How Did This Get Made? - Last Looks: The Christmas Tree

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Jason & Paul run through a huge list of TV and movie recs, we answer some choice Corrections & Omissions on The Christmas Tree, and engineer Devon returns to the pod to talk music and his new album "Blame It On My Zodiac." Plus, as always at the end of the show we announce next week's movie! Check out Devon's album "Blame It On My Zodiac" at: https://artists.landr.com/PTPZodiac PAUL & JASON'S RECS:Blank Check's Ballad of Buster Scruggs Episode"Grit, Spit, and Never Quit" by Rob Riggle21 Jump Street (2012)Project Hail MaryTaskmaster (Season 20)Haha, You ClownsLandmanThe DiplomatThe Last FrontierBunheadsThe Chair CompanyGoliathDowney Wrote ThatThe Lowdown“Cruel Joke” by Ken PomeroyWolves of Glendale’s Iron SongwriterNatalie Palamides' "Weer"Nish Kumar’s "Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe"James Acaster's Stand-Up TourStevie Martin's Stand-Up TourIan Edwards: UntitledEarthquake: Joke Telling BusinessFrankie Quiñones: Damn That’s CrazyPatton Oswalt: Black Coffee and Ice WaterIt's Never Over, Jeff Buckley • Our holiday virtual livestream is on Dec 10th! Get tix at veeps.events/hdtgm• 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.

Miss Mavilda's first name, Devin Bryant returns, and Jason has got a recommendation that's going to knock your socks off. All this and more on today's last looks. Hit the theme! Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. And your ears need to hear. Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. How did this get made? Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. And your ears need to see it. Your eyes need to see it.

Your eyes need to see it. Your eyes need to see it. How did this get made? Hello, all you gamblers with chainsaws and kids named Pappy. It's me, Paul Shear, aka Mr. Mavilda. And welcome to How Did This Get Made? Last Looks. where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on the Christmas tree,

a movie that PN.W. Paloma thinks should have had the tagline, a Christmas tree, joyless recollections of childhood trauma. Ha ha! I love it. Oh, man. I'm wondering if you could morph my book cover and the Christmas tree poster together. I don't know. Now, we'll save that for late night when I'm playing with Canva, because I love to get all freaky late at night with my Canva. A big shout out to our pal Rob from Long Island. Great opening theme song.

Rob killed it live in New York. You're going to hear that in a couple episodes. I just got to say, we had such a great time on tour. Thank you for coming out. We had some special guests because, you know, the government shutdown prevented June from actually being there. But guess what? You got some good special guests coming up.

And I want to just take a moment to say that at the end of the last last episode, I said everyone should see this film. And that was met with a lot of disdain from Jason and June. But here's what I'm going to tell you. In the past week or so, I've been talking to people out in the streets because I'm out there talking to the listeners. And I feel like this movie unlocked a core memory that people had. They didn't know where it was from, but they had seen it. This movie is important to be seen. Not since Peanut Butter Solution. Have we untapped something that has disturbed us all so deeply. So for that reason, and that reason alone, I still demand that you see the Christmas tree. By the way, people, if you want to be a part of the show,

you can be, you can submit an alt-movie tagline by going to our Discord. You can also upload a song for this very episode. Just go to hdtgm.com. There's a button right on the front page. It says, submit a song. That's what you do. You hit that button. You upload your song. If it's 15 to 20 seconds, We're going to love it, and we'll play it here on the show. Now, we have a big show, okay? We're going to be hearing all your corrections and omissions on the Christmas tree, and there are good ones in this week's episode. Not that there aren't always good ones, but this week, in particular, there are some really good ones.

Then Jason and I, we're going to chat. We haven't chatted for a very long time, just about movies, TV, what we're into. And we're going to be joined by our former audio. engineer, Devin Tori Bryant. We love Devin. He is going to talk about his new album called Blame It on My Zodiac, which is great. So a little walk down memory lane, plus things that you can be watching throughout the entire holiday season.

And let me tell you, people, I want to talk to somebody about Lamb Man. I watched the entire run of Lamb Man as season one and most of season two. I mean, I'm caught up in the course of 72 hours, and I need to discuss it. Should I just do a landman podcast? I might have to. Anyway, what else do I want to tell you? Oh, guess what? Very big news.

We are doing a live stream show. It's going to be around the world. You have seven days to watch it, so you can watch it live or watch it later. It's me, Jess, June, and Jason. We're all going to be in studio. so it's not over Zoom, so high-quality stuff there. And if you love the live-streaming Christmas events, you've got to check out the deep dive.

The deep dive, by the time you're hearing this, will have already recorded their episode on December 5th, but it is also available after the fact. So check out Veeps.com, and you can watch both shows whenever you damn well, please. Also, I want to tell you all, the movie that we'll be watching for the How Did This Get Made Christmas Special? It is the 2015 rom-com Merry Kissmiss.

And, wow, it's available around the world. And by around the world, I mean Canada and the UK, because that's where a majority of our international audience comes from. So you can definitely make sure that you can watch this before the show. Merry Christmas. And people, that's all I got. Those are all the plugs that we have, because now we are getting into the Christmas tree.

