Do Go On - 228 - Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was the most expensive Broadway musical of all time. The story of this ill fated musical has it all: drama, death, intrigue and of course Bono... enjoy!Our website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:The Letterman clip we paused the recording to watch: https://youtu.be/5RgR0-EWuNYhttps://www.syfy.com/syfywire/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark-the-greatest-geek-flop-on-broadwayhttps://www.broadway.com/shows/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark/story/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/spider-man-turn-dark-playwright-919624https://www.avclub.com/playwright-glen-berger-on-why-the-surefire-spider-man-m-1798250603https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/theater/reviews/spiderman-review.htmlhttps://www.wired.com/2015/01/geeks-guide-glen-berger/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Turn_Off_the_Darkhttps://www.independent.ie/irish-news/u2-hail-late-producer-as-spider-man-strikes-gold-26808018.html

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This week's episode of Do Go On is brought to you by our shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival that start this month. I'm excited, Matt.

I'm excited. Great, two excitements and one. Yeah, I'm just playing it cool. Yeah, you are cool. You are super, super cool. Now, we are doing four live podcasts. And you were saying the first one, first two are nearly sold out? Yeah, the first two are really going like gangbusters.

The third one, I don't know where the people are. If you want to shift some units The dates March 28th for the first one Should we break Mesao out of the glass box? Yeah, maybe we should We need an emergency Nick Mason to prop up the sales March 28, April 4, April 11, April 18

They're all Saturday afternoons 2 o'clock at the European Beer Cafe Which we've been at the last couple of years We absolutely love it there And we hope to see you there Tickets are on sale at comedyfestual.com.com. And it's not just four shows, you know? The comedy festival's not just for the weekends.

It's not at all. No. There are Wednesdays, for example. And on those Wednesdays, who could we see? You can see Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart, separate shows. Sadly. 6pm for Jess, 7 p.m. for me. And they're called Almost and Monkey House, respectively.

You'll never guess which is which. And you can get tickets to those from comedyfestil.com.com. That's all three shows. Yeah, check it out. Type our names in. We'll come up. I'd love to see people do the triple on Saturdays. Yeah, that'd be sick.

I'd love to see some hero do that. I reckon you get a high-five or you do that. Yeah. And before I go to Melbourne, where I am now, I'm going to Brisbane. For the Brisbane Comedy Festival, I think it's only five shows from the 10th to the 15th. That might be six. That's six, isn't it, Dave? So, assuming I'm doing all of those days, which I think I am at the Powerhouse.

And it's going to be so much fun. It's basically the first time I'm doing the full show, and I'm going to be having a good time. Yep. So you should come and look at me. And those tickets are available at? Matt Stewartcomcom slash gigs. Slash gigs. Type it in.

Matt's shows will come up. We'd love to see you there. And if not, have a great life. And I think for Jess's and my shows, you get a discount with podcasts. Yeah, use the promo code podcast for 20% off.

I don't know what my percentage is. Hopefully it's the same as Jess. I asked your producer. It's 20% off. Okay, great. I'd mind to be the same because I didn't want you to get more of a discount than me. I'm glad.

That's good. I'm like, Jess, 20% of that. That sounds pretty generous. You idiot. Oh, God. That means you could come see my preview show for like $15. That is so cheap.

Come to the first four. Yeah, come to the first shows. They're the ones that are loose and fun. Yeah, they're really fun. You should come to those and they're cheaper. Figure out the shows with us. Yes. Give us, like, help us grow.

Play along. You know, by the end, I'm just going through the motions, you know? Come to the last show, it's going to be average because I'm just waiting for that stiff drink at the end. No, of course you know, because it's not a Sunday. It's a Sunday. You should always end on the Saturday. Every year they've been one of the least fun shows. Yeah.

I don't know why that is. Well, that's probably because of the thing you just said. Anyway, let's do the show. Woo! This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and I'm sitting here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins.

Hello, David. Hello, Matt. Hello, Jeff. Hello, Matt. Hello, Jess. We did it. Did we do it all? Yeah. We've all said it, right?

Yeah. Okay, great. Should we all touch hands? No. No. Okay. Not with the current state of world virus. And honestly, Dave.

Stop asking. Yeah, every five minutes. Is that too much? Yeah. All right. I'll back it off to every 10. Every 10 is reasonable. Thank you.

Should we touch? Oh, sorry. Sorry. I forgot my new rule. Hold. Hold. It's good to be back here in the studio once again. Yes.

I was just telling just before you arrived, Matt, that I'm excited for this. I was at work. I'm a day job thinking. I'm excited to pod with you guys tonight, mainly because the responsibility of reporting is not up to me this week. It is Matt Stewart. It is.

Dave's feeling a bit loose and silly. Yeah. Should we hold hands? That's different. So good job. The way the show works is one of the three of us research a topic. This week, it's me. And we get onto the topic with a question.

I'm going to ask that question now. Great. As is protocol. Okay. What is the most expensive Broadway musical of all time? Most expensive. The producers. The Phantom of the Opera.

No, it's neither of those. Okay. It's not a particularly successful one. But it's expensive. Yes. Sister Act 2, back in the habit. Oh, did that get making it to the stage? Probably.

I don't think many sequels get a Broadway... Okay, what else is on Broadway? Okay, Wicked. That was very popular. That was the movie that stunk. Yeah. Box office was. What?

Is the Broadway show better? Oh, yes, one of the most successful ones in history. Crazy. Okay, what else is on Broadway? Well, the clue, the clue is it was, it's based on a comic book. Oh, is this the, the Spider-Man? Yes. Spider-Man, turn off the dark.

By the music, by Bono. Yes. Oh, no, don't tell us. You've done a report that's based around Bono. That has backfired once before live in Dublin. Only, only, you know, it's not all Bono. Okay. Is there also the edge?

Yeah, the edge is involved. Thank goodness. A little bit, but I don't talk about them all that much, to be honest. So this was suggested by Josh Shevel or Sheevil and James Acker. And yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun reading and watching this musical. I just bumped into, I just did a gig around the corner and bumped into a more way out, Mesao and Brie Williams, comedian and podcasters.

Yes? Yep. Also, one of them drives a joke. tram. And Brie goes, I just said the words do go on to Mesa. And I said, I'm just about to go do a do go on. And she goes, what are you doing it on? I said, Spider-Man, into the dark.

And she said, oh, my God, I saw it. And then we talked, that's why I was a little bit later than I should have been, because the three of us talked about it for a while. Great. So she actually saw the production, because it's famously not many people saw it. Is that why? It's expensive. Is that why?

No, that's not necessarily true. did have quite a few come through, but anyway, I'll probably talk about it. Probably tens of hundreds. Really? As in over 1,000. I think thousands saw it, but you were like, because it wasn't on forever. Tens of thousands. Tens of thousands, I'd say.

Wow. I did it. I did numbers. Yeah, you did numbers real good. I did it. Let me begin. Please let me. In August 2002, it was announced that the stage musical based on Spider-Man would

be produced for Broadway after Marvel Comics approached veteran theatre producer Tony Adams to buy the stage rights. The following month, Adams and his business partner David Garfinkel flew to Ireland and recruited Bono and the edge of U2 fame to write the score for the show. 2002 there were phones. Why did you have to fly? It did sound like they were wandering the countryside until they captured the edge and Bono and Annette. Drag them back. We got them, we got them. That's the dream. So they, I mean, yeah. And kind of an interesting choice in some ways because they'd never written any musicals before. But they had written the theme to Golden Eye.

They've always been a big band, like pretty much from when they began almost. They've been huge. But at this point, they were still super huge band, right? They were just a couple of years off their worldwide smash hit album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, which sold approximately 12 million copies. And they were about to release the equally huge worldwide number one album, how to dismantle an atomic bomb. In short, they're a massive get for the production.

Huge get. That was a big net. Yeah. Really big. How big? Like two football fields. That's how big it had to be. That's too big for two men.

I know, that's how big the edge is. Whoa. He's a big man. Have you ever seen him? No. There you go. Never, yeah. They can't get photos of him.

That's how big he is. I've seen photos of his thumb. Yeah. I know the size of a human, his thumb. Whoa. He's a big man. I had no idea. How does he play guitar?

Big guitar? Big guitar, yeah. Cool. That is cool. He puts... It doesn't matter. What, Dave? What does he do?

He plays his guitar one string at a time. I was trying to think of something like he puts his pants on one leg at a time, but it couldn't quite make it work. Yeah. And here we are. Okay. That would work better for bass player. Adam Clayton. Adam Clayton.

At the suggestion of Botto. Julie Tameor So who? Bono. Bado. Bodo. Bodo. We've got Bodo.

No, I said Bono. We want Bono. Well, then who's this in the sack? Hello, I'm Bodo. Let me out on Bodo. Got him from Irish Aldi. He was the LIDE equivalent. I had him in that case out the front.

At the suggestion of Bodo, Julie Tameau was brought on to direct. Tameau was an acclaimed theatre director, most famously bringing the Lion King movie to the stage, winning the Tony Award for Best Direction in a musical in 1998 for her efforts. And I believe she was the first woman to win that award. And I think the Lion King musical, we're talking about tens of thousands of tickets. I think that sold like over a million tickets. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lines like huge. Crazy big. So so far so good. Everything is bloody working. Yeah. They're nailing everything as they go. We got all the best people on the job. You've got a great producer in Tony Adams, world famous rock stars to write the music.

And like the most popular superhero character. Yeah. Frequently voted the most popular, Spider-Man. Yeah, that's right. So at this stage, it feels like it can't fail. It's too big to fail. Too big to fail. The sink, the ship, won't sink.

The sink won't ship. I won't ship this sink. I'll ship everything but the kitchen sink. That's my honor. For I defy a cliche. So, yeah, I want to warn you that it doesn't keep going well. Okay. Just a heads up.

But are you enjoying our fun mood, though, or are you finding it a bit tedious? No, I'm loving it. Can I just, just confirm, does Botto live? Or do we lose Botto lives? Botto lives. That's the sequel. Spider-Man Botto lives. I can never tell.

I've only ever seen it written down. By October 2005, the key player, were ready to make it all official. The creative team met with the producers at the Edge's apartment in Tribeca. Is that a, that's an area of New York? To sign the contracts. Put that and put like an American doing Australian accent on that.

Contracts. I thought it was, come on down, sign the contracts. Oh, yeah, okay. It was that then. Yeah, that must have been what it was. So with the paperwork out, the Edge went into another room to fetch a pen. Oh, no.

