Podcast: The Ride - The Wizard of Oz at Sphere

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Scott and Erin went to Las Vegas to witness the technical marvel that is The Wizard of Oz at Sphere. How much better did they make this classic? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Find out now!"Marvin Sease (Scott's Birthday Shot) " Recap episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Warning, the following podcast may contain an invasion of AI hipster bots. Lolly talk, a roof that sickens, and a famous man's edible hat. All that plus Scott follows the yellow brick road to Las Vegas for a glorious review of Wizard of Oz at Sphere. There's no place like a graphically manipulated home on today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, where we're off to see the dead-eyed, vacant AI approximation of the long-dead actor who played The Wizard. I'm Scott Gerdner, joined by Mike Carlson. Hello there. I'm dead-eyed munchkin.

Hello. Well, you sound right at least. You look a little weird. Yeah, that's okay. You don't have the life in your eyes that I remember from the film. Just ignore it. Just ignore my eyes. But does it feel nice to be in much, much, much.

much higher resolution? Yeah, sure it does. I'm part computer now. That feels good. I'm imbued with AI. I'm powered by Google and by, what's the name of the,

I already forget, the name of the company, I have it written down. The company that did the graphics has the most easy to mispronounce name where it's like, I'm not coming up with it, but it's like it has the word come in it or something. Oh, it's a, no, it's puss.

Mag. You would probably say magnopus. That's probably what they want you to say. Oh, I don't you're saying, yeah. The graphics of what we're talking about today, Wizard of Us, it's powered by magnopus. But you look at that word and you can't help but say magnopus. And it's not even because I'm dirty and looking for the word puss. It's just a more natural way to break up that weird portmanteau.

Magnopus is a lot smoother than magnopus. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. To me, it's like it's closer to snagglepuss. And that's a whole something. Yes, you're right. And we aren't... Nothing dirty. Yeah, yeah.

We have incredibly not done a 25-minute tear on this show about how snagglepus has the word puss in it. No, I would be aghast at that. It seems like the kind of thorn we would get stuck on for a long time, thus ruining an episode about, like, King Arthur's Carousel or whatever. Yeah, yeah. No, it's right. You're right. I think snagglepuss has come up. I don't know that anything about the last four letters have come up specifically in regards to him.

No. Well, what do we do if there's ever an extended snagel puss conversation? Do we laugh and enjoy the talk of one of our beloved characters? Yeah, but as far as this issue, as far as being, giggling little 13-year-olds and laughing at the dirty word, do we do we do it or do we get that out of our system? Or when Jason Sheridan is back with us, is he going to want to have fun with the end of that word? well no it's he very clinical about it these days even though he gave us a little bit on instagram recently yeah that's i think he's going to go back to being much more professorial the way he is on podcast the right yeah yeah i think in the audio form yes he he discusses

the human body in a bit a clinical manner yes but he but you know you you got you got your dirty guy back there the five yeah if i'll be it briefly but yes dirty jason was back on instagram if you haven't seen it. He's in a robe and he does a little monologue and I won't spoil what he says but it alludes to some sexuality. It alludes to sexual activity. You know he and his

wife are very extremely subtle about it but I'm starting to get the hint and the feeling that they are sexually active. They're ever so slight it's just like a slight undercurrent of that video and how they've spoken in the past but I won't speak to that. And you know you know how

Mike and I feel about that. Yes. Yes. Well, look, you're making me uncomfortable, so I'll say exit stage right to get out of you, much like Snaglpuss would say. Oh, very good. I did stage right. I think that's how he sounded. This is a move that I should steal from Snagelpus when there are topics that I'm uncomfortable discussing or bored by. But I don't think this will be one today because I'm thrilled to talk about, oh, wait, you know, I meant to say.

We just said that Jason Chiron is not with us. And we should say that it was because he's very busy. he's currently tending to his duties with the lollipop guild of course yeah yeah and that's not union man he's he's spoken about many times whether it's sag or whether it's a log the lollipop guild that is not a height joke that is a joke about lollipops i i agree you know i had that calculation about how it would be perceived but being that i've in fact incredibly recently done a joke about his absence involving lollipops oh you're right you're right i thought that that there's kind of a symmetry there.

Not necessarily repetition, but I do think that it allows it. But, I mean, if he's ahead of like a union or if he's ahead of like a lollipop, I guess, yeah, the lollipop union, he would be going in there to make sure that workers were taking care of while they were making the lollipops

in a lollipop factory. So that they can make them more efficiently and make them bigger, better, brighter, more colorful and more tasty. Well, he's mostly focused on labor. He's mostly focused on making sure the labor conditions are correct. Sure.

And obviously, if that happens, you know, then the lollipops are going to be better because the workers are going to be happy. You're going to be, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Happy workers make happier lollipups. That's exactly right. That's what he says every day. So is that what you think the lollipop guild

from the film does if we remove Jason from it? Because it's a part that delights me. And yeah, in the Wizard of Oz, that these three guys show up kind of kicking with their thumbs in their pants doing their little presentation, but you don't get a lot of information about what the lollipop guild is. Well, aren't there like lollipops in the village?

Aren't there like plants that have lollipops coming out of them? Yeah, yeah. Those are kind of like bushes and or ferns in munchkin land specifically. Right. So I feel like munchkin land is almost like candy land. That's my, honestly, I'm thinking about this for the first time. So this is my off the top of the head. No, me too.

I have no preconceived notions here, but I like what you've presented, and I think you're right. It's like they're sort of a horticultural organization. That's the same as making sure that these parks have well cared for plants. Right. And that, you know, it becomes probably a day-to-day problem. Oz is a magical land, so maybe this isn't a problem, but I don't know if they have flies and gnats.

And if it's sunny in Oz and your plants are lollipops, the downside could be that those lollipops are melting they're getting more liquidy and then bugs start wanting the sweet sugar of the melting lollipops So that might be what the lollipop guild

tends to is making sure it's fresh lollipops Making sure that they aren't just covered in insects Yeah, that's a real practical Oz problem I don't think anybody's thought about until now I would say I agree with you probably no one's thought about it But then there's been so many Oz adaptations over the years It does feel like well you don't You forget on Epic's TV, The Lolli, L-O-L-L-I, the prequel origin of the Lollipop Guild,

where they explained what the guild did. Which is in its sixth season, correct? Right, it's still on. It's still on. Congrats to everyone working on Lolley. I hope it's fun shooting in Vancouver. Clive Owen stars on Lollie. We didn't know.

That's exactly. Yeah, that's where he's, why don't you see him in the movies? No, he's doing great. He's been on Lollie. Rachel Lee Cooks on it. And then someone you thought was long dead is on it. Carrie Grant is on Lolly? What?

I thought he was dead. No, no, he's actually alive and he's on Lolly. Mickey Rooney. It's 105. Well, Mickey Rooney, yes, also. Plays the King of the Mushkins. His performance is half AI at this point. He is still alive.

It counts. It counts as his family signs off. Lollie. Lollie's a good idea. We give away good ideas for free. We could always snip it and then just start, you and I start working on the treatment of Lolly. Sure, yeah. Which is mostly about Nat maintenance.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a bug. It's a bug show, by and large. It's a real bug show. But, you know, Jason's fine, by the way. He'll be back very soon. But we're, you know, we're here now. We're back on the main feed. Yeah.

And I'm excited because, you know, we took a little late summer hiatus. And now I'm excited to be talking about some of my favorite things. I got to do over the summer, particularly getting to, finally for the first time experience the Wizard of Oz at Sphere. I don't know if this requires explanation. This is a very famous thing that is happening. It's one of most popular things ever. Yeah, yeah.

So maybe it doesn't. But I guess Cliff notes, the Wizard of Oz has been transformed for the very specific particular venue of Sphere, the incredible entertainment venue in Las Vegas, the main attraction of which is this, you know, the world's largest screen. which has a very particular shape and resolution. If you watch a video where they splay it out, it's not just that it's like an IMAX times 20. It's also got the little wings up to because it like wraps up above you.

So it looks like if you unravel an orange peel, you know what I mean? And it's not perfectly, there's like a bunch of weird little corners and such. Yeah. It's, so you cannot just play a regular film. All the material has to be generated. Right.

And they have transformed the Wizard of Oz to play specifically. This presentation can only happen in this venue for a number of reasons. Yeah. And Sphere, I've only been to Sphere once. When I think about the fact that I've only been once, I go, what? It doesn't seem right because I liked it so much the first time. You were extremely. It just hasn't happened.

You were very high on Sphere. This was an episode on the second gate, if you missed it. But Mike gave us a full report on seeing that first real big splashy show that really launched Sphere, which was U2, which was U2's residency, which I think proved to be a real game changer. It was kind of, you know, you have to admit it was unbelievably popular, really penetrated pop culture and really penetrated the brain of Michael Carlson. Yes, it really did. You need to exit stage, right, because I said the word penetrated so much. No, I'm comfortable up to this point. It's a verb that means other things.

What can you say? Yeah. So, yeah, so you're describing that. And it is interesting because, yeah, I haven't seen a movie on it yet. I guess they've only really done one movie. Well, two, two, you're right, right. Yes. I already don't.

Postcards from Earth was the name of it, the Aronovsky. Yes. Which is very nature photography oriented. Yes. So they've done two. And I just, I haven't seen that yet. But many concerts since then. many at this point.

I mean, this is a whole area, I guess I have to talk about since we're revisiting Sphere. Because I think we got particularly obsessed with Sphere a couple years ago when we were doing our Las Vegas series, our Sin City Nights series, because Sphere was on the horizon. It was being built. And it seemed so outlandish and weird and with like aspects that were reminiscent of giant disasters that we've covered on the show before. Yeah. And it's the, you know, it's the dream.

of one particular billionaire and those can go extremely well or they can go extremely badly and i feel like on some level i was rooting for it to go extremely badly because i don't care for this particular billionaire i think you were a little more agnostic about i don't you know i'm not saying you're a fan okay okay okay i've been a long time fan of james dolin yes him specifically now that nothing he does yeah he's the way he speaks yeah his music his music obviously the music is the big one but I guess we spoke of Sphere mainly in an anticipatory fashion and that also just because when it's a guy James Dolan the owner of this venue and I'll talk about him further a future in the episode but when it's a guy like that who is weird it's like easy to root against him

and fun for content if this thing collapses immediately but that is obviously not what happened And your on the ground report from you two was exceedingly positive. You were blown away by it as I think everyone. Yeah. Yeah, the sound was really, really good, and the visuals were cool, and they could do, like, innovative stuff with the screen. Yeah. I think the only criticism I had is that it felt like they cheaped out a little bit on, like,

entering the venue and some of the stuff there, but that wasn't, like, that big of a deal. Some of it felt like a movie theater, and, like, they were like, oh, shit, we got to finish this. Something has to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, what's interesting is. and I'll get into it. Some of the lobby stuff is what I was the most impressed by in this experience.

Yeah, there is some lobby stuff that is good. I should take that back. But some of the, some of like the right when you walk in, I'm like, this feels unfinished. And then I don't know, I don't know, I probably shouldn't say anything about it. But a person I know, there was supposed to be more lore. Oh, with sphere. Lour. Lore.

Well, there was this robot whose name I already forget, because it's been a long time. I didn't refresh my memory. Arra? Aura? Aura. I don't remember. There's like 10 ways that could be spelled, and I don't remember which is which. But it's off the shelf robot that they then renamed.

