Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP18 - Feat. Brian Enck - Electric Boogaloo

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Comedy and Chill: Brian Enck Discusses Upcoming Special and Overrated Trends In this episode of Good News York, hosts Mike Brindisi and Matt Maser welcome back their first-ever repeat guest, comedian Brian Enck. They discuss the ongoing cold April weather, Brian's upcoming comedy special 'Letters Are Hard,' and dive into the logistics of recording a stand-up show. Brian shares insights into the art of stand-up, including the importance of good takes, crowd engagement, and the struggles of joke perfectionism. The episode also delves into Brian's charitable initiatives tied to the show, supporting Syracuse Pride, the Patty Foundation, and ACR Health. The trio engages in a lively segment of 'Overrated/Underrated,' covering topics from pizza slices and beach vacations to Steve Buscemi's underrated roles. The episode wraps up with a discussion on how audience dynamics impact comedy performances and promotional details for Brian’s special taping. To listen or watch, subscribe on all major podcast platforms. 00:00 Welcome Back to Good News York 00:45 Introducing the Guest: Ryan the Comedian 01:05 Preparing for the Comedy Special 01:30 The Art of Stand-Up Comedy 04:11 The Creative Process and Deadlines 07:51 Recording and Distributing Comedy Specials 14:39 Charity and the Patty Foundation 27:05 Overrated and Underrated: Pizza and Video Games 32:14 Underrated Games Discussion 33:27 Trains: The Underrated Mode of Transport 35:13 Las Vegas Hidden Gem: Pinball Hall of Fame 37:31 Overrated and Underrated Movies 37:51 Superman vs. Batman Debate 39:08 The Genius of Batman: The Animated Series 44:30 Overrated Beach Vacations 45:18 The Joy of Doing Nothing on Vacation 50:41 Steve Buscemi's Versatility 53:41 Podcast Wrap-Up and Announcements

You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog.

If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your site. Start free at RSS.com. Hey folks, welcome back to good news, York.

It's still April or it is April and it's still cold. Still cold. And I don't understand that. But there's no good news in that other than it should be ending soon. Look. And it gives me an excuse to wear my new hoodie. Yeah. So I'm a hoodie connoisseur.

So I guess I don't necessarily hate that. Being a weatherman is like the only job you can keep and be wrong all the It's a low of 45 and a high of 97. But it's what am, what do I wear? Anyway, enough about that. I'm Mike Brindisi. This is Matt Mazer. What's up?

To me, back. It's our first repeat guest. I think he is. First ever repeat guest. Our returning champion. Comedian extraordinaire. He kept knocking on the door. Please let me back in.

He did. He did. He's like a cat. We fed him once. And he's waiting here every morning. And I love you. And I'm so glad you're here. You've got a big. You're shooting a special.

11 days. In 11 days, April 12th at the McCarthy Mercantile Building in downtown Syracuse. In the name of the special, letters are hard. You've got to come to this. I'm obviously going to be there. Two shows, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. I love that you're doing that. Let's jump right in.

Why are you doing that? Why am I doing two shows? Yeah, yeah. I know, but I'm going to pretend I don't know. Most tapings, they usually will do four shows, actually, or even more. I think Tom Sigora said that he did. eight and really what it comes down to is you want to get it on the right take and sometimes something will happen something will come up audiences now definitely are and god bless them i don't particularly

hate it is there's a lot more crowdwork in stand-up yeah and stuff like that so i think that they're expecting sometimes a bit more engagement and specials usually unless it's a crowdwork special is about the material. Yeah. So, you know, you want to get in a good take. Things can go wrong. Things can happen. So we're doing two just to be safe. My last half hour, I had to cut out two jokes that I really liked, just because I fumbled over one. And then the other time I had that crowdwork engagement. And so just having two to be able to try it once. Maybe I'll get, again, back to Tom Segura. I think out of the eight, he said he got it on the second one. And then the rest he could just have fun with. So, yeah, that's why you're doing too.

smart. It gives you more to work with. Everybody wins. Yeah. If you can't get into the first show, you can get into the second show and vice versa. Have you ever gone the route? I feel like you, this would be a chance, a leap of faith, but I feel like I want to, it could have, it could happen. Have you ever done it to where you're like, you know what, at 7 p.m., I'm going to tell this joke with this punchline, but I also like this punchline for it, so I'll try that in the 9 o'clock show. Are you doing that at all? I've done that with not shows that I'd be recording, but I've done that on shows. There was a club in Times Square called LOL, and they had three rooms, three rooms that they would fill with like 100 people.

It was crazy that they were able to get it. And we, you'd have six comics just run. It was like Scooby-Doo when they go through doors and stuff like that. So you'd get off stage. Someone would open the door to the next room and you'd run in to be able to get on stage. And so sometimes you could definitely be like, okay, I'm going to try this punchline here. It's awesome. But then it also became like a cloud of comedy where I'd be looking at a crowd and I'd be like,

did I do this joke yet? I literally just did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done that before. I love toying around with different punchlines. And it's been really fun working. Like I've jumped on every show that I can and every mic. And so it's fun working with a lot of the comics in the scene, like a lot of new comics.

talking about punchlines and what if you did it this way have you thought about that and so it's really i love that process and that part of it so yeah i remember when i was i because i and i did comedy i don't know why i can't speak today mad i'm like five strokes already on the air you know what sorry brian deep breath no so i've i've had moments where in music and in comedy. But I've always felt like when I was, when I wrote a song, I was never satisfied because I thought,

there's fucking 80,000 more melodies I could have came up with. And what if the one I'm sticking with is not the one that is the best melody for this? And in jokes, I feel like I go through that sometimes too, where I'm like, the setup could be better. It's all part of the process, but it just drives you crazy sometimes.

