Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Soren’s World | Ep. 341

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Daniel shares the emotional whiplash of daycare drop-offs before Soren pitches a Christmas movie where Santa spends eternity exploring an empty world. From Bobby’s World to dating Santa Claus, the second half turns into an unexpectedly detailed Hollywood development meeting.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

Welcome to Welcome back. Welcome back. It's the podcast. Welcome back. Ladies gentlemen to Ladies gentlemen to Sorin's World. That's right. We're rebranding the podcast. Sorens World.

We looked at the numbers. at audience feedback. We talked to the affiliates who pick up our podcast overseas and in the local markets and the reviews are clear. What hits? What misses? So we are just focusing on what people want, which is Soren's world. Yes. What I'm talking about here. Surprisingly, it's actually little to do with me and more to do with Bobby's world and a resurgence of popularity. People want Bobby's world. And we just flipped a coin as to who would be from our podcast. But they really like the name plus world. The IP attached to world is so healthy.

The brand awareness is so robust that people just, just, they see blank world and they just know they're in good hands. They're like, ah, this is, this is that Howie Mandelaverse that I'm just crazy about and I know I'm safe here. It's honestly crazy that we ever stop doing it because we always come back to it. I mean, like, you did Bobby's World. You did Beekman's world. Dave's world.

Cool world. Not a lot of people know Bobby's world and cool world. They're in fact the same world. We don't talk about it. We don't talk about that being the same universe. Yeah. Well, yeah, welcome back, everybody. Obviously, this is Soren's world.

I won. I won the coin toss. Pretty excited about that. Dan's still probably a little sore. Yes. He's digging a little about losing that. But you know what? It's for the good of the brand.

That's because we did a coin toss. and I won the first one, and I was feeling so hot, so I said double or nothing. I can't, I forgot what the stakes were. And I just kept going. Yeah. What else can I have? And then I lost everything. You also panicked.

As soon as the coin was in the air, you said, Ted's. Yeah. And there's no Ted on the coin famously. Yeah. I put, I called Ted, and then on Kalshi and Polly Market, I put a lot of money on Coin Land straight. up and doesn't fall on either side. What's going to happen one time?

You were due. I'm so due. I continue to be due. You know, obviously this podcast, the conceit of it is that Daniel and I don't talk ever except on this podcast. Yeah. And, you know, it happens to be true. How are you, Dan? I'm good.

I'm really good. That's not entirely true. I'm really bad. Oh. So bad. At the risk of, like, bringing the podcast. podcast completely down. Okay, let's do it. Very, very bad. We, we're on day three of my son in daycare, and it's been very difficult on my wife and I, and on Cooper. He doesn't seem to be

enjoying himself. He's having a hard time adjusting. I think we are, our jobs both allowed for pretty healthy parental leave, though, in my opinion, not. long enough. I don't think anyone in this country has long enough parental leave. But we enjoyed a comparatively luxurious leave period. And then because I worked from home and my wife works from home three out of five days a week, we had a couple of weeks where we were back to work and still hanging out with the boy because we knew that we had like a couple of trips coming up too. And so we thought we're not going to start daycare right away. So on top of our leave we still had like three weeks or so

just with him in the house living the life that we become so accustomed to and now we have no more trips we're just back at we're like in our what's going to be our lives for the foreseeable future and it's sad our lives for the foreseeable future seems really sad it was really tough dropping him off

and it's uh you we went into this thinking like It'll be so nice to have some return to like, oh, I can, I can luxuriate in my errands a little bit more. I can go to the gym and make a stop off and get coffee or go to the grocery store and not have to worry that I'm leaving my wife alone with the boy and vice versa. but those the the small creature comforts of a pre-baby selfish life that we'd enjoyed are nothing compared to the loss of joy of just like being one of three musketeers that we've we've we've to which we had grown accustomed for the bulk of this year well i get so poetic when i'm sad you're kind of You're getting very poetic about coming off of a drug, basically.

You are, you had these, you had this like unlimited supply of oxytocin. Yeah. That you, every time you touch your kid, you smell your kid, that's, especially as a baby, is you just getting this rush of oxytocin, which is obviously, feels great. And you were a functioning addict. And now that he's not, when he's not there, you're really, you're like stripped of that. that pretty quick and you feel it and you got there's a come down from it. I didn't, we didn't do child care, well, we didn't do like a daycare situation until our daughter was two.

I think my son was one. But before that, we'd had a nanny for a while. And there was a situation where I would go to Crack in the morning. My wife would go to work. The entire time I was at Cracked, I was like, I was like, I was. I don't want to be home with my son. I don't want to be here. And then we would get home.

And because he spent all day with her every single day, we would get home and he would cry because he'd know that she was leaving. And we were like, this feels backwards. This is, I don't, I think we might have done something wrong here. Right. Our child is very into his nanny. Right. Right now, it. it feels like a whole crock of shit.

