Hollywood Handbook - The George Lucas Talk Show, Our Close Friends

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

The Boys help the hosts of The George Lucas Talk Show (CONNOR RATLIFF, GRIFFIN NEWMAN, PATRICK COTNOIR) make their show shorter. Watch the video recording at Patreon.com/TheFlagrantOnes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

this is a head gum podcast so i have all the glasses laid out and i'm doing a taste test for the ptsd you know how much i love the like to find the peatiest juice. The peatiest. I love like a fruit juice that is also so peaty and so smoky. And I've been humiliated before at restaurants. I've taken you to like my favorite restaurants and you'll say, before they even put a menu down, you say, bring me your

peteous juice. And every single time, no matter what they put down in front of you, it's one sip, huge spit take, and not peteous enough. And then you leave. I'll tell you, it's happened so many times, I've got

PTSD. And so, yeah. and then you leave i'll tell you hey it's happened so many times i've got ptsd and so hey yeah from it happening and so go ahead and then i remember oh we have griffin on the show today is this the movies thing are we like i can't i cannot do movies today i'm absolutely not no nothing to do with movies and i'll say this i think i don't know how long your pd juice story was going to be yeah i think in the interest of kind of setting a good example for what our task is today we actually should i was ending the whole intro short i had actually already ended it. You were ending it?

By the time you said you don't know. Actually, you did know how long it was going to be because you heard the entire thing and it was over. Okay, I guess what threw me off. I guess you already had in mind to say you don't know how long it's going to be, but in fact, you did know. Yeah, it was a little confusing

because it didn't feel at all like a story to me. It felt like the first sentence like a story to me it felt like the first sentence from a story and then you just abandoning it so i thought like oh is he gonna wrap this back around but no you're you're right i do know um i don't know how long it was it was totally was a story and that was me and that was me setting a great example you called it a story not me that was me setting a great example which is clarity brevity focus on the idea mention like like like get to just like the absolute core of what you're doing at any given time and that is the lesson that we want to teach today

ruthlessly efficient it is griffin it is griffin we're not doing movies today i'm thinking to myself like are we honestly still are we still even doing this i'm gonna talk about fucking movies again and for so long dog shit show long exactly so long i have a tough time getting to the point i ramble yes but this is another gr Griffin project. And it's always a different project when he's here, too. He's never been here for the same project. Griffin, y'all do too much. But it's never the same project, and he's here, and he's got his friends with him. Why don't you talk about your friends?

I'm going to say I disagree. This is not a Griffin project. This is a Connor Ratliff project that i'm proud to be a part of and he has it but like he has his own projects as well that he many he's connor yeah y'all do too much i i agree i think i think we do too much right and even There's pressure to create always, but we never just rest. Never. Yeah. What are we trying to prove with all these projects?

We're not going to fill that hole with more podcasts. And I'll say we hired a producer, Patrick Kotner, to try to help us stay focused, get to the point, keep things lean. And he has not helped. In fact, things have gotten longer. Got much worse. Much worse. I think it's smart that you brought on some EPs and some fresh eyes

on this thing. Basically, they do the George Lucas talk show. These guys, you've got to see them. They're pretty out there. They're really funny. The episodes can be a little long. I don't think I'm telling tails out of school to say, yeah, but sounds have gotten kind of long. I've done it.

It was a blast. I had so much fun. It was way too long. Took like took forever. The buy-in is large. That's a problem we've had in terms of, we think this thing could really be mainstream. We think it has really broad appeal,

and we're trying to find a way to make it a kind of cleaner entry point for new viewers. And people who think I'm going to go down some crazy rabbit hole about how Hayes has done the show, I've never been contacted or invited in any way, although Hayes is sort of like my counterpart. That's not what this is about I don't give

a fuck did that happen you know it's like I got my own stuff I do stuff without Hayes I have a fucking family yeah I gotta say y'all do too much you do too much it's true

y'all do too much family it's feeling that way you didn't work on big lake that's why haze was there that yeah that is that has long been an issue that like kind of the one thing that it has sort of separated us i'm sorry my one regret when i look back on this my topsy-turvy ride through this business of show, and I say, is there anything I'd do differently? Yeah, I would have kicked down the fucking door of the Big Lake offices, and I would have not left.

I would have chained myself to the writer's room table until they let me pitch on ideas for Josh and Dylan Blue and whoever else. Everyone involved in that funny show. I mean, I did an episode of Big Lake and it's one of those checklist things for me where I'm like, I'm glad I got in there before it ended. Like, I'm glad I still got to shoot a project that was on film before everything went digital. You know, like some of the things you want to accomplish in your career before they go the way of the dinosaur.

Well, anyone who was on Big Lake has said to me you know while you were there you had this feeling of i am living the first line of my obituary i am living out the first sentence of my obit whatever i've done before whatever i do after it's all you know it's all gravy but this is the number one this plane crashes yeah let me ask this question. How long until the copyright on Big Lake runs out and it's fair game? I don't know if they have one. Oh, do you think they didn't copyright the show? Mm-mm.

It's a Night of the Living Dead thing. Anyone can release it. Yeah, it was just one of those. Time and money. One of those things that fell through the cracks. Effort, interest. They were hoping. it's an open source show, that was always our goal

going in, we were hoping that people just take this and run with it, keep making more yeah, Big Lake is I mean, I believe it's a crypto at this point I don't even think it is media that you watch I think it is like currency I actually think the viewership might have been low enough that each episode might have been an NFT because I think only one was seen by one person.

Yeah. on behalf of Connor and Patrick and I that we did have Hayes on when we did a marathon where we watched all of Big Lake and we have not gotten to the Alan Gregory Marathon yet. But it's on the spreadsheet. You got my number. Yeah, that one will be something special. And I'll be impressed if you get a hold of that show.

