Baruchel is unanimously chosen as the character likely to die first in a horror version; a mistaken memory of This Is the End is corrected to Michael Cera’s death. — Bill Simmons
Jonah Hill, twice Oscar nominated and now a director, was on a Belushi-like track; 21 Jump Street is offered as his apex, after Moneyball changed opinions, though this may be the movie he is remembered for. — Sean Fennessey
Jonah and his peers are thoughtful fans of earlier movies who planned their careers. — Bill Simmons
This is definitely an Apex Mountain for Michael Cera, with Juno the same year and Scott Pilgrim in 2010.
His 2010s dip is attributed to not wanting fame and choosing smaller indie parts as an art-house fan; Molly's Game and Twin Peaks show a possible second life in a White Lotus-style series, though at 33 he is too young for the part mentioned there.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse is raised with an unclear "absolutely, yeah," then credited with more career than expected (Role Models, Neighbors, Promising Young Woman) and a good essay about being trapped as McLovin. — Bill Simmons
Rogen's 2007 was massive and his mogul career since (shows, weed line, books, pottery, Sony hack, fighting Ted Cruz) is the most impressive of the group; Long Shot shows his ideas, and his apex is probably Neighbors.
Pineapple Express got greenlit because of his stardom, from a generation that wanted to make its own Midnight Run or Lethal Weapon; producer Craig is asked about it and it is predicted as a late-300s episode, 383. — Bill Simmons
Comedic cops could be at Apex Mountain since the subgenre faded after this; Observe and Report was darker, and 21 Jump Street is offered by Craig. — Bill Simmons
Apex for flipping a boner into the waistband is asked as a question. — Bill Simmons
A joke Apex for Dartmouth credits the movie for Ringer staffers going there. — Bill Simmons
Goldschlager vodka was not a real vodka; Goldschlager is called an evil liquor, and a modern version would be marketed with an NFT. — Bill Simmons
The Hawaiian driver's license has got to be the peak, a cultural wave with shirts of it; one host's son Ben has a McLovin license flag from Amazon covering a window. — Bill Simmons
The school exterior is El Segundo High School; the mall scenes were at the Fox Hills Mall, later Westfield Culver City, possibly defunct; the opening convenience store is in Culver City. — Bill Simmons
Per Wikipedia, the McLovin liquor store is in Glendale, though it looks like the Hillhurst plaza with the drawing room near Nathan Fielder's Dumb Starbucks.
The donuts were at the California State University Northridge campus, and the bar is near L.A.X. though it looks like a Valley bar. — Bill Simmons
The restaurant Fogell names was Rogen and Goldberg's favorite in Vancouver. — Bill Simmons
David Goldberg, Evan's brother, made close to a thousand penis drawings, only a handful used; the MPA objected to one Becca holds. — Bill Simmons
Guesses at how many times the word fuck is used include at least 200 and 13, with garbled figures around producer Craig (280, 176) and "over 202". — Bill Simmons
The Coke scene is based on a real party Rogen and Goldberg attended at 14 to say goodbye to a local stand-up; everyone did blow, and per Goldberg the house belonged to a little person and a bodybuilder couple and there was a pig. — Bill Simmons
The Ringer piece is a reservoir of anecdotes, such as Cera falling out of a tree early in the shoot; a 15th-anniversary oral history next year is predicted, maybe by The Ringer. — Bill Simmons
On Becca, the preference goes the other way: surprise that Martha MacIsaac did not have a bigger career.
Bill is asked whether Jennifer Lawrence would make it more interesting next to Emma Stone; the reply is Becca should be more bookish and on Michael Cera's speed, not a second high school babe.
A bigger actress for Michael Cera's mom is suggested with a garbled name ("Carla Gino, Gagino"), and that would be great. — Bill Simmons
The movie is perfectly cast and too precious to revise. — Bill Simmons
The brothers needed a couple more minutes of backstory on becoming employed and living on their own; the cops would be called to that house far more often; the Catalina Island scenes are visibly shot on the Malibu and Laguna Beach cliffs, which is called intentional rather than a nit
The only nit for one host is needing two more minutes of backstory on both brothers becoming successfully employed and living on their own; another liked those beats, basically Ferrell discovering mid-dump that he should buy Charmin; a further nit is that the cops would be called to that house more often given all the late-night noise.
A prequel hypothetical, Brennan and Dale at ages 21 to 35 before they met, finds no answer: no twenty-year-olds are funny like that, Michael Cera would just be different, and it would be better to see known dramatic actors like Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron try it; turning Stranger Things season 3 into a Step Brothers prequel is joked about, and a Cobra Kai style ten-years-later movie is preferred by one host.
Not counted as a nit because it is funny and intentional: having lived in Southern California, a host finds it hilarious that the Catalina Island material is clearly shot on the cliffs of Malibu and Laguna Beach, which look nothing like Catalina; another suspects they could not get a permit to shoot on Catalina.
