Don't Blame Me! - SYNT: Wizard Rock

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Join Melisa and Meghan for a lively discussion of all things pop culture, from Mean Girls to the Hunger Games. Despite battling a sinus infection, Melisa is back with Meghan to dive into the latest pop culture trends. This week, they're taking a look at the Mean Girls Walmart commercials, the trailer for the upcoming Wicked musical movie, and the world of Harry Potter. Meghan is allowing Mats to finally getting to experience the magic of Harry Potter, and Melisa is discovering the wonders of Wizard Rock. They also chat about the movies they missed during the recent Hollywood strike, Meghan's deep dive into the Hunger Games and is preparing for her nephew's birthday, they also discuss the unfortunate demise of Omegle. Plus, they can't help but swoon over the charming Tom Welling. Tune in for a fun and entertaining podcast that's sure to make you laugh and learn something new. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

do you think they missed us oh they missed us so hard so hard but they have heard us twice before this comes out oh okay well i guess that's true but we missed us we usually record episodes in order but we're not today because of y'all don't need to know it's fine we're back are we better than ever I'm so sorry I know we're not filming this episode but like the fact that so Melissa and I were on video we're recording virtual if you didn't see the singular Instagram story that I posted explaining Melissa has a sinus infection and so we had skipped because she got really sick so we were not recording um and now I'm finally getting it like two weeks later um but more importantly we are recording virtual because Melissa is still coughing she's

still got some phlegm and so we're on video chat and she's just locking eyes with me while she's hawking a fucking loogie it's coming up i couldn't stop it so that's where you've been how are you feeling i feel fine i just still have all this phlegm in me so the coughing can't control it you need to have a bat night you just hang upside down get it all out and then all i think about is the blood rushing through my head i would pass out if i lean my head too far back i'm yeah i'm out what day is it today is tuesday and we are seeing you the next next tuesday it might be next next next next just next next we don't need to work that hard so um what's new with you let's catch up what is there to catch up on i've been sleeping a lot

yeah have you watched anything now we can talk about things that we're watching because the strike is over with for sag as well um the writer's strike's been over with for a few weeks but um yeah now we can talk about things what i'm most excited to talk about is i haven't watched anything like new new i started watching yelling the restless which i haven't watched since i was a child i can't the amount of fucking like television and movie suggestions i've given you and you are like let me start another soap which is the reason why you can't watch any of the other things because this will take up all your time yeah i'm catching up now um i'm almost caught up i've watched like the last two or three months and i'm almost caught up i'm like five days behind

um impeccable and that's an hour long one so it's uh longer um but you know it's it's weird because like i'll see somebody that's like i remember that person and then i go look at them like okay now i got the connections and i remembered um this one guy he's i couldn't I was like, this is still the same guy playing him. So when I was a little kid, I'd say I would have had to be like three or four. I remember that. I can't with you and your fucking infant memory. And so he I remember when he was like a baby because I was like and then they had like

aged him up to be a teenager. and I was like so that was my first like introduction to children being aged up on soap operas yeah um and so and then when I went back and started watching again I'm like he's still playing him still playing him he's 40 something years old now like 45 but I was I was always that was my thing is like he was like the same age as me and then now he's not anymore yeah that is always yeah that is always weird for you're like how did that happen so quickly i remember asking my grandmother she's like just go with it don't ask questions this is soap you need to really quickly learn that it's not it's not gonna always make sense yeah but um very excited about the uh

mean girls commercials that have dropped are you a little offended the one well when i say the commercials i'm specifically talking about the walmart ones oh okay trailer you don't mean the trailer where they say your mother this isn't your mother's mean girl and i'm like first of all i know that it's gen x and boomers that are doing these ads because we will be the ones we're gonna be the ones that will be in the movie theater and also like yes the children will be there but like it's still our mean girls it doesn't matter we don't have children who are seeing that movie I'm like it's literally I'm like unless you're explicitly only marketing to people who like got pregnant in high school or right after high school

like and that's I was gonna say that's what Arale is because she will be 17 and that's it but that's fucking it yeah I'm just like that's it's I didn't know that that was your target demo right children of young and teen moms and i'm just like okay i yeah for sure but like what no this is the millennials will be in the mean girls the musical we will be in their deep and like you're gonna have like a 16 year old asking their like 45 year old parents being like oh so like what was your mean girls and they're like what the thing is era still likes our mean girls like it's not it's That's what I mean. I'm like,

you're going to have to, it has to be like a 12 year old who's asking their like very old parents, like what was your mean girls? And they're like, what are you talking about? You have both the mean girls. Neither of those are mine. Right.

