Podcast: The Ride - La Nouba Boys with Bug Mane & Scott Gairdner - Ep. 48: The Cycle Sequence

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Bzz bzz, Stilt Nation! Bug and Scott, your favorite La Nouba Boys, are back for more analysis of Cirque Du Soleil's Downtown Disney Orlando masterpiece, La Nouba. This week, we cover the segment all you La Noubians have been waiting for- the cycle sequence! Get ready for BMX bikes! Cyclists wearing @ symbols! Impressed audience members wearing bowling shirts and van dykes! Get ready to eat up that nouba sauce! Presented by Funky Ape Productions and BlueChew.    Watch the 2004 pro-shot version of La Nouba on YouTube at https://youtu.be/lJVHLM2UpEg?si=2UYy36NAdbqpHWTd   Follow La Nouba Boys on X at https://twitter.com/lanoubaboys   Get La Nouba Boys merch at https://tinyurl.com/LaNoubaBoys   Join the Patreon, La Nouba Boys Double, at https://tinyurl.com/LaNoubaBoys Get in the convo with the Green Birds on Reddit (please keep it civil) at https://tinyurl.com/LaNoubaBoys   Discover more great Funky Ape Productions at https://tinyurl.com/LaNoubaBoys   Reach trapeze-level heights with our amazing sponsor, BlueChew, at https://bluechew.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever! Dog! Next to theme parks. We take you now to Scott's end of the multiverse. La Nuba Boys. La Nuba Boys. Bonjour and welcome to La Nuba Boys, the only podcast that offers weekly analysis of Cirque du Soleil's 1998 to 2017 show at downtown Disney Orlando, La Nuba. I am your ringmaster, Scott Gairdner, joined as always by LeFou, the fool. Just kidding.

Just messing around with you. You know I love you. Yes, buzz, buzz. The Prince of Jesters here, the Bugmane. You walked right into it. You proved my point. Bugmane is here. Back for more LaNuba Talk.

It's us, the LaNuba boys. What's going on? Welcome back. Obviously, LaNuba's unforgettable journey through our universe. At once threatening and exhilarating, frightening and familiar, LaNuba is the story of all stories. You know, we talk about it every week. The site of all mysteries is LaNuba. That is within the theater. The site of La Nuba is where dreams and nightmares

for a brief period of time, 19 years, slept side by side in this theater. Nightly, dazzling audiences. Absolutely. Not only nightly, but dazzling. There was never a night that it didn't dazzle. If that ever happened, I'm sure they would have shut this thing down in a heartbeat,

but they kept that standard up. It never didn't dazzle. And the thing about it is it beckons to us. It beckons to us. It challenges us to uncover passions we thought we'd lost long ago. Basically, if you're imagining you're in Orlando and you've never even seen something so earth shattering. You maybe have never seen a circus. You've maybe never been to an art gallery. You never left America. You don't know about these cultural things that are happening. You don't know about the Blue Man Group. You don't know about David Fincher commercials, the movie Toys with Robin Williams. You don't know about these very artistic things until Disney, through the lens of Cirque du Soleil, delivered it to you in La Nuba and with the DVD, delivered it en masse. Then to the world.

Exactly. Now, obviously, our audience is extremely versed in La Nuba. You know it very well. But just in case there's any first-time listeners, because we want to be very inviting with this podcast. I don't like these podcasts that become this dense web of references that you don't really understand, and you don't really have an in on, so it's hard for new people to come in. So I do like to explain the basics of La Nuba, which of course, from 1998 to 2017, performed at Downtown Disney. And I became first aware of it on a trip to Walt Disney World, which was fine. I'm not particularly interested in theme parks, but I remember being bored in

the hotel room thinking, oh, there's more of this Disney World trip to get through. And then there's an ad for the things that you can go do at downtown Disney, at downtown Disney's West Side. And it's this clip. I like to replay this whenever I can, just to recall how La Nuba first spoke to me. The Cirque du Soleil show, La Nuba, is a remarkably unique family experience, unlike any other on the planet, where feats of physical daring and acrobatics meet the artistry of live music magical effects and awesome design you've got to see it to believe it i mean that says it all i mean you get so much in that 22 seconds you get if we just analyze it

first you're going to be in the big tent in the freestanding structure that they built just for this at Downtown Disney. Disney has its castle, whatever, with its spires. But if that doesn't speak to you, then what is your version of the castle going to be? And for me, just the gleaming white of the La Nuba tent. That was my castle. It's sort of a Euro-minded, artistically-minded alternative for the Disney castle was the La Nuba tent, which spoke to the kids who were weird. If you felt like a weird kid, kind of more interested in culture and nuance and enrichment. This is your castle.

I was a kid that grew up loving Rene Magritte. And to finally reach that age where, okay, enough with the kids toys and the Cinderella's and the Peter Pan's. It's time, you know, to get cultural. It's time. I was such a Magritte kid. We talked about this the first day, way before the podcast. And we were just doing the podcast just for fun out loud. And we hadn't actually started the thing yet.