Do you find that? Yeah. And I work. in TV for a while as a producer and when you're on the other side of it and there is a time crunch when there is you're the one kind of setting the deadline. It definitely helps, I think, with the process because without it, things could always keep going. You hear about these directors who have been working on a film for 12 years and it just keeps spiraling. And it's because no one said, hey, it's got to be done by Tuesday. And so I think sometimes you just,

putting it as it is. I'm always surprised that a stand-up hasn't done a retooling of some of their older material. I'm surprised at Seinfeld. I know he did a special where he did all of his old material and talked about that process, but it would have been interesting to see what 55-year-old Seinfeld would have done with this joke versus what he was doing when he was 20. So that's always interesting to me to see if people would go. Because there's tons of jokes.

I would have gone back and done. differently or punched up differently or put somewhere else. Yeah, one of my favorite stories I actually, I probably told this on the air, so I forgive me if I have. But to your point, I was in the studio with my band when I was doing music for a while. And we were like in the 11th hour of this song. And it was the last song to go on the record. And I kept saying, let's do this.

And the producer finally looked at me and he goes, use that shelf over there. And there was a shelf of CD. at the time. And he's, every single one of those albums was recorded here. He's,

the only reason they were finished is because we either ran out of time or we ran out of money. He's, I could have sat, I could still be sitting here

today tweaking the song. It's like an artist with a canvas, like you wake up, you walk by and you go, oh, okay. You can always brush it up and you're so right,

and especially in the ADHD world, you get it, deadlines are everything. The worst thing someone could tell you is, eh, just get it to me whenever. Yeah. Because whenever is like the worst

for me, Oh, yeah. We talked about this last time I was on. Did we? No, just the scheduling and how, particularly this one, however the special turns out, I'm already happy with myself for immediately jumping into tasks, not waiting until later, scheduling it out. And that's such a big part of that process. But yeah, I think you just got to be able to say, I got to have it done by this time. And that's the best version of it. It is. I wanted to ask you this last time.

so glad you're here again. Obviously, Brian Inc. recording his special letters are hard at the McCartney, McCarthy Mercantile in downtown Syracuse, 12th, two shows, 7 and 9 p.m. What day the week is that? Saturday. Saturday. Saturday, yeah. We love Saturdays.

So the question I wonder about is back in the day, you never, the comedian never really dictated when they got the special because it was, you worked at stand-up, worked doing your stand-up and hopefully one day a network would approach you and say, we want to shoot you, shoot a special. Now, just like the music business, in the comedy world, in the podcast world, you just put your stuff out there and you run the show. From your point of view, as a comedian myself, I'm asking, when do you know, you know what? I think I'm at that point where I can record a special.

I know you've already recorded a special, but like when do you know? I think I have, it's, what's my time? Oh, it's when you, and I did this today, it's when you go in the fridge and say that pork shoulder's going to go bad if I don't cook it. And these jokes are going to go bad for me. They're going to go to a place where I'm like, I've done them so many times. And they don't have the pop anymore with the audience because they don't have the pop with me anymore. I'm not excited to do these jokes.

And right now, I love these jokes, but I know in the next month or so I'm ready to move on to other material. And so that's what it is when you just reach that point where you're like, this is going good. Let's do it before I start getting bored with these stories. And it's also my last special, I talked about being in a relationship that's before I met my wife. It was years before I met my wife. And it's funny to see, because. I'm uploading those clips to promote the special also, I've been getting messages from people who are like, Lectrami's not from Philadelphia. I have a joke about dating a girl from Philly

and everyone's like, your wife's not from Philly. I'm like, I know this, I need to put a timestamp on this. This is from before. And so there's, I'm going to be reaching stages in my life where I'm like, oh, I'm not going to do this joke anymore because I'm going to start talking about what it's like to be not a newlywed, but like a married guy and a dad and that stuff. So right now, this whole thing, this whole special feels, and it's talking about a few things, but it really is newly married, being in an interracial marriage, which is super funny. And moving up to Syracuse, I talk about how different it is from New York City. And then just all these jokes feel really good to me right now. And I'm ready to leave them there and move on to the next stuff. So that's when

you just like, if I don't do it now, this meat's going to spoil. No, that's a great, that's a great metaphor and application for that. What do you do with a special like this? Is this something that you now make available and have folks get from your website? Is it, do you try to sell it to Netflix? How does this work? There's a few ways to do it. The last one, I didn't really shop around.

It was mid-pandemic. I'm sure I could have, but I just wanted it up. And I also know I'm a no name, so I just wanted it out there. It's not like people where I can't. You're not a no name. I'm somebody. You are somebody to someone.

I think with this one, I'm going to do more of a push to work with a production company. There are so many you hit on it that there's so much self-produced artists right now and podcasts and music that I do think that there are smaller scale production companies that are working with those, not so. smaller scale in a bad way. It's like shopping local versus shopping Walmart. There's more local production and it's interesting where the deals, and it's not about the deals, but it's interesting where the stuff's going. I think Hulu has a really good model right now of Bill Burr, Roy Wood Jr.

We're going to talk about later, underrated comedian. Roy Wood Jr. is the most underrated comedian living right now. But Hulu's deal is you put it on our platform. you get to put it on your YouTube channel, which is super smart for them because the Hulu stamp will be there. So you're going to bring Roy Wood Jr.'s audience into Hulu's verse. Hulu's verse is going to go to Roywood Juniors.

