How Did This Get Made? - Last Looks: Return to Oz

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Jason & Paul chat about the polarizing reactions to our Return to Oz episode, Taskmaster Live in NYC, and movies/TV shows they're currently loving. Plus, Paul answers all your corrections & omissions on Return to Oz and announces next week's new movie! PAUL & JASON'S RECS:Send HelpLandmanFrieren: Beyond Journey's EndThe Apothecary Diaries • Get up to 20% off tix to see Jason in ALL OUT on Broadway with code ALLOUTPOD at AllOutBroadway.com• Go to hdtgm.com for tour dates, merch, FAQs, and more• Have a Last Looks correction or omission? Call 619-PAULASK to leave us a voicemail!• Submit your Last Looks theme song to us here• Join the HDTGM conversation on Discord: discord.gg/hdtgm• Buy merch at howdidthisgetmade.dashery.com/• Order Paul’s book about his childhood: Joyful Recollections of Trauma• Shop our new hat collection at podswag.com• Paul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheer• Paul’s YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheer• Follow Paul on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer• Subscribe to Enter The Dark Web w/ Paul & Rob Huebel: youtube.com/@enterthedarkweb• Listen to Unspooled with Paul & Amy Nicholson: unspooledpodcast.com• Listen to The Deep Dive with June & Jessica St. Clair: thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcast• Instagram: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & @junediane• Twitter: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & msjunediane  • Jason is not on social media• Episode transcripts available at how-did-this-get-made.simplecast.com/episodesGet access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using the link: siriusxm.com/hdtgm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Taskmaster live. Could Jason be the next host? Belina shows up with a very special gift, and we find out the historical relevance of the Queen of Oz. All this and more on a brand new, How Did This Get Made? Last Looks, hit the theme. Hello all you pumpkin heads who call your friend's mom. I'm Paul Shear, and welcome to How Did This Get Made, Last Looks, where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on. Return to Oz, a movie that you loved? Hold on a second. Let me tell you, we've been doing this show for a very long time, and you all lost your freaking minds over us shitting on this, and I will say it again, bad movie. But anyway, let's hold that thought because this is a movie that Discord user Dr. Guts 1003 thinks

should have had the tagline, Deus Egg Machina. All right, Dr. Guts, get back to surgery. Big shout out to Andy Jacobs for that opening theme song. If you have an alt movie tagline, submit it to us on our Discord at discord.g.g slash HDTGM. And if you have a Last Looks theme song, go to hdtgm.com and click submit a song on our homepage. Remember, keep them short. 15 to 20 seconds is best. Coming up on today's episode, you will be hearing all of your corrections in the missions. And by the way, there are a lot of them.

If I haven't already alluded to that, yes, we will be hearing all your little thoughts about return to Oz and how it was so great when you were a fucking kid. Well, guess what? You're an adult now! Anyway, then Jason will join me to chat about performing on Broadway, doing Taskmaster Live in New York, and give us some TV wrecks as well. And lastly, as always, I will reveal the movie for next week's episode. Dinosaur Improv is back in Los Angeles on February 28th.

Nicole Byer is sitting in with us that night. E.D. Patterson will be there. It's going to be a great night. Get your tickets now. Go to Largo-L-A.com or just go to our How Did This Get Made website or my website, whatever you want, and make sure that you head to Jason's show in New York. Jason, tell them about it. All right, what's up, idiots? Guess what? I will be appearing right now through February 15th on Broadway. That's right. I'm in All Out, the Fantastic Simon Rich show with the band Lawrence. The other great people in it are Sarah Silverman, Heidi Gardner, Craig Robinson. And guess what?

What? How did this get made? Listeners get an exclusive discount code. Ba-Bah-Bah-Bah-Bah! Here we go. Just go to all-outbroadway.com and use code all-out pod, A-L-L-L-L-O-U-T-P-O-D. That's all caps to get up to 20% off tickets. Come see the show. It's an absolute blast. E-Shit. All right, that's all the plugs we got right now. So let's get into it last week. We talked at length about Return to Oz. We had questions, and we might have even missed a few things. Here's your chance to set us straight, fact-check us, if you will. It is now time for corrections and omissions.

Corrections and omissions. There's no need for permission. You got it a little wrong, so we wrote down this song, Christians and donations Thank you, Andrew Winson, for that theme song, and now I take a deep breath as we go to the Discord. Sean McBee writes, I noticed in the credits a special thanks to George Lucas.

