Jordan, Jesse, GO! - Ep. 251: Unboxing with Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder

Episode Date: November 19, 2012

The legendary Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder join Jordan and Jesse for a discussion of Jordan's uncomfortable brunch, Jesse's Afro-Hatian dancing, Jonathan's friendship with David Mamet, and Jonathan and Tom's webseries, Explosion Bus.

Give a little time for the child within you, don't be afraid to be young and free. Unto the locks and throw away the keys, and take off your shoes and socks and run you. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. And I'm Jordan Morris, boy detective. And this is... Jordan, Jesse, Go! Icicles, tricycles, ice cream, candy, lollipops, popsicles, licorice sticks, Solomon, friendly, maggoty, edgy, priddle, lovin', priddle, Jesse, go.

We're joined by the legendary Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder. Jonathan Katz makes just an extended stream, a never-ending stream of one-liner jokes. Let's go. It's Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective.

It's dark in the booth, Jordan. Yeah, we've decided to go lights out. Yeah, well. Adults only. Yeah. Is this Jordan, Jesse Goh after dark? Absolutely.

Well, it's certainly a more sensual version of Jordan, Jesse Goh. I like this feeling. Yeah, me too. You know what? I really feel like I could record my lead vocal in this feeling. Yeah, me too. You know what? I really feel like I could record my lead vocal in this situation, put a few more scarves up on a couple of different windows and stuff, and I could really bliss out.

Yeah. I feel like I could just really, really get a hold of my own genitals and no one would know. Same diff, though. Yeah, sure. Well, shall we introduce our guests? Well, they're exciting guests, so I think we should. I'm excited about this.

Yes. This is episode 250-ish of Jordan and Jesse Go. For that reason, we have very special guests. What are we on, 252? Yeah. 251. This is our 250-ish anniversary extravaganza. This is our 250th episode since our first episode.

If you don't count the first episode, which is an unaired pilot. Technically, we aired it. But it didn't go on the air because we're a podcast. Right. So anyway, 250th-ish episode. Very special guests. You know them from Dr. Katz.

You know them from many other television programs. You know Jonathan from Stand-Up Comedy. Tom Snyder and Jonathan Katz. How are you guys? Good. And you know what I'm hoping? If this is a really great episode, you might get an ishy.

Oh! A what get an ishy. Oh. A what? An ishy. That's for best ish. Oh, I didn't know that. It's the 250-ish. Ishy awards.

Yeah. I was at the first annual- Was that too complex? It was pretty abstruse. Yeah. Especially for the first thing that you said. Okay, I'll do it later. Hold on to that. Do they still do the Webby's?

I think they do still do the Webby's. I was a comic at the first Webby's. I had just finished working with Michael Moore on this TV show called TV Nation. Sure. And Charles Fleischer, a wonderful comic, was the emcee, and I was the first guy to go on stage at

the first Webby's. I think it's now a significantly less classy affair. Really? Yeah. What's going on there? Who's that? Dita Von Teese? I think Annoying Orange probably does a little time.

This is an orange that screams at you. I think we saw that on the set somewhere. It has its own sound stage. How did you find the Webby audience? They were very receptive. No one paid to get in, I think, was part of it. Remember David Cross? You can't trust their stuff on the internet.

Cross Comedy, he had the specials, which were the best of the very special episodes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. This is, David, this is, when you say cross comedy, this is like David Cross's stand-up and sketch show from the East Coast, right? From 92. Yeah, in Cambridge, and John Benjamin was a member of that troupe. Is that where you guys met John Benjamin?

I knew him from the world of stand-up, but Tom met him some other way, I think. I can't remember how, but we were—see, our studio at my house for Dr. Katz was in Cambridge, and Ben—John Benjamin lived in Cambridge. Laura Silverman lived in Cambridge. Will LeBeau, who lived in Cambridge, who was in Dr. Katz. And John lived all the way over in Newton. Right. Yeah. It's true.

Is that why the Car Talk guys were on Dr. Katz so much? We tried. Was it a mere matter of proximity? Wait, did you really try? Yes. Yeah. What did you do? We didn't try that hard.

You're like, we want someone on this show to read blonde jokes off the internet. I mean, sure, we have brilliant comedians doing original material. We have insufficient uncle humor on this program. Did you ever see their animated cartoon? Yes, on PBS. Unfortunately, yes, I did. Which is like a morality tale in the business of how not to do anything. It's just incredible.

The Car Talk guys, number one, I'm just going to say up top, I enjoy listening to Car Talk on the radio. I think it's – even though it's my direct competition and they're going to continue forever despite the fact that they retired like a year ago. I think Car Talk is a great show. It's wonderful. I have no beef with Car Talk. However, the Car Talk television show, number one, probably not a good idea to do comedy on PBS.

It's just right off the top. Maybe if you're not British, probably not a good idea to try and do comedy. If no one is being served. If it doesn't involve someone being served. Let me put it this way. If you're not David McCullough funny. Sure.

Don't you're going to want to. There's just a high bar to get to if you want to try and do comedy on PBS. But they. If you don't have that certain Mark Russell something. Oh, God. I didn't even think of Mark Russell. I haven't thought of him in years. For good cause.

Tom, I was... PBS asked us to write a sitcom for them. Really? Tom Leopold and I, three years ago, wrote something, and they said, make it about baby boomers.

And we wrote it, sent it in, and never heard any... You know, they paid for the script. We never heard back from them. Wow. It seems like you got a real Hollywood move from PBS. Yeah. You think they would have a touchy-feely way to do business? Were they calling you babe the whole time? No, they weren't ready for that. But it was interesting.

They were on tons of blow though. Doing tons of blow. Oh, gee, they kept on ready for that, but it was interesting. They were on tons of blow, though. Doing tons of blow. Oh, gee, they kept on sending out for it. They didn't send a cup, but they sent click and clack. Too much PBS. We need a tote bag filled with blow. Didn't the Card Talk guys make their entire – didn't their producer,, their radio producer write the entire run of their animated series? Am I misremembering that?

I don't know. I don't know. I think if I remember my Current magazine, of course the newspaper of public radio and television, Current, online at Current.org. online at current.org. If I remember correctly, I think they had their producer write the entire thing, who had never written for the screen in his career, and whose primary comedy expertise was gathering things that his godmother forwarded him in his email box.

Reader's Digest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, somebody, I taught a comedy class in Cambridge and I asked people to do – my students to do a funny piece that was no longer than five minutes. And some guy did some – about an intervention about a guy who couldn't stop forwarding emails. It was really funny. I don't have it now but you have to trust me.

I'm really happy to be at a place in my life where pretty much nobody forwards me anything. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that. I mean, yeah, I think that it's I think that now I mean, the main, I think, culprit of forwarding was like – was moms and grandparents. But I think all of them have since Facebooked. So I think that's where all that stuff resides. That's easy to not see. That's an actual astute analysis because that's where they are. Yeah.

And you don't do Facebook that much probably, right? Yeah. I only got on it last year and I'm fairly active on Facebook. I'm active-ish. I only got on it last year and I'm fairly active on Facebook. I'm active-ish. But yeah, but I mean I'm sure that the moms and grandmas and weird uncles of the world are posting blonde jokes and sparkly GIFs. But that's just where they're doing it. Would you like to see the Facebook algorithm have controls for uncle and grandma related activities? Uncle filter.

Yeah, an uncle filter. Exactly. Something that looks for the words Obama and Muslim. Right. And then filters that out. Something that looks for if you don't do this, then this. Sure. And filters it out.

What does Ford really stand for? Something about Chevys and Fords? I don't know. Isn't that what an uncle would forward to you? An uncle would definitely forward you something about Chevys and Fords. I apologize, but everything you say is going to remind me of some joke. Please. Right?

Of mine, probably. This is theoretically a stand-up comedy program, so. But Dirty Harry was a wonderful franchise for an actor named clint eastwood not such a good name for an uncle and out yeah but john i gotta tell you but that killed at the Webby's. 25 years. I think I know every joke that you've told before. Right. But I don't.

That's brand new. But you don't. Do you know every joke that you've told before, Jonathan? No, I have no memory. It's all a blur. Do you have a note card system like the guy who was the counterpoint to Jerry Seinfeld in the comedian movie? No, but I have a database of jokes. But some of them are just like bullet points.