And who could have dreamed of the success that we would end up having? I mean, you know, so much great support. So many people subscribing to the La Nuba Boys duble on the Patreon. Still Nation. And in that space where La Nuba briefly existed and on October 22nd, 2004, they filmed the staged live performance for the DVD. Probably one of the most banner and finest nights in French artistic and experimental theater? Yes, of course. And as always, we suggest and encourage you to consult your own copy of the La Nuba Pro Shot DVD from October 2004.

And we'll be reflecting on a particular element of that. Again, not to be redundant, this is episode 48, so you know what we do. But every week on this show, we do rate and review a different sequence, moment, or act from La Nuba, Cirque du Soleil's finest show. There's a quote in this commercial. This was the TV ad for La Nuba, which has a quote that is really striking. And I just want to get, you know, get your thoughts on this. Cirque du Soleil presents La Nuba. Now astounding audiences at the downtown Disney Westside. To see it is to know the color of imagination. To see it is to know the color of imagination.

Is that not how it makes you feel? Even just watching the DVD. So La Nuba is almost a new color. It's a new kind of and and and the thing you can watch lanuba let's just be a little respectful obviously you don't want to wear your disney mickey ears to lanuba when you're going to see it we're in an artist's world but we're not so stuffy no that was what was so beautiful about it and the performance in 2004. It's not so stuffy. You're not going to, you know, some actual European art exhibition with, you know, tuxedos

and champagne. No, it's not elite. It's extremely accessible. Yes, exactly. It's inclusive. Basically, just kind of wear a collared shirt. Wear your nicest collared shirt. And that's what you see when you watch the DVD. And as always, we encourage you to watch the DVD or if for some reason you don't have a copy of the DVD, you can go on YouTube. There is the video Cirque du Soleil Anuba Subtitulata, then space and then AVI. I guess that was the file name.

But if you're just coming into the show for the first time, go look it up. It's about 90 minutes. It's a breezy 90 minutes. Just watch the full pro shot version of La Nuba from 2004. And in that, you're going to see these audience members, see what they were wearing at the time. You'll see their nice colored shirts. You'll see their golf resort hats, their band and dune hats, their Van Dykes. Yeah, a few Van Dykes, tiny spectacles, tiny glasses, James Taylor post-1999 glasses. They cut to audience members,

at least the older men in the audience, all look like plaid era eagles. They all look like Hell Freezes Over Eagles. Hell Freezes Over Eagles or Ben Affleck in Chasing Amy. And in their head. Plads, bowling shirts. Every one of their heads holds the memories of 9-11 in the 2004 DVD. Even the children. And guess what?

Like I was saying, their bowling shirts are nice bowling shirts that they're wearing. They chose their best bowling shirt. They're choosing. At this time, you have to remember, in the early 2000s, bowling shirt penetration is full. So these young men are looking at a closet of probably a dozen bowling shirts. To pick their finest one. Yeah, and they do. They know this is, I can't do like the silly yellow one with the Hawaiian pattern.

This has to be kind of an austere maroon and black. Something that shows a little bit of respect to these Frenchmen and their artistry and, and a little bit of ambassadors. Ambassadors. I was going to say culture of culture to us, but we also have to show up and give our best, you know,

these are our best applause, our best smiles, our best laughs, our best Van Dykes, our best bowling shirts, always our best Van Dykes. And you know, these are people in the audience that are fans of hitman comedies.

The year is 2004, and they, you know, they love Lucky Number Slevin, and they love, you know. They love to get shorty, and they can't wait for Be Cool. They can't wait for, yeah, they even saw Big Trouble, to be perfectly honest. Yeah, even despite 9-11. They even saw Big Trouble, to be perfectly honest. Yeah, even despite 9-11. They even saw Big Trouble after the delay. Big Trouble showed fear where La Nuba showed bravery.

Big Trouble changed their ending. They didn't back down. And they kept going. La Nuba was performing on September 10th, and then I don't know when they came back after September 11th, but I bet it was by the end of the month. That much I know. They didn't say, we're done, we're going back to France. They stayed in Florida because

that's what Giuliani wanted. That's what George W. Bush wanted. And our finest cultural institutions had to keep going. And La Nuba, the finest, did. There's old men in Orlando, Florida, who have just paid $500 and drank a double Jack and Coke, wearing Hell Freezes over plaid shirts and James Taylor tiny glasses with their brother in a Van Dyke and bowling shirt. Inside of their brains are the memories of 9-11 and Barry Sonnenfeld hitman comedies. And they're going to get their mind blown and exposed to European sensibilities on that night of October 22nd in 2004. And they're going to like it.

