Categories

Best 80’s Romance
Best 90’s Romance
Best Romantic Comedy
Best Dramatic Romance
Best Forbidden Love
Best TV Romance
Worst TV Romance
Best Romance, Right Now (2026)

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For the full show notes, visit zenpopparenting.com.

This week’s sponsor(s):

• Avid Co DuPage County Area Decorating, Painting, Remodeling by Avid Co includes kitchens, basements, bathrooms, flooring, tiling, fire and flood restoration.
• David Serrano- Certified Financial Planner- 815-370-3780
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• Todd Adams Life & Leadership Coaching for Guys

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Cathy and Todd discuss Best in Show to honor Catherine O’Hara and dive into America’s Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia, where nothing “big” happens and that is exactly the joke. They examine Christopher Guest’s mockumentary style, made without a traditional script, in which an ensemble performs identity inside a highly rule-bound world. They move through their typical categories and share plenty of their favorite clips as they explore how the film, released in 2000 before reality TV normalized confessionals, predicted The Office and Parks and Recreation. Cathy and Todd connect the movie to modern life, where we curate versions of ourselves at school, work, in parenting spaces, and on social media, and reflect on what this means for girls who are trained to perform likability, calm, and competence.

Some Ways to Support Us

1. 1. Sign up for Cathy’s Substack
   2. Order Restoring our Girls
   3. Join Team Zen

Links shared in this episode:

For the full show notes, visit zenpopparenting.com.

This week’s sponsor(s):

• Avid Co DuPage County Area Decorating, Painting, Remodeling by Avid Co includes kitchens, basements, bathrooms, flooring, tiling, fire and flood restoration.
• David Serrano- Certified Financial Planner- 815-370-3780
• MenLiving – A virtual and in-person community of guys connecting deeply and living fully. No requirements, no creeds, no gurus, no judgements
• Todd Adams Life & Leadership Coaching for Guys

Other Ways to Support Us

• Follow us on social media
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
• Buy and leave a review for Cathy’s Book Zen Parenting: Caring for Ourselves and Our Children in an Unpredictable World
• Find everything ZPR on our Resources Page
• Guys- Complete a MenLiving Connect profile

Todd and Cathy discuss The Sure Thing (1985), Rob Reiner’s early, quietly subversive road-trip rom-com starring John Cusack as Gib Lloyd, a smart, restless college guy chasing a guaranteed hookup that slowly reveals itself to be hollow, alongside Daphne Zuniga’s Alison Bradbury, a sharp, principled counterpoint who refuses to play the “cool girl.” Set in a pre-internet, pre-cell-phone America, the film captures mid-80s college culture while exploring the tension between impulse and integrity, desire and discernment, with Anthony Edwards’ best friend serving as a cautionary caricature of male entitlement and Nicollette Sheridan’s “sure thing” functioning more as fantasy than human. They share why Reiner softened the original raunchy premise into something more meaningful and human, and how the movie quietly suggests that growth, conversation, and shared values are the real turn-ons. Todd and Cathy also dive into their regular categories, plus their five favorite John Cusack movies and their five favorite two-person road-trip films.

Say Anything

Some Ways to Support Us

1. 1. Sign up for Cathy’s Substack
   2. Order Restoring our Girls
   3. Join Team Zen

Links shared in this episode:

For the full show notes, visit zenpopparenting.com.

This week’s sponsor(s):

• Avid Co DuPage County Area Decorating, Painting, Remodeling by Avid Co includes kitchens, basements, bathrooms, flooring, tiling, fire and flood restoration.
• David Serrano- Certified Financial Planner- 815-370-3780
• MenLiving – A virtual and in-person community of guys connecting deeply and living fully. No requirements, no creeds, no gurus, no judgements
• Todd Adams Life & Leadership Coaching for Guys

Other Ways to Support Us

• Follow us on social media
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
• Buy and leave a review for Cathy’s Book Zen Parenting: Caring for Ourselves and Our Children in an Unpredictable World
• Find everything ZPR on our Resources Page
• Guys- Complete a MenLiving Connect profile