Like I'll see the word – there's one word that makes no sense to me. I think it's – there's an aborigine. I had an aborigine joke. But I have no idea what it was. I bet it was good. I do like the idea of it being a database. I like that you had to have some database skills to put it together in FileMaker Pro. Robert Klein has a database of jokes.

Yeah. The Joan Rivers documentary, she has a very intricate note card system. It's all on like old time, like a library card catalog. Right. But it is actually separated into categories. But now you don't have to do that with your joke database, which is not really a database. It's just a list of all the jokes. But you can do a search.

So are you guys someday going to take your kids to Disneyland, I'm guessing? Yeah. I don't think – I don't know if Jordan will ever find love, but I do have a child. But when you go there, you should go to the library there because they use the Yui, Louie, and Dewey decimal system. Another way to have I've known it. Love it. No notes. How far will this guy go to make a joke?

I've had telephone conversations with you, Jonathan. I think when you started podcasting many years ago, this was in the, like we're looking at 2005, 2006, something like this. Your manager I think emailed me or maybe you had been on the show.

We were trying to figure this out before. We couldn't remember. But someone had connected the two of us and set us up to have a phone conversation about podcasting. And you were asking me for sort of serious RSS feed-related advice. I still don't know what that stands for, RSS. Really simple syndication. Oh. This is the kind of advice you were looking for from me.

Right. I think there was like a 20% actual words and questions to 80% jokes from your act. Right. Well, I can't really keep up. I can't give you a straight answer for long. I think that's probably the problem. Ask him a serious question. Yeah, ask me a serious question.

Oh, what's a good serious question to ask him? So, John, what were your feelings on election night? Well, you know, again, I wish my dad had lived to see a Hawaiian in the White House. Okay, look, we'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jesse, go. Jesse Thorne here, proprietor of MaximumFun.org. Look, we had a great time in the Poconos and everything, but there's no way we are forgetting about our annual trip to Lake Arrowhead here in Southern California. So, unless the world ends first by Mayan prophecy, Max Fun Con West will be held May 31st through June 2nd, 2013.

Join us for a showcase of elite stand-up comedy performers in the woods, plus informative classes and talks from some of the best creative minds in the nation. If you've been to Max Fun Con before, get ready to reunite with your old friends. And if you're a first-timer, get ready to make a whole ton of new ones. Registration will open up on Black Friday, November 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving at MaxFunCon.com. MaxFunCon pretty much always sells out and we don't expect this year to be any different. Remember, go to maxfuncon.com. It's Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective.

Jonathan Katz, professional person. Tom Snyder, period. Period. You know what? Period's a really solid nickname. I think it is, too. First time out on Jordan, Jesse Goh. We come up with Tom Snyder, period. I like it.

It's definitive. It's even a little aggressive. Yeah. It kind of has a don't fuck with me period. I like it. It's definitive. It's even a little aggressive. Yeah. It kind of has a don't fuck with me quality that I like. Sure. Absolutely. Like that red suit that Eddie Murphy wore in Delirious. Is that raw?

Isn't it kind of a conversation stopper question mark? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Tom Snyder period and then we all just stare at each other for 30 minutes. Yeah, Tom Snyder period and then we all just stare at each other for 30 minutes. I had an unusually stressful meal the other day that I kind of wanted to present to you guys and I wanted – Can I step you there? You may.

No, no. I'm just kidding. And I wanted to see if you guys think that I – if there's anything I could have done to help in this situation. Okay. So I am sitting alone at breakfast. I brought a book. Is this in a, what kind of institution are we talking about here? It's like a diner.

A diner type establishment, a classic American, a retro theme? No, just a standard diner. Contemporary diner. Not kitschy. Greasy spoon kind of joint? This is just a standard diner. Contemporary diner. Just a greasy spoon kind of joint? This is Joey's in West Hollywood. Do you go out to breakfast regularly? I'm sorry that I'm derailing this already. No, no, that's okay.

I'm enjoying it more and more these days. I used to not care about an out breakfast, but I kind of like it. It's a nice treat. What are you getting, like eggs over easy or something like that? Yeah, eggs over easy. I was going to guess the exact same thing. You know what? We are right here.

Do you think I – I mean I like eggs over easy because I'm such an easygoing guy. Probably. Is that probably where that comes from? It might be the taste. Yeah. Also. The delicious taste. It might be a combination of those two things.

I like my eggs over easy. My women loose. My signal scrambled. So I'm eating – I have this book but I get really, really interested in eavesdropping on the table next to me. It's this woman, this very striking woman. She's got red hair glasses and she's in like a very professional suit, but her sleeves are pushed up just enough to where you can see like she has like tattoo sleeves. Jeez.

When you say striking. Yeah. You mean erotic. Yes. I mean, yes. This is, yeah. I mean hard. An attractive young woman.

Yes. Someone to get the blood pumping. Very healthy. Yeah. I mean, yes. This is – yeah. An attractive young woman. Yes. Someone to get the blood pumping. Very healthy. Yeah. I mean just – yeah. Just really hit all of my specific avenues, this woman. And she was on a job interview. She was interviewing – she was being interviewed. And it seemed like it was kind of a job as like a reality show producer. I guess she was talking about having worked on Miami Ink, which is a show about tattoos

and the getting of them. She had also worked on a show about having red hair. Right, yeah. And, of course, a business clothing show. Right. And vintage glasses shopping. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

With Lisa Loeb. With Lisa Loeb. So, you know, I was kind of eavesdropping and I could tell she was floundering. I could tell that they wanted someone to be out in the field and she had not really been in the field but was trying to like, you know, just kind of pick and choose some times where she was in a field and, you know, maybe could have – Just gathering wildflowers. Right. Right. Exactly. So – and I should back up a little bit.

We've talked on this show about the 30 Rock episodes where they do Queen of Jordan, right? Yeah. Have you guys seen these episodes of 30 Rock? There's been two or three of them where it's a reality show parody. of them where it's a reality show parody and the theoretical reality show is about Tracy Jordan's wife played by a famous woman who's famous for something else. Yeah. Besides being on The View. Yeah. And it's kind of a it's kind of a just a send up of those Bravo trashy reality shows.

But but the 30 Rock cast is still in it. It's still an episode of 30 Rock. It still stars Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey but has these little bumpers where it will parody a reality show. And it has this one really funny outrageous gay guy. Yeah, DaFuan. DaFuan. And his signature drink, DaFuan. Anyways, so I'm listening to this woman.

I'm just like feeling for her. I'm just like – I don't want this person that I'm so attracted to to be having a bad time. I want nothing but success for her. I'm just like, you know, I don't want this person that I'm so attracted to, to be having a bad time. I want nothing but success for her. Right. Like I want her to be successful. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling, and I've also been in that job interview capacity where you're like not qualified, but you're trying to spin it a little bit. So I'm having a lot of, a lot of empathy pains for her. And. Oh, I know what you mean. Yeah. And I also have a painful erection in public. Right. Right. And so anyway, so the woman who's interviewing her asks, so have you seen our show?

And she says, oh, yes, I love your show. I mean, I think you guys do some really interesting stuff. All the characters are so well drawn. I mean, I think you guys do some really interesting stuff. All the characters are so well drawn. I mean, reality shows are so trashy these days. Have you seen this one, Queen of Jordan? Have you seen

Queen of Jordan? She's like, it's about Tracy Morgan's wife or something and the characters are just so trashy on this show. This is the interviewer asking. this is the interviewee oh oh trying to and i disaster movies are getting more and more ridiculous have you seen this movie airplane 2 um you know what the The British government is so wasteful. Do you know that they have a ministry just for silly walks? Can you believe how much money they're wasting?

I mean why do we – why should the government fund that? So – and I'm like what the fuck do I do? Like I want to save – like I want to save her. I want to like – I want to step in somehow. I'm like, OK, paper airplane. Do I throw her a paper airplane saying that's a sketch? Stop talking about it. And she really went on and on. Like I was thinking about like just going over to the table and just saying, excuse me, I need to see you outside and not and just seeing if she would come outside with me. So I go, hey, fucking don't stop doing this anyways. Yeah, I just kind of sat there and let it happen. The interviewer didn't say anything about it, but it was – It's possible that the interviewer did not know what it is. She didn't.

I don't think she did. If she did, she didn't call her on it. I recently learned that not everyone watches every episode of 30 Rock. Which is a shame. Seems weird. I know. Seems odd. Is it possible she was being ironic?