And a lot of comics were self-producing on YouTube because they wanted to have the rights to their contract. And a couple production companies that I've talked with, they've had that where they're like, every year we renegotiate. If you want to try to send it somewhere else, you can, but it can live on our platform, and every year we renegotiate versus in perpetuity throughout the universe forever and all time. So I think it's a really interesting place where the business side of the art is going,

and I think that can only help the artist create what they authentically wanted to do. I think we'll see a lot more of stuff funded and shot by the artists and then shared with a production company. So that's very interesting because that's what I was going to actually ask you. When I hear the words production company, I assume they are the ones who have to show up and shoot the thing and all that. We definitely had one in particular, we had that offer for them to fund it and produce it. But in that world, it's percentages change a lot as well as stand up because I think I did the first one. I know what that budget looks like.

I know what that timeline looks like. So I knew I could do it myself. Sure. If I if one of the scripts I'm working on gets picked up, that's something that I would not. I would say, no, no, no, you have that. I don't know that world. I don't know how to create that. So it just, it's what you feel like.

You guys knew that you could do a podcast because you knew the nuts and bolts of it. But if I was like, hey, we're going to go into, I don't know, we're going to go into a paint installation. You'd be like, we should have someone else do that. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this.

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Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com Not ours. Yeah. No, that's incredible. I've always wondered how those sorts of things worked. So I think it's neat that you're able to put these things together,

but then get the opportunity to get it in these massive audience. You're right. It definitely was you got big either on a light night spot or something like that. And then you worked out a deal with a place and you did your half hour, whether it was Comedy Central or HBO. or wherever it was. And now there's a lot more and you just go where the audience is also.

And the audience is watching more stand-up on social media and on YouTube. And you just go where that is. Moth to Flame. That's complete sense. That's awesome. Now, this is not only just a comedy show for you and for the crowd.

Let's talk about the Patty Foundation again. Yeah. This is part of what makes this. There's a charitable component to this whole thing. There's a charitable component. Not just me, the charity. No, not just you. Me too.

Not your typical stand-up charity. Right. The proceeds are going to the Patty Foundation, a late friend of yours we talked about last time. Syracuse Pride is involved and ACR Health. You want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I know Syracuse Pride in particular, and the guy who runs that Jimmy is a fantastic,

guy he has been taken on pride forever and this year in particular it's we know the lay of the land right now like they're having a really hard time with pride and it is he told me there are corporations that funded last year that aren't funding this year because they're not being encouraged or you could even say pressured into helping this community as well as he said that there are some that are afraid to help donate to pride and stuff like that. And at the end of the day, it's just ridiculous. So we're going to send some of the money to Syracuse Pride. Some of the money is going to the Patty Foundation, which again takes care of LGBTQ youths. And then the ACR health just got on board. We're going to work with them also. They actually found out about us through this

podcast last time that I was on. And they literally have. housing for kids that have been kicked out of their families and their homes just for being gay. And we're going to raise money to make them even gayer. We're going to make them. No, these kids. You thought we could pray the gay away. We're praying the gay back in. We're praying when they goes, you know, when Dragon Ball, when they go Super Sam.

Yeah, yeah. We're going to, we're going to do that. But great. So, no, but we're going to, these kids. Rainbows are just going to be emanating across town. Everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere.

And you guys should definitely have Jimmy on. I'll connect you guys because he's great. And yeah, it's just, we're going to be able to send money to a place where this shouldn't even be a question anymore that they need help and to be taken care of and celebrated and danced with and all those beautiful things. So. Let them live their lives. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, I think that's wonderful that you're including a charity and the Patty Foundation. that let's talk about Patty. He was a good friend of yours. Yeah. I want to bring it up again because I just, I love this man and I never met him. Oh, my best friend in the whole wide world, Patrick Cockhill, he, a beautiful guy and very funny. He would have loved this huge nerd, huge Bills fan, film fanatic, and the sweetest

nicest guy and the meanest queen in the whole wide world. And he just cared so. so deeply about what he called his community. And I think for a lot of people in that community, the LGBTQ, you have your group of people who are your people who love superhero stuff. You have that stuff, but sometimes also always feel like you don't have. And he just wanted to take care of these kids who were, through no fault of their own, having terrible circumstances put upon them.

And so after he passed away, we had time to miss him. And then his boyfriend and I just, we reached a point where we were done missing him. And we wanted, always will miss him. But we wanted to have it be a more active thing. And I think that's why a lot of people do charities about people who have passed. Because in this way you get to talk about them in the present. And so it may be the selfish thing for me. It might just be the selfish thing for me and Jake to want to talk about Pat and the current.

Yeah, it just, it's just this thing that we wanted to do to, if he was still here, he'd be doing exactly this. So that's just what we wanted to do. And yeah, it's been great. And it's a great part that this has already brought up the ACR health, who have been boots on the ground doing this beforehand. I'm a new tourist to this community. And so I am so glad that there's people who are like, yeah, we've been fighting this fight for a while. We'd love to help out and stuff like that. So I would definitely say I'm sure you guys will put links in.