The reason for that is about five weeks into filming Disney fired Walter Merch as director. George Lucas was in Japan at the time, flew to London to vouch for Walter, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola also flew to support merch and he ended up being rehired within a week. But Lucas stayed there for a couple weeks to advise and make sure that merch was set up for success. Now, there's a little bit of insider information here, but I don't have where I got it from. So just believe me or then do the research for me.

I believe that a lot of the crazier ideas are courtesy of our man, George Lucas. So basically George Lucas came in, advised, said, go crazier with it, and then was like, not mine. It kind of makes sense. Anyway, Juz writes TikTok, who on top of being incredibly fun to watch, and that I do agree with, was also a marvel of practical effects. TikTok was operated from inside by a trampolinist, Michael Sudan, who, according to director Walter Merch, in order to fit into TikTok, would put his legs down into TikTok's legs. and then he would bend over looking through his legs, through his thighs, and then he would cross his arms across his chest to operate TikTok's arms. Furthermore, the heat inside the suit combined with being upside down

meant Michael couldn't be in there for more than two and a half minutes at a time. There are some great pictures of this on our Discord. You can check it out. It is truly an impressive feat. I actually got to see TikTok live when I visited. the Lucas Archives. It was awesome. Now, let's go to the phones and here's some more info on TikTok, the robot, from Liz in Wisconsin. I'm Paul, June, and Jason. This is Liz, and I just listened to your Return to Oz episode and thought I would share something brief that relates to another episode

that you guys have done, which is that Tim Rose was the guy who operated the head of TikTok. I guess there was like two different people who ran him. And Tim Rose also was Admiral Ackbar and also was Howard the Duck. Just wanted to share that. Have a good day. Bye. Well, look at that.

Some true, amazing, I would say, Lucas film history or like they're all in their same, Bantha tracks would probably cover all of these. And that's how I knew this much about return to Oz. Honestly, it must have been in Bantha tracks. I imagine. ILM was involved or something. Anyway, I don't care that much.

Here's some other things that we didn't mention about the show. The lead Wheeler is played by Pons Marr, which was also the in-suit performer for Theodore Rex. That's the dinosaur. Remember that? Jack Pumpkinhead was voiced and co-performed by Brian Hansen. That's Jim Henson's son, who directed the Muppet Christmas Carol and also is in charge of Puppet Up here in Los Angeles. If you've never seen Puppet Up, check out Puppet Up. My cousin performs in Puppet Up, and she is amazing.

Monkeybone and Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selleck was a storyboard artist on this film. Well, look at this. A lot of great people involved. And that's the thing. Visually, there's a lot of cool stuff. It just is a mashup of horror images. John from Texas, what do you got? Hey, Paul.

Didn't even finish the Wizard of Oz, the Return of Oz episode before I made this phone call, because there is so much talk about how this movie is dark because that's how the books are. But I've read these books to my children, and, you know, they love them. We read the first four books. And I've got to say, the books are way more full of whimsy and fun. And Elfrang Baum is, like, poking fun at capitalism and industrialization and stuff like that. Each chapter almost feels like it ends with a punchline. And while some of the creatures are maybe a little creepy like the jack pumpkinhead, you know, they're not, I feel like they're not really portrayed that way in the book. They're more goofy and, you know, bumbling almost like the scarecrow was in the original. movie that you all loved. Dorothy does not come from an insane asylum in the third book, when she goes to Oz and all of these things this movie happened. She's on a trip to Australia with her uncle, and she gets thrown overboard and sails to Oz,

and then, yeah, her chicken starts sparking. A lot of that stuff does happen, but I think that the movie, it's a much, much darker tone, actually, than the book. I think the book is whimsical, silly, and has some, you know, maybe creepy concepts. But other than that, this movie is a darker turn. And if I may, I just want to say one last thing.

When I was eight years old, I saw this movie on TV, and I told my family about it, and none of them believe me. They said there is no sequel to Wizard of Oz. This is before the Internet. This is back in the 90s. They had me convinced that it was my fever dream, that this whole movie, they literally told me, I think you just dreamt it up, John.

I think you trimmed it up. and I was gassed for years. So I really appreciated when I saw this on my feet that you guys covered this film. Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work. See, I love this. I love this.

Yes, the books are supposed to be whimsical. But, you know, sometimes we're reading off of research, we're putting stuff together. We're giving people, wait for it, the benefit of the doubt. But now you're taking that away. So we have to say that our original opinion stands. This movie is trash. Matthew from Atlanta.