Maybe. Maybe she – yeah. Do you think Is it possible she was being ironic? Maybe. Maybe she – yeah. Do you think she could have been taken on purpose? She could have been paid to take a flop. Oh, maybe. Yeah, maybe she would – maybe the person interviewing after her sent her in to take a dive. You can pay those people. Have you seen the movie about a bear with Alec Baldwin?

Sure. It's a David Mamet movie. it's a David Mamet movie. It's a David Mamet movie. Yeah. The – and that's not called The Wild. It's called something else. The Edge? The Edge.

Oh, The Edge. Yeah. I went to see it in the daytime because I was available and it was at the Chestnut Hill Cinema in Newton and there was only one other person in the theater, a guy older than me. And because I can't shut up, I had to say to him, I'm pretty sure there's a scary bear in this movie. But the story you were telling reminded me of when I was younger, I had a girlfriend at Bard College and I was experimenting with drugs that I should not have experimented with. I'm glad I did. There was a young woman

sitting – I don't know if you guys are old enough to know about this but there was a guy named Art Linkletter whose daughter killed herself because she was high on LSD. She just – she was – I knew that there – I was there with you through – there was a guy named Art Linkletter. Yeah. I knew about that. I knew that was a guy. Well, he had a daughter who took LSD and took her own life.

But anyway, so this – I was at Bard College and there was a girl sitting by – just by this creek. It was a beautiful sunny day. She was reading a book. And because I had taken LSD, I approached her and I said, don't jump. I mean she was just mining. She was reading a book. But I don't know. That was the kind of heroic act you wanted to perform.

Yeah. With this redhead. You, gosh. If only you could somehow speak into the minds of beautiful women. Yeah. Specifically. I would use it mainly to help them with job interviews. Sure.

I wouldn't use it to get sex for myself. Sure. Convince them that they're haunted by a horny ghost. What did you do? I heard something amazing earlier today. I was out to lunch at a Cuban restaurant here in Los Angeles. And the people sitting behind me, I was like my wife was really distracted by my son who right now eats off the table. There's no other way to do it.

He just eats off the table. Like he takes things off of the plate, puts them on the table and then eats them? No, we can't have a plate. OK. Not someone else's plate. Our plate maybe because we're financially responsible for that plate. OK. He will break the plate.

He would break the plate and not out of some sort of malice. Sure. Not out of a sense of- Not out of some sort of plate racism. No. He's not against China. He has a lot of stuff on his plate. He's very busy.

Very busy. So the people sitting directly behind me, again- Wait, hold on. Wait. So do you just dump food on the table for him? Yeah. Like dump a bag of Cheerios? Well, you can only give, here's the other thing.

There's a lot of things that babies aren't very good at. So he can use his hands to put food in his mouth and he can chew food a little bit, although he does not have, what's that? Molars, right? The chew ones. So he doesn't have molars, but he can chew food a little bit. So if you give him a small piece of food, too small for him to choke on, he can pick it up, put it in his mouth, and he's into that.

He thinks that's great. But if you put all of his food in front of him at once, he doesn't know to chew and swallow in between putting things in his mouth. So he'll put things in his mouth until there are no more things in front of him and then choke and die. Is it possible that he's just preparing for hibernation? That's also – that is entirely possible. This will be his first winter.

Yeah, absolutely. He's prepping for that remake of The Edge. Does he have a middle name? He has two middle names. My father's name, Lee Everett. Can I suggest Glutton? Sure, sure. So my wife is busy with the baby and the slow – I mean the downside is that babies don't eat very fast because every piece of food they eat is about the size of a pea, right?

Wait, is this Cheerios? No, this is not Cheerios. It seems weird that a baby would eat something else. Yeah. But I assure you it wasn't. Okay. Is that part of the story? I feel like I'm prodding you to tell me what it was, but is that

like a punchline? It was pieces of a Cuban sandwich. It was nothing. Oh, God. Cuban sandwich. Some French fries. Okay. But the point is... I'm sorry I insisted. My wife was too busy for this, and so I heard it. She's too busy to notice this.

I heard it, and I got so excited, I had to figure out what to do. I ended up writing it onto my cell phone because the tables were close together. I had to write it onto my cell phone and hand it to her and say, you just got a text message so that she could read the thing that sitting directly behind me said, do they have tamales? I'm just going to order two tamales. And then the other person sitting there with her said, now, tamales, what is that? Probably a good explanation would be not something that's served at a Cuban restaurant. Right. That would probably be. But I found myself increasingly in that situation where what I really want to do is write something that I heard someone do or say on my phone and then go through an elaborate ruse where the premise is that the person at my table has got to see this.

Anybody who works in audio has a legitimate excuse for being an eavesdropper. That's not true at all. I think so. That's just a self-justification. Well, you know, my wife and daughter always accuse me

of not being in the room where they're having the conversation. And I said, you know, they shouldn't speak in such a loud voice if they know that I listen. I like the idea of you hanging around your house with one of those parabolic spy microphones just pointing it at members of your family. The acoustics in my home are great for eavesdropping. Yeah.

Is that why you... Tom, is that why you decided to record your new show at Jonathan's house? Just because of the... You came in and you did some snaps? You know, the only floor that had eight different places

that we could isolate actors was the basement. So we're down in his basement and doing this. And Tom Leopold, this extraordinary comic actor, is in the cedar closet. Yeah. Which it smells great. But he doesn't have to worry about moths.

That's true. And also we have used John's car in his garage, which is part of the basement, and run a wire out and someone sits in the van. Totally isolated and dead. It's a great sound in a car for recording. This is insane to me. Okay. So let's talk about different places.

You said eight people are recording this show. And because of the fact that I presume that this is like Dr. Katz, this is at most semi-scripted, right? Precisely. It has an outline, most of which is written in the third person. Okay. So I'll say, John, you suggest to so-and-so that you're not comfortable with such. But I don't put words in his mouth. Right.

So the – Now, you might want to work a little tighter even though you – That would mean I have to lean forward and uncomfortable. All right. Let me do that because you guys all have great sound. You sound so rich now. Thank you. You sound pretty rich.

So buttery. What mic is this that I'm talking to? That's a Shure SM7, my friend. It feels it. That's that Thriller vocal microphone, my friend. Could you adjust the Pleasance Control, please? Can I get a little more talent in the monitors, please? So you have eight actors.

And because the way that animation is typically recorded is one person at a time. So they will send an actor will go into an isolation booth. go into an isolation booth. They'll have a director, often not even in the same city, in their headphones, just reading them the lines that they're supposed to respond to. Now, you guys, because you don't have a script, you can't do that. And because you want to have live interactions and stuff. So you have eight people at the same time in a basement? So what are the places?

But Tom is doing what Jesse's doing here. He's listening and he's on mic but not going on tape. And also in the room I'm in, we have attractive young people who are listening on a monitor that is feeding back through. The thing you guys can't figure out to get your engineer on. Uh-huh. You know. We have figured it out.

And also, if you would have more fun doing this in front of a live audience, but you didn't want to get them on tape. Oh, yeah. I mean, I would really, I think my performance would benefit from you just kind of filling the space with some attractive young people that, you know, I can look at for approval when I make a remark. Well, we learned this with Dr. Katz where we'd bring comics in and they were used to being funny at a club where they wanted – mostly guys wanted attractive women to laugh at them because they were horny and the horny made the comedy good. And John is still horny. Congratulations.

After all these years. You know, I used to bill myself as the white Paul Simon. John, describe some of the rooms. How do we get eight people in your basement at ISO? We have two offices down there which can accommodate me, Tom, and then three women in the other office. Okay. So now you have offices down there and you're not even using them. You're just using them to warehouse attractive young people? Yes.

Yeah. You're just using them to warehouse attractive young people? Yes. So this is why someone has to sit in the van and record in the van because you need a room for the young women you found. You know the expression human trafficking? Yeah, I was going to say. Are they being held against their will? Is this a Casper Hauser type situation?

Have you been keeping these people since they were infants and you're feeding them breadcrumbs? One tip. One tip. Just don't take Liam Neeson's daughter. We've learned that lesson. He will fuck you up. He will not save anyone else. And he'll do it over and over again. Yeah, he will do it once a year.

What does the term human trafficking mean to you when you were much younger? I mean like a car shaped like a person? Crossing guard. Well, human trafficking here from Jonathan Katz, ladies and gentlemen. If like like sexual satisfaction as it relates to creativity, like are you like when when you're in a when you're in a healthy, regular sexual relationship, are you less creative because you don't have that? You know, are you saying you need to get people to like you? Are you saying that you save your juices like a boxer before a fight? Sure. Yes. If I have if I have I have a deadline or a, you know, talk show packet due.