Oh, is this a challenge? Is that what that is? Mm-hmm. Okay. I'll be front and center cheering on Hayes' episode, One Night in Gottlieb. I believe it's currently... No, my episode was called Interracial McAdams.

That's right. That's right. And mine was called mom size more yeah um i haven't checked in a while but i i think alan gregory is streaming on silk road plus i believe i'm not sure about that if it still is they had it for a while um but we gotta we want to talk about your project we are here to talk about your show because we're naming all these shows that were, you know, all these shows that we remember were very concise, weren't they? Yeah, tight.

Big Lake, I think minus commercials, Big Lake was 16 minutes an episode. Each show lasted for a total of fewer minutes than one episode of George Lucas' talk show. Isn't that interesting that's saying what you have to say moving on yeah you you could see the entire series of alan gregory his entire story richard yeah patrick the whole gang you could get all of their story and you wouldn't even be a third of the way through an episode of the George Lucas thing. So what we're here to do, and I think it's always smart to say, hey, this is where I'm weak. Can I hire someone to be my strength? We're just going to check out. The most recent episode. And see.

And I don't know if there will be. But is there any fat to trim? Can we identify a soft spot? Because that will. You know it will improve the listener experience. I think you might have more fun. I think you guys get a little tired sometimes. And I'll say to you.

Like we're coming to you hat in hand like we're we're asking for for help you know and we it we have not been able to handle this on our own we realized it was time to like outsource and go to the best and as you said get fresh eyes on it but i we've been conscious of this for a while so i do think this most recent episode is the tightest one we've done yet great but i'm so fucking proud of you for saying i need help thank you thank you people don't do that enough it's tough it's hard and it was definitely we slowed down earlier in the year doing episodes and it was because we didn't know what to do how to fix these problems that we were running into and it's really it's taken until now so i'm glad that we figured out that you guys were the ones who could help us.

People are going to say admitting that is cowardly. It's not. It's brave. It's brave. Yeah, that's courage. That's what courage, this is what courage sounds like. Please, please help me.

That's the sound of courage. Fix it. Yeah, that's, you know. That's the bravest soldier. Being brave isn't never being scared. Being brave is not knowing what the fuck your show isn't doing it anyway a lot of the troops are saying you know or saying that a lot i do hear the troops saying that more often these days and that's my role in the writer's room too

is uh sean can attest to this i am mr Mr. Cuts. I will go through. And at the end of that, I don't pitch a lot. It's actually totally antithetical to what I'm trying to accomplish here is making the project as short as possible. But at the end, I will go through and just be like,

uh-huh. Hazy scissor hands, I've heard you called. I don't know if that's behind your back or to your face. Hacksaw Hayes gets in there, just starts chopping pieces off. Hayes will walk in and he'll go, and we'll go, hey, did you notice anything that you thought maybe could be tightened up?

And he goes, well, act two. You go, oh, you found some cuts in act two? He goes, no, I cut act two. And that's it. And you look at him and you go, son of a bitch. He's right. We need a little chyron to explain what happened. Like, usually there'll be something on screen that'll say a couple of the story beats that we're missing.

But you really don't feel it. It's all shoe leather. When you actually are able to step back, you realize, like, do we need to see this? Or is it just shoe leather? Which you don't need. Famously in a shoe, all the leather, honestly, just go. That's extra pieces.

What you need is laces and rubber. If you just tie a piece of rubber to your foot, you're going to be good to go. Much like making art, the thing that's most important is that you have a soul. You know? That there's a real soul to what you're doing you know what i'm saying griffin you know what i'm saying yeah that's gorgeous thank you thank you sometimes you just have these things griffin okay should we watch this episode i mean some of it yeah let's check it out and once again this isn't a problem episode so if you're watching and you feel like i can't find anything to cut that's not on you like you guys are the best this just

might be the best tightest episode we've done you've addressed a lot of it okay yeah and this one is this one is tight because it's three hours 53 minutes and 15 seconds okay okay so you got in even under the four mark which we got in under the four mark. Well under the four. Who's our guest? Yeah, six minutes to... This is Sam Richardson and Veronica Osorio. Okay. Two big stars.

Yeah. And Sam Richardson had a hard out. He told us he only had 30 minutes. So that's how we were able to keep the show so tight. But we also ran long with him. Didn't we go 45? We did. He had a hard out at 30, were able to keep the show so tight but we also ran long with him didn't we go 45 we did he had a hard out at 30 and we were able to keep that to a tight 45 yeah it's always i mean griffin says he

has a hard out yeah griffin's got a hard out but we're obviously we're gonna see obviously we're a little bad yeah we want to go yeah griffin's not a fucking asshole he's not gonna leave in the middle of the show he's got a hard out it was his friend now this is my job this is my whole life sean has a family whatever you have to do is more important that yeah yeah he's got no no crying baby in the other whether i do too much family wise is that's a problem for another day today the problem is it does griffin have any respect for us at all or himself yeah i got too much going on yeah i'm trying to work on it it's another thing i'm trying to address but should we dig into the episode would we like to start at the beginning or or a clip let's leave this up to you guys let's do the beginning open the beginning yeah

i don't want to hear any more questions like that george lucas even that honestly Even that, honestly. Happy What-A-Win, everybody. I'm Watto. Hello and welcome to the George Lucas talk show. Uh-huh. Of course, I'm going to be... It's just a Halloween joke. Happy What-A-Win from me because I am Watto.

Wow, we didn't... Wait, this sucks. This stinks. Wow, we didn't... Wait, this sucks. This stinks. Look, we all... Wait, Patrick. Record passed on the bear there. Well, we all did it, and we had Halloween fun with our Halloween costumes.