If you can't make the show, the Eventbrite has places to donate like $5 and your credits go into the special. And then I'm sure you guys can link ACR Health, Syracuse Pride, all these things. And yeah, it'll be. It's just places if you can't make it, put that money there because we want to help these people out. That's fantastic. I love it. And this also allows me to do all the gay. jokes that I want. You get a free car. You're allowed to just gay it up. I can't wait to see the

comments that are like, that's not what this means. What are you doing? So let's talk about that's the charitable part of it. But where can people get, I know we're going to give away some tickets, but where can people get tickets to your show on April 12th at the McCarthy Mercantile? It's on Event Bright. And I would definitely say if you're thinking about going grab tickets and pick a show. There's a 7 p.m. and the 9 p.m. show and grab that just so we know how to seat the room. It's this beautiful open space. And if we see that there's 75 people at the first show, then we'll seat it a certain way. So definitely grab the tickets. It helps us out to organize it and how we go from there. But yeah, we have tickets for you guys to give away. But Event Bright,

I'm sure you guys will have a link on there. Tickets, I think, are $8 comes to $10 with Eventbrite's cut. So very much for a beer. That's beyond reasonable. Yeah. And I think if you've never Ben, we were recording. We talked about this last time. It's super fun. Anytime you guys watch a special and you're like, I think it'd be fun to what's that like to be there. It is super fun. And it's going to be just a great show. The audience for a TV show, but yeah, it'll be super fun. You're a part of it. And I was just talking about this. I think it was last week, last weekend or the weekend before, I went and saw Colin Jost at Cornell. And he had two other comedians open for him that are from SNL. And it was in Barton Hall. And if you're not familiar with Cornell University,

Barton Hall is literally an airplane hanger that they turned into a venue. And I don't know how many people, probably 5,000 or more people. It was like a graduation. Yeah. And we're talking about these guys are heavy hitters. They've been on SNL. I don't want to say they bombed, but there was when there was just the whole time I was cringing because the jokes were funny, but no one was laughing. And so... The airplane hanger had bombing. Oh, yeah.

So we laughed and my friends were like, hey, Mike. Like, I'm the comedy whisperer all of a sudden. They're like, why do you think it wasn't going over? And I'm curious to your opinion or if you can back this up. I said, I think a lot that has to do with it is that it is so hard to translate comedy in a large venue. And I feel like I've heard big comedians like Kevin Hart that are doing arenas, Dane Cook that were, yeah, man, I actually wish I could go back to clubs. And you can't see faces.

You can't, you just, I don't know how to explain other than the jokes don't hit as like they do when you're in a smaller venue. Do you agree? Dimitri Martin had a great line in one of his specials where he said, the best places for comedy are the worst for a fire. And it's 100% true. It's amazing. You want heavy curtains. You want frayed wire. You want a dark room with one exit.

And it's, yeah, the worst ones for a fire are the best rooms for comedy. The rooms that are really good, we call them killboxes, because it just everything hits right. And it's, I've been seeing all this stuff on the internet, too, of like healing sounds and frequencies and stuff like that. And I think it's similar for a comedy room of there is the right size. Shakespeare had that famous theater that he did in. a certain shape so that the sound projected. Sure. Was it a black box theater or something like that?

No, I think it was like a hector. A black box theater? I don't know. What's a black box theater? I like the idea of Shakespeare and all the actors are in turtlenecks. I don't even know what a black box theater. It just sounded right. No, we had this old and it was a specific design.

And so I think rooms have that. I think some comics are getting away from stadiums for their specials. I think if you can... What a problem to have. Exactly. But if you're sure, and a lot of people want to see you, stadiums make sense. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, and it was a college kids, right? It was college kids, but here was the real rub. There was also older crowd and townies like myself. So it was like, how do you prepare for that? Because those are two completely different demographics.

I was going to say college kids I saw. I think we talked about this last time also. That's just going to be the name of this episode. I think we talked about this last time. I've talked about this. But younger kids are getting their stand-up through social media, and a lot of that with the shorter clips. A lot of it is crowdwork-based. That's right. And so I particularly like crowdwork. I'm good at it, and I enjoy doing it, especially because people like it, and I'm not burning material.

And what that means is, if you hear my joke once, and listen again, you'll like it. But it's not like a band where you come back a week later. We love that song. Play it again. you want to hear a different bit. And so jokes have a different time stamp on them. And crowdwork is great because you get to upload something, but you're not burning material. And if the younger crowd, when I did my show at the Utica College, I did mostly crowdwork

because that's what they were, what they're accustomed to. Yeah. And there was a time where stand-up was vaudeville, then take my wife please, then we got into observational humor, then we have more stories. And so right now, it's just crowdwork. It's a lot more crowdwork and stuff like that. So if you have a bigger space, it's a little bit harder to do that. If you're not doing that and you have a younger audience, like,

why are you telling me about the breakup you had? That's not crowdwork with me. Yeah. And just because there's people who are amazing improvisers, amazing sketchwriters, it does not mean that they'll be good stand-ups. I'm a good stand-up, and I'm an okay improviser. I'm not a great sketch writer. Like those things are just because you can play bass guitar doesn't mean you can play piano.

That's right. Yeah. I would have to see the show, but also everybody does bomb every once in a while. And that's nice. I feel like I'm glad you said that because I feel like I'm the opposite. I think I'm a- Never bomb all the time. No, that is not, no.

You heard it here. Mike never bobs. When you go to his next show, it won't be a bomb. It'll be a fucking hoot. It'll be great. No, what I mean is I'm better at improv and writing sketch ideas and sketch. I'm good at stand-up, but I just can't remember things. And so I enjoy the crowdwork because, like you said, or like we were actually just talking about,

you want to talk about feeling like you're part of something. The minute a comedian goes into crowdwork, whether you know it or not, you love it because you know that it's off the cuff. And that's already funnier. Yeah. And now you feel part of it. So I respect anyone that. There is, yeah, there is a level of it being extra impressive.

Yeah. Because it's that. I remember doing shows in New York City, and I tried to work with people, other comedians where I was like, hey, I've got a show it this time. He's, I got to show it this time. I'm like, what if we pay each other?

I'll go in and we'll work it out where I heckle you, but you fucking bury me. And I was like, I can start a little side business. And it never took off, but it was for that reason because you wanted to be the professional. The professional. Professional bad heckler. This is also like 2004.

I just wanted to see you try to claim that on your taxes. Yeah. Professional heckler, where do I write off? Sir, please leave. Yeah. All right, so Brian Inc. Let's play a game. You wanted to play a game.