When he returned, Tony Adams had suffered a stroke. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. Before... How long did it? He'd shake to find a pet. I mean, his house is probably massive.

We say apartment. It's probably got eight bedrooms. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And he couldn't remember which one had the pens in it. Yeah, so he was gone for decades. He said him all. He went to the pen room and there was no pens.

No pens. He thought, oh my God, I have to fire my penkeeper. Jeeves get here. So he died not long after... Oh, my goodness. Only 52 years of age. And he never signed on the contract. Didn't sign a contract.

Because Edge didn't have fucking pens ready. No, no, I probably wouldn't have helped. That was a real sliding doors moment. It feels like maybe looking back, they probably should have seen it as a bad omen. That's an omen. You leave the room and come back and the man is dying. Yeah. This is a curse production.

Yeah, wow. So this was the first major blow to the production. Adams was the major driving force behind the production and had great theatre production experience. I've said production three times. which felt good. It felt right. According to an extensive article in the New York Times by Patrick Healy and Kevin Flynn, which I reference a bit, they wrote, Others might have abandoned the project, but the Spider-Man team decided to go on with Mr.

Adam's partner, David Garfinkel, as lead producer. Great name, David Garfinkel. Garfinkel. An able entertainment lawyer. Yeah, he's the Aldi Garfunkel. An Able Entertainment lawyer, Mr Garfinkel, had little producing experience, and he ceded artistic decisions to Miss Tamer. A perfectionist whose aesthetic included never repeating herself.

So this is Tamer from the Lion King. So that was just so many she lived by, she would never repeat her. As in, like, conversationally or her style of musicals. I think in music, like, she would never repeat any tricks or anything in her music. It was like, I'll never say the same word to us. I'll have a grilled cheese. Sorry, what was that? never repeat myself.

You figure it out. Surprisingly, that's the first time I've ever said that. That is actually my ethos. I can never order the same thing twice. Mr Garfinkel did not take the tack that Disney had while working with Miss Tamor on their hit musical, The Lion King. Her genius flourishes best under supervision, apparently. And in this setup, she was let to go Hogwild.

Who's creativity works best, under someone else's strict rules. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I think they're basically saying she's a genius, but she needs to be reined in by like a yin and yang sort of scenario. Because otherwise she's just like, I've spent $100 million on foil. You're like, no, no.

Do you think that's me? Which one? The genius or the strict supervisor? You know. You know which one I'm asking about. I'm not sure. Am I the genius and you guys reigns? in.

Oh. Do I work best when you can, you know, put boundaries on me? I have stopped me from buying foil before. $100 million worth. Yeah. I nearly bankrupted the podcast. A million times over. Yes, we are worth $100.

Thank you. So neither of you have answered there. So I'm the one who reigns in, aren't I? I'm not sure. I don't think every, not every partnership has one and the other. I think you just don't want to tell me. me the truth. I don't know. I'm not sure. I haven't, I don't think it's that obvious. I would say we all have elements of both. Do you want to be a genius? I think we all have elements of genius is what I just

said and I stand by. I would agree. Yeah, I would agree. Dave, do you think, do you agree? Oh yes. I mean, Dave generally would though. Yeah. Dave would be like, yes, I think I'm a little bit of a genius. Yeah. Just a little bit. Jess and I are self-deprecating here and you're just sincerely calling yourself a genius. And this is us raining you in. Ah, okay. The article goes on to quote Jeffrey Seller, a veteran Broadway producer, uh,

who's never worked with Tamor directly, but he said, Disney knew to stay on top of Julie and ensure they were all working towards the same goals. It paid off royally. So he's sort of saying, he's basically saying the same thing. Yeah. With the creative team being let

off the leash, the script got a bit out of control and so did the sets and seemingly all other elements of pre-production. And then he morphs into a monster. And then he flies to the moon. We're going to get the real moon on stage. In 2009, Evan Rachel Wood was cast as Mary Jane and Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin. Oh, I didn't know that.

I don't know anything about this musical, to be honest. I didn't know anything about it either. Cool. I had seen one famous clip from Letterman where they performed on there. Oh. And I had forgotten about it. And I've since the last few weeks, I've been watching it a lot. It's real great.

You've got to watch it. I'll put a link to it on our social media. It's like because it's great or because it's bad? I don't know. Oh, right. I'm not sure. I think it's both. Yeah, great.

I think it is great, but it's also ridiculous. But it's great. Yeah, yeah. That's the perfect. Is it bad? I don't know. It's great. I'm loving watching it. Venn diagram.

It's great and it's terrible and I love it. and I hate it. And I don't know. That's perfect. It's making me feel everything. Yeah, that's art, baby. Love art. Oh, yeah.

So which I haven't heard of Evan Rachel Wood. Oh, okay. Who's she? She's an actress, an actor. That makes sense, actually. Yeah, she's done a bunch of things. It's a great name, Evan Rachel. Yeah, it's cool.

Never heard of a woman, Evan. You'd probably know her face, I reckon. She's been in lots of things. For some reason I'm blanking, and the only thing I can think of is across the universe. Yes. which was directed by Tameor. Oh, right, okay, cool.

I think. There you go. If I made that up? I don't know. I think that is true. That was a Simpsons reference. I did one. I did one.

Jacob. Jacob, I did one. That means nothing to most people. That's a Patreon only thing. You've lost the audience. No, wow. You've lost the confidence of the audience. Well, that audience can buy their way back into that joke by heading to Patreon.com.

There's a Patreon who on the Facebook Patreon group, he audits our weekly Simpsons references and puts them into a post and rates them. Obviously, it's a lot of pressure on him now because he started it and now he's sort of he's stuck doing it forever. Yeah. Jacob, we release you from this. Yeah, whatever you want, it's fine. Please don't feel, if this is making you feel bad or stressed.

Yeah, but also give me that one because I don't usually beat the boys. Yeah, make this at least the last one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't usually beat the boys to a Simpsons reference. And it was a pretty weak one, but. It was like a classic. Yeah. Classic Homer going in for the

He's kind of saying is Mr Burns And what's your first name Mr Burns? I don't know So Evan Rachel Wood, Alan Cumming Two big stars of now I know Alan Cumming But yeah, they're two pretty big stars In two of the key roles

But as 2009 went on The production found itself in debt Of around $25 million. Whoa! And a realistic opening date for the show Was nowhere in sight Fuck, that's a lot of million dollars. Yeah.

Okay, I think I mentioned this later, but maybe I should tell you now for perspective, normal Broadway production costs around 5 to 15 million. Okay. Just to set it up, get it going. To put it on. Yeah. Just put it on, right. This one they haven't even started and they're in debt 25 million.

Shit. So it's ground to a halt and it isn't anywhere yet. Shit. And obviously the only way to get the money. money back is to put it on and sell the tickets. Oh my God. And so the tickets are now $1,000. And we still need to sell $1 million for the cheap seats. It soon became clear that Garfinkel wasn't going to be able to raise the extra capital required and he was perhaps in over his head. So in late 2009 he was replaced by concert promoter Michael Cole, who also had little Broadway

background as well. He was one and also the man whose company made the production. sets Jeremiah J. Harris. What? They came in to be the main backers. Jeremiah was a Jay Harris. It's a great. I really thought you'd come in with the bass there, but okay. I'm not sure of the references.

Was an old friend of mine. Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Oh. Just feel. Joy to the world. And also, Jeremiah J. Harris is also kind of similar to the editor from Spider-Man, right? What's his name? Oh, fuck.

No, that's the second reference to it today. And now I've blanked. J. Jonah Jammerson. Okay. Actually, it's not too far. Not that close. Well, it's J-J. Yep.

It's very close. I've slipped into a dimension where I don't understand anything either if you say. So Peter Parker's characters like a writes for a newspaper and the editor of that newspaper is J. Jonah Jamison. Jay, yeah, what I said, I think. Joey Jojo Shamadoo.

That's the worst name I ever heard. Hey, Joey Jojo! It does sound like the writer just thought that up. Yeah. But it's funny that none of these producers have had any Broadway background,

but this guy, Jeremiah Jay Harris, literally made theater backgrounds. He was a set. Is that count? Does that count? Is that something? That's good stuff.

Harris was quoted in the time saying, Michael and I took over a show that was dead, was sinking. We got pumps running in the first couple of days. We raised 30 million for the show. Whoa. It made it sound like he raised that in days. That can't be right, right?

But anyway, so he's a big deal in the music world and they got cash dealer pretty quickly. So we're back on track, maybe. He then went on to imply Garfunkel, Garfinkel, right? Garfinkel. He then went on to imply Garfinkel screwed up the show and called him a schmuck saying, you can quote me on this. And we have.

Schmuck. Schmuck. Schmuck is so good. You've already taken away his musical. Yeah. Yeah. And away from his dead partner too. I mean, come on.

He didn't have many nice things to say about Garfinkel. And if that didn't break your hard already, Garfinkel's reply. He said, Oh, come on, man. No, he said, I'm very happy these guys came in to help the show. I don't have an ego. I just care about the show. Oh, God.

Bless it. These guys are schmuck. Oh, I'm really glad you guys are here. Thank you so much for helping out. I just really want the show to be great. He just seems like he's too gentle of a soul for the cut-wrote world of Broadway musicals. Anyway, so he's out. Is he coming back?

Please tell him he comes back at the end. No. I really like him. As far as I know, he sailed in a space on a space sailboat. That was one of the scenes at the musical. He's like, we've already designed an actual working space sailboat. We may as well use it. The delays in production led to both Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming having to quit.

Alan Cumming in particular left due to his character on the Goodwife becoming a regular. And by the following year, though, when asked about leaving the production, he said, quote, my God, that was a lucky escape. Jesus Christ, talk about dodging a bullet there. Brutal. He really ramped up there, didn't he? Exclamation marks, capital letters. Schmucks everywhere!

Coming was replaced by Patrick Page and Jonathan, Jennifer. Jonathan. Oh boy. Any Jennifer's out there? You are now. You never heard of a girl called Evan or Jonathan. And I am Genethica. Jennifer Damiano replaced Evan Rachel Wood.

Reeve Carney ended up playing Peter Parker and TV Capio played Arachny. Are we supposed to recognise these names or is at the point of the A-listers were replaced by... I believe these are all some sort of actors. But yeah, the A-listers aren't there anymore. Anyway, all of these actors were also, had also left the production within a few years. Are they presumably you're contracted and you're saying no to other jobs? Yeah, yeah. Anyhow, Cole was very good at raising funds,

but he didn't have any interest in overseeing the artistic side of the production. According to the Times, left largely to their own devices, Miss Tamor hired top dollar stars to design the sets and costumes and to choreograph the show. The costume team alone had 23 people, four designers, four shoppers and 15 dresses. If the show works, all the money will be a moot point, Ms. Tameau said later. If it doesn't, it'll be a tragedy. Oh, boy. Oh, wow, she's really flying high, hoping for the best.