Now, what do you got? Hi, I am part of way through listening to The Return to Oz episode, and as someone who grew up reading the Oz books, I really need to push back on this idea that the movie is a super faithful adaptation of the source material. There is a lot of visual faithfulness. It's fun to see characters who look like the original book illustrations. But in terms of tone, no, no, the books are not this dark. There is peril in the books from time to time. there is weirdness, a lot of weirdness, but it's all in service of the adventure. Odd is a place you want to go to.

And the villains are not like horror villains. Like the wheelers in the book wind up admitting to Dorothy that they can't actually hurt anyone because they have no hands. The lady with 30 heads, who is separate character from all of these, is sort of a villain for a little while, but she's mostly just vain and lazy. And then the gnome king is a tyrant, and he is a trick. but he's also like a little pot-belly guy who acts like a scary cat around to eggs, and he certainly never tries to eat anyone.

And then the plot is a mishmash of the two books, plus some original ideas. Oz was never in ruins at any point in the series. I just mostly, I don't hate the movie. I like the movie, actually, but I don't want people to pass on the books because they didn't like the movie, because really the movie is doing something very different from the books, and I love the books. Bye. Okay. So wait.

It's visually faithful, like in the sense that... Okay, so that's what I'm saying. Everyone's disagreeing. I get the idea. Basically, they took all these characters. They threw them into a blender. And we couldn't really do what MGM did, which I totally understand.

It was a... It was failed from the start. Can we just agree on that? It was failed from the start. It was not what we wanted. And yes, you might have liked it because when you were a kid, you probably wanted to see a sequel

to your favorite fucking movie, but it wasn't truly a sequel. And guess what? Let it go. No. If you love this movie, great. You love it. I respect you. But you can also understand as a rational human being why it's not good. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with more of your return to us phone calls. There, there's more. Stick around. Okay. Still digging through the calls here. Spencer from Chicago, what do you got? Hi, Paul. This is Spencer. in Chicago, a first-time caller, but I am the guy who sent you the geostorm water bottle just after COVID. With regard to return to Oz, I think, as a law professor, I think they had to

make the movie to look as completely different as possible from the 1939 Wizard of Oz, probably because of copyright and trademark law. The 1939 movie musical was produced by NGM Studios, which is now part of Amazon. Disney may have had the rights to use the characters from the later books in the Oz series, but they never had the rights to use the way MGM depicted those characters in the earlier musical with Judy Garland. So Disney in the 80s probably had to decide to avoid copyright and trademark issues by dressing Dorothy completely differently, different kinds of winged monkeys, and presenting a whole different kind of tone and style and visuals as much as possible to avoid either having to pay MGM or get into some kind of beef and litigation over the intellectual

property. So that's my best guess. I hope that helps. Thanks so much. Yes, I alluded to this earlier that they could not actually use the images from the MGM film. So this is actually really an interesting point of view. Danny the Wall on Discord actually added that the Wizard of Oz copyright lawyers were infamously litigious. And their likenesses of Darthy, the blue gingham dress, and the more familiar scarecrow would be too close for comfort. In fact, the original book never had Ruby slippers. They were silver instead. The copyright over the Ruby slippers was guarded so tightly that Disney had to pay a large fee to MGM in order to use them, which could have been up to a million dollars. Back then, a lot of money for them damn slippers.

You didn't even need them. Honestly, didn't add that much. All right, let's hear from my two favorite people in Seattle, Erin and Zoe. Hey, Paul and Jason, if you're here, this is Aaron. My daughter, Zoe, 13 years old, and I watched Return to Oz. It was quite disturbing. And I do feel we would be remiss on how did this get made family if we didn't mention that this truly could be a Jacob's Ladder scenario. She either got the electroshock and died, or she died in that river looking for a child who wasn't there. Jason, I know this is going to just really hit you in the wrong spot, but I think you've got to acknowledge it. Now, Zoe has some thoughts, too, here.

I believe whoever wrote this movie went through Electroshock Therapy, and I think the moose did not want to be there in the first place. He did not want to be alive, and they did him dirty. They did him dirty. That's from a 13-year-old. Thank you so much for everything you do. We love the podcast. Have a great day. Aaron, I am going to do you a favor and not tell Jason about this.

Not because I don't want to embarrass you, but because we already recorded that section of the show, and I didn't know about this. And I would tell you that if I did tell Jason, he'd go, eat a dick. But Zoe, I agree with you. This movie did the moose dirty. Amen, that's the shirt.

