- "It's time to babble the fuck on."
Garmy Strong.
Hollywood Babble-On is one of the many podcasts run under the SModcast banner, hosted by actor/DJ Ralph Garman and director Kevin Smith.
The show was recorded at Smith's SModCastle theater for the first several shows before moving to the Jon Lovitz Podcast Theatre (formerly the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club) on Universal City Walk at Universal Studios Hollywood, and then the Hollywood Improv after Smith/Garman and Lovitz had a falling out.
The show focuses on Hollywood and celebrity news. Since its inception in August 2010, the show has picked up numerous suggestions and submissions from listeners to become recurring segments and motifs in the show. Segments include:
- Shout-Outs: Ralph reads emails from listeners who have travelled exceptionally long distances to attend the show.
- Garmin's Got An Email Bag (featuring Kevin's reactions): Ralph reads more emails.
- From either of the above, the show usally does:
- Sexy Kevin: Kevin gives sex advice to emailers and attendees with Bow Chicka Wow Wow music; usually pertains to anal sex.
- Bowie Sings: Ralph sings a song (usually birthday related) in the style of David Bowie.
- Ze Germans: Ralph and Kev give advice or a greeting to someone in German accents.
- Hitler/Donald Trump/Porgs In The Movies : Readers submit fan-art that place either Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump, or Porgs in movies ("The Fast and the Fuhrer", "Three Men and a Grown Baby", "Pawgs", etc.)
- Your Town's Got A Fucked Up Name: Listeners send in photos of towns with names that are normally dirty or strange.
- Tinseltown Stiffs: A loving tribute to those in show business who have recently passed away.
- Shit That Should Not Be: Ralph highlights a listener-submitted movie production goof that somehow made it to the final cut.
- Exquisite Acting: A listener-submitted instance of hammy acting.
- Inappropriate Toys: Listeners submit various child playthings that could be interpreted as something adult or just wrong in nature.
- What The Fuck, Japan?: A segment highlighting recent oddball developments in Japan, such as a theme park that allows patrons to pay to "beat" up actors staged as harassers in order to impress their significant other.
- From the above, the show does:
- PPAP: Ralph sings hit Japanese parody song PPAP in the voice of any of the impressions in his arsenal.
- Hollywood Helper: A news story about a Hollywood actor performing an act of kindness.
- HBO Headlines: News headlines.
- Segments highlighting the actions of Justin Bieber, with former segments including Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, and Kim Kardashian, who also had their own accompanying jingle.
- Movies That Will Suck: announcements of movies in development, that, the hosts agree, will suck.
- No Thanks, We've Already Got One: A spin-off of "Movies That Will Suck", a segment revealing announcements of TV or movie remakes that to Ralph and Kev will assuredly be worse than the one that already exists.
- Geek News: More news headlines, this time focusing on news related to superheroes, sci-fi, and other geeky topics.
- How Big Is Liam Neeson's Cock?: Listener-submitted jokes about the size of Mr. Neeson's unit, as collected on http://neesoncock.com
.
Retired or semi-retired segments:
- What's Kev Smoking: A brief intro to the strain of pot Kevin is smoking that day.
- Dynamic Duets: A famous duets tune is sung by Ralph (as Adam West's Batman) and Kevin (as The Dark Knight Rises's Bane).
- What's Kev In?: Listener-submitted pictures that Kevin has been Photoshopped into.
- The Green Lantern Oath: Ralph recites the Green Lantern Oath in various celebrity impersonations.
- Creepy Clown Time: Ralph does an impression of a creepy clown set to calliope music, often while impersonating a celebrity.
- Arnold/Al Pacino/Adam West Sings: Ralph sings a famous song in the stylings of the listed celebrities, usually rotated out for a new singing segment like the current PPAP
- Pee-Wee Herman Monologues: Ralph recited famous movie monologues with a Pee-Wee Herman impression.
Since Kevin has numerous other podcasts to host, the show has had several guest hosts, including Jon Lovitz, owner of the Podcast Theater.