Of course, that was... I'm George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. That was just a Wato mask, a practical mask, so it doesn't look as good as, obviously, the real Digital mask that we designed for waters that there it is that you can tell the difference between look at that That is pure digital face Yeah

Looks real automasks are prejudice against Toydarians. It's hard to think of a Toydarian head inside this stupid mask. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's take a break. Let's take a break. I'm having fun. I'm enjoying it. It's a lot of fun. Yes.

I think we could have just said it's Halloween. Yeah. Oh. Right? Are we accomplishing the same goal? So, like, what we saw was everyone's wearing a mask it's a it's a it's a triptych right sure where like yeah it goes the the artificial wado who ends up being george lucas then real wado in the middle who's wearing a wado mask i went if we had time for all this which we don't I would have put him at the end

saying like, hey, what are you guys doing? Because that would be the most surprising one. Yeah, him being at the middle is a little... I guess I did think it was done and then Patrick came in. And bailed immediately. He entered bailing.

Yeah, he did. But that's that instinct. The instinct was to cut himself. Sure. That would be a great, that's going to be the title of Patrick's memoir. Enter Bailing. Now, to be fair to me, I did not know that Griffin also had a Watto mask. That'd be another good title for your memoir.

To be fair to me. To be fair to me. To be fair to me. Yeah. I just want to clarify this. It is true. Patrick saying he did not know that I also had a Watto mask. I should also mention that last year for Halloween, we opened doing the exact same thing.

Okay. Almost word for word unplanned. It was not a heightened. And it was not like we were like, this would be funny if we did it again. All three of us independently thought it would be funny. Did not confer with each other. And then just did the same bit of three minutes of arguing over who's really Watto and complaining about the mask being hot. Wow. Group mind.

Yeah. So that's pretty powerful. later on in the bit we were watching where you know george lucas kind of holds up the wado mask and says like hey i'm george lucas and this is just like a mask sure right can do we need anything before that do we just do that yeah do we need anything before that and so far i'm not sure we need anything after that i mean the one thing i just want to push back on a little bit is I know you guys are saying the two things that need to get communicated are this is a mask and it's Halloween, right? Yes. I think the one other layer we're missing is sort of where those two things overlap in the Venn diagram, which is we call Halloween holowato. Okay.

And that's important. It's like a sort of sowato. Okay. It's like a sort of sly joke that we want to make sure. It's a play on words. It's a little bit of holiday wordplay. Halloween is a wato. Holowato. We think it'll be delightful.

It's just a little moment of delight. It's intentional that it's not Watoween, yes? Yes. Correct, although I do mistakenly say Watoween one time and correct myself. I heard someone say Watoween, which is why I was confused when you told me what it was called, because it's not what you called it?

No, not what I called it a year before in a bit that we accidentally replicated almost beat for bit. Right, and one of the things that I think is crucial to this because it's not a scripted show, and so everything that we were doing is improvised. And famously, there are no mistakes in improv. There's just terrible improv sometimes. Sometimes it's just bad.

There's just huge chunks of it that you must endure. It's just doing a very bad job. Yeah. No mistakes. That's just what happened, and it was bad. Wrong is not bad. Bad can be wrong, but wrong is not bad. Another great title for Patrick's memoir.

Bad can be wrong? Wrong is not bad. Bad can be wrong, but wrong is not bad bad can be wrong but wrong is not bad a memoir by patrick cottoner so i i i am delighted by it i'm obsessed with it obsessed i wonder if i'm thinking about the wasted real estate just in the beginning where you say, like, please welcome. What's it say?

Yeah. Amy Poehler says, please welcome retired filmmaker, George Lucas. Yeah. Can we lose her? She's just a big name. She's a big name.

It's a big name. Yeah. And it's also, it's also all three hosts are men. So your, your first note there is to cut the one female voice in the show. It feels like, I don't, I don to cut the one female voice in the show. It feels like I don't think it's our business to silence

women. I also don't think it's the role of women to just like throw rose petals on our path. This is what I'm identifying as well, is that the issue is it doesn't pass the Bechdel test, does it? She's only talking about the men

who are going to do the show. Now, you say she's a big name. I actually did not immediately identify the boys. If you're going to have her say anything, I would have her say, I'm Amy Poehler. Yeah, the one, and this may be, I'm going to phrase this as a blind item for legal reasons. All right, this isn't about what we're talking about. So this is a blind item. Can I do that? Okay.

So this is, we're completely resetting. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about right now. This is just Connor found an interesting blind item somewhere. Okay. Yeah.

I want to be clear for legal reasons. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It's a blind item. There was a streaming service a few years ago called CISO. And there were, and coincidentally, I did the George Lucas character on an episode of the short-lived The UCB Show. I hosted it as retired filmmaker George Lucas.

Brilliant, but canceled. Gone too soon. BBC. And I – and now we're getting to the blind items. You must have been compensated for that. Am I crazy to say that? The blind item is beginning now?

I think I've paid quadruple digits. Okay. Four digits. As we say in the industry, that's everything but the thumb wow that's a good that's what that's what we say whenever whenever you're paid a four-digit salary they say oh how much will you pay you say everything but the thumb and uh but oh baby

when we get that sub in there yikesikes. We get to five big digits. Ooh, we, we, we, we all the way. If you have, if you have good reps,

you'll, they'll be, Hey, my reps got me the thumb. He goes, you're going to get fisted by this next paycheck. He's open up chief. I've told my reps that my,

my quote is just scale plus thumb. i don't because i don't i do it for the love of it you know but i i need to be worth me getting out of bed scale plus thumb is what gets me there that's what putting your thumb on the scale means it means you make ten thousand dollars yeah so um the blind item starts now some shows record audio that doesn't make it into the actual episodes. And then sometimes people who work for those streaming services leak that audio to people. And then the streaming service goes out of business. And you're kind of like, well, why don't we just use this? And when I say we, I mean just other people.

