Podcast: The Ride - Unlocked: #Botanicus

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Enjoy this sample of P:TR - The Second Gate. Find even more Second Gate episodes at Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide We travel to the Green Planet to commune with Botanicus, the wise teacher of E.T. (aka Zreck). (Recorded Nov 6, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FOREVER! DOG! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Hold on on let me shove a full protein bar in your mouth i'm putting this in waiting for you to finish eating a protein bar you just show you couldn't have casually like nibbled on it during the show i guess that's bad form i don't know that...

I don't want to fully... You've got a full mouth. I'm putting this in. This is the start of the episode. Podcast to ride the second gate for our very first character meet and greet. Welcome to the character meet and greet. Yes.

You know, we talk about rides for hours and hours but in the course of doing so skip past getting to spend quality time right with highly developed characters and get like really getting to know them and get yeah you're gonna know what they're all about. Consider this, if the main show is a talk show, this is more of the sit-down, the one-on-one. This is like the very popular out-of-the-gate Alec Baldwin show, where he sits down and has a great in-depth one-on-one conversation with one of his favorite people. Right, yeah.

This is exactly like the Alec Baldwin show. so alec baldwin show of podcasts now that is just alec baldwin talking to paul simon every week is that correct every week it's alec and paul yes lauren's refuse the people lauren was willing to relinquish the numbers of uh and in that spirit every time we do a character meet and greet, it will be about Botanicus. The teacher, Botanicus. So every time we do a character meet and greet, just Botanicus. It seems possible that we just keep doing it. The only thing preventing this potentially is the lack of meat on the bone. Because we don't know a lot.

As you have said, there is not a lot of backstory but as opposed to other barely there uh theme park characters who just appear in quick scenes there's a whole book that delves into yes let's start with just our a brief summing up of both of our histories with botanicus yes um just, some people probably know this, and we've talked a little bit about it on the show. Me personally, I became associated with Botanicus from doing a show on the internet called Screen Junkies Movie Fights. And this was about four years ago.

And I don't know. No, I was on a show. It was Nick Mundy and I. Oh, Mundy was there for the first wow and uh hosted by dan murrell at the time just the four of us no one else and uh we were pitching tv shows based on things we liked so mundy of course said demolition man and he because he loves demolition man he loves stallone movies um and i said that i would like a full show based on et and the et ride specifically and that a big part of it i wanted for a big part of the show would be about

et's teacher botanicus from the et adventure ride right and i signed off i think the show sang hashtag botanicus and it is to say when if you had anything to promote you can promote your own wares you know nothing to promote i'm assuming this episode is going to be called hashtag botanicus yeah we might as well i think we may as well do it what idea because people will say yeah so so it is a thing like that people will say to me like which is embarrassing i guess yeah i've seen it yeah when we started hanging out it was almost a guarantee that somewhere that somebody would say hashtag botanicus and then some people some people would miss what it was they just kind of liked the sound of it i think and then some

people would like be like hey hashtag botanical or something or like that botanical thing is really funny and be like oh do you know what i'm talking about? Hashtag Mazebo. Yeah. So, so. And it was kind of, I think it probably, you know, you were, you were starting to, you had that platform of the screen junkies thing and that you were starting to like, you were kind of like outing yourself as a big old theme park nerd. Yeah.

And I think probably a lot of people, it seems like from comments and message boards were endeared to your mentioning of this and the idea that he's obsessed with this odd little fragment of this ride that a lot of people forget about. But long before you had outlets to do nothing but talk about it. Jason's taking so many photos. He's taking a selfie of himself. No, I'm listening. At least You took a selfie during that episode. I'm listening. At least on the slide.

Hold on. Hold on. You put it back up. Okay. And let me take a photo of what it looks like. Take a normal picture of me. No, no, no. You put your phone back up.

Okay. See what you were doing. I'm trying not to. And this is what it looks like. And I'll post it. And it looks like you're selfie-ing while we're talking. Well, I was trying to get all of us talking to post like a follow-up to the anniversary picture.

I think that's a great idea. But just to post like a follow-up to the anniversary picture. I think that's a great idea, but just to the naked eye, it appeared that you were like a 15-year-old on a roller coaster. Well, but you had this going. It's fine. You can post the other angle. Yes, everything's fine. We'll post the other.

I'm just going to show what it looked like. Oh, I am happy with how my selfie came out. We were both just utterly distracted. Because I think we both thought, you could see both of our heads going like, should we ignore that? What are you doing? Should we ignore that?

Because there was like two solid beats, I think, in both of our heads and went, I guess we can ignore whatever he's doing. I've had a lot of hijinks today, okay? I understand. Jason just had a run-in with a clerk at a 7-Eleven over a coupon.

All right, let's get this out of the way before Mike can talk about the Zeebo. I wasn't even there, and I just heard about it. I was trying to buy a protein bar at 7-Eleven. It was on the box. Attached to the box was a bunch of coupons, as in, like, take the protein bar and then take the coupon with you,

and you can use it when you buy the bar. And the guy looked like i paid in in some eastern european country that doesn't exist anymore as currency and then a line started to form as he's figuring out he flagged someone down so that was a great way to come off our haunted mansion episode and roll into this episode recording it was funny it was just a funny reveal to me because I was long through the 7-Eleven line Scott was outside I'm outside and then I look back in

what's going on and Jason looks frustrated and then the clerk is like waving around a coupon what's going on and you can clearly see the text 75 cents off realizing that was the source you know they inflate the prices of those protein bars anyway go back so great that jace was already on a coupon for being distracting in a million

ways today this is where we're at this is the level of snippiness now a year in and this is funny we tweeted about this but we did one one year ago today the first as we record this not one year as we record this was the as you're hearing it, one year as we record this, was the first episode of Podcast The Ride, which was about the E.T. adventure. And we chose that partially because of your connection to it and my connection to it as well. And I think it's a nice sign of where we're at now that we feel comfortable enough to ramble and rail about just just the single character that we already covered that we're going back for sure we only did we'll overlap material here i think but maybe not there i i'm gonna try new stuff uh we only did five to ten minutes about botanicus before i feel like that's the audience craves more time standards change yeah so uh just to sum up. So yeah, I periodically, if I appeared on that show, movie fights on like once or twice

a year, I would reference this and I would pitch another botanic show or something. And I'll tease for the end. So remind me if I don't, that something I performed on a movie fights, I found on the internet a cover of huh so something i did a year or two ago i found my i'll just say a song i wrote very quickly and to throw off some a band covered it what it's on youtube and it's been so we'll play it at the end that's what he's at the end no i've never seen it before i've just googled et botanicus and up like the seventh like the seventh result or something it says botanicus won't you love me and i looked at it and it says

botanicus from the botanicus solo movie which i've honestly forgotten what i did like i i make this crap up very fast when i'm doing movie fights so i he it's wrote there's a link to the original song of my appearance and then it says just a goof song by mike carlson whoa and it's been viewed 265 times but you've been covered that's amazing that after like there were some nice covers of your composition the city was yeah that was crazy and i was not expecting that and that was very lovely and thank you everyone who did that but to oft covered artists but those people made it a show people were like here look what i did this this is just sitting here no one tweeted this at me well there wasn't yet a great

hub for mike carlson that's a good point which we're now deep within here in the second gate uh so yeah that's a little bit about me and and hashtag botanicus and then of course on the city walk episode with uh your wife erin we we delved into your personal relationship and the tragedy of you may have heard if we uh if you heard that episode but yeah the the the first that uh my wife my now wife and i hung out uh in what became us dating and having a relationship they she came to take my universal tour and i was like how can i spice this up for for these guys my other friends who i was excited were there why don't i go show them something that i got to see backstage which was the rotting corpse of the botanicus robot uh missing its skin we you may be if you're listening you may now have seen the photo where like you know skull eyes robotic innards um and and the big platform that he's on but

everything else is uh uh not present i think there was another one there was another one of et's friends like mushroom guy also in a similar state and i you know i i also first of all before showing erin this getting to like walking around the corner with a couple of tour guide friends and being given no warning and like the exact dream of what you would want to find if i were to go you would think if i went backstage disneyland i'd want to see like a bunch of lincolns all in a pile just like a mass grave of lincolns unclothed just like body parts all splayed out and that was backstage at this at this place we we joked about this when we went