And we know it's going to get easier. I don't want to say better because there's nothing better than the first few months we had with him. It'll get easier. But right now it seems like we get him in the morning and the morning is precious and great and we love it.

And then we take him to this place where he's awake all day. He's not napping like he's supposed to. And we pick him up, when we pick him up at the end of the shift, when my and my wife's work is done, he is miserable because he hasn't slept all day. He's just a very cranky guy.

And he's also really, his two modes are very cranky and ready to sleep because, again, he hasn't slept all day. So we put him in the car and he screams the car ride home and then he screams a little bit at home. And then he falls asleep. And then he's in bed. And it's like, these are the fucking parts that I'm. get now? We were, I was one of the two

main guys in this whole thing. And now I'm just here for like drop-offs and pick us and put him to sleep. Wait, why is he getting naps at daycare? Uh, well, it's got to be a failure on our part as parents. We were, we just did a lot of contact napping with him.

Because we had been told for so long early on that you can't. You can't spoil him by picking him up when he's fussing and sleeping. And you can't create a routine at three months. That's what all of my books that I read like a maniac are putting routine at the earliest at like four months, which is where we're at now. And even then they're like, you can try to start getting him into some kind of pattern routine at four months. And it might not take. Really, it's going to start at six. So we didn't try to impose any kind of

napping routine with him And we just would mostly hold him While he slept because we didn't have anything else to do Or anywhere else to go because he was our job And I could do phone business or reading with one hand Why am I lying? I wasn't fucking reading I was doing phone business all the time

And we also learn like you could put him down for a daytime nap And if you did He would sleep for maybe 20 minutes. And if you held on to him, he would sleep for maybe 90 minutes. And so we're like, well, let's just make sure he gets the good amount of sleep then. And at the daycare, I don't think they have the staffing for one person to hold my baby several hours a day. So they just try to do what they do with every other baby, which is like, you're supposed to put him in the crib, kind of still awake, and let them put themselves to sleep,

which is not a skill he has right now. And it's, I'm sure, an adjustment from him to go from sleeping on either mom or dad to sleeping in a bright room with strangers and other babies screaming, because they don't all sleep at the same time. That's tough. Yeah. Yeah.

I... How many days has he been there? This is day three. Yeah. Okay. I'm jumping to some conclusions, and I know that the addict thing is helpful because my thought process, because I live seven minutes from the daycare, and I work from home, we're monitoring like his real-time reports of, oh, he's eating, he had a diaper change. He's not napping. You know, there'll be a market.

They tried to put him down, and it didn't work. and I'm now at the point where like three o'clock rolls around and I'm thinking like I could just if he's not napping I'll just get him I'll just get him and take him home and I will work you know at some point we'll kick that down the road all the stuff that I need to do all of the lawn and the cooking of meals and the cleaning and yeah and my job that that pays for the daycare I'll do those. But right now my boy's not sleeping, so I'm just going to go and rip him out of daycare. Yes. I know that feeling. With my son, we took him because he had a nanny for a while, and then we put him in daycare. And the daycare was across the street from us. But she was going to be

the one who was picking him up from daycare for the first part of the transition because he wasn't going for a full day. And the first week, she would be getting him. And he'd come home and he was like really upset and like crying and stuff and very emotional and then and she'd be with him and I was like I don't know why I asked her but I think because she was the one picking him up I was like how do you think it's going and she was like I don't think it's good and I was like oh she said that she didn't think he was he was ready and I was like now what do I do like I don't want to I don't want to create these whatever these wrinkles are I'm creating in his brain are stress wrinkles.

Like, this is not good. These are not good memories that I'm putting in him. Or am I, I hear stories about children who don't get held enough when they're young and how affects them the rest of their life and like, they're not near their parents and there's no support system. And I was like, so you're dealing with all of that. Three days later, he was in the groove and he had it. He was doing just fine in the school, in the daycare.

And he had figured it out. It was a similar situation, though, where he was used to sleeping in a quiet room. He's used to being rocked to sleep. and then after when he was asleep, I would gently put him down. So somewhat similar, but like it's quiet. And he's in a deep enough sleep that I can move him to a bed. But he transitioned to sleeping with a bunch of other kids fast. It was like five.

It was like a week. It took like a week. And then he was in the groove. And they adapt really, really quickly. And I'll say, no long-term repercussions, if that makes you feel any better. No, I've met your children. And they don't, they almost never bring up this nanny. that you talk about.

They don't, they, they, they, for a while we weren't even have, because she still babysits for us, because we trust her so much and she's great. But there was a time where we weren't really doing anything because Gilly was too young and, uh, it was COVID. And so when we finally had her back as an, as like a baby, even a babysitter, our kids were like, no, who is this again? Oh, yeah. Oh, man. You loved her, Ronan. This was, this was everything. This is your son.