No, but the, the Walmart commercial is. There's two. Have you seen the second one? What's the second one? There's one where it's just Gretchen and her family. Oh no,

I haven't seen that one yet. Um, yeah, that one came out yesterday. Um, as soon as I get on Tik TOK, that's all I get are the, it's a mean,

it's either the trailer for the musical or the walmart ads but there's another one and um sujia do you follow her on yes tiktok she had pointed out she was like you know she's like i'm because she's asian she's like i noticed like when i see asian people um in things and she's like i noticed that gretchen's children are asian and then she was like this is a callback to and then the movie where gretchen is thinks that she's asian now yep and i was like this so the um commercial is just her like sitting down with her family and like having breakfast or whatever and oh i think i saw still stills from that so rachel gc rachel mcadam statement or her team statement they were like why isn't she in it and they just said she was busy and i was like yeah why did anyone ask

her team for it like like what is the other right like she was busy and also the budget that was the amount of money they spent so much money they said fuck the super bowl yeah who cares and and they're right they're yeah they are right because their demo they know where we were looking at it without a doubt i'm really like happy about all this stuff that's happening i'm impressed i will say with the trailer of the musical um why are there no songs i think that they're trying to like not let people know i know and i'm like don't greatest showman this to me because like at least i know this musical but like the greatest showman really bamboozled and then i got there and suddenly we're we're tapping our foot and we're snapping and i've i've locked

into the ride of a lifetime so i it's just odd because people also already know the song like it's an established i don't know any songs from it no but i mean like it is like it's it's an established broadway show and like a project so like it is those songs so i'm like it's not like you're revealing things that people don't know i truly think that they're trying to just like get people in the seats without knowing that it's a musical yeah so they threw in some olivia rodrigo songs i'm like why is olivia rodrigo singing when renee rap is on screen i saw somebody posting talking about how like oh they're trying to make Regina the star of this and I was like no that's not what they're doing in the first one Lindsay Lohan was the biggest name at the time

so then she was the one that was promoted the most in and and she wanted to be Regina so if she would have been Regina they would have been promoting Regina the most in the first one in the second one renee rap is the biggest name so they are promoting that character the most but i also think regina george is the main character of yes the movie that's what i'm saying it's because lindsey lohan was the biggest name yeah that was oh yeah that's why katie was by default but it was never gonna be it's not katie's it's regina george you don't have this without regina uh-huh okay that makes sense yeah yeah i agree with that yeah i'm excited to i'm excited to see it i'm excited to talk about things that we're watching again um i'm so excited to announce everybody that

i have been making lots re-watch all of the harry potter movies from the beginning we've never watched them together and he's like now you're finally ready and i was like yeah i just now know that you're gonna take it seriously he's like eight years no how long nine years i don't know how long i feel like it was more i don't know how long we've been together now oh i thought you meant as far as the movies coming no no it's like over time it's a that's like a long time they just had their special i posted eight um think i literally just look at my instagram like when did i post my anniversary he's like eight years in now i'm finally worthy to watch harry potter with you and i was like yeah i like you know i needed to need to know that this was serious he goes yeah for

sure an engagement you need to be engaged for like two years how long have y'all been engaged i don't know a while um but so we have been starting to watch it and then i find out that this man has watched the first three did not watch four five and six nor part one of seven watched part two of seven or he thinks he might have watched part one of seven but not both of the final ones and i was like that's so chaotic and weird so we've been re-watching them and it's a it's a wonderful time because like it's so so like you can see uh as an adult when you watch them again like oh damn like jk rowling is really racist and problematic and some and the in these now that you are older you're at least for me a white kid picking up on it a lot more

um and then there are things that i'm like wow she's some things very good at really building these worlds and then there are other things that i go this makes no sense like quidditch i love quidditch quidditch makes no sense the fact that you can catch a ball that essentially renders their entire rest of the game useless is like that doesn't make any fucking sense like that is not a fucking thing it makes so much sense that it is an actual sport now i know i played it in high school why didn't you tell me that when i told you about the book that i directed well because i didn't like really play i just joined the team i thought we were gonna have march we didn't but um it's so serious i know which i like can't