Also, an olive branch to the French people in general. At the time, we're talking about freedom fries, not French fries. Because of their perceived cowardice. It's a cliche. It's a cliche. Wow. We are rejecting French culture in a big way. And what better way as an ambassador to France than their other great cliche, art.

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Promo code NubaChew. N-O-U-B-A-C-H-E-W. NubaChew. to try it free. Bluechu is the better, cheaper, faster choice. And we thank them for sponsoring LaNuba Boys. C'est magnifique. You know, I shudder to think of, if there was an alternate universe where LaNuba hadn't hit as hard as it did in ours. I shudder to imagine a world where La Nuba doesn't get the respect that it deserves.

And people listen to podcasts not about this, but about trash, just like garbage. Yeah, exactly. It's infinitely dissecting subjects that no one can care less about, to be perfectly honest. That are fluff, that are hollow, as opposed to what we get to do, which is revisit La Nuba again and again. And, you know, some fools, les fous,

think that it might get bore, les fous, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said it, I'm not afraid to say it. Might think that this podcast would run its course, that you could only do one of these and then you'd be done. But we keep finding new angles on La Nuba, new information about it. Bug, I've been dying to tell you about this.

Finally, I've been meaning to. I watched the 1999 Bravo hour-long profile of Cirque du Soleil, which is, of course, called Run Before You Fly. And I learned a little bit of information about how La Nuba came to be and how it showed up at the Walt Disney World. Oh, wow. Now, you know, we're kind of invested in full Cirque du Soleil history. And this was, of course, you know, the mid-90s, where they had just done their big show by the Santa Monica Pier at the pop-up tent, and that was causing all kinds of Hollywood interest. And we've been through this before, but that's when they almost signed the deal with Columbia Pictures.

Columbia Pictures was going to make a full Cirque du Soleil movie. When they showed up on our shores, it was with a bang, to be perfectly honest. It was honestly, in a non-violent way the equivalent of Godzilla showing up on the shore in Tokyo. Exactly, or Pearl Harbor. Yes, yeah, it was like an inverse Pearl Harbor that was for good. Yeah, that was for good

and that they didn't cower and run away from the fight. Yes. They were the ones bringing it, but artistically and culturally. Yes, yeah, yeah. So, of course, who catches wind of Cirque du Soleil? We got to do something with Cirque du Soleil, the Walt Disney Company. Michael Eisner, full context since we never really talked about him on this show, he at

the time was the CEO and chairman of the Walt Disney Company through the 90s and 2000s. You might have heard of him. So he saw Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica. We have to lock this down. Can we get this a presence in Walt Disney World? They were interested, Guy La Liberté, who again, just to orient people, just so this podcast is always accessible,

Guy La Liberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, who was a homeless busker and stilt walker and fire eater and is today, due to of Cirque du Soleil, who was a homeless busker and stilt walker and fire eater, and is today, due to his Cirque du Soleil profits, the 11th richest Canadian worth $1.2 billion and Canada's first space tourist. I'm sorry to say all this again. I know you know all this bug. You know all about Guy La Liberté. No, what I didn't know, though, was I didn't really know to draw the direct line to Michael Eisner being the patient zero of the Hell Freezes Over Dad being completely inundated with culture and blowing his mind. Kind of the ultimate Hell Freezes Over Dad. He was the perfect patient zero. If you look at him, if you look at a photo of him at that time, he does look like James Taylor, but with less wild hair.

He absolutely he was like maybe the look like James Taylor, but with less wild hair. He was like maybe the most powerful James Taylor type. Yeah, in Hollywood, yes. First of all, never knew this, he wanted to buy the company. He almost bought Cirque du Soleil outright. Guy Laliberté said absolutely not. Integrity. Yes, he has integrity, as we know. It's what made him the 11th richest Canadian. So then it became, all right, well, can we do a show? Can we do something at Walt Disney World? And you guys point there. And the biggest sticking point in the negotiation was Disney not wanting to give over full creative control, artistic freedom to Cirque and Guy.

And ultimately— You have to take a leap of faith when you're dealing with Guy. Why do the deal? Don't even talk to Guy if you're not going to do the leap of faith. And ultimately, that is what Eisner realized. And he personally intervened and said, there's no reason to do this unless we give them. It would be like asking Guy to not eat fire. Absolutely.

You don't look at a fire eater and tell him today for breakfast is a bagel. So listen to this quote from Michael Eisner, again for context, the CEO of Disney. He's asking Guy to not have oxygen in his lungs or fire in his belly. Mm-hmm. His belly belongs on fire. That's what Guy La Liberté is about.

So this is quote Michael Eisner. I've been dealing in the movie business for a long time, and if you have Steven Spielberg or George Lucas or others of that level, you let them have creative control. And when you have Cirque du Soleil and Guillaume Levetay, you create a financial box, how much you want to spend, and then you let them do it. Compared to the Hollywood people that I'm used to he was uh a pussycat uh uh amen i'm glad a hollywood great that he he compares correctly finally gila liberte to lucas and spielberg i'm glad he he he to his senses. Yeah. And rationalized it with his friends. Mm-hmm.