backstage at knots you got very excited for dilapidated, dusty Rapids rides. Yeah. I was dragging and then seeing three Rapid cars sitting around. Yeah, I don't know. You want the backstage of theme parks to be like that really cool ad from a couple years ago for the Main Street Relurgical Parade. Where it's this magic warehouse where everybody where Rex lights up and makes a sound and the monster roars and and that was a rare case of that

except that botanic is not in pristine condition it's rotting out there but he was this it was this like really nice centerpiece to what became you know the primary relationship in my life and I think like I mean you and I started hanging out Mike you know the primary relationship in my life and i think like i mean you and i started hanging out mike uh you know from mutual theme park fandom but i think i'm sure that i remember

the botanicus thing being on my radar and like no kidding but he's a big botanicus guy so it's like uh so botanicus is a spirit of benevolence who who brings people together yeah if you knew botanicus there you're in a certain level of uh weirdo nerd yeah and to me it's like everything that all of this stuff is about like not to be too pretentious about it but i feel like it's like the level that's why i'm glad we started with that episode of the podcast like the taking a little shred of mythology and taking it extremely seriously, perhaps more seriously than the people who actually made the for sure more seriously.

That's part of what's funny to me about botanicus or anything like this is like, it's there and it's alluded to, but it's not really, it's not really explained super well. It's a little bit rushed past and you know that what it results in for 95 of the guests on the ride they end up leaving the thing and going like oh that was cool we saw the old et like nobody and we're the only psychopaths who recall and like no we have to think about this

for longer what is he who is he and why millions of people of people wrote E.T. And it's got to be. They know Botanicus, but they don't know him. They don't know him. But they also just don't know his name. I'm just like, it is funny to me that millions of people have seen it and it has a name. But what do we think in the world, the amount of people that know the name Botanicus? It can't be a lot because i was i was looking up hashtag botanicus i was looking it up on twitter and a lot of it's related to you and before and it hasn't

happened as much lately sure sure um but yeah before you were popularizing this was yeah like you're one of the good the one of the google image results is is yes based on you there's very little to to go off so uh or number of people who know who think about i don't know 10 000 i was gonna say it's got to be like 10 20 at the most maybe i remembered him as like a kid like if not the first ride i would have ridden that universe like my family went down the universal when we were in orlando like 91 92 and that probably would have been like the main that and back to the future were the main things i remember riding yeah so did you as a kid recall the name botanicus or were you more like the old

et didn't go on until i was a little older oh didn't go on as a kid so yeah so and and even the first time though i went on et did not know the name botanicus i think i was only when i started getting way into it in the last 10 years when i was reading about stuff and i went his name is botanicus like huh and it's really it's really something and you and it what it what it does is like open up this whole where i uh i don't want to go out of order i mean we should stay focused on the ride but botanicus is like the key that unlocks the expanded E.T. universe, which only exists in this one of in this other book and has never been included in a film and is not really present in the main movie E.T. The Extraterrestrial. No, there's no hint of any of this, which, of course, means it was all created after and it was an afterthought and probably in the efforts to capitalize on stuff

like i mean from what i can tell et obviously et the film giant blockbuster when it came out uh the soundtrack john wayne soundtrack massive deal and then t-shirts and then the ets and michael jackson narrated record uh of the team story of a huge deal so that a single film yeah this is this is like a this sold a lot this was a huge deal oh i had no idea i just i feel like i just thought oh that's a picture like i can picture the picture of them but isn't that for reading does it say like read on it did they make that picture of the two of them like a library photo i think from that session but no there's a whole yeah there's a record of him telling the story of et wow i have to be honest i've never listened to it i have it i've never listened to it so maybe that would have been good prep for this sure is this song botanicus isn't in it is the song on it the one where et like just like has a little talk in the

middle or like there's an interlude what do you mean i don't know there's a song i'm like oh man this is stuff we really there's actually a lot more than i thought there would be but there's a michael jackson song um with et like appears on the song what he doesn't sing but he has like a i always my sister and i would always be like joking that he was like thank you michael in the middle of the song but it's not let me find it here i'll cut this out probably et song it's uh and somewhere someone in the dark oh that's from okay i know that that's not on that album too right released later as a thriller bonus track. Right. But I actually don't know.

There's a little E.T. on it. But the point is, clearly they were thinking this is a big franchise. We've had multiple take-home items and records. So we have to keep this going and uh which is where we end up with this book yeah and they did it in the green planet they did it in such a lazy way too because there's like talk of a second movie too we can talk about which has does not have botanicus anywhere in any story treatments it's mostly on earth and it's bizarre and dark and it's called nocturnal fears and it's readily available to see the actual story like outline or proposal jason you want to

look at this strange so maybe we don't get into the book yet or sure like should we talk about is like what we see him doing in the ride okay yeah that's good we can start with that um but just for full yeah setting the scene in context because it really even though the ride comes after the book but your first most people's first introduction to because it really even though the ride comes after the book but your first most people's first introduction to him is on is on the ride yeah so let's hear let's take you through the the presence of specifically botanicus within this attraction the first that you hear of him is when steven spielberg himself is giving you a warning and giving you essentially your mission what what you have to do.

During the ride, the first time around was him saying, you're going to be in a movie and this is what's happening. And it became, you actually have to save E.T. So he explains that E.T. is in trouble. Scientists are after him, but it's even worse on the green planet which is where et is from there's maybe something you don't know in the film do you it is the green planet i don't think the green planet's name is yeah it has many names too its other prominent name is brodo asoji and that makes the et race brodo asoji yes exactly yeah that's so that's what if you're wondering what they are not ets they are proto-ezogeans they just kept hitting it out of the park when it came to et

stuff clean simple mythology simple so uh the green planet is dying you look at a very terrifying early CGI depiction of a planet just being stripped of its color. What's going to happen to our planet of Earth in apparently 20 years. We should learn. Maybe the book of the Green Planet has the clues that we need to deal with our own crisis. I think that's true. This is very important that everyone read this book. So, The Green Planet is Dying, only E.T.'s Healing Touch can save it. And E.T.'s teacher, Botanicus.

Botanicus. Botanicus. As Stephen very stiltedly says. E.T.'s teacher, Botanicus. Botanicus. And that's really what it's all about because you were hearing the director of the real movie right uh say this word with some with something between unfamiliarity and boredom all the way up to potential disdain yeah like i don't think spielberg ever signed off on

the concept but maybe he signed off on't think botanicus is his idea. I don't think it was the idea of the screenwriter of the movie. This is the question that I... I should have done this months ago, years ago. I did email William Kotzwinkel, the book, the guy who wrote the book, his blog.

There's no response yet. So if something, for some reason, comes up and he wants to answer an insane question, we will add an addendum to this episode um and if there's no addendum just assume he never emailed back but yes it's unclear who is actually botanic as his creator because it says based on a story by steven spielberg but that could just mean he gets the credit and those sweet book club publishing

dollars that come in maybe who knows really or it is possible steven was like well of course et heals things so of course his whole planet is just uh it's vegetation and like maybe he just shit something out yeah and like this guy william just came up with botanicus because it's a botanical it's very lazy it's you know it's not particularly interesting i mean i disagree that actually is a better there's some shitty names in this book oh yeah and botanic is actually one of the better ones but it's funny it's based on a word from earth for sure yeah of course whereas everything else is named the flop glopple and teakley and all yes like orbitron i think is the mushroom man or badon or badon oh that's

right increasingly similar to orbitron which is a disney there's like a tomorrowland thing yeah which is the one that screams that's that's magdol magdol yeah uh no fan of so botanicus is a good name i i apologize to botanicus but it's funny that also that spielberg says it wrong or not or like or just kind of odd like not confidently and what in the pronunciation of it because i was always just botanical botanicus and he goes botanic like he'd be like a like a sheep or a bar like he's like if someone says chaperone sure someone says something very strange that's something you said on the show yeah evidently yeah we haven't maybe

there are people that are just listening to the patreon episodes and they don't know that you said that on the main show that is true yeah well because it was in the middle of the city walk so they may have tapped out for that extra content and they tapped back in for this extra content the legend of jason's chaperone looms large. I think everyone knows. A chaperone mixed with a macaroon. I love a macaroon. That would be a good character for the tea ride. Like a chaperone that's also a macaroon. Save chaperones.