And for a while while those people are like well what's the harm we're just doing it a little show at a an unnamed theater in in manhattan and it's a midnight show and who will care right pat bears hitting a tech queue it's it's it's the wild west you know are we are we really doing anything wrong using a little piece of stolen audio that was never used for a show for a streaming service that no longer exists? Who's the victim here? And then a pandemic hits. And you start to think, well, let's use the audio on this live stream.

We're doing it for charity. What's the harm in that? What's the harm in that? And before you know it, you're on someone else's show and you're talking about it as a blind item. That's the end of the blind item. And I think sort of, like, no, sorry, I was just going to say sort of unrelated to what Connor just said, it might be hard to get Amy back for a take two

if we have rewrites. That's the problem, yeah. We didn't put a pickup day in the CISO contract, hypothetically. Or kind of a take one for this project because it was for well okay that's interesting it's hard to know even with the blind edit this happens so off i mean we've i mean even if it's cso we have used so many bajillion cues at this point like yeah no we got a whole we got a big drop board that's just they leaked though i mean like the way they were leaking stuff stuff that i like never like the i'm getting leaked all these like cyanide and happiness

like terabytes of cyanide and happiness. Yeah. Wave files. Yeah, a lot of shrink promo assets. There was a real gold rush at the end of Seesaw where all those treasures were just leaking out. So many files. Yes. I saw Tim was saying the other day that someone is doing a show very similar to Shrink.

It's like, well, they leaked the entire thing. Yeah, all the sound just exists very similar to shrink. It's like, well, they, they, they leave the entire thing. Yeah. All the sound just exists for anyone to enjoy. I mean, I got caught up in it and I grabbed a briefcase full of take my wife sound clips and just bolted for the door. Yeah. So it's, uh, you know, and I, and, and that's a blind item, by the way,

I don't want to get sued by the ghost of CISO. That's good. Do you remember that day when when aaron swartz leaked all of uh here's johnny and just like how the the sort of title waves that sent throughout the internet i mean and and he was persecuted for it that was the end of the open internet that was that was the end yeah so apart from that you guys are fine with it uh no i think it should be cut notes i think it should be completely the whole segment it's yeah you could lose this kevin you want to show us another clip and we can just kind of see if this one is more essential to the product yes

yeah the show is called there's johnny oh i'm sorry. Sam, you, it feels like, and this is just a hunch, you've been so productive recently. On a tear, on a tear. This is a multi-part question. A man with so many pals and so many jobs that take up his time, do you ever feel like you are neglectful of your friendships because you have to work so much? Yes.

I'm out of town so often that I miss out on things. I feel like I'm an absent parent, you know? Would you like to record a message to your friends that you can send it to them if you want. We can clip it out, whatever you want. Just a little message for all your pals when you're too busy. Yeah. Hey,

you. Happy birthday anniversary commencement. Good day or bad. Sorry about your bad day. Wish I could be there with you, but I'm there in spirit and you know, I'm off doing stuff for us really.

And I'll, I'll see you when I'm back. But in the meantime, have a good, have a great time or, you know, I'm sorry about your bad time and I'll, I'll see you soon.

I love you. Wonderful. You got it in one take. That's a one-er. Okay. Let's stop. I love you. Wonderful. You got it in one take. That's a one-er. Okay, let's stop. Let's stop. Interesting, interesting. So I loved when we pushed in for the single on Sam

because it was very distracting to have all these different screens. But I wonder, instead of Sam, who I already am aware of his presence because he's talking could we had just pushed in on patrick by himself now here's the confusing thing i was the one who made the choice to push in on sam wow so i wasn't confused by that at all i think the problem you think was confusing about that well well i mean if i pushed it myself, it would have felt a little weird to be like, hey, Sam, do that. You know, like, I just think it would have looked bad on me. So this is a problem.

I'm not confused still. Nothing is confusing about this. We've identified an issue here, though, is that Patrick doesn't have enough confidence in himself. He thinks that he should always cede the spotlight to whoever our celebrity guest is or the people who ostensibly have more experience as performers. And we're constantly telling him telling him, go full screen. Also a great title for Patrick's memoir, Seeding the Spotlight. I think a good title would be Here's the Confusing Thing.

And then the whole memoir is just him trying to explain to me what exactly he thought I was confused about. No, we wanted to see Patrick there. We wanted to see Patrick there. We wanted to see Reatric

in that moment. We wanted... That also allows you to cut within what Sam is... That's the purpose of a reaction shot, really. You can cut within sam's thing

so it buys us a little time so that sam who got ambushed sam bushed he stuck the landing but he was finding it for a little while what we do on our show you probably feel this we only set our guests up to succeed oh that's so nice that's how i mean yeah that's so sweet that's sweet i think you're also sensing part of our problem which is we don't know how to do that right uh-huh yeah and sam is like fucking floundering in that segment he's drowning for the first half of it when i say you stuck the landing i'm being really generous and then connor you know as george lucas says we got it in one that That's a one-er. And it's because we feel so bad we didn't set him up to succeed

that we want to retroactively make him think it was a success. But we're actually hurting the product of the show by not going in for second, third, fourth, fifth takes. We were trying to keep it moving. I would have rather, what I would have rather had is that you got, I imagine you probably would have had a dozen or so takes to get it moving. What I would have rather had is that you got, I imagine you probably would have had a dozen or so takes to get this right. And then all you release to the public

is the final take without context. And we put clips out on the internet sometimes. And what we like to do is take a moment that really only makes sense to someone who's heard not only the entire episode that it's from but also every episode prior we'll put that out as little clip and usually it's us laughing really hard at it as well and that lets people know hey you're we're having fun and you're on the outside of something pretty cool also an opportunity i saw a recent clip where paul f tompkins is calling some of his very famous friends yeah this clip went insanely