And gave them the artistic freedom which led to why we're sitting here today. We wouldn't be sitting here today without James Taylor, Dad, Patient Zero, Michael Eisner, taking a leap of faith. Taking a leap of faith after taking a double Jack and Coke and drinking it. I also, then there's this piece of footage from the Bravo documentary where this is going to, as you as a Gee fan, you're going to go nuts because I'll just ruin the first frame of it. This is Guy La Liberté on a motorcycle driving through downtown Disney, and you can see the AMC. You're not allowed to do that. Hey, you can do whatever the fuck you want if you're Guy La Liberté.

That's Guy. That's Guy for you. He doesn't just ignore stop signs. That's Guy. He ignores every sign. That's classic Guy. He sees a sign. He takes a gulp of fire from his fire belly, and he burns that sign up.

Yeah. Guy sees a stop sign. He goes he see reads it as go reads it as he's flipped his own brain um so here he is and he's driving on a motorcycle past the virgin megastore uh past the disney quest i mean what a zone this was at this time i feel like downtown Disney at this time is where the millennium happened the millennium happened early in 1998 and it happened with the incredible VR at Disney Quest and daily at the Virgin Megastore as people sampled uh Moby as people put on their headphones they listened to their Moby then they went to Wolfgang Puck or Bongo's Cuban Cafe and then they capped off the night with a double Jack and Coke and La Nuba.

Yeah, they got themselves a butternut squash soup at Wolfgang Puck. A new flavor. A new flavor. Nobody had that in America before 98. No, no, no. And then they had themselves a barbecue chicken pizza flatbread. A flatbread. Not a...

We know this word now. Now we're accustomed to this word. A flatbread barbecue chicken with a butternut squash soup in 1998. I mean, who but Disney and Downtown Disney was even ushering the millennium in? I don't think any other company was thinking about it. Santa Claus is coming. You put the cookies out. You welcome these holidays and no one else was even ushering

the great millennium in with the respect that Disney was and with the face of Mickey's face facing the future. Facing the future of the new millennium. Obviously, there was a House of Blues deal with Cirque du Soleil. There was a Wolfgang Puck deal. You mean you're talking about the meal deals where you could you could pair it

that you there was like you know you pair wine and cheese well Cirque and Puck Wolfgang Puck what now now so perfect they're they're aesthetically of a piece too you go into Wolfgang Puck and there's the beige or yellow right next to a checkerboard pattern and then that's all cut up yeah a kooky sun on an upside down pyramid light uh that has some some colored glass in there and and and and also mosaic tile there's a mosaic tile on a column over there i look over there there's not a mosaic there's not mosaic on that column just just on this column has a mosaic tile on a column over there. I look over there. There's not a mosaic. There's not mosaic on that column. Just on this column has a mosaic. It's not about matching.

It's not about uniformity. If you feel mosaics on this column, do it. If you don't, if you just feel a goofy moon on this column, just do that. And imagine, imagine you're a James Taylor dad. Tiny spectacles, a Rolex Rolex watch a collared shirt you're there with your bowling shirt Van Dyke you're in Orlando you woke up in Orlando this morning you had an extra $800 you're gonna spend that $800 you now find yourself at the brink of the millennium, tasting tastes like flatbreads and sushis and butternut squash soups before you go. Sushi in America?

Did I wake up in the wrong country today? Sushi in Orlando? And now I'm going to go see a Frenchman on a tricycle while I'm drinking a double Jack and Coke? I just spent $500. My son is here. He's going to, this is the first time he's going to masturbate. He just saw that girl's body right there. This is the first time my son's going to masturbate.

I'm sitting here in La Nuba. I just, my belly's filled with butternut squash soup and I'm drunk. I'm drunk. I'm watching a Frenchman. I woke up in 1998. One way I'm leaving and I'm in the year 2000 the next day. That just happened because of Disney that Michael Eisner funneled the vision of the millennium into all the like-minded James Taylors and Hell Freezes Overs like him.

It's what Eisner could see with his tiny glasses that other CEOs of companies couldn't. He could see the synthesis of the millennium of butternut squash of your first masturbation. He could triangulate all of it. He saw through the matrix before even there was a matrix. There wasn't that film yet. You're Michael Eisner. You're curating the idealized version of the millennium he told dan akroyd put some jack daniels in that damn barbecue sauce for those ribs at the house of blues yeah and it paid off and guess what you can go and see social distortion or the cottonmouth kings yes often usually the cottonmouth Kings. Yes. Often, usually the Cottonmouth Kings. At Blue, at the House of Blues.