get behind like that's why i could never be an athlete like i can't i can't take anything that seriously like i just and it's a fault of my own like i truly just can't um but uh yeah and it reminded me because we just watched the fourth one and it reminded me that i used to listen to wizard rock yep i like the dramatic pause i'm sorry what yeah i used to listen to wizard rock what is that um it's like think of how do i even compare it like so in the fourth book and movie they have a thing called the yule ball and there's like a band that comes and i don't think it's the first first reference but it's the first reference in the movie of um the fact that like the wizarding world has different entertainment content than like the muggle world and so it's like a you know

a rock band of wizards and so naturally fandoms then started having people make bands and they would sing about the wizarding world and things but like what kind of music is it i mean i've read like as you know i've read all the books so i've never seen any in the movies so what kind of music is it it's i mean some of it is like incredibly bad but it's just an attempt at like it's a mix of like shitty attempted like some people try and attempt like medley like scream out like like a more intense version and then some people would do more of a like whiny like oh my mom locked me in the closet and i'm so mad and like that music like a little bit but like not in like the necessarily good sense but some of them are good and i have to say there are a couple

wizard rock christmas albums that were pretty fucking fire and they would sing about like professor snape graded me badly on my potions so they actually like quoted things from the movies yeah but they were like they were like cosplay like it'd be like harry and the potters ramus and the lupins so is it like it's like blink 182 went to hogwarts okay so it says it's a type of novelty rock music themed around harry potter franchise it was popular in the early 2000s it initially started in massachusetts with harry with harry and the potters characteristics um the reference they're written from the point of view of particular characters in the books usually the character who features the band's name in contrast to mainstream bands that have songs

incorporating literary references among a wider repertoire of music wizard rock bands take their inspiration entirely from the harry potter universe when they are performing live wizard rock bands often cosplay or dress as characters from the novels and they perform a fan convention okay i mean it's it's fan fiction for musicians exactly i got it they can't like write fan fiction so they write music i i it's not for me but i totally understand it and then when you're writing fan fiction to kind of get into the mindset you listen to some wizard rock throw that on your playlist makes sense yeah makes sense to me so it's so nice to be able to talk about these things again i know was there anything that we wasn't we never talked about barbie

we did we did a whole well i did it from my perspective but you haven't i hadn't even seen it you hadn't seen it yet maybe we'll re-watch barbie and then we'll do a but am i watching episode yeah everyone can talk about barbie hell yeah hell yeah i didn't really go see anything except for dick's musical yeah except for that which we talked about yeah neither of us saw oppenheimer yet and i don't plan on ever seeing it i can watch it in the comfort of my own home over the span of a couple days but i am not going i have said i refused sorry to that man christopher nolan i will not be seeing your movies in theaters anymore because they are too loud and so long and also they say that it's like four movies in one and you jump in storylines

that's i i'm happy for them and people either beautiful gowns or hate gowns but it's just like but it's just like i i know that like that is not a time for me to be in the theater and like i should have done that when i went to go see dunkirk like i knew deep in my soul that like i was not meant to see this movie in a theater and i did and i went there and i regretted it immensely do you know where i saw dunkirk on an airplane where it should have been watched yes that's where it should be washed like and i say that with like i'm not saying it's like a bad movie or anything like that but i'm just like this movie needs to have like a personal volume setting and you need to like you don't need to see it in surround sound with like all of these other

people and like you can see it on a small screen that's fine that's fine yep interstellar is one of my favorite movies of literally all time so this is not that like i'm a hater like i think interstellar should be seen in a movie theater i think interstellar should exclusively be seen in a movie and then when you go when you rent it or if you buy it i think that with that they should just pop up a movie theater inside of your home so you can experience it like i made mods watch it for the first time and he was like what the fuck is this and i was like i told you like you're and he's like i think about this movie all the time now i was like i know you've been plagued with it and the biggest regret that i have is that like he was not able to see it

in theaters and so if they ever put it back in theaters our asses are in those fucking seats in there so good so good what other things have we missed being able to talk about i mean i finished watching ugly betty and i was really the only thing that i was watching that wasn't a soap opera i'm devastated that i can't post because i didn't film it because i was like who knows when the strike will end but i made mods watch the final um twilight movie and he was like this is like and there's like a big twist at the end which anyone who's seen it knows and he was like are you why are you censoring it because like if you haven't seen it like i literally think people should watch this entire series solely for that moment because it is the most frustrating piece

