Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - The Secret Origin of Every Movie Score | Quick Question Ep. 318

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

This week, Daniel and Soren explore why every legendary composer is essentially a high-level shoplifter, stealing from the same three dead guys who actually knew how to write a melody. We also discuss why the "one in the glasses" is a genius, the specific humiliation of pitching jokes in the Fred voice, and why the most important skill for a professional writer is the ability to produce absolute garbage on purpose.Plus: Soren defends his hollow bird-bones, Daniel avoids an NDA, and we try to figure out why no one in a book can name a fictional band that doesn't sound like a hate crime.Thanks to Factor for sponsoring this episode. FACTORMEALS.com/qq50off and use code qq50off for 50% off your 1st Factor box + free breakfast for 1 year. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase.Thanks to ASPCA Pet Health for sponsoring this episode. To explore coverage, visit ASPCApetinsurance.com/QUESTION.  The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.Chapters00:00 The "Pecan Sandies" On-Ramp03:09 The Fred Movie & Professional Humiliation08:31 Heated Rivalry: Soren Doubles Down13:00 A Quick Question: Movie Scores on the Radio15:45 Hans Zimmer vs. 1536 Classical Music18:58 John Williams and the "Genius" of Shoplifting24:20 Jon Brion and Piano-Forward Comfort31:34 Searching for the "Internal Control+F"34:10 Why Fictional Bands Always Have Terrible Names39:40 Soren’s Hollow Bird-Bones41:40 The Generation of Movement: Teaching Kids to Jump45:30 Roller Skating, Moonwalking, and Golf51:19 The Professional Craft of Writing "Shitty" Drafts57:01 Ripping it Down to the Studs01:01:17 The Toy Story 3 MasterclassFollow 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 back, our accent. It is once again our accent episode of Quick Question. How are you? Ha, ha, ha. We do the entire show in accents. I'm pretty good. Things are going well. I'm going well.

To share. my mental illness with my wife. Because for much of my life, I would hear things and just talk to myself, especially an accent I would hear and talk to myself. And now we're watching our favorite show, Traders. And there's this weird, beautiful alien named Mora, who is from the planet Ireland.

And every time she talks, it's such a strong accent that neither of us can really do, but we both try our best. and you know how reality shows work. They'll show a scene, and then they'll cut to a talking head of a person and this guy Rob who's like, I don't know, we're going to see what we can do.

And I'll cut to someone else who's like, I think this person is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then it cuts to Moritz. She's like, oh, I tank, he's a traitor. And it's just my wife and I vibrating on a couch going, tritor. Tritor. I tink. I tink.

I tink, it's a potato. We used to do that at Cracked all the time where we would try and decide what accidents we could do. And so we try to get our bearings by thinking of a movie where that accent appeared heavily, but never getting the dialogue quite right. So using something that doesn't even exist, like, we would think like, oh, I got to do South African. Let's see. Well, there's district, what is it, District 12? Yeah, District 12 or District 9. One of them is the Hunger Games thing and one of them is the movie. And we're all right. Hey, do you weapons work? That's not even a line from they're not asking the prawns, how their weapons work. Do they not say that in that movie? No. So we're just like, we're just trying out dialogue that doesn't exist from the movie. I mean, like, that will be my touchstone.

It's really funny for our show, a little peek behind the curtain of American Dad, which is where I work, which we skip today because we're doing accents. But if we do our table reads, one of the other writers will do Stan and another writer will do Roger because that doesn't come to the tables. and the actor who does or the writer who does Roger, Nick Wagner, he will to get into character, I don't know if he still does it, but he used to do it to get ready for Roger, he'd go, Roger, Pekan Sandys, Pekan Sandy's, Roger. Just any kind of on-ramp to get the voice. Yeah, you got to work into it.

You can't just jump in cold. So yeah, everybody's got like their like, Oh, yeah, that's how I get into that character. I have, I hear of my two voice stories. The Oritank, he's a traitor. The eyes really tough. There's no way. She sounds like that. The vowels are really, that's really the sticking point is the vowels, man.

Yeah. When I, I don't know if, if any of this is known information. I didn't sign anything, so I think I'm not violating any NDAs or anything. but there was this famous YouTuber who had a real name but he posted as this character Fred and the thing about Fred was like a very early YouTube character before like YouTuber was a thing

everything was in 16 speed yeah it had like an Alvin in the Chipmunks voice and it was like and the Lucas I think was the name of the performer who would like scream a whole lot and cross his eyes and just like do this a form of content that everyone of a certain age and beyond found very unpleasant and off-putting. But younger people loved it. Kids were just like they loved Fred. They would put on YouTube and watch Fred.