She was almost mom and dad. Colleen was having a really hard time with it early on with Ronan when we would come home and he'd have to say goodbye to Maria and it was like dropping your kid off at daycare where they're reaching for you. Like he's reaching for her. And Colleen was like, what are we, what is this society? What are we doing? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this to children and their parents? Like in order for us to function and live, we have to work and we don't get to spend any time with our kids.

So yeah, it was torture for a little bit. our neighbor who has an 18 or 19 month old and we're close with them our neighbor across the street was telling us that uh in the beginning daycare is very it's very difficult in the beginning because you you have to let go of your baby for the first time and her advice was like just drop drop them off and like turn around and run away which we did not do but that was uh we wept in the in the parking lot for a while yeah but that was her advice was just like go away and then later in it gets much harder because now when I drop my daughter off at daycare, she has a brain and words. And so she says, Mommy, no, don't. And I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ. We got to fix the whole. We did the entire country wrong.

We did everything wrong. It's all backwards and bad. The nice thing about doing it now is that your child is at least used to the idea of being around other people without you. So that when that day comes, maybe it gets a little bit easier. How many kids are at this daycare? there's seven in his class and they're all around that same age yeah how many he is

the youngest there are two I think it's the there's like a state law in New Jersey that it needs to be like one adult for four kids or one adult for three kids whatever it is that we we checked and made sure that they were complying with state mandates okay

yeah it certainly gets because the having done it with a nanny to then daycare was that kid was home. I mean, Ronan was home. Even though he's with a nanny, he's at our house. And then every single morning I would drop him off at daycare. And it was absolutely brutal because I'd start getting him ready. And he knew when I started like putting on sunscreen, he was like, that was his trigger where he was like, oh no, I'm going to that place.

And he'd just start crying. But he wouldn't. It was so sad. He wouldn't be like, please, like, don't send me, don't send me. He knew his fate. but he'd start to just sort of cry as I'm putting sunscreen on him. He's looking at me and tears are just running down his face.

Being brave. And I'm like, oh, buddy. I'm so sorry. And then I would go drop him off. And I would do the thing where I'd drop him off and he'd be at that last second. He's like grabbing for you and he won't let go. You're like prying your child's fingers off of your shirt. And then they're reaching, reaching like trying to reach over this person and screaming for you.

Like this is the end. And you just have to be like, okay, I love you. I love you so much. Goodbye. You shut the door and you feel terrible, obviously. And your way home, not feeling good. That right around that time, this cat showed up on my back wall that had just blood all over its neck. And the crusted blood all over its neck.

And I was like, what happened to that cat? And went back there. It was very calm and docile. It was a little nervous about me at first, but kind of like, throughout that morning, I kind of earned it. throughout that morning, I kind of earned its trust. Keep in mind, crack didn't start till like 10 every day. So I had all this time in the morning. And so I got this cat down into my yard.

And I started like petting it, kind of trying to examine what was wrong with it. It looked like I had a pretty big laceration. And it started to trust me. And I was like, this is great. I'm going to call an animal shelter and see if they'll come get it. So somebody should clean this cat up. Somebody should make sure that it doesn't need stitches or something. So I can't remember who I called.

There's some city program to come collect this cat. And I'm keeping it in the backyard. I'm petting it and stuff to make sure that it's not going to go anywhere. And then they show up with a cage and it freaks out because now there's a bunch of new people there. They are not gentle with it and they put it in this cage. And it's like looking at me with the same look my son had just given me. And I was like, will this never end? I'm just betraying everything that falls in love with me.

I'm this can't be how it works I know it's going to get easier I know that he will adjust and we're three days in and this was this is bound to be the hardest part yeah still stinks the other thing that I hadn't anticipated is

because they post pictures on the app to just like here's how I'm doing I'm doing tummy time and they are very deliberate about catching him smiling. You know, they're not going to show him miserable. But

I think because I'm so used to all pictures of him being on very lovely iPhones that my wife or I will take or someone else in our family will take with like portrait mode and good lighting that I see these pictures

that I think are, for security purposes, I think are done on digital cameras so they're not like, they don't live in someone's staff phone. So the quality of looks very old and the it's like fucking school cafeteria lighting in these places

so the lighting is it just looks like Terry Richardson ass 70s exploitation just like shining off sweat on his face and like drool and like and he makes him just look so like yellow and tired and exploited and was like this is I can't

this is not my beautiful son what are you doing to him this is it looks like a snuff film it's all oversaturated what's going to have it of this boy? I know, I know. We would get those types of things it looks like it was shot through

a greasy screen a screen that had Vaseline smeared all over it. And it's also, I think, that a really hard part of it is knowing that your child is having experiences outside of you already. Like so much of the early stuff you feel so in control of,

You get to give them, you get to, no one's throwing acid on their emotions early on. You are just giving them a gentle understanding of the world. And you get to choose the pace of everything. And how they're going to experience things. And you're going to get to see each one of those experiences. And it will inform how you do the next one. And all of a sudden, you don't have that anymore. All of a sudden, the tree has branched.