of cinema ever and monster's like are you fucking kidding me and i go that's what i wanted to watch as he goes you want me to watch the entire fucking series so i could just be pissed off that they did this and i go yeah and he was like i can't believe you and i was like what do you mean of course this is of course what i would do um and he was like this was atrocious this is so fucking weird and i was like you know isn't it great um oh the other thing that i didn't even i wasn't able to say we watched all the hunger games movies and i've been back in my hunger games bag like i am back i am just watching fucking interviews of josh hudgerson and jennifer lawrence like my entire fucking youtube algorithm is just that like i'm obsessed with them i love them i'm fully back in my fangirl

era which is perfect because the new one of songbirds and snakes i think that's what called that's coming out i haven't read the book yet if anyone has read the book let me know if i should read the book before i watch the movie because i don't remember how well this book did i want to say that some people really liked it other people like didn't at all so i don't know if it's one that i should wait and hold off to watch but it has rachel zegler who i am now having to become a huge fan of because other people hate her so much that i that like it is now making me be like i'm about to advocate for this girl i'm about to bleed out for this girl i i didn't know i was wondering what people were asking jennifer lawrence if she would like continue to play

Katniss if there was something, and now because there's a new one coming out. Got it. Got it. I was like, this seems so random. It's totally different timelines, though. Yeah. Not for me. You didn't like those? You know I was on that other. I know. It's so weird.

Because I then made Monswatch Divergent, and he was like, well, this is just shitty Hunger Games. And I go, yeah. Yeah. It is. You liked that Petit Boy, didn't you? P.O. James? He's not petite. Did you watch? You didn't watch white lotus white lotus that man is thick that man is petite he is thick he's petite in stature

which first of all you can't be a thick man without being petite unless you are a linebacker like there's only there's like you can't be like shack is thick and tall and he is not a linebacker but he's linebacker adjacent professional i'm saying like too tall to be professional athlete no he would be a liability on the field like he would be like oh no um but he also was very skinny when he was playing basketball though theo james is so hot um but i told you the only reason i saw them is because they came out and i had free birthday tickets yeah so you're not really a fan i'm not a fan i just would go because they were that's when they came out it's so yeah he's six feet tall which means he's 5'10 yes Aubrey Plaza's 5'6 how tall do you think she was I think

she's probably like a 5'7 5'6 isn't a real height to me like you're either 5'5 or you're 5'7 okay yeah there's no logic here just vibes I'm just looking at pictures of Theo James he's handsome have you been doing anything you've been prepping for christmas i have been prepping for christmas um while simultaneously realizing that uh i have to build my entire birthday gift for our nephew thankfully matz is going golfing this weekend so his birth like our nephew's birthday is uh tomorrow and we aren't going to be able to be at the like first it's like a kid's birthday party and it's all just like parents and kids and so they're like do you want to come like we just

will we usually do like a family one and then he does one with those like other school friends and stuff so we're doing a family one next weekend so i have time to build it but um i haven't started yeah it's a little ikea kitchen and he's talking about this i feel like since his last birthday I literally bought it we I've been talking about it for you're right like since his last birthday and we got it months ago and Mats was just like I mean you don't have to build it yet because I keep forgetting his birthday it's November 10th I always forget and think it's October 11th like I switch the numbers like 10 11 to 11 10 um and so I was like oh you're right you're right you're right and that got in my head so much that now it is November 9th and I have not

built it yet and i just bought the paint for it because i'm also gonna like you know paint it and like make it all cute i don't know if i'm gonna do a backsplash yet because who knows if i have time for that um but that is gonna be my hopefully my weekend plans so i'm pretty excited about that i'm really excited for him to see it and we saw him last weekend and he was so excited like i was like oh my god and it's because you know his little sister was just born so there's not a lot of he's not getting a lot of activities or human interaction besides his parents who's splitting the time with his sister he was so excited to see me that i was like oh my god i love this keep popping out baby so he's so fucking stoked to see me like this is great and we had our dance party

i showed him olivia rodrigo he was entranced he was like when you pick your next song you can pick another one of these songs and i was like yeah you like this olivia rodrigo but you like these bangers don't you my guy um and then when we were leaving he was like holding my hands and kind of bouncing them in his hands and he goes what street do you live on i was like what and he's like very into memorizing streets and so like he will reference streets like i'm like you're such an la kid like he'll be like we were in traffic on this street and i'm like i bet you were i'm like that's funny so it was very cute so i'm excited for him to uh oh and then i have to bake him a cake so i've bitten off far more than i can chew but that's my vibe um what kind of cake are

