Nathan Rabin's Happy Cast

Hail, friends, and welcome to the first episode of Travolta/Cage! Think of it as Happy Cast, renewed and refreshed, with a groovy new purpose! It’s the same old Nathan and Clint, but this time, we’re going through the filmographies of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage — two of the strangest, most fascinating pop culture figures, warts and all — in chronological order. For our premier episode, we bring on ‘80s pop culture expert Scott Weinberg (‘80s All Over, now Science vs. Fiction) to help us talk about two of Travolta and Cage’s first big movie breakouts: 1976’s Carrie and 1983’s Valley Girl. In the former, we’ve got Travolta as pervy, evil teen Billy Nolan in Brian De Palma’s lurid horror classic; in the latter, we’ve got chiclet-toothed Nic Cage as a punky hunkasaurus chasing Deborah Foreman’s titular valley girl in Martha Coolidge’s surprisingly sweet and nuanced teen sex comedy. Who wins out? Listen and learn, my sweets! Pledge to our Patreon at patreon.com/travoltacage Follow us on Twitter @travoltacage E