viral odin kirk oswalt uh yeah yeah yeah the big and so you have an opportunity there to say like, hey, you want to like send a message to your friends, right? Like, sorry, you missed this special thing. And instead of having him call a famous person, we're just leaving that on the table. Like even like what messages are we learning from our audience? Right. We should have made him pick a friend we should have made him pick a friend and and and reach for a high level one like chris make them get on the zoom yeah right yeah chris you're gonna want chris pratt chris

pratt sure mitch is the other option that comes to mind obviously those even pally you can sneak right in the middle there then get between Chris Pally and Mitch. Is that the middle? That's the middle point? It's like an anamorph. Yeah, if you have a picture, you got a picture on the right of Chris Pratt and on the left of Mitch, and you put Pally in between them, no one's confused. Hollywood Handbook.

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someone off after a nice date and they turn around at the door and they take their little index finger and they kind of like draw it towards them they're pulling it what does that mean does their whole finger hurt i wonder if they spotted a spider web or something they're trying to pull down the spider down yeah but i've seen this too after a lot of dates and i need i need and have needed something like babble to figure out what the heck is this person doing with their finger because it looks like a it looks like an emergency i know i was supposed to do something or how about those people that stand in the street they're kind of like they've got like almost like police clothes on it may be almost yeah and they're standing in the middle and as i'm driving and i'm cruising they're holding their hand up for like a high five almost

and they're really aggressively like pushing it out i'm like am i supposed to drive get out of the car yes or just do it out the window as i'm going that's what i've been doing dangerous yeah but some of these very subtle body language cues have escaped me and many listeners i'm sure babbles tips and tools are approachable accessible rooted in real life situations, which I have all the time, and delivered with conversation-based teaching so you're ready to practice what you've learned in the real world. Studies from Yale, Michigan State University, and others.

Can't feel good to be others there. Continued to prove Babbel is better. One study found that using babble for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college babble has over 60 million subscriptions sold all 14 all of their 14 award-winning language courses are backed by their 20-day money-back guarantee here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now get 55 off your babble subscription but only for our listeners at babble.com slash the boys get 55 off at babble.com slash the boys spelled b-a-b-e-l.com slash the boys b-a-b-b-e-l b-a-b-b-e-l b-a-b-b-e-l.com slash the boys. Rules and restrictions may apply. With Babbel, we can't promise it'll always be easy,

but you'll always be glad you did it. Kind of like this podcast, except it is easy for me. Hey, guys. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills. You can see all your subscriptions in one place, and if I see something I don't want, I can cancel it with a tap. I never have to get on the phone with customer service. The subscriptions are insidious. They're the scourge of our modern life. And you never realize

what you're subscribing to or that you're still being charged. I know that I was about 19 dresses into receiving each one of the 27 dresses from the movie 27 dresses before I found out how much it was costing that they intended to send me. By the way, you'll this will shock you. Fifty four dresses. If I did not cancel and I, you know, I got an endpoint by like dress 14 14 15 i think it starts to become clear like these aren't the dresses oh no they were not from the movie they didn't resemble anything from the movie they were not they were either way too big or way too small for a human to wear yeah and one of them was a dressing yeah one of them was it was it was a vina them was a... It was a vinaigrette.

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with over 500 million dollars in canceled subscriptions and that was i mean just to be fully transparent that 500 million was most of that was the the dresses well yeah i mean you're talking about hollywood memorabilia you're talking about like ornate gowns you know in some cases and so that was uh yeah that was costing me a lot a lot a lot stop wasting money on things you don't use cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocket money.com slash the boys that's rocketoney.com slash The Boys. That's RocketMoney.com slash The Boys. RocketMoney.com slash The Boys. Hollywood Handbook. And so, I, you know, it's like, I think we can lose potentially the whole thing. Mm-hmm.

I, is there any, like, is there other stuff for us to look at, Kevin? Yeah, something else. Yeah, I mean, with the cuts we've made so far, which I think are really strong, we should go into this next clip trying to view it through the prism of what if this was the cold open, right? Yeah, exactly. This would be how it started. I don't remember any time codes, but I have a feeling that somewhere around minute 59 or 60 the show gets incredibly tight let's try it

let's say the whole first hour was warm up and let's pretend that the show starts sometimes it takes that Kevin just go to minute 59 exactly minute 59 let's see where we are which is coincidentally 59 nice

those are the four digits that Connor made for the UCD show Griffin can you narrate this yeah okay so once again this was a Holowato episode. So we introduced a few new characters. Skella Pig, Skella Bat, Skella Cat, and Skella Duck. They were $10 purchases at CVS, and we decided to haunt Patrick with them.

So we were filming in a studio but in separate rooms for the name of COVID safety. And then Connor and I got up from those rooms and followed Patrick in and just silently held these toy skeleton animals behind his head. Talk a little bit about the choice to be silent on the show. Well, I don't know if you remember the phrase. Skeletuck is actually putting in some work. That's the thing. I was trying to sort of give him a moment. Respect for Skeleduck.

One of the phrases that we were sort of thinking about is, and I don't know if you're familiar with this, but have you ever heard of the phrase, silence is golden? I believe there was a popular song that was once written that sort of expressed that. And we really do feel like there's truth in there. And so sometimes we will sort of eschew like, you know, it's a talk show, but we'll sometimes let noises sort of fill the space where language normally would thrive.