Yeah, it's a lot of belief, I think. Is that a fairly brazen use of the word tragedy, too, you feel? Like, okay. All right. Yeah. This is when, early 2000s? I think we were thinking or two about tragedy by that time. This is in a post-9-11 world.

So, yeah, she should know better. She should know better than to just throw the T word around. Yeah. Well, Broadway tragedy. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Yes, of course. I'm sure that's what she was me. Implied.

Yeah. As well as directing Tamer also wrote the book, which in musicals is the script basically. Yeah. Is that right? Not the lyrics. Not the lyrics to the song, but all the story stuff.

Right. She added a new character to the show. who I mentioned just before. Speedy moon. Speedy moon. Yes. Spider-Man's moon-based The counterpart.

He's no longer a moon. He's more of a vampire. Buddy, Speedy. No, you're close, but it was not speedy moon. It was a villain named Arachny. Arachne. Based on a character from Greek mythology with the same name.

Arachne. Arachne, yes. Well done. Why do you think when Spider-Man's got such a rich history of bad guys that we all know and love, which she just make up a new one? Well, she's a genius. Dave, she's a genius. You're raining her in a little too much right now.

You've got to just, you got to... I thought they liked her to be rained in. Yeah, but not too much. You got to rain in just a little bit. Don't blanket the genius. It was up to me, I'll just lock her in a box. See how she goes. Dave, that's...

Literally? That's terrible. Literally? You're talking about a coffin? You're going to put her in a coffin? You're going to bury her alive? Flourishes. I'm in a stressful situation. That is true.

No, he has won me around here. Put her in a box. Dave. Lock it up. Three weeks to a comedy festival. Can you put me in a box? Yeah, honestly, you'll come out at the other side, angry at me, but also thankful. I'm always angry at you, but thankful for you.

Oh, thanks, Dave. Oh, God, my back really hurts, but I've come up with some really funny jokes. So this is Tamor explaining the Arakne decision. Tying this story back to mythology was the main thing that movies haven't done, which is something I really wanted to do. I love the Spider-Man films. The one main thing they haven't done is tie it back to mythology. I also only just got Arakne and Spider-Man.

Right. I was like, hmm, that's weird. Now I get it. It's a spider thing. So she's watched the very successful film. I thought, I need to do what they didn't do. Yeah. And the one thing they didn't do, as you said, is of Greek mythology.

What a fun idea that in her mind, this is the main thing they didn't do. She's comparing every film to Hercules. Right, yeah. The main thing they did do, tie back to Greek mythology. Yeah, and see how great that was? Yeah, what is it like Hercules in Manhattan or whatever that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie was going? Oh, yeah. I don't know.

I only did that report last week, and I can't remember. I think that was right. Anyway, her quote goes on to say, it's something you can do in the theatre, go into this absolutely dreamlike mythic place out of time between reality and the dream world. That's where I live. You can see that in everything I've done. I live in a box in a dream world. Oh, gosh. She's great.

A big fan. I love genius. Genius. Unbridled genius is so fun. So good. The character complicated the show's story as there was already an arch villain in their story named the Green. Green Goblin. Oh, yeah.

Anyway, rehearsals began in July 2010. In nearly all elements of the show, the team tried to break new ground, which is something that we're all very proud of. The Edge and Bono and the rest of the team were breaking new ground. Everything. Everything, if there's an easy way that's already been done, let's make it harder. The audience are on the stage and we'll perform in the seat. No one's done it before.

I'm using a new type of guitar. It's made with knives. Go, Edge. Beep! Fuck! Fuck! Sounds great. It's so beautiful.

The emotion. I love it. I can feel your pain in the way that you play. Bono's like, and I'll be Miraball man. He's painting himself silver. Bono, just to remind you, you're not in the show. What? What?

I'm a what. So all this new ground that are breaking, obviously, added to the expense as well as uncovering new problems. Yeah, it's just holes. They put holes everywhere and all that ground they were covering. A lot of archaeological sites were ruined. The one thing that I've seen in theatre that they haven't ever done was holes in the state. But in random spots that I change every night just to add a little bit of drama for the actors.

Where they normally put an X for the actor to hit a mark, that's now a hole. That's a hole. And you will break your ankle. You need you to hit the hole and down stage when you hear this note. That's the edge. Who is now known as Mirabal Man. In most, according to the times, in most productions, performers fly in parallel planes. This is one of the big new things they did.

So when you're talking about the acrobatic sort of stuff flying across the ceiling of the venue, most productions performers fly in parallel lanes. you understand parallel. So you're not going to hit each other. Yes. Like children on adjoining swings, the Times hopefully explains. But the aerialists in Spider-Man cross lines. They intersect.

Oh, God. So they can, for example, battle in the air. One character riding on the back of another, like something from a movie or a dream. What? A sex dream. Oh, yeah. To pull this off, the producers hired 35 stage hands and the man who coordinated the flying for the Spider-Man movies. They hired seven stage managers, where an average musical has three.

or four, the aerialists were sent out West for training, and the back of the theatre was packed with enough computers to track travel to the moon. So they're... Sorry, what? There's two things there. They were sent out West. What do you mean by that? California, I'm guessing.

Hollywood. They sent him out West. Oldways in New York. Back in the Wah-Wah West. Yeah, yeah, they turn them back in time. They got to learn to ride a horse before they can ride a man. And the other thing is that enough computing parents... to what track a trip to the moon?

What they brought in like all those NASA computers in the late 60s. And they were mostly using it just to update the socials. It was just a social media. That's the time using a bit of hyperbole, I assume, but maybe that is literally, I wouldn't be surprised if that's literally the case. Matt, it's pronounced hyperbole. Hyperbole, sorry. This is embarrassing for you.

Oregano. So, yeah, this is a thing that potentially, you know, so there's existing systems where they're. could fly parallel and it would be fine. It would just be like, we'll just get a system that's already in place. But they've gone, no, we're going to invent a new system because it's never been done. It would normally be done with pulley systems and stuff. In this case, it was mechanical. So if one small part of the system failed during the show, people are just stuck hanging. And the show has, and that happened. I mean, the system works for a reason, right?

Yeah. But I suppose there's also, you also want to innovate. I do get that. But I mean, I mean, these acrobats have been trained on this method of the lane, staying in the lane. And they've all of a sudden had to hire so many more people just to make it with. Seven stage managers sounds crazy. Yeah, that sounds confusing. Yeah. So clearly a lot of effort was going into the, making the flying sequences a huge spectacle. But Bono knew these wouldn't be enough to make the show a success saying that if wow moments only come from the stunts and not from the soul or the heart, we will all think.

that were failed. I'm starting to see why the Irish crowd booed me off stage. Jess, during that sentence, I don't know if you saw it, because you were looking at your computer, that Jess rolled her eyes so hard that they went backwards,

came down again, then sort of went to the centre of her brow like she was looking at a magic eye in anger. Yeah. I felt rage at that sentence. From the soul or the heart. Oh, you think these tricks are good, do you? Yeah, of course I fucking do, Bono.

Not here for the... the soul? I would love to hear some of the lyrics. I'm a spider man. How could there be soul? How could there be soul? How? Just how? I just made myself laugh.

It's very, oh, I'm a spider man. It's the wrong accent. I'm sorry. Without having a show to sell tickets to yet, the production continued to bleed money and the opening of previews continued to be pushed back time. and again. As such, Cole, the producers, set a date for the preview run of the show to begin in November, whether it was ready or not. At this point, the budget had blown out to approximately $65 million. What? And you said before 15 is a pretty, that's a high mark. Yeah, 15's high.

Shit. So this is breaking records. At this time, the Edge and Bono were busy with you too and missed the first preview shows as they were on tour in Australia. They were busy with us. Yeah, they were down here. Busy with Dave and I. Oh yes, great. Sorry, you're doing a U-2 thing. That's good. I don't consider it before. That is a confusing.

I wonder if I'd ever run them into trouble before. Confusing to me because I also said they were down here in Australia. Yeah, no, sorry. With you too. And then my head exploded. I didn't get, I didn't get even quick enough. As is always the way. But yeah, I assume, were they, what were you guys up to?

Having a cup of tea? Yeah? Having a little cup of? Yeah, I remember the mentioning that they were missing. those previous, but the tea we had was sensational. How big was the edge's tea? Oh, so big. It was a pool. We had to hire a swimming pool and feel it was tea.

And he sucked it dry. Dude, he just sucked it. He sucked it. One slurp and we thought, can we get to another tea, the edge? And we were thinking, please say no, please say no. We've only got one pool. And he was polite for a bit and he said, no, thank you. But then later he was like, you know what, I will have another team. We were like,

fuck! Oh, shit. It takes a long time to steep a pool. The edge. And we, you know how many kettles we had to use? Dave, how many kettles it was it at the end? 17006. 17006.

I said, can we lose six of them? Could you have slightly less tea? And Dave said no. Can we put some cold water in? Yeah. You know, it all hot, you know? Yeah. Jeez-y, the edge knows how to suck.

That sounds to be true. But it sounds like they also were just, they were in and out all the time. Because they'd be like, we're going to be in town for an afternoon and we can pitch some ideas. Here's some ideas we've had. and then they're flying off again. So they're writing the music and the lyrics for the musical and they're hardly ever around apparently.

Because by now it's been years, hasn't it? Yeah, since the idea's floated. Yeah, exactly. 2002 was when the idea began and we're up to 2010 now. Eight years. It's a long time. In that Spider-Man character.

I haven't done anything for eight years. Well, I worked at a supermarket for that For longer than that Better at the supermarket You're in and out They went yeah I can pitch a few ideas Trollies here

I'm going to go I'm flying off to do a tour Yeah, you're going to go do a tour of Peru I'll push a couple of trolleys here But I've really got to go push some trolleys in Peru So you could maybe just Get your people to call my people Pass on some notes

Here's some great idea What if we make the trollies red I know they're silver now They have been for a long time But let's paint them all Okay bye And make them upside down so the wheels are on the top.

Bye, babe. So, yeah, they were not really around that much. Maybe luckily for them, that Australian tour meant they missed out on seeing the disastrous opening week of previews, or weeks. Weeks of disaster. Oh, no.