Brian, I got to say it one more time. His special letters are hard. The McCarthy Mercantile in downtown Syracuse, April 12th, two shoots, 7 and 9 p.m. Get your tickets at Eventbright.com. Brian Inc. I love you. So you said you wanted to play a game. What do you want to do? I super love. And I don't know if it's a game, but it should be,

which is just over and underrated. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast,

this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. I think that there is a really good, get to know you. Matt, we've never, we met briefly, but I want to get to know you better. Over and underrated things, and I think that it's,

I want to see. I could definitely kick this off, and this is going to be a Syracuse. specific one and I might lose anybody who was thinking about getting a ticket. Straight slice cut pizza is not only wildly overrated, it is a abomination against humanity. I know we do it here and I don't, every time it happens, I feel personally attacked. And I know it's only here. You're saying as opposed to like the traditional triangle cut. cut.

Yeah. That's what makes it pizza. I didn't want pizza breadsticks. Places do this? Who came up with that? I don't. I feel like it's a thing of, hey, Rochester's got garbage plates, buffalo's got their wings, Sarah.

We have a lot of things. See, I remember when I was a kid that was not the way to go, but if you wanted, like you were you're having a lot of people, you could ask for a party cut. That's right. And that was the idea for smaller pieces where you got hundreds of people, whatever. Yeah. An option. Yeah.

And it was by. You are never the default. No. You know? I've said this and we probably... And now you have to select an option if you want it. Why? For me, listen, I consider myself a pizza connoisseur.

I almost said penis connoisseur, which would have been hilarious. You could be both. I can do both. I like a little sausage on my pizza. Anyway, I... We'll cut that part. I judge a good pizza by this. It's got to be triangular.

Okay. It's got to have the triangle. When you fold it, the crust doesn't have. enough to, but bonus points, if it cracks, and if you can get grease down your arm, but is the absolute perfect pizza, piece of pizza. Yeah, I'm not down with that. You can't do that. With the strip.

No. I wonder if original pizza out of Italy might have that cut. They call it like the grandma slices or closer to Sicilian. Like a toasty? Like a, what's the French? Yeah. Even if they did, it's wrong. Yeah.

Even if they did, they were wrong. Yeah. I know. It's like, yeah, wrestling was invented in Greece, but we perfected it here in America with the WWE. I mean, like, they, pizza, I got, yeah. So that's definitely not only a under or overrated, it is an abomination.

I've heard. I'm with you. Overseas, there is a real deal of battle going on where Greece claims they invented pizza, not Italy. And there's some proof behind that. I like that that's what you. you classify as the battle overseas. You're like, I don't know if you guys know, there's a fight, there's a war on.

Here's a hot take. Ours is better than both. Don't worry about Gaza. I was like, yeah, I was like, we could donate money to Ukraine too. You're like, actually Greece needs your support. They think they invented pizza. Ukrainian pizza sucks. China invented pasta and noodles.

I know that's a big take also. And I know you guys probably have a big Italian. Actually, you want to talk about relevant to New York. There's been a good, there's been a real argument that the ice cream Sunday was created in Ithaca. And I forget who they're arguing with some other town in America that claims no, we. They were the first one to throw chocolate on their boring-ass vanilla ice cream. Look, what on my. They were also early for integration also.

That might have been. Okay, wait. Another over, actually, you do an over-undarated. Me? What about the video games? Yeah, we could do video games. Do you have a video game that's either overrated or underrated? I'm going to tell.

See, this is going to. We're going to be fucking hate mail now. I'm sorry. I don't understand the Fortnite or the Minecraft. I'm just. You're too old. I think that's more of an age thing. It's a kid's thing.

All right. It might be a kid's thing. But wait, let's take that out of it. I do think that if we're looking at a game, critically. Fortnite I think can be qualified as overrated. I think Minecraft is a building simulator, so that's just different. But my fortnight was what Pog, what's that called? It's a drop-in game and I think that's not a super creative mechanic and yeah and at the end of the day nothing's changing in that gameplay. They're just throwing skins on it.

So I think you can't argue that is overrated. Yeah. I'd go with it. I've got a bunch I'm thinking. Wait, I got a game that's underrated. Star Wars Outlaws. It had a terrible release. It had a terrible first couple days. But I played it. My brother put it perfectly because they dropped the price for $30, $40.

He goes, it's a great $30 game. And so I played it. I really enjoyed it. It is Red Dead Redemption meets Star Wars. I love it. And not to the quality of Red Dead, but it's, yeah, it was definitely an over, assume me an underrated game. Yeah, I'm going to go underrated

with Star Fox. Do you remember Star Fox? Yeah. That is a game that was phenomenal, never talked about enough. The characters were great, the action was great, big fan of Star Fox. Yeah, Star Foxx is great. Yeah, that could go on. I have a whole list. We just lost our entire

female audience. Hi, we're virgins. No, I could do so many. Ready for under left field? Wait, Matt, do you have an underrated overrated? I don't have a great one yet, so go for it. I have a underrated.

People are going to be like, oh, he has ADHD and autism. I think trains are underrated. Trains are super underrated. I go down to New York City all the time. I take the train. I don't have to drive. I get to sit and sleep and relax, and it's great. And I think trains are awesome.

And I'll even argue, trains beat planes sometimes. because the amount of time you've got to wait in security and wait for your flight because you got to get you could just waltz onto a train you could moonwalk onto it and then just start headed to where you got to go what's your favorite part of the train my favorite is now we're getting real like the upholstreet i don't know enough about trains every i almost get a train set to go around the christmas tree and i don't but i yeah i i think trains are super underrated and they're a great way to travel. So we're not doing video games now. We're just doing things that are under- yeah. We can go back to video games.