Like you are headed in one direction and your child is headed in a different. And you're like, wait, wait, no, I'm not ready. Yeah. It's also, insofar as he can be trained to expect anything, we have trained him to know that if he cries because he's scared or he's uncomfortable, someone will be there and get him immediately. Yeah. doesn't connect to who we are just yet, a person will come and grab them.

And that's not necessarily true in a daycare situation because they have different training. And babies are allowed to fuss for a little bit. And it feels like we have broken the one consistent thing he has learned in his life. I'm being very dramatic. It's going to be fine. People do this all over the stupid, country where child care is broken. No.

And in the, I, if it's any consolation, in the long run, it is good for him. It is good for him to have the experiences that are separate from the ones with mom and dad. And to understand that sometimes I cry and that's okay.

Like that kind of thing is like, it's in the long run that is not detrimental, but beneficial to him. But I went through all the same stuff. I mean, little things like I would clip my son's fingernails and I clipped, accidentally clip some of his finger, which I think every parent.

parent has to do at one point. He immediately recoils and screams because he trusted me. And then also, my next thought process is, oh, no, but now he's not going to be able to use those hands in the same way. Will he fall behind because he's no longer, he has the fine motor skills because he's now dealing with an injured finger? He'll never learn to sew. Am I setting him back for life? I got it's all

all of it feels at the time like I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up but it rarely is that way it's almost always like it's in the long run it's good and I think that you are in the hardest part

of the separation right now and it will just get I mean we'll check in next week and we'll see how it's going if you're like it's the same come back next week and I'm just holding him

and bouncing in you and it's like we came up with a solution This has nothing to do with your baby, but I thought maybe if we switch gears or you'll feel a little better. Okay. Because I'm going to pitch something to you, and I want your involvement in making this thing happen. Okay. Okay.

I came up with an idea for a Christmas movie. Okay. Me too. You did? You go first, yeah. Okay. So obviously, a great time of year to be thinking about Christmas movie because you got to get it made before Christmas. So your head's in the right space, I think.

So is mine. This Christmas movie would be unlike what anyone I've ever seen. I'm going to give you like the general game of it and then we can decide if we want to cast this and everything. But it would start with two days or three days before Christmas and, you know, Santa's in the thick of it because Santa's at the North Pole. and he's trying to plan for that most important day of his life each year. He's busy. His nose is to the grindstone, and his head is down. So he's not paying a lot of attention to the outside world at that point.

The list has already been made. The list is set in stone. Nobody's doing anything right before Christmas that's changing whether they're naughty or nice. He finally gets in the sleigh and he goes out into the world and realizes for the first time that there's been some sort of global apocalypse. That he's been sheltered up there in the North Pole. Hasn't experienced any of this, but I don't know if it's a virus or something like that,

something that can't be too devastating for the buildings for purposes later. But everyone is dead. And Santa's realizing it, maybe even in the first house, like it doesn't realize until he gets to the first house. It's like gently tucking and lovingly putting stuff underneath a tree that's looking a little dry. and then turns around and, oh, he's being watched. But he's being watched by mummies.

There's just desiccated bodies sitting there on the couch. And so Santa has that realization that there's nobody left. And even though he's a guy who does, he's a recluse, lives by himself, he's like, he is a social butterfly. Santa is a guy who has his nose to the window of everybody's fucking business. He knows everything you're doing all year long. Like, he's, he knows everything about it. He's the janitor at school who knows. Yeah.

He's the janitor at your, at your middle school, who knew whatever, whoever one was dating. Like, they're just way too into it. So this is a big blow to him. We went to different middle schools. All of my janitors were so fucking high all the time. In retrospect, it seems like such a cherry gig. You have child hours, eight to three o'clock or so. You're stoned all day and no one bothers you.

You push a broom. The school never felt clean, so it didn't seem like there's any real. accountability. What a gig? I had a very different experience. We had a female janitor who, who when she found out who I was dating in eighth grade, pulled me aside and said, I think you can do better. She also called me me regalito, which means my little present. You know what? In retrospect, this person might have been an abuser. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, Um Santa's had that he's got that moral

that conundrum of like well what what is my purpose even now and he can't catch it whatever it is if it's a virus or anything because he's an immortal and he's going to be here for long after everybody's dead after all these bodies have disappeared and so in that first night

Santa decides well obviously there's no reason to deliver these presents I've just got this night to myself well let's just do all the things that I always wanted it do and couldn't because I'm Santa Claus. So he can go anywhere in the world. He has access to anything he wants, basically, in these presents.

