Part One: John Wayne: A Dude Who Sucked | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

My favorite bit of John Wayne trivia: barefoot, the man stood 6'4"... then he chose to wear lifts. Kinda tells you all you need to know about him right there.

The irony of Francesca's Rambo reference is that it wasn't hippies spitting in Rambo's face: it was the fucking police.

Just to expand a little bit though... Teddy Roosevelt was all into the macho outdoorsy stuff, which he called "the strenuous life", because it had actually helped him. He was a sickly child, and in particular had severe asthma. As a teenager he found that doing physical stuff like hiking and boxing actually helped him overcome his asthma so it kinda became his "thing", and honestly, there's not really anything wrong with that. Of course, he later evolved that into a "rugged individualism" sort of thing and that's where it kinda goes off the rails. Also, they were called "spaghetti westerns" because they were low budget movies made by Italian directors (hence the "spaghetti"), usually filmed on location in Spain. John Wayne wasn't technically in any of them. Clint Eastwood on the other hand was definitely in them, in particular the Sergio Leone movies like Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

“The Cowboys” is a wonderful bit of unintentional comedy. John Wayne’s character literally cures a kid’s stutter with emotional abuse.

Correction regarding Tom Mix. Tom Mix was never a lawman or gunfighter. He volunteered for the Spanish-American War, but never saw action. He worked a Wild West show and rode in Roosevelt’s inauguration parade with former Rough Riders. This event has led to the myth of Tom Mix being one himself and gave him his reputation of being a hard guy.

lol I've never had anything so perfectly explain why my Dad is the way he is. So many things make sense now.. Thanks, pilgrims.

the funny thing with itallo western is that they were often shot in spain by italian directors with spanish and italian actors with often only the lead being some american actor and nobody actually speaking english. They were either dubbed over or the other actors would just memorize their scripts without really knowing what they said.

My mind was blown at about ten years old when I learned his real name was Marion Morrisson. Possibly the least "heroic cowboy" sounding name possible.

One friend of mine had a dad that was obsessed with John Wayne, and for some reason kept a life-size full body portrait of him...right above the toilet in the bathroom, just staring you down.

7:17 Ah, yes, "elbow room". Or "Lebensraum" as some might call it.

Just to be the nitpicker... John Wayne wasn't involved in Spaghetti Westerns, but was on the tail-end of the 'Classic Western' era which Spaghetti Westerns were largely a subversion of.

The term The Shootist reminded me of a line from Young Guns II when a starstruck young man recognizes Billy and stammers "I wanna ride the trail with Billy The Kid, p-prince of piss" *Billy raises an eyebrow* "..p-prince of pistoleers"

"John Wayne was a Nazi. He liked to play SS. He wore a portrait of Adolph the boy under his cowboy's vest." Also, were they doing a bit, or did they really not 'Remember the Maine'?

19:50 To be "that guy" Teddy Roosevelt was not elected in 1901, he assumed the presidency after Leon Czolgosz shot William McKinley.

Wow, "hurt people hurt people" is once again proven to be agonizingly true for the billionth time! The description of Marion's mom vaguely reminded me of Trump's dad. It makes people who don't convert their suffering into cruelty and spite that much more impressive and awe-inspiring.

John Wayne was in Hollywood westerns, not spaghetti westerns. They tended to be way more racist.

As a society here in the US, we never learn our lessons enough to change anything. That’s a problem

The chemistry on this episode feels different from others, and the only reason I can think of for that is that this is one of those episodes where Robert has written a script, and kinda... can relax and just read the script because he knows and trusts his guest enough to joke and riff off of it without derailing the show. I think that's why Sophie was AFK at least once (There was a part where Francesca says "Is Sophie gonna stop us?" or something, and Robert says "No, Sophie isn't even here."), because she knew she wouldn't have to keep it on track as much as with other guests. I could be speaking out of my arse for the reasons behind it. but there are my favourite kinda of episodes regardless of the reasons.

These John Wayne episodes really are bangers lol

Robert: He gets into drag— Me: !!! Robert: —racing Me: Way less fun :/ The only thing I knew about John Wayne (besides being the cowboy conservatives are inexplicably obsessed with) is that time someone talked about Indigenous rights at the Oscars, and he had to be physically held back by multiple people so he wouldn’t attack this woman on live TV.