Dana, what do you got? Wow, still morph calls. Hi, this is Dana. I did want to address the animals talking in Oz. So in the book series, Dorothy visits Oz more than once, and along her journey, she brings Toto, of course, the chicken Belina and a kitten in Eureka. The kitten and the chicken both talk when they're in Oz, and Toto doesn't. But eventually in the books, you find out that Toto can talk in Oz, but he just chooses not to. All right. Thanks for the pod.

Oh, and remind June, anybody that likes return to Oz may not be a red flag. She likes Grease, too. Give it a chance. Bye. Whoa, what a hilarious. It's almost like dungeon crawler Carl, but reversed. I love that Toto's like, yeah, yeah, I'm not talking. I can, I can, but I won't. Now, that's an attitude. Mav on Discord ads that Toto was conning everyone.

Seriously, he could talk all along and chooses not to so that everyone takes better care of him. It's a huge grift, and Dorothy doesn't figure it out until book eight. Whoa, I love that she figures it out. What a funny, weird, like, thing to make your dog a dick. Back to the discord, Johnny Unusual writes, Princess Asma is more interesting in the books. She's a lead character and raised as a boy named Tip with no knowledge of her lineage at the end of the book. She discovers that she was

always a female. She may be the first example of a trans character in American children's literature. Wow. And Johnny Unusual continues by saying, I'm curious if there's any evidence to the contrary. Now, Mav, again, Pops and Mav has been our real winner here. I am an English lit professor who mostly deals with popular culture, and Osma is often pointed to as a pioneering trans character in children's lit. It's hard to say if she's the first, but Osma is definitely seen as very important in queer studies. Wow. Now, that is, now I'm interested. Now I'm getting some information beyond this shit show of a movie.

I love this. Okay. And lastly, we have an email from Joe Walker, who writes, I really enjoyed your return to Oz episode, but the film actually wasn't very faithful to the books. Okay, we got that. Paul and Jason, as comic book fans, I think you'd both appreciate the much more faithful adaptations of the first six novels that Marvel Comics published in 2009 with artwork by the incredible cartoonist. Oh, Scotty Young? That's awesome.

And they may now be out of print, but they're easy to find and well worth tracking down. They rank with Darwin Cook's Parker series as the best pros. to comics adaptation ever published. Wow. I didn't even know the Parker series was in that way. I love that. All right. Thank you, Joe. So many great corrections and omissions this week, but there can only be one winner. And honestly, the person who killed it this week is Mav for bringing it all back together. So Mav, you are our winner. And you know, we have been gifting our winners with songs for a while now, but we thought it was finally time to reward you with something a little bit different. That's right. Your corrections and omissions from now on. on will be, brace yourself, because it's all the way from Kansas, we have Bolina the chicken

is here to award you with your prize. That's right, a freshly laid egg. Belina, the mic is yours. Thanks for having me, Paul. I'm so clock and egg-cited to be here. And Mav, congratulations. Time for me to squeeze out your prize. Here we go. Oh, I should have eaten more fiber. Oh, sweet relief. Mav, enjoy this beauty of an egg straight from a pooper. And Paul, don't worry, I'll forgive you for saying I was a downgrade from Toto. I know you were just yoking.

Get it? Yoke? Well, back to Kansas for me. Bye-bye. Well, thank you, Belina, for stopping by. And, Mav, don't worry. We've already have your address. and our producer Scott will mail you that egg overnight before it spoils.

All right, remember, folks, if you want to chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode and maybe win a real egg of your own, hit us up on the Discord or calls it 619, P-A-U-L-A-S-K. All right, coming up after the last break, Jason stops by for a chat, and then we'll announce our next movie. Everybody, you know, I'm sure you've all noticed that every week we release old, how-de-d-d-d-d-es-get-me-E-E-E episodes back into our feed. These matinee episodes now come out every Tuesday. Last week's matinee was the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic hard target.

Next week's will be the Demi Moore and Michael Douglas Thriller Disclosure. So keep on checking out all of our replays of classic episodes every Tuesday. And without any further ado, it is time to welcome Jason to Last Looks for just a little chat. Just chat. Just chat.

Just chat. Paul and Jason on the mic and they like to cut the fat. Just chat. Just chat. I got beef with John Langeois, but that's a different rap. Just chat. Just chat. Just chat

Thank you Midwest Shakes Jason welcome Obviously very heated this week On the show People love Return to Oz Heeded, you could say a heated rivalry Between us and the fans, apparently Yes

They seem upset based on what you're telling me You know, I have a feeling that what's happening is this, you know, selective memory that we have as children. Like, we look back and we go, well, but I liked it as a kid. We were watching it coming in with nothing, no baggage. I find that this happens a lot. Like, when I talk about Goonies, I'm like, you got to watch it. The people like, yeah, it was fine.