He can, he's going to go play a little bit of mini golf. He hasn't done that before up there in the North Pole. So he's got, like, he's digging through the bag or his sack, and he's finding those golf clubs he was getting for somebody. And he's like, ah, all right. And so he plays a mini golf. He goes to a museum. He goes to maybe the Louvre.

Like, he could just jump around the world and go everywhere and do a bunch of last man on earth stuff. A bunch of fun last man on earth stuff with no limit to what he's got available to him and can go anywhere on earth. I think there's obviously going to have to be some more in there in the second act

and then in the third act. But I think how it would end is him going home. Him, the sun rising, him finally being done with that going home and the elves Mrs. Claus all waiting for him as they do outside being like, how did it go? How is it? And he's

Like, it went really good this year and not telling them. So that they maintain purpose. They continue to believe that this is still happening. They're still busting their asses up until the 24th, getting presents ready, every single year, building. But like, they've got a job in their hearts. Like, they've got something that they're working toward. And he's going to let them keep that. But every year, he's just going to go back and do a bunch of Tom Cruise.

stuff from oblivion, like just going to stadiums and stuff and pretending to pitch the first pitch. You did, you did zag. You did zag when I expected Zick. I thought for sure Santa fixes things, rebuild civilization somehow. So I am surprised. Surprise isn't bad. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have maybe the same Christmas heart as you would hope from a Christmas movie.

But he does do a really selfless thing for his elves. And, oh, you know what? There might even be like a moment there where Santa does, has lost his purpose. It's clear that he's lost his purpose and is like, do. And looking at his reindeer and being like, should I just kill him? Like, should I kill myself? What are we doing anymore? Right.

It does spin. And again, I'm not, it's so easy to pick things apart at this early state. Sword. Complement sandwich. which fantastic pitch. Oh, thank you. I loved every second of it. I think you're tapped into, I think you're,

sometimes I can read the tea leaves of culture a little bit. Yeah. And people are going to start realizing how funny Santa Claus is. You are ahead of the curve right this second. We're going to see a lot of Santa stuff soon. I can just, I feel it in my fucking bones. And you've got a head start on everybody. and that's really great stuff.

Bread. Me. I was a... I'm a little tiny bit worried that it seems to land in a place of capitalist fantasy

where Santa realizes that the the best thing to do for everyone below him is to give them purpose, and that purpose is work, uh, even though they're not, uh, they don't get to enjoy the, the, the, the fruits of the work. The idea that like, the work is itself a reward, um, is, uh, you know, like true of hobbies, true of fishing, true of crafting a table. The work is the reward. You're enjoying your time doing it. It shouldn't be

an ethos for a way of existing in the world, in my opinion. And he is the only living people. He is dooming them to work forever, trusting that they are too simple

to enjoy complex pleasures like he, the great Santa Claus enjoys. They are lesser beings and lesser beings should work and only work and be happy for the work. And that's the happy ending of your Christmas movie. Yeah. Because what is Christmas, if not a capitalistic fantasy, Daniel? That's kind of true.

And if my favorite Christmas movie or one of them is Nightmare Before Christmas, that is also a movie kind of centered around the idea of, of working, working, working, working, working, working, working, working, working. I mean, he does a little rum spring. He, Jack Skellington gets out and experience and, like, travels and learns some other stuff. But his, where he lands at the end is, like, I'm the Pumpkin King. I got to go back to my town. And, like, the people were, had no purpose without me.

Let's go and, like, let's start thinking about next Halloween right now to all these people. in Halloween town who who build their entire identities around the one day in service of the Pumpkin King. Yeah. And that was great. And that one's wonderful. They're selling shirts at Hot Topic. I see what you're saying. He is, whether you choose to believe that that's a good thing or a bad thing he does at the end, could certainly be up for debate.

Yeah. Because he is not, he's not going to free them. He's not like, hey, let me take you down. to Paradise City. He's like, you're going to stay here. You're going to keep doing your job. I wouldn't be thrilled if John Oliver one day was like, we keep making the show.

You won't be able to see it, but we are still making it. HBO has taken us off the air, but we are still going to continue producing the show. And I'd be like, where can I watch? I was like, don't worry about that. Like, if we were just producing episodes of television and he was, and we were being paid for it, but we were just like writing scripts and he was getting on stage and filming a show and then putting a DVD of it in the library of Congress or like his personal stash, that's not a good life for me to just continue making a show for no one.

Well, so we are equating it to work for these elves, but in the. general, the war of Santa Claus, the elves are in it for the love of the game. Like, those elves aren't getting paid. They're, and if they are getting paid, where do they spend any of that money? We haven't answered any of those questions. So I think that the elves are in it because this is like an elves' purpose in life. This is what they find enjoyable is putting together little wooden trains. Elves can be toys from Toy Story.