We had questions. You have answers. And you know what? We might have even missed a few things. And you're going to make us all smarter by proving that you saw something that we didn't. So now it's time for corrections and omissions. You said everything you think that needs to be said. But all the things that you forgot have got me seeing red.

So open up the day. discord and the telephone line It's corrections and omissions time. Rob from Long Island, two for two. That's like an earworm. I love it. I want to go back to that. Okay, old man, Pappy, brights.

The crew wondered a couple times why the orphans never looked towards each other for community or support. And the clear answer is, they share one consciousness. Look at how they're constantly standing in a grouping or acting in unison. The orphans are a part of a single,

hive mind and see themselves as one entity. Are they aliens possessed under some sort of hypnosis? all possible, but I think the key to their strange connection is Miss Hopewell. I believe the tree is the matriarch of this hive and through parasitic spores or some ancient magic has turned the orphans into thralls. Well, I love that you've casually just dropped thralls. Ironically, Miss Mavilda cutting down the tree would have been the only thing that freed the kids from its hold on them. Whoa. Old man, Pappy ain't fucking around. You came in hot.

And this is possibly the best theory I've ever heard on any movie that we have ever done. The kids are Borg. And I love it. I'm just going to say they're Borg because I would love that's how the Borg came to Earth originally. Maybe they're here. Picard! Get them borgs. Joe Tangelo writes, it was really weird that Mrs. Mavilda specifically said, go get your electric chainsaw, but then the guy had a gas-powered chainsaw. Why was she so specific and so wrong? Here's what I think about that. Ms. Mavilda is not into specifics, you know, or that guy's kind of a drunk.

You know, she's like, go get your electric one. And he's like, I'll get my gas-powered one. It's worse for the environment, right? I kind of feel like that's what he was doing. Some people may say, oh, the animators weren't communicated to. They didn't do ADR. No, no, no, no. That's a choice of a drunken person and Ms. Mevilde and not really paying attention to stuff that doesn't involve her. I mean, how would you even know that he has a specific chainsaw? I mean, I have neighbors.

I see that they have tools. I don't know if it's gas powered. I don't know if it's like, I don't know. I'm not asking those questions. Anyway, Sean McBee puts an image, an image up of the home that Judy was being sent to so she could be framed. for theft. Now the man is sitting amongst empty beer cans with his stained area rug and his cracked plaster wall. So if he was to slip something valuable into Judy's purse, I think I might just see a few small flaws in this Mavilda's plan. Yeah, I mean, look, I guess you could say the cops are

on Mavilda's side. She's going to frame her. This guy's got friends on the force. We know it doesn't always have to make, you know, sense. But you know what? Sean McBee goes on to say. Another example of even more egregious animation choices is in the shot of Judy when the camera rig appears to have been knocked off kilter. So you can see the top of the animation cell and some of the stand is revealed. It seems to be like no one involved in this movie gave half a shit about it.

You know, I did notice that and I thought that was just something like an artifact on YouTube. I didn't realize that the anime. was truly off and this still is cracking me up you can see the stand it's like that new 4k thing that they did from madman where you see the guy pumping uh the oyster rig or like uh like when roger sterling vomits oysters is a guy off camera like with the rig oh man but this this is not about 4k upgrade no no no this is just about that you know what i actually believe that the guy whose house that Judy was supposed to go to, probably ran the animation rig.

Anyway, Frosted Nebula writes, regarding June asking if Mrs. Mavilda is having to report what's happening with the money, as far as reporting requirements go for publicly funded service organizations, dear God, I am a nerd, if the orphanage is in the U.S., they would presumably be receiving some sort of community development block grant funding, which is a CDBG, which has very specific reporting metrics. theoretically, if the bags of money from the mayor are CDBG grant funds, Miss Mavilda would be required to follow specific reporting metrics about how the money is being used, and those reports will be reviewed by the city or county and the federal government. Many people not doing their jobs here. Well, here's the thing, Frosted Nebula. I appreciate your specificity, but I don't think this is an American tale. This is no fival. No, no, no. This is this is. This is, this. This is somewhere where you can walk to Alaska, which I guess, I mean, it might be, well, Alaska, North Pole, not Alaska. Huh.

Maybe it is Alaska. Doesn't feel like Alaska? Not sure. All right. Frosted Dembula, you're right. All right, let's go to the phones. Ben from Virginia. What do you got?

Hi, everybody. This is Ben, and my buddy, Paul and I love to watch these movies in advance. We caught something that I think made us laugh so hard that we had to stop the movie, go back, and even record a clip of it from the movie. A line, you didn't point out, there's so many things from the Christmas tree that they're worth discussing. But our favorite line is after the little girl praised to, I guess, Santa to change her wish a second time. And the little boy behind her says, let me see if I can get this right. Santa's not going to hear you. Nobody's going to hear you. Miracles don't happen. Thank you for bringing this ridiculous movie to our attention. It was a challenge to watch

like an actual physical pain, all of the little cells and eyes and things, jotting and buffing around. But what a joy to know that this exists. Thank you all for all you do. Saw The Dinosaur Show in D.C. Fantastic. Cheers. First of all, Ben, thank you so much for coming out to D.C. That was a blast. I love going out with D. dinosaur. We have such a killer group of people out there. It's the best. It's the absolute best. If you're ever in LA, come see Dinosaur. We'll be alive at Largo on the 24th of January. I know that's far away. But yes, that line, Santa's not going to hear you. Nobody's going to hear you. Miracles don't happen. Sounds to me like the sentiments of a very depressed animator who forgot to

center the animation cells while transferring it to Betamax. Wow, Ben. Thank you for that. This is a movie where you should have your phone out so you can tape moments and show them to people like I have been doing with Landman. Oh, man, there's some lines in Landman, some lines and Landman that will just knock your fucking teeth out. Is that a phrase?