Well, yes. According to The Guardian, the first preview had to be stopped five times. What? What? Do you think each time one of the seven stage managers comes out and says, Sorry, sorry, sorry, guys, just got to reset.

Sorry, sorry about that. Did they do any dress rehearsals or are they using the previews for that? It's the first time anybody's been in a costume. Well, there's a lot of pressure to get it started, I think. I mean, they were rehearsing for a long time. People aren't even off book yet. They're still holding scripts on stage. Just wanted to show that I knew the phrase off book.

Prompt! Prompt! Line! I know the phrase off-piece, which means skiing something. So. I guess we all know things. Dave, what do you know? I know the phrase jacked off. Okay.

What's it mean? But I won't repeat it. Something about something on it. Something to do with our skiing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Off the rails. Yeah.

Taking a few slopes if you know what it mean. What is that? No, I don't know what you mean. No, I don't know what you mean. I thought it was close and now I'm... No, I've got no idea. I thought it was ski related. Now I'm convinced it's not.

Not at all. Act 1 ended prematurely with Spider-Man stuck dangling 10 feet above audience members, the New York Times said. Just give us a push. Audience members have big sticks. Ow! Ow! Oh, geez.

Push, don't hit! Oh, my God. So if it's a pulley system, you know, you're just pulling a rope, but this is like, the computer's frozen. Oh, no. That's such a bad idea. So you're just dangling up there for a bit now. The good news is NASA just made it to the moon.

His computers are telling me that. And we watch it all the way there. The New York Post warned that at various points, overhead stagewise, dropped on the audience. A real immersive experience. Oh, my God. So cables are falling on the audience. Yeah. That's bad.

Sorry, sorry. Sorry to get technical with your drama degree over there. That's bad. Okay, so this isn't how it should go? No. Wires stay in roof. Okay. That was one of the directors' notes on the end of it.

Cast, gather around, I've got some notes. Question mark. Why a stay-in roof? What do we think? What do we think? It's on their show report that night. And then Tamer comes and goes, no, I did that once before. I don't repeat myself.

I don't repeat myself. Why is on the audience. I've had him in the roof before. The Guardian's Hermione Hobie wrote, at the preview performance I attended, bits of scenery fell over. There were ominous thuds, and a stage hand came on to fiddle with Peter

Parker's harness as he was singing a duet. I want to take him out of it a bit. Oh, this really took me out of the scene where Peter Parker is singing a duet. I was so in that scene until I saw that stagehead. Fiddle. Fiddle with Peter Parker's harness. I just remembered that there's no such thing as a Spider-Man. Or a duet and that I'll always be alive.

So I just started fiddling with his harness. A little fiddle. One of my favorite things is when you watch a pro band, like one with a huge show and they change guitar every song. They break a string. The roadie comes out. Give them a new guitar or they restring it whilst the person's still playing. And they don't even look back like, I don't even worry about it.

I love that. Well, let's throw the guitar, you know, 15 metres to the side of the stage and the roadie catches it. Yeah. It's like that, but you're dressing a Spider-Man. I'm also imagining a very obvious looking high. harness. Like I imagine like Spider-Man in quite a shit Spider-Man costume and then over it's like a very obvious black like straps that go across the thighs, then up around the

hips, then one across the middle here. I think that well, yeah, you can't, like a skin tight Spider-Man suit can't hide a harness. So I think it was pretty obvious that they were. I listen to this podcast called You Talk and You Two to Me. Yes. And they did an episode about this. It was like a two-hour episode and they didn't mention it like the episode was about this musical. And I think they started talking about it, about an hour and a half in, which is their way. But they talked about it like it was pretty big clunky looking harnesses. Right. I don't remember, like, it wasn't, there was a, there was a scene in Wicked

where one of the characters flies and it, like, you don't necessarily see the harness. Big flowing sort of witch dresses, does that help? Yeah, and I think, like, I think it's probably something on her belt or something and the stagehands come out in, in morph suits and just attach something to her. Like a pully tour, I imagine. Yeah. Everyone else does. Yeah, and people picked her up.

Yeah. Real people. In the December 20 preview, Stump Man and actor Christopher Tierney's harness wasn't attached to the safety cord. Oh my God. This meant he fell 30 feet through the stage into the orchestra pit, leading to a fractured skull, fractured shoulder blade, four broken ribs and three broken vertebrae.

30 feet? Yes. Isn't that wild that he survived? That feels. And he survived. He survived. He returned to the production. No!

So he broke his back. Yeah. And he fractured his skull. And his ribs and yeah. Fuck. That night's performance was abandoned. So that was in front of an audience. Oh my God.

Imagine seeing that. I would be sick. Oh, the sound of him hitting the ground would be more. Would everyone be like, whoa, this is amazing? Oh, no. Oh, no. And the reaction of people around, you're like, oh, no, that is real good acting. I think this is not.

He's gone into the orchestra pit and you just hear, we're going, wow, wow, whoa. No. He way his head landed in a tuber or something. I'm so like, oh, fuck, you'd be shitting yourself. Everyone there would have been. But yeah, amazing to me that he went. I think, who was him or one of the other guys that got injured, he went, said afterwards.

One of the other guys that got injured. Yeah, he posted about it on his social media apparently and said, someone said, oh, what happened? Because he showed himself in cast and stuff. And he goes, I'm not sure how much I can say. But anyway, these things happen, you know, no one's fault. I think it's, I think that might be someone's fault. Surely there's a dedicated person to the safety.

I feel like one of the seven. You know, there's such a huge team. Maybe the team's too big. Yeah, it absolutely is. Nobody can get their job done. I thought you were the one who was meant to, yeah, they can't even walk past each other. Oh, I'm trying to get a. Over there to put the...

Oh no, he's up. Oh, no, he's down. They've also got one office with one computer. But it is also tracking... And you can play Frogger. Yeah. So it's pretty sick, actually. Let me have a go.

My go. Okay, guys, we're going to need to put together a roster for Frogger. It's a froster, okay? It's fun. Thank you. They're fun backstage there. Yeah, it's fun. We're having a good time.

People are falling from the sky, but we're enjoying ourselves. Having a great time. 30 feet. Far out. It's too far. So Bono missed all that because he was down here, hanging with you two and that big pool of tea. Come on, Bono.

Was it Bono's job? What happened? Bono, where were you? You're supposed to clip the safety harness on it, and now you nearly killed a man. Oh, no, I was playing stadiums in Australia. Damn it, I knew I was meant to be somewhere. He didn't see a show until five weeks into previews.

And when he did, he noticed the sound quality in the theatre wasn't up to scratch. The music producer was called in to remake the sound system. So we had to come in and just fully redesign it. This is like the theatre they're doing it in, Foxwood Studios or whatever it's called, is a heritage-listed building. And they're making all these new tracks on the ceiling and stuff.

So all that's super expensive as well because they've got to have professionals in to not damage any of the heritage-listed ceilings and all that sort of stuff as well. But apparently the set got so big. I think I heard this on the, you're talking to YouTube. to me as well

where they the set got so big that it basically got built out in front of the sound system so the set is blocking the turn coming out

properly and Bono I think maybe was the first to notice it or the first one to go like this

is not good enough let the sound man on side of there oh yeah bono's like

what's with that they're like oh yeah Speaking. A lot of audiences have been leaving pretty confused at the end of the show. I love you, Peter Parker. Yeah, well done. Thank you.

So he came in, basically, he goes, oh, this is a problem you need to fix, and then they're off on tour again, which is two. It flies in, pat-a-bing, butter-boom. Despite the troubles, ticket sales were good, and during its first full week of 2011, it had the highest box office gross on Broadway with over $1.5 million in sales.

Wow. That's good, really good. Yeah. The preview shows... That's good. Really good. I was just thinking like if it ran like that for a year, they'd make all their money back.

Sometimes these shows run for 20. Yeah, that's right. So they're still... As it's starting to get out there, the team is starting to feel good about it. And they're talking about that publicly. Like, there's been a lot of trouble, but it's starting to feel like it's coming together.

We can see how this can turn into a success now. Oh boy. The preview shows, as I'm sure you two theater kids would know, but I don't know how much I knew this. They're really there to iron out kinks, and reviewers don't come in until they officially open. But they're still writing about the production, though. Yes, you basically normally do it.

It's almost like you're doing it publicly, but not officially. And so you're not being judged on it really. And customers don't pay full-ticket prices as well. Right. throughout the whole... Much like the preview shows of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. They're one of those early nights.

Those early nights, they're cheaper. There's no reviewers there. Little boo, stinky reviewers. And, um, yeah, we're just talking out the kicks. We're figuring out. Unlike you guys, you might have two or three previews. What are they got, like six months of previous shows? They're up there.

I think they get in hundreds of preview shows. Hundreds. I have four. That's crazy. I mean, my show is not a theatre production, to be honest. I do not. And sorry for the spoilers. I do not.

fly from the ceiling at any stage. Do you? Do you not? Well, I like. Yeah, okay. You want to keep it on the down there. I know. I know you.

You know what I'm like. Power techniques? No. Yeah. Couldn't possibly. I'm trying to find one of the suggested, he gave me a, James Acker,

one of the guys who suggested it said that, he gave me a number for previews. Ah, that's handy. I was in previews for 182 years. shows. 182 shows. Which is a record. That is crazy.

How many shows would not ever put on that many as an official? If you do one a night, that's six months of shows. Yeah. And they did not. So, yeah, this was stretched out for a while. So anyway, so they're trying to iron out these kinks in the previews and they keep extending, pushing back the official opening because there's more and more kinks. Throughout the whole process, the script's being edited.

New songs, I think might have been being written. through part of this stage. Although I did read one of the writers said no songs were taken out. The Edge and Bonner really believed in their tunes. It sort of seems like... Even though they weren't really there to see them. Yeah. It seems like if you did go to see one of the preview shows and lived to tell the tale.

You went crushed by a cable or the man. If you then went and saw it out of preview, it would be two completely different shows. Yes, 100%. And I do talk about a reviewer who saw it early and later. Wow. And he compares the two experiences. In the later show, there wasn't even a Spider-Man. They wrote him out.

Boring. So the cast, during the previews, the cast often rehearsed one version of the show in the afternoon before performing a different version that night. What the fuck? So there might be, there's scripts being edited, so they're rehearsing the new style, but it's not ready yet. So they've got to perform the other show, the older version of the show that night. So it's very confusing. I imagine to be in the cast.

As a general rule, the critics, like I was saying, don't review a show when it's in preview mode. But because the production suffered so many delays, critics seem to collectively break this convention of waiting, and they all started reviewing it during the preview run. When the major theatre critics published reviews in Feb, Rueri, they were nearly... Oh, I've heard of him.