Toys from Toy Story, we learned by the third movie, like get their rocks off by being played with. don't want to just live. They want to be played with and like and perform the function of toy. So if we accept that elves want to perform the function of elf, then yes, then your premise is airtight. And that's the bottom bread, baby. I, I think the sand, which was open-faced. I think maybe, yeah, what we have to do is really establish early on when Santa is like, knows of the grindstone, that moment and the elves are too, they're all singing and loving it.

there's one elf who has done something he shouldn't have done he was like being a trickster and had done something he shouldn't have done and Stan's like I'm sorry but you're gonna have to go to your room or whatever and the elf is like no like it's this close to current like he's not allowed to do the things he wants to do it's basically like solitary confinement like this elf is gonna kill himself because he can't be with the other elves and he can't be doing his purpose and so then you realize oh they need this to live yeah I think maybe you need to establish here's another thing I didn't add but I really want to want is that as Santa is doing all of his fun things, like driving a Corvette through the streets of Times Square, he first has to go through and like, just like gracefully move a couple bodies out of the way. Everywhere that he goes, he's sort of like pushing people out of the way so that he can do this fun new thing, this new indulgence. It's just a very funny visual. It's very funny to think about Santa who's used to being greeted by the smell of fresh baked cookies. And now all of the smells everywhere. That's just death and decay all over the place. Santa may be loosing a bunch of animals at the zoo.

Yeah. Getting to the zoo and realizing, oh, well, you should be free at least. For whatever remainder there is of your life, you should have some freedom. I can't take you back to the Savannah. But here, why don't you go try and hunt some deer in St. Louis? A gift, it sounds like he never even considered for his reindeer. You thought he would murder them. Yeah, not freedom.

That's fine. Yeah. Well, I have to assume also some sentience from, more than just animal sentience, but like human sentience from the reindeer as well. Yeah. I don't know why. I guess from Rudolph and from how just diligent they are and helping. If you continue on with Tim Allen's Santa Claus franchise,

they do kind of speak. If they don't, if, if by the Santa Claus 3, they are not literally saying, Santa, come over here. And they are certainly doing, well, what, what, that? And other characters are like, I know, Dasher, but we can't. They're doing like the Han Solo Chewbacca rules where the reindeer make noises and we understand. The idea that that would be a line of dialogue, Santa, come over here. is so creepy.

They're like, Santa on a rooftop. And Blitzin's like, Santa, come on here. I'd be like, no, just tell me from here. Tell me, tell me from here. I don't, I don't think I want to be near you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I jumped immediately to shooting them in the head.

That's fine. Oh, I didn't even know that he was shooting. Okay. I guess I have a question about the Santa Claus. The Santa Claus. He kills Santa by accident and become Santa, right? Yeah, I'm going to get raked over the coals for not getting the whole lore of this, right? Because I do feel like the third one, if not outright time travel,

then maybe parallel universe stuff happens by the third one. But canonically, in the first one, Santa dies falling off his roof and he becomes Santa. Yeah. in the second one, Santa Claus 2. He is about to lose his Santa powers unless he gets married. He needs to get

a Mrs. Claus. And if he doesn't then he will lose the Santa powers and then there will be no more Santa and no more Christmas. So he kidnaps a woman. He needs to do that. And then meanwhile there's a whole lot of fun where like, oh, I can't be in two places at once. I need to seduce a woman and

also continue the business of being Santa. So like a robot Santa, also played by Tim Allen, is built. And there's this whole B-plot of the robot Tim Allen. That's fun. Achieving self-awareness and like taking over the North Pole and ruling it like an authoritarian and putting everyone on the naughty list. And he needs to be defeated by Santa Prime. By the...

Age of Ultron. Right. By Santa Claus. three, there's even more lore and there's even more family dynamic stuff because he's bringing Mrs. Claus back to the North Pole with her parents, his in-laws, and they're trying to keep it from them that he's Santa. It's unclear why. I think at that point with the in-laws, you could just tell them, you're Santa, and it's fine.

But there's all like the Michigoths of him trying to keep the secret. And his Santa stuff is, of course, getting the way of the stuff with his wife, which you'd think she'd be more understanding of that. Whatever. Meanwhile, Jack Frost, played by Martin Short, who was another Christmas demon like Santa himself. He gets, he tricks Santa into relinquishing his Santa responsibilities. gets him to like, I wish I was never Santa, saying that into like a magic snow globe or something like that. And that undoes much of the first two movies

and makes Jack Frost Santa Claus. And he is a very different Santa Claus than Tim Allen's Santa Claus. And Tim has to, oh, the third one does not live in my memory as well as the others, but eventually he takes it back from Jack Frost. but like there's a whole Jesus there's like an extended like Santa hangs out with

Father Time and Mother Nature and maybe Cupid like all of the other holiday monsters like hang out one of those Father Time by the way not Not a great holiday for Father Time or Mother Nature really I mean you guess you get Earth Day but even then we're not really

Celebrating a somebody mother nature Achilles, Santa, David Blaine. Do they ever address the fact that Santa is staying the same age and his children are getting older? Because he's got two kids. I don't believe they address that. That's what I mean...