No, it's not. All right, let's go to the phone now and hear from Steve. Hi, Paul. This is Steve with an omission. for the Christmas tree, or maybe an explanation for the cryptic ending, the way that it ends with that line that Mrs. Mavala learned that you only win if you're good. What does this mean? Well, I think that it means, it is a reference back to her gambling addiction. Dune pointed out that the movie doesn't end actually saying that she has stopped gambling.

Perhaps she has, but of course we also know that she was terrible at gambling. She was always losing. So maybe through, I don't know, Santa's Christmas magic or whatever, Mr. Mavala found a loophole and learned that if you are good or fame being good, that you can start winning. So maybe the movie actually ends kind of ambiguously with her laying in weight and growing in power and so on until she can finally unmask herself and her evil upon the world. I don't know. Okay. I like it. I like it that you are a Christmas tree truther. Like you believe it all makes sense and you have a beautiful perspective on this. You know what? I actually believe that that is the spirit of the film to find the truth. Whatever truth is true to you.

So thank you. Thank you, Steve, for showing us that this is a metaphor about gambling. All right, back to the Discord. Dove writes something that we knew when recording. This episode is nearly twice the length of the movie they're discussed. with the movie lasting 42 minutes, the episode being about 80, how many episodes have they done that were longer than the source movie itself, let alone twice as long? I'm betting it's none. Now, our producer Scott, always on target, always up for a challenge, says we've never had another episode be almost twice as long as the movie, that this isn't the first episode that is longer than the movie in general. To name a couple, our episodes on Superman 4, The Quest for Peace, and 2-2 were both longer than the films. Now, here's the thing. Our discussions frequently go much longer than the movie, but we edit them down. For example, the Morbius live show was three hours long unedited, but we know that that's

a special thing for the audience. So whenever you come see how did this get made live, you're going to get a longer, more special show. And also, we understand no one wants to hear three hours of Morbius. And I know you're like, yes, we do. No, you don't. S.S. Lizard writes, I don't think the mayor is a good guy. He sees one kid dressed in the same clothes every time he drops off money and that's it. He doesn't look around or talk to the kids or ask for any receipts. He just drops off money like, yep, I've done my job. I'm such a good mayor. Here's the thing, SS Lizard, hire good people and then let them do their job. And I think the mayor was doing that. And yes, he got a little complacent, but there seems to be a lot of things this mayor is responsible for, primarily employing. every individual person in this town. He has to size them up, find them not only a job,

but then take care of their lodging as well. This mayor is doing the Lord's work. And yes, he may get confused. He may have thought there's different kids coming in and out. And sure, you can attack him all you want, but this guy is doing more than most mayors, okay? John Steele writes, Hey, Paul, my wife and I watched this movie with our kids, and we all had a good laugh at this bizarre movie. We had a thought on Mrs. Mavilda. We noticed that during the first card game, some of the other degenerates were calling her Bavilda, so we thought maybe her full name is Bavilda Mavilda, John Steele, this is the logic. This is the logic that we need.

And you know what? I'm doing it two last looks in a row. You are our winner. That's right, John Steele, for naming Mrs. Mavilda, Bavilda, Mavilda, yeah, you're going to win. And you get this amazing song from Homonym. Nothing. Yes. Great job.

Everyone who came correct. And you did. You came very correct. By the way, how did this get made merch? We have re-released our original shirts. The first two designs we ever made are now up in our merch store. You could just go to hdgm.com and get a link to go right there.

You can also get our shirts for our Philadelphia and New York shows. They're a great holiday. gifts. You can make them into coffee mugs. You can make them into stickers. You can make them into onesies. People give. How did this get made for the holidays? And if you want those amazing hats, that's available to, you just have to go to our pod swag store. Okay. Now, if you want to chime in with your thoughts about what we're always talking about here on the show, you can, it's very easy. You listen to the show, you go to our Discord, or you call me at 619, P-A-U-L-A-S-K. Then I'll read your thing. I'll determine if you have what it takes to be like John Steele. And you know what? Most of you do.

I believe in you. Like Tony Robbins, you can do anything you set your mind to. Take it from me, Paul Robbins. All right, coming up next, you don't want to miss my chat with Jason, where we recap our recent New York and Philadelphia live shows and talk movies, TV, music, and more. So stick around after the break. People, I hope you're checking out our amazing matinee episode. That's right. Every Tuesday, we re-release an old episode into the feed, and we are talking Christmas movies this year. We are talking about Ben Affleck in the holiday crime flick Reindeer Games with Howard Kramer. We had some very big revelations on this one. And next week, we're going to go not just fully down a Christmas path. We're going to go a little adjacent by talking about the 1991 Robin Williams' surreal comedy toys because Christmas and toys. You see how we made that connection? Anyway, Keep on checking out all of our replays of classic episodes every Tuesday. And now, without any further ado, it is time to welcome Jason to last looks for a little, just chat.

