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Zen Pop

Top Gun- Episode #871

Zen Pop

Todd and Cathy Adams

Arts, Society & Culture, Tv & Film

4.9637 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cathy and Todd kick off their summer blockbuster series with Top Gun (1986), directed by Tony Scott and produced by Simpson and Bruckheimer, which turned a $15 million budget into $357 million worldwide and made Tom Cruise a superstar. The episode covers the Scott brothers’ contrasting Hollywood legacies, the Navy’s behind-the-scenes script approval that reshaped the story, plus fun trivia like Cruise’s height-correcting boots and Meg Ryan secretly dating Anthony Edwards on set all while debating whether Iceman was the better pilot and whether Quentin Tarantino’s theory about the subtext is correct.  

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey everyone, this is Kathy.

0:02.2

This is Todd.

0:02.9

You know us from 15 years of Zen Parenting Radio.

0:06.1

And we deeply appreciate you listening to us all these years.

0:09.3

As you know, last year we changed from Zen Parenting to Zen Pop so we could discuss the movies

0:14.9

that shaped us and our culture.

0:17.0

And while we do the regular fun categories like random facts and best seen, we also stay true to our Zen parenting brutes and dig into the meaning of the movie and what it was trying to show us or teach us.

0:28.0

So it's finally summer.

0:30.2

Which means the next couple of months we're focusing on summer blockbusters, the best ones, the ones we grew up with that changed everything.

0:36.7

And this entire summer, we will have

0:38.1

a blockbuster every single week. So if you haven't already, subscribe to Zen Pop wherever you listen

0:43.8

to podcasts so you can hear us discuss all your favorite movies. Also, follow us on social media

0:49.2

and leave us a review so people can easily find us. Let's keep trucking and watch some movies together.

1:02.0

The mig has you in his gun site. What were you thinking at this point? You don't have time to think up there. If you think you're dead.

1:08.0

No, no, no, no. There's two o's and goose, boys.

1:10.0

God, he loves flying with you, Maverick.

1:12.6

You guys really are, cowboys.

1:14.6

What's your problem, Kazansky?

1:18.6

You're everyone's problem.

1:20.6

That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe.

1:23.6

I don't like you because you're dangerous.

1:25.6

That's right.

...

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