This is the worst part about me being interviewed, but I have a serious answer for you, kind of. I would love to hear a serious answer, yeah. And it's not about comedy, but it's like Cole Porter

who was gay in the 30s, 40s, well, his whole life. Especially in the 30s and 40s. Pussy magnets. But, you know, it was hard for him to be in a relationship. Yeah. So he was constantly infatuated. And he was writing the most beautiful love songs day in, day out, because it was hard to consummate anything.

It was hard to, you know, I felt very jealous as a songwriter that I'm not constantly infatuated. I don't let myself be constantly infatuated. Do you think that if you were gay, you would be as good as Cole Porter, or am I misunderstanding this? That's what I'm saying. And Jewish. Was he Jewish? He was not, but he was one of the few guys doing musical comedy who was not Jewish. not, but he was one of the few guys doing musical comedy who was not Jewish.

Tom writes beautiful songs. In fact, one of my flaws, and by the way, speaking of my flaws, I was in an elevator in New York City, and I don't go there often, and I'm not tuned into the

accent. I get in the elevator, the elevator man says, call out your flaws. I say, I'm impatient with the elderly. But one of my actual flaws is I drop names too often. And Tom wrote a song about that.

Can I sing it? Would you sing it now? Let me do the backbeat. OK. Oh, no, it's not that. Names. You're starting high. You're going to have a hard time. Names.

I just love to drop them. Fames. What you get from dropping names of the folks who live in L.A. Yesterday I was having lunch with Jeffrey Katzenberg. By the way, he sends his love to you and you. Oh, thank you. But to use the lyric, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Yeah.

That's that slow clap thing that means nothing. There it goes. But I think what Tom was suggesting to you was a life of celibacy. Yeah. If you really want to succeed with women and the community. But a voluntary life of celibacy. Right, right. Yeah.

I have to refuse sex. Right. Okay. And that'll help my creative output. Hey, just get married. Am I right, guys? Look out. Mother output. Hey, just get married. Am I right, guys? Look out.

Mother-in-laws, look out. I know what you're talking about. You guys are about the Sunday funnies. I feel your pain. It's fun hanging with you guys in the man cave. Sure. Beer me. Yeah.

Let's crack open some buds. I just ate a whole pizza. Marriage is so complex. It really is. I've been married for 31 years. Two beautiful kids. Couple of kids not so attractive. I met my wife in New York City on Christmas Day 1979.

She didn't know it was Christmas. I didn't know it was Christmas. I didn't know it was 1979. Can I set this up for you? Sure, please. Didn't you recently celebrate 30th? That's right. We decided, my wife and I, to go and renew our vows of celibacy.

Is this what you guys do just in your day-to-day life? Are you just at the diner ordering hash browns? And Tom, you think, oh, I could set Jonathan up good right now. You know, we referred earlier to Jonathan's database. You're looking at him. Wow. Okay. Is it string or Boolean? Is that a computer joke, John?

It's a computer reference. I used to tell David Mamet that I had a database and he would say string or Boolean because that's all I knew. It was a company called MemoryMate. These are types of search. Yeah. These are types of search. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. These are types of search.

Yeah. Okay. So this is something that needs to be expanded because his name has come up twice now on the program. Nibbles? Yes, Nibbles. Your parrot. The parrot that always interrupts your recordings that we were talking about before the show. The parrot that always interrupts your recordings that we were talking about before the show.

I think that – I think it would be tough. I'm going to start by saying this. I think it would be tough to compete with Newhart and Rickles for celebrity friendships. However, the lifelong friendship between you, Jonathan, and David Mamet, that's like probably second, right? Can you think of one comparable? I mean, now that Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are done, I mean, I know that was a marriage and not a friendship. I mean, there's some good marriages. Are they no longer married? They aren't.

They broke up recently. Really? Isn't that terrible? That's the one where you're like, yeah, that's it. Like when you heard they were married, didn't you think to yourself, oh, yes, of course they're married. But you know what I would never say about them as a couple? That they would have beautiful children. And I admire their work.

David wrote a wonderful joke for Danny DeV devito and heist i think it was any of you who did the joke but it has to do with the road uh to hell is paved with good intentions but at least it's paved that is one of the most david mavity things in history like that i feel like he was trying to out himself himself with that line i think is to some extent his life has been an effort at refining the David Mamet-iness of all David Mamet things that he does. Fuck you. I think the ultimate actress to work with David Mamet is my mother-in-law because she can't finish a sentence. You know, she really – she speaks Mamet. law because she can't finish a sentence. Ah. You know, she really, she speaks mammoth.

Ask me a question, I'll be my mother-in-law. Ask me anything. Okay. Do you, where do you, where do you have any half and half here? I'm trying to put some cream in my coffee. I don't know if the... That's good. You know, I, she's somebody who's – she's now 86 years old.

So you're making fun of someone who is losing their memory? We already know he's impatient with the elderly. I went to get her a dress a couple years ago in Beverly Hills, and the woman asked me what she likes, and I said, she's into death and morbidity. And she said, let's go to handbags. So when a Jonathan Katz and a David Mamet hang out, what do you guys do? We talk in code. Oh, okay. We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about our work. We talk about our kids sometimes, our wives. But we don't talk about – we don't have normal conversations.

You know, we – And why would – He might say to me, there's an interesting SOQ situation at around 2 o'clock. Then what is an SOQ situation? I don't know. at around 2 o'clock. Then, what's an SOQ that you're waiting? God told me I gotta know! It would mean a woman with a strange

oriental quality. What we often refer to as an Asian. But, well, I can't believe I gave away a code. Yeah,

now we know we have a – Do you know the binary code? It's fun. It's like being friends with you guys. I don't know the binary code. There's a zero in there. You know that. I never can remember what the other one is though.

Tom didn't break the binary code, but he did build a computer. When he was 14 years old, IBM sent a truck with all the parts of a – he needed to construct a computer. It's a whole other story. I was a serious, serious computer geek in 1962. Wow. That's when that – I mean that meant something. It really did. Sure.

Were you using – what kind of activities were you using your computer for? Are we talking about controlling a model train layout? Oh, no. Man, it's hard to explain how primitive computers were back then. But it was mostly trying to make something that could add two numbers together or something like that. This was mainly you had punch cards, right? Did you have a series of punch cards? I had electromagnetic relays that I wired together.

And I did use my electric train transformer to power the computer, though. You know this sounds sad more than anything else. It does, yeah, because you strip the wire. Do you guys ever strip wire? I've stripped wire with a wire stripper. Yeah, but you can also do it with your teeth in that gap right there. I was just trying to get my way through medical school. also do it with your teeth in that gap right there. I was just trying to get my way through medical school.

But I often had insulation in my teeth. I was not that attractive. I mean, on the plus side, there's a lot of chicks who are into building computers. Do you think that joke would be better if you said, have you ever stripped wire and you say, I was just trying to make my way through electrician school? Is that a stronger joke? Let me ask you, Jesse, what you found sad about the story. Because I know that a person in 1962 building a computer at home is lonely.

Well, I think this was one of the few times that – There's no way for that not to be a lonely activity. Didn't your dad help you in some way? Yeah, he helped me build the wood frame for the computer. But it was – I was lonely. But when you're 12 and you're obsessed or a geek, you don't know you're lonely. And your dad helped you build the structure, like the cabinet that it was built into? Yeah, the cabinet.

Was he just like with every screw that went in, was he just going, homo? He's like, that was the drill. It was so incredibly frightened for me. Yeah, I guess nerd awareness is a relatively new phenomenon. I guess that, yeah, maybe there wasn't a name for it back when you were putting together a computer. I'm surprised that nerd has come back because there's the Nerdist podcast.

And for a while there, it disappeared. And if you said nerd, everyone said, what? God, that's an old term. And then it became geek. Yeah, it was kind of like groovy for a while. Yeah. But now it's back and we're cool. Sure.

I read a great book about the origins of the idea of nerdiness. American Nerd, the story of my people. You got it. That's the very book. One of the first one of the first nerd characters in fiction

was Gussie Fignottle, if I'm getting that correctly, from one of the Jeeves and Worcester books. Not his real name. He's obsessed with newts. Oh, the creatures? Newts? Yes, newts the creatures.