No, I just, it's a curveball. I'm ready. Shit, underrated, overrated. We're onto trains. Matt, what do you guys? Listen, Matt, you guys prepared for this and I didn't pay attention. We didn't go video games to trains real quick. Trains, all the things ladies love.

Matt's going through. Remember that urban legend where you're like? Remember my friend, we heard he drank a glass of... He took a hit of acid or he smoked too much weed And now he thinks he's a glass of orange juice No, we didn't grow up in Ithaca. Oh. Here did I.

I grew up in Hercimer. But anyway, that's Matt right now. He just got back from Vegas and he's still not the same. I'm in another time zone. You are still in the time zone. He's, I can tell. He's trying to do overrated, underrated, but he's just... All right, here you go.

I will... On that time... topic, since it's top of mind, I will give you one of the most underrated things in Las Vegas, if you want to visit. Ooh. And I'm representing with this shirt here. I went to this place called the Pinball Hall of Fame. All right.

It's like an airplane hanger. I'm just writing down a charity for autism. Full of video games, mostly pinball, going back to the 70s. Here's what's great about it. Everywhere in Vegas, it is nonstop harassing you about you. You've got to pay a massive ticket price to walk in the door. And then once you do that, there's 10 assholes who, like, mob you and try to sell you everything from show tickets to timeshares. And it's infuriating.

Pinball Hall of Fame, none of that nonsense. No admission. You walk in. It is literally like an old school arcade. You put your money in the change machine and get a handful of quarters and you just go to town. And I played some pinball machines from well before I was. born that I never have even seen before when they're in operation from the 60s and 70s. They had, you want to talk about underrated or overrated video games, Mike Tyson's punch out.

When the old school arcade version, they had a wide variety of arcade games, claw machines. Like, it was the one place that my wife and I went and we spent multiple hours and $25. That's fucking awesome. The only place you could say that anywhere in Las Vegas. And it's definitely underrated because I've never had anyone. It's on the strip. And be like, dude, the pinball was awesome. Best thing if you, especially if you're prone to losing all your money in the arcade machine.

Or the slot machines. Yeah. I like the idea. Please play a game that you can have some fun with. There's people who go to the pinball museum and they come back and they're like, how was Vegas? I got a rash. They're like, yeah, you did. You naughty boy.

They're like, yeah, one of the machines had a little thing on it. So I have this rash now. Yeah. My wrist hurts. Oh, whoa. Ooh. I didn't wear my brace and I was playing too much game. Okay, so yeah, if you're going to Vegas, pinball, I would 100% go that.

Sign me up. It's incredible. Wait, I got one here. Overrated, new Godzilla movies. Super underrated, the 2000 Godzilla movie. Yeah, was it Matthew Broderick? Yeah. I am, maybe I was at the right age for it.

I feel like that was a great Godzilla movie, and I thought it was super interesting. And you can argue with me. Everyone does. I agree with you. And one thing that pisses me off in that world is when I was growing up, everybody was Batman, Batman. I'm a Superman guy. Superman was my first love, my first superhero love. We've, other than the Superman 1 through 5 there in the 80s, those were great.

But I'm talking about a new age Superman movie. They've all shit the bed. What about the show? Can't anybody step up and just create? Remember the show in the 90s with Dean Kane? Oh, no. Yeah, no. Not a fan.

Although I did hear the, what was the one about Superboy that was like pretty big? The new Superman movie, James Gunn's going to be awesome. Is it? It's going to be awesome. I just, I'm praying that we finally get a decent Superman movie. James Gunn's fantastic at creating those types of universes. And I think that we're just talking about this with a buddy of mine. It's amazing that DC makes such.

bad superhero movies when their animated series and their video games are so story rich and so good. Yeah. And so I think if, I mean, you guys have a huge audience that's the CEOs of the DC universe. And so they should just take that stuff and just put it into film format and it would be great. Batman animated series, there's another underrated. That's one of the best superhero shows ever. That was the most, I was a little kid and I'd get home from school and I'd sit down and watch it. It was the most serious cartoon.

They did a documentary about it and it was on purpose. They said that they wanted to make a dark and challenging. They wanted to talk to kids like adults and not in a gross way. But they're like, yeah, we're going to talk to you guys and you're going to empathize with some of these villains. And you're going to see the challenges that Batman is facing with his life and stuff like that. Superman's going to get his taxes done. I think it's... Yeah, just boring.

I think that's great at something that's underrated because you're absolutely right. It was so good. Mind-blow, absolutely nothing like it. I'm not even sure since there's really been anything quite like that. No, there hasn't been. And into contrast, the original, you think about the original Batman with the Adam West, that's 60s live action thing that was so over the top cheesy.

Yeah. There's a place for that. No, and it was great. Yeah. To go from that's so into basically a serious. Yeah. I don't know. It's almost manga.

Before that was even really a thing, I feel like, to some. They printed everything on black paper. All the animation was done on black paper. The creators specifically wanted to make stuff where you empathized with so many of the characters. It wasn't zany or silly. And what's funny is on the same budget was animaniacs, the complete opposite. Which is so funny. And they played back to back.

Yeah. That was the thing. After that, now it's jumping around the Warner lot with the crazy anime. Yeah. What a great show. They rebooted it and it's awesome. Really? Yep.

What is it on? Hulu. All right. All right. Give me over under. Oh, over under. Okay. Just any topic or are we on?

Anything. Anything. Okay. I wish I had to prepare for this. Okay. Over, under. I'm going to say right now there is a craze going on, and it is called water bottles. And I think it is completely overrated.