And they were like, hi, it's Fred. And it was like really, really grading to everyone else in the world. But he was clearly like a hit with kids so much so that there was a Fred movie. and I'm going to put work in quotes. I worked on the Fred movie. My managers at the time wanted to get me some like Hollywood experience. So they put me in a writer's room with David Goodman who wrote that script. David Goodman who, you know pretty well.

He's a family guy, Futurama, like his his resume is huge. He was the showrunner for American Deb for a while. Yeah. He wrote the Fred movie and assembled a room. of like true comedy writing legends and me who was just like like someone's brother essentially just like clearly the management was was asking for a favor to bring me into this room so I could like get experience and see what it's like to punch up a script which was the assignment everyone was like going through the script line by line and punching things up and it's a room

full of this should surprise no one men middle-aged men in this room who all went in and They were like, I, my kids love this guy, this Fred guy. I fucking hate him. I can't stand him. I can't. I hate everything about it. And I was like, this is going to be a really tough room. But everyone, it's so fun watching everyone pitch jokes for Fred.

Fred is not in the room. But like, you're trying to sell your jokes in the room. So people would like stand up and do the Fred voice. And these are like comedy veterans. The guy who's written the Flaming Mo episode of The Simpsons is like, So it's Fred and I'm running around. And just like a wild, humiliating.

Thankfully, there's no footage of it. But just like must be a very humbling experience for all those writers pitching in the Fred voice specifically. Do you guys not pitch in the voice of John? Here's the thing. I feel like this has come up on our show before. None of us can do his voice. We all have our impressions of him.

Yeah. And we all have like our on ramps to get there. But he's got. such a specific kind of accent. Not that I have like the best ear for, uh, Northern England, John Snow,

you know, I know where to put it. Versus like a cockney or anything like, like it's not like I'm a master of dialects or anything. But his voice is so specific that we have, when we've been in the room, we've all done our, our Johns to each other.

And everyone is like, ha, we're having fun. Man, No one is close. No one has got it exactly right. Yeah. That's, I mean, I'm not nailing a single character on American Dead, but I'm doing my, when I'm pitching, I'm doing my approximation of them.

Like, you get the gist. When I'm doing my clouse, it's like, ah, that's close enough. I know who we're doing. I don't know who's talking right now. But, yeah, you, that would be pretty damning if you were doing your clouse and someone was like, is that Steve? Like, they need to be so far apart. Yeah. I'm not, I'm thinking about, there are some people who are not good at it.

But it doesn't matter. Like, that's part of the joke. Yeah. We used to have a woman on our show who would do Klaus, who it became, at first it was so far afield that everyone was like, stop. What is that? Then it became like, that was the best version of Klaus. Like, well, that's, let's have Sasha do it. She's just great.

I would love hers. But yeah, I don't know. It's it when somebody can do something close like the joke kills way better. So it makes me think like, I should really be working on it. I have these long drives to work. Surely I should be doing something with that time. I mean, that felt certainly clear in the room on the Fred movie. When people were like getting up and pitching jokes as Fred and like humiliating themselves, it got laughs.

And then when it would come around to me and I was a very timid 22 year old and I was like, I think maybe he should electrocute himself and get really scared by that when he like. extricutes himself. And everyone's just like, okay. And we're going to move on. I was like, I should have, this is the time to stand up to scream like a fucking idiot. Yeah. You got to sell the joke.

I know. I know that feeling. I know that feeling of a joke dying on the floor. I feel it every day. So, when we got to talk about the elephant in the room. Okay. I famously read our YouTube comments because I'm a little worm. And as far as I know, you don't, you don't.

You don't wait in there? I don't go. Our commenters have never been more aligned than they are about this position. That you, by telling me and our listeners not to watch heated rivalry based on only having seen two episodes. Three. Three episodes. You have committed a grievous lapse in editorial judgment. Everyone is very mad at you.

Great. You don't have anything to say. Yeah. You know, I've since watched more episodes. Oh, does it get better? It's still a fucking horny sex show. Nothing's changed. You've got new characters that then have horny sex with each other.

But like for the most part, okay, I'll say this. There's a new set of gay characters in it that are way more believable, way more fun to watch and way more engaging than the previous ones. But the episode is still built around one of the other. these two get a fuck, ah, now they're fucking, I feel better. This is tremendous validation. I love that you committed to the show and committed to your stance on it. That gives us, I think, more coverage from these people who are very mad. One other thing I found in the comments, someone, I forget what it was in reference to,

but they said, the one in the glasses is right. Something, something, something about traders. And then someone replied to that, the one in the glasses, how did you get it? here. Another bone I will throw to, like it needs any more bones. But the other bone I'll throw to Hita Ravelry is that they've now introduced a female character because the two males were, I guess, they're bisexual. And that wasn't clear until recently.