Yeah. You go from the Cottonmouth Kings at the House of Blues to a belly full of butternut squash and a Frenchman bouncing a tricycle on your lap in one night? You,

you, you're from Minnesota. You went into the culture matrix brought to you by Mr. Eisner himself. I got, all right, drive to my job. All right. Yes, your money. Fill in my. Eisner himself. All right, drive to my job. All right.

Yes, your money. Fill in my data. Go home. All right. Meal with the kids. How was your day? All right, fine. It's the same thing every day, every day.

To then break out of that, go to Orlando, experience a cultural melting pot, something that combines Jack Daniels and Cottonmouth Kings and a Frenchman with a long nose who is hiding but then peering out and then saying hello and then doing strange gestures with their hands and little feathers up top. You have a flatbread. You're drunk. And yes, your money is now in Michael Eisner's pocket

that you brought to Orlando. Did he not earn it? But did he not earn it? Yes. It's tough to go back. It is tough to go back after you go to Orlando. Did he not earn it? But did he not earn it? Yes. It's tough to go back. It is tough to go back after you go to La Nuba. It's tough to go back. You're a dad.

You just had some great, silent, very silent, drunk sex. You back there, you have a belly full of Jack Daniels. You're drunk. You have butternut squash. Now you're trying to have silent sex. You're trying to have silent sex in the contemporary. With memories of the ragdoll still dancing in your head and the walker. They're underneath your little hat, your top hat that you tipped up.

Now they're in your head. The Lanuba, he brings his hat up and the lecon are dancing on there. His head now they're dancing, Plum's dancing in your head. You're there. You lost your money. You have no more money. You're leaving the contemporary tomorrow with no more money. But what you've gained, what you've gained culturally, Michael Eisner, Guy, Wolfgang, the millennium.

Three days in Orlando and all of a sudden, you've seen the best of what the world can offer in 1998. You're sent back to Minnesota a better person because of Michael Eisner. You're sent back better. He fixed you. He fixed you. He was a cultural doctor. He diagnosed everybody. He saw what they were missing was Jack Daniels, ribs,

Cottonmouth Kings, and jesters. He curated a medley dish, the best of the world for you, in the year 2004. Yeah. Well, he owes it all to, if I could backtrack here, this is a pivotal moment for Eisner as captured by Bravo's cameras. Here is Guy riding through downtown Disney, and he picks up somebody along his way. Hi, Michael.

Hey, Guy. How are you? Pretty good. Where are you coming from? Coming from the desert. Wow. Just had a long ride. You want to have a ride with me a little bit? Absolutely. Come on in.

Excellent. Oh, he's getting on. Yeah, Eisner's getting on. See, this is also artistically what he did. Yeah. Got him on the backseat. He took him for... We are right now are watching, and we'll post this to our Twitter so everybody in Stilt Nation can see this. This is really the moment that makes it all happen

where Michael Eisner hesitantly, you know, he's not sure where to put his hands. He's not on a motorcycle all the time, but that's the trust that he puts in Guy. It's analogous to the artistic trip that he took. He had to trust Guy. He didn't know where to put his hands when he got on the back of Guy's motorcycle

the same way he didn't know exactly how to, how do I put the financial box together for you to do? Do I take creative control? How do I? But yeah, ultimately, he put his hesitant, shaky hands on Guy La Liberté's midsection and they rode off into the sunset or at least eight feet forward to where there was a cut point, and then Bravo went to commercial. And seemingly, he didn't fall off. I don't think so. At least not in this take.

This might tie us together nicely. Why don't we take the tightrope over to La Performance de la Semaine, the performance of the week, the main thing we will be analyzing on La Nuba Boys. Oh, my favorite segment. La performance de la samba. The cycle sequence. Ah, the cycle sequence.

We're so lucky, the cycle sequence. All this talk of motorcycle and Eisner on the motorcycle. This is the part of the show where you think you're watching some stuffy, like, Dad, what is this? I should be back in my room listening to Everclear or Everlast.

I should be listening to one of the Evers. I don't want to be here watching some stuffy French circus. All right, well, what if we told you that this circus has BMX bikes in it?

A spoonful of sugar makes medicine go down, the cultural medicine, okay? It's not just the circus. You're also getting, sonically, the music. You're also getting, visually, the costumes. Now, for a kid, BMX, that's a spoonful of sugar to get the cultural medicine go down.

They knew that. Guy knew that, too. When you're up to that point, what's the number one coolest, newest, newest sport, action, extreme, X Games? X Games, huh? X Games. X Games, yes. What is BMX?

That is incorporated seamlessly, incorporates BMX into his not just a circus, masterful, lanuba piece of art. It's going to get the dad. It's going to get the dad. It's going to get the kid. Well, yes. And as we've talked about a number of times, La Nuba was Cirque du Soleil's attempt to do something cool, to do something for the teens. If I could quote Franco Dragone, who was, of course, the director of La Nuba and who did pass away suspiciously shortly after doing the Chris Angel Amistica show. We don't ask too many questions about that, but what we do is we honor Franco Dragone and we say thank you for giving us La Nuba. But this is a quote from him.