February. Can someone say... Just say Fed. I did and then I felt like a coward, so I tried to finish it. February. Forget about the sneaky R. Is the sneaky R silent? It's not really.

It's like real soft. February. If you just say February, people are. I can see Dave's mouth thinking about it. I'm pretty sure I'd stop the R. February when I say February. When the major theatre critics published reviews in February, they were to merely...

So hang on, say it with a bit of confidence. You can do it. When the major theatre critics published reviews in February, They were nearly universally negative. Oh, nearly. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Focusing on that nearly. Not bad. Scholar Daniel Mendelsohn noted many were critical of Tamar's attempt to bring in the myth of arachnoy into the Spider-Man story, saying it turned the show into, quote, a grotesque hybrid and meant the plot was bloated by having two unrelated main villains. Oh, they kept the green goblin. They're two villains. And I don't think their stories in a separate. at all. They were just, apparently it was a lot to take in for audiences. They're like,

what is happening? Oh, Ben. According to a review at the time in the New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote, for a story that is also inspired hit action movies, it is remarkably static in its telling. He went on to say that it may rank among the worst Broadway musicals of all time. Which is pretty, that's pretty damning. I mean, it's hard to try and find the quote to put on your poster from that. This may rank as the worst Broadway in Capitals. May. According to The Guardian, the producers were furious about the preview reviews.

We have preview reviews. Preview reviews. Preview reviews. Saying, we have one of the world's foremost theatrical artists at the helm of this production, and she is creating something exciting and groundbreaking, says Cole, one of the producers, why any critic would feel that they have the right to determine when the show is ready for a view is beyond me. As far as I'm concerned, the show is ready when Julie says it's ready. Wow.

Obviously the critics disagreed. The edition of Arakne wasn't the only part of Tameur's book that came in for a caning, though. Another one of her inventions was the geek chorus. Okay, Dave, this sounds up your alley. Oh, Pythagoras is the Iran. Oh, Spider-Man. How are you? Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, I spilt cheese on my sandwich.

I mean, my chest. I felt cheese on my sandwich. And then I'm a jock and I walk in, I'm in the jock chorus and I walk in, I'll give you a wedgie. Oh, oh, no. Yeah. Run. And then, like, the 30 people dressed as nerds run. Is that how it goes?

No. Do you say geek chorus or Greek chorus? Geek. You didn't say geek? I was thinking. That's some sort of a pun though, right? Yeah, well, you hear, the Greek choruses, yeah, that's how the ancient Greeks. And they would, but they'd sort of narrate the show for the audience.

They're the ones talking. Yeah, sort of play. So that's basically what the idea was. Only this was four comic book geek characters who acted as the show's narrators. Cool. But I mean, that joke really only works if someone refers to them as the geek chorus. Otherwise, you have to. Maybe they do.

Maybe they. Please welcome the geek chorus, get it? It's a play on grievous. Like Greek. You guys get theater, yeah? According to Tamor, the four characters represented Bono the Edge, fellow bookwriter Glenn Berger and herself. So they sort of written themselves into the show another way. She's a genius?

This is... Dave, she did like a cover of the Greek chorus. Yeah, I get it. That's clever. She modernised the Greek chorus, geek chorus. And then put herself in there. Yeah, sort of. or someone sort of representing her.

This was her talking about the creative process when they did catch up. She said, we would be at Bono's House in France or another one of our places. The four of us all tossing out ideas and setting up tape recorders to make sure our thoughts were captured.

We were like our own geek band and we loved having that spirit in the show. Just has got a great grimace on her face. Hanging out at Bono's House in France. We're all saying great things. Geek chorus. Hope you got that on tape. Oh, on tape.

According to the Times, critics trashed the device, one calling it utterly superfluous. The geek chorus was soon written out of the show. Oh, no. So it didn't say it didn't survive to opening night. Right, so they're pissed off about the reviews, but really is a good feedback. They've got a point, thanks to the feedback.

Yes. We thought this was great until everyone said it wasn't great. And we thought, hmm, wonder if there's something in that. There were many other elements that were criticized for being confusing. For instance, in the second act, there's a song called Deeply Furious, where Arakne dispatches her spider women from their astral plane to steal shoes from a shop in Manhattan. Are you fucking kidding me?

If it doesn't have soul, what's the point? Go get those shoes, ladies. Well, you know, I mean, I think that's a Tamer flower. Irish there. I'm not blaming Bono for that one. We need eight, eight per person because we're spiders. So that... And we love shoes and shopping. Astral Plane, like, where the gods live or whatever.

And then she sends down her sort of spider people. Women. Women. To get shoes from a shop. That's what we do. That's what women do. We shop. And steal.

And then... Hearts. Then there was a big number, big choreographed number, where they all danced in high-heel shoes. or the Spider Women. Audience. I'm imagining them in a, sorry. Yeah, you're right.

In a black suit, like a morph suit, but then just like pipe cleaners strapped to their backs to look like extra arms. Can I just say that for me, this is what I imagine all musicals are. In any other context, that scene would win 10 Tony Awards. Isn't it confusing?

I mean, she has won Tony Awards for directions. Oh my God, Spider Women with Shoes, that would get a standing ovation for 15 minutes in some theatres. I think sometimes they turn on it and then everyone's on kicking it. Yeah. With their eight legs. Eight legs. But audiences were really confused by this little part of the show and others,

but this one was apparently notably confusing. So to clean it up, the whole go steal the shoes and then we'll have the tap dancing scene or whatever. To clear that up, they didn't get rid of the, dancing, what they did is they changed the line to, I descended from the astral plane with the help of human shoes, the earthbound arachnone announced, though according to the times, that didn't seem to help audience as much.

So instead of the line about, go steal some shoes, she said, I descended from the astral plane with the help of human shoes. It's the dumbest thing I met my own. I don't understand. I really want to get my mind. My hands on the recordings of them in France in Bono's house.

One of them was like, all right, how about we rewrite it? We just say they got to Earth with the help of shoes and everyone just starts. Wait, wait, wait. Yes, Bono, yes. Human shoes. Love it, put it in. Yes, not horse shoes. It's so wild.

I'm doubting that that's real. Where did I get that from? I'm pretty sure a reliable source. But fuck, that's funny. I think that was from the Times. That's insane. man. What do you mean?

With the help of human shoes. Got it. There we go. Nailed it. Next. What's the next problem? I saw a dog wearing shoes yesterday. It was probably one of the highlights of my week.

And it said, I'm walking down the street with the help of human shoes. Dave can't swallow his water. Stop drinking during the show. Oh, no, I get thirsty, but at the same time I laugh at you guys. When you're talking about the, I think I'm maybe a, I've got this written down somewhere later, but talking about how the costumes,

that's one thing that they were, like, Tony nominated the costume. I mean, there were four people whose job was shopping. Yeah, at first I were just going to steal. Right, so the costumes are good, despite in my imagination, they're very bad. Oh, you've got to watch this Letterman clip. Okay. I don't know if they're good or not. They're big and wild.

You show me, and I'll tell you. Should we just, should we pause now and watch it? it? Yeah. All right. Everyone in the show notes, there'll be a link to this video. We'll come back in a second. Yep, so we just watched it. What did, first instinct there?

I hated that. Okay. I hated that a lot. Well, there was a lot going on. Too much. The music was just, I couldn't sing anything of any of it back to you. There's no melody. It was just, all the freaks in New York City.

I have listened to it a lot Yeah, right But it's sort of catchy The costumes were in some I think either Really over the top and amazing Like they've spent lots of time and effort The other

The backup dancers were wearing like flanny shirts And singlets I guess that were just the people of New York Trying to look like street But they just looked a little Underdressed to me I think they should put on a tuxedo What about the science ladies

Who are wearing sparkly lab coats All right That's my kind of Science. So yeah, we recorded us talking over it a little bit if you're on Patreon, so you should be able to see that to sort it in there. Otherwise. A little Patreon commentary.

You can just look at the bloody link in the show notes to watch it yourself. And I reckon you should. So, yeah, that was the main guy. Dave pointed out, which I didn't even notice. Spider-Man's not in there. Yeah, Spider-Man does not appear on stage at all. And David Letterman comes out at the end, says, you can see all these guys in Spider-Man. And it's like, hang on what?

That's crazy. The guy who's playing the Green Goblin? Yes. He's great. Yeah, he was saying Matt, the reason that he was the showcase character was because he actually was popular with audiences unlike anyone else, maybe? I think he was the one that critics would talk about as being one of the standout performance. He's very good.

Yes. I think I'll talk a little bit about. Wait, was his tongue green? Yeah, I think he had a, that must have been a bit based on Jane Simmons from Kiss. He had the big long tongue. And he sort of had the top knot thing going on. Yeah. Presthetic, you reckon?

Top knot or tongue? Tongue. I don't think you could talk with a prosthetic tongue. That's true. I reckon you'd probably just... They might have got him apart. He'd gargled something earlier that made his tongue look green. Can you imagine Alan coming in that role?

Yes. Yeah, I can too, actually, yeah. I can imagine Alan coming in that role. Fills his suit every night. Alan, no. This is how I get into character. Get out of my dressing room. The other characters...

The other characters started to complain that your suit smells. I never wash my suit. Your understudy who has to come in and play your role. The understudy that poor... Poor young man. Or woman. Probably a man. Probably a man.

Sorry, yeah. So, I'll kick back into the report from here. The show took a lot of the criticisms on board and continued to rewrite the show. with Harris conceding that while we don't agree with everything the critics said, we're not stupid. Oh, my God. Well, then you shouldn't have made a bad show in the first place. It's so tricky because he's like, where the money people, they did their job very well.

They raised a record amount of money for a musical. They just didn't, maybe they weren't honing everything in like they could have or something. It's hard to know. But really, it sounds like the guy who had all those skills is the guy died of a stroke of the Yeah. Imagine him looking down. It's shaking his head. From the way people write about it, if he was still around,

it would have all been very different. In early 2011, Roberto Aguerzikasa was enlisted by producers to help rewrite the script. So they're like, we need to do bigger changes than just like fiddling around the edges. We need to make wholesale changes. By this time, the cast have memorized so many different versions, different acrobatic moves. Not long after Roberto was brought on, Tymour left the production. Oh. So I think it's sort of unclear if she was left or she was pushed or what happened.