No, not people named newt. Okay. Or maybe just speakers of the house. Oh, man, I got a new Tip O'Neill. What's the difference between a newt and a salamander? I think a newt is aquatic. If I remember correctly, I had newts. I had a couple of newts as a kid.

Yeah, not a salamander. Fire-bellied newts. I think the mistake you're making is you think John was asking you that as a question. That's probably a joke. No, no, no. That's from your Newt's Elementers chunk. No, I was going to say, can we just split the difference? Oh, Lord, give me the courage.

Right. Jonathan just goes to the library, pulls out a reference book, in this case some sort of field creature identification manual and just starts writing jokes. Things for me are going so well. I mean both professionally and personally and romantically. I pay a guy now to come in once a week just to count my blessings. Just to count my blessings. Okay. So I want to get back.

Tom, I want to get back to this computer. It is a key issue. What was the highest – what was the grandest achievement of this computer? The grandest achievement, which I rarely get asked, is at 12, I went to a college science fair held at Brandeis University and came in third. Wow. You beat the grownups. I beat – and, you know, there were some teachers who had put some – I beat a nun who had done a – You should just leave it there. I beat a nun.

Well, I have a question. Up in the parking lot. The question about loneliness, can I bring it down to a fairly different – I am so curious. I'm surrounded by funny guys. Were you emotionally stable and well put together at 12, any of you? No. I mean are there people who are emotionally stable and put together at 12? I don't know.

But I think just late bloomers who fall apart at 13, right? That's funny. I think people between the age of 13, this is a theory I made up the other day, whatever you learn to do between the ages of 13 and 17, and you don't have to go blue here, whatever it is you learn how to do at that age, you're never going to be better at anything else. Don't say masturbate.

Yeah. To be fair, that is what I'm best at. Jesse, what did you learn how to do very well between those ages? Afro-Haitian dance. Obviously. Sure. I still remember the Afro-Haitian dance. Obviously. Sure. I still remember the Afro-Haitian dance songs.

Right. One went, To-to-sa-ki-la-se-buena-pulu-we-sa-pulu-we-sa-pulu-we-ja-eshe-la-bum-ba-se-buena-pulu-we-ja-blo. Take it to the bridge. I mean, Jesse, I have never heard you do that before. And I've worked with you in a lot of capacities. Sure, in a variety even of

dance capacities. Sure. Modern tap. I will say now, that is what you're best at. Thank you. And what was it that you got extremely good at between those ages? God. I mean, making VHS tapes of Mystery Science Theater on TV.

That's not – I didn't have a lot of hobbies. I guess I did a lot of like high school plays. Right. But I wouldn't say that I'm a good actor. Well, you got really good at high school level acting. That's true. That's true.

I could act like a guy in a high school play. You can be emotionally distant from your acting performance. Sure. But I can do a funny old man voice. Yeah, exactly. Can I hear that? Huh? Uh, sure. Uh, where's the

buttermilk? Ah, it's perfect. Pretty good. I mean, that killed in Our Town. Yeah. Better than Lime, maybe. That's perfect. Pretty good. I mean, that killed in Our Town. Yeah. Better than Lime, maybe. That killed in the Capo Valley production of Our Town. That was a good production. I do a dead-end impression of R.V. Bendret.

Who's that? Well, what he said to me one day was, the whole goddamn thing is theater. And that's a perfect impression. That is the best I've heard. A lot of people. I just saw Rich Little in Vegas. I also do Rich Little. And his was a B-minus version of that.

Of what? Could you repeat the name of the performer? Yeah. I just did. Did you not hear it? I just did. Just now. Harvey Benderet. I guess he was a friend of my friend Coco the Savage Pecalis.

Who was a professional wrestler in the 1950s. She's this wonderful woman who is married to a guy named David Dalton who writes about the Rolling Stones. An author who writes about music. John, are you secretly hoping that we're going to finally ask you what you were good at between 13 and 17? We already did that brilliant impression. Was that what you learned then? Well, no. What I learned was how to play table tennis and became one of the top players in the country ultimately.

Really? Yeah. I was New York State champion when I was 18. Wow. Do you still rank? I do rank, but it has nothing to do with table tennis.

I don't know what that means. Rank is... Smell. Is it smell? Yeah. Yeah. Could you still... Could you still...

Could you go to a bar and hustle some dudes at table tennis if you... I probably could walk into a bar. You know, a table tennis bar. You know, those things that exist. No, I... If I walked into a table tennis club, I would be demolished by almost every 12-year-old girl there.

I did hear something recently that teen brain is a little more malleable than people originally thought. And I have heard something similar that that is a good time to learn stuff. Yeah. There was a woman talking about this on This American Life the other day. They did an all-middle school episode. Oh, maybe that was it. And a woman was saying because your brain is growing its most during your adolescence, during your like 11, 12, 13, outside of infancy and toddlerdom

it's the other time when your brain and body are growing the fastest the things that you learn then stick with you the most yeah

I mean that's why I'm so good at affirmation and that's why I can basically recite from beginning to end any Simpsons episode from seasons 3 to 5

and I can clog can you actually clog? No. Okay. Oh. Come on, Snyder. Not fair. Not fair.

Don't tease us. Okay. But Tom, you once were trying to convince me or explain to me that who you are, most of who you are is determined by what happens to you in the first two years of your life. That's true. I mean, your personality is pretty set. It's depressing. What are the things that it's set by?

I can't remember. Let's say I want my son Simon, who's still in the first two years of his life. He's only 15 months old. Let's say I want to be a real hard ass. You can just lock him in something. Lock him into somewhere yeah

you want him to be able to protect his parents someday yeah I want him to be able to get somebody in his sights and take him down

so just run some drills where you're in danger right you know some sort of danger simulation right like uh

like I could hire a guy I could look look on the wait look on the street so I'll find a guy with a knife. Yeah. Hire him to come into my house and threaten me with a knife.

Just wave it around. And yeah, and then Simon has to stop it. Or you could just do it yourself and scare him as his father, which is what my dad's technique was. Oh, no. Now it's sad again. Yeah, I'm sorry. But are you already afraid that your son might be a homosexual? If my son was a homosexual, I would frankly be relieved.

Relieved. Because I'll tell you why. Number one, I live in a time and place where I think the burdens upon him for being a homosexual would be greatly reduced. There are still burdens about being different from most of your peers because, you know, it's one in eight to one in 12 people depending on who you ask. But I think that that would be ameliorated by the fact that he would probably grow up in a gay positive environment.

I think you're going to talk about Amelia Earhart. I got so excited. And I mean, I think at the end of the day, transatlantic flight is... Just not suitable for a woman. I know. the end of the day transatlantic flight is – Just not suitable for a woman. I know. No, but the odds are if you have a son – It's immoral.

I just think it would be nice because I think he would be led into a culture of having fun and making art. But if you have a son who's homosexual as a child, by the time he's an adult, there's a good chance he'll be gay. That's a really good point. What's Bill Broadus' joke? I'm sorry, but we might as well attribute it. Yeah, Bill Broadus, who was Dr. Katz's first patient and a superb comedian, his joke was he had just moved to San Francisco and somebody said to him,

you know, Bill, there are a lot of gay people. You should know that in San Francisco. And he said, Bill, if I see two guys kissing, I'm pretty sure at least one of them is gay. On the topic of the kind of – the fun community around homosexuality, I had kind of an interesting election night. I decided to try being gay. Sure. I didn't.

Me and my buddy Ian were kind of thinking of something to do. Like there were some like election parties and there were some sort of beer garden-y thing happening downtown where people were watching the election. And we kind of decided that that was – the whole thing was a little too stressful and that like maybe wasn't the environment we wanted to be in. So we smoked some pot and went to go see The Man with the Iron Fist. What is The Man with the Iron Fist? It's kind of a like intentionally retro looking kung fu movie.

It's a movie directed by the RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. This is not a good film. No one should see it. Unless you kind of like to watch fat Russell Crowe ham it up, which I did like watching. But not a lot of other – not a lot else to be said of this movie. Anyways. Not a lot of other – not a lot else to be said of this movie. Anyways, so we kind of got out of the movie and we're like, well, let's go back to Ian's house and turn on the TV and see how it went.