You must save chaperone. These friends, chaperone. Chaperone. And buka de pepo. B to pepo all of jason's pronunciations are also a good et character yeah they all fit right next to me and then one of my favorite can i say one thing which is the also in addition to spielberg saying it kind of odd if you want if it's still this ride is still there in florida and it's kind of permanently closed captioned and so the words of everything spielberg is saying are on the screen and it's still, this ride is still there in Florida and it's kind of permanently closed captioned. And so the words of everything Spielberg is saying are on the screen and

it's spelled botanicus with two T's. Yes. Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. So even,

so no, Spielberg doesn't know how to say it. The closed captioners don't know how to spell it. It's all, this is such a clumsy mythology and it's all based on not the film, a book that no one no theme park goer can that here's a secret about closed caption i used to work at a post-production house closed caption files would show up well into the 2010s on floppy disks they would just show up and everyone and and when they were needed it was very important

but a lot of times they're just like enter it in the system throw it in the box like people are annoyed by it and eventually the company transitioned to oh they're just going to email it to us because c dot cc file are so tiny like tiny tiny like yeah why do you have to transport them physically it's text with some sort of but it was just like yeah why do you have to transport them physically it's text it was some sort of but it was just like yeah that it that they arrived and that people were immediately annoyed by them like this is this is really important for the people who need these to enjoy entertainment like probably wouldn't be jazz that everyone's so annoyed by the CC discs. Right. And there are people that can't hear very well that now spell botanic is the wrong way.

Oh, God. That's a tragedy. You must correct them. That's the public service we're providing. I'm sorry. I interrupted. That's so many years ago. What was I saying?

I don't even remember. Oh, my favorite. I don't think this is not created in the same time, my favorite et character maybe other than botanicus and et um is in attack no no it's in a revenge of the sith oh yes the senator senator greeblips spielberg spelled backwards yeah but it's not spielberg himself no it's not like when george lucas is in makeup in one of those right no it's it's just an et they cut to like a senate hearing thing and there's a like a group of ets there a group of ag agbar yeah agnosians what are they uh brotozojians but i didn't read i think maybe

we talked a little bit about this but I didn't realize the voting record of Senator Greenblatt. Wait, wait. So, can you run by me? There's just a shot of a bunch of ETs. Yeah, like two or three ETs on one of the little pods in the Imperial Senate in Revenge of the Sith. How did they square that?

Okay. What are you upset about? I'm just confused. I didn't. I don't know. It seems legally dicey in 32 bby uh queen amidala of naboo called for a vote of no confidence in supreme chancellor finis valorum uh greeblobs greeblobs and his delegation were present joining the fracas that ensued throughout

the grand convocation chamber shortly before the clone wars greeblobs funded an extra galactic survey as the war neared its end he became part of delegation of 2 000 legislators who filed a formal protest against valorum's successor palpatine for actions they perceived as unconstitutional when palpatine turned the republic into the galactic empire greeblebs was arrested for by imperial intelligence on charges of conspiracy and treason for plotting with a jedi order to remove palpatine from office so gree blubs is a hero yeah wow he was part of the resistance yes wow so i think gree blubs should be in some of these new star wars movies yeah and senator

gree blaps persisted gree blaps was um he was no this he was not some interstellar jeff flake no he's on the right side of things yeah oh man and the next one you know ray and finn and the luke's force ghost are just standing around and you just hear like i think i can help it it's just and they go oh another one of jj's puzzle boxes or whatever the fuck he calls it greeblebs is spelled g-r-e-b-l-e-i-b-s so just in case because scott is pronouncing a little different than i am i'm not exactly sure i have no i just took a swing at it um dude when greeb when senator g Greblebs died was there a lot of like back and some people were like well they don't make him like Senator Greblebs anymore and other people were

like yeah but he wasn't a real Senator Greblebs was a maverick though. A lot of people don't know that about him. I mean standing up to Palpatine yes very much so and Greblebs' daughter is an excellent talk show host she's on the

intergalactic view megan greeblips so uh all right so uh then you get all right so spielberg mentions that's really the only time you hear the name botanicus then you go into the line and this is a crazy this is for sure one of the things that makes the et adventure great i mean the line is so amazing in general and we talked all about in our first episode you can go back to that uh but the you know the smell and the forest and the sounds and the the speak and spell it's an incredible mood in there but the biggest thing that happens in the line is that out of nowhere from the ground botanicus springs forth in essentially like a laser rave scenario there is smoke and there is like it's it's very like 90s like the laser show that would come to your elementary school or that

kind of thing it's very like lasarium um and he rises up and he delivers a message which i have the script of i don't need to like i need to read it all but uh you know just essentially i like the style earth people earth people our planet is dying find the one you call et bring him home to the green planet his friend teakley needs the healing touch hide et from the scientists who seek him bring him on a spaceship or carry him on your bikes and then ending with et help us uh so didn't, the Teakley is mentioned in the book. In the book, too. I believe, yeah. In case you don't know, they made this a lot more clear in a later, when they remade the video with Spielberg.

But he says, here, remember what E.T.'s friends look like so you can find them when you get to the green planet. And those are, that's teakley and uh magdol uh and but also but why teakley then i didn't realize that the teakley is pulled out specifically and is in botanicus's dialogue so you were like tasked specifically with remember teak go find teakley yeah that's You have to carry that into the ride with you. And we were saying 95% of people don't remember Botanica's. Within, we don't even know that Botanica says go find teak leader. Right. I forgot.

Yeah, I didn't know that. And his voice is like hard. It's echoey. It's hard to hear. And he doesn't sound like an E.T. No. Or E.T. He doesn't sound like.

Also, by the way, E.T.'s name is Zrek. Zrek. His name is Z-R-E-K. way, E.T.'s name is Zrek. Zrek. His name is Z-R-E-K. Z-R-E-K. Uh-huh. Zrek. Are you texting? Nailed it again.

What are you doing over there? I'm looking up Teakley. I wanted to get a picture of Teakley. I'm always fiddling with you. That exact argument was probably had between you and Jason's parents. And like, why aren't you doing your homework? I'm learning about Teakley. My friend Teakley.

Yeah. So, so he sounds, Botanicus sounds different. Yeah. Why is that? Why is he T in there? He barely speaks English. Botanicus is fluent in English. Yeah.

He sounds like Splinter, Master Splinter or something. Yeah. But even more so, even Splinter's a little broken English, a little bit. That's true. Yeah. And Botanicus is like. Botanicus is like a scholar of the english language yeah um another question i have is why is botanicus on earth that is a very good question because he appears to you he disappears to you in a puff of smoke so i don't know if i think they're trying to act like

it's a projection now if you read this book et the green planet by william kotzwinkel et for like force projects himself constantly onto earth oh so maybe that is what botanic is because he does disappear and reappear in a puff of smoke there's no question about it so i think that's got to be what it is because if if botanicus was on earth he would just go get him i think yeah you would think yeah if he got there you can get it right yeah and he has probably has the sense unless we don't in this thing do we all have the elliot et connection um like we we know where he is and can like feel what he's feeling but like instead of elliot i think that might be that might be right everyone in that line has the special as the special thing connection yeah

and just so i'm clear when he tells you find et that's when he shows up at the start of the ride or in the line that's in the line that's in the line because there was controversy because they took him out for a while and the last time we went to et we were walking the line and i went did i miss him where's my friend where's my friend because i was gonna like i'm gonna take a picture it's gonna blow up on the social media and i was like you with the selfies earlier i was gonna be like this is gonna be this is a good picture you can be a good picture of me good angle with me and botan and then it was not there and i was like what the hell and then i looked at a message board and everyone was like where's botanicus and like i think he's back now but at the time he was gone and i think there was like a fewer there was an uproar yeah it was a lengthy refurb for the botanicus animatronic