That's what we figured out. Yes, we found existence of this. We thought this was an original sphere character robot, and we thought it was kind of a Alexa, Siri. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In person, in the flesh, who exists only in sphere, who, like, helped you to your seat. And I think that was all a tad oversold. That's not exactly. No, no. And they would close it when the

concert happened. Yeah. Oh, then you come back out and there was just a sheet over our... Yeah, they would throw a big blanket over the robot. So like Oh, wait, you're saying... You could only see Aura when they were showing the Arenovsky movie. I think so, yeah. When you saw you two, you saw just a human-shaped sheet. Yes, right. Like a ghost. Yeah. I ran up. That was an exciting part of it. I remember I ran up to an employee when we were there. I was like, where's Arna? I want to talk to and they're like, oh, that's not working right. now or something. And I think that

just like with concerts they're worried about like some drunk guy heckling the robot or like hitting on the robot. Sure. Yeah. And like I don't know. And if and we don't know how they've programmed that robot. We don't know if the robot gets mad and fights that person. We don't know if the robot says yes sir and they start having going addicts. Yeah, yeah. Extremely intense

With with with just sorry to be apologies snagglepuss but you know like penetration of the speed that only a robot can do. Well, you know, a sphere A sphere employee just did resign because they said, look, the technology of Aura is going too fast and we don't know what's going to happen here. She's going to fuck humanity to death.

There's a 10% chance. Ara will fuck humanity to death in the next decade. I'm leaving sphere because Aura is too horny. She's horny at levels we've never seen before. We're playing with God. We're playing God here and we have to slow down the horny technology, the horny development. the horny development of aura.

If we don't properly lock sphere, she will find a way. She's going to crawl out the top and make her way across the country and then the world fucking assaults all to death. Fuck every dad in the world. And it's going to be too much for him. He'll leave his wife.

He's going to want to do it 24-7. Too satisfying. The economic, the collapse will happen at a rapid pace. Cannot work anymore. All I want to do is all day long. cannot work or sleep or raise children or be productive member of society. I just want Aura to drill me nonstop.

That's right. So that's the thank goodness for this whistleblower from sphere that's coming forward. Yeah, yeah, very brave. No, prevented a major disaster. Anyways, I now, so, you know, we really put that to the side for a while. You were right on, you were quick on the draw. You saw you too. You came back and gave us a report.

Otherwise, we have let this experience linger, which we end up doing, and I feel bad when we do that. sitting out there and we aren't there, opening day cover borders. However, I wanted to go to backstreet, but I haven't gone to Backstreet Boys yet. Yeah, I got intrigued by Backstreet Boys just due to the like amount. When you stay, you know, we,

this was part of a trip that we did for, Aaron I's 20th anniversary, which I alluded to on the second gate, and we wanted to blow it out and have a ton of fun, and it's a rare opportunity for us to get away from the kids. And so we wanted to, you know, do something really stupid and have a lot of fun. So we, this was part of like a great Vegas.

and Denver, Casa Benita excursion, which was all really wonderful. As part of this, we stayed at the Venetian, the hotel that is closest to sphere. And where we haven't spent a lot of time and where we had a lot of fun. And I've never wanted to do Backstreet Boys more than just, like, the amount that you see them,

and there's, like, illusions to, you know, private clubs with after parties. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's giant photos of them all around, kind of, like, presented, like, superheroes. Like, it's really turned in the Backstreet Boys. into the Avengers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're the Avengers of Vegas now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun. I think that's a fun. I love this for them. I got no, you know, I was one of those 12-year-olds who's like, back to me, boys,

caring, right there's times, and I don't give a shit about that. Now they're fun, silly guys, and I think they're a perfect fit for Spear, and that show looks fantastic. I know, yeah, I know. Everybody looks like, everybody has so much fun going,

and I'm like, we gotta go. Obviously, it keeps getting extended, so, like, maybe we'll have years to go it. be kind of a perennial. Yeah, I don't know if they're looking to wrap that up. Other ones have come and gone. Have you considered? Have you thought about making the trip for no doubt or anything that's come up?

I have. It's just like, you know, time and money. I like no doubt fine. But I wasn't like, I didn't need to. If the Smasjy Pumpkins did it, I'm there. Which they are, uh, well, they're doing a whole melancholy thing happening. They're doing a whole like, I don't know, anniversary tour. I guess, and if they did it at sphere, it would make sense.

He has been, I found him doing a sound bite of like, well, I'd like to. And who knows if that's actually being discussed. It would be a good fit, though, because you could turn the sphere outside, the exosphere where they project stuff. You could turn that into his big melon head. I think that's right. That'd be great. The moon from the Tonight Tonight Video and then into his. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Looking like a spaceship crashed into his eye. Yeah. That's another one they could, you know, I've long been complaining about the shitty rudimentary effects in a trip to the moon. I think it's time that we use AI to fix that shitty looking, dusty old piece of shit movie. Yeah, no, finally. Thank you, James, ahead of time. You know, I guess to stay in the sphere world and just talk about what's going on there,

like I said, I think we were, you were always a sphere optimist. Yeah. I think I was maybe just hoping for. a collapse because it would be funnier. It would be funny. But that obviously hasn't happened. Backstere Boys have been huge. Eagles has been huge. Oh, yeah. Here's a big area where I was wrong was the idea

that it'd be hard to find artists to do this who could sell those tickets and where they could make the graphics quickly enough. You know, it just seemed like what you two was crafting. It took two years and how do you do that over and over? I don't think it's a problem. I think they got plenty of money to film whatever

they want, whenever they want. Some bands have more satisfying imagery than others. Fish does like unique stuff every night they play. Yeah, I mean, that really cracks it open. I mean, people seem to be raving about fish and Grateful Dead. Yes, and Grateful Dead I think is a little, well,

Grateful Dead, I guess they jam, so, because like Fish and Grateful Dead jam, so you can't time the thing perfectly, so you have to have, like, some, like, looser audiovisual component or whatever. Backstreet Boys don't jam. They don't go on... I think they jam. 12-minute acapella riffs.

Yeah. They don't know where it's going when they start. I don't think so, but I haven't seen the show, so I don't know. But yeah, like, it feels like some of the bands are like, all right, what do you got for us? So I saw people were upset with, like, some of the no-doubt stuff where you're like, this doesn't feel like that ambitious. Okay, yeah. It's just a video of them. This is a video, yeah, video of them in their room.

Barrage, yeah. A big thing holding me back is something that Aaron, my wife put in my head, which is that she looks and sounds now exactly like Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank. Oh wow, I know you're a Shark Tank viewer If you know Barbara Like find recent video of Quinn Stefani You won't be able to get this out of your head Granted like a lot more glam A lot more going on with right

You know with hair and everything But yeah she really she's she's She's heading into her Barbara era Yeah I mean look If there's a lot of weird stuff In that zone too In addition to this So I get yeah

I get that But yeah I never put that together before but I see what you're saying. Are you saying that the two of them are putting the same things in their face? Well, that, I mean, that honestly is lower down the list of what I'm talking about as far as stuff. That's no hate by the way. I'm ready, by the way, to put stuff in my face, so I'm not even through the shade of that. Oh, yeah, you're one of the biggest purport you love sphere and you love putting stuff in your face.

I'm ready to do fillers. I'm ready to do it. You know what, quick brag, I guess. Maybe it's a brag. I don't know. I got the opportunity last weekend. Aaron and I got to attend the night one of the Emmys, what they used to call the creative arts.

Oh, yeah. Emmys. My friends from Conan were nominated. I was not nominated, but I got to hang out and watch them lose to the Muppets. Sure. Which you're going to lose to anybody. Yeah, yeah.

I do blame Griffin Newman. I think he is not welcome on the show anymore. But we were never so starstruck as getting to see some of the sharks in person. Not Barbara, but Lori. Wow, really? And Robert Hershevik. Robert was so beautiful in person. person. He just had such poise. The hair was perfect. He's like a little wax figure.

The only thing I, we both of us at the same time, I was like, you know what he reminds me of? And we both said, Barry Manilow, because we were in Vegas one time and we got to see Barry Manilow walking through the casino and seeing his posture and how he's just one of those perfectly created in a lab, all five-foot guys. I've just never seen something about his posture. I don't know. I'm blown away by the perfect beautiful. Beautiful, both of them are just like, I don't know, they're like pigmy ponies or something. Wow. They're beautiful men made for television. Are they the same age? Are they the same age or no? I think, I think Manilow's older.

Yeah, I would think. Just impressive sights to see. It never occurred to me how blown away. You're saying with Manilow, it's more like he's radiating this energy versus. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's not a person I particularly listen to or care about. Yeah, yeah.

But the charisma was exceedingly clear from across the. the casino him silent it was uh yeah right yeah he's like he was like a neon sign you know i can see that especially if he's in Vegas like kind of in his home basically yeah yeah yeah yeah they might dial in the lights to perfectly reflect off of his uh his his the level of tan sure yeah yeah yeah i don't even know i don't even know what he's doing i wouldn't even begin to assess that well look but i'll do it too okay whatever it is whatever manela's doing Tell me, Barry. Who else do you admire anyone?

Do you want to do what Wayne Newton's doing? I mean, who you're lying is, we know like Stallone. We know you're trying to be like Stallone. I want to look exactly like Stallone at 80. Okay, two thoughts real quick. Whoever's doing, I assume Tom Cruise's work is doing a great job. He looks perfect, I think, for like a 64-year-old guy. Yeah.

You can see that, you know. Well, look, you're going to see something. With the technology here. They're fighting the tide with this. He is aging finally. But you're right he's being. They're doing whatever they're doing. But they're not doing too much.

That's the real important thing. Yeah. You have to do a little not too much to make it look a little strange. Sure. Folks, you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything. The perfect pair of pants or the tea you somehow always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy.

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Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash the ride. The other thing, and somebody brought this up, I keep getting suggested AI, Sylvester Stallone, doing stunt videos. Have you seen these? This was sent to me by friend of the show Alex Gooder who joined us to talk about a propeller one-way night coach.

These are fascinating. This was just put in front of me two days ago. Yeah, these weird. I've been talking to Grissom about these. Oh, okay. So, yeah, you can get them up with those. No, I watched a reel of them. Yeah, what is this trend?

He does impossible stunts and then a fake crew applauds. Like, yeah, I keep getting, I guess it's because I watch them. I'm not following this account. But it's stunts that make no sense. Yeah. An 80-year-old Sylvester Stallone like runs like toward an exploding building, jumps and like hits his chest on the side and falls into like a crash pad. And then everyone, like, claps and he gets up and he goes,

That's so, it's done. And the crew goes like, yeah, gorgeous. Right. And I'm like, this is bizarre. This is bizarre. But it is like. This is surely worth killing humanity for. Yes, right.

So, but I keep getting, I guess because I watch two of them, but they are fascinating. Yeah. If you've come across these. It's just stunts that make no sense. And then I assume old people think there's a real. That's probably a lot of what's empowering. it. Yeah, that's what's juice in these numbers. Like, he still got it and you're like, he would be

dead. His knees couldn't handle this. And from whatever he does in the first three seconds, right, let alone when he lands in front of the gigantic steampunk gears. Yeah, I was baffled by this. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what, there's a, um, if you call all this Conan shit?