I'm like, what? Fine. I feel like people get butt hurt when we do a movie that they decided when they were kids was good. Yes. And don't have any ability to look at it any differently. other than it's a little bit like June and Drop Dead Fred. It's a little bit of like there are movies that meant something to you at a time when things really were meaningful, you know?

And I think for a lot of people of a certain age, this movie, whether it played a lot on TV or was something that was they had on VHS or DVD, I feel like this movie definitely meant something to people in a way that it didn't for any of us. No, as a matter of fact, our good friend, Ed Brubaker, the great comic book writer, television show creator. Criminal coming out on Amazon Prime. Cannot wait. But basically wanted to chime in as well, just talking about how all this crazy stuff at the beginning, not part of adapting the book. You know, he said that all that stuff was just kind of made up for the 80s.

And, you know, he said that, you know, basically nothing in, like, it's, it really is like a game of of telephone of what the sequels were. So this wasn't a closer reading of the Frank L. Bomb books. And we talked about that a little bit already. But I love that Ed was able to jump in there and, you know, and just kind of set the record straight. Because I think a few times we're like, well, I assume this is what it was like. I assume.

You know, and maybe this is how I felt when you guys decided to do Conair, which I think is a great movie. I do, too. But it's, but I can also look at Conair and be like, this is crazy, that's crazy, this is crazy, that's crazy, you know. And I think that and again, maybe it's just because of childhood

and you don't want to see the thing you loved in childhood poked at or prodded or looked at in a different way by adults. You know what I mean? We're looking at this as an adult viewing. This was, I mean, had you ever seen it? I don't remember.

No, I don't think any of us had ever seen it before. So it's interesting. Stop being butt hurt is what we're saying. You know what? We look at things... Yeah, that's it. Stop, you're complaining.

Everybody loves every movie we do. You know, like, I feel like, didn't this happen with Space Jam? Weren't there a ton of people who were like, Space Jam's incredible. Space Jam's... Why did you do Space Jam? Space Jam is number one. In Chicago, people were angry about Space Jam because they were like, well, this was my movie. Exactly.

But here's the other thing, too. Does Space Jam have cool costumes? Absolutely. And did we all, like... you know, bugs bunny. Now here's the thing I've learned with my kid. They like crappy stuff, and I don't try to sway them out of it.

Like, at one point, my son was like, I don't want to watch the old space jam. I want to watch the new space jam. And I could honestly say both terrible films. And, and, but yet he felt that the sequel was so much better. There's also a child who did say to me, Dad, I'm not watching anything earlier than 2000.

Oh my God. Which, you know, is kind of funny because I think about this, you know, if my parents tried to show me something that was 25 years old, I'd be like, no way am I watching that. It was black and white. But I will say one of the things that I think about all the time is I watched older movies all the time because they were all that was on. Oh, right. Okay. You know, like sometimes, sometimes you had to watch an old movie because it was pre-VCR or pre-VCR. pre-d-d-d-you-only had whatever the movie channel was playing, whatever, Channel 56 or

Channel 38, whatever was on, I watched it. You know, like, I didn't grow up with my three sons as a TV, as a contemporary TV show, but it was on every day, and I had to watch it. Oh, watching Happy Days was not a choice. It was just what it was at the 5 o'clock slot, and I was going to watch that because different strokes was on after it, and that's the show I really liked. And that was it. By the way, you're on Broadway. How's it going? Oh, it's so fun. I'm having a blast. I've never done a show like this before. Eight shows a week. Crazy. The band Lawrence, that's part of it, is incredible. Really great. I love them. Sarah, I'm doing it with Sarah Silverman and Craig Robinson and Heidi Gardner. They're all murderers. Everybody's so funny. It's a blast.

Let me ask you this question, because I think you and I talk about this a lot. But, Now you get the seat in a different way, which is audiences are different. Like, and you could be doing the same show or an equal show. Like, so, and you are doing something that is not improvised. It's Simon Rich, brilliant writer. But do you feel that energy where sometimes you're like, oh, this crowd is just not into it? Yeah. I wouldn't say they're not into it.