adventure it's all it seems like it's always on the line the rumor is like it's always like well it's it's gonna go oh no it got saved right now like it's safe for a while but i don't know that that was i don't know that they were like signaling that they's going to go, oh, no, it got saved. I think it's safe right now. Like, it's safe right now. Yeah, for a while. But I don't know that that was, I don't know that they were, like, signaling that they were going to take the ride out. I just feel like people get nervous when stuff, you know, is missing or not back. Like, they're going to take, like, Botanica's head is cut off. And that's an omen that the ride is going away in the next couple months. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, scaling back affects and that kind of thing isn't a good sign. That's true. So, he appears in the line. It's a force projection kind of thing isn't a good sign that's true um so so he appears in the line projection kind of thing um and so he kind of i don't know he sort of just essentially reiterates what spielberg already said and but tells you about tically but it's i didn't retain that knowledge yeah you get on your bikes a bunch of boring non-botanica shit yeah yeah then you arrive movie like shit yeah yeah uh yeah yeah yeah the cops and whatever yeah who cares uh then you get to the green planet and i'm sure we talked about it in the episode that round of the doom no color hot humid air blast death uh and then you

and you see the the other botanicus appearance and i'm curious by the way if i i i want to say that the one that i saw and that brought my wife and i together i want to say that it was the line it looks like the line. It looks like the line botanical for sure. Advanced. And I think the other one, he had this whole platform with him, which must've been what rose out of the ground.

I think the one in the line, or I'm sorry, the one in the actual ride was more minimal and I hope he's safe. Unlike his friends. I hope they kept the skin on. I bet he looks just like those leaked pictures of stitch. If not worse, that's my biggest fear if god if anyone out there is listening and knows where botanicus is please stitch at least has bodies somewhere you know stitch committed sins before that movie he was a killer that is fair yeah that's true yeah yeah botanicus didn't do nothing to nobody he He creates life.

I'm not actually sure. Help me out on this. John Williams has a Botanicus theme that he wrote. Oh, you're right. And that's the score of the ride, I guess. Yeah. The name of the track is Botanicus theme. Botanicus theme.

Right. And he composed that for the ride. Yeah. That's crazy. I think it's not actually like commercially available but you can find it on youtube just literally search botanicus theme and it's like black and white photo of john williams composing a theme for botanicals that was a quick clock in and clock out oh yeah he's looking at like a little model yeah not of botanicus but of the ride right yeah that's crazy i don't think i realized he did

original stuff yeah i didn't know that's really cool but he's like point like he's pointing at like the gaudy uh broto is og plant life yeah john williams had to pretend to be interested in that oh wow wonderful do you think composing for rides i mean i'm sure the the people making the rides take a lot of the brunt work but like do you think that's a pleasure or like a pain in the ass of like no it's a half a second it's a second too early we actually need it because then it comes around the corner it needs to hit here who knows i mean i bet the more i bet that's like satisfying in its own right but i i also bet that uh i bet john williams is never dealing with that i know

no it's like certainly not yeah someone else in the composer mill i would believe that's a time i would believe for like the overlay uh monsters after dark which has the original monsters after dark song that they just gave him the amount of time because it's a different right another ride profile from a different song so they just gave him like the time like all right 30 seconds here then like whatever the chorus is like so he probably had i bet he had like exactly how much he needed and where it all came in so it probably depends sure sure there's like hard music cuts in this ride though that i that i bet like you know this doesn't have like we were talking about haunted mansion it's it's not like a seamless transition from room to room and i guarantee that john williams had nothing to do with the like synth marimba version that's playing during the celebration at the end probably not

um yeah he's not like he's not playing a uh rolling he's not frustrated throwing the marimba against the wall like get it together people i'd like to imagine he is though says no island spirit i'm john bleep and williams get it i like i like the idea of him like riding the ride over and over again and be like it's not score is not perfect yet and he's like just like in like consumed by getting the ET ride score perfect. Bring the bassoons back in. Yeah. That's probably not the case. Bring them to me, firing squad.

He executes two of them. He's a real. Yeah. I got John Williams' number. He's a Phil Spector. Mm-hmm. He would force it. Al Pacino will play him one day.

Breaking, he owned this show. John Williams pulling a gun on an orchestra you were not leaving until we finish this i got a whole box of bullets because there's a lot of you 70 piece orchestra has 70 by 70 bullet box specter only did it one full uh round right there's only like five remones there was one left for him in the chain if he needed it yeah they were recording he was producing the ramones uh the alternate version of the marvel mcfay song i believe oh yeah well it was written for the ramones and then they decided to keep it for Astroworld. So you pretty quickly see Botanicus on the dying green planet.

And the most upsetting part of it, and the other flower creatures are wilting. Yeah. He looks weird there, too. If you didn't know who you were looking at, you'd go is that just a different et now because he looks so royal and regal when he's on in the line but then when you see this one i truly like it took me a few rides and looking up to be like that's botanicus as well well he's projecting the best version of himself the green planet he's been trying to keep together yes exactly

fucked up looking now i didn't know this and i bet you don't know this uh i i took a sec to watch the ride through of the japan version oh i don't know it was open in japan as well um first of all hearing et speak in japanese is a real delight and all of the other the he is home hearing that in japanese is so much wow but botanicus in his ride appearance where in the dying planet looks so much shittier and i don't mean a shitty animatronic i mean they made him emaciated and dying. He is very pale. He is wearing less clothes. He's not wearing even his wilting, iconic collar of palm leaves or whatever it is.

There's like sad veins busting out of his chest. And his face is much more haggard. They, for some reason, took the time in Japan to make botanicus much more haggard oh my god they for some reason took the time in japan to make botanicals much more sickly that's interesting and this is we haven't talked too much about my japan trip yet but uh this is i'm very very minor spoiler i hope you won't be upset with me indiana jones at the end of the indiana jones ride in japan is much more fucked up really he's like his clothes are way ripped he's like bruised like we noticed that specifically like whoa he's way more hurt than he is and i just went on indie

and out here two nights ago and i'm like oh yeah he looks great here and in japan i mean and what you're saying the animatronic is perfect but he's like they made him more beat up for whatever reason i don't know what that is yeah people are more comfortable with people in pain i mean they're just committing to the stakes more the green planet is essentially going through like a krypton level that's true christ like et essentially stops krypton from exploding it seems like yeah none of them none of them else none of the other ones have powers that's what's a little unclear about the whole mythology because botanicus is very much like the guy the teacher the one who's in charge and et as we'll find out is just and this happens a lot he's just called doctor by many

people in the book he's just a regular doctor so botanicals will call him doctor he there is a part in the book i was i have a copy as well and i was leafing through it today and he at some point says says uh but i'm a scientist a scholar says et says the character. who we've only seen say, Von, um, and, uh, ready. Mom, Mom, did you see my race? Of course I did, darling. Look, you did your best. You tried. The thing is, it's not about winning.

It's about taking part. Next year you might do better. But I did win, Mom. You did? When it's sunny, make sure you can still see at spec savers get two pairs of glasses from 149 and one can be prescription sunglasses hey the sun won't wait visit specsavers.ca for details conditions apply so i i guess should we start on the book uh yeah i mean that's on the ride yeah uh and he in the last

year so you see him twice one he's very worried and one he's essentially dying especially in japan he is fucked up and you don't and i'm gonna give a little plus up for him here which is that in the celebration you should see botanicus having a blast because everything got fixed. He should have big sunglasses on. He should have his plant wreath around his neck, but it should have LED lights. Maybe it's weed. Maybe he's getting blazed now. E.T.'s healing touch made his flat little leaves. He turned it into bomb kush the green

planet baby let's celebrate doctor's wreck puff puff pass my man and then et botanica should thank you too at the end and then pass that dube yeah he should light a dube with his finger oh whoa jason you've got a lot of great high ideas for et and then et and then botanicus et says goodbye to all of you and the botanicus is like want to hit this mike scott jason and he wants to listen to some Harry Nielsen records? Yeah, that'd be great. Absolutely. You should get... Yeah, why don't... Just one more.