And he starts dating a celebrity woman. And I was like, here we go. Like now this is going to be a love triangle thing. That's also supposed to be your opportunity for horny nude parody. That's supposed to be the, all right, you've enjoyed a lot of Brokeback Mountain. Now here's Aunt Hathaway taking her shirt off. Yeah, here's something for everybody. Here's something for all the heteroes out there.

Right. And I'd be lying if I wasn't like, oh, great. Now we'll get some more new to this. Here we go. But they don't, that's not ever on the table. You see them have sex kind of briefly, but it is treated very much like a PG-13 movie. Sure. It's not, it's not the fun.

Like the other stuff is, they are going for it. They are really having sex. And you linger out there with the camera. The camera's like, not going to cut. We're just going to watch this guy's chain bounce on his sweaty neck for like, for like a minute and a half. But I'll say, like, even when they're adding new wrinkles to this show, I'm still like, no. There's, the dialogue is painful. It's brutal, brutal dialogue.

It sucks so hard. And the, I wonder if I'm burning bridges with this, because there's only like five shows on television. The dialogue is rough. I think it probably is straight from the book. I'm going to say that. It does read, like, a lot like erotic fiction. And then people, that's what they want. That's what they're going to get.

And then everything is in service of getting people alone to fuck. Like everything in the show. Like that's all we're working towards at every goal, at every corner. Like there is no, it's all text and stuff and then flirting and then getting like closer and closer to them having sex again. And it ebbs and flows, but that's always the goal. The goal. I stand by my position on the show. I think it sucks.

The show continues to be not for you. Folks, this is an ad and a real recommendation for Factor. Factor meals. Listeners of the show know that I've got a baby on the way. It's going to be all hands on deck for my wife and I to keep this baby happy and safe and loved. So it's great that we don't need to focus our time or our energy or our brains on what we're going to eat. Factor helps us in that department. We have zero energy to make it happen, but we still want to eat like adults.

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with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. Brave stuff. You want to get into our show? Oh, yeah. I don't like this one either. Do you want me to talk about it? No, I think for our show, I think, is the same problem

where everyone is just sitting around like, when are they going to kiss? It's the biggest thing. That's the other comments that we get. Yeah. Just fuck already. The dialogue is terrible. They're not wrong.

Yeah, let's get into our show. I have a quick question for you. Hit me. Okay. You're a guy who enjoys, I would say more niche music. I know that a thing about you is you used to mow your lawn while listening to the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 soundtrack, I think. Listening to Casino's Zone or something like that. That was one of the things on there.

I don't think it was limited to sound like the Hedgehog, too. I think there's the same artist who did the first two games. Fuck, and I used to know his name, too. I don't want to look it up, so I'll just die in my shame. All right, well, the point stands. And then also you listen to a lot. You go, you go through car washes, listening to Everything's All right from Jesus Christ Superstar. Just to reset, you know.

And so I'm going to ask you as somebody who knows esoteric music. And if you were, let's say if you're a radio DJ and you're going to like play all your favorite songs, is there like what is the score, the movie score that you think you could slip in easily? Like what's a movie score so good that it could sit head to head against just like an ordinary song off of an album? And is there like a movie score that you think like, oh yeah, that fits on any mix. That's a great song. And I'll give you mine first if you want. Sure. The whole score you're talking about?

No, no, no. Just like, like, they're like the main score. Like, there's like always like, uh, uh, I hate to give John's an example like, done on. Yeah. Um, like the John. Williams. Williams, not Waters sword. Not waters.

No. It's a different guy. Um, yeah, all the John Williams, you know, like those. Okay. So I'll give you mine first. Uh, maybe it's actually better if I play it. That would might be a fun thing to do. Okay.

Okay. Daniel, you might recognize this immediately. This will be a fun game. Let's see if you do. You ready? Here we go. Yes, I'm ready. This is so pleasant. I don't know what it is. Okay. So, this is the... I mean, I know what it is, but... That's a Hans Zimmer arrangement. That is from True Romance.

I lied about knowing what it is. I've never seen that movie. Oh, okay. I know that's like a pretty formative Soren movie. It is. I will say that that's... So it's a very, it's written by Quentin Tarantino. It's a very, very violent movie. It reads like a Quentin Tarantino movie. Because throughout the middle of it or throughout the whole thing.

It's a love story. It's a lot of story between these two pretty young kids and them, they should not be together, like, everything in their life is trying to keep them apart. But they are genuinely in love. And, like, there's, like, some real moments of pure joy between them that is very light and sweet. And that song is just like, I. choice of song feels so out of left field for that movie until you see it in the context. And then you're like, it's absolutely perfect. There's also narration throughout it from Patricia Arquette, where she's talking about him.