There's a lot of, like, he's this like, unwilling AI star now. I know. They put all these weird women. It's like women like doing a yoga pose and then putting their putting their toe in his belly button Yeah, I haven't seen that. He's not signed off on this.

Why doesn't HBO, how is nobody like, whoever owns the TBS show, how is nobody suing these AI entities in the crap? I don't know. I think it's all foreign stuff maybe and it's harder to get a hold of that. Because yeah, you're, because supposedly you're not supposed to use people's image.

But apparently it's not that hard. I don't think it's being monitored. It's not being monitored very well. But yeah, I got confused. I was like scrolling on Facebook and I was like, why is Conan at like James Corden's desk? I don't think I've ever seen. Who's that one?

Oh, oh, no, it's AI. Yeah, yeah. I know, and they're good enough to trick you. Yeah, at least the thumbnail tricked me. When I clicked on it, I went, I would know if, I don't know who this is. I don't know. And Conan's going, facing the wrong way.

And he doesn't say anything funny and he sounds like an alien. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so this is all terrible. Oh. This is why we got to stray away from this AI junk and go see real solid human-made entertainment like at Sphere. Yeah, yeah. Which is something you're going to get, you know, as far as what's coming, and again, my incorrect skepticism about who is on the horizon at Sphere, Metallica is coming. That's probably going to be amazing.

I've never seen them before. I'd be pretty cool, I'm sure. And of course, of course, I need not say it. Everyone knows Oprah is coming. Yes. Oprah is coming to Sphere. Oprah is creating Oprah Winfrey's aha. a musical, visually immersive symphony of senses.

And it's not the band, aha. No, which is confusing a little bit. Yeah, they're going to have to make that pretty clear. I mean, it's spelled without a dash and all caps of me. Hopefully that lays it out. But yeah, if you're hoping to hear that one James Bond theme, you're not getting it. You're going to have to settle for Oprah.

The Living Daylights? Is that the one? Or is that Durand Duran. Oh, that's Duran Duran. I get them. That's why I didn't name the song. I don't, I can't have it in my head. But I could be wrong, I'm not sure.

Anyway, yeah, Oprah is making some kind of like three-day-only festival, and she says creating this experience has felt like the culmination of what I've spoken about and worked towards my entire life. The grand finale of Oprah is coming to sphere. Oh, I was right. It is a living daylight. Then what's the, what's the Duran Duran Duran. Dance into the fire? A view to kill.

Dutu a kill. Okay, well, my apologies. Well, I wasn't sure. things for me to get mixed up, I should not be fucking up with the 80s bond themes, which I love very much. I like the Sheena Easton one a lot too. Oh yeah. Oprah's doing Oprah's doing a Coachella at

sphere basically. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Move over. Coachella. Aha is in town. Yeah. And that is, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this, but that feels like a bunch of people going to sphere that are all fooled by the Sylvester Stallone AI videos. Yeah, yeah. I could be wrong.

That's what they're going to, that's part of the thing. She's going to project those. Right. full resolution. Well, and listen to who she's bringing along. Jacob Collier, Ocean Vuong, Ajit, and Wintley Phipps. Look. All the stars are here. You could tell me they have no followers on Instagram or they all have 10 million followers.

Oh, I'm sure. Look, they're all more popular than we are. They're definitely more popular if I guess the ride. But yes, I don't know who those people are. I don't. It's a little bit you go from Oprah, most famous person to know. Maybe I would be blown away by the work of Wintley Phipps. The name's just too funny. The name is good. Where's Dr. Oz, though?

Where's Dr. Phil? Where are all the protegees over the years? Is Gail going to be there? Is Stedman going to be there? These are the characters in the Oprahverse I want to see. When's the last Stedman poked his head out? I feel like Stedman is around. You see Stedman, Oprah's longtime boyfriend.

They've never married, as far as I know. Wouldn't that be something if they got married at the end of a hawk? It would be awesome. She says it's what I've been working with, speaking about workageers my entire life. It was her, it's finally, it's her getting the strength and bravery to propose to and marry Stedman live on stage. That would be awesome. I kind of would want to go to that, by the way. Yeah.

I'm not so interested in this. Attending Oprah's wedding at the, yeah, yeah. If you had to choose, and I think I know the answer already, but if you could have been at fellow Dolan event, Taylor Swift's wedding. Oh, right. Or Oprah's wedding to Stedman. I mean, we've been waiting for. for Oprah instead of longer, frankly. I was trying to...

Taylor's a flesh in the pan, comparatively, marriage-wise. Yeah. Taylor Travis. That's new on the scene. There was no anticipation. It depends. I guess it depends.

I mean, if it's... The Taylor Swift wasn't open to the public, but if the Oprah one, it was open to the public, its fear, it feels less special. Although, I don't know. But isn't that more spirit? No, you're right.

You're right. Yeah. So I don't know. I guess Oprah and Stedmond. I guess. Stedman, yeah, he's around. Look, I have pictures of him here. Great.

I don't know. I guess I don't know when these are from. This is where it needs to go with Whitney Phipps serenating them at AHA. I mean, that, that really, if Sears not already on the map, that one puts it on. I am interested in AHA. I am. You could go to AHA. Is it got to be like the most expensive thing possible, right?

Yeah, probably, I would think. I think you're, I think it's more expensive than whatever they're typically do. You get the Oprah bump and the Whitney Phipps bump. Yeah. I wonder if there's like an Oprah lounge afterward. You could pay to meet her. Oh, yeah, maybe. That would be a big deal.

Well, you know, I was going to say you're a fan of spending, but I'm pulling that mainly from your citywag habits. And that's really just paying $8. Spending on... Spending on... What are the most expensive beans I can buy? It is different, I guess, to do a meat-and-grit package with Oprah. Yeah, that would be pretty pretty...

If I could do a sit down, a full sit down with Oprah and Aura, that'd be a whole other. Opa. Oprah and Aura. Aura. Aura. Aha. Oprah. If I could, also, just because it's been a little while, and I'm nostalgic for our Sin City Night series and the guys that we used to talk about, if I could just catch everyone up on

what our old pal James Dolan has been doing. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, please. All good stuff, I hope. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I forgot until right now that Madison's Forgarden was.

was the home to the Taylor Travis wedding. I mean, that's a huge thing. You know, we got obsessed with James Dolan, I think as, as Sphere was being built, we learned about his paranoid vindictive security tactics, which are in play at Madison Square Garden, and it's fear. There's a lot of notices about how you were being monitored

and recorded and scanned to put in the backgrounds of future AI films. I think this is a common thing at these big venues these days, from what I understand. You think he's getting the heat just because he's the face of it. I just was seeing a very similar story about Robert Kraft. That's all I'm saying. Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of these guys have some unpleasant stuff lately. A lot of these guys have weird security apparatuses or whatever. They're all turning into like a lot of hyper Howard Hughes's, just like going insane and their little bubbles of paranoia, which happened to be the biggest concert venues in the world. Yeah, you have like a flock. Each person has a flock camera trained on them during a game or something. Every audience member. something that feels like that level,

yeah. That like if you, if in many generations, if your great grandchildren want to know what my great grandpa look like, maybe they could contact the archives of sphere and say, well, yes,

we have two straight hours of footage of their face. Right. Yeah. They're probably selling it for an upcharge. And we have a toilet cam footage of them as well. We've been blackmailing them for decades. with it. Wow, wow. I can see

up great grandpa's ass. We also, of course, learned about one of the best things about James Dolan, his blues band, J.D. in the straight shot, which opened four ultimate sphere entertainers, the Eagles. They did an unforgettable song. One of my

favorite discoveries in podcast, The Right History, their song, I should have known. This is a song about the many heenious acts of James Dolan's former friend, Harvey Weinstein. Yeah, don't worry. Not anymore. The second pen went to paper on that scorching song. The friendship was over. That song holds up in court, too. That is all you need to do if you were an accomplice. If we were friends or if I helped or looked the other way or specifically he

aided it, why would I have written this song? Your Honor, I'd like, as my defense, to play a song for you. judges crying like case dismiss yes please bring forth the court acoustic guitar yeah Bayliff

tune me up bailiff tune it please and look it has been quite a run for this guy you know obviously the Knicks one there if we haven't said James Dullen owns the New York Knicks and they won their first NBA title since 1973 obviously the first since he took over ownership, which in that era, a lot of New York newspapers, many of which he either owns or his friends with,

wrote articles like, the Knicks are set to win, we think, will this finally make New Yorkers forgive James Dolan? Seems like the answer is no. I feel like maybe the goodwill is more towards the players than this owner. He, I think, lost a little bit of points when, the only game of the series that the Knicks lost was the one where he invited to a private box, another good friend of his president Donald Trump.

Oh, yeah, of course. The only one. So in order to, all right, so everybody got, like, security was insane and a hassle. Everybody had to get to the game hours early, and they lost. But at least Trump got some nice entertainment to fall asleep, too. Yeah, no. That was, yeah. I was going to say, oh, I remember that, but I think he's falling asleep almost every day during many things.

It was, yeah, this was at a time earlier in the summer when Trump falling asleep was a little more rare. Yeah, it was a little, yeah, but now it's hard to know. Every time he is out in public, be it a regular boring speech or exciting elevated 9-11 speech. I think it would be better if you fell asleep more often, honestly, and missed major meetings with people. That's what I think. there's an amount of time I have in my head of how much I wish he would fall asleep, but I don't know if

I want to say that out loud on a microphone. I'm already worried with everything that I'm saying about James Dolan. Well, you should be. Because there's a podcast surveillance technology he's been working on to make sure he's alerted as soon as his name has been said, which if that's

the case, I do want to take this opportunity to say thank you for all the entertainment Mr. Dolan, go Nix. But also, just a quick head up, there are some other things that you should have known about your friend Donald Trump. Oh, really? There is still time to have known them. Uh-huh.

The ability to know them is ahead of you. I'm sure he's writing a song about it, and it's just sometimes songs take too long. Sometimes he's just, you know, this one's not coming to me as easy as I should have known one. Right. Right. But he's ready. That song is going to drop maybe after this administration is over, if it ever ends. Yes, yeah.

It might not, so you won't have to do it. If it ever ends, yeah, this song. He's going to have like an American Idiot style concept album. Oh, sure. Yes, that's going to be about how he should have known about all this bad shit. J.D. and the Straits channel, welcome to the resistance. Right, right. MS now will accept him, though, on the channel.

They'll be like, great, we need an ally. Straight to contributors. We need an ally. Yeah, but. Look, yeah, again, you know, it is, this is dicey territory. I know this discussing this man. And it's territory so dicey that it caused a potential guest on today's episode to not join us. There is somebody who I made the joke in text, or do you not want to be on this episode?

Because James Dolan might ban you from Sphere. Right. This person said, you're exactly right. I know that's a joke, but you are completely right. And I don't want to miss out on going to the greatest place on Earth. Right. But why I wanted this person's perspective, and hopefully this isn't outing them too much, but this particular person was at the opening night of Wizard of Oz at Sphere, which I got some great on-the-ground reports from. Now, why this was so particularly notable is he was beaming with pride, and he made a big, long opening speech, which through different surveillance tactics I have now been able to hear.

again, I'm worried, we're all fucked. We're all going to sphere jail. We're going to the undersphere. There's that amount of sphere, but in the ground. And it's just a big bowl that collects everybody who talks shit about Dolan. Please don't make me go to undersphere. But it was exciting to hear these on the ground reports. But here, you know, the audio was interesting to listen to.