Like let's not look at our phones. Let's not see what Twitter is saying. Let's go and just sit down and just kind of see what happened. Just kind of on the way back, we were passing this restaurant that had a bunch of like campaign things up, like had a bunch of like election party favors and things out. And there was this group of nice looking lesbians out front who were passing around balloons and sucking out the helium and doing funny voices. And I'm like, you know what? I bet Obama won because these lesbians are in such a festive mood. Look at these cheerful –

And how were you able to identify them as lesbians? You know, it was a little bit of visual stereotyping on my part. Maybe they were not. But I think my – But they were. I think my radar is pretty good for that at this point. Jordan does live in West Hollywood. Jordan does live in West Hollywood. He lives in a largely, though by no means exclusively, gay part of Los Angeles where he on a day-to-day basis has to parse the romantic preferences of ladies in his environment.

Well, you know, this is – I would say you brought up three times so far how you've used the word stress and that can kill you. Saying the word stress? No, no. I mean it is a really – it's a serious killer. Yeah. Database. I bought a quart of milk today. I looked at the container.

It said must sell by December 3rd. I don't need that kind of pressure. I'm on the phone all day trying to unload the milk. And this is a joke I told in a new and a soon to be released movie called The Truth About Lies. And luckily, the actor who is playing opposite me was probably one of the three people in America who've never heard that joke before. He said I was making it up on the spot. I have a structural question. Yeah, please. Could you let me

know before, right before the end, because I have a question about the internet for you guys that I think you might have some advice about. We will. And we're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in just a second. Okay, let's not forget to talk about Explosion Bus as much as we can. Yeah.

Jordan, Jesse Go, I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. Jonathan Ketz. Dom Snyder. Hey, you know, I was a child prodigy of – this is years ago. Sometimes there's a setup for the jokes. Sometimes he just thought of a joke he wants to say. Hey, our sponsor on Jordan and Jesse Go, Ask Metafilter.

Thousands of life's little questions answered online at ask.metafilter.com. You know, I used ask.metafilter.com. For what? This week. I had a little bit of an embarrassing medical problem. Really? I wouldn't – I don't want to get into it too much. Too large of an erection.

Yes. A public erection. Are you spotting? Huh? I think I'm becoming a woman, a young woman. And I Googled the problem. And, you know, the stuff that comes up when you just Google the problem is all crazy. And the first word of everything is cancer.

Right. And then I'm like, well, this is all too crazy. Right. Surely I don't have cancer. I'm invincible. Right. Sure. Like all teenagers, like all teens, like all young women, I'm invincible. So I'm like, well, I'm going to I'm going to see what Metafilter has to say about it. And I saw a lot of very reasonable people saying some things it could be. Everybody said, you know, visit your doctor to be sure. But here are some things it could be. And here are some solutions. It was great.

It really eased my mind until I could get to the doctor. And, yeah, it was really great. It was a really great use and definitely a lot of smart people being smart and intelligent. We should mention you do have cancer. We should mention you do have cancer. It turns out you do have cancer. Yes, but for a couple hours. You know what? It actually wasn't cancer.

The doctor just said I need to use a softer toilet paper. Gotcha. That is actually what happened. Ask.Metafilter.com. Charming. Ask.Metafilter.com. Whomin. Ask.Metafilter.com. Who's up on the Jumbotron? Oh.

This is a fun one. Great news, Jordan. I've got great news. It is a personal ad. Chase from Seattle. I'm a 24-year-old social science PhD student who likes thrifting, urban exploring, and long conversations. I'm looking for a Seattle lady with a big heart who likes art museums, trail walks, making awesome things, thinking big thoughts, smiling wide. Jesse, there's a typo there.

It should be big fart. Ripping big farts. there it should be big fart laughing ripping big fart laughing smiling wide and running straight for the next challenge if you're crazy about something I want to meet you and

post script on this one my beautiful wife Teresa has met Chase who is a MaxFun donor and has been to MaxFunCon. She met him at MaxFunCon. She verifies that by her impressions of having spoken to him, he is really nice and not weird. There you go. If you're a lady in Seattle, you want to go on it?

Do you want to talk to Chase, you want to talk to Chase, you want to send an email to Chase, email us at jjgoe at maximumfun.org. If you're proud of your flatulence. Jordan, no. It doesn't actually say that in here. That is not something it actually says here. This guy is actually trying to find true love

through the best means possible. Jordan, Jesse, go. And find true love through the best means possible, Jordan Jesse Go. Yeah. And it's clear that the best thing for him – for any lady in Seattle to do is email JJGo at MaximumFun.org. You know, include whatever thing you want to say to Chase and we'll forward it on over to Chase. It's that easy. Love. No dick pics.

Please no dick pics. No more dick pics. Keep me classy. We. No dick pics. Please, no dick pics. No more dick pics. We have enough dick pics. Can I give some career advice for anybody listening? Yeah, please. One thing you don't want to pursue professionally is a career as a communist party planner. I knew that would come up. How about we go on ask.metafilter.com and say, is there any situation in which Jonathan Katz isn't just waiting to say a joke he thought of? We'll be back in just a second on Jordan Jesse Go.

Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. Jonathan Katz. Oh, it boy detective. Jonathan Katz. Oh, that sounded tough. Jonathan Katz. And Tom Snyder, boy detective. No.

Nah, you can have it. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, you can have it. You know what? I would like to be unburdened of the burden of my nickname. I'm done with it. What do you guys think about two stupid nicknames? They're going cheap.

50 bucks. 50 bucks, right? Try period. Yeah. It's yours. There's a guy named Mike Bent who books himself as boy scientist. He's a very funny guy. Okay, wait.

So when we were in the break there, Jonathan picked, as usual, the best time to lead into one of Tom's stories which is when we were not recording but this was the setup you and I were talking about neurological medications and I took a drug to help me with some kind of MS symptom that was transient.

And it was a drug that had been designed for narcolepsy. Uh-huh. And Tom was there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because the president of my company is the smartest, sweetest, most earnest guy in the world and self-apologetic. And he's driving a van with a huge number of people in the company. Go to a trade show at CES, Las Vegas.

Consumer Electronics Show. Consumer Electronics Show. And a lot of new young interns and stuff who are going to help in the booth. Attractive young people. And Rick turned to the – Got to have those around. Yes. He turned to the young lady who was also in the front seat of the van.

And everybody could hear it. And he said, I don't want to worry you. And it was never a joke coming with him, you know, but he said, I don't want you to worry if you've heard. And he meant to say narcolepsy, but he said, you might have heard rumors that I have necrophilia, but it's being treated. And it was total silence in the vein of all these interns who were about to spend a week with him in a hotel.

What I'm doing is I'm weaning myself off it with a training corpse. It's a simulated corpse that I can fuck. Is this going to be a new Jordan Morris? I can fuck. Is this going to be a new, is this a new Jordan Morris? Have you been inspired by Jonathan Katz to do all pun-based humor from here on out? I mean, I mean, worked out pretty well for him. He's a comedy legend. This guy's a comedy legend.

You know who's not a comedy legend? Me. Yeah, that's a good point. I thought you were going to say your respect for his talent. Have you lost any loved ones in your life? No. No. life? No. No one significant? Because I've been to three funerals this week, and I'm not a mourning person.

Oh, God. Let's take some calls. When something momentous happens to you, give us a call as soon as it happens at 206-984-4FUN. Brian, what do we got here? Let's roll one out. Hey, Jordan, Jesse, and esteemed and probably quite famous guest. I'm calling with a momentous occasion, but I got to preface. It didn't just happen. It happened earlier today, but I had to listen to an episode to get the phone number. So a piece of advice, put this number in your cell phone because it sometimes becomes important when you don't expect

it. Anyway, I found out today that I'm having a son. That's pretty awesome. It's a lot of people have done it, but I've never done it. So that's really, really great. I'm excited about it. And I guess I'll be calling in about four and a half months with another momentous occasion. But right now I'm feeling really good about myself. Anyway, bye. You shouldn't feel good about it because your math is very poor. You should not be feeling good about yourself. The period of gestation for people now is nine months.

I'll be calling in four and a half months with another momentous occasion. We lost the baby. That's exactly what I'm saying. Really? It's really – this guy is a disaster area. No, but isn't it – at how many months do you find out you're pregnant? Oh, right away. It's a number of weeks.

Not long. Yeah. You can find out easy a month in. When the semen hits the egg, there's actually a very faint bell. Yeah. So you can know immediately. Ding. Yeah.