After working on previous Cirque shows, I turned around one day and realized that life had gone by and I hadn't seen my children grow up. I wanted to reconnect with youth to show my 19-year-old son that I was still hip. So that is what this, you're reading exactly into it. This is a show meant to pull in the 13-year-olds, to pull in the 19-year-olds. That's what I'm saying. And it's the same thing that Eisner did by putting it in Orlando. Look, at that point in time, Cirque du Soleil didn't just have to be performed in the marble palaces of the intellectualati out in Paris. No, no, not just for the richest.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Gila Liberté flipped the whole system on its head. He was on the streets breathing fire, eating fire. There's the wealthiest of the wealthy, and then there's fire eaters on the ground. He flipped the system, and now he's the 11th richest Canadian. And, I mean, imagine, LeFou. LeFou becomes the king. It's almost a plot from one of Guy's famous performances. Yeah, they did do that. Isn't that the story of Mystere?

Yes, exactly. I believe. I think so. Obviously, I'm more La Nuba favoring than Miss DeRay. Oh, no, of course. But we acknowledge their other works. We just don't like them. Yeah, you know, Vertigo and Hitchcock, Guy.

You're going to put some of yourself into your work no matter what. Yes, yeah. Guy also said La Nuba was made under exhaustion. Quote, what helped us get through it was to make the show a tribute to all the teenagers in the world, which injected a lot of energy into it. And that really reads,

when you watch the full 90-minute pro-shot version of La Nuba, you definitely can tell that this is something that works for teenagers. I mean... And the teenagers would love that. It's a tribute to them. Rock music.

There's BMX bikes. They could have called the show teen tribute. I mean, La Nuba is a perfect title. La Nuba, which of course means party, a party, a party,

which it basically is. I mean, and it's not La Nuba being a teenager-themed experience makes perfect sense. It's also telling you, listen, this is kind of like a PG-13 show. Yeah. You know what?

Maybe keep the seven-year-old back in the room. Well, the title tells you that. How many, you know, there's children's birthday parties, but who goes to parties? Teenagers. Teenagers. Teen parties.

It's just also a recommendation for who the show's for. And only a teenager could begin to synthesize and understand the beauty and the artistry of lanuba you can't a child could not possibly and we should strive for our entertainment to be smarter than a dumb little child could perceive at least start at lanuba yes i have have a child, and he's about to turn four. Not quite Lanuba age yet. I'd say at five, I'm going to start adjusting.

That's a Lanuba boy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A future Lanuba boy. I guess, yeah, he's going to be co-hosting with us in not too long. Because we'll be going for a while. Isn't it nice to have come out of the gate with such audience response to know that we got 15 years of this thing left?

Hey, all you Lanubots out there and Lanubians, I know that you guys have a little bit of a feud going against each other. I see them on the Reddit. They argue. I know. The Lanubians and the Lanub...

We don't get into it. We don't get into it. We let you decide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just happy that you guys are listening. And honestly, for your son, I can only imagine the joy of putting on a La Nuba DVD shot in 2004, October 22nd, on the Vision Pro. Imagine that.

Oh, yeah. That's almost as good. They never would have dreamed of it. Because he can't. No, he'll never understand a world where you can just show up with $199 in your pocket to Orlando, Florida. It's $199. And he will never know. Yeah.

It drives me, honestly, it drives me fucking crazy. Did I have to make the calculation? Do I want to bring a child into the world who can't go experience La Nuba live? Because, of course, La Nuba was replaced in 2017 by a new show called Drawn to Life, I think. I don't even, I don't, I'm so fucking pissed that they got rid of La Nuba. I don't even, I'm not even sure what the name of the new show is. And you can't even go to Gloria Estefan's Bongo's Cuban Cafe anymore. No.

Why even go to this part of this place? Why even go to Orlando at all? I don't. I don't like going to Orlando. Because now they've made it a show. It's now a show that involves Disney characters, Disney animation. Fuck that.

That was not the vision of James Taylor's dad. Or Guy. How do we spit in Guy La Liberté's face? We're asking for it. In terms of any societal breakdown, climate change, we're asking for it, for spitting in Guy La Liberté's face. This is we're asking for it in terms of like any societal breakdown, climate change. We're asking for it for spitting in Gila Liberté's face. We deserve worse. It would be like canceling Stranger Things and replacing it with some other show on Netflix, right? I would. That's the only thing I can think of because it's so important to the brand.