But the most notable thing, and there are photos of this that you can look up. James Dolan was wearing a bright green suit. and top hat. I mean. Which I'm confused about, there's a number of Oz characters that this could have been, a lot of them dressed that way.

I don't know if that is the Wizard, the Mayor of Munchkin Land. I'm a little mixed up as to what, but either way, extremely Ozy presentation, and he is beaming. I mean, this is his pride and joy. He loves this thing.

He loves Wizard of Oz. He's really proud of what he created. He ultimately said, I can't imagine a better product than Wizard of Oz in Sphere. I think it really is his, Magnumopus or magnopus, as many like to say. Yeah, he's, yes, the photo, yes.

He, I mean, I guess you'll get to it or I don't know when you'll get to it in this episode, but like he feels he belongs in the universe. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. So, him dressing up like that. Such, so long in the past is that for me. And so how much I knew it was coming, I forgot. Oh, yeah, yeah.

To, in my notes, talk about how one of the, one of the subtle changes this. James Dolan made to Wizard of Oz is putting himself in it. He and another great guy who I'm sure has not ever done anything that anybody should have known about, David Zazlov. Yes. The two

of them, I'm trying to remember if my movie is owned by him. I don't know. I think that's being sorted out right now. Good question. I think Congress will decide. We'll bleep that name. But anyways, the two of them, It's blink and you miss it ever so subtly during the tornado sequence.

Yeah. The two of them and only the two of them go by in an old rowboat. It is really funny. America's favorite billionaires. Yeah. I mean, that's just, I just accept that as fact of this so much that it didn't even surprise me. I applauded and I shared. But it was leaked that this was going to have that they put their faces in it.

And I was like, oh, on background munchkins, no. They get a beat of the. the film. They are featured. They are flying in a boat. Doing something unmissable. I is, has there ever, like,

did Michael Eisner ever, like, put himself in Sleeping Beauty or something? Was there ever a re-release? I don't think so. I don't, I'm trying to think of there's a... Well, he didn't, he didn't put himself in Soren, this much we know.

And he put himself on tape a lot, but he was courteous enough to make those introductions, which were separate from the main features. Yes. And that's what the old billionaire class used to do. Right, right. The classier class. Right.

He didn't, yeah, shove himself. I'm not going to be in the Apple Dumpling Gang. I mean, I'd have no complaints. As I said it, I was like, I want to see that. Yeah, yeah. He's, like, in, like, a hobo outfit, and he's on the back of a truck or something. I think you could fully add a new member of the Apple Dumping Gang,

and nobody would know or care, because I don't know the guy's track. Can you name one of the gang? This is an episode we should do is just finally. Finally, too, look, look, see what it is. Figure out Apple Dumpling Gang. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's large as it looms.

I wouldn't mind that. Or Apple Dumpling Gang. Well, time will tell if we want to see Apple Dumpling Gang rides again. I just started following an account with a Barney Fife impersonator. Don Nott's famous character who is also in Apple Dumpling Game. Sorry. The account is a Barney Fife impersonator, not a Don Nott's impersonator. Don Nott's impersonator.

He's wearing the cop outfit and it's, oh, well, Andy, whatever. Do you think it would be a strut? Would it be tough for him to be the Three's Company character? Or the Pleasantville character? I don't think so. But maybe... You're saying of all the... Why limit yourself?

I think all the Don Knott's... Don Knott's was fairly... He did what he did. Right. Or the character on Matlock that he played. Did he? Oh, he brought... Andy brought his old buddy back?

Like all of a sudden in season three or four, Don Knott's was just on Matlock. Wow. And there's a really funny clip of them, like, pretending to fight. And then, like, Andy hits him. him in the face accidentally and they do like a old bit. Oh, that's funny. And in my

head as a kid I was like, Matlock's a serious show. My grandma watches a serious show called Matlock and then you watch these clips and you're like, this is scary. You probably see brutal murders on this. Right. It's a but no, there's a lot of antics on Matlock. Wow. And Don Nott's. Yeah. Antics in

okay. Have you been watching it then for that reason? Are you deep in Matlock? No, not real. Not yet. I want to be. I mean, if they do an AI reproduction of it at sphere you'll this has come up on podcast the right it maybe came up four years ago or something but we looked up Don

Knott's character on Matlock I think we've said the name before and I'm going to say it again because I forgot this is exactly the kind of thing that I black out for less Calhoun that does sound familiar Ben Matlock's pesky neighbor Ben Calhoun so this

impersonator probably could play Ben Calhoun as well Easy enough to do, yeah. But I do like that where like Andy's like, yeah, just like put fucking Don on the show. I like when guys have had a show and then they get their comfort cast member. Yeah, yeah.

When they just get somebody they're comfortable with. Oh, there he is. What a cap. Yeah. Matlock seems amused or bemused. Right. So anyway, yeah, I'm all for this exploration of the Apple Dumpling game. Is he not seen an Apple Dumple game?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that why this session started? Okay. I did notice you were a little confused and I was like, I think I was wondering if that's, I'm wrong. I'm not confused. I just know that Donnots is around the corner at any time. So we could always get there in a myriad of ways.

Yeah, no. It's Tim Conway and Donnott. That's Tim Conway. Yeah. Why have you never watched this movie? It's a good question. Maybe if I tried it's boring, I forget. Well, it's also, as far as us doing an episode about it, it's one of those that we're just going to have to elect to do.

because if we put it in the poll without this, the Club 3 poll, without this prior discussion, that would be straight to 4%. Oh, yeah, yeah. The listeners. That's a plummetter. Any other Donnats. No matter how many times we say Slim Pickens plays Frank Stillwell.

I mean, that sounds good. I'll be honest, that sounds good. Here they are, yeah. There's two Apple Dumpling Gang movies. Yeah, right. Rides again, as I referenced. Yeah, right. So we got a lot of content.

Got a lot of content. I will say, okay, so this speech, that I was leaked from opening night. It was enjoyable and it was funny. It was like the 10 minutes speech and Dolan was talking about out like the challenges of this and like navigating all the lions and tigers and bears. It was entertaining to hear and it all culminates in everybody. Everybody in the audience has to click their heels and say there's no place like sphere.

Wow. And then the movie starts. That's really funny. So it's good, but I'm going to say it is not his best speech of the last year. that would have to go to the locker room speech that he gave the New York Knicks before the finals began because it was mostly just like pep talk

and like, you know, we could beat anybody in the league and I mean that. I think we put our minds to it. We can, which are like, what are the Knicks? They're like, I didn't thought about that before. I guess we are pretty good. Yeah. But he did present a pretty unique idea

that I don't think a lot of owners would have come up with on their own. and this idea was for the NICS for the duration of the NBA finals to skip sex. This was part of this, and you could watch a video of this, so you know this really happened. And here's what he said. I had this idea that maybe you should give up sex for the next 10 weeks. Oh, I'm sorry, longer, entire playoffs. What am I saying?

Oh, wow, yeah. All full playoffs. We should give up sex for the next 10 weeks. You don't have to give up sex for the next 10 weeks. But like the Spartans, you know what Spartans are? They denied themselves, right, so that they can have an edge. Get the edge. Then he goes on, go home, talk to your wives and tell them.

Don't tell them you're not going to have sex. Don't tell them it was my idea. But let them know what this is going to be like, what your commitment is going to be like. And now they're going to have to sacrifice too. I mean. They're going to have to sacrifice orgasms if this organization is going to be on top. Yeah, I mean, that definitely feels like rich guy watching. watched like 300 or something.

Yeah, yeah. You guys know what Spartans are, right? I watch Spartans all the time. That's the only movie I watch every time on T&T. Yeah, that's, yeah, I already read like, I was going to think he read a book, I don't think so. Somebody read a book and told him about it. Somebody gave him the gist of a book.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or AI, yeah. He had AI summarize. How to make warriors better. Yeah, I was like, uh, creative ideas only. Basic motivation won't cut it Mm, going dry, huh?

Dry ten weeks, eh? Not wetting their whistle, sounds good to me. Jason would give the players the opposite As far as a piece of advice Fuck, three times a day. Yeah, get the victory of satisfying your lady And then get the victory of... Right, drain yourself completely

during these last ten weeks. And then... Have sex so much that you'll stop thinking about sex because there's basketball playing to do. Anyway, he's a fascinating figure. I'm excited to talk about him, and I'm excited that this has been a tremendous success. This Wizard of Oz's sphere has made north of $450 million now,

and it's a little bit re-relevant at the moment because they are talking about pumping. Actually, this comes out on Friday, I believe the next Friday there will be new enhanced effects at Wizard of Oz. They are juicing up stuff, but I'll talk about what they have now before I talk about what is coming.

So let me talk about my experience a little bit, which will get us into the movie proper. So as I said, we stayed at the Venetian, which is the closest to sphere, and yet we had left, sorry, we had left this as a maybe on our list of Vegas stuff to do. There were nice dinners we wanted to have. We had different priorities.

And also, it would stay to maybe because when I pitched to Aaron, and maybe we should see a Wizard of Oz, it's fear. She said, here's why I'm nervous about that. I am wondering if it's going to make me motion sick. And if we're going to pay an exorbitant sum, because I think the lowest you're paying on this is like $125. It's extremely expensive for like ultimately an hour-long experience.

And we know theme park prices, like for what, like around what you get a day at a theme park for. Yeah, yeah. And many, many rides. You get an hour of existing movie, but redone. Yes. he's like, if we are 10 seconds into this experience that costs $125 and I get sick, like imagine the regret that comes with like, oh my God, we just like threw money in the garbage. I'm like, yeah, that probably makes sense.

Or maybe I do it and you do something nice for yourself or whatever. Let's just leave. We'll see. And once we got to the Venetian and there's advertising for, and the Wizard of Oz characters are in the lobby, which is a nice throwback to something she talked about on Club 3 was when there was this big Wizard of Oz maze at MGM. I think she was feeling nostalgic for that. We're like, we're here. It's exciting.

Maybe we do give it a shot. But so much was it on the maybe list that we didn't get tickets. We, like, let's just play it by ear. We'll get them right before we go if we go. Because we had other priorities. We had to experience other great amenities of the Venetian. Because this was our 20th anniversary, right? We need a little bit of romance.

And we're also going to get romance at the Venetian. Where is better than the gondolas? Oh, yeah. This is a Vegas-themed experience that we have never done. Yeah, yeah. And we were drawn in by them immediately as we walked through the fake outdoor walkways of the Venetian. Like, that's a great, that's a really fun mall with some legit good restaurants and then a bunch of funny trash and some great fake pink sky. Like, this is fun in here and gondolas are going by, well, we got to, right, it's our anniversary.

We got to do that. You have not done this. This is not a... I've never been in the gondolas. No, I've been through there. Yeah, here's one of these silly 90s-born Vegas things that we've never done, and we thought we had to do it. But there ended up being a little bit of trial and error in this, too, because I don't know the Venetian super well. I think I thought that the same gondolas traverse the entire property and go in the fake canals inside, but then back outside.

Because you can see that out on the strip. And once we assessed the situation on the ground, we realized two separate things. indoor gondolas, outdoor gondolas. Doesn't connect. Doesn't connect. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a real fake out.