Ding. Yeah. So you can know immediately. Ding. Yeah. Ding. Yeah. John had asked earlier if anyone here has been spotting and I guess that's another indication I just feel.

Yeah, yeah. Sure. Let's take another call, guys. Hi, Jordan, Jesse, Jeff. This is Nick calling from the interstate just outside Atlanta with an unanticipation.

I have just immigrated into the United States. I'm now off to small-town Alabama to enjoy the company of my wife, who I haven't seen in several months. And I'd like to say that she's wonderful right now. Jessica. And religious and political liberties as well. Okay. Bye.

I hope that dirty immigrant isn't going to take our jobs. I know. He's coming here to start podcasting. He's already one step ahead of us with that buttery accent. I know. If we could bring animation back to this country, everybody would be working instead of shipping it to Korea.

That's your plan? We could all just draw. You guys are the people who dedicated your professional careers to creating technical solutions to the problem of it taking too many people to create animation. That's a fact. That's a good point. And the budgets have – you know, the budget for a low-budget animation like Dr. Katz in 94 was like $200,000 per episode. That's all in. Actors, everything.

Right. I mean you could pay me in Jordan's fees for an episode of Jordan, Jesse. Go with that. But then you'd have to come up with money to pay Brian. Yeah. Yeah. But $200,000 is so much more than you get for an animated show on Comedy Central now or, you know, anywhere else. The amount of money has gone way down because everybody knows kids all by themselves can animate.

Oh, they figured it out. Yeah. You just have to inflate your craft services budget. Oh. Yeah. $10,000 for animation. Those cocktails with the gold flakes in them. So what do you guys watch on television besides 30 Rock?

I mostly watch 30 Rock. Not much. Honestly, not much. What do I watch? Do you watch Homeland? No. I've heard that's a laugh riot, though. Dexter.

Don't watch Dexter. No show time between the two of us. I'm enjoying Boardwalk Empire. I like to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Never go into it. And Archer. I enjoy watching Archer. Archer's a terrific show.

Bob's Burgers. Bob's Burgers is a very funny show. I like to watch 30 Rock. I'll watch old episodes of 30 Rock that I haven't seen. I actually really do watch a lot of Cheers. That sounds like a joke, but no, I really do watch a lot of Cheers. Tom Leopold, who's my co-star in the Explosion Bus, was a writer on Cheers.

I watched the pilot episode the other day just to remind myself, and it was before Diane worked there. Do you remember in the pilot? She comes in with her fiancé. And I couldn't believe how the writing was assumed an incredibly educated and intelligent

office. Audience. Thank you. Audience. But at the time, people mostly, the televisions were very expensive. You would only have them in your office. You'd gather with your office mates. Get the gals from the secretarial pool. Sure.

But when Sam first met Diane, she was reading poetry at the table to her professor boyfriend. And it went on and on. And he was a British poetry professor. And when she was finally done, the professor turned to Sam and very condescendingly said, that's done. And Sam said, thank God. Now, that presupposes that you know who Dunn was. And now, could you possibly get away with doing that joke? I don't know. Even 30 Rock, assuming someone would know. I mean, Archer's mostly Kenny Loggins humor.

Yeah, there's a lot of Loggins jokes. He assumes a pretty high level of familiarity with Kenny Loggins. So there's that. One day that will be important. So there's that. One day that will be important. And I mean – and I think really that kind of like class and that kind of erudite sense of humor is I think something you guys do well in Explosion Bus. I mean I watched a great episode set in a cartoon strip club. Which is a gentleman's club. A gentleman's club.

Excuse me. Yeah. I like that when Leo is with a stripper and you ask her how her parents are. Or did you do that? How are the folks? Yeah. The joke in this is that the guy goes back with the stripper but keeps paying her to have a conversation with him. How many calls have we got left, Brian?

Two calls. Okay. We'll take another call here. We got calls, Brian. Two calls. Okay. Let's take it. We'll take another call here. We got calls to call. Jordan, Jesse, go. Possible guest. Been thinking about that fuck fest. And you said one with dignity.

Pause it here, Brian. Pause the call. Pause the call. We have to do some exposition. Brian. We have to do some exposition for Tom and Jonathan. Did he say fuck fest? He did.

He did say fuck fest. That's why we have to explain what's going on. So we know that certain social activities are just fronts for fuck fests. The classic example is the Renaissance Fair. fair so what we're trying to do is figure out one of these activities where the sweet spot is where the fuck fest is highest but the amount that you would be embarrassed to be there is lowest so we know that if we go to an anime porn convention it's going to be a fuck fest we know that we go to the renaissance fair it's going to be a fuckfest. We know that if we go to the Renaissance Fair, it's going to be a fuckfest. We learned last week that the Civil War reenactment is a fuckfest.

There is even some man on horse stuff that takes place. But what we're looking for is one of these activities. What is the optimum one of these activities? So hopefully this guy's got a good solid idea. I've been thinking about that fuck fest, and you said one with dignity, and I don't know if this qualifies as dignity, but Jeff, your wife might know this,

but law school is a complete and utter fuck fest. It is basically high school because there's only about 200 people in your class and everybody knows anybody. But now we're all old enough and they're fucked. So everybody sleeps with everybody else. It's super stressful. And worst of all, most lawyers are terrible alcoholics. And so really it is just a mix of debauchery and super high stress.

And people will leave it by fucking each other. Oh, man. I guess the dignity part, really, that's more your perspective. Some people think lawyers are quite dignified. Others think that we're just assholes. Anyway, have a nice day. Bye-bye. What an odd sign-off.

I'm not a litigious man. Best to your parents. I think, yeah, I don't buy this. I mean, I do buy that law school is probably a fuck fest. All that stuff that he said, it being kind of high stress and you being, you know, in, you know, you not being able to branch out and meet new people because you're always just doing law school all the time. Yeah, but it's a little bit like working in a restaurant sort of. It's like, yeah, but that's like so expensive. Like think about, I mean, the expense versus, you know, I don't know, what's the tunic cost at the Ren Faire?

I have to send a check to the government every month for almost $2,000 because my wife went to law school. And I have to do this for the next either 20 or 30 years. I don't remember which one it is. I can't imagine that's worth it just for the fuck fest. Just go to the Ren Fet. That's a two-year fuck fest. What kind of lawyer is she? She's not a lawyer.

That's the worst part. Oh, no. Well, no, that's for the best. I like having her around and her not being miserable. And here's another issue. You know, my wife is a pseudo-intellectual property lawyer. Uh-huh. But I was curious about your wife.

I was. Honestly. So she manages the money for the guy who directed Donnie Darko. That's pretty good. Morris and Katz. Let's take another call. Hey, Jordan and Jesse. Just calling in about your fucktest chart.

Oh, you do take kids. As someone who has hung around with Ren Faire people, anime convention people, and also lopers, I have a lot of experience in those sorts of communities, and I think all three of them will fail your obnoxiousness levels. I like them. I think they're fun. But Ren Faire, you will get a pretty good gender dynamic. I think it might be 60-40 in favor of females at Renaissance festivals. And at LARPing, from what I've seen, it's live-action role-playing, it's about a 40-60 split, 40% female, which isn't bad. And I have had a lot of crazy stories about people from LARP,

and it can be pretty fun. But, yeah, if you're looking for, like, crazy sex times, you kind of have to be a nerd. That's how it is now. Bye, porn star. Maybe I'm just reading too much into her voice, but I'm pretty sure she finds me attractive. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jesse, go. Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.

Jordan Morris, boy detective. Jonathan Katz. And Tom Snyder. Guys, how exciting is it to have you guys come out on our program? It's pretty exciting.

On our little show, it's not a look. We have fucking, we have a huge audience. Sure. We're very powerful men. Yeah. But on our little show,

we call the shots around here. The girl at the comic book store recognized me the other day. Did the girl at the comic book store recognize you? Oh, that's great. Anyway, so that's the kind of fame you guys could be expecting after coming on our show. Oh, we're going to get likes. Yeah.

Yeah. Lots of likes. People are going to click on like on Explosion Bus. They're going to subscribe to Explosion Bus. I think that's definitely going to click on like on Explosion Bus. They're going to subscribe to Explosion Bus. I think that's definitely going to happen. Jonathan, did you ever get recognized for Dr. Katz? Yeah, if I was wearing my Dr. Katz T-shirt and going and pointing. You point at the character, then point at your face.