Ad noisium, play us in. Five days away, Jason from our live event streaming around the way. world. I'm in training now. I'm working. I'm working out two times a day. I'm doing cardio just to get ready for the live stream. We are going to do it in a different and fun way this year, which is we're all in the same location, which will be fun because that will mean just won't have to do any tech, but she will have to arrive there, which will be a whole other. Very difficult. Maybe tell her, maybe tell her it's going a little bit earlier. You should give her a different time. And I fully expect simply her presence will somehow cause tech problems.

This story that I heard, and I won't reveal all the facts, but I think it's a good one, which was there was a table read that was going on for a project. And they wanted to make sure that every actor got there on time. So they told all the actors like two hours ahead of time to get there because a giant movie star was going to be at this time. table read. And the giant movie star got there two hours early as well just because the giant movie star was like, I just want to be there. I want to make sure that I am there. So then they had this, this weight because not everyone showed up. So everybody was there. Oh, so just not every, just not quite everybody. Not quite everyone because the one person that they were also trying to like gauge against didn't show up until two hours and 30 minutes. So it became 30 minutes late,

but they had to entertain, like, the biggest star. And I was like, oh, this is really, like, no one knew what to do. I love that. I can't wait to hear who it is. Yeah, it's a good one. All right, so, Jason, we have been on tour. We've been moving around. We've been grooving around.

We had some great shows in Philly. We had some great filling guests. You and I. Morgan was in Philly, shouts to Morgan, who came, who moved away from Philly, but came back just for the show. And I feel like we didn't give him enough due out there, but you know what, it was. I'm giving it to him. now great work morgan great work morgan now i will say uh how many people sorry yeah no how many people genuinely in the 15 years of this podcast from the audience can you name single name you know can you

count it on one hand you know i mean count it on one at lago there's morgan like morgan it was like an absolute superstar yeah you know yeah there i mean there there's there's only uh the the pete the s man You know, there's a couple of people that come to mind. Ben Cannon. I think of Ben Cannon. What a great name. Jafar. Leah from Chicago.

Oh, Leah from Chicago. We had some fun, we had some fun times in New York because we actually got to lay down a very long episode of Blank Check, which I've been loving watching people's reactions to. Oh, yeah? The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. People were like. By the way, Geek Squad came up in it. Yes, they did. And as you know, we are waging this war with Vanity Fair and the, and Hollywood.

but now we're waging war i'm just going to say it we are waging war right wait a minute but um we're bringing we're bringing back wars we're bringing back like when howard stern would go to war with a like a radio yeah like the philadelphia dudes yeah exactly um here's what i will say uh some people lamented that three hours and 41 minutes not enough time for us to break down i i mean i could have kept going me too we had a show to keep going you know and i'm not surprised that people wanted more more. You know who didn't want more? David Sims. Oh, my gosh. There is nothing more fun, I will say, especially, especially this time when the four of us got to be in the room. I love being in the room. Then watching David get more

and more agitated and frustrated in a such delightfully fun and funny way. He is, what a great, what a great presence inside of the absolute chaos that is you, me, and Griffin. Oh, and here's what I love. about it is it seems like that anger is misplaced because the show has started, but he does treat it as if the show has not begun, right? Like not hit record yet. As if everything, the whole conversation we've been having about the movie, but simply because nobody has said this is the blank checkpot, nobody's done

the intro line, he's getting more and, oh, it was so funny, more and more frustrated, you know, because, you know, that's, David is, is, you know, has three kids, I think, under four the yeah he's got he's in it he's in he's drowning in children um and it is he boy and so i think for him the three of us were just like three unruly kids i mean it was so funny because uh we should have started at 10 a m to finish uh at six like you know um it was really like to me i love being in there i love their space uh i love talking to them i and so if you have not listen to that episode. Do yourself a favor. If you got about four hours.

You know, and it's the kind of thing that you can listen to in chunks. And I will say if you are a Cohen Brothers fan, if you're a Blank Check fan, if you're a movie podcast fan, if you like our show, you should be listening to Blank Check. Absolutely. A lot of our guests are guests on that show. Listen to Gabris or us. Paul and I have been on it a bunch. Listen to the Doe Boys on there if you're looking for an entry point. But then, also listen to Ari Aster on there. Listen to Seth Rogen on there. Listen to the, you know, all the great, all the great past and future guests.

It's a fantastic show. And I can't recommend it enough. And this series about the Cohen Brothers is maybe pound for pound one of the greatest series they've ever done. The best run that they've had. I mean, in a series, in a show that has tremendous runs all the time. I will also say this. I want to shout out our friend who's never actually been on the podcast.

but Rob Wrigal. Rob Riggle has a book and an audio book as well. It's the same book. It's not like he has two. But it's called Grit, Spit, and Never Quit. It's his story about being a Marine and doing comedy. And there are some great, great stories in their Riggles. Marine stories are always hilarious.