We are talking, we are getting into stylish water bottles, O'Wallas, Stanleys, the designs. It's too much, all right? Just throw some water in a goddamn thing, sip it and call it a day. You see that SNL bit, the Big Dumb Cup? No. It's phenomenal. Sounds exactly like what I'm talking about. Big dumb cup.

Yeah. It's phenomenal. That's what it is. Yeah. Giant Stanley's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

My wife's on the sideline of like my daughter's lacrosse game and she's like, good job, honey. You know what I mean? She looks like a complete ass hat. These things are so big. That was impressive. By the way, thank you. You're so strong. You're so strong.

No, but that's the other thing, too, is it's like the people that are designing these. It's like they're like, all right, I want to design a water bottle that's not going to fit in any cup holders in any. any car in America. And I've just, I've had it. This is more of me venting than overrated. It can also be used as a weapon. It could be used. This one that I have is really cool.

That's nice. Oh, so it's the bottom of my water bottle. It's a coffee mug and then you twist it on and it just goes into the water. Nice. I like that a lot. But yeah. I can think of so many better over unders and I'm blanking today. See, I just don't understand how folks keep track of those.

Because the reason that I use the disposable cups is because I am famous for setting my cup down and it disappearing. Yeah. And I can't tell you. how many hundreds of regular insulated reusable cups that are off in the world somewhere. 100%. I like these also because I sip slowly, and so it's nice to come back to it in an hour and it's still warm. Yeah, that's the real advantage. That's the key.

Wait, speaking of which, this segues perfectly, super underrated, really good coffee. Super overrated, really good wine. Okay. Yes. I think really good coffee is such a, to me that's the one where I can tell the difference between crap coffee and good coffee. And I think especially in the morning when you need it, really good coffee is worth it. We have a coffee maker at our house where it grinds, you put the beans in, and then it

automatically in the morning will grind and pour and I wake up with fresh coffee and that's my favorite thing in the world. And really good wine? I can't tell the difference. I'll agree. Damn, Jimmy. I'll agree. If we did it blind taste, I guarantee there, one of us, if not all of us, could sip up a $200 bottle of wine and an $8 bottle of wine.

And some of us would go, I like the $8 wine better. But if you sit a bad coffee, you're like, this is shit. For some reason, it's easy to mask it with it. And now that there isn't a place for a really good wine that's got a great story, that has a, a wonderful vineyard, but at the end of the day, I think there's too much emphasis on good wine and not enough emphasis on really good coffee. Underrated wine hangovers.

Those are bitches. Those are awful. Because it's sugar. It's all of it. I've got an overrated. I've got an overrated. I know. We're going on long, but I can't help it because I finally figured out one.

Okay. Overrated for me. Every summer, my family and my in-laws, we go to a different beach. beach vacations. I'm not shitting on them. I just think it's overrated. Because for the next year and a half,

I'm finding sand in my ass crack, my shoes, my phone case. Don't get me wrong. When I'm there, I'm happy. It's fine. You heard it here first. Mike doesn't shower.

I don't. And why do that? When you can shower in the ocean. No, I just think it's fine. But it's, by day two, I've had, I'm good. We don't need to go down every day. So I'm happy with a,

lake. I'm happy with an ocean. I thought I was the only one that felt that way. I just think beach vacations are just a little bit overrated. And you're going to think that I'm making this up. My last underrated. Nothing. Do nothing days in vacations versus packed vacations of every day got to do something. I would date you if I was gay because we would hit it off on vacation. There's nothing worse than going on vacation. Okay, so we're going to go. We're going to go to the sailboat tour at eight. And then we're going to head over here and we're going to know when people say what I would kill for a day off I'm like fuck that I would kill for a day off with nothing nothing planned that's where I'm at right now

would you do with a million dollars I'll tell you what I do main nothing at all nothing at all you're completely correct because I just did that I went away for the weekend and I'm glad I did it was nice to get away from things but I was telling you like I can't say that I necessarily relaxed because we had lots of things and I wanted to it Like I said, it was great. We had a good time, but still beat. And it's fun to go do, like, we go to India once a year and visit my wife's family. And that's super fun.

There is days where we go do a lot. And then there's days where we just sit around and do nothing. And it's great. It's also, it was hilarious. We went to a resort for the first time. And watching my mother-in-law and my aunt-in-law, who are just women who just always have to be doing something, be so uncomfortable. comfortable at a resort. They were like, what do we do?

We're like, you just sit here. You just sit. And they're like, we don't cook anything or doing it. I'm like, no, you just chill. And that's the winning recipe because then the days where it's jam packed, that's fine, because there's also sprinkled in days with nothing. Yep. If you had all a whole vacation of days with nothing, that would get redundant.

Yeah. You had a whole vacation with days that are busy. Like you said, you come back feeling like, I need a vacation from the vacation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No plans. No plans.

call me. I haven't had a good overrated yet, but Plan Stan. No plan Stan. They call me. They call me, believe it or not. And asshole. I want to give one good overrated, but I'm just

fucking, I'm shit today. I thought you did. Oh, yeah, we did a lot of under, and actually, I have a overrated. I sound like a cramundgeon. I say, I like underrated conversations. It's hitting on you guys are good news. Underrated is,

Yeah. Good news. Overrated is. It's so bad. Underrated. I just think of one. And then we can move. Underrated. Underrated. There's so many ways I can go on this. I'll give you a 90s movie that's underrated. Please. Go.

Okay. Never saw it. Go with Katie Holmes? No. Okay. It was phenomenal. I'll give you an underrated movie. Little Monsters with Fred Savage. Fantastic.