It does seem to be hinted at, if not outright, said that it is expected that his son will one day take on the family business. Take the family business? Yeah. to be an immortal. Which can only happen one way.

You could kill your father and take his job. That's the only option. And then his daughter is just what? Because you're not allowed to have a female Santa ever? This is like a doctor who rules until recently. Where did he get a daughter? He has a daughter and a son. No.

In the first Santa Claus, doesn't he? Oh, does he just have a son? I think he just has a son. But there's somebody, there's a for a son. while the two children, the two children, the, the child is with somebody other than him and that needs somebody like a sounding board to under, like as he's walking around the North Pole trying to figure out what's going on. I swear, there's a daughter.

Did I make that up? Anyway, they're not going to deal with that, I guess. They should at some point deal with the fact that Santa inherently has to at some point become essentially a Dr. Manhattan, has to become somebody who, the idea of people passing, the grief has left him and it's just like this is just a thing that happens and has a different understanding of death and gives him a different understanding of humanity then

it'd be fun if there were some parts of the world that Santa still just doesn't that's something that I haven't seen with like either last man on earth or Dr. Manhattan you know still skipping the Louvre or something like you have unlimited time

and there's still something that you're just like Holocaust Museum I'm Santa I don't want to go to that I know it's important I know I know I know I know I know I know I just don't I can't imagine walking out of there not miserable

and I just I don't want to say life is short because I'm immortal but it's still I still kind of want some of time to myself there's just a lot of the things I can be doing tonight. All right. Now you have a Santa movie as well. Do you want to talk about it now?

It's a little, it's not as as baked. It's not as freshly baked as yours. Oh, let's work on it. Let's hammer it out. I've been watching. It's a lot of movies that you've already seen before. And, uh, and it's also the logic is impossible. As I picked apart your logic, mine cannot hold up to that scrutiny.

But I was, was watching a bunch of, like the Netflix Hallmark AI written Christmas movies where they're very similar about like someone goes back to their small town and it's like very Christmassy and they fall in love with someone blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah and I was like I want to kind of why can't I just write like a Netflix Hallmark style Christmas movie and not make it too weird and I started thinking about it and then I made it too weird because that's the kind of thing that I do and it's a woman and a guy

and they're dating and they're together and it's a fiance maybe she's going to go back to her hometown. And the guy's like, I can't believe we've, we've been, we're engaged and we've been, we've been together for so long. And you've never taken me back to your hometown for Christmas. And she's like, yeah, my hometown is, is really weird. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's been a long time since I've been there. And I've, and, you know, I don't have the best memories for it, but it's, it's, you know, we're going to get married. So you got to see my family. And her hometown is

the North Pole. And we learn that, uh, her room. mate in college was Santa Claus. And they dated for a while and they broke up and they were really good. They were like the thickest he was best friends. And now they have a kind of strained relationship of two best friends. And like, imagine your friends with someone and like they become a rock star. And there's like a little bit of jealousy and bitterness. And the rock star is always like kind of flaunting it. Even her fiance is like, because in this world, Santa is real and everyone knows. And your fiance is. like you was fucking your roommate with santa you dated santa claus that's so fuck i'm such a fan of santa claus she's like it's not that big a deal i dated lots of people and we learned that there's

some of her bitterness is genuine jealousy of like yeah sanacla he's the most he's the most famous person in the world i don't think there's anyone more famous than santa claus maybe god but i don't even know because they don't put God in commercials. There's no, there's not t-shirts with them. And kids aren't like buying God dolls. Yeah. Did you actually know Christmas was about God? Because most people don't. It's about Santa. So that's how famous he is. So part of it is like some actual jealousy. And another part of it, we will learn is that she, some part of Santa's magic, she is directly responsible for. Like it was her idea to get Rudolph

or it was her idea to do it all in one night. Something that she feels like for a while it was the two of them doing this like local Christmas thing giving out gifts and then she had this great idea and then he took over and it kind of blew up and she doesn't feel like she was sufficiently credited for her role in creating Christmas. And I know the logic falls apart because it's like how

what year is this? How old are these people? What are we talking about? And I promise you, we will not address it in the movie. Shut up with those questions. It's straight to streaming. You're not even going to see it. It's fine.

Don't worry about it. She's, I mean, there's no reason why she can't also be well preserved from the North Pole. That somehow the North Pole just preserves you really well. Yeah. And she is also 300 years old or whatever. Obviously, by the end of the movie, she and Santa will have to save Christmas together and they will rely on each other she will learn from him, he will learn from her,

and she will get some kind of canonical Christmas credit to make it a happy ending. And maybe the fiancé, I'll take a page from your book, maybe he gets shot in the head, I don't know. Yeah, he falls us on clear.