But yeah, she was out. Do you have any idea if she went on to do other stuff? Because before this, she's an acclaimed genius, the Lion King, that's a big credit to your name. But then you go from huge hit to big, obviously, maybe you could say flop. Yeah. Yeah. Something with a lot of trouble. Did that ruin her career?

or can she go on to be a genius in other ways? I think the Lion King has still been her biggest thing, but she has continued on with more... What did you say, Jess? Children's books. Oh, right. There's always children's books. Could be a genius in other things, like children's books.

She, so she's made films, and she's... What is she made since then? She did... A Midsummer's Night's Dream in 2014, The Glorias this year, which I don't know what that is. And she's worked on a bunch of other stage. productions, including a few different Shakespeare turns, like a Midsomersnot's dream. Does I say that right?

Too many plural. No, it doesn't look like she's done too many things since. But she's, I mean, she's also, I don't know, she's 67. So maybe she's just slowing down naturally. It's hard to know. Yeah. Slowing down naturally. But she's like she's still making stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I just wasn't sure because, you know, it might have just ruined her. Yeah, that's not right. Yeah. I don't, hopefully it hasn't. Because it's just a, it's a teamwork thing, and this one didn't quite come off. But, uh,

well, hopefully she just gets like 0.5% or whatever from the Lion King musical and just bankrolled her forever. I think she ended up suing the producers for this and, um, uh, settled out of court. So I think, you know,

I don't think she's struggling for cash anyway. She won a, she got like a half a million dollar grant for, um, uh, It was called like a genius grant or something from some art body. Of course it was. That's why she applied.

She's like, hmm, that turns up by Ellie. I'll take one of those. A very clever person, Grant. No thank you. That's not quite me. It's not quite right. That's cute. The show's official opening continue to be pushed back.

And when it was pushed back for the sixth time, they also shut down previews for nearly a month. Cole and Harris explained that the shut up. down was due to the fact. The story needed some work, the songs needed some work, and the sound needed some work. So the show needed a fair bit of work at that point. The lighting needed some work. But the ushers know what they're doing. They're great. Honestly, they are ready to go at a moment's notice. They're the highlight of the show. You ask them which, which, row is A. They'll tell you straight away. Oh, they know. No worries.

Wow. Sci-fi wire noted that with all the changes and with no money or time to spare, scenes would be scrapped but the sets remained and had to be used in new ways they weren't intended for. Songs were appropriated for new meanings and moments in the show regardless of whether it made sense. Characters were dropped or had their roles decreased, not literally dropped, although that is also true. Except for the Green Goblin, who ended up becoming the main villain of the show. What this led to was a mixed bag for the senses. Some scenes would look spectacular, while others seemed unbearably cheap. when it became clear that Page's performance as the Green Goblin was one of the show's

best assets. A new song was written called A Freak Like Me Needs Company, which is what we saw on the late show with David Letterman. And in it, it includes the line, I'm a $65 million circus tragedy. Actually, more like 75. So it's just like calling, they've written into the show the budget. So, you know, having a bit of a sense of humor about themselves. Because during this whole time. Apparently it's just in everything. Like late night monologues are talking about it every week and it's just a big industry joke. I feel like I've seen it parodied in a sitcom. I want to say Kimmy Schmidt maybe. Yeah, I think it has been on Kimmy Schmidt. It's been parodied on a bunch of things. The Simpsons has referenced it a few times as as Robot Chicken.

Right. And Saturday Night Live a lot of times. The official opening finally came around on June the 14th, 2011. at which point the budget had grown to $75 million. By far the highest budget of a Broadway musical ever. Oh my God. As I said before, for comparison, normal budgets between $5 and $15 million. According to Vulture, the website not the Spider-Man villain, the next most expensive Broadway musical at number two is 2008's Shrek the musical.

So this is the number two, $25 million. Fuck me. You could have had three Shrek musicals. And I wish we had more Shrek musicals. It's playing in Melbourne at the moment. I know. So they've made that work. I imagine they've made their money back if they're touring it internationally like that.

Vulture broke down, again, the website, broke down where the money was spent, including over $9.5 million on sets and costumes. So nearly more than some whole budgets were just on sets and costumes. Nearly 4.5 million to rent Foxwood's Theatre for the two years before the performances even began. So they're renting out this super expensive space without being able to get any income back from it. Around $2.2 million on flying equipment, over $400,000 on props, and over $3,700, $370,000 on puppets.

What about paying the actors and all the staff? Much smaller costs, I think. $3 a piece. Wow. Doing it for the love. You've got to do theatre for love. Oh. Remember when I said before Dave that they,

sold one point something million in tickets that week and it was a real good week for them. The weekly production budget also blew out to around $1.3 million, meaning the show had to regularly break ticket sales records to have any chance of recouping investors money. Oh my God. What are you thinking? So just that week you'd have to make back that money's week, the money from that week. I think that's how I read it. Like you need to be, you need to, so to make it back $75 million, you really got to be dubbed

It's going to run for 80 years and break a record every week. Yeah. Which they did with a gross of $2.9 million for the week of December 25, 2011. So there was this period where I was looking pretty good. That was the highest one week take for any show ever, beating the record set by Wicked. I would love to know how much the tickets were. They weren't. Apparently weren't cheap.

They were. So. Fuck. Yeah, it's very interesting. There were $2.3 million. I sold one ticket. They were just, with that budget, it was so hard to ever make it a success. And that's the full quote before where one of the second producers called him a schmuck,

the earlier guy, said, do you think this is a $30 million show, which is what we've basically made it or a $65 million show? But that's because of all the money that was wasted before we got here. By the schmuck. And he's still going, I loved it. I loved it. The show received a few award nominations, including, like I said before,

Tony nominations for costume and scenic design. The only actor to receive nominations was Patrick Page, who played the Green Goblin. He was nominated for outstanding featured actor in a musical at the Drama Desk Awards. Though apparently when he wasn't nominated for a Tony, he left the production. Some said he was sort of hanging around,

because there was some buzz around him. As soon as the Tony nominations were announced, He didn't get nominated. He didn't get nominated, so he left. Because I think it was a, because it was a bit of a shit show, I guess, that it was hanging around. Yeah, there's a reason for it, yeah. It'll build up my career. Yeah, and then if you win a Tony for a performance, maybe, you'd probably stick in it.

And that would be good for the show as well. Yeah, yeah, it's win-win. The show was generally reviewed more favourably after the script rewrite. Brantley, who I mentioned before, was scathing in his review of the preview season, revised his thought saying, quote, So is this assent from jaw-dropping badness to mere mediocrity a step upward? Well, until last weekend, I would have recommended Spider-Man only to carry on feasting theater vultures. Now, if I knew a less than precocious child of 10 or so and had several hundred dollars to throw away,

I will consider taking him or her to the new and improved Spider-Man. It's a pretty good praise. It's a long quote to put on the side of a subway car, but they did it. Yeah, he'd say, what would you put in there? I would consider taking him or harder than you and improved Spider-Man. Linda Buckwold from stagegrade.com said, critics actually miss some of Julie Tameor's ambition. Crazy as they may have thought it at the time, critics agree that the show is improved in that it makes much more sense.

However, now they are mostly just finding it a bore. Bono and the Edge's score is almost universally panned, while Patrick Page's Green Goblin and stunning visuals remain for most critics the best reasons to see the show. I also saw someone mentioned that it had this cool sort of 2D effect, sort of like it's off the page, I guess, of a comic book, which I obviously on the only clip I've seen of that letterman clip, and that doesn't seem to be the case there,

but maybe the sets are that way or something. I think that review there of Patrick, page. Like him being the only redeeming quality, I would love that. Yeah. I would, I love being a big fish in a small pocket. Love that. Some people are like, bloody, you know, I want to get out there and make myself,

that. Fuck that. I want to stay with these mediocre dummies and appear great. Is that what you're doing here? I think that's what you might be saying. No, that's what I'm saying about this. It also does. It's starting to make sense why you hang around.

Yeah. Why else would you hang around? Look how good I look on this podcast. We make you look good. Make me look really good. Yeah, that's a compliment that you're paying us, right? Yeah, you make me look good. Improv is all about making your scene partner look good.

And if anything, a podcast is really just a long form improv. It's long form, input. We're basically doing a Harold right now. I'm doing Harold. Look at me. I'm doing Harold. Am I saying that right? And scene.

Thank you. So they've lost the only thing about the show that people like because he left. Yes. Here is a list of injuries. Oh, my God. So I mentioned before that stuntman Christopher Tierney fell 30 feet, breaking multiple bones. Terrifying. But then he recovered and returned to the show.

Don't come back. Sue them. Volcher notes that there were many other injuries on set, including Kevin Orban, who broke both wrists when he was catapulted from one end of the stage to the other in October 2010. Brandon Rubendor broke a toe at the same month doing the same stunt as Orban. Oh, not a toe. Natalie Mendoza, who played in the previews played the villain Arakne. She suffered a concussion during the first preview on November 28, 2010, when she was struck in the head with a piece of equipment while standing in the wings. And then this is the most full-on one.

On August 15, 2013, Daniel Curry, a stunt double, got his right foot stuck in a stage lift, and then a trapdoor closed on the foot, breaking the foot and both of his legs, and necessitating, quote, unspecified amputations. Oh. Isn't that? What the fuck? Oh. I'm so confused why that guy, the one who broke every bone, went back.

Yeah, I guess it's stunt men, I think, yeah, they're just kind of mad. Don't go back. Sue them for negligence and get a better job. I think you're misunderstanding. This is in America. It's not a very litigious society. Interesting. But that guy lost his feet, possibly his legs.

Oh, my God. Like, it feels like someone should be able to find out unspecified amputations. That's so awful. Anyway, yeah, that is, obviously, that's, I mean, in some ways it seems like it's lucky no one died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still like, gosh, Jesus, that feels like a night. like a brutal nightmare. Anyhow, all good things must come to an end. And by September 2013, the box office gross had slipped to $621,960. So less than half the running budget. The slipping

ticket sales, as well as understandably struggling to secure injury insurance, meant the show was closed on January the 4th, 2014. Ending one of the most tumultuous Broadway runs, of all time with investors losing an estimated $60 million. Oh, God. My God, that sucks. The show's infamy has led to it being spoofed in popular culture, like I mentioned before, Simpsons Robot Chicken, S&L, and also Sesame Street. Oh, my God, even Sesame Street is having a swing.

Yeah, they kick any while you're down. The producers have long talked about touring the show internationally to help recoup the losses. A residency in Las Vegas has also been speculated about for a long time. and there was even a website that was put together. So I think it got pretty close. But as of 2020, still nothing has happened. The 2014 performance was the last that's happened. But if it toured internationally, would people go to see it?