I think even, I'm not sure about this, don't quote me on this, but I think the indoor ones are like on another story. They're like on the second floor as opposed to the outside one. So yeah, it's not one giant gondola ride through the entire property. So we had to assess which one do we want to do. You know, this is our anniversary. We don't have a lot of time. We need peak romance. Which one are we going to do?

And we thought, are we really going to do the fake indoor one? We're going to ride through a fucking mall with a painted sky. Or are we going to go out on the strip? We're going to go out on the strip where it's a beautiful actual evening. And people are, you know, pointing us, pointing at us and saying, wow, they must be so in love. Like, you want that, right? But then we go outside and we realize, oh, my God, it's July. At 8 p.m., it is still 104 degrees.

Oh, my God, yeah. We're going to be drenched in sweat if we do this. And also, we walked around and we were like, wait a minute, this doesn't go into any secret areas we can't see from here. This is a swimming pool. We are looking at a, like, the area was so limited. Yeah, yeah. And I think you just do loops around the same area. It was, like, so decrepit and small and sad.

And I felt like there were, like, cigarette butts and drinks thrown in there. The outdoor gondolas really looked like shit. So we tabled this idea and said, let's attempt. the indoor ones. And I got to say, that is the strong recommendation from me, anyone listening who wants

to do that. If you're assessing, especially if you're a listener to this show, you might be the type who, yes, wants some of the magic of real Italy,

but also would not be mad to be riding past beloved podcast the ride adjacent brands, like lids and Fat Tuesday. Or they have so much that city walk has. Like, what is that weird,

like, I don't know, it's like beads and gems. There's some, Stork. Karma and luck. Karma and luck. Yeah. There's a karma and luck in there.

Yeah, yeah. So it actually did, but I'm like, you know, this is a little bit fitting for us, that yes, it's romantic. And yes, we get like an actual, right, you know, there's like the narrow passageways, and it's a long ride, and it goes and goes, and you duck under the bridge. And the gondolier is singing. And they're all great. Yeah, yeah.

It's part beautiful, but also part silly because it's like, it's like bellowing, which we enjoy. Yeah, yeah. And then also it's passing by all the stupidest brands. Like this honestly was great. We loved the gondolas. It was silly when it was silly. It was actually romantic when it was actually romantic. There were sections where I was like, I can't believe that was a sincerely romantic moment on this stupid thing that's passing by a Tripoli.

I just wanted to get that Vegas recommendation out indoor gondolas. Wow. If you're doing it with a partner, I can't recommend enough. I thought you were going to fake out when you were saying, like, which was it going to be your decision before? Uh-huh. Because I thought you were for sure going to go, of course we're going to do by the stores. Okay, yes. Yeah, you thought, wait a minute.

I know the end of this story already. Well, I guess, yeah, I didn't, I just, you did try to go outside, though. I thought you were just faking out. No, of course we wanted to do it inside. We just, we assessed outside. Really, this looks like so dank and shitty and just like street goggard. Like, somebody might barf on you. I mean, not that somebody couldn't barf on you.

Yeah, yeah. You're going under bridges and there's. drunk people everywhere. You're in prime position to be barfed on for your anniversary, but we weren't. We got lucky. We had a really nice time. Well, that is, yeah. That said, we finished this because it was more of a priority than Sphere.

So we wrap this up, and now the clock's ticket. Now, like, oh, boy, if we're going to do what, we've got to get over there and we don't even have tickets. Well, no regrets, because that was great, but we got to really hoof it. Now, luckily, we're at the Venetian, which has a dedicated path, a bridge that gets you to sphere. So we'll just zip along that and be it sphere in no time. Wrong. There was,

it was closed, I think for a convention. So the many, many people who are trying to get two sphere from Venetian were directed outside. Where once again, it is July. It's not night yet. So it's,

you know, probably more like 108 degrees. So now it is a, I mean, it's not, it's, there's, it's not pedestrian,

unfriendly, but it's, it's a bit of a shitty walk. And you know the area around there. I don't know where we went in from. We didn't do that special walkway, I don't think. Okay, okay. Was it crazy out when you were there?

Was that off-time? It was October. I feel like it was like maybe just like a cool 90 or something, a cool 90 degrees. Sure, sure. Maybe 86 at night, yeah. Yeah, we were pretty, and this at this point is like 4.45 in the afternoon. Yeah. So it's pretty peak, and we're walking pretty fast.

And I think we're a little dehydrated. and we're stressed about the time. Look, none of this is Spears' fault. None of this is James Dolan's fault, certainly. But we didn't get like the relaxing approach and we didn't get to take photos with the crushed legs of the witch. There was definitely a pace to it.

And we had to go in and buy the tickets, which I'm glad we did because I love avoiding service fees. That is a great thrill. Oh, yeah, yeah. Are you that way with, because you look for little nip-tucks in ways to save money. if you can go to a physical box office

and then not give some of your money to these shitty live nation type organizations. I've done it. I don't always do it. I did it when we saw like Tom Jones years ago and I found a couple like tickets like the day of. I've done it but I don't always do it because it just like it takes time

and you don't know if it's going to be so. Yeah, yeah. It depends. You got to look at the map before and then go. I feel like to see. or look on your phone. You can't do it if there's like 10 tickets left. That's bad news.

But if you feel like it's generally an undersold event. It's just nice to save. I love, as with parking or anything like that, I'm like if I can save $30 that's going to air, like I am getting no real benefit from this. Well, and then the other thing I'll do, which I successfully pulled off seeing the guess who with my mom and sister a couple weeks ago.

Oh, yeah, that's fine. You buy very cheap tickets for the very back, and then you surf like stub hub and tick pick while you're headed up. Right. So you have that seat very cheap if you need it. But then people at the last minute bail out. You mean while you're in the venue?

In the venue. Whoa. So then you start surfing while you're in the venue and I found 10th row tickets that were like 50 bucks that were like face value like 200 or 250. So then you basically get the 10th row for like 80 bucks. Wow. Total with your cheap ticket and then the ticket there. Yeah, yeah. So I successfully pulled that off a couple weeks ago.

That's a really good tip. I've never thought about that. I feel like I might try that. You serve while you're in the venue. While you're in the venue. Here's where I give it up for your checking. Thank you. For your phone surfing.

Yeah. That's pretty crafty. And it is in it. I've done it before. I've gotten free tickets to things. Sometimes it's too hard to pull off. I was at a wrestling show. I got free tickets.

And I was like, can I get close? And then I wasn't quick enough on the draw. Yeah. I almost got there. So it can backfire. But as long as you're in the... It doesn't matter if you're in there. But like I was surfing it and I saw the price going down as the like show started.

So somebody is lowering, lowering. And I'm sure a couple of people are doing the same thing. Wow. So you've got to be kind of on top of it. This is you've brought Lightning Lane culture. Yes. Jeannie plus culture to concert going. But it's also a fight against the bot.

I was going to say bots. but like the fight against the resellers and just the way that ticket master tries to extract the maximum amount of money. So I'm fighting the machine is really how I think of it. I think of it as a noble pursuit. That's what I'm doing.

I'm the resistance here. You're John Connor. Yes. So I did successfully pull that off. I thought I had lost those tickets to the guest suit, but then they popped back up in the system and I finally got them in Apple paid to be quick. Wow, wow.

With opening act, former Eagle, Don Felder? Don Felder, that's right. Here's my concert hack. This only works at the venue that I went to, a venue I can't remember the name of in Long Beach that's in the parking lot of the Queen Mary where I saw Toto and Christopher Cross. And what you do is you go there and you buy a cheap ticket

and then you notice that the security so doesn't give a shit midway through the concert that you walk right up to the front row and nobody stops you or nothing happens. That was a great experience. I think that's good too. super transcendent. And that's what I did at the end of D23

when I ran up to see Beck in the second row. Yeah, those were, that was the day after my Toto experience. Yeah, both of us got front row concerts that we didn't pay for. Because they had like one tenth of the amount of people that should have been working the event because Disney just had their own employees work it.

Right, right. And I was like, oh, these people don't care. I should run up there. And I did. And it's the end of the event. And the event is, yeah, easier. They would have been checking before the show, but halfway through it was,

it was just like everybody's. you know, everybody's thinking about where they're going for a drink after this. Or they had to get back to their shift to the jungle crews.

Yeah, so like they were busy as well because so yeah, yeah, yeah. There's always, you know, you always can get a little, you can always fight a little bit

back and get some good deals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, that felt like something I had to talk about was the, the protocol when it comes to box off.

By the way, also, a lot of this trip was made positive. I got a free room and then a ton of points in points territory. I'm going to throw you that. Okay, thank you. Because there is a very good world of Hyatt Chase reward.

Okay. It's a very good credit card as far as we made a lot of strides on this entire vacation. So we were, you know, we were thrifty, Mike. Hey, that's good. The whole time. And, you know, again, I'm, like, I'm pro checking and I'm pro. Thank you. I'm pro points.

At the end of the day, just let there be no confusion. Yeah, yeah. And if I have sometimes bristled or. Sure, sure. It seemed like my attention wandered when discussion of these matters. Well, an episode of about points, points two. It's the looms on the horizon. I don't know when.

That was my favorite thing is that that was a well-received episode, the episode about your credit card points. And then you go straight to it as a nickname now. The audience, the audience is friends with this episode. It's called Points 2 now. Points 2, yeah. It doesn't have the meandery name Mike's Credit Card Points.

It's Points 2. We're doing Points 2, buckle up. Well, it's a catchier thing, you know? You wanted to really stick with people. Like T2. You don't need to mention that movie again. Yeah, yeah. Look, we know it's Terminator.

Right. It's an icon. Terminator is an icon, your credit card points are all icons, all thousands of them. Yeah, and Jason's toilet time is TT, we call it now. It's just a T2. T2. Yeah. So, what toilet is he going for next time?

I don't know. You've got to talk to the master. He's got to get to work. Anyways, so we do it, and if you're doing this experience, I would say, like, don't let them upcharge you too much for the, because they will try to give you big upchards. But it's also, the sphere is a fucked situation for this movie, I think, because, like, the area where the, I think, the POV is the best, I think, costs like $349. And I'm not going to do that, but I did one level of bump up. And I'm glad I did the one level of bump up for reasons that I'll get into. But so it's a little more than, I think it's, are we 150 now?

I don't know. It's pretty, it's, it's pricey. And also, we got to get to our seats fast. And I got to go to the bathroom. I do that. Again, it was a hot walk. We are rushing. So we're feeling a little bit fatigued.

Remember what I said a while ago about Aaron being nervous about emotion sickness, factoring into her ability to enjoy this thing? Remember when I said I didn't do like the best seats in the world? So that means I had to keep going up and up and up and up. And there is a countdown clock the entire time that's like Wizard of Oz inspired. Oh, wow. Six minutes. Five minutes. And lights are pulsing.

That's the vibe. It's not just like the theatrical, the intermission in the Broadway show. It's like the lights get scary. to make sure you get the fuck in there. And we go in and we realize, oh my God, we're up high. So we're getting that little fightiness. We're getting like a little bit of like fear of heights thing.

And then you were down on the floor for you two. Yes. You haven't been up in the top seats. It's pretty steep up there. Yeah, yeah. It is pretty steep. And as you were climbing the seats to your, climbing the stairs to your seats,

you're feeling it. And every step you were doing very carefully. And also something was wrong with it. We looked down an aisle. It was like, we got to walk past these 10 people to get to seats over there, and I don't think those are our seats.