you making chocolate cake and then originally it was going to be a walrus okay a panda walrus owl was it just panda walrus owl panda walrus owl i think those were history animals there one more that i'm forgetting um and now he's over that and he's into paw patrol which he's never seen he doesn't he just knows the characters from hand-me-downs or friends clothes and stuff so now he wants a paw patrol cake and so i'm like cool i'll just pick up a little figurine of one of those little dogs chase yeah and stick it on so hopefully it'll be good oh are you gonna make that chocolate you should make that chocolate cake you made for my birthday because that was bomb oh yeah maybe i will do that i was thinking i should probably make because we'll be doing it

after that birthday and i don't know i don't know if anyone's parents are coming into town if i need to make something small or we'll see i'm excited for him he's pretty stoked and he he was he i was like saying i was like what's your job like it's a big brother he goes my job is to keep her safe and i was like that is so sweet and his mom goes and how do we keep her safe and he goes by not poking her in the nose or the eyeballs or the mouth and i go oh okay this is this is why that we this is how we do that i was like you're being so sweet and i was like oh this is a lesson we're learning that we don't poke the baby in the nose and the eyeballs in the mouth and we uh portray it as if this is yeah and he's like telling me like don't poke her in the nose and i'm like

wasn't planning on it thanks for sharing but yeah some oh that omegle got shut down i know did you read the article i didn't read the article but there's two people that i follow on tiktok that that's like their whole thing is like only like talking to people on omegle i'm like now you don't have anything anymore yikes it's hard when you really hone in that niche to be super specific yeah the creator did a like final words kind of thing on the website and it's intense and like interesting in the sense well it taught it's like it's long i haven't i haven't even finished at this point but like it really talks about um like that in terms of like what we go to for protecting people's safety in a way of policing uh essentially

not correcting people's behavior but instead like trying to mitigate and change these things from occurring without the real root cause which is you know misogyny and the patriarchy and it's very much kind of like and it alludes it to basically saying that by removing these things it is telling people to dress more modestly like telling people to not put themselves in these situations and these that that to be in these in these circumstances of you know sexual abuse sexual assault or harassment or whatever um and just telling people that oh we will remove this website and therefore that won't happen anymore and i was like oh that's very interesting moth didn't even know what omegle was i was like do you want chat roulette is

and he was like yeah and i was like okay so at least at least we're not i didn't i knew what chat roulette was but it was i found out what omegle was one time when we were recording we were in um office number three i believe um and i forgot who we were talking to who was the guess but that's when i learned what omegle was because i knew what chat roulette was oh that is yeah that is wild i guess that's i always in my mind omegle was first but i guess i guess not so much oh i will say we did i released a few uh classic episodes um and people forgot that episode with bows is a classic like true classic and people thought how chaotic it was

I got the push notification and I forgot how chaotic it was and I was like I'm gonna go back and listen to this I was like how have we not repeated this one like we've never repeated it well I think it was it was in our final studio pre-covid that is right yeah

so do you ever see cheaper by the dozen the original I've seen bits and I know that I've seen it but I can only remember it in bits and pieces we're different ages so he wasn't a sexual awakening to you but do you remember your first like movie or television show where you watched and you were like i this is this is this is this is a primal instinct my body is

reacting to this if you're talking about the dude that played superman yes um i he was not like a because i was i believe i was like 15 when that came out so my juices were already going but when i saw that he was like he because i love superman already yeah and then when i saw that image of him where he's like in the cornfield uh-huh with the s the superman diamond s on his chest it did something to me in a way that like i i i just like i don't it was just like as a community i think that like we need to do more to support him because he did that for all of us like it is a universal experience if you are attracted to men that it is it is just everybody he did this for everyone and i'm like i need to give you your accolades sir like what

what lifetime achievement award can we give you for this and like what are you doing now how do i support your career that was a nice catch-up it was a nice catch-up a wonderful amazing time and this is not as much of a catch-up to all of you because you have talked to us since but it's the first just know it's the first thing we're recording back and we're excited to be back we're excited yay hoorah yay well we will see you next tuesday bye