Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice Features A Subtle Reference To The Gargoyles Animated Series [Exclusive]

BenDavid Grabinski already gave us a phenomenal remix of pop culture with the excellent "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off," and now the writer/director has paid subtle homage to a popular '90s cartoon with a clever reference in his latest feature film.

The movie is "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," a science-fiction action comedy about love and time-travel. The film stars Vince Vaughn and James Marsden as Nick and Mike, two gangsters in love with a woman named Alice (Eiza González) who are visited by a future version of Nick who's trying to prevent a future disaster. If that wasn't enough, the four of them are also tangled up with Sosa (Keith David), a vicious mob boss looking to sniff out a rat in his organization.

/Film's Ben Pearson spoke with Grabinski about "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," and learned that some down time on the set inspired a reference to the underrated '90s cartoon "Gargoyles," in which David provided voice performances as multiple characters.

"There's a thing I did in there for [Keith David], and he was genuinely touched," Grabinski said. "I was talking about how much I like 'Gargoyles' and he was saying his favorite line from that show was when someone got called 'street pizza.'" Grabinski continued:

"So I rewrote a line and he got revised sides, and he walks up to me and was like, 'Am I going to say that Mike is going to be street pizza by morning?' And I was like, 'Yeah.' And he was like [smiles big and nods], 'Yeah.' And it was just because we were sitting on set when we were shooting the club scene and he was talking about how much he liked the phrase 'street pizza' on that show."

"Gargoyles" was an animated series focusing on ancient creatures that are turned to stone by day and come to life at night. They awaken in New York City after centuries of magical hibernation and become the city's night-time protectors. Keith David voiced many characters, the most important being Goliath, the leader of the Manhattan Clan of gargoyles.

The "street pizza" reference comes from the show's very first episode, "Awakening Part One." In the first scene, police officer Elisa Maza (Salli Richardson) is investigating an explosion in New York City, and as debris falls around her, she orders bystanders to disperse so they don't become "street pizza."

That phrase was a clever way of getting around Standards & Practices (avoiding directly saying "crushed" or "killed"), while also establishing Maza as having an odd sense of humor. Anyone could say "watch out or the debris will kill you," but only a cartoon New Yorker would say someone could get turned into street pizza.

When we spoke with "Gargoyles" co-creator Greg Weisman when he brought back the story as a comic book, he spoke of how it could occasionally be difficult to find creative ways of killing off characters without raising alarms with the higher-ups. This was a show with a vast and dense lore, dark and mature themes, and nuanced stories with Shakespearean ingredients ... but it also wasn't above using a goofy term like "street pizza" every once in a while. Now that baton is being passed to "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," which hits Hulu on March 27, 2026.