You can listen to Hollywood Babble-On here, on Stitcher Radio, or on iTunes; New episodes appear every Monday. They had been signed to make a pilot for a TV version of the show for AMC, but the plans were scrapped when AMC decided to do away with many of their non scripted programming. Ironically, as Ralph noted when telling the audience the news, Kevin Smith's Comic Book Men was one of the two shows, along with Talking Dead, that survived.
This show provides examples of:
- Adam Westing: In this case, quite literally, in the form of Ralph's impersonation of him.
- The Alcoholic: Ralph (he drinks Jack and Coke throughout the show) to Kevin's. So much so that he began announcing the strain of weed he smoked before the show (the bit even has its own jingle now).
- Ambiguously Gay: Kevin plays this up on the podcast, lampshaded by both hosts.Ralph: There really is no reason our Shout Out jingle should have the lyric "So get your cocks out" other than that you like to bring everything back to cocks.
- Audience Participation:
- A big part of the show. Email bag, shout outs, exquisite acting, Shit that shouldn't be, Kev-In and other segments are all sent in by the fans.
- Additionally, all the jingles are also fan-submitted, as well as a few talented fans animating certain bits that can be seen on YouTube.
- Also, the live crowd is integral to the show, answering the "How big is it?" to the Liam Neeson bit, reminding Ralph often that it's "'Fucktapes' Kim Kardashian" if he forgets her proper prefix, etc. They have remarked that often the jokes yelled by the crowd are funnier than their own. However, if you are a dumb drunken cunt/bastard yelling dumb things and ruining Ralph's flow, prepare to be mocked mercilessly for the rest of the show.
- Berserk Button: Crazier examples of audience members' names falling under My Nayme Is is this for Ralph.
- Black Comedy Rape: When they discussed the Bill Cosby case, Ralph made jokes with Cosby as a
Memetic Molester. Kevin just shrugged that Ralph is probably going to hell. - Broken Pedestal:
- Kevin's fear of meeting his idol Wayne Gretzky falls under this. He's envious that Ralph not only has met his idol Adam West, but has become friends with him, but can't get past this.
- When the news about Harvey Weinstein is revealed, the trope is played heart-breakingly straight. Kevin is on the verge of tears while talking about it, explaining how all his anecdotes about the making of Clerks end with "...and then Miramax bought the film."
Kevin: I'm not looking for sympathy. I know it's not my fault, but I didn't fucking help. I sat out there talking about this man like he was a hero, like he was my friend, like he was my father and shit like that. - Catchphrase: Kev's "Big bucket of win" regarding the careers of folks who passed away in the "Tinseltown Stiffs" segment.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked often by the audience (and Kev) at Ralph. When joking about a recent world tragedy or death, "Too tsunami!" will usually get yelled. Started with a joke about the Japanese tsunami.
- Hidden Depths: Despite Ralph's weekly Jack-and-Coke-fueled rage towards Hollywood's more insipid corners, he's also a doting dad and, to Kevin's utter surprise, was valedictorian at his high school and got a full-ride academic scholarship to La Salle University.
- Hypocritical Humor: The jingle for the weekly Kim Kardashian newsbit ("Kim Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, WHO GIVES A FUCK?!"). Which leads into them talking about "fucktape star Kim Kardashian" for the next few minutes. The hypocrisy eventually led to the end of the segment.
- I'm Going to Hell for This: Many instances after Ralph tells an incredibly tasteless joke. Most famously, his impression of a mentally handicapped girl working at McDonald's, although that impression has the admonishment usually made to him by Kevin. Due to the outcry, Ralph has semi-retired "McDonald's Fry Girl" though he will bring her back when there's just something too delicious not mock with it. It should also be noted his recent taking to impersonating Sly Stallone kind of takes its place.