I don't think, like, basically there was some seat confusion where, like, I think that's where we're supposed to be, but I think we can't get there. And again, it's like, one minute, oh, God, oh God. And we're imagining this place is going to go dark in a second, and then it's going to be impossible to navigate. It's always stressful.

Any situation in a concert where, like, those are my seats, and you're interrupting people's good time, or in a movie or whatever it is. That's the last thing we want to be at in this extremely, this seems like the darkest place that that could happen as far as stress and it's all very stressful in night

so we just pick two random seats we're going there but now every set of people who walk up are like are they going to be here now we're going to be a fight with them but we got to sit soon because this thing is going to be fucked so then it goes dark and we do feel oh my god the scope of it like from second one there's this crazy reveal

where it seems like kind of a small little stage and then curtains going and then bam and you see the whole scope of it and Aaron gets a tad uneasy but more of the uneasiness This is like, oh, my God, what if people walk up? What if we get in a fight with somebody? But then also the movie begins proper and you realize, oh, none of this is going to be in the dark because the screen goes all around you.

Actually, this is going to be the brightest movie we've ever seen in our lives. Right. And the first few shots happen without incident. We're like, this is okay. Maybe Aaron will be okay. And then, like, the fifth shot of the movie, it could be less. I don't know. You go into a room.

You go into a Kansas farmhouse. and the camera travels like two feet. And where we are, I don't know if anybody's seen screenshots of this movie, but here's what's weird. Or do you know what I'm talking about, Mike, that there's a lot of roofs throughout, especially before you get to Oz. When you're in Kansas, you get a lot of roofs to deal with.

So you're just looking at AI-made reproductions of wood roofs. And the very first shot that's like this, where it kind of shoves you in. And let me show you the perspective that we were seeing. This bendy-ass roof. I don't, I don't even know how to explain it or what to equate it to, but it just like, it felt like we were getting shoved.

It felt like we were going down, like, the big drop in the Spider-Man ride, where, like, now you think you're looking straight down. Oh, right, right. It was, like, the yank was so violent. It was viscerally upsetting to me. I wasn't even concerned about motion sickness on my end. Aaron goes down hard. Whoa.

It is scary. She starts sweating. She just like ducks down like immediate queasiness. And I'm like exactly what she predicted is happening. We are in it with the combined stress of what if people show up here and say, get out of our seats. And then we're in a fight. She like immediately, oh my God, this is not going to work. Oh, no.

She goes into this space. She just like buckles her let. I just watch her through sheer will and determination. She's like, I know I'm not going to let this happen. Even though she's called it a panic attack since she said this was a panic attack. She's sweating. She just like presses down against her legs and just kind of like rocks herself for a minute just to try to get it to pass. And this is her way in general.

She's amazed. She powers through anything. And she's just like it's circular breathing. And she's like going through the process and I'm going to ride this out. I'm going to get over it. And as I was recalling all this to talk about on the podcast, I realized, when have I seen Aaron do this before? Oh, I know the two times that she gave birth.

It really, the only times that I've seen Aaron so compromised, but also so determined to, like, breathe my way through this and her eyes go into this dark place. Like, not today, motherfucker. It was the same as when she was giving fucking birth. We paid $150 for her to be in a childbirth simulator. Wow. This was so grim.

And I guess The sphere is a womb The sphere is a giant womb And when you get to an amount Approximate Shubbing something Through your womb It was so weird and dark

And I mentioned this to her I was like here's my theory I'm going to say this on the podcast And she said Let me correct you One of the births Was less bad Than the sphere experience

Wow The second one was easier for The labor was shorter It was kind of okay All right I will correct this on the record One childbirth was easier than being at sphere. Now, she did ride this out.

It was amazing. But, like, truly, I do blame the curvature of that fucking ceiling. It was so gnarly. It really, it was, it felt so violent to just do like a light camera push in that fucking curvy ceiling. It was like, I'm still a little scar for it. It was, like, awful to see that happen to her. It's like a trippy thing because, like, the perspective is so different. These old movies were not shot for this.

No. So they just didn't have a roof at all. And that's the thing. If we haven't said this properly, again, it's not like this is not an IMAX blowup of the Wizard of Oz. It is that and then a thousand times more because they're creating an entire world around every frame. Yes.

In many cases, imagining things that were not there whatsoever. Which is truly a bummer when you're just looking at weird dark roofs. And it's just like against film language. It's like, I don't think you're supposed to be seeing the, and there was a director of this. Several directors. People got fired and came and went on this movie, but I don't think any of them wanted a bunch of fucking computer roof in the shot.

Because if you were to do it in a cleaner way, the faces would be so big. I think this is what the problem was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that if you made it very clean, you would be cropping the frame so much so that, like, Judy Garland's nose would be. six stories high or something. Like, yeah, it would be too strange.

You're going to face the problem of it's going to be a big bulgy face taking over, which is going to loom over some audience members. Because you would have to cut the right. You have to cut a lot of what you were seeing out to make it a clean image from the movie. So instead they went the other way with it and they expanded the frame.

It's everything. It just like blows up mostly at the top and on the sides. Right. So like, so it's a weird experience. because from where we were, a lot of the movies just seems like it's below you. Right.

It looks small. Like sometimes I see a picture from it and it looks like, can you see the characters very well? Because the whole thing is so big. Well, and like very notable parts of this movie are full body shots of the scarecrow or the tin man, like fun physicality and dancing and Tin Man blowing his top with steam.

Right. And that ends up not a wide shot. They feel so far away. They're like little dolls. It's really weird. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing, just bizarre. But let me say, let me say some, let me say some pros to this experience.

Sure. Because Aaron did end up writing this out. God bless her. I was proud she made it through. And then she was able to, you know, sit and enjoy the experience. Sure, yeah. I've never, I've never in my life seen her and check her watch more. I'm like, come on.

Classic film? I guess she's no cinephiles. What? I'm just like, Aaron, you know these watch checks were within a minute of each other. You know that that hand hasn't moved.

Hey, I've been there. When specifically? Oh, that's a good question. When was the last time I kept checking? My, oh, God, maybe it was, maybe it was when we were

watching that Robosaurus. The movie that Robosaurus. Yeah, this is a second gate thing. I guess I was looking, I was watching on my phone, so I just kept looking at the time. That's one of those movies, yeah, that I stopped. I paused to do other things about 40 times.

Yeah, yeah. Never a good sign. So maybe that. But let me laud some things. Let me give some letter grades, in fact. Sure. I would like to give the grade of A for apples. There is a part where, so again, physical things happen in kind of a, I want to say it's like, you know, a theme park 4D movie,

except it does go further in these areas than just sprays and smells. They have pioneered some things that you've absolutely never seen and I do want to give credit to those things. In the scary trees section when I needed maximum comfort because that absolutely is a part

that bothers me very much. When the gang is captured by the scary trees and they are shaking and apples are falling, actual apples descend from the high, high up ceiling. You can kind of see, If you know it's coming, you can look up and see little hatches. Right, right. Which I pointed out to Aaron.

She didn't know this was coming, right? So I kind of nudged her and I said, look up there. And she thought it was like a pixels issue. She thought like, why did those squares go black? That's weird. They aren't maintaining the screen properly. And then apples started landing on us. She went, what?

That's something that happens. And we were lucky enough. And here's why I said maybe do a little bit of a bump up. I think the cheapest, cheapest seats, you're not getting no apples. You do one level of bump up, an apple is maybe going to land on you. And an apple landed on Aaron. And you look at the apple and the craftsmanship of the apple is pretty remarkable. Wow.

It's got a little rope stem and leaves. And it's got the logo. So it is a genuine souvenir. It's like a good item for something that they're just giving out, throwing from the ceiling many, many of three times a day. Right. I really admire this apple. A for admire, A for Apple. And the only reason I didn't give it an A is because the only complaint that I would have about these apples, they are not scented.

They're just foam. They don't smell like apples. Well, guess what? That giant problem is getting rectified one week from today. That's right. The apples are going to smell like apples, at which point I will have to give the grade of A plus. Whoa, it's like a bath and bodywork scent or something that James Dolan found. They distilled that weird chemical apple smell, and it's going to be, yeah, they're going to like, dream.

perfume or something on these apples. Dolan himself is going to spray each apple as they go down. It's like signing autographs. Here you go, little apple. Who knows where in the world you'll end up. Enjoy your journey. He tosses him from up there too.

He's up on a ladder. Little kiss. Yeah, genuinely A-plus for apples. Flying monkeys. Oh, yeah. I think I got an A-plus these. too.

Yeah, yeah. Again, if you, if you haven't heard this already, there is, of course, the sequence of the flying monkeys going to attack Dorothy and her friends. And in the theater, it's pretty amazing how it plays out where you just see a lot of shapes and you stop being able to tell what's on the screen and what is in the room with you. You go, oh, my God, is that in here? And if there weren't cuts, you really wouldn't be sure. Interesting.

And they're a little bit off with the timing because it is the, the witch goes, fly my pretties. And then behind her at that point already is a much tinier monkey in the room. Like it's very particular timing. But I won't talk on points for that. Ultimately, there are drone monkeys in the room with you. Wow. And these things are so weird and scary.

And I don't know if they're inflatable. They better be if they drop. Yeah, Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure if they go over, they might only fly over a zone that is not populated by people because down where you were, because there's not a band down there, it's just supplies. And it's not safe to be down there. Right.

Like, because for other effects, there's fans and there's flames. There's giant, like, cannons of flame that you constantly when the wizard is talking. So I think you're safe. But like, but after the show in the lobby, you get to get up close to one of them and go right under them. And it is, they are, they're truly haunting. and really demented smiles, but also the craftsmanship.

And I don't know, just the ballziness of, again, I do think they have topped anything Disney's ever done as far as shit in the theater with these. Apples and monkeys just fantastic. I got to give it up even for all my complaints. How many do you think are in there practically? I feel like I read four. Oh, only four?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they cover a lot of distance. Sure, yeah. And I do love how it shows off the size of the venue. Because you've seen, when you two footage and Backstreet Boys footage, I think we've seen like, dear God, the amount of, like, like this footage shot from a drone camera. So you can see the amount of space it's able to cover,

even though it's indoors. It is a really great way to show off the size and scope of the venue. Yeah. Well, didn't a fish had like a Madison Square Garden. Didn't they have a drone whale or something? I don't remember what it was. Dolphins, I think it was. Multiple, like drone dolphins, I think.

That's pretty fucking good. Yeah, it is good. This is, I think some of my little complaints will diminish if they keep doing stuff like this. Flying magical things around you. That's cool. I didn't get to see Pink Floyd Pig. Yeah, you know, that kind of, uh, uh, I haven't been to enough concerts where shit's flying around. Uh, so I do love that.

I will give a B to the tornado. The tornado is recreated as you're watching it on screen. It is also, they're also powerful fans, uh, blowing you. It gets, there's leaves in the, paper leaves are flying around, I believe. And then big booming sounds as well. It's undeniably impressive, but it's also just not my idea of fun. And unfortunately, Chris Angel got to me first. I saw a mystica in which he brought out much bigger fans and blew the,

blew much worse trash, much closer into my, directly into my face and alcoholic beverage. So Chris Angel got through a little faster. So not, I wasn't a big fan of the tornado, but it is undeniably impressive. Now for the Fs. What I will give an F to is the movie, the Wizard of Oz and Sphere. We've alluded to some of this already. We've alluded to the work of Magnopus and just to the eerie nature. And I said I really don't like these roofs.