Just as sort of a palate cleanser, because we talked with sam for the full 45 yeah that was a lot yeah and so it really was a moment where we thought let's let the scallop pals come in here and make their noise i also i don't like talking like i i generally as an artist relish the opportunity to sort of just step back and let other people because i don't want to be the one of just step back and let other people because i don't want to be the one steering the ship interrupting talking over other people well you smolder slam my jokes and that's what you're really known for is smoldering it's the look yeah yeah i'm more a physical actor than anything yeah i think we also recognize that it's rare that a show you know you

can just sit around for a couple minutes without talking. You guys don't get that opportunity on this show. You guys have to talk to fill the time, you know? But on our show, we... It's not to fill the time, Patrick. What is it for, Sean? It is to educate the viewers and the guests.

If it was just to fill the time, I'd actually hang it up right now if that's what I ever thought I was doing was like trying to fill time to meet some quota just so we had an episode to release the day I feel myself doing that we fold up the whole fucking shop

sure sure that day that day that very day that day probably later by end of day it's. It's not instant. It's probably at night because I do need to, like... By close of business, yeah. Yeah, I have to pack some stuff

and I should take a shower, really. It speaks to Patrick's sort of outlook as a producer is he really thinks that shows are measured exclusively in quantity. That he does think the more we fill the time, the better the show will will sort of be

viewed in the public eye quantity is quality by yeah i don't want to i don't want to point fingers but for when i started doing this show it was before griffin or patrick were officially involved with the show it was originally a rat lift distant two-hander just so you guys know the origin it was a rat lift distant two-hander it was really developed to play off of their chemistry. Yeah, and the shows would be on average around an hour. And the very first show, Patrick worked on the stage show for a number of years and so did Griffin,

but then when Patrick first became an on-screen presence, the show ballooned from roughly 60 minutes to over 31 hours in our first episode that was the immediate jump that was the immediate jump was from like that most 80 to to 31 yeah yeah holy shnikes minutes and hours holy shnikes yeah holy shnikes what I'm wondering is, is this a TikTok? You guys probably know I'm pretty young. And one thing that me and some of my buddies have been looking at is this TikTok. Yeah. to fill the size of the container. So, you know, however big that unit is, if you have just sort of this infinite,

you know, streaming opportunity on a Zoom, you're going to take whatever amount of creativity you have available, which might only be this much, and spread it across the entire, you know, multiple hour show. Whereas if we took that little bit of creativity and we put that in a TikTok, maybe you're doing a choreographed dance

to a fancy like a new country song. Now I'm thinking, hey, this George Lucas show is pretty good. So I just wonder if you've even considered that. Well, it's funny you should mention that because George Lucas talk show does have a TikTok account. And our first TikTok. This is sort of Connor's baby project, I'll say. Yeah.

Our very first TikTok was the George Lucas adjacent. It was pulling from the George Lucas adjacent Disney film Return to Oz, which Lucas consulted on, has a special thanks in it. And there was a character named TikTok. And so we did put out a TikTok featuring, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying this for you, Sean. I know you know this.

I know every word that comes out of my mouth, you already know. This is to help educate your viewers because I thought that was the point of this. That is why we make it, yeah. He's educating the viewers that he knows. So you all are both playing the same role.

Hey, this ain't some fucking dick measuring contest, man. No, no, no. I love it. No, we're not measuring. We're not going to measure. Come on, man. Let's do this. You finish the TikTok storyok story then i'll tell no it's already long no no it already happened it's done i actually already finished it the

second you started telling me to finish it yes yeah i had already finished that was this the tiktok story okay just didn't feel like it was over to me that we're not just filling time like if this weren't important obviously we, we would let Griffin go. Well, Griffin had a hard out two, three minutes ago. But I just don't think we can afford. I mean, the product would suffer because Griffin, I mean, he's still got to tell us more about this TikTok stuff. Yeah. No, I do.

I do. And I do want to say, I mean, you're giving us such valuable information that not only do I feel like I need to say for the entire time, but I also feel like after I say the next thing I'm going to say, I might just decide to step back and listen for the rest of the episode. Okay. You know, so I'm very much going to stay here. So we're cutting. On the show. Griffin is learning. Yes.

The stuff we're teaching and that he is cutting his vocal involvement in the show and right and just gonna be kind of uh yeah but i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna stay i'm gonna stay here on the show um if i can just quickly tell my own tiktok story as as you said um really quick would be so great yes yeah so wonderful uh i don't know if you know about this but connor actually uh has been experimenting with doing tiktoks for the george lucas talk show i did yes i right i didn't know that and he made a tiktok of um tiktok who is a character from return to oz which you know i know you guys know this, but your listeners might not. George Lucas didn't work on. I know who that is. Right. Walter Murch, who he's worked with, been friends with over the years, directed. That's his only directing project. So that was

he saw the film sort of George Lucas adjacent and there's a character in it named Tick Tock. And so Connor took a picture of Tick Tock and put it on Tick To TikTok and soundtracked it with TikTok by Kesha. So that's like an example of what you're saying, Sean, a really exciting avenue for us of like, can we have a very simple joke, you know, something that's very clean and accessible and immediate and that really caters to a younger audience. But it rewards repeat viewers and it encourages research as well. Hey, what's the name of this song? Hey, wait a minute.

Hey, did Walter Murch direct this? Okay. And so you're creating new readers and curious minds. And if you could get TikTok, let's say, doing a choreographed dance to the country song Fancy Like. Sure. You know, now I think also we've got this other element where i would really like to see that i mean it's interesting because i think there's definitely room to do a lot more with uh the character of tiktok in this space we think he's got a lot of

potential there but i'll say um you know even before these suggestions from you guys we had submitted this episode to a couple rounds of um uh focus groups uh to really sort of see how different things were scoring and uh skele-duck has been off the charts with gen z yeah i really think there's something there yes i was about to say the exact thing like Skeleduck is really resonating with me he's a star Skeleduck has it Skeleduck's numbers are so much higher than my numbers that's just what I wanted to put out there

Skeleduck's a big mood I mean that's the thing we keep on hearing from kids is that Skeleduck is a big mood he's testing bait you know you put a happy pop song or a dog in the first scene of your pilot to get those dials turning. I think Skeleduck is going to be the new version of that.