Or how about that thing you do? I love that thing you do. do. Fried Green Tomatoes. That's one of my favorite movies of all time. I don't know if I'd call it underrated. That's supposed to be like a classic. Fried Green Tomatoes?

No, no, it's underrated, the godfather. Yeah, that's true. It just didn't get enough love. Titanic. I don't know. I knew the ending. Titanic sucks. Fuck you.

I'm serious. He could have fit on that fucking plank. He could have fit. You saw MythBusters did it. Could have fit. Would they come up with? It was sinking. Because it wasn't a, it was like the specific type of door.

It wasn't like a big door, it was more of a door frame with a little bit of door. And there was just no way to get both two people on it. It wasn't the width. It was the buoyancy of it. They could have just given them a couch cushion or some shit. Come on. Look. I understand the dramatics of a movie.

Now going back and armchairing like these movies. Like there's one for home. alone now where they're like, I forget what it was, but they're basically like, Kevin could have just called the police and then there would have been no movie and we're like, yeah, cool. Cool. Yeah, that's overrated. That's overrated. I don't like this new trend of the movie could have been done with or there's this thing of, I've seen ones too where they're like, there's this theory that the show's actually the dream of that you're like, could you find a more boring way to take a story? And it's, I like. I like.

some fan fiction and things that are the stuff like that but there's these ones where it's actually it's this I'm gonna say once in a while there's a good one rarely but once in a while oh it's an interesting way of looking at something that you've always known but people yeah I think I like the one about Carl Winslow that takes it through he's a cop who shot somebody and die hard and it takes it through the whole story and about how the character goes through different Oh, from all the movies To everything On social media

And a lot of times They're really dumb But the one with him That takes him through From die hard to family matters Yeah Yeah It's actually pretty damn good

Steve Bouchemi Like through Billy Madison And then Oh right That's a new thing that's going on I can like it But it's fun It's a stretch

But it's fun I always forget All right Here's we're running out of time I'll give you the last one It's for something For underrated Okay

Steve Bouchemey in Sopranos. Okay. I think he's one of the ones that half the time when you think about the cast and all that, people even sometimes forget that he was, because obviously he wasn't there the whole time. Yeah. But he was epic. And the fact that he goes from all these other crazy roles,

and he fit right in with these straight out of Jersey Italian guys with no problem. I think was incredible. No, he was great. He did a great job. He did a great job. I bet you that's what got him Boardwalk Empire, which is another great under. Just going to say, I think that's how we got Boardwalk Empire 100%

because he showed his versatility in The Sopranos. Yeah. What an amazing fucking show. By the way, did you know Steve Buscemi was a fireman before he was an actor? Which I think is awesome. He, I think was in New York City helping on 9-11. Yeah, he was. He was.

Wait, to go back to Titanic 2, I also like, and we're doing fan theories, I like the idea of Jack does survive on the door, and they make it to America, and they realize that they are not compatible, and they're a terrible marriage. Like, I love that idea of they are just going to get married because they went through that traumatic experience, and then they're together.

And then by the end, he's just like, I wish I died on that door. Because this is a, they would have built the whole marriage around that. That's hilarious. See, it'd be a much shorter movie, but I was going to say they get to the shore, and there's her boyfriend.

Oh, that's funny. And then he kills him. I saved you for all this, you know? Oh, bye. Man, I remember there was a drinking game you could play with Titanic. They should make a sequel where the boat rises. They did make a sequel. A submarine went down to go find it.

A bunch of bored billionaires. And they imploded. Yeah, it was a short film. It was a very short film. It was at Cannes, I believe. Oh, and if you're mad, I'm sorry that those billionaires died after every expert told them to not do it. Who would have thought that the N64 controller wouldn't work properly? Come on.

Look, we're not heartless. Underrated? It's not like we're sitting here going, oh, overrated, the SPCA. Underrated the N64 controller. Look at me, underrated the N64 controller. It gets so much shit. It actually had an interesting dynamic and it pushed the boundaries. So don't listen to him.

April 12th. McCarthy Mercantile, I will go in depth. And if you bring an N64 controller, we hook it up to Brian and you can operate. You can operate me. And it probably wouldn't work out well because the controller is a little wonky. A little wonky. Ask the guys in the sub. You just don't know where to hold it.

Yeah. The N64 controller was pretty fucking revolutionary at the time. It was great for like golden eye because you had the trigger. Nothing beats Bond, man. Because he's too short. I'm a living odd job. That's for Damshare. You know this.

And on that note, Yeah, listen, this has been ridiculous, and I love every minute of it. Brian Ank, our pal, our first repeat guest. Yeah. Shooting his special. Letters are hard, which is very true. April 12th, right here in Syracuse, McCarthy Mercantile,

get your tickets, eventbrite.com. There's two shows on April 12th, 7 p.m. 9 p.m. So you have two chance. Go to both. Why not? And you guys are going to have 10 tickets to give away. I don't know. Tickets to give away, which we're going to post and we'll talk to you about that in a moment.

Proceeds are going to the Patty Foundation, Syracuse Pride, and ACR health. Brian Ang, I freaking love you, man. Yeah. This was awesome, man. Good News York. I can reach. And we will be back tomorrow, I think. Yeah, hey, subscribe to our podcast.

Oh, whoa, okay. Everywhere you find podcasts. I don't even need to plug a particular place. If you're a podcast guy or gal, A gold war whatever app you use and type in Good News York. Like IHeart, Radio, Spotify, Apple. That's right. I forgot.

We're official now. We're on there. And, of course, YouTube, where you can watch this. I could listen, no matter where I listen to my podcast. That's it. You can subscribe, and your phone will download us on the go, and we can just be in your ears all the time. We want to be in your ear holes. Good news, York.

Good Lord. What in the fuck. Peace out.