Let's battle save this thing in Florida as if there's a final scene where you get blazed with botanicus. Oh my God. There has to be a whole... At the very least, obviously, it's probably unlikely that they'll add a botanicus that smokes weed on the ride, but...

I feel like we could still still kind of prosecute in florida right like florida hasn't done too much legalization am i wrong jimmy buffett was pushing for it the last election cycle he was a proponent yeah um we tried a couple years ago we tried to there's a star wars character named yaddle or yaddle i forget exactly yaddle we were calling her we tried to start memes with her like uh looking like high like hashtag 420 and stuff with yaddle and just try to see if it would catch on it did not but i think botanicus memes where he's high or like kind of a weed like connoisseur it's right there hashtag pot tanicus yeah because botanic is like

plants man and like green plant and i think maybe sounds better you are both potanicus potanicus we're gonna sell a botanicus shirt and a potanicus shirt potanicus i mean this is we maybe we'll have to just release this section on the main feed so we can get this out to as many people as possible. We'll reference it. We'll say like, yeah, we do hear a special mission from within the second gate. A preview of what lies behind the second gate.

And it's us talking about potanikush. Hashtag potanikush. We're getting crazy and innovative over in the second gate you gotta you gotta see what they're up do they get real experimental in the second gate forever dog has dropped us and somehow itunes has too i didn't know they could do that okay well suggesting that a comical alien be seen smoking a joint this is beyond the pale podcast the ride you are banned but we all own and operate a dispensary now what what is that well we were we were lost and we were right right kicked out of the the kingdom um by those people but then we're rewarded by the constantly growing marijuana industry for

innovation well i would think that the next step from we are embraced by theme park fans let's just get embraced by the weed community sure yeah i think that's a great idea yeah yeah this is part of making the crossover and yeah that will be the first uh weed collective slash slash podcast slash patreon we're only one of the three of us enjoy it who doesn't love going to a store with a million locked buzzer doors and security guards in full SWAT team outfits now with a with a blue lies matter patch right in the center of the chest doesn't that relax you guys who give uh inaccurate uh tips here just take two of these and that'll be great it'll put you right to sleep cut to me just wide awake at 5 a.m like i don't remember how language works that was i over i i kind of overdosed on i took too many of these gummies which now i just take half of and it's great

helps me sleep it's wonderful yeah but i true i had to go into my job the next day and i was so fucked up from the two or maybe the one and a half gummies are especially potent for whatever reason gummies hit harder than like raw than chocolate oh okay i don't know what it is that's been my experience at least okay the half perfect the one and a half i i thought i was going to have to call my co-workers at the writing job that i have and say i don't remember how the english language works anymore that was actually something that happened to me that's like in a movie where a 15 year old smokes too much weed i don't remember language man does this sound like words and then i'm just on the street like what happens to Barkhad Abdi in good time happens to me.

I'm just carted off to an insane asylum. That said, your instinct to call in, call ahead and like check in and let people know still puts you a mile ahead of most stereotypes of dirtbag comedy writer. I feel like most people that would happen to you just wouldn't shut. Just you just wouldn't hear from them for like a day or two. Also, if I called work and I said, hey, how's everything going? A real quick thing. I can't be in today because I don't remember how the English language works because I got too high.

They'd be like, that sounded fine. Why don't you come in? Like, what am I talking about? Look, I'm not as at ease with this with this stuff as uh as as potanicus is i gotta i gotta mellow out i call potanicus but potanicus if this is an alternate character wouldn't if there was a green planet emergency he'd be like it's fine yeah don't worry about it yeah somebody should we call someone i don't know man also his big scepter with the orb on it is definitely a bong oh of course water bomb giant bong and like if he was gonna force project

himself he just forced project himself into a dead concert yeah on stage shaking a big like gourd with beads on it potanikush did do a few shows with the dead and friends that John Mayer fronted. Yeah. Great Potanikus. John Mayer needs my help to turn this jam up a notch. Well, back to the actual canon character, Potanikus, who I think we've now arrived at.

Maybe now we get into so if you've been if you didn't know this if you've been wondering where did all this come from this botanicus character and then teakley and what is all this what are we talking oh wait i forgot something that when when you see him on the planet the thing he says is find teakley yes right it's all about teakley this is sort of i don't know what gender Teakley is but this is kind of a a well in our world

the Helen test what's the actual thing the Bechdel test Bechdel test yeah yeah this is Botanicus is a character who only shows up

to talk about Teakley he does not pass the Teakley test there's not one scene where he's not talking about Teakley or E.T. for that matter what does Botanicus want?

I guess we're deciding for it. He wants to get blazed. He wants to get blazed. And you have to read the book that came out six years earlier than The Ride to find out kind of, but not really. Now, can we talk about chronology for the audience? Yeah. The Ride, the movie, the book.

The film is 82 the the ride is 90 originally later in the other parts you're saying what the when the storyline chronology i'm saying storyline well okay well even still the book was like 85 correct the book is 85 for sure the film and the red uh within okay then in the world yeah okay sorry yeah uh the ride i don't know the ride's like an alternate demand that's just like some other thing that happened the ride is confusing because yes it started out as the sequel but like you're not sure exactly why et's back on earth so because et doesn't go does he go back to the earth at the end i forgot you're also not sure when bikes started coming in packs of 12 that all ride in

tandem right fly through the atmosphere so maybe the ride is kind of like uh for any dc comics readers it's like an elseworlds that's like earth 2 yeah that's the story it's like oh the event of batman happened but it happened in the old west or superman but he landed in the soviet union because this is a direct sequel this is et on the ship coming back from earth it's like like uh new hope right after rogue one it happens in the moments immediately after the film right so this is yeah we know where this is we know where the book is we're not quite sure where et the adventure takes from so because we didn't subject ourselves to this although i leafed through it a little bit but you clearly might have done the biggest dive into et book of the

green i took too many little passages here and at a point at a certain point if i feel like i've taken too much you guys just go you know what maybe this is enough i'm gonna do that halfway through okay that's fair so that's i know the tenor of this book and you can open here how about that i'm gonna open to some random page that's not about botanicus and read the first thing i see which will tell you the generally where what this thing is like dagon sabad who draws lightning from the clouds sabad who stirred the primal atoms giving giving birth to the galaxies and to Reese's Pieces. Imagine how many... It's full of this.

Goddamn 269 pages of this, the last page of which has stuff about Sinistro and Occulta and Electrum. This is a truly time-waste, patience-trying book. It's a very patience-t trying book uh i'm just gonna read a couple real quick i'm gonna go through some selects and these are not necessarily about botanicus i'm just trying to as scott is doing paint a picture of the book sure sure um and how it fits into the canon of et so like et is getting questioned by other botanists on the ship we

should say he's like he goes uh he's on the ship he has just left elliot and he's going back to the green planet yeah now he's getting this kind of uh everybody's curious what happened to him on earth yeah and everyone he's also like everyone's mad at him everyone's so mad at et for like wandering off fun which is fun yeah i don't know why everyone like they're not with him he was with like a pack of right go to gazelle and i think we've talked about this the other one he like et always seemed like a kid he was like elliot but in this bizarre world he's like a couple hundred years old and he's a doctor he's hundreds of years old that's so weird and he just and none

of the language issues right he's clearly a kid in et yes it's a connection between two children right why would he be a hundred doesn't make any fucking sense unless unless you know botanicus has been alive for five thousand that is sort of what they allude to is that he has been so i guess you could say and if we're everything's relative that he's young in his but he's say and if we're everything's relative that he's young in his but he's still like a doctor nine years old essentially an accomplished doctor it's sort of like when we witnessed in front of our very eyes the sector keeper go from a gross child to like a 30 something year old guy who goes like i'm feeling great i'm doing well

yeah yeah very similar transformation and he'd like also he's a doctor but he's a naked doctor it's a doctor who wears zero not even like a necklace right not a name badge he's the naked doctor on cbs uh so so like they're asking et questions and then one of the other botanists but what did you do on earth that was so wonderful and he goes ate candy and then he's talking about like i made a true friend on earth he told the plants he saved my neck he raised his neck further to a greater height he we went through all kinds of doodly squats together doodly squats i was like what was this book written for adults or children children it's a children's book um but but also if you're into like fantasy yeah i think it's according like a fantasy audience a