I think the difference is some crowds are raucous. Okay. You know, exclaiming and yeah, shouting and loving punchlines or loving. songs or whatever. And some crowds are just polite and are laughing at laughing at the jokes, but are not like going crazy. So the difference is, like, I don't think there's, there hasn't been one that was like, oh, I don't think, I don't think they liked it. Right. There's just been either polite crowd that is enjoying it or raucous kind of mostly weekend, raucous crowds that are fun. Is there one day that you would say, like, I don't like the Wednesday afternoon crowd?

Like, is now, because you've done it enough? Is there one where you can kind of say? Yeah. Well, we don't do. The only, the matinees we do are both also the weekends. So, like, on the weekend, I do four shows in 24 hours, which is not nothing. It's a lot. But those crowds are very ready to rock because I think both because the show is geared towards,

I think, people that would be fans of our podcast, people that would be fans of dinosaur or comedy bang, bang. I feel like it's attracting a younger comedy forward group of fans and a lot of fans of Lawrence the band are there. Yes. They have a huge following. Huge following. So it's not a lot of what I was nervous of going into it was that it would be a lot of like Broadway gray hairs, no offense.

Right. Yes. No, that's what Broadway runs on. From one gray hair to a lot of others. But yeah, predominantly Broadway shows when I go see them are a lot of older people. while those are certainly, there's certainly that population here, it's a lot of young comedy savvy people. So I think they're having a blast. You know, it seems that after the show, a lot of people have come up to talk to me about Taskmaster or about how did this get made or comedy bang bang, bang, all the stuff that is comedy stuff that we know.

And now, I will say, again, and we can talk about other things as well, but I do need to address something that people have brought up, which is you are not in your uniform in this show. Now, this is a show, obviously, there are, there are, well, I mean you, you are, you are, people are concerned. Oh, people are concerned that you, you know, obviously you're playing a character, but like, was that a debate? Did you have to be like, hey, I, I, you look great. It was not a, it was not a debate at all. You know, like, everybody has a very cohesive look. It is all, like, autumnal colors that match and go with the kind of set that's there. I'm wearing a beautiful Drake's brown corduroy suit. It's gorgeous. It's comfortable as hell. I am wearing an

Oxford shirt, except it's not white. It's blue. Totally. It's a great shirt. No, I love my... And a tie. And a tie. And a tie. Oh, yeah. And a, yes, and a beautiful knit tie. Because I am looking over, I'm looking over at Craig Robinson, no tie. And I was like, look, look, you know, Craig is, you know, she wanted to know how much, yeah, how much say you had. To choose. Everybody got to choose. Like, I had options of stuff. Got it. But, but, it was all inside of, I would say, these kind of corduroy, tweeds, wool, like a lot of, like, wintery, autumnal colors and textures. Okay, you're not going to change up your look.

That's the fear that many people are worried. Are they missing out? Oh, that's so funny. You know, that you're going to be changing you look. These nerds, it took them so long to figure out that I wore the same thing every day, and now they're upset when I don't continue it. No. You must be under duress.

People assume. Is he okay? I knew you were okay because I got to. see some clips of you at the Taskmaster Live show in New York, where you come in and just took over that stage. And it was such a joy for me to be watching it on Instagram. You just kind of bounding out there, middle fingers blazing. I did my show and then my show ended. And they were doing Taskmaster Live three blocks away. So I quick changed, ran over there, and then ran out onto their stage to be the special guest for they,

because they were doing live tasks. You know, that was the setup. And so I was the special guest for the last task of the show. And it was a blast. It was so fun, so funny, so great to see those guys. Great to, like, mix it up. Who did good? Because Lisa Gilroy was competing in one I saw that.

Oh, so funny. Yeah, it looked like a great crew. I mean, those shows looked so fun. she brought the funniest thing So for their prize task They each had to bring the worst article of clothing Okay And she brought a pair of hot pants

That on the butt said Greg's Little Slut Love this That is From like from like an Atlantic City Boardwalk type of store I don't know where I don't know maybe I'm sure she got it in L.A. somewhere

But it felt like the kind of thing you would get in a in a t-shirt shop that the cast of Jersey Shore works at. Oh, I love it. Yes. And it was so funny. And then Alex put them on and paraded around in them. It was hilarious. Lisa Gilroy crushed that show.

