Van’s explicitly introduced top-five fictional bands are, from fifth to first: Josie and the Pussycats, the Wonders, Spinal Tap, the Five Heartbeats and Stillwater; Eddie and the Cruisers is intentionally excluded from this episode’s list.
A follow-up distinguishes best fictional band from best music: the Five Heartbeats, Wonders, Eddie and the Cruisers and Stillwater are compared, with Fever Dog considered a weaker signature than On the Dark Side or That Thing You Do!.
The Revolution and the Time are excluded as actual bands despite Purple Rain’s fictional framing; Sex Bob-omb is suggested as an additional candidate.
Additional fictional-band candidates include Sex Bob-omb, the EuroTrip band, Hey That’s My Bike, CB4 and Citizen Dick; the Dan Band is distinguished as real and Citizen Dick’s onscreen performance is disputed.
An explicit top-five most-Fargo-people list ranks the dealership manager fifth, diner cashier fourth, driveway witness third, blonde White Bear escort second and Lou first.
Van’s Damn He Got It list has five ranks: Larenz Tate in Love Jones fifth, Gosling in Drive fourth, Will Smith in Hitch third, Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall second and Billy Dee Williams in Lady Sings the Blues first. Other Pitt roles are alternatives, not his selected entry.
Redford and Clooney are additional examples; a debate compares Clooney’s fame and film choices with Gosling’s, then discusses late-blooming actors.
Van recalls his father admiring Billy Dee Williams; the hosts discuss men openly acknowledging other men’s attractiveness and remember Colt 45 ads.
The invited top-five flex ranks Joe Clark confronting Sams on the Lean on Me roof fifth, with the dangerous method questioned.
Fourth is Rocky beating Tommy Gunn, whose provocation is said to justify the confrontation.
Third is Shep beating Kyle Watson one-on-one in Above the Rim; the deceased-friend subplot prompts a tangent.
Second is a tie between Yoda teaching Luke at Dagobah and Obi-Wan defeating Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.
After the rank is clarified as second rather than first, the top slot goes to the park-bench speech in Good Will Hunting, contrasting experience with intelligence.
The explicitly ranked white-people-solve-racism list begins with The Blind Side at number five and A Time to Kill at number four. — Van Lathan
Number three is described as everyone being racist and beautiful, referring to the current film in context; The Help is second and Driving Miss Daisy first. — Van Lathan
The Help and Driving Miss Daisy are mocked as self-congratulatory, while The Help’s actors are praised; a bookstore colleague deliberately called the book The Hep.