But as the rest of it went truly, there are like, there are images in this that are going to haunt me on my deathbed. So much of this is so. ghastly, ghostly, whatever you want to call it. Like, it's, like, and the image is so big that you're looking at an entire, like, as, as we said, the characters, the cowardly lion is so far away from me, and there's so much fucking shit going on in my periphery. Yeah. That, like, anything else is going to get my attention.

Some of it's not on screen. Some of it is, like, when all the people who weren't looking enough to get apples, I'll go rummaging for apples down in the aisles, which is extremely. distracting. A group of 12 people all go apple picking. They're desperate for an apple. I mean, I get it. As soon as I brought the apple home, my sons were fighting over it. That is how high quality these apples are. But it's just like, you know, they made all these fancy making of materials. And they got,

they like brought up the big, they did a CBS Sunday morning piece. They got Ben Menkowitz, you're and Eisner's friend to come. They like, they like bought him. Right. They convinced him somehow to come and like do an ad for this. And, uh, you know, and he's, he's blown away by it. But like from a, from a film restoration standpoint, it's just, it's, it's like so

horrifically ugly at parts. And, and where you're looking at something that could fill a literally an IMAX screen, Like an IMAX screen amount of stuff is devoted in front of my face to some of the weirdest, shittiest looking people I've ever seen. I guess at this point I should show you a few. This is really the digital people is truly the biggest sin. I'm going to show you right now one munchkin who caught my attention. And you will see in my video that this is like you're looking at the mayor of Munchkinland and Dorothy. and like these are icons.

This is bright imagery, iconic wardrobe. The movie's really cooking at this point. Oh my God, we're in Oz. And yet my eye wanders to anything else. So it's going to go to like another character here and just like, please let me hoist this character on you. Just the CGI guy floating on the side. The weirdest, shiny.

faced little munchkin who just looks so lobotomized and miserable. It's like his tongue is sticking out of his mouth a little bit. He just really, he has stuffing in there. He's experienced head trauma. I think the house fell on him first. But he clawed out to do his job to hold up a big spear. And he's separate from the actors, from the real film footage. Yeah, he's pretty far away.

I think you can tell, like, where their frame. You can see, because, like, here's the living actor in the prosthetics, the iconic actor who's playing, like, Asmey. And then, like, I think right here at this divide, I'm going to show you, must be where the frame stopped. Because next to this engaging human performer is just this vacant stare, extremely shiny digital. And this is happening all the time.

Yeah, yeah. And what I'm showing you is a good example. This is on the much better end because this lobotomized munchkin at least looks like he's got the facial qualities of the characters from the movie. Yeah. Because everyone in that movie, everybody's like just got these very particular faces. They look like they're from the 30s and they have these kind of like it's the rosy-cheeked and like interesting noses. They all everybody looks like Santa Claus. They're all like living cartoon characters.

Like everybody front to back in that movie is so memorable. are made more memorable by weird mustaches and prosthetics. It's all like fanciful, silly storybook come to life. But then there's all these parts where they just made this blanket decision throughout the film that anyone who we create is just like a Highland Park bartender. There's so many people like here's another part where I am ignoring Glinda and the main four of the movie iconic characters. And I'm going to zoom in here to just like some guy.

It's like me. It looks like me wearing a green hat. Yeah, except like your hair is kind of like notable. If you were gonna like your hair is a little bit, you know, it goes a little bit big. It has some character. Life in my eyes too. If you like, if you were styles to make your hair much more boring and you were extremely sleepy. Because he's standing, he's standing around kind of looking at what's happening with Glinda and but like not really.

He looks like you at a concert that you're not really digging. If that ever happens. I know you're a rock and roll. But like his arms are folded. He's just got like a little five o'clock shadow. It just looks like he's like getting through the band before the band. He's getting through the Don Felder. Right.

And then behind him there's another guy who's almost exactly the same. And there's so much face repetition. There's frames where you can go, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. I counted the same face five times. It feels like it's, I'm trying to think this is, honestly, this is kind of a cool concept. It's almost like AI bots have invaded. the Wizard of Oz. They are like dormant soldiers

that are just waiting for their time to strike. And now it's like your job as an audience member to point out, oh, they're there. There's one of them. There's one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an interactive theme park. This is like the men in black,

like you're finding aliens or the Japan Monsters Inc ride where you're shining your light on monsters. That would improve the experience so much. If I could just have a big laser point. Right, right. There's circle. There's a one. There's a fake guy.

he looks like a guy in a pitchfork band from 2007 Animal Collective He's a deep touring only member of Animal Collective Yeah, yeah It's like that so constantly I'm gonna show you my absolute least fit I don't think I even need to play at his video This is my least favorite frame of this

Of any move of any time I've ever seen lights projected onto a screen Here is a row of fake Munchkin guards Yeah, you're fat, you went horrified so fast. The faces are so strange. They aren't the proportions that the little bodies would be. They are just full adult faces. They all look like, there's a guy who kind of looks like Jeremy Renner to me.

They all look like casting. It actually looks like a casting call. Like we're looking for a Jeremy Renner type. Yeah. And there's eight of them all lined up in scary profile. Isn't there a Gary Oldman movie? Tiptoes. Yes, okay.

Yeah. He plays a little person. And that's done sort of questionably, I would imagine. Well, he's just like he's Dorf, Tim Conway's Dorf, where he's on his knees with shoes. We found two different Tim Conway weighs in today. And I just watched a Dorff clip two days ago. Oh, damn, nice. But Matthew McConaughey is in Tiptoes.

Really? It's an all-star cast. And Gary Oldman plays a little person and he's on his knees with shoes, basically. And it's insane. It's completely insane I think they may have scanned tiptoes Toes to make these And look at my god

I didn't even catch they all have the same hand Oh yeah I know they're soldiers So like they're supposed to be like a symmetry Between the soldiers But like that's not what the rest of the scene is like The Lollipop killed guys all look totally different I forget where

Maybe this maybe it was on Reddit or something We're like because a lot of people were hitting the movie Like look there's so much AI crap in it And I think somebody on Reddit was like No I worked on this Yeah And I think if you probably got people to get rid of the NDAs that they've signed, they would be like, look, I know, we did our best. But yeah, this is a nightmare.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure. We were given an impossible task. Right. And the fact that any of this worked and was cool. I would be fascinated to know if they were just like, all right, we open in six weeks, Wizard of Oz, put it up on the screen, cut some stuff out. And they were like, this isn't going to work. And they go, all right, well, start adding characters.

It's going to have to fill out the frame. Let's see, only six weeks to go and you got a lot to do. Have you considered not having sex? Spardons, you know about Spartans? We'll do 300. That's going to be the next one. And eat that, yeah. 300 would work.

It looks faky enough to begin with. Yeah, yeah. Which is that, okay. And look, so does Wizard of Oz too, right? Obviously, it is a stylized movie in a magical world. However, when you watch the original film, a choice that is made by the filmmakers is that there are a lot of backdrops. So everything seems like it's in illustrations. Oh, yeah, yeah.

In a storybook come to life. And this movie is so, the sphere one, is so brazen and balzy with the feeling of, we fixed it. Hey, we finally fixed it. Remember how Wizard of Oz had that mistake where she's walking towards the Emerald City and it's just a stupid drawing on a wall?

We finally fixed that, which is so upsetting because half of the charm is, and what they replaced it with, they made this decision unilaterally that Oz is just, full of giant hulking cliffs. Like you're in the countryside of Ireland or something.

Yeah. Causes nothing but cliffs. There's constant Mount Everest. There's Mount Everest everywhere. You can see, like the detail is better on those rocks deep, deep in the background than it is on Judy Garland's face.

It's also with the women, they especially make a choice of like, many wrinkle would be unbefitting of a woman. Which is also horrifying because when you read about the horrible, horrible things that happened to Judy Garland while they were making the movie, it's like they gave her one more punishment.

and death. Let's kick her down. They were already weirdly bizarre to her about being fat in the middle, which you watch. And like, no, she's not. What are you talking about? But now a new generation has come along to find new flaws with this poor woman. I know. It's so horrifying.

Yeah, it's the whole thing. The whole thing, like it takes the like, like, like the Lucas and like Spielberg taking the guns out of. God, I know. All is forgiven. It takes it to a new level. Indiana Jones monkeys, you're fine. Get back in here. Like I'll take Grito shooting, or I'll take, yeah,

Grito shooting first if it doesn't come at the expense of life. They gave us McClunky. If they're going to like, it got to McClunkie. They're going to fuck with the thing. At least they gave us the new wonderful word McClunky. It got to a good place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just, and everything's like that. Like, you never feel like a character's touching the ground. You don't feel like they're walking where they're walking. And I don't know if you remember one of the finer points of the story. story of the movie is that they are walking on a road. I do remember that. They're singing about the road that they're on. So it's a little eerie when they are just weightless floating on said road.

And then like, you know, then you're in the forest to the Cowherly Lion and you're a little bit bored because like it's just another aspect of this, by the way. Okay, you said the sound was fantastic. Like, yeah, yeah. It's the best you ever heard of you too, right? Right, right. And then I've heard that if you're up in these cheap seats, that it's like the performer is right. If somebody's singing on a microphone and just with an acoustic guitar, it's going to feel like they're right next to you. Not this.

This felt like the Wizard of Oz is playing. Like I'm in an airport terminal and I just got through security and the Wizard of Oz is playing all the way at the end of the terminal. At least they turned up the sound really loud. But it really is like, if you ever wanted to hear a Ray Bulger with a thousand times more echo? Like it just seems you're just watching a far away movie. So it just makes you drowsy. a mixed air and checker watch constantly. And then again, anything that happens peripherally, your eyes just go to.

Like, for example, when they've just met the famous character, the Cowerly Lion, I should be paying attention to that. But then what's this tree over here? And why are there giant hulking ants, the size of cars, climbing up this thing for the entire scene? So all I can think about are these gigantic ants. Like anything, or this is just huge floating dust particles constantly. it's like

like anything but the movie is grabbing your attention. Yeah. It's almost, it's, and you're also just look like you're more, you're looking around like,

you know, look at those rails. That's cool out. Look those fans sure are big. Yeah. It is impossible to just watch this movie and be caught up in it in this venue. Do you think what did you,

maybe this is the end of the episode, but do you think what, what, guess what's your theory why most people aren't having this reaction? Yeah, I don't know. Is it just the,

movie is so nostalgic and it's such a good fun classic movie that most people... And it's like you're getting to see it in a big concert venue. I don't know. Maybe they just aren't viewing it from the... And look, they are open about it. They say it's an experience. It's... This isn't the same as going to see a revival screening of the movie somewhere. So maybe it is just like that you're caught up in it and it's a big weird party. But I... Yeah, it doesn't seem like anybody cares. I think most people are like the apples fell. And I felt that way when the Apple fell. Sure, sure. I just think if you have any any, any jeans in you that are about like

filmmaking or film appreciation. Yeah, yeah. Basically, like, watching a movie. Nothing has ever reminded me more that I like a rectangular frame. I was craving the frame so badly. And I felt so ghostly when it was over. Just like, I don't think, I don't feel like I watched the Wizard of Oz at all.