never-ending story kind of audience yeah he also he says like there's a thing called am i stepping on one of your no no like he's says there's a thing called where they all dress up in costumes called hollow bean yes there's a lot of that shit like fucking nailing it left and right just like the backboard keeps exploding yeah so there's a lot of that and then um the weirdest really the point of the book is that et is like force projecting himself to earth to help elliot like kiss a girl for the first time that's really the plot of the book oh everything else is like is like kind of just you kissed a girl in the movie yeah it's weird it's like everything else is sort of meandering like all the green planet stuff is very meandering and doesn't have much place, much like there's nothing going on is really what I'm saying. And then there's like,

like E.T. Olsen, like it's like a, a feeling in his head. And it's like, he sees Elliot and there's this girl he likes, Julie. And then he's like,

he's seeing, he's seeing Elliot at the arcade and he sees Julie. Hi, Elliot, she said. And Elliot felt a very odd sensation run through him as if his knees had turned to soft ice cream and a bird had flown out of his heart. So he's like, part of it is Elliot meeting Julie and then he trying to help him woo julie you've got this my man so what's bizarre is and i have too many notes i should have organized this better is that et will like force project himself into situations on earth and he'll always like knock over something on a counter so apparently he's a solid projection so in between just getting

yelled at by everybody for what he did on earth in the first movie he's like appearing on earth again and like knocking something off of a table and it doesn't make any sense weird oh fuck et yelled realizing he knocked over a vase his stethoscope falling off his force projection projection neck elliot wanted to say something really cool and brilliant to julie maybe even remind her that he was the one who'd known the extraterrestrial but he wasn't able to say anything cool or brilliant because he just swallowed his gum while looking at her and it was lodged sideways in his throat hi julie heaked, but the noise of the arcade was so loud she seemed not to hear

or maybe she heard and just pretended not to, which was a thing girls did. He was discovering that girls did many strange things as strange and remote to Elliot as E.T. had been. Girls are from another planet, he said to himself now as he watched her walk out of the arcade. So it's like a weird coming of age novel too.

It's bizarre. Not a fan. Not. And then back and forth a bunch of crap about the flop glopple. Yes. So here's a hollow bean. They have an important celebration called hollow bean. Boo.

Everyone carves faces in fruit squashes and dresses up in sheets i myself dressed up in one this is all et still not botanicus have you heard this have you heard this one this guy knows my man knows uh then then one of the but botanists asks him like uh did you meet the ruler of earth and and uh et goes elliot and he goes elliot is the ruler how old is he he has he has he 10 000 years he's 10 10 and he rules with his brother michael who is called Penis Breath. Oh, they bring back penis breath. So they bring back penis breath in this book. So we really, right now, pause the podcast and go on Amazon. I'm sure you can get the book.

I think I got it for $3 if this sounds fun to you. Not super valued. So then somebody, one of the animals, or excuse me, like plants come up and they go to E.T. Excuse me, doctor. Addressing E.T et by his proper title i didn't know you were making your rounds proceed said et not wanting to admit that he'd been oh yeah they're talking about these characters called the beeper beans here too and they all like beep and that's basically their deal then they mentioned like et's parent and they call it just the great parent

and he has like a single entity parent and it's uh then like the queen in an ant colony yeah kind of uh and they say this parent sole creator of et's form out of its own nature was both father and mother to him and et was bathed in the healing force of this and in its stern judgment because the parent is mad at et too everyone's just mad at him because he just didn't show up to work for a few days like yeah he's after taking a he's a highly respected doctor um so then we've talked a lot about the flop glopple and the technical term for the flop glopple is the egg gerum hada hab deba meaning 600 vertebrae in the spine but everyone on the green planet just called them flop glopples for one of their modes of travel was to flop around

like a long gloppy length of something with a tripodial arrangement of feet at the bottom of all things they perhaps resembled most closely a pile of gray floppy socks they were very fast very agile very stupid and very loving that excerpt is is i don't know now i'm starting to get upset and i was on board with the language in that so don't like tell us what it's called what do you mean they it's called this but it's really called this shut up say what it's called it is trying to make it seem like it's real uh-huh but here's the genus name and here's the hamburgers sometimes abbreviated as burgers further as bergs or i look this when does botanicus come back we may oh yeah you're right we gotta we gotta hold on let me do a couple more

and then we'll go to botanicus and then we'll finish this thing up uh there are some green planet scientists who say that flop gloppels are old and very wise however this has never been proven as flop globules enjoy giving silly answers on intelligence tests so a thing about this whole species oh they're funny okay i'm back on funny i love to laugh they're all doing like that's that comes up with et too that he's he's doing tests they talk about his exams and in general, the poll, but the everything we've been talking about is ET's teacher. And did that in and of itself, that ET had a teacher and he went to school. He had the LSATs and the GREs.

Parent and teacher. Do we need his tutor? ET tells Flop, his because flop glopple uh that he doesn't want to meet anyone right now and flop glopple goes which i assume by the way flop glopple i think and then the ride maybe sounds like uh uh edwin i'm assuming it sounds like this but that's because it's silly uh he goes why not and then uh et goes because i'm a in this i'm in disgrace and then flop gobble tells him that's oh that's nothing uh it's nothing for you because it is your nature oh no no wait i screwed this up he's all flop gobble tells him he's always in disgrace for

racing through villages and otherwise acting up and that's when at says it's nothing for you because it is your nature but i'm a scholar a scientist this is sort of like if they wrote a follow-up to close encounters and like richard try to go back to work like it was just navigating everything at his job like i know yes you know about you saw the news it's worldwide there which is the ship came it's like yeah okay man but we gotta right we still gotta do graphic design or whatever it's like a job if there's not i would be willing to write the novelization of the sequel of close encounters and add some sort of a planet maybe a blue planet full of water or something um with different characters i mean

there's a whole there's a there's a lot of things we could do i bet with those characters all right here's the stuff this is where we're what we're waiting for okay then et himself felt a higher wave far higher than his own an emanation partaking directly of the solar and lunar forces the wavelength of his teacher botanicus oh it's first utterance it spreads through the field touching all the growing things a power like et's but amplify amplified many times the radiance of an adept in agriculture there were only a few such on the planet and one of them botanicus was the greatest which doesn't make any sense why he couldn't heal the planet then if he's not clearly more powerful than et oh yeah his glittering thought wave like a stream of diamonds broke along the road dazzling all who stood there and dazzling still more those

rooted there so like it sounds like he's one of a chosen few that are the most powerful of all the characters on this planet this is you you you read that like with the tone of somebody reading and like and now we're reading from the book of john that was you doing the the doing the homily my et the green planet by william kotzwinkle is my holy book and the different translations you know putting all this messed up should people misinterpret these texts and uh there's a weird part of the green planet where they imply that uh uh male go to azovians shouldn't get married right but yeah i'm not i'm a very progressive green planet book reader. He's mostly just, your services are short,

and it's a lot of acoustic guitar music. It's a progressive sect of Green Planet. Look, I don't want to come down on you with some rules. I just want to read a cool book to you. I turn the chair around, and I get on it like Slater. You see Slater. Pastor 101, sit in the chair. Well, number one, sit in the chair well number one sit in the chair cool

number two bracelet or earring if you want to earn their trust they'll never trust you if you sit in a chair regular yeah that's what priests do and priests are molesters you have to earn their trust uh so i guess you're wondering probably like how he would be described here in the book um following in the wake of this powerful thought wave which is a different thing that i won't read botanic has appeared his form was like the parent tall and slender of the advanced growth cycle he was wrapped in a robe made of a large leaf whose tips were tucked around his shoulders and under his arms it clung to himying, sustained by his emanation. His walk was slow and stately, and a large jade-skinned lizard accompanied him,

forked tongue flickering as he waddled along beside his master. He's got a pet? He's got a lizard pet that has a forked tongue. The thing is, Botanicus does not have a ton to do in this book so all we get are these great little moments of him but he isn't it's again it's mostly about elliot and julie so this ancient this 10 000 year old creature is mostly tending to some kid in silmar getting his first kiss why doesn't he just ask her out? What does he have to lose? They don't know each other

that well. This relationship will last five weeks tops. Just get it over with. People are going to talk about you anyway at that age. Don't be scared to take chances. The stakes are so low. The kids making fun of you are just jealous.