And this book is really, really fun. If you like Rob Riggle and you know him obviously from, you know, everything from like 21 jump street the daily show yeah daily show SNL great great dude uh so anyway just wanted to shout out our friend and his uh brand new book but jason i've been watching stuff and i wanted to get your read you're going to have more interesting stuff so i'm going to just throw one thing at you what do you what do you got i went back and watched 21 jump street and i was like this movie the entire tv no i wish i watched tvs at all my yeah yeah By the way, I do own it of the entire TV series.

You really? Oh, I do. I loved it. I watched that 21 Jones Street movie. And it was like, you know, it's funny. I don't often revisit comedies. I'm like, oh, yeah, it was really funny. I really liked it.

And I don't ever go back. I rewatch that movie. And I was like, this movie is kind of perfect. It just is so funny. So funny. Great cast across the board. I just was like blown away by, I think it's fun to sit back and watch comedies after a long time of not seeing them because it's uh because then you're surprised by the jokes again yeah

you know it's because that's why it works because it's like it's so surprising and funny and again we just don't do these anymore wouldn't it be great to make movies with funny people that are funny you know i know nonstop funny with funny people i would love that but we don't seem to be interested in that or the the business doesn't seem to be interested in and it's such a shame because that's a movie that really you could show is like oh well it's done it all. I mean, you and I think also have a soft spot for action comedy, especially cop stuff and funny stuff. I mean, but I just want to give a shout out to Dave Franco, who I think is so good in that movie. He's so fucking funny. Everybody, I just really like, and that's a run

too where you've got 21 Jump Street. You've got like the Seth and Evan stuff like this is the end happening around that same time. You've got neighbors happening right around that. Like, you've got a run of movies that is kind of the end. And many of these are not even action comedies. These are just comedies. Yeah, just straight-up comedies. And that run is kind of the end of studio comedies, really. I know. And they're all successful, like, I mean, it's so crazy to look at, like, you know,

like, it's an 85 on Rotten Tomatoes, 21 Jump Street. These are not failures. These are not even, like, niche movies. These were ones that really, really worked. These are movies that connected. I still wish, I think we talked about this recently, I wish they would do the 21 Jump Street three men in black four. Channing Tatum was talking about.

it recently again. Oh, okay, good. And I think that there's some rights issues where they're able to maneuver it. But that's the kind of fun that I wish we were doing. I wish we were making movies that had that fun to that level of fun and surprise because I think we'd have hits on our hands, you know, comedically. You know, we'd have people being interested to be like, I got to go see that instead of like, it's Baywatch or, you know, whatever nonsense. We make these things that like, I don't know. It's a bummer. It's just a bummer. Sometimes it's a bummer. But I will tell you, the trailer for Project Hail Mary looks amazing. That's Lord Miller's new movie. Based on the Andy Weir book. I did see it. I will tell you that much. I saw it months ago. And before the effects were done, I think maybe they cut out about 10, 15 minutes. And I will tell you, you are in store for, I saw it almost not effects list, but with minimal effects. And I was going away by it like and i just i'm so excited for that movie i'm so excited for people to see that movie uh oh that's great but what are you been up to um i'm watching a bunch of stuff i've got a bunch

of stuff to shut out tv i've got some music stuff let's just blast it through taskmaster season 20 just wrapped up on youtube i can't recommend it enough better than your season fantastic season it is in no way shape or form better than my season i've been boycotting it because i'm i'm and actively telling people, don't why, it's not as good. They didn't bring back Jason. And they say, well, they don't ever really bring back people. You know, it's that magic trick that Taskmaster always does, especially for, I think, if you are not fully dialed into British comedy, where I don't know these people,

or maybe I've seen them in passing here or there. And then I immediately become obsessed with them and become so invested in the show. This season was fantastic. I really became a fan of Stevie Martin because of your season. Stevie Martin sent me a picture recently of I'll find it and send it and maybe we can post it. Somebody sent her a picture of people on Halloween dressed as her and I in our in our outfits from Taskmaster. Oh, I love that. Oh, I wish it was very cute. Like it was like a couple's costume.

Oh, I think that that's amazing. By the way, somebody did something that I want to send you. It is a clip of someone hitting the pause button on Teen Wolf and finding the nudity in it. So now there is, we have a great. Now there's proof. There's proof. Now that somebody was able to give me the proof that I so desperately needed from the Teen Wolf episode. Oh, that's so funny.

There's a show on, I think HBO, it's an adult swim show called HAA you clowns. Oh, I never heard of this. Animated show, 15-minute episodes. I have not laughed this hard in I don't know how long. This is some very funny, like, absurd nonsense, funny shit. This, uh, there's only a handful of episodes are up so far that I've seen. Joe Kappa is the creator. Okay.

Yeah. Um, I just happened on this show and it is killing me how funny it is. Oh, I can't wait. It's absolutely bananas level funny. Um, Landman is back. Love Landman. Oh, yes. Love Landman.

Um, uh, the last frontier on Apple is Basically, what if Conair was a TV series? And I started watching it, and I'm loving it. It's a blast. It's a blast. If you are looking for, it's getting to be that holiday season period where I feel like everybody watches Gilmore Girls. Yes.