If you have a scene that's scoring low, just have Skeleduck quack his way across the bottom of the screen and you're going to find that now that's people's favorite part of the project. So you have stumbled onto something very powerful there. And I'm wondering, do we need any of this george lucas stuff that i don't totally get no offense and he does the skeleton show

i think there's a role i think there's a role for george i thought i was very engrossed by being scared that skeletal duck was going to fall and if we have George, who's kind of like running around with Skeleduck and maybe going to drop him or something like that. If we can establish George is clumsy early on and show him drop a couple of things that are not precious to us, and then when he's holding Skeleduck, the amount of tension that would be created by that.

Yeah. I tell you, the thing that I'm concerned about, because I do agree with you that Skeleduck has it, the only thing I would push back on slightly is if we were to change the title from a DVR perspective,

when you change the title of a show, those subscriptions vanish. Not as searchable. Now, our show is on Twitch, so this is perhaps unrelated. But I still have the concern, just those DVR numbers. Because it'll regard it as a new show.

All those subscriptions will be gone. That's a really good catch. Counterpoint, Connor. Do we believe that the number of viewers we lose would be offset by just random people who were searching for Skeleduck independently and now would be discovering your show? Yes, yes.

That is also, I would say, a valid point. Just thinking of it on a pure numbers level, totally valid. And I just want to quickly... I'm just talking about the numbers. That's all I want to talk about. I want to hear what you have to say about it. I'm just going to quickly say I definitely canceled the thing that was causing my heart out. So I'm going to stay on for the whole episode and not leave.

We don't have too much longer i'm gonna just i'm just gonna step back and let you guys talk and listen and not say anything but i'm not leaving the episode that's good okay should we watch the last clip great yeah absolutely and i'm gonna watch it really now this last clip that kevin brought up it's definitely another thing where like we know we have this time to breathe we know we have this time to breathe. We know we have this time to like sit and languish in it. So this is something that we're able to do, you know, not on something if the show is

only 45 minutes long or an hour long. Kevin. Okay. Now since Griffin is taking a second, I just want to say this is a shot of the George, Wado, and Patrick all taking a nap on a couch together. I'm squeezing a toy that came from Star Wars Galaxy's Edge in a snoring. Make it sound like he's snoring, but we're all taking a nap.

I'm awake. Oh, we're awake. We're awake. Oh, we're awake. Oh, we're awake. Oh, we're awake. Oh, we're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake.

We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're awake. We're losing viewers. We're losing viewers. We're losing viewers. We're awake.

We're awake. Okay. I'm going to call it on this clip. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm clip this was really good yeah it was nice it was nice seeing them all be friends it was nice seeing patrick well he's like pretending to take a nap but he's also just like opening his eyes a lot and checking on his friends such an interesting performance technique it felt like it took me back to like doing being at a sleepover and like waking up before my friend whose house it is and like obviously i can't go downstairs or like do anything so i just have to

like lie there with my eyes open like that was a sense memory of that that patrick was giving it's like it's like how edgar bergen used to do charlie mccarthy the ventriloquist dummy but completely move his mouth the whole time it was it was hearkening back to that that's what i was going for at least oh nothing like hearkening back to edgar bergen i mean talk about we were talking about relating to the youth culture before what is more relatable than hearkening back to Edgar Bergen and his ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy? I mean, while we're at it, why don't we mention his other puppet, Mortimer Snurd? Now we're really hearkening back. Oh, I really I'm so glad you hearkened back to that, Patrick.

Yeah. Yeah, that really hearkens me back. that really harkens me back. I think, I think as I look at the entirety of what we watched, this clip was so effective and so good and removed from the context of the earlier clips. I don't know that it would have been as impactful. And now I'm wondering, is there an ounce of fat to trim on the entire episode?

And I'm thinking no. I have to say that I agree. I also think this is the first of the clips that really made me feel like the rest of the industry could take a cue from what we're doing. And I think the industry is paying attention at this point. I think we're finally at that point where we're starting to get industry eyeballs who are looking at the show and saying, what can we learn from this?

I don't know that you could name a single show either on primetime network or streaming that would not benefit in each episode from a lengthy segment in which all of the main characters took a nap together. Well, and it's about making things more authentic and having it feel real

because certainly we're not saying these characters never sleep. Certainly we're not saying they don't take a three-person nap. No, but I feel like most shows imply that. Exactly. No, yes, we're saying the same thing because it's, if you were only to sort of cherry- cherry pick the most interesting moments from these people's lives, that is what some of these shows are attempting to do.

And that's not real. When I live my life, I have to take a nap. I have to – sorry, guys, go to the bathroom. I do have to do that. I do have to do that. And the fact that we're not seeing TV characters do that up close and in detail is basically a lie that you tell the audience. And it breaks the trust with the audience. Sorry.

Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry that I use the bathroom. So do you guys want to be credited? Do you guys want to be credited as executive producers? Is that what this whole thing's been about? It's not about the fucking credit for me. From now on?

Is there a credit situation? I guess I would kind of have to know what it looks like. I mean, I know we could offer up associate producer. Okay. I know that. Is it rolling at the end of the episode? Kevin can pull this up if you really want to see it because consulting producer kind of exists as a credit outside the normal hierarchy that

would optically that helps me consulting rather than associate um i mean that's good consulting producer i feel like is like uh when you you're not wga you know and you want to give the writers credits we're not we're we're not involved in the wga and it's not because you know we're not WGA, you know, and you want to give the writers credits. We're not involved in the WGA, and it's not because we're not pro-union, it's just because we don't have writers. Yeah, and to quote, to paraphrase It can't be a WGA credit, but I understand what you're saying.

