castle Freak (1995), Head Of The Family, and The Invisible Maniac.
- Dan getting agitated whenever knee injuries are brought up in films, due to his own unpleasant experience with a busted knee during a ski trip.
- Elliott's love for Popeye's Chicken.
- "We're sorry about your son. Here's some Teddy Grahams. Maybe that'll cheer you up."
- Stuart letting out a ferocious "Ra-ROWR" whenever the imaginary Flop House housecat is brought up.
- Dan's tendency to sigh whenever something dispiriting is brought up.
- Stuart interrupting Dan at the beginning of every episode as he attempts to introduce the show.
- All of the listeners being a part of the "LastNameWithheld" family, given Dan's tendency to omit reading the surnames of those writing in to the podcast.
- Elliott's brother, David Kalan (who happens to be a sports fan and writer) mailing in letters to the show, often to correct a (usually) sports-related gaffe that the trio made in one of their recent episodes — none of the hosts care about sports even slightly. People writing into the podcast have occasionally ended their letters with "Free David Kalan!"Elliott: Nope, David Kalan will still continue to stay imprisoned in the Bottle City of Kandor – where they have no sports! [sarcastic] It's the worst punishment of all!
- Additionally, Elliott's tendency to freak out in annoyance whenever his brother's name comes up.Dan: This letter...Elliott: Okay.Dan: Is from...Elliott: Yes? Any time...Dan: David...Elliott: No!Dan: Last name withheld.Elliott: Okay, thank goodness.Dan: Elliott's brother.Elliott: No! Nooo! NOOO!!!
- Additionally, Elliott's tendency to freak out in annoyance whenever his brother's name comes up.
- Tom Brokaw (as impersonated by Elliott) is obsessed with Dune, and pops in whenever the franchise is under discussion.
- Sixth Ranger: Hallie Haglund.
- Special Guest: Used during the initial few episodes after Simon Fisher left, before Elliott solidified his position. Occasionally, though, guests have been brought in since then to replace either Stuart or Elliott when they were occupied with personal matters. Most of the latter cases tended to come from Elliott and Dan's co-workers from The Daily Show, including Al Madrigal, Wyatt Cenac, Zhubin Perang, John Hodgeman and Hallie Haglund, the latter of whom became something of a Sixth Ranger after filling in for Elliot while he was on paternity leave.
- The United Passions episode, being centered around a movie about the history of FIFA, had none other than David Kalan as a guest to provide his sports insight (which wasn't all that needed since the movie featured next to no sports).
- Standardized Leader: Dan gets compared to Leonardo and Cyclops for being the leader and, well, boring compared to Elliot and Stuart's eccentricities.
- Team Pet: The Flop House House Cat.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Elliott sure does love his Popeye's Chicken.