If you are looking for a Gilmore Girls-esque thing to watch, maybe you've already watched Gilmore Girls enough or whatever, I can't recommend enough the follow-up show that Amy Sherman Palladino did one season of called Bunheads, all of which is now on Prime, and I've just rewatched all of Bunheads, and it's incredible. It is so fantastic. Sutton Foster is the star of the show. Every, she's a, she and Kelly Bishop have a dance studio. Every episode has a long, single take dance performance, which the Palladino's then later, did on etoile as well, the now canceled prime show. But I cannot recommend bunheads enough. It's on prime. It's been hard to watch for a while. So that's a good one. Jason, have you watched

or we haven't talked about yet, but the chair company? Chair company. I am, I've only watched the first couple. I think it's amazing. Now that I'm back at home, I'm going to watch the rest of it. I'm very excited. I really, this is a show and like pluribus as well. I like to. I haven't started that. I haven't started either because I like to build up a handful because I know I want to watch more than one. And I also don't want to watch stuff on hotel TVs. No, exactly. I want to watch it the right way. I don't want to watch it on my

fold-up iPad, but I will tell you this. I'm calling for the Lou Diamond Phillips Renaissance. I feel like he is great in chair company. I just so good, and I just saw him be great in a season, an older season of the Billy, I was

so desiring Landman to come back that I've watched almost all of Goliath, Billy Bob Thornton's Amazon Prime Lawyer show and one season Lou Diamond Phillips is in and it's fantastic. Goliath, I remember watching that.

My gosh, yeah. It's fun. He's been really, really good. And by the way, Jim Downey in chair company is fantastic.

And if you watch one battle after another, he's also fantastic in that. Like, he's having this renaissance. And there's a Jim Downey documentary out as well. Which is it called Downey wrote that. It's on Peacop. And there's a great interview with Letterman and Downey

together on YouTube. It's one of his YouTube interview shows, which he's doing and it's great because Downey was the headwriter of Letterman for a little bit after he left SNL in the early days. So they are, they talk about bits that was, it was making me laugh so hard because it was just like the craziest Letterman bits, but it's the head writer and Letterman talking about like bits that no one talks about. I love that.

One last show that I want to give some real love to because I think it's maybe my favorite show of the year so far. And that's Sterling Hard Joe's The Lowdown, the Ethan Hawks. show that is set in Oklahoma that is absolutely phenomenal. They're calling it like a Tulsa Noir, I think, or something like that. And it's very much that. It is a very noir story that's being told with, you know, Ethan Hawke as the protagonist. And it is a funny, shaggy, detective-ish hangout show.

The cast is incredible. The music is incredible. I specifically want to shout out. They are using the musician Ken Pomeroy. she's an incredible singer-songwriter and she's an actor on the show her album from last year called Cruel Joke I think is one of my favorite

albums of the year Flannel Cowboy may be one of my most listened to songs of the year the show is incredible and I think deserves everybody's attention like top of the list for me for 2025 the lowdown

Oh I love this and you know you shouted out one thing that I want to just call out I've talked about them before in the show the Wolves of Glendale, they are a really funny band. And I know sometimes if you say, oh, a funny band, people like, you could feel their but holes tighten. But here's what I tell you, they are legitimately very funny, but they're doing a brand new series, which I love.

It's like Iron Chef for Songwriting. So what they do is they get these ingredients that they have to do and then make a song. So every episode is them making a song on a very unique topic. The first episode was they have to make a song. song about Shrek. I just love the format. It's Iron Chef with music. Check it out.

It's on YouTube. It's free. It's Wolves of Glendale. You will love it. And the Shrek song is very funny. Let me just, I want to shout out a couple things. I just saw, I was in New York.

This is really for people, if you are in New York or going to New York, I saw Natalie Palmides' show Weir at the Cherry Lane. And it was astonishing. I thought it was an absolutely incredible. show that everybody needs to see. Natalie Palmedius did the show Nate that is available on Netflix. But this show, Weir, is an incredible, incredible show. I couldn't believe the, I don't want to say what the kind of trick of it is or the, what the, what the hook of it is.

But it's, it's so incredible and so fucking funny. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Some of my favorite comedians are on tour. If you can see Nish Kumar's show, Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, incredible. James A. Castor is touring and is touring the U.S. with new material that I've seen, and it is fantastic. James A.caster, of course, from the James Projector episode.

Phenomenal. Stevie Martin is on tour. We mentioned her earlier. My taskmaster, J.V. Martzukis, teammate, please see her new stuff. Is fantastic. but a bunch of people have put out specials recently that I want to shut out. Ian Edwards put out a special on YouTube that is absolutely hilarious. Earthquake special joke telling business is so funny.

Ali Wong directed Frankie Kinoez's special. Damn that's scary and that's very funny. All of these are worth tracking down and worth checking out. Great specials all around like trying to get into more like finding more people that are putting out specials and not just like big slick nonsense but like really funny shows you know yeah yeah patent was on something recently patten just put out an audio only special oh wow i love this great more of this okay and also the jeff buckley documentary is absolutely heartbreaking and fantastic well jason here's something you're going to want to put on your list uh a brand new

musical performer, a talent here from our show of years past. Our former engineer, Devin Bryant, has something to share with us. Devin, welcome back to how did this get made. Gentlemen, hello. Well, well, well. Look at this. Left us for smart lists. Left us to do more and be more creative, though.