- Lame Pun Reaction: A staple of the show. Mentioning a band/musician will usually get a long stream of them referring to their songs between Kevin and Ralph. Particularly awful puns are "filed" (usually yelled by the crowd "File!", or said to Ralph/Kev by the other) away, a bring over from The Kevin and Bean Show (Ralph's day job). However, if the offender is proud of it, he'll tell you "fuck you, I'm keeping it."
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Ralph has an amazing array of celebrity voices he can impersonate. Favorites include Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christopher Walken and Bill Cosby, among a dozen others. A fan in episode #311 actually tallied all of Ralphs impressions and it totaled to around 60 unique impressions. Kevin generally has four he falls back on: His "sexy" voice, his impression of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, his Ray Romano/George Lucas/Kermit the Frog 3-in-1 impression, and the "little German" in their German schtick (see below).
- Old Shame: Invoked. A lot of this comes up in the Exquisite Acting segment. Additionally, running gags about some of Ralph's less than stellar acting roles are a regular, including Sharktopus and his very first TV role from an ABC After School Special. They will also occasionally poke fun at some of Kevin's less than well-received past films, like Jersey Girl or Cop Out.
- Running Gag: Essentially, the show is almost nothing BUT running gags from the last three years, with new ones cropping up all the time to replace retired ones. Notable ones include:
- Lindsay Lohan. A former staple of the Hollywood News segment (her recent clean up of her act has her a subject less and less). Jokes are usually about how she's a horrible hollywood bitch stereotype, her sexual promiscuity (with the rallying cry of "Airtight!"), drug and alcohol use, and usually a joke from Kevin relating to her roles in either the Herbie remakes or Freaky Friday. Ralph does an impression of Puff Daddy saying her name to start off the bit. Has her own jingle.
- Sly Stallone calling someone "Greedy and lazy!"
- Ralph's less than stellar acting jobs. Additionally, the fact that he didn't get a speaking line in Kevin's Red State movie.
- The Kardashians. Mostly about how they are a talentless, attention-whore family. Also that Khloe is Chewbacca. Kim has her own jingle.
- Justin Bieber. He's a little cunt. Has his own jingle.
- Amanda Bynes. Similar to Lohan above. Essentially retired after everyone realized she really is mentally ill and needed psychiatric help. Has her own jingle.
- Kevin telling a visitor from out of the country "Diplomatic Immunity!" ala Lethal Weapon 2, and Ralph admonishing him that it's the wrong country (unless they actually ARE from South Africa).
- Yelling DISAPPOINTED! (usually someone from the crowd), taken from Kevin Sorbo referencing Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda during a Hercules outtake.
- Ralph's mancrush on Adam West.
- Kevin's being "only a cock in the mouth away" from being gay.
- The John Travolta "Gay Ghost" (So weird! What? Where? Boo.)
- "Give that penis a sandwich!" based on a mishearing of something from very early in the show's history. Mostly forgotten but will still occasionally pop up.
- Kevin's tendency to hit "potholes" (as he call them) when discussing something and he loses track of what he was talking about. After all, he is The Stoner.
- Ralph's inexplicable hatred of Chelsea Handler.
- Kevin is apparently...very animated during the David Bowie song bits. It's always a struggle for Ralph to finish the song without cracking up.
- When on the road (and during the period after they moved to The Improv and hadn't got their soundboard guy DJ James back), Kevin's inability to run a soundboard.
- And many, many more...
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: In episode #294, after learning about Harvey Weinstein's behavior over the past 30 years, Kevin announces he will donate his residuals from his Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company movies, or at least $2,000 a month, to an organization called "Women in Film."Kevin: Hopefully that just goes to people that get to make shit without having to deal with some fucking animal saying "Here's the price."
- Situational Sexuality: Kevin is very much a proponent of exploring latent homosexual tendencies when visiting the City of Angels. Or as he puts it "Welcome to Los Angeles! Put a dick in your mouth!"
- Those Wacky Nazis: A recurring gag (usually when something German related comes up) is that Kevin and Ralph begin to conversate in German accents for a bit, usually throwing in some reference to Nazis, Nazi Germany, Hitler, the Holocaust, or all of the above.