Yeah. If we ever get rid of Stranger Things just because the children are all now 26 years old, we would be quitting. We'd be quitting culturally. Those parts belong to them. It's about their essences, not about whether they are still four foot five with their little backpacks. Well, Liyama, the peacock singer, Piero Acrobat, the devil, the lost ball lost ballerina and pierrot clown never age in the dream world to bring it all back just to say i did of course my child deserves to live even though the only way he can experience lanuba is by watching the dvd from 2004 the pro shot dvd and hopefully fingers as soon as they work out the kinks with that vision pro i'm gonna strap

that thing on him. I don't know if it's too big for a toddler's head. I don't care at this point. I need to start getting one. I would rather, I mean, exactly. It would be like I would rather them at least start with Lanuba on Vision Pro than Allegria or, you know. I know.

I mean, I can't even imagine. What, Winduke? No, no, no, no. They're going to put out Winduke first? Come on. Yeah, yeah. When Cirque starts going through the catalog, if La Nuba is not the first thing out of the gate,

what are we even doing? Shut the company down. I'm showing my kids a new hope for Star Wars. Yeah. Let's just put it that way. Yes. Yeah, we can quibble. We can make up these interesting orders to do it in.

But you start where you start. You start with- A Nuba hope. Whoa, whoa. You know, Bug, Michael Eisner made some great decisions as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, but if our listeners want to feel like the CEO of the bedroom, they should check out Blue Chew. You can take them anytime, day or night, even on a full stomach, and since they're chewable,

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C'est magnifique. So the BMX sequence, a couple of cool BMX bikers come out and they do awesome bike stunts. They hop around. They hop through the audience, they land their bikes on different platforms. Very precarious stunts. But it's not just that. They also tie into the broader theme of La Nuba. We know that the characters in La Nuba are broken up into the Cirques, the circus people, and the Urbaines, the urbanites. And we know them because they wear the dark muted monochromatic colors.

And that theme of urbanism is really handily strung through all of La Nuba. And here's a quote, Guy La Liberté, We wanted a very urban show, but it had to be a modern kind of urban, not something out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. That's why you see.com, shift, delete, barcodes, and so forth on the walls for the high-tech element. These BMX bikers come out about halfway through. Or not halfway. It's at the 30-minute mark if you want to follow along with us.

And they are wearing skin-tight bike suits that say shift and TM. And there's a big at symbol. A visionary. I can't think of anything cooler than that. You mentioned this earlier. This was before The Matrix. It predates, it predicts, it thematically is getting teenagers involved with the internet,

BMX bikes. You're mentioning Guy's words today, and it just completely sunk in. I can't believe that after all these episodes. Whatever episode we're on, I know you guys at home, we let them keep track and you know, you can, you can check the Lanooba boys wiki.

Yeah. If you're counting the patron episodes, but basically dorks, we love them though. We love them. And thanks for subscribing. Subscribe to the Dubla. He's just,

you know, still nation. Yeah. Still nation out there. Obviously all the green birds, green birds are getting a little crazy on the on the forums though but it's good well the red it's getting a little toxic honestly i i can't really check the comments anymore because those green birds are good you know they're just so good there's always some

complaint this or that you know why are you so dismissive of zumanity because i well because they went too far showing the sensual side of circusque du Soleil. Exactly. I want my son to masturbate after the show, not during the goddamn show. Yes, yes. Keep it in your, no, you plant erotic visions for them to take home and then go hide in the bathroom in the hotel room. Well, that's where, obviously, we've talked about this a million times. Yeah. Zoo-manity, we have a whole spiel about this.

But like I said, a little new, but visionary. Guy, his prediction about teenagers now all they're looking at are at signs yeah that's their whole lives because they're on social media 1998 this is before tiktok he's putting ads on the bmx bikers and now apps are attached we people know our names with app before them more than they know our real name and this is what was this is what was given to a j a James Taylor dad in 1998 with his bowling shirt. It's like Eisner and Gee wanted to give James Taylor dads everything they needed to know, a full toolbox. Yeah, exactly.

They were given a millennium toolbox from Michael Eisner in downtown Disney of what to expect, the new taste that you're going to get. Yeah. That your kids are going to be obsessed with the internet. You are going to be eating flatbread soon. You're going to have to get used to zucchini being a regular part of your diet. Yes. What if I put a walnut in a butternut squash soup with a little bit of goat cheese? Wow.

What if I showed you a French clown? What if a person was bald and pale and had a streak of blue paint next to their eyes? Are you afraid of it? You shouldn't be. You should embrace it. Embrace the difference. Embrace change. Yeah, the tent in La Nuba was the ground zero for the very millennium itself. For what was to come in the very millennium itself.

At signs on BMX bikes with a belly full of butternut squash goat cheese soup. How does the La Nuba tent, being ground zero for the millennium, does this have any relation to your broader simulation theory? Of course, it all perfectly synthesizes into my 2001 theory. My theory, of course, being that everything before 9-11, 2001, was a data set memories implanted, sort of like Dark City. Dark City is what they call the city in La Nuba, by the way.