Some tragic event happens to him. And the way that I feel like, as I said up top, I think Santa Claus is very funny. in like Dracula's very funny kind of way and Wolfman all of it is it's all very funny and the idea of of someone being like

I used to date Santa I used to date I used to date he was my college roommate it's all very just like there's there's a lot of jokes a lot of joke opportunities dating Santa roommate Santa and like Santa

and like Santa being kind of an asshole rock star you could do it from either direction I think you could have it be the woman who is the main character who is really like doesn't want to be back in that world doesn't want to be in Santa's shadow any longer and has that feeling of like that he we made something beautiful together and then he covered the tracks and took over and that's like who he is now. But I think you could also do it from the perspective of the new boyfriend who is like, well, I want to meet your family. Like let's just meet him and then goes there and they're all the elves, all Santa's everybody's there. And everybody is treating it like. why didn't these two get together?

They're so glad when she's back. And like Santa and her have this very friendly relationship, almost like siblings. We're like they wrestle and stuff. And the boyfriend's kind of like tolerating it. But it's it's definitely keeping an eye on it. And they're drinking at the North Pole bar and stuff. And Santa's like, what? What happened to us?

Like that kind of thing. The fiance is not threatened because he's like, I understand. I mean, they're close. They have a history. And like, I know, we're engaged. He's got a Mrs. Claus. And it's like, oh, Mrs. Claus is just marketing. There's no.

Miss Santa's single. Oh, fuck. Fuck my ass. Yeah, and being pretty upset by the relationship that they clearly still have. And that there's chemistry there. As soon as he gets to the North Pole, like she lights up and she's happier at home. Like, she's kind of a different person. Like, you're seeing a side of her.

He's never seen before. She's got this other gear he didn't know about. And still, like, being very in love with. her and liking seeing her there, but realizing that he is not part of that world at all and being like, do I, I want to see her happy. And it seems like she's much happier here and she would be happier with him. Should I just give up? Like, should I tell her that? Or should I force her to go back to Akron, Ohio with me after this is over? Having to explain his job to elves and Santa. I'm like, yeah, it's, I do, it's a lot of, it's, it's mostly, uh, so they, you, you're in, in, in, in, in, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's, it's, I work with banks to make sure that, um, no one can hack into, that's cool, that's, oh, like a security guard. Well, no, I'm never like, I'm not at the bank protecting anything, but like, I'm the reason that, like, someone can't just go in and, and, and, and, and,

a bunch of money from the bank. I feel like every other day I'm seeing an article or I got an email that is like, hey, your information was compromised for Washington Mutual. Is that you? Yeah, I mean. I don't work for that bank, but yeah. Never my bank. Never my bank.

But yes, someone in my job was supposed to catch that. And how do you do that? How do you do that? There's some sort of digital gun you have? No. But I, so I don't know if you heard like a firewall. all the elves like a firewall. It's not as, sorry, it's not as cool as it sounds.

I'm having a really hard time explaining it. You know what? Well, hey, man, as long as it makes you happy. It doesn't. And it brings lots of people joy when they see those firewalls. When I'm doing my job, well, nobody really sees it. Nobody, nobody knows it. In fact, the people who would encounter them, I want them to be genuinely

unhappy. In fact, they should be in jail. Okay. So you got your own naughty, nice list. All right, so what's your team? You said Ohio. Yeah, you got Browns? You're Browns fan. Tonsanati. Yeah.

When are they going to put it together, huh? Yeah. I think I like this movie too. If people can sit through the really sad opening, that is typical of episodes of Soren's World. I think they've got some fun movie surprises in their future. I reward them. I punish them first.

And then I reward them with some fun with Santa being the last man on Earth. Okay. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening to this Christmas episode in July. It was a lot of fun. If you like this theme song, it's by Me Rex. If you like this podcast and video format, you can watch that on YouTube. If you want to, you know what I'm realizing as I'm doing this, Daniel, is I didn't write down McKenzie Moselle's website. Don't make it worse.

I'm going to start writing that down. Not that I need to. That's a great podcast name. I think you can get it, Soren. Should we start calling this instead of Soren's world, should we start calling this, don't make it worse? Don't make it worse is great. Let's do it. All right.

And if you want to listen to more of this podcast than you're currently getting, you can become a Patreon subscriber and we do bi-weekly little episodes, little button episodes, a little fun, fun, I would say unbuttoned episodes. They're a little bit looser.

All right, thank you, everybody. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you. I know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right.

The answer's not important. I'm just by the week of time. tonight so what's your favorite who did you get when will i be remember what's it out to word it all like me daniel abroad you best friends and comedies if there's an answer they're gonna find