I love it. I love it. Well, this is, I hope they come out west. I think this tour was a success. So I think they are heartened by how well this did. So, yeah, I think they will do more of this. There's a little rumbling online that, you know, what they're trying to do, and I think this is a smart move, is to, if they are ever to launch,

another American version of it that people can be unfamiliar enough with them that they could then both be, they could just basically do it here. And maybe it's a six episode, you know, me, I don't know how any episode run. I think in all likelihood that, you know, I think they've said they would like to do it again here. And I think they would like to be the hosts. I think that's the, that's their intent. That's their hope. It'd be the only thing to do.

Oh, it would be so fun. I mean, the only other version of it would be to let me be the host. But, you know. I mean, look, and I told you, if that happens, I will jump in and I will be your Alex if you need it. I mean, you know, but I think that you as a host is. I would love it. I mean, I've also seen that on Reddit as well. People are like, Jason is going to be the American host.

There's a lot of conversation. There's a lot of conversation. I didn't want to bring that up unless, you know. I hope that happens. But people were nervous when you switch the outfits that that might not happen anymore. They were nervous that, you know. Oh, man. How funny.

So much has happened. And I got to say, because this episode is airing relatively close to when it came out, I want to recommend to everyone right now. Go see Sam Ramey's Send Help. It is phenomenal. It is great. I haven't seen it. Rachel McAdams. I won't say a goddamn thing about it.

But if you like Sam Ramey, if you like Evil Dead, it is Sam Ramey doing comedy, horror, thriller. And Dylan O'Brien is fucking great. The whole movie is great. It just like, I sat in that theater going, and I don't want to build it up too much, and I won't say anything about it, but in the sense of I sat in that theater going, I don't know what's going to happen next. And I, you know, you and I both have, we watch a shitload of movies. We've written things.

We've done these things. You kind of know, like, okay, I know where it's going. I had no idea. Oh, that's awesome. The idea that we can still be surprised is what is such a joy, you know, in the movies. So that's great. It was really fun. So if you, this is the second weekend, it's out.

So go check this thing out. It is fun. And I saw it with June and, you know, June is a scary, a scaredy cat and absolutely loved, loved it. So you can, if you're not, you know, if you're a scared cat, don't feel like, oh, I can't handle it. You can handle it. Yeah, it's not like a straight horror movie. It's like, it's a Sam Ramey. Yeah, it's a Sam Ramey.

It's like it's fun. It's silly. It's, it's, and she is, yeah, she's awesome. obviously we have a lot to break down, a lot to get to, but because I wanted to catch up with you just because you've been in New York, maybe it's one thing that you like, and then next week we'll do a full catch-up of what we've been up to. I'm trying to think, you know, like I'm doing this show every night.

I come home, I'm wiped out, and so my appetite for things, now, we're talking post-landman season two, which was my, which was the priority of my 2026, which was absolutely incredible. I am, and people don't get this. This is not only a show that Jason and I like. It is a show that America loves. It is the number one streaming show.

I believe that it was number one, Stranger Things came out, was number one for a week, and then Lamb Man, boom, right back on top. Oh, that's awesome. Incredible. Landman is, and look, have I met many people who've watched it? No.

So that's even more interesting to me. Oh, and I've met a lot of people who are like, why would I watch Landman? And I'm like, Because it's the greatest show on television. By the way, and I don't like Yellowstone. Sure. I don't dislike it.

I just, it's not my, it's not my fully my cup of tea. Landman is 100% my cup of tea. And I think if you like the sensibility of our show, there is things that, I mean, look, I will say the one thing that got a lot of attention. And it's not a spoiler in any way. There is an episode where Billy Bob Thornton's erect penis does make an appearance in the cold open of an episode because he's taking too much to see Alice. the night before. Now, here's my question, and I'll say it without too much more context than this. Do you think he fucked the omelet, or was that just a metaphor? Because I think he actually did fuck the omelette, and that's why she's so mad. I think he did. I think he did, and that's why she's so

mad. Yeah, I mean, at least put his dick in the omelette. Okay, so if that doesn't make you want... And if that hasn't peaked you... Holy cow. Genuinely get involved with Landman. A true psychotic, like, mega fever dream tone poem of nonsense. Like, incredible stuff. But it's also having fun. And, like, I feel like what I love about this show is everyone is bringing a little bit of themselves to it and really enjoying it. Andy Garcia, it's like everyone's like, here's what we're doing. And then there's like that freedom of like, well, maybe my character would do it like this.