That's also the movie of which I based part of my theory on, was Dark City. Wow, wow, of course. And The Matrix, obviously. But basically, Dark City is these aliens replace people every day, and they just data set their brains. You think you wake up in a job, and you're a CEO, but actually the day before you weren't. You just have the memories implanted that you're the CEO. Okay, same thing with 2001.

On 9-11, 2001, we all woke up on 9-11. It was the alarm clock data set of all the memories. Now, what LaNuba fits in, it's the perfect data set of a memory or a dream. It is within itself the meeting ground of dreams and reality. Inside of the tent, everything still stands. Even if it was a dream, a data set, a memory, and it never happened, it all still stands because within that tent holds the clues of which this simulation has now been set in motion. It still has all the clues. When Steven Spielberg woke up on 9-11, he

hadn't made Color Purple or Indiana Jones. That was just a memory in his head, but that memory gave him the clues of which to then proceed and make Minority Report. Yeah, whatever. Anything afterward.

Now, was he the same Steven Spielberg after 2001? Maybe not. He was our Steven Spielberg. Well, no one was the same. Yeah, exactly. Who could be? Yeah. But he learned from his own false dream data set.

That's why this Lenud Batet is perfect. It actually was the ground zero of what was to become in the millennium after 2001 9-11 that's why we always return to this october 22nd 2004 dvd taping yes because that did happen but it still synthesizes reinforces reverberates in that little lenovo tent in, what they set up in 1998. All those clues are still there. We still can use those clues. They still inform our understanding of what the simulation is. So it fits perfectly in that it is a signature from the Mr. Simulator up there who made all of this. It's just a signature.

It's a way of saying, guess what, guys? You found it. You pinpointed the exact moment where dreams and reality, data set and reality all converge into one tent. And guess what? For this period of time after your existence, you can go back into that tent and watch exactly how I did it. All the clues are still there for you, Mr. Policeman. They're all there. It's a signature. It's a way of saying, Bugmane, Scott, you figured it out. I'm the simulator. My crockpot for the millennium was the tent at La Nuba in downtown Disney. The way I tested it was in this data set,

this mishmash, transference world of dreams and realities in this tent. That's where I put all the flavors of the new millennium into it. So, did you think the BMX stunts were cool? Yes. Okay, well, as always, we conclude the show by taking the act that we saw and giving it a rating.

Our rating is, of course, one to eight little shakes of a jester's hat bells. What rating would we give the BMX bike portion of La Nuba? That's a full eight shakes of jester hat bells for me yes yeah absolutely that's a full eight it's you can't get better i mean like we're saying prescient it's written on their clothes i mean gi is working on a level that is pure gi perfect gi yeah contemporary act bmx bikes yeah contemporary act In a European circus, what are you talking about? Totally surprised you. Really like shakes you up just like a jester's bell.

And that's why I also got to give it eight shakes of a jester's hat bell. Can't get any better. Eight shakes of a jester's hat bell. Well, then it goes in the super shake club along with every other part of La Nuba because we've always given eight shakes of a jester's hat bell to every single part. We will determine next week if we give the same eight shake rating to the automatons.

We finally make it to the automatons. Audience has been waiting for this one. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We have some hot takes coming for you. This could be the one that doesn't go all the way. We'll see.

We'll see. This is where Stilt Nation is going to get mad at us. Yeah, Stilt Nation, this is the divisive one. Be cool, Stilt Nation. Relax. Alright, don't be haters, Stilt Nation. Now, I don't know if Stilt Nation can not be haters,

to be perfectly honest. Uh-oh. Oh, jeez. You're asking for it. You're asking for their hot takes about our hot takes. Buzz Buzz, Stilt Nation. But hey, we love you, and we thank you for supporting us. And I guess with that, it's time for us to take our curtain call. Thanks to Stilt Nation. Join us on our Patreon, La Nuba Boys Dubla.

You can join us on the Trapeze tier. For $120 a month, you get a bonus weekly commentaire on the La Nuba DVD. We do a different weekly bonus commentary on the same Lanuba DVD from 2004. Or you can join us on the High Wire. That's $500 a month where you get Discord access. Bug, anything you want to plug this week? Pudding sauce. All right, Bug.

Until next week, the tent is closed. So long from LaNuba Boys. Beep. F-F-F-Funky Ape. LaNuba Boys is a Funky Ape production. Executive produced by Bug Main, Scott Gairdner,

Alice Foon, Byron Tain, Hank Vanquish, Tony Sittles, Clark Cork, Roy Van Cleet Morgan Belt Reverend Andre Kirkland

Heather Neck And me, DJ Sam For more great shows from Funky Ape, visit funky.ape.com Funky Ape thanks our proud sponsor, Blue Chew. Get 2% off with promo code NUBACHOO NUBACHOO NUBACHU. NUBACHU. NUBACHU. NUBACHU.

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NUBACHU. NUBACHU. Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.