It depended on how squiggly you were on a given day. And then I would say to the people at the next table in the restaurant, thank you very much. I enjoyed making it, regardless of what they had said. Tom, I imagine the Dr. Katz years for you were mostly about explaining to people that you weren't the guy that came on after Letterman. Yes.

And that sucked. He actually sued me because the name of our production company when we were doing Dr. Katz was Tom Snyder Productions, which was his company name too, which I hadn't realized. Holy moly.

Yeah. But nobody won. You tangled with Snyder. We did. His lawyer with our lawyer. If you tangle with Snyder, you also got Charles Grodin on your ass. Snyder and Grodin.

Oh, they come together. They do. That guy's a real nasty. Get Grodin in there. He fights dirty. Tom, you were saying you were kind of waiting for the end of the show to ask us something? Oh, it's an internet question. Okay.

And it's going to sound like- We know the internet. Yes. Yeah. But it's going to sound like I'm plugging. Should you be vlogging? No. Is that your question?

Before you ask your question, could I tell one more story about my mother-in-law? Yeah, please. Because when my father-in-law, the late Luke Cates, was a great guy, came home with the first computer in their home, my mother-in-law said, Daddy bought the internet. That's a really good grandma. my mother-in-law said Daddy bought the internet laughter laughter That's a really good grandma thing to say Hi Charlotte She's listening probably right So

John and I who met and started doing TV animated shows and we're on five networks and had a lot of shows and figured out how to do it and we decided we wanted to do an internet animated show that was scripted. And so

my original brilliant idea was to, instead of this short form thing that everyone was doing, do a regular half hour animated show. You were going to zag when other people were zigging. Exactly. And also... Jesse, no need for racial slurs.

Sorry. And we had another hook, which was much like Lost, which had this ongoing narrative that turned out to be ultimately vastly disappointing. We were going to have a Lost kind of structure to Explosion Bus, which it does. It's written out five years and it's a comedy that has that kind of twisted, like, how the

fuck could that be happening? Maybe that's something else. And we found out very quickly you can't do a half hour, you can't, you know, with your own little network that you're just starting in your house. Right. No one wants to sit at their computer and watch a thing for half an hour long unless you get it on their Netflix or something. Yeah, and so then we went down to five minutes,

and then when we were at five minutes, we found out you can't do these extended narratives because there just isn't time. There's time for a beginning and an ending maybe or no middle or choose one of those three things and you have to get rid of it. Right. So you can't have all that interesting plot. And then recently we heard it's really three minutes.

This is from experts at YouTube advising us. And so what do you think, you know, if you were, you know, from what you're seeing, because you probably see and even talk to people who are trying to do stuff like this. This is an honest I'm pleading with you for the right answer. My video show is 12 ish minutes long. Jordan, you've been working on these YouTube shows, which are largely in that same sort of area, right? Yeah, yeah. I think this is just my my opinion, having kind of worked in this zone for about a year is that the – kind of the conventional wisdom is that like, oh, these are all just kind of over-caffeinated 12-year-olds and it's got to be in and out in a minute. changing slowly. I think that people people, you know, the YouTube audience will sit for something that's a little bit longer

but still kind of err on the side of short but also, you know, don't, you know, make it good first and they'll sit through it. And maybe I would, my advice would be make it self-contained within the episode. Make it so you don't have to have watched

other stuff. And so lose the big narrative arc. Yeah. Make it so you don't have to have watched other stuff. And so lose the big narrative arc. Yeah. I mean, I know you're married to the smoke monster. Yeah, I am. We'll explain it too. Tell us about the 12-minute show. What happens during those 12 minutes? It has segments.

The 12-minute show is not a narrative show. This is a nonfiction show. And it is, it's sort of, we do one big, it's about menswear. And we have one main feature in the show, a couple of very short 90 second segments, and usually one sort of two or three minute segment. three minute segment. And we did that because of arrogance primarily. And it probably isn't as good as if we hadn't done that. Do you think we need a contest in every animated three minute? You should probably get a contest in there.

What else? You got to get a good part at the end where they say where something funny happens that convinces you to click the subscribe button. Right. Yeah. Subscribe if you like. Big boobies and then have some boobs come up. Yeah. No, I mean, I think first and foremost, you should just think about quality, making it a good thing.

Yeah. And then but, you know, keep in mind, what if this is the first one that people are seeing? Because I think more often than not it is with web stuff. Well, certainly if you have – we have like 80,000 viewers or something like that. And so that's tiny compared to what you might want to have. So you figure every important viewer is a first-time viewer. Yeah, yeah. Right.

Building up. Well, that's – yeah. Yeah. And I think it's confusing for people when something seems chopped up for the sake of time, like where it doesn't begin and end appropriately. I think a lot of people do that. I think they – some kooky executive told them that kids only sit still for 90 seconds and then they make arbitrary cuts and then the thing looks like nonsense. Well, one disturbing thing you said is that it's important to have quality. That's a really big concern for us, too. Yeah. I mean, we've one of the reasons we've gone into podcasting is quality is much less of an issue here.

We're really we really focus on metadata. Sure. And that's where most of our audience comes from, is we get some really solid search terms in every episode description. And they really liked it when we did the Gangnam Style dance. Yeah, absolutely. Or, you know, remember when Jackie Joyner-Kersee died

and we talked briefly about Jackie Joyner-Kersee and put that in the tags? I mean, that just blew up, because everyone was searching Jackie Joyner-sey died and we talked briefly about Jackie Joyner Kersey and put that in the tags. I mean, that just blew up because everyone was searching Jackie Joyner Kersey. We were the comedy podcast of record on Jackie Joyner Kersey. Yeah. Is she dead? Flojo? Yeah. Okay, great.

There's a, by my mom's house. Wait, that's Florence Griffith Joyner. Oh, okay. What? You're mixing up the track stars with 12-inch long fingernails. Oh, okay. I know Flojo is dead. Okay. Because near my mom's house is the Flojo Memorial Park.

You know who will never be a guest on Explosion Bus? Who's that? For obvious reasons. Us? Rosa Parks. No, you'll be guests. You'll be guests. Great.

Well, we're looking forward to that. Yeah, we would love to. We're doing it. Great. Well, we're looking forward to it. Yeah, we would love to. Hey, I'm not trying to brag or anything, but Jordan and I recently appeared on an hour-long internet television show called The Engadget Show where I was the voice of a generic Scooby-Doo villain. I know you said you didn't want to be bragging, but it does sound a little cocky. It's pretty impressive. I mean, come on, Engadget? That's like the second biggest gadget website on the internet. Which I read every day without fail.

It's no Gizmodo. But it's right up there. It is neck and neck. Jockeying for first. You want to know know does the Microsoft Surface live up to the hype? You've got to get a good-earned gadget. Do you want to see the new

Nokia unboxing? Yeah, are you guys doing any unboxing at all? Unboxing is a really key strategy. Yeah. What is the Apple's new iPad called? The Mini? Yeah. Can you say the full name of it?

iPad Mini, which is so different. I asked some young lady last night, she has a mini pad. And that sounds like a... Okay, God. Go on the internet, watch Explosion.

You can go there on YouTube or explosionsbus.com. Yeah. Or Facebook. Guys, it has been so great to have you on the show. Such an honor to have you on the show. Such a pleasure. You're welcome anytime you're in Los Angeles to join us. Oh, god damn.

Thank you, Seattle. 206-984-4FUN. JJ Goh at MaximumFun.org especially you ladies in Seattle let's do this thing Brian Fernandez on the board if there's any attractive young people in the audience

should we have them here while we do the next episode to see if that improves things is there any way that maybe Brian can call some of his attractive young friends if you're an attractive young person in the Los Angeles area, email us at jjgoeatmaximumfun.org. We're going to bring you in. This is a very small room. Look, we're near downtown Los Angeles, right by MacArthur Park.

We're going to bring you in for a live taping. We're going to see if it helps things pop. If it juices things up. If you know what we're talking about. And the subtle angle. Email us. For real. Attractive young people.

JJGo at MaximumFun.org. Let's make this happen. 18 or older only, please. Or with parent. Right. If you have an attractive younger parent. Sure. If your parent. Right. If you have an attractive younger parent. Sure. If your parent is filthy.

Right. A filthy parent. Filthy rich. Yeah, sure. Our theme is Love You by The Free Design courtesy of The Free Design and Light in the Attic Records.

We'll talk to you next time on Jordan and Jessica.