And you're like, yeah, yes, absolutely. It also has as a component of it, something that is, I would. would say part of some of our favorite things in the movies we do, which is everybody's chewing the scenery in every scene. Like Billy Bob is at like Nicholas Cage level just going for it. Everybody's monologing all the time in a way that feels like they would be at home in face off or in any of the movies that we love that have that kind of scenery chewing vibe. I love it. It's so. I love it. I'll shout out a couple of other things. things if you don't mind. So like I said, like I come home and I am wiped out. So all I'm doing

is watching anime. Like I have now become fully anime pilled. My absolute number, I can already tell you my favorite show of the year is going to be Freerun season two. Okay. Wow. I don't know what any of this stuff means. Yeah. Free Wren season one I've talked about before on the podcast was my favorite show that came out last year. Okay. Got it. Absolutely one of the most incredible TV shows, full stop of anything I've ever seen. And it is a beautiful story. It's based on a manga that, frankly, I haven't read, but the series is unreal.

Season 2 has just started airing. There's only been three episodes so far, and it's absolutely fantastic. I cried so hard at the episode about the hero of the South. Absolutely fantastic. And when I was talking about how much I loved Friarin to host of, Song Exploder Rishi Kesh Hirwe recommended the Apothecary Diaries, which is another two-season anime that is also fantastic.

I just have finished watching both seasons of that, and that is unbelievable. Apothecary Diaries, just a beautiful story about feudal China and a girl gets kidnapped and is forced to work inside of the palace, but she's an apothecary. She can make medicines. And it basically, the way that Rishi sold it to me was he's like, it's basically, what if house, the doctor house, it's like a case of the weak medical mystery in like feudal China with a teenage girl as house. And that's, it's like a procedural that way. So she's, she's a detective. She's always trying to figure out who's trying to poison who because there's so, it's all palace intrigue. I love this.

People are trying to kill this person because they're pregnant. They're trying to kill that baby so that the order of succession will be changed so that the next emperor will be this kid instead of that kid. And she's always on the case. And it's awesome. Okay. Awesome. I got to get it to anime. That's a very big hole in mind.

Those two shows, I would say, are unreal level anime. Okay. And that's also based on like I looked up lists, genuinely. I'm not any kind of expert. Just I looked up lists and they were like, the best anime are these. Yeah, no, I love that. These two are always on there. That's good to know.

I love this. Anime recommendations. We will be talking again very soon to go through a bigger list. All right, Jason's gone and it's almost end of the show, which means it is finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going on a date that's over two years in the making. That's right, this Valentine's Day, you can snuggle up with your boo to watch the 1987 rom-com fantasy date with an angel starring Michael Knight Emmanuel Bert and Drop Dead Fred's

Phoebe Cates. We actually recorded this episode in Minneapolis over two years ago but after that show, Date With an Angel was removed from every single streaming service and VOD platform until now.

Yes, Date With an Angel is finally available to watch again exclusively on ToBe. So, thank God for To Be. Here is a breakdown of the plot. An aspiring composer discovers a broken winged beautiful angel in a swimming pool.

When everyone finds out, he must deal with his jealous fian. his future father-in-law and his friends who have a business plan. Rotten Tomatoes gives this film a 13% score on the Tomato Meter, and Roger Ebert wrote in his review, this movie ought to be shot. It wastes not only the idea of the angel, but also the human presence of Kate's, a bright and quick actress

who is required to play a simpering bimbo. Well, we really used bimbo a lot back in the day. Anyway, let's take a listen to the trailer. Jim's engagement of Patty. It is over between us. It's out the window. His relationship with his boss And going to enlighten you, young man

Is going to the dogs And his best friends Are about to uncover his big secret Who is? Just an angel, date with an angel, Rate the PG starts Friday, November 20th At theaters everywhere. Now, I already told you that date with an angel

is only available to watch on Tooby, but as always, you should check out your digital media services like Hoopla Canopy and Libby, which are offered free by your local public library. Even though Date with an Angel isn't on those services, they are still great resources for movies, TVs, books, audio books. Maybe you want to get that Parker series by Darwin Cook or perhaps the Wizard of Oz series, whatever you want to do. Go check it out for free.

That is it. That's the end of the show. Listen to us on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Remember that you've got to rate and review us. Rate and review us. Rate and review us. It's easy. Also make sure you are following us.

Yes, keep that follow button pressed. and you have automatic downloads turned on. It helps the show because it's free. Helps us out a lot. Anyway, visit us on social media at HDTGM. And a big thank you to our producer, Scott Sani and Molly Reynolds, our engineer Casey Holford, our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum. And of course, we will forever be thankful to the one and only Averill Hallie.

And we will see you next week when we finally go on our long-awaited date with an angel.