Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Introducing... Flightless Bird with David Farrier

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Armchair Umbrella and David Farrier introduce you to Flightless Bird, a show that follows kiwi journalist David Farrier as he embarks on a quest to understand American culture, after getting accidentally marooned here. From football to flags, religion to burgers, David wants to learn about the things that make America tick. “Why do adults love Disneyland so much?” and “why are American toilets filled to the brim with water?” are just a few of the important questions he’ll pose. Each episode sees Farrier documenting a different part of American culture, meeting people who’ll make you see America in an entirely new light with new episodes arriving every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Not Our Show, to David Ferrier's new show, Flightless Bird. David. Hello. How are you? I'm good. I'm excited about this. It's so good. So, first and foremost, we do a conspiracy show.

We meet David Ferrier. He's a genius. He is Ira Glass, just sitting in New Zealand. That's right. We see a genius. We see a diamond. And we say, we must work with this guy. So, we do Armchair Endangers.

I love how this is randomly sort of developed out of doing an episode with you guys. And then, oh, do this monthly thing, which has been a joy, by the way. I love Armchair Endangered. Oh, it's so fun and people love it. And we got to tour with it, which was so fun. And we will probably continue to do more of that. We love you so much. And Monica and I both were like, what do you want to do, David?

What show would make your dinger hard? Which is an amazing question to get. Sure. Because of the dinger part. Amazing. So we got through that. Answered all of those. And then got on to the podcast.

So the idea was to make a podcast that was me being a New Zealander in America when he didn't mean to be here. Because I came over here meaning to go back to New Zealand last April. And then when it went time to go back, they shut the border because we were keeping COVID out. And so I kind of got stranded here. And so the idea is like to make the show where I'm trying to understand different elements of what makes America, America to try and be more American. Yes. It's irresistible.

I watched it in real time. You've become greedy. You've become materialistic. You eat McDonald's every day. So much McDonald's. You drive everywhere you go. It's been beautiful to watch. There are so many things here, though, that are so puzzling and so different.

Like even just dealing with the US tax system for the first time ever. Horrible. It's like a true nightmare. Everything about America is so different to New Zealand in big ways and really subtle ways. But what's great is you ask a bunch of questions that we probably should know the answer to, which is the delight of the show for me. You just start with something that's pretty unique about us. We're 76% Christian or whatever that number is. Why is it? Well, there's a fascinating history behind it that I had no idea about, and you stumble upon it and you teach us as you're learning. Yeah. And when you're immersed in a culture, it's hard to also observe it. It's

really hard to be like, yeah, it's a little weird that there are all these adults at Disneyland looking happy. You don't think about it because you're in it, and you are able to be this outside perspective who also loves America. So I think it's worth saying this isn't a I hate America show at all. No, I love America. I mean, growing up, all my pop culture was from America. I called my cat Chandler Bing. So there's a cat episode.

I go along to some American cat shows. Yeah, cat shows, guys. Cat shows. It's so fun. I'm so happy for the world that they get to experience this because we've got to experience it over the past couple months, and it's a true joy. We're calling it Flightless Bird because our national bird in New Zealand

is a kiwi bird, and you may not know this. It can't fly. It's the most useless bird on the planet it's like this big giant thing evolved no predators in new zealand so it didn't need wings no wings so flightless bird it's a little wink to being a kiwi being a new zealander and also the fact that i'm in america and i can't fly back home yeah so i'm figurative metaphorical kiwi i wouldn't be me if i didn't get annoying and give people too much info they didn't ask for but that thing the flightlessness of that bird

is succumbing to the amazing principle in biology called foster's island principle foster's island principle predicts that all birds over time will become flightless on islands because there are no predators to them yeah similarly all mammals will become pygmy. They'll get smaller and smaller and smaller because the food resources aren't as much. So on Madagascar, there are fossils of pygmy hippos. On the Catalina Islands, or the Channel Islands here in California,

there were pygmy woolly mammoths. So cute. What could be better than a pygmy woolly mammoth, like the size of a St. Bernard with the little cute tusks? That is the best. I had no idea. I love this so much. Good.

Okay. I'm grateful that it was received that way. So we get like tiny little animals and flightless birds. That's right. And the show is called Foster's Island Principle. Please listen to it. David, so excited for everyone to hear this show. And guess what? We're a part of it. Monty's on every episode. I'm on some. You'll get a kick out to it. David, so excited for everyone to hear this show. And guess what?

We're a part of it. Monty's on every episode. I'm on some. You'll get a kick out of it. I couldn't do this alone. That'd be awful. Well, you could have absolutely done it alone, but it's always more fun with Monica. Well.

And I also feel like I can teach some weird things to an American. You, Monica. You, Dax. Yes. About your country that you might not have noticed or seen. Or just taken for granted. Exactly. And I can also learn from you because I often, as part of the episode, I still don't understand what I'm talking about. And you guys are here to kind of clear things up.

Well, Easter egg, you did an episode, it ended, and I said, you're fucking stoned. We're going to this place. And by God, we did. And that'll be a two-parter, hopefully. So everybody, buckle the fuck up. Flightless Bird's coming your way. Our resident genius, David Ferrier, blows our minds. So check out Flightless Bird next week, every Tuesdays. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. Thank you.