How dare you? I know. I'm so sorry. Left us for, as my cousins in Massachusetts would say, smile list That's absolutely right And I've seen both of you guys As you come through on a couple shows

We've had over there Both of you are on staying alive The show I work on with Gaberson Pally Which is a fantastic show Great episodes So you're both wrong too If people haven't heard them Please check them out

Do you think those are the two Highest rated episodes of that show? Yes Now here's what I'll say You know for people who don't know Devin is the best We love Devin Devin produced here on how did this get made

created songs for us, was instrumental on unspooled as well. But Devin, in your own right, you are a great musician. We talked about your last big release under the moniker of Painkiller the Pigeon, right? That's right. Pain Killer the Pigeon is what I call this kind of music. Because I do some experimental stuff, but this is where I put kind of like, you know, pop songs. I mean, for lack of a better term, these are these are guitars, these are drums, these are bass, these are lyrics. You know, it's Beatles type pop songs. I mean, mean, rather than, say, a Sabrina Carpenter or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, now, the new album is called Blame it on the Zodiac, right? Blame it on my Zodiac. Oh, my Zodiac. There you go. Okay. Now I like that. Is the album, so it's all songs that are about the failure of your Zodiac boat, the inflatable boat that

which is, look, don't, Jason, we cannot shit on them there, a sponsor, please. Oh, shit. Are we still sponsored by Zodiac? Yeah. We'll get a lot of money from the Zodiac thing. Oh. A big discount code. No one uses it because it's still very expensive. But yeah, so tell us about this album. Well, it's a very vintagey thing. I mean, the inspiration, the things I was listening to as I was writing these songs are sort of all things that end up being released sort of 1968 to 1972. And I don't really know why. It's just it was all the, you know, kind of the second, third, fourth CCR record. The like second third, fourth Joni Mitchell record. You know, the like the Peter Gabriel Genesis era. The, you know,

King Crimson kind of before the first breakup, you know? It's all this stuff that I was listening to. Like Adrian Ballou era King Crimson? Like, I certainly was listening to a ton of that, yes, absolutely. I mean, are we talking three of a perfect pair here? Like, Lark's tongue, Lark's tongue and Jack and me? Like, what are we talking to? That's a good record, by the way.

That's an underrated one, the second one, beat. People are like, disciplines the one, but beat is fantastic. No, beat is, I loved beat. And that whole run, you said Lark's tongue. right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lark's tongue is fantastic and red, the one that comes after it, which is just brutal. It's a brutal record. None of that exactly leaks through to the record, King Crimson-wise, but Robert Fripp's kind of attitude is in the back of my head the whole time, which is keep going, keep pushing. You're not doing it well enough, which is mostly him talking to himself, you know, being furious that he would have missed like, whatever, like a 32nd note in an arpeggio. It was off by a quaver last night. He's like, the show sucked. You know, and you're like, it's, I wasn't going for, that kind of thing, but there was just this voice in my head of like keep pushing on it, right? And so it became that most vintage of things, a double album. Wow. A crazy thing to make. Gatefold? If I'm ever able to make it on vinyl, right, which is, which is the goal. But at the

moment, it's just going to be on CD, which is a nice glossy, limited edition package that I made with a big poster and with a lyric booklet and all this kind of stuff. It's meant to be kind of a vintagey thing. You know, that's the idea of it, a physical object that you can hold. Physical media, baby. I love it. point of it yeah so now uh where can we get it what can we do how can we support it we're going to play a little clip uh because i think we can do that uh you know uh we can talk to your company you better not you better not force us to take it down i'm issuing a takedown i love it's always issuing a taked um like yeah like where where can we find it because i know that you have you have an account

on spotify you can type in painkiller the pigeon but that's not every you know that that's not everything it'll be streaming absolutely everywhere that people people prefer to listen to it, even the naughty places like Spotify that I wish you wouldn't use, but, you know, title and Apple music anywhere. Use it. Would you prefer it if we, for example, bought it digitally on band camp? I certainly would. Bandcamp, my bandcamp, painkiller the pigeon, bandcamp.com, is the place to go, I would say. And when, if you are lucky enough to, to be a band camp regular, if you buy the album on Bandcamp Friday, that means that's right. Bandcamp does not take its percentage. All of the,

money goes to the artist. Exactly. So there should be a band camp Friday coming up soon? I believe the December, the first December Friday, maybe? I believe it's the first Friday in December, which I believe is the day this comes out, the fifth. All right. Incredible.

Okay, there we go. Today, as people are hearing this, is band camp Friday. So if you're hearing this and it's Band Camp Friday, go and buy Devin's album. Exactly. Blame it on my Zodiac. Absolutely. Will you tour the record? I don't know how I could.

This is a record. I made entirely on my own. I play every single instrument. Oh, yeah. Every single instrument top to bottom on a double album with four EPs that come out after it. So there's 42 tracks that I did from T to B. So it's kind of an insane project. But I had to make that much to get to the, to boil it down to what the record was supposed to be.

