This week on The Smell Test Podcast, we're taking on the 1968 musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! From romanticized poverty and questionable parenting to gender roles, childlessness, and authoritarianism, we unpack the film's surprisingly complicated messages. Does this childhood classic still hold up, or does it belong in the cinematic scrap heap? We put it to the smell test!

We revisit the 1980 slasher classic Friday the 13th to see if it still passes the smell test. We critique its dated treatment of sexual harassment and questionable moral logic around who lives and dies. We also discuss the film’s B-movie acting, memorable kills, and the surprising origins of Jason Voorhees. Does this horror classic hold up, or does it belong at the bottom of Crystal Lake?

In this episode, we revisit David Cronenberg’s 1986 body-horror classic, The Fly. We discuss its unsettling transformation scenes, questionable scientific ethics, and surprisingly complicated love story. Along the way, we revisit 1980s dating norms, unpack the film’s treatment of women and consent, and consider how our perspectives on relationships, reproductive rights, and technological innovation have changed over the last 40 years. We also debate whether Seth Brundle deserves our sympathy (spoiler: probably not). Join us for a conversation about body horror, bad relationships, and why sometimes the biggest red flag is the guy with a teleportation machine in his apartment.