I feel like they would. I feel like it's so famous. I'd go to see the track. I'd go hoping it was bad. Which I think is what a lot of people went to at the time. But there was a mix of some people. I mean, I've read a lot of questions. quotes from people also saying, we, we loved it.

It's so much fun. Some people went back again and again. But other people going, yeah, we want to see someone fall from the sky. That's amazing. Like going to see a monster truck show or something, I guess. Same reason. Fuck him up. Tamor, like I said before, sue the producers eventually settled with them.

What did you see them for? I'm guessing it's like some sort of breach of contract or something. And she seems to blame Bono on the edge the most for the show's issues. Why? So they've had a real falling out. They were quite close and friendly. And I think... They were barely there.

They came in right for those sort of reasons. Okay. Well, fucking... Maybe attach a fucking safety thing. Oh, yeah. I don't think she's blaming them for the injuries more than... No, no. But I mean, like, of all the things that went wrong,

there aren't critics who are like, I mean, everything's perfect, but the music's trash. Yeah. It's not what's happening here. Right. It's that you're changing the script. Fucking. But I wonder if, I mean, in her mind, I wonder if she's like, if they were around

more, we could have worked out a more coherent story. Maybe. I don't know. I'm just the messenger, Jess. But also, I will defend Tamor to the death. And I will defend Bono to the dead. I just naturally love them all. I think I love them all and I just want them all to be successful.

Isn't it funny for me to have this underdog support for people like Bono on the edge? I'm like, oh, everyone has a go-at-em, you know? They're all right, aren't they? You're a real? You're all right. They're like multi-millionaires. Can't these little guys just have a bit of success? They don't need your pity.

No, I know. I don't know why I do it, but I really feel for them. You're a real Gar-Finkle. Yeah, I am a bit of a gar-finkle. I just wanted everyone to have a good time. They just, I don't know why they, it feels mean that they attract so much hate. But pay so little tax.

Am I right, Dave? Yeah, hell yeah. Stick it to him. Okay. I'm going to, I'll finish with these words from the co-writer of the show, Mr. Berger. He remained somewhat upbeat about it. He's probably been the one who's taught. Sorry.

You don't remember Mr. Berger? No. Mr. Berger. Neither of us remembered and we looked at each other like, well, telepathically, Dave and I spoke to each other just then said, do you remember Mr. Berger? And they said, I do not. Well, I called him Glennberger before, but now. Then I thought maybe it was Miss De Burger.

Christaberg? Yeah, and then I thought of Christaberg, Leading Run. Do I tell this story every time he comes up when I, like, it's not, it's one of those yet to be there moments. Every time he comes up, which is weekly at this stage. When I was in backpacking it and we're in Prague, no, we're in Krakow, one of my mates, all of a sudden we got the run of this bar, we're behind the bar, we're playing the music, we're pouring our own drinks. I don't know what happened.

Anyway, pollen's great. And then the lady in red came on. My males were in a red t-shirt and he took his shirt off and put her on a stool and then just started slow dancing with the stool. And I've never cried and laughed so hard.

Maybe not until that pack of loose dogs or whatever in one of those bonus episodes. Anyway, I'm glad I recounted that to you guys. That's beautiful. That was a nice moment. It's a lovely moment. That's lovely. And he fucked that chair.

And the chair fucked him. We went to Auschwitz that week. What a roller coaster. Yeah, wow. Wow. Big week. Miss De Berg or Mr. Berger. The burger.

Mr. the burger. So he seems, he's the one that's been talking the most. He's written a book about it. He's been on podcast and interviewed a lot. And this quote says, what gets lost in this story is how many people actually wound up loving the show. For a lot of people, because it was. Spider-Man, it was their first musical ever.

And for some, it was kind of a gateway drug. They were turned onto Broadway musicals in a way they hadn't been before. So he's sort of saying, this is kind of saved Broadway. In a way. In a way, in many way. Well, in our way. In a way, I am the king of Broadway. I am Mr. Berger.

Bow down to your king, Broadway. Did I mention, was this telling you off podcast, the reason it's called Turn Off the Dark is not clear from watching the musical apparently. But it was a phrase that one of the key decision makers' kids would say when he wanted his parents to turn a light on. Mommy, turn off the dark. And they go, that's real cute. That is cute.

Let's name this huge musical. But what has that got to do with Spider-Man? I guess the dark is badness is probably what they were thinking. But yeah, it doesn't seem to have any literal connection. Sounds bad. So do you have any idea what the plot was? like does Spider-Man have to beat? Is it like, you know?

It ended, well, it changed so much. Oh, right, of course. It changed so much. But in the end, I think it was pretty much just based on the first two of the big Spider-Man movies. It's been all that time, came up with their own superheroes, their own bad guys, all this script. And in the end, they just went, print the script off for Spider-Man one and two, staple them together and hand it to the cast. We're good to go.

I just, you know, did I mention it on the pot, I just bumped into Bree Williams and Mesa on the way here. and Brie saw it and she said they never even say it's an origin story for Spider-Man but they never even say with great power comes great responsibility and Uncle Ben's role is very small in it so it's not exactly the same apparently they've merged a few of the storylines I read somewhere that it was the Green Goblins storyline was kind of the merge between the Green Goblin from the movie and the Dr. Ock storylines maybe and I think at some point the big

fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin happened relatively early in the show and then someone, I'll learn this again from you talking you two to me apparently, so one of the stagehands or something said you should have the big fight sequence at the end of the show and then people were like, yeah, yeah, that does make sense.

Fuck, me. Give this stage hand a million dollars. Stop giving away money, first of all. I think because Mr. Berger wrote this scene where they were up on the top of the Empire State Building, and that's where the fight happened, and a piano fell off. And that's how the Green Goblin died, I think. Pretty cool stuff. I really want to see this.

And then he said, put it at the end, and they went, genius. Genius. Bree said it was, she was so excited to talk about it. And I said, so was it good? And she said, oh, my God, no. It was awful, but it was really fun to watch. Yeah, okay, yeah. I would hate watch it.

Like, I love to watch bad films on Netflix. Right. I live for it. Don't you and your friend have a special night where you did? Yeah, we did it on Friday. You get together? It's the best. Well, we watched the sequel to All the Boys I loved before or whatever.

It's called, like, To All the Boys I Still Love, P.S. Still Love You Part 2. Like, it's fucked. And it was, the first one was good. The second one. one trash. It was so bad, and then we watched something else terrible afterwards. One of our favorites that we've watched is a girl who has to move from California to Adelaide.

Here we go. I'm strapped. I'm assuming for a parent's work or something. And then she joins the gymnastics team at this high school and all the other high school girls are like very competitive because they want to get scholarships to college. Okay. First of all, we don't call it college here. Second of all, don't need scholarships.

Why was Adelaide written into it? So it's clearly an American script. No, there's one American in Adelaide. So it is an Australian movie. Yeah? I'm guessing funded by the state of South Australia. Who knows? They're like, yeah, we need to do gymnastics.

Tomorrow we're going to be performing for President Bush. I can't afford to go to college. Yeah, you can. You absolutely can. Spring break. everybody. Anyway, it was great. That does sound great.

And that brings us to the end of the report. Hooray! That was a ripper. I had a great time with that. I reckon I had more fun hearing about that than I would sing the show. Big time. I would sit there and just cringe. I do find, yeah, musicals I'm not, I've got a weird relationship with them.

I mean, I hardly have ever seen any, but when I have, they always feel a bit weird. Yeah. The Green Goblin vibe, it was kind of similar to the, not really, but a little bit similar the Buffy the musical bad guy which is one of my only touchstones for musical stuff also Annie, Little Offen Annie.

Of course. You love Little Off and Annie. Why do I smell Wet Dog? Great line. Even better than I've come down with the help of human shoes. Human shoes.

I need to specify. So that's so funny. brings us to the point of the show that everyone loves. It's called the fact, quote, or question section. The show, and you can get involved in this if you go to Patreon.com slash dig on pod. You can ask us a fact, a quote, or a question. You can't ask us two of those three,

but you can tell us the other two. If you join on the Sydney-Shaunberg Deluxe Memorial, Rest in Peace, Edition level. And this week, we have Phil Bougoirie. How did I not know his name yet? Bougoir? Bougoir. Is it?

Phil Bougoir. And you get to give yourself a title. And Phil's given himself the title of Senior Executive of Bleeping Out C, Bleep. That's good. I would really love it if you could do that role. Because then we could just start talking freely again. Yeah. We don't have to censor ourselves anymore.

As soon as we stop recording each week, I say, Cah! Real owner. Phil, I'm going to need you. Phil. Get Phil in. So Phil's given us a quote. And his quote is,

outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx. Good line. Had that on a bookmark at some point. As a kid, I thought that was so funny and also thought I was very sophisticated for understanding it. I think it is. I think it is a great line.

Do you think I was sophisticated though for getting it? Yes. Fuck yeah. No in Gracho Marx's work. Very sophisticated. That works in the top 2% of society. Yep. Thank you.

I think you might even get a phone call from... Mentza? No, no, I was thinking my friend Trudy. She just loves those kind of quotes. Oh. Jacket. Thank you so much. Phil Bujois.

Please don't give Trudy my number. Oh. Okay. Well. Jacoby the Angel. Chacobby. It's Jacoby. Jacoby Dangle.

I think it's Jacoby de Angel. Jacoby de Angel has given himself the title of writer, director, cinematographer, editor, producer, executive, producer, best boy and actor of the Dugan movie. I think that might have been your title last summer and a love consistency. I think Jacoby, when the Patreon group put together the birthday message for Jess and I, he was the one standing in front of the Hollywood. He was. Yes.

So I think he might be a. A well-connected movie mogul. Yep. So we appreciate him being on board. It's a kind of man we need on the team. The budget has already gone $75 million over. So we really need someone to put him in a box. Otherwise, it's going to keep getting bigger.

Jacobi's also given us a quote writing, Hey guys, I don't have anything too fancy this time around. This quote is from my favorite movie. See if you can guess it. Bracket or use the internet bracket. No, I shan't be doing that. I will guess. I've got the internet already here.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. Did you put that on a bookmark as well? Is that Groucho Marx? Lock it in. I had that on a bookmark. Is that Forrest Gump? No.

Starts with F. Vindezil. Do you know, Dave? Surely you know. What was the actual quote? Can I hear it again? In a sentence, in a sentence, please. Life moves pretty fair.

