Michael Ovitz sent Hoffman the script thinking Hoffman would play the Cruise part; Hoffman preferred the other role.
CAA wanted Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray, with Hoffman as Charlie; Murray went on to make What About Bob, called a similar but different-toned lane that suited him better.
CAA agent Paula Wagner, later Cruise's producing partner, suggested making Charlie the younger brother to get Tom Cruise in, raising objections that the two could never be brothers given the age gap.
Martin Bress, Spielberg and Sydney Pollack all circled the film; Pollack and Hoffman legendarily despised each other on Tootsie, but Pollack got Levinson to read it.
Levinson acts in the film because J.T. Walsh was supposed to play the psychiatrist but had a conflict.
Jokes follow about Walsh playing the part as Markinson or as Happy Kikindale from Blue Chips.

Roger Ebert's review

In the discussion (3)

Approx. transcript time · 00:37:22Read transcript

Ebert is jokingly called "Raj" because the hosts feel closer to him after doing a Siskel and Ebert podcast; his score is three and a half stars.
The quoted review says the film refuses to supply sentimental but unrealistic answers and is not a movie with a miracle cure; he also liked what Cruise did in the film.
The first line of a second critic's review, read aloud next, calls the film Dustin Hoffman humping one note on a piano for two hours and 11 minutes.

Probably Unanswerable Questions

The high-end car delivery business; Charlie's profit on the deal

In the discussion (3)

Approx. transcript time · 00:50:48Read transcript

Economics of Charlie's business were first raised during What's Aged the Worst and saved for this segment.
Asked whether the high-end car delivery service was a 1980s idea or one that worked, the answer is a 1980s idea. — Chris Ryan
What is Charlie clearing after paying Lenny, giving $5,000 discounts and paying about 13 people while bribing EPA agents?

Buick travel time; stopping near L.A.; burned waffles; Raymond's routine in Vegas; the brothers' age gap; the hotel bath; the route through old Vegas; casino overreaction; too little cocaine; anti-EPA attitude

In the discussion (11)

Approx. transcript time · 00:56:32Read transcript

It is ridiculous that the two are supposed to be brothers, joked about as the nitpick done early.
A 1949 Buick Roadmaster at 35 mph from Cincinnati to L.A. in three days doesn't work, especially losing a day in Missouri; the distance is looked up as 2,173 miles.
Passing through Vegas they are about 240 miles from L.A., so why stop at a hotel; the reply is that Raymond needs to sleep in a bed.
How does Ray burn toaster waffles so badly that the kitchen fills with smoke like the Malibu fires?
In Vegas Raymond's routine, Wapner, Wheel of Fortune and bedtime, stops mattering; the counter is that time vanishes in Vegas.
The age gap looks more like 10 or 12 years in the photo, and there should have been a middle sister.
Why does Charlie run an instantly hot bath in a crappy hotel with Ray in the room; it is also defended as the skeleton-key scene where he learns he is the Rain Man.
Why drive through old Vegas on the way to L.A.; many shots are at dusk or dawn on roads chosen to look cool.
No way the casino gets that angry about 89K.
Cocaine should have been more involved; Charlie seems high in the first Lenny scene.
The movie is dismissive of the EPA.

Recasting Couch

Joe Pantoliano as Lenny

In the discussion (5)

Approx. transcript time · 01:01:10Read transcript

Iris the hooker could have been a great one-scene part; Marky Post, described as having just passed away, is suggested with an 80s hairdo and a cocktail dress.
It was a lost scene, seemingly to save money, needing a hot 80s actress who could click with Cruise.
Laura San Giacomo is offered for Iris, and another voice calls it even better.
A joke category about which part a co-host wishes he could have played points to Lenny, who is close to Pantoliano's Midnight Run character.
Joey Pants as Lenny is called a much better recasting-couch answer than the earlier Iris pick, with a Guido the Killer Pimp reunion with Cruise; a voice then says "I changed my answer."

Half-Assed Internet Research

Two schmucks in a car; the strike-era ending; airline edits; Hoffman's early crisis; the Kim Peek origin; the Hoffman, Hackman and Duvall roommates

In the discussion (16)

Approx. transcript time · 01:02:49Read transcript

During filming Hoffman and Cruise called the movie two schmucks in a car and constantly worried it would not work.
Principal photography happened during the 1988 Writers Guild strike, so the final scene was apparently winged without writers.
The ending is questioned as unsatisfying for a Best Picture winner, since it lacks a sappy payoff where Raymond stays with Charlie.
A sentimental Amtrak scene always lands for someone who spent the 80s riding Amtrak between a mom's house and a dad's house.
Card counting is meant to be the climax that brings the brothers close and saves Charlie's business; the ending is neither victory nor defeat, and its ambiguity is liked.
Jokes imagine a modern version with Raymond as a Marvel superhero, a Wallbrook driveway epilogue, or Lenny killing Charlie.
Airline versions deleted the airline-accident scene, except on Qantas.
Choosing a flight at the airport and hopping on last minute was possible through the late 90s.
Three weeks in, Hoffman thought the movie was a disaster and told Levinson to get Richard Dreyfuss; Dreyfuss is described as Hoffman on steroids in the asshole department.
The film was written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass; Morrow created Raymond after meeting real-life savant Kim Peek.
Hoffman beat Gene Hackman for Best Actor and hugged him; they were playhouse classmates who shared Hackman's apartment on 2nd Avenue and 26th Street, where Hoffman slept on the kitchen floor before moving in with Robert Duvall on West 109th Street.
The three as roommates is pitched as a documentary or original series, compared to LeBron, Wade and Carmelo on one AAU team.
Asked whose career they would rather have, one voice picks Duvall and Hackman is picked as well; Hackman was the most liked by other actors; Denzel and Will Smith took movies to work with him.
Hackman won a second Oscar for a supporting part in Unforgiven, something Hoffman never did.
Duvall is picked as the best storyteller of the three, with Godfather and Apocalypse Now stories.
The Replacements is called a top-five Hackman performance, with scenes apparently done in one take.