So E.T. appears on Earth, and he's like talking to kids, and it's very confusing why it happens. And then he says here, and he says, Botanicus solved the riddle of life. Here he learned the innermost secrets of all that grows, above and below. Around Botanicus was a corona of shimmering light, and plants swooned as he passed, some falling, some rising,

some reaching out to touch him and draw more of his concentrate. Where his footsteps fell, seedlings suddenly sprouted, quickened by his impress, and where his gaze landed, there a plant would tremble with rapture. Most learned, supreme scientist, lord of the fields,

Botanicus. Oh, damn. Lord of the fields, botanicus, Lord of the field. It really makes it sound like a God almighty. He, he sounds so cool. And then they don't do anything with like, everyone just kisses his ass. The author included.

And then like, he doesn't really move heaven and earth. This is like wild, wild country where like Raj the raj nish is like barely you don't really get a sense of what he is and he just waves from a limo they just they cart botanicus around the fields in a limo and he waves once a day but yes you know et or what's his real it's mainly zrek's story like it's mainly the story of that mean lady. From early morning workouts that need a boost

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The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit PCFinancial.ca for details. So Botanicus finally turns his gaze now falling on his students and then on E.T. His large, limpid eyes blinked slowly. Prize pupil, he extended his hand to et come here pride and joy you know i don't know telling all your all your teachers uh for through your life call you pride and joy you know when you guys run into the head of the ucb program doesn't he say pride and joy and give you a big hug oh yeah he's a real mentor figurative i think i've got matt besser down

i think i get the character uh-huh uh et moved in front of botanicus botanicus put his leathery palm on et's head and closed his eyes uh rizome rizome rizome what is that word r-h-i-z-o-m-e boy new words in this book rizome blocked sap down in the toes what's wrong says botanicus so botanicus can feel that et is in is in turmoil uh and then et tells him that he got kicked off the ship and whatever um and he's a real sad at a real sad sack and he says he was weeded out and kicked off the ship and whatever um and he's a real sad at a real sad sack and he says he was weeded out and kicked off the ship um and then there's more of this like him like misinterpreting things on earth and he tells botanicus about toys and they have like he's like there are other creatures on earth they are called toys and have definite spiritual qualities and indeed

frequently spoke to me in the silence of the closet. I believe them to be very advanced as our great meditative sages, the mind holders. He paused to gather more profundities for his young listeners whose head moss was again beginning to glow amber and silver

as they leaned toward him. So I think now I'm remembering the context more. There's a group of students in addition to E.T. and Botanicus and now et is telling them about the stuffed animals in the closet they spoke to me in the silence but then in other sections of this book he's like me be smart right now like this is totally he didn't it doesn't make any sense toys are geniuses and elliot is president vice president how does everyone have a copy of this book i thought mike was this was one of mike's weird accessories okay so jason bring your be sure to bring your copy yeah you fucked up i want to see it highlighted i want

to see notes and the edges would have given you a d you've given you've shown me that book and i had totally figured i thought it was like more of a storybook i thought there was more pictures or something this is a prose baby novel worst pupil dunce cap for you jason we we were expecting to record a shorter amount of time than we've gone here today so i'll just i'll leave on that i mean there's more botanicus get the book we could be here for another hour and just just because we alluded to it the sequel to et that was never made oh hold on hold on i have a little quote here and then we'll talk about nocturnal fears the sequel to et that was never made uh this is one of my

this is not botanicus but uh. says to his friends about Elliot, My friend is in danger. He is about to become the most terrible thing of all. He is about to become man. My friend the fucking virgin. That is sort of what he's saying. We gotta get him laid. It's Elliot's prom night.

Elliot must get his rocks off. try to get him the push to help him relax it did not work master that is a good sequel is like pre-teen elliot or teenage elliot and et comes back and he's also a teen and they're going on like teen hijinks together yeah it's like the dirty back to the future that was never made where they were like bootlegging vhs copies and getting high and stuff yeah and like some like cyrano kind of stuff where like tell me what to say and oh he's hiding in the bushes and tell her she shines brighter than the uh and then all of the cut the dishes more intelligent than the toys. Tell her she has the spirit of a pile of floppy gray socks. She have a bright smile like the wah-wah sign. Yeah, so there's plenty more where that came from.

If this was enticing to you. This is like our little reading rainbow. Yes. So if you want to hear more check it out at your local library unless the library threw the copy away after four months uh yeah so so i we're waiting on any word from the author i have emailed his blog or his website and we'll see if i said hey uh i i'm one of the hosts of a theme park podcast we're doing a special uh episode about the et ride we just wanted to know um did william

kotzwinkle create the character of botanicus any information you've you could provide would be most helpful thank you so much i have something to tell you that is similar to this oh really and i was hoping that this could be a surprise that i could spring on you but i might as well be forthcoming oh my god where it's at i was hoping that during this episode that i could surprise you with a the tease of of a of eventual interview with the voice of botanicus on night but i cannot officially do that at this time i did send an email i found that he's a he's a professional vo artist and i found his his website which is like night night media com.com and i emailed him and i did get a response but it was rather vague and i have to keep pursuing right but i am hoping to be my dream of dreams was to come into this episode and tell you

or even like and now behind the door and then he's in your house but this is not true but there's i will say there's a a possibility i'm hoping i i the there was there was a response i don't want to say much more than that but i'm hoping that ron knight the voice of botanicus will someday appear on the show and also and i'll send goodwill i'll send my healing touch to you to hoey in hopes that william uh kotzwinkle kotzwinkle may soon appear there's a little little bit of a brawn night i'm just gonna leave it at that uh but we we shall see wow friend brawn night friend be on the show friend katzwinkle speak to us what else we got well you said nocturnal fears which was in a but you can read all about this just look up et nocturnal fears and it's a horrifying story no botanic is in it where et evil aliens come down to the earth and they capture all the kids and torture elliot and

excuse me et has to come back and save elliot from just being tortured like it's elliot eats shit in all these movies i don't that scared me as a kid elliot stripped to his underwear by like a man oh my god i would never i didn't watch the movie for years because of that yeah of the spielberg filmography perhaps i would watch schindler's list first before i would re-watch the that's that's not accurate and i've not seen schindler's list so i i just wanted to be a big man and say there's a but it's one of the scarier things in the entire filmography and i wouldn't willingly i wouldn't love to watch it there is also and it's not available on the in the apple store anymore there was an ios game oh my god the green planet yeah have you watched this uh and i've watched a little bit of it i believe botanicus is involved

botanicus gives you all the commands in it i have some screenshots on my phone i can read you some of the brilliant botanicus dialogue that's great the game is called i think the green et the green planet it was yeah it was an iphone game uh some pretty stand he looks he looks very odd i can show you guys this photo later but he's wearing he's wearing that wreath um but he doesn't look like he does in the ride he's a lot more kind of honestly kind of like ape-like yeah uh and kind of like like big big doofy smile not not the botanicus we know from the ride right um some standard stuff the planet is dying only et's healing touch can save us we must work quickly to restore beauty to our world uh so oh interesting oh yes well i'd love to help et just like in the ride please let me help save

the planet next line first clear away some of these blighted rocks to make way for new life tap on the blighted rock and clear it tap the xp symbol one so this is a it's essentially and there's a couple et games that are like this that are essentially gardening yes that's what they're like they're sort of like pseudo farmvilles right this. Right. This one's a pseudo-farmville. And it's so boring. There's these other creatures who I think are in the book, too, that are called like, what are they? They're like mini something or others. I don't know.