It certainly can't be a WGA credit. To paraphrase the popular song, busting makes us feel good. In this case, union busting. Can we good in this case union busting let uh can we see kevin what the what the credits look like and just see if there's wow okay wow it really is that could be my name it really isn't full credits it's a full credit yeah those are full font. Yeah.

Okay. Starring me. And you'll notice here we have different sizes for the names versus the sub credit. We use different sizes. We do a fully formatted closing credits for each episode. And your names could be in there. All it takes is for you to ask. I'd like to see my name as a consulting producer on the next four episodes.

And I think beyond that, my influence will probably be... A four-episode arc. Yeah, as a consulting producer. So they say, this is what I contributed to, and then obviously... And the scuttlebutt, I think, particularly if the episodes get a little bit better over the course of those four, is that you came in and kind of saved the show. It'd be one of those things where it's like they knew they were in a little bit of trouble

and then you came in and kind of steered the ship. Got us back on course. The fixer, huh? I'll take... I don't need on-screen anything. Don't need like uh post pre like whatever i'll take the url and that's it hayes davenport.com is how you get to the show that's

on that's honestly all i've got it my dad uh got it for me okay are you using it are you using it currently uh i've pretty much sold all the like my the my web store is like pretty much out of uh merch at this point yeah and so like i'm actually looking for a new use for selling vitamins so yeah i mean listen if you want to have any page on your website, redirect our YouTube channel, that's totally fine. If that's what you're saying. I'm saying the URL for the channel. The only way to possibly find your show would be to type in Hayes Davenport dot com.

Yeah. And it's the host, too. I'm sure we can like figure out a way. Like, I don't want like youtube embeds i want when people try to link to it from other sites they are not allowed to watch that they have to go to hayes davenport.com and it just only can live in that one location just makes it simpler just centralizes it you don't and easier for you to track to who's hitting the page like who's watching rather than right now i feel like your data yeah the analytics are just a nightmare yeah and some of the vitamins obviously there there will be some

vitamins still on there like i haven't sold like every single one yet so yeah you'd be taking the vitamins probably on the show like yeah you would have to buy and eat a lot of the vitamins okay yeah i mean i can't make this call i'd have to they're chewable gel they are liquid gels but they but you chew them you gotta chomp them and they they stick to your like teeth and roof of your mouth pretty good sure so it's like a gusher you may also want to have a hot beverage yeah it's stickier than that yeah and hotter the it's the liquid inside the gel is hot, too. That's why you need a hot beverage to kind of get rid of it. Just to feel, yeah.

I mean, Connor, are you fine with that? I mean, the problem is it's a server issue. The gel will get on the servers, yes. Yeah, yeah. But other than that, it sounds totally doable. I don't see why it wouldn't be.

Like, that feels like... At this point, I think it's really just a matter of dotting the I's and crossing the T's more than anything else. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You can talk to my team about all that. And we're going to need it because we're going to need both of those letters because of Skeleduck who has it. And so that, like, imagine how many times we're going to need. We only really need that.

I-T. Yeah, we only really need those two letters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm willing to make this a handshake deal if that's fine with you. Not really shaking hands right now yeah yeah just because of covid yeah i would probably blow you a kiss on the zoom okay kiss blow deal a kiss blow deal yeah kiss blow deal it's the classic hollywood kiss blow

deal okay but who goes for it like i hate like so many deals now in hollywood but don't wait shot and like this is a this is many many times now is this like we blow the kiss and then they pretend that the zoom is broken or whatever oh you're freezing up like yeah kissy face yeah connor did set this up earlier when his wi-fi was not working so believe me i know we remember now is this just a connor and hayes kiss is this a connor sean hayes kisses is a patrick sean hayes connor kiss what's the deal it's very clear you wanted to be a patrick thing um i mean i think patrick and kevin probably makes the most sense just to protect the talent. We could set them as representatives. Those are proxies, yeah.

He's kissing the edge of his screen. Oh, are we in different screens? Of his own screen. You're just kissing the edge of your own screen. That's not a deal. In my position, I'm right next to Kevin. Yeah, I guess maybe it's not. In mine, he's straight above you.

Kevin, if you get in closer to the camera. And you you gotta blow it you have to blow it it's a kiss blow deal I would show you but then I'm legally binding myself yeah okay and then the handshake from parent trap after we got it

sitting on that parent trap thing for a while we got it okay great sitting on that parent trap thing for a while alright well this was so cool look forward to the Alan Gregory marathon of course can't wait to see my name on the next four episodes and

in the meantime y'all do too much anything else you want to send people to dead eyes podcast very good. Everyone loves it. New season. Everybody loves it. Oh, thank you for saying so. Patrick, your memoir is being,

it was Random House. Grab that one up. Yeah, it was a Penguin Random House, but then it's also being released by Simon & Schuster. I don't know why they're doing it, but it's going out a couple different places. Yeah, get the memoir. I don't know. Follow me on Twitter. I don't know why they're doing it, but it's going out a couple different places. Yeah, get the memoir. I don't know.

Follow me on Twitter. I don't know. At Patrick Kotner. I'm trying to get more followers than the cancer of NBC. Hollywood Handbook. This week on the Patreon, Carl and Ahsan discuss making spaghetti. The boys do a teaser freezer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. And the flagrant ones are mostly talking all things basketball.

Check out these bonus podcasts and videos of the full episodes, including today's with Connor, Griffin, and Patrick, at patreon.com slash theflagrantones. Hollywood Handbook. That was a HateGum Podcast.