Night Shift

Prostitution chalkboard pitch

Billy's first scene, tape-recorded ideas, edible paper, office tour, and morgue introduction are proposed. Billy's card-counting story, tuna-mayonnaise idea, Clint Howard encounter, and unauthorized limo use are proposed. The second encounter with the boss's son, his Flintstones viewing, Billy's Atlantic City story, and Chuck's recorded rebuke are proposed. The subway Love Brokers pitch and breakfast with Belinda are proposed. Billy's chalkboard pitch to the women is selected as the leading rewatchable scene. The clothing montage is proposed as a characteristic 1980s sequence. The fraternity party is proposed chiefly for Kevin Costner's uncredited appearance and Clint Howard's freezer encounter. Billy's car, Operation Chuck, the Christmas party, Chuck's confession, Belinda returning to work, and the prison and lawyer-office confrontations are additional choices. The final ranked preference is Billy's car reveal first, the Flintstones-watching boss's son second, and the chalkboard pitch third.

Chuck's Rubik's Cube and solution guide

The illustrated ensemble poster is proposed. The sex-worker-with-a-heart-of-gold setup, Quarterflash theme, Burt Bacharach score, and Shelley Long haircut are proposed. Billy's dashboard Rolodex is proposed. Chuck solving a Rubik's Cube with a guidebook wins.

Chuck under attack, basketball, soundtrack, and comic asides

Chuck's repeated mistreatment by the dog, strangers, girlfriend, delivery man, and schoolgirls effectively sets up his eventual revolt. Mr. Carbone's repeated accusation that Chuck went over his head remains a reusable line. The rain-slicked alley basketball game and a bound man thrown through the hoop are praised. Richard Belzer's villain and the original That's What Friends Are For are praised. Chuck's mother using a séance to berate her dead husband and Billy's barbershop exit are praised. The Van Halen, Rolling Stones, Night Shift, Al Jarreau, Pointer Sisters, Talk Talk, and Burt Bacharach soundtrack is praised. The small asides, including reactions to Charlotte's photo and Lupe's pickle-girl history, are praised. Ron Howard's racially awkward SNL promotion is discussed as a period artifact.

Love Brokers

Billy repeating Love Brokers through the subway window wins. The bound man flying through the basketball hoop is an alternate.

The bound man through the hoop

The bound man thrown through the basketball hoop is selected.

Paradise Found

Paradise Found is selected as a scene-stealing location for its improbable indoor pool and sex-club design. The panel emphasizes the severe sanitation and public-health implications of combining an indoor water park and sex club.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Talk Talk

Jumpin’ Jack Flash in the limo is selected. Talk Talk playing through the end credits is selected as co-winner.

Chuck's tuna sandwich

Vincent Schiavelli's character smearing Chuck's tuna sandwich on the door after removing the mustard wins.

Underwritten Belinda and implausible jobs

Belinda's reason for doing sex work is considered underwritten because the movie supplies no coercion, addiction, or economic explanation. Chuck's choice to leave investment banking for morgue work is also questioned. Charlotte is identified as an unpleasant and disposable character.

Sex-worker stereotype, smoking, Billy’s ideas, and Charlotte

The sex-worker-with-a-heart-of-gold convention is judged dated. Shelley Long's onscreen smoking is judged unconvincing. Billy's failure to notice Chuck and Belinda's relationship for months is questioned. Billy's supposedly original ideas are criticized as weak, already invented, or limited to Love Brokers. Charlotte's obsessive dieting is described as a dated portrayal. Chuck and Charlotte maintaining separate New York apartments while engaged is questioned on cost grounds.

Mr. Carbone; Henry Winkler

Mr. Carbone's furious complaint about being bypassed is proposed. Henry Winkler's threat to make Billy play tennis with God is an alternate.

Love Brokers

Stiffs is proposed as an alternate title. Love Brokers wins as the title that best states the central enterprise.

Boy, that Barney Rubble—what an actor

The boss’s son admiring Barney Rubble is selected as the most memorable quote.

Modern movies need stronger sex-worker characters

Billy's chalkboard pitch is proposed as an inspiration for Alec Baldwin's sales speech in Glengarry Glen Ross. Vivian Ward, Lana, Ophelia, and Alabama are selected for a Mount Rushmore of film sex-worker characters. The principal take is that modern movies have not produced comparable sex-worker characters in decades. The ensemble of women at Billy's pitch is praised for representing a wide range of personalities.

Kurt Russell or Mickey Rourke as Billy Blaze

Kurt Russell and Mickey Rourke are reported as having auditioned for Billy Blaze. Kurt Russell is considered plausible based on Big Trouble in Little China; Mickey Rourke is considered a much stranger fit. Jaid Barrymore and Ola Ray's small roles are noted.

Kevin Costner as Frat Boy Number One

Kevin Costner as Frat Boy Number One is the inaugural example and winner of the newly named unexpected-A-list-cameo category.

Clint Howard

Clint Howard wins the newly named category for a director repeatedly casting a favored collaborator.