But you plant these little creatures, microtechs. They're microtechs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like your little slaves who tend to your garden so you don't have to. Right. They're like lemons. They're picking strawberries for you. And it's, I don't know, it's very weird and slow and depressing and then you get i just i got like

10 minutes in and i saw this would you like to pay a microtech 50 nutrients to tend the lot of sapling it will take two months to grow the next phase wow does that mean literally two months in real time or in game time it is it's like this chore you have to commit to this thing was a couple years old and it's not hard to see why it didn't last this is still around this is like how uh mike is still committed to simpsons tap out i do still play about six or seven years later six or seven years later which i i think i tapped out after a few months you if you go to your simpsons tapped out springfield and it's just a vacant field and it's still there lost the data and i never was able to log back in i think i lasted a little longer on the riverdale rescue the archie one and i can't redownload that developers oh it's gone it closed

it's closed yeah because we were playing that for a long time and that's a whole yeah there's no reason to do a j train episode about the archie comics tap to game but i'd like to just use some micro text to rebuild your springfields i'm sure you can cart them over so use the wreck it ralph like depot where all the video game characters change games and uh um yeah yeah well now that's just that depot is now just different uh three letter stock uh names all the video game stuff has been replaced by portals to different publicly held company like kids love that shit. Right. Ralph's going to Go.com. Just to sum up, I mean, Botanicus is a character that has not fully been explored.

It's the same thing I've been saying on Screen Junkies for four years. When are we going to get a definitive story about him, his origin story, who he was as a young man? Yep. Let's really learn about him and they're trying like these are all very lazy versions of it this ios game and like that's a very strange that all of a sudden like 2009 they're like let's make an app yeah finally we gotta bring people are demanding the flop popple and the microtech if an original movie like an original ip like et like the movie was a smash hit that there would be so

instantly there would be so much stuff and probably very safeguarded stuff for some like cheapy licensed stuff but it is odd this super successful movie has like the weirdest it's bizarre it doesn't yeah it doesn't make any sense and it doesn't hint the movie as we said before the movie doesn't hint toward this actual mythology doesn't make any sense and it doesn't hint the movie as we said before the movie doesn't hint toward this actual mythology it doesn't make any sense there was there was an idea floating around the screen junkies offices for a long time that i would get to interview spielberg on a junket and ask him about all this stuff and that would be all i wouldn't talk to him about like bridge of spies or anything i would just over and over ask about Botanicus and pitch him ideas for things. I'm sure he would have been down to play ball.

Oh, yeah. He would have loved that. I'm sure that would have been part of the great part. As all screen junkies press junkets did, he would have ended up seeing over your wedding. Just like Mundy and the Rock. That's true. That's a good point. Yeah.

He would have been your officiant. And Botanicus would have been my best man you may now kiss my orb you will be united in history in time forever what's that music coming what's that it sounds like hendrix coming for the but he's got enough edibles for everyone. Only have one bite of this wedding cake or you'll be freaking out. We jamming. I mean, there's never been a thing that needs more merch than pot Tanakush. Yeah.

Yeah. Pot Tanakush. Pot Tanakush. Excuse me. I'm sorry. You look even more than that today. In the great tradition of like pothead

Rasta Bart Simpsons yes I want some knockoff we should maybe that's the idea maybe we make a Potanacush shirt

that's like of the quality of knockoff parts well we need to make a hashtag Botanicus shirt and then we need to make a really janky looking one a traditional flavor Botanicus shirt and then a really Potan a really flavor looking traditional flavor botanicus shirt and

then a really potanica like truck stop shirt same shirt but it's just like a really janky looking joint sticking out of his mouth oh well we'll get right on that yeah i like that any other feelings you guys have to sum up about our friend botanicus uh i i uh i love him want to see more of them and uh i want him to mellow out um i uh yeah i can't wait i can't wait to see him in his true state all right jason i i also can't wait to see you in his true state fucking baked all right so True state. Fucking baked. All right. So as the final thing now, I will play you a cover of a Botanicus song that I wrote. Oh. By a pop punk band. And I'm not even sure.

Let me see if I can find the name of the band. Because it's not prominently. Mm-hmm. The YouTube. It's a YouTube channel called Pierced Liquid Nipples. And there are three videos. One looks like it's a Simpsonpson shit posting type video one is a man in a misfit like half shirt playing guitar in a bedroom and the other is my song wow that's crazy well so to sign off i guess this will play us out so yeah you've survived podcast the ride the second gate

uh and uh um mike anything you'd like to plug oh no i mean hashtag botanicus and hashtag pot tana kush yeah wow we didn't know we were going to come out of this for the second hashtag and feels great we're creating ip every every episode but this ip i think is right cut above even the stuff we've created the money uh and uh yeah now here to play us out the the song about your original hashtag take it away Thank you. Guys, this is late breaking news. I said that this would happen if I got a response but i did get after we recorded this botanicus episode i got an email from the book off the author of the green planet william kotzwinkle yeah i emailed his blog i didn't know if he was running it or whatever but i got an email from

him this is the man this was like a week later and this is i so basically i asked him i said um i have questions we're doing some podcasts about the et ride uh we just wanted to know did you create all the characters uh specifically botanicus and he and he has responded dear mike thanks for your email except for et himself i created all the characters in the book of the green planet and that includes botanicus exclamation point yeah good luck with your podcasts best wishes from et and me bill yeah i mean a fun sweet email from this man neat uh he created botanicus this man responded with the creator of botanicus yes this man did it he created all of this and then

they just used all this ip he created for the ride which is pretty crazy so it's sort of what we suspected but i was still thinking maybe there was some like amblin think tank or whatever and here's some other concepts or ideas no no just this man made everything up and then they were like yeah let's use that crap for the ride like that's how it used to be done and not like nowadays where they put a right like 20 people in a writer's room of like all right what are these transformers going to do next sure it's very true that all of pop culture now is like very stiff corporate keep up of a mythology that was shit out by an old man 45 years ago who was like trying to you know get off work to go to the bar hey everyone sit the fuck down we're not going home until we figure out

what kind of car strawberry shortcake fucking drives so yeah strawberry mobile sure sounds good everybody go home there is there is a very good chance that botanicus gets used in like a high profile something in the next 50 years being the oh they'll they'll exploit et in some further right as soon as everyone's that's the one of the highest grossing films ever just sitting there with nothing to be done yeah i mean a lot of the spielberg stuff is sitting there until he dies or a couple other people die and then it's it's open season but at that point i think they'll be going through the archives and again like this gentleman william kotzwinkle created botanicus and perhaps you know we'll

see movie after movie after movie exploring all of his characters so credit him properly uh based on characters created by william kotzwinkle and let's have et at the end of the ride after he says goodbye to all of you uh all my friends were created by william kotzwinkle thank you bill thank you you created everyone but me thank you daddy kotzwinkle the botanicus said thank you daddy kotzwinkle. If Botanica said, thank you, Daddy Cotswinkle, when you walked through the queue, that would be the greatest. Man. So it seems like, you know what's also nice?

It seems like he has some affection for this, or he just thinks I'm like a nine-year-old. Including Botanica. Right. He's like, best wishes from E.T. and me. And then he's like, oh, dumb kid. He's not like, oh, there must be a 34-year-old man on the other side of this email. No kid he's not like oh there must be a 34 year old man on the other side of this email no he's just like oh that's great but he could tell you're not

a nine-year-old kid because what nine-year-old kid would give a fuck about the et adventure it's a good point so he must know that i'm of a certain age you would hope so anyway we're very exciting we're gonna have probably more botanicus scoops After this episode Comes out But you know For now That's That's the most

Up to date scoop We have And I'm I exchanged One more email With voice of Botanicus Ron Knight

But I have Nothing further To report yet I hope that changes But I swear To you guys And to the audience I'm trying

Thank you We appreciate Jason If you could do A little more work On this Botanicus, I think we would appreciate it. So, I don't know what the angle is, but just think about it.

Find the man who sewed his big leaf. Yeah, sure. Find the leaf man. Find where his staff was manufactured. Yeah, if you could find the staff manufacturer, that would be really good. So, please. Anyway, that's been the end of the addendum. You've survived the podcast, the Ride Second Gate addendum.

And, yeah, we'll see you on the green planet. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.