I had to make way too much. And then lots of it was good. So it'll all be out in kind of supplementary EPs for people that are interested. But the main record is the thing, for sure. I love this. The album is available in full for 50. Right? Yeah, for digital. And if you want to get the CD, yeah, with the special limited edition poster and booklet, that's 20 bucks. That's, this is nothing. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'll get that. I can't bring myself to charge. Honestly, what it should be, you know, if I were trying to make money on this thing, it would be like, they would be $35. But I just, I reject that. I'm a kid from the 90s. A record should be $15 or less. I know. I agree. I agree. I remember when CDs went up to $17 and I was like, this is insane. By the way, I've been dealing this with my.

My book, you know, my book came out in paperback, and it's only $3 cheaper than the hard cover. I'm like, what? What? What is going on here? The hard cover is like 21, and the book is like $15.99. It's like, it's like it's too close. But anyway, we love you, Devin. Thank you for coming back.

Buy this album. Support Devin. Go to Ban Camp today. Support all the artists. Seriously. Do you don't have to buy for me. Buy from people on band camp every band camp Friday. Just buy something from somebody.

Buy, buy. How about this? Devin, are there any artist? that you want to shout out that you feel like in, I mean, you already have a little bit, informed this album that are, that people could also be looking at on band cam. Well, that's, it's tough because, right? So much of the stuff I was listening to was older music. Old stuff.

They don't necessarily have things, you know, to promote right now. But, but I will say the Joni Mitchell archive and reissue series. Don't get me started. I mean, I can talk about this for years. I got a Joni Mitchell cover on the record, my friend. It's, oh, I don't know where I stand from clouds. It's one of my all-time favorites that I just had this. dream. I was listening to it on a plane, actually. And I was like, this needs to be done as if the

birds had covered this in 1968 with big electric 12 strings, big harmonies, big drifty, dreamy version of that song. And it's one of my favorite on the record. I love this. All right, tell us this song that you're going to play for us, we'll listen to it. Yes. And then, yeah. The song I wanted to play is actually going to be the second single from the record, which on the day you're listening will be out next week. It's called Mistaken. And it's kind of a orchestral. chamber poppy thing with a little bit of a groove. So, yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Devin, and enjoy this song. thank herself, but she just can't take herself all time.

I'm trying to tell me the Christian night, all never keeping her ballot, hang down and pagan dead, she's not repaid again. Don't be saying. She will survive, so please wait your advice. I'm in decree,

All the voice they are to disguise It has my goodness I'm going to be in there. All right, thank you so much All right, thank you so much to Jason and Devin's taken now. All right, thank you so much to Jason and Devin. for stopping by. If you want to check out Devin's album,

Blame it on my Zodiac. Go to the link in this episode's show notes, which will point you towards the album on Bandcamp and all streaming services. Now, it is finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going from dry mushing to some wet smooching. Yeah. Well, well, I've already kind of teased this in the beginning, but we're watching 2015's Merry Kissmiss starring Carissa Staples, Brent Doherty, and the late great Doris Roberts. Like I mentioned, this is the movie that we are covering on our holiday live stream on December 10th.

So if you want to watch the episode live and completely unedited before the podcast comes out, make sure to get yourself a ticket by going to hdtgm.com or my website. Now, if you want to know what this movie's about, well, first of all, I'm going to tell you, Scott says you should watch it. And if you're still not sold on that, here's a summary. A magical kiss and an elevator leaves a woman torn between two men at Christmas. time. Ooh. Okay, this movie doesn't have enough Rotten Tomatoes reviews, so we can't give you that tomato score. Instead, we turn to Letterbox where user Marissa Carpio writes, you got a problem when the characters with the most chemistry play cousins. You know, I got to tell you, this happens a lot on these Lifetime Hallmark films. There seems to be a sexual tension for the characters who

can't get together. Like that post office movie, remember that the brother and sister that? We wanted them to fuck. Anyway, if you're still not sold, listen to the trailer for Merry Christmas. All Kayla wants for Christmas. True love is always a worthy wish. I thought that wish came true two years ago, but now I'm not so sure. Is the happily ever after she's always dreamed about. We decided to hold off on the wedding until after the new year.

Now, she'll have to choose between the perfect life. Wait. Or the perfect guy. Carissa Staples, Brand Dardy, and Doris Roberts. Like magic and romance igniter relationship, but it's the friendship that makes it endure. In a Yuletide story about how it's never too late to find the perfect one for you. It's the friendship that turns that happily ever after into the beginning of a love story and not the ending. Merry Kissmiss.

You're excited? I am. You can stream Merry Kissmys on Hoopla to be Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV, Fossum, and Fandango at home. Or you can rent it on YouTube, Apple TV, or Google. play. In addition to Hoopla, where you can find this movie, Canopy and Libby are to more digital media services offered by your local public library that allow you to consume movies, TV, music, audiobooks, ebooks, and comics for free. That is it for last looks. If you listen to us on Apple Podcast or Spotify, please rate and review us. And please also make sure that you are following us and have automatic downloads turned on. It helps us. It helps the show. And we appreciate it. Visit us on social media at HDTGM. And a big thank

you to our producer, Scott Sani, Molly Reynolds, our engineer, Casey Holford, our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum, and our intern Quinn Jennings. And as always, we have the one and only Averill Halley in our hearts. We'll see you next week for Merry Kissmiss.