Grand L. Bush

Joe Spinell and Vincent Schiavelli are ruled too recognizable for eligibility. The Paradise Found desk clerk, later Rick in Bachelor Party, is proposed. Grand L. Bush, later seen in Die Hard, is selected for the opening basketball game.

Mr. Carbone's nephew

Mr. Carbone's nephew wins for his brief Flintstones-watching scenes. Shannen Doherty as the Girl Scout and the opening basketball players are alternates.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Ellen Barkin, Linda Fiorentino, Demi Moore, or Emma Stone as Belinda

Jamie Lee Curtis is treated as the likeliest period replacement for Belinda. Ellen Barkin and Linda Fiorentino are proposed, with concern that Fiorentino is too early. A late-1980s Demi Moore and a time-shifted Emma Stone are proposed as later-era alternatives.

D. B. or a football announcer

A D. B.-style commentary praises Billy becoming a love broker after his earlier ideas. A football-announcer commentary repeatedly warns that the morgue business is too risky.

Keaton preparation, cast friction, and the Stutz

Michael Keaton reportedly played 10th Avenue Freeze-Out to enter Billy Blaze’s character. Henry Winkler named Shelley Long as an annoying co-star and described framing disputes over their relative height. Billy's car is identified as a rare 1981 Stutz IV-Porte built on a General Motors platform.

No clear individual apex

Michael Keaton is rejected as at apex but his debut is treated as an extraordinary leap and his funniest film performance. Henry Winkler, Shelley Long, Ron Howard, and Barney Rubble are rejected as apex cases. Idea men and early-1980s entrepreneurial New York are considered plausible period apexes. Sex-worker comedies are assigned Risky Business rather than Night Shift. Morticians are assigned Six Feet Under; Jumpin’ Jack Flash is rejected.

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks is selected decisively, while a hypothetical Tom Cruise performance as Billy Blaze is imagined as strained.

Blazeland U.S.A.; Billy's Blazes

Blazeland U.S.A. and Billy's Blazes are proposed.

Morgue inactivity, consequences, finances, and careers

The women’s lack of depicted substance abuse or other crises is questioned within the movie’s stereotype. Billy's behavior is interpreted as an unmentioned cocaine addiction. The Times Square morgue is implausibly quiet on the night shift. Chuck and Billy getting their jobs back after arrest is considered convoluted. Charlotte disappears in the second half, making her setup scenes feel expendable. Charlotte’s Thanksgiving scene and near-heart-attack reaction in court are defended as funny despite her later disappearance. The Christmas party is considered too brief. A fifteen-to-twenty-percent commission or higher customer rates are proposed to make the business finances plausible. The business is estimated to operate for roughly one month, from around Thanksgiving until the day after Christmas. The short operating period is still judged insufficient to fund Billy’s car and watches. The business operating without any security is questioned. The group reacts too slowly after Franklin’s murder and the women’s reassignment. Billy falling from successful broker to towel attendant and his unexplained qualification as a mortician are questioned. The claim that there were no phones is made explicitly as a joke while discussing that slow reaction.

Billy Blaze

Billy's constant energy is proposed as being explained by an unmentioned cocaine addiction.

The panel proposes a new category here.

Night Shift 2: Assisted Living

A sequel would reunite Chuck and Billy in a Florida retirement community to arrange companionship for widowed residents. An all-Black remake is mentioned as a less-developed alternate.

Byron Mayo

Byron Mayo wins an imagined morgue scene praising Belinda’s poem and proposing a freezer-drawer encounter.

Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton is selected for the film’s one Oscar.

Billy’s drugs, prison terms, business revival, dog, and pornography

Whether Billy is using large quantities of cocaine is asked and treated as historically plausible. Franklin’s killers are estimated to face roughly fifteen to twenty years in prison. The panel asks whether Chuck and Billy could quietly restart the business after those competitors are jailed. Belinda is proposed as a capable third partner who could run the revived business. The unexplained attack dog and silent neighbor in the apartment hallway are questioned. Whether Belinda or Lupe appeared in contemporary pornography is asked. The business is imagined moving into direct-to-video pornography or cocaine distribution. Chuck is alternatively imagined working for Gordon Gekko after the film.

Risky Business

Risky Business is the unanimous double-feature choice.

Billy's satin bomber jacket and tape recorder

Billy's satin jacket and tape recorder are proposed. Michael Keaton reportedly retained the jacket, strengthening it as the memorabilia choice.

No bad ideas in a brainstorm

Do not start a prostitution business in a morgue is proposed, then inverted into a lesson about recognizing opportunities. No bad ideas in a brainstorm is the final lesson.

Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton wins unanimously.

Positive

The producer calls the film charming, funny, heartfelt, and consistently watchable. Michael Keaton's performance balances awkwardness, irritation, lovability, and pathos without exhausting the audience. Keaton is proposed as a plausible Michael Scott because of that balance. Shelley Long is praised, with a wish that the movie gave her more comedy. Belinda's morgue dialogue is singled out as funny before Keaton takes over the movie. Charlotte's rigid parents are praised as comic supporting characters. The discussion closes by considering Keaton in several Tom Hanks and Robin Williams roles.