And from my perspective right now, I think I hate the Wizard of Oz. Do I hate the Wizard of Oz? Do I hate the Wizard of Oz? I didn't think I did. And then three days after I. got home. I was like, I got to watch that movie again. I loved the movie. And the thing that I loved the most about it was the rectangle that was used to keep some things in frame and keep others out. The filmmakers gave me a little tour of what they

wanted me to see. So my eyes couldn't wander. It a giant body crushing ants walking everywhere. Well, it's interesting because all these different things that are trying larger scale or larger formats, Cosm is one of them. I believe that's how you pronounce. I'm so curious how Cosm compares. They do a Willy Wonka experience. They do Willy Wonka, but instead they keep the frame rectangular and they just put a bunch of crap on the side. Okay. And then that changes.

There's a division you can kind of focus on. They like keep the film intact in that way. Right. And then I saw a ScreenX Spider-Man. You're wearing a ScreenX hat today. Today. From the screening of Spider-Man. You were invited as some kind of influencer to a screen-X screening of-

I'm some, what do you mean, some kind of influencer? It's certainly an influencer. We're influencing right now. You're true. You're influencing right now as well. But yeah, there's a lot of like, let's see if we can make everything bigger. But I don't know. A lot of it feels superfluous when it comes to big format.

Unless it's truly shot for it. Yeah. Like, I like a giant screen. Or like, yeah, like, so like, all right, we're going to turn Toy Story 3D and it wasn't before. Like, sure. That's one thing. but like extra frame. That's a pretty big,

that's a big leap, I would say. ScreenX is like, you know, what are those Disney, it's almost like those Disney movies, the Disney, or the Epcot,

what I can't think of the name of it, the Canada movie, Circle Vision, thank you. It's kind of like that, but yeah, it's another one you're like, look to the sides.

What is happening? Just like colors instead, building, more buildings? I don't remember. I don't really remember. I don't remember. I don't remember if I've seen one

and I don't know, remember what was on the screen if I did. Yeah. And also it felt like the side screens aren't the resolution of the main screen too. So you're like, that gives your brain like a mental break of like, well, the side doesn't really matter, does it? And so, yeah. And then Cosm, it's like they fix the problem by just going, well, let's just have it be the regular frame. Yeah.

But then there'll be like a door of the chocolate factory on the side of the frame. I need to see more door. Yeah, like, Cosm seems like all right if it's a sporting event. Yeah. Like, they can kind of show that thing blown up, but like old movies, I think it's trickier. That being said, the general public doesn't care. I don't know if Cosm's a hit. But the general public is just like, yeah, they're doing the song.

I also wouldn't not recommend it still, even though it made my wife go into labor. And even though I have nothing compil. Like, you just have to know what you're getting. You gotta know that you're... I mean, that said, it was like, we did some spectacular things on this trip. Casa Veneto, obviously, was transcendent. The canal boat's really fun.

We were so, like, the thing we did right after was a lot of fun. Let me save that little morsel. But the, like, I, in a week, three days of delirious fun, this was the one that, like, fucked with our heads of the mo. It left this feeling just weird

and a little sick and empty. I felt a little motion sick. Yeah. We were a little quiet during dinner after. It just threw us. And it really like required us to kind of like, boy, we got to save the night, huh? I think sphere kind of like, but but and maybe that's me because there's people who are just like buzzing with love over. It's still go to a concert there. If I must stolen has banned me by now. I'm like I'm not against the place. I've seen some of some parts of this are fun and remarkable. But then again like the very very end so I said the absolute end credits come up. They just stack them all in one giant screen because so many people worked on this. But dead center, what catches your attention is the credit, Chief Muckety-Muck, James Dolan.

Wow. That really draws the eye. Wow. And then you're like, okay, interesting. And the music sounds really. They redid a lot of the music and enhanced it and the orchestra added new orchestration. So you get to hear a little more music. But then the music is interrupted by V-V-What the hell is that?

And you look over, and there's just a guy with a leaf blower. There's multiple of them. Because they literally do have to clear out. all the leaves for the next thing that's coming in. So you haven't even, the credits are barely on screen. And then they start telling you to get the hell out of there. Because everybody wants to take pictures of the logo. Right, right.

Well, I'm in spirit. And they do say like, leave, leave now. It's like such a rude awakening and the monkeys out again. Yeah, yeah. That'll scare them into the parking lot. Now, as you leave, this is kind of cool. You go in and everything's sepia, Kansas vibe in the lobby. You leave and it's Emerald City.

now. Oh, that is cool. There's live actors in the lobby and you get to see those monkeys up close. And there's little sets. Like there's the little booth that the wizard is in, the curtain and the escalators have all gone, Emerald Green. And immediately we're like, this is better than the movie. This is easily better than most. Physical things, set design, you know, proportions that make sense. There's gravity here. The escalators are taking me down. I'm not just flying up into the air. the way the characters seem to. So I'll say that too. I like the experience. I don't not recommend it. However, the downsides are such, such hulking downsides. So you just got to know. That's what you're going to get.

I would love it if you had just done like a little pole of people outside the venue. Do you like that? Did you like that? Everybody probably would say, yeah. I guess everyone would be like, it was great. Yeah. Because this is, they've run this for what, a year now or two? Is it two?

Yeah. Two, I guess. Or no, no, it's one year, which is partially why they're adding the new stuff. And yeah, I think it's like universally, except for fucking like snobs and writers and stuff. Somebody, a writer Liz Shannon Miller wrote an article saying calling it the opposite of art. And I do agree with a lot of, and then they started getting mad at writers of like, why are you so mad about something you haven't seen? Well, now I've seen it. Yeah.

And I'm mad about the things that I had to see, except for the physical things in the room and what you did with the lot. be there has to be a better way. And, you know, now look, maybe the enhancements will make things a little better. The enhancements that include they're plusing up the monkeys. They're making the monkeys better. I don't know how. They haven't said yet. You'll just have to be surprised in a week.

Additional pyro and fireworks. Quote, Glinda Glitter. No further explanation given. Don't know. They're going to just dump glitter from the ceiling? I hope so. They're going to need a lot more leafblowers for that. Scented apples, new smells.

Soren style throughout. So maybe that stuff will really, I like it, physical stuff, that might shut me up about the movie being so ridiculously ugly. But here's something that I'm concerned about is the next iteration of movies at Sphere has been announced. And this is the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And I have some concerns. One concern is, I don't have that movie memorized by any means, but I feel like you got

a lot of roofs in that movie. I think you are mostly indoors. So unless they are very imaginative about what's, going on on the roof. I think you're going to be looking at a lot of curved. Oh, no. Curved wood or concrete. Where is it?

Is it in a castle? I remember. I've never had, I've never thought, I've never given any thought to the surface of the roof in that movie. Yeah. They're going to have to. There's people of Magnopuss working around the clock to figure out the roof. And I'm worried they're going to put more time into that than into cutting out Tim

Curry properly. Well, they've got all the faces ready to go. They can just reuse the faces from this. Yes. Put them in, plug them in. That'll be fine. There might be just munchkins in. The Frogtown bartenders are going in.

The Frogtown bartenders are infested. They got Zazlov and Dolan's faces scanned. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they can fly by on a boat in this too. I would like to see them in the whole Tim Curry outfit. I mean, absolutely. And Dolan owes us that. Yeah.

Oh, at the premiere. At the premiere. You have set a precedent. Yeah, yeah. There are even more iconic. outfits in this, please, please get it done,

sir. I guess another thing that makes me nervous is that it's such a participatory experience. Yes. And from where we were, the steepness,

the pressure we felt of like falling or what if Aaron stayed sick and we had to walk out of here and do it past people and then walk down stairs. It's just scary to move around in that place.

I don't think this is a safe place to be doing the time warp. It's a good point. standing up and yeah you'd fall right over the front seat and then maybe over the whole thing I'm really worried about that or I also flesh to like you know you do you're just to jump to the left and then you nail somebody who nails somebody else and if that's up at the top suddenly you've got like a snowball of people just like billowing just colliding down the steps of sphere picking up sparkly hats and canes as it goes everyone getting caught in each other's

fish nets. I'm just not sure this is a safe experience and I hope they give a lot of stuff. What do you throw toast? Do you throw toast at the screen at these screenings? Yeah, I forget. So like what are they going to do with that? Because you can't wing a thing of toast that far. It's going to hit people in front of you. It's going to hit people in the sections below you. If they drop foam toast made with the same care of the apples

and if it smells a little bit like lightly toasted a little bit of butter. Yeah. Honestly, that will shut me up. As many people can tell us. Real toast. Real toast. Real those would really shut me up.

Yeah. Well, that'll be the next. They'll start with foam. They'll work out the kinks. And then you'll start getting a little meal, which we could have used to settle our stomach because, again, we're very nauseous throughout this experience. Yeah, of course. Anyway, that would shut me up.

As many people can tumble down the stairs as long as they nail the toast. Anyway, you know, still no regrets. Mixed bag. I don't say not go, but I wanted to get my honest feedback. Here, though, eight plus plus to what we did after this that put us in a much better mood and I'll recommend this to anybody. At the Encore, the wind hotel, the encore, we found out about

a steakhouse, the Sinatra steakhouse. And we didn't go there for dinner because Aaron's vegetarian, but somehow we caught wind of what they do for a dessert. What they do for a dessert there is Frank Sinatra's hat. You can get a little moose fedora. And once we locked into this and found out about this, Aaron was on the warpath. She's like,

we can do whatever we want. We can fuck around. It's fear as long as at the end of the night, I have a moose fedora in my stomach. Yeah. Which we went and did. And I said, are we Sharon? And she said, fuck no. We got our own fedores, God damn it.

And the consumption of Frank Sinatra's hat was an almost joyous affairs. So we just sat at the bar and did that. The bartender was so fun. Her mom used to do louis at the Disneyland Hotel. Wow. We had a fun chat with her. Transcendant experience A++ for eating Frank Sinatra's hat. How big is it?

About what you just did. It's kind of small, so it makes sense to get individual hats. Right, right. That'd be my only complaint. We did take pictures like doffing the caps, but it doesn't fill our head by any means. But what really locked us in where we know we have to do this now is we started like, can we find reviews on YouTube where people eat the hat? And there was a group of people who went, and this woman was overjoyed eating the hat. And she said, oh, that was amazing.

That was like Frank Sinatra was at our table. Because you ate his hat? I think if he was there, it's the last thing he would allow. You would have his goons beat the shit out of you if you ate his hat. For even asking the question. Could I just, sir, you're just such a legend, such an icon in the wardrobe, such a part of it. Quick nibble. Just a quick nib.

Get out of here, you freak. Get him, Billy. Throw him in the... Punch punch, punch. Throw him in the dirty outdoor Venetian canals. Anyways, A plus plus to that. A plus plus to Aaron, my wonderful partner of 20 years

and the amazing trip that we had. Wow, congrats. Yes, thank you. And you know what? Maybe when the new effects are open, I will eat a different kind of hat my own. You survive, Podcast the Ride

for three bonus episodes every month. Check out Podcast the Ride the Second Gate or get one more bonus episode in our VAPTier Club 3. You'll find all that at patreon.com slash podcast The Ride, including I can only assume an Apple Dumpling Gang episode.

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