If you don't stop and look around once in a while, You miss it. If you think I know it, is it Terminator 2? It's an F movie. Ferris Bueller. Oh, of course. I said it in a weird voice, which maybe not realize who it is. Yeah, he says that to the audience.

Great film. Great film. Annoying, I assumed it was just a movie I hadn't seen. But it's one of my favorite films. It's great. It's a good movie. I love us so much. Love it.

Watch it frequently. Have you seen it? Yeah. Didn't love it. No, no, I don't dislike it. It's one of those ones that I've seen so long ago. Yeah, right. I know I've seen it.

I know a couple of the famous scenes, but I can't remember that's from my own memory or just pop culture. Bueller. Bueller, classic. A bit of stuff on the phone. Yeah. Pranking the principal or something. Yeah, a lot of that, yep.

So he's got a nice car. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cameron's dad's car. Mm-hmm. All right, I should, all right, I'll watch it. Let me watch it. Let's watch it together.

Yes. Come around. I'll put on some popcorn. Great. You're excited for that, But when I want to watch Terminator 2, you give me no acceptance. I'm up for it if there's popcorn. Very busy.

We're doing it for my Patreon bonus episode. Love it. Kane. It's going to be so much fun. Who's got the comfiest couch? It's not me. Is your couch not comfy? No, it sucks.

I'm getting rid of it when we move. It sucks so much. Sinks in the middle. No, what a shocker. It sucks. Sinks in the middle and a sea of spoon. A little bob blue with a man and the moon. Sinks in the middle son, I don't know when.

It's in the middle, son. I know what's in the middle sink, son. Sink, sink, sink, son, my son's a sink. I'd like to dedicate that to Jacoby. My son. My son, Jacoby. Jacoby. Jacoby of all trades.

So now we like to thank a few Patreon supporters. and normally Jessica has a little game to play. Oh, yeah. Let's name their musical after something a child would say. Oh, that's fun. All right. First off, I'd love to thank from Victoria, Meg Stevens. Meg Stevens.

The musical is, I did a poo. Sorry about that. Meg, about that. A kid would yell that. But it's not going to be just called I did a poo. It's going to be called I did a whoopsie. That's going to be called. I did a whoopsy.

I did a whoopo. I did a whoopo. I did a who. I did a who. I did a who. In brackets, I did a whoopsie. Yeah.

I mean, there's too many people on this project. Yeah, yeah. There's no bad ideas. There's no good ones. Sadly. There are no bad ideas.

Okay. Thank you so much, Meg. Good on you, Meg, Steven. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Also from Victoria, I'd love to thank Tim Williams. I don't know why.

We just gave you nothing there. Tim Williams. Tim Williams. Timmy Will. Timmy Will. All right. Danger Mouse. I did a whoopsie.

Good stuff. I don't know if you realize this, but that's one Dave just did. What do you mean? Okay, you want me to go again? Dave, give me Danger Mouse again. Okay. At my musical that I produced with the sponsorship of Tim Williams is Danger Mouse.

Piscetti. That made me hungry. The kid would say. Danger Mouse Piscetti Pass me the Piscetti Fantastic Tim, great musical Can't wait to watch it

Obviously the Piscetti has very little to do with the film But that's okay And also the musical too Yeah I'll thank some people also Please I would love to thank

From Queensland We've met in our shows In Brisbane I would love to thank Jessica Rahajou Oh, Jessica. Captain Planet.

Oh, there's a spider in my bed. Classic kids. I mean, these kids are really forming full sentences. I would say there's a spider in my bed. If there was a spider in my bed. Right. Well, if you could give an example of what you actually wanted when you came out with this game,

I would really appreciate that. No, no, no, no, no criticism. Just saying these are very advanced kids. Sorry. Sorry if that came across criticism for that dumb idea. Do you want to dumb it down? Yeah, dumb it down. Captain Planet, Spidey Bad Bad.

Great, yes, there we go. Now he's getting it. Finally. Thank you, Jessica. Thanks, Jessica. I'd also love to thank from San Antonio in Texas. Spurs country. I wonder if David Robinson is one of your neighbors.

Probably. And he's talking to you, Frank John Villarale. Don't worry, I think you got away with it. FJV. FJV. Wow. Maybe he knows Patty Mills, Australian basketballer, plays for the Spurs. I'm sure he knows him, I'm sure. Okay, so this one is going to be a film called Batman.

No, please. No please. That's nice. My friends just say yes, please and no please and her parents never corrected her because it was very cute. I think no please is great. No please. Batman, no please. Yeah.

No, please. Oh, that's good. That might almost make sense. You could have one of the. jokers, like a clown people, being tormented, tortured. And he said, no, please. But it also leaves it open to the review of being like, yeah, no one was pleased. Batman, no, please.

They got that right. Yeah. This whole movie was a whoopsie. Thank you, Frank. We appreciate it. Dave. All right. I would like to finally bring us home with a thing and a couple people now from Preston in Tasmania.

I would like to thank Thomas Jewel. Thomas Jewel. Thomas Jewel, who of course is producing the Top Cat musical. Top Cat. Can I have $5? Top Cat, can I have $5? A story of rags to riches. Yes.

And you've got to write it in that voice somehow. Yeah. No, it's just a different font. Yeah. Should be easy enough to do. Winy font. Yeah. A real whiny font.

Can I come to? Oh Great bit Great bit Thank you to all of our supporters Oh this one more There's one more But I've just lost the page

Oh well I've got it here If you want me to say it And then you can say it again Bring it up, bring it up who we got Who am I thinking Wow I don't know what all this means But from Portland, Oregon First name round

Second name Hill Pacific Round Hill Pacific Oh hang on No I think the name is after that Mina Northrop I like Roundhill specific Mina Northrop

Yes He's an adaptation From Portland Trailblazers country I wonder if she knows I can't Can you remember any Trailblazers plays No

Neither That's bad Nina I didn't even know her That's good stuff A kid would say that A kid would say that And that's the name of the

Dragon Ball Z musical. Drangamal Z. Hameena, I didn't even know it. That was, yeah, I remember like a real small version of like Bob Hope or something. Yeah. A child Bob Hope would have said. A little golf club. Yeah.

Just walking around. Very cute. So cute. So cute. Thanks so much to all our supporters. Yeah, thank you so much to everyone. Do we have any members of the Triptitch Club this week? Yes.

And Dave, did you see that on Twitter someone emailed us a font, a sparkly font that you can use. Yes, so it was a place to hang you. Cape, thanks so much for that, mate. Thank you, David. Sadly will not be required. Wait, this time. What do you mean not be required? Stand down.

I don't understand how that, what do you mean not be required? Dave. I appreciate that though. Appreciate. You appreciate? Appreciate the thought. It's the thought that counts. Okay.

But sadly will not be required. Mate, you're confusing me. We have four inductees this week into the la-di-da. Yep. Trip Ditch Club. Four. Black Tie only. Got it.

From Madison, West Virginia, probably. It's Tyler Thompson. Tyler Thompson. From Harlow, Essex in Great Britain. Jordan Elmer. Jordan. From Ontario, Canada. It's Kathleen Neves, Neves, Neves, Neves.

Wow, how many hyphens? Kathleen. Kathleen Neves. and from Frome in Somerset, Great Britain, as Will Waii. Well, Wai. Tyler, Jordan, Kathleen, Will, welcome. Ush, oz, oosh, oosh, oosh, oom.

Okay, I didn't know we do that every week, but I love it. We don't do it every week. This week is party week in the club. Ush, oz, oz, oz, o'j. There you go. Hope you enjoy that party. Now, everybody, get out. Clint, take some rubbish,

with you on the way out. Please. Many hands make light work. Thank you. Not too much to ask. Thank you so much all of you for you are, we are humbled by your presence. Thanks so much for coming in. It's good to see you in here.

Hopefully you enjoy touching the velvety things we have sprinkled around the place. So much. Yep. Touch it. We have four professional velvet shoppers at all times. Yep. Yep. We are.

Quite a few amateurs. That's right. We are so in debt. Our running costs here of $1.5 million a week. So, what was, does that bring us to the episode? What it does? Well, if people want to support us on Patreon, let's not forget that they can get some bonus episodes on there,

including our most recent one, which was a report on a very often requested topic, and that is golfer, businessman, extraordinary, Greg the Shark Norman. Yeah, what a roller coaster that was. That was a great fun report. It actually was really fun, and we used to say that there were many episodes, and sometimes people say, how long are they?

This one went for an hour. hour and most of them do so. If you want to get some bonus content any week and at the same time, support the show, you can do that at patreon.com slash do on pod. And anyone that does that. And we'll also put out the little commentary of the David Letterman Spider-Man clip that we just put up. Yeah.

That's a bonus. Just fun. It's a bonus. I would not say that is something that is worth you doing, especially. No, but it's there. We're not far off reaching our next goal on Patreon, at which time we will be recording phrasing the bar. Oh yeah, right.

The podcast that we have promised for years now. We go through the filmography of Brendan Fraser. Yeah. Frazier. I don't know how to say his name. I'm guessing we'll find out. You'll find that on episode one. Phaser.

Phaser. Yeah. Well, how good? We're getting close. Yeah. Relatively close. Wow, relatively close. Yeah.

What are we cousins? All right. That's good stuff. And also the signal that we are, or at least We've got to go. And beyond. Hey. You are beyond.

Hey, Dave. Hey, Jess. Can we turn on the dark? That means turn off the lights. No, no, Matt. Then we just need to get out of the room and then we can go to our homes. Oh, I just sit here in the dark normally. Oh.

What are you? What? Yeah, no. I assumed you were both there. Us two, yep. Hmm. Is that why you don't immediately turn off the dark when I ask you to? Turn off the dark.

Jess, Dave. One of you. Please turn off the dark. I can't see in here. Please, and can I have $5? I've done a whoopsie. You need to buy new pants. And yes, it has been a good time.

Yes, we've had fun, but all good things must come to an end. Please find us on Facebook and other social media as like Twitter and Instagram. What's this one called? At dogoonpod. At dogoonpod.com is the website. We own that. And at Gmail is the Gmail. Yes.

Send us an email and merch is on the website. Buy t-shirts. Come and do it. T-shirts and pins. Lots of fun stuff. I think I want to put my primates beanings on there too. Great. So if people want to do all their shopping in one hot top spot.

Hot top spot. One stop spot. I really hope. One stop spot. Just wrap it up. Let's get the fuck out of here. You're losing your mind. Thanks everybody.

Until next week, I'll say thank you. One-stop shop. Yes. And goodbye. Later. Bye. Turn off the dark. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network.

Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link.

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