The Flop House · MaximumFun, Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington, Elliott Kalan

FH Mini 143 - IP Freely 2026

January 10, 2026·45 min·4 clips

Every January, beloved characters and stories suddenly become free for anyone to remake, reimagine, or completely destroy.

The mini begins already half-renamed. A shorter Flophouse side episode turns into Flophouse Unchained, a pretend looser format with dog nicknames and almost no rules. So, yes, normal Flop House business. The main bit is public domain possibility, especially what anyone should do with Betty Boop now that older characters can be pulled back into play. Nobody seems interested in a neat, respectful treatment. The better idea, by the room's warped logic, is to keep the original cartoons' anything-for-a-gag weirdness and their total lack of concern for continuity. A creature appears, a gag happens, goodbye. That gives the hosts room to talk like writers for a while, nudging premise, tone, and whether the character should maybe stay in the idea graveyard. Then casting crashes the table. Blondie gets floated, big Hollywood heads become part of the criteria, and the conversation bends toward Barbie as the practical comparison. Margot Robbie becomes the model, not only because she fits Barbie, but because the hosts credit her producer instincts and her fight for Greta Gerwig's version. Craft sneaks in under all the barking. They are joking about cartoon bodies and plank contests, but the question underneath is who can play an icon without flattening it. Gosling gets anatomically overexamined. Shoulders, chest, height, plank mechanics: all of it becomes evidence in a courtroom nobody opened. The chaos keeps circling back to process. Public domain play comes off less like brand mining and more like a dare to keep the old strangeness alive. Then they close the kennel door with Flop TV, a San Francisco Cobb's Comedy Club date, next week's movie episode, and one last Minnie Mouse tease.

As heard by us

A funny public-domain riff that turns Betty Boop and Barbie casting talk into loose screen-culture comedy.

IP Freely 2026 finds The Flop House crew using public domain season as an excuse for a loose writers' room riff on old cultural properties and what anyone should do with them once they are up for grabs.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for a Flophouse Mini about the public domain, Betty Boop, and casting ideas.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Flop House