And she's like, I just, I see him there. And I think to myself, you're so cool. You're so cool. You're so cool. And it's written from the perspective of somebody who's also very young. And that's what's important to her. It's all very funny. But it's, that song is just like beautiful in there.

And it's, I think it's Maramba's, it's either that or a steel drum or something like that. And I was like, wow, where did this, how did Hans Zimmer like, this is such a big swing? Yeah. Like, how did he even think to do this song? And especially on Maramba. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, where does he even come from? So I did some research on it.

There's, there is an original song called Gassenhauer. Well, it's called Gassinhauer, Nash Hans. Nusidlir? I don't know, man. It's called Gassan, it's called Gassan, it's called Gassanauer. It's a,

it was composed in like 1536. And so, and the way that I found that was I was just like listening to my mixes. And that's a song frequently that I play on my mixes, that Hans Zimmer version. And all of a sudden the song started playing that sounded very similar. It's like, again,

And I was like, what the fuck is this? It's like almost the right song, but it wasn't quite. And it's this old, I don't want to what to call it. It's a classical piece. I don't know, I don't know from dates. Yeah. I think for us, anything earlier than 1982 is classical music. And it's beautiful.

It's such a beautiful and like fun song. And it even when I'm working out, it's like, it's like, it'll pump me up. It's just so joyous and good. And I feel like you could slide it in anywhere and it's perfect. There's a crazy thing. that you mentioned that the Han Zimmer score sounds exactly like an old thing I had a very trippy

night and I'm sure there are YouTube videos that will do this exact thing but I had it in real life where my brother Tommy who's a music teacher and knows everything there is about music was showing me these like old classical baroque romantic whatever period

compositions and it's just it's exactly the Jaws theme It's exactly Imperial March from Star Wars. Like, not even, yeah. Oh, if I'm paying attention, I could see the inspiration. It's like, oh, no, it was just this.

It was just John Williams was like, I'm going to take this Dvorjec thing, and I'm going to put it in a Star Wars. And it's paradoxical because I still, I believe in my bones that John Williams is a genius. But I hear this stuff, and I'm just like, that fucking hack. He didn't even add like an itty-bitty ting, like Vannell. of ice. He didn't do a bit. Yeah. I guess I was surprised by that too. I just assumed they were all magical. These like composers, Danny Elfman and stuff. Like these just, they can just create something out of thin air that

is beautiful and perfect for a movie. Yeah. And not even considering the possibility that there's inspiration somewhere, that they're getting it from somewhere, that they're like, oh, you know what? I'm hearing in my head when I feel like the tone of your movie is this. So let's just do that. I'm sure musicians, composers seem like magic to us because we can't do it. In a way that I'm sure writing seems like magic to other people. But I'm sure musicians and composers are the same as us where I'll put in a temp line of dialogue or a temp name. I'm like, this is a placeholder and I'll fix it later. And then later shows up and I'm like, I'm fine with his name being Jack, every man.

There's nothing wrong with that. Why do I think I was going to change that? It's good. It's all over the script. We've been calling him that. I'm sure John Williams will put in a temp score based on something else that someone did. Come back to a week later. It's like, I kind of like the Stravinsky.

I don't know. I don't think we need to change it. I think we just change the byline. That's all we got to do. I guess that doesn't surprise me. I guess it doesn't surprise me that they are just robbing from centuries old music. It still means that at some point someone was good. I think that's what we might find out is there was like there was one person in the history of time.

who knew how to write story and one person who knew how to make music and then everyone's been ripping them off forever. Somebody snatched that out of the air at some point and put it down on paper, which is,

that's good. Yeah. I do realize, I mean, there are times where I'm like, I'm writing and the jokes are just coming very easy or like the story's coming very easy and I'm like,

God, that's a funny joke. How come I always thought of that? And then we'll sit there in bed afterwards and be like, Soren, there's no way somebody else's empty. You pick that up somewhere. And then it got, and then whatever, like the tracks were covered in snow on how you got there after that point.

But you just had it. Yeah. And sometimes it's my own show. Sometimes it's some fucking American dad. We're like, I'll like put a joke in a script. And then later Matt or showrunner, I'll be like, we've done this one a couple times. And I'm like, we did? It's like, yeah.

And it was point to an episode. I'd be like, yeah, that's the exact same joke. In fact, that's exactly where I got it from. I'm realizing now. Yeah. My boss, Tim, will occasionally point out when I've repitched one of my jokes. And that's fine. unless the joke you're repitching is one that has gotten on the show,

then it's a waste of everyone's time. And he's like, unfortunately, we did this. And I was like, we did? I did. Maybe my deep dark fear is true.

Maybe it's true that writers have a finite amount of jokes in them. And I'm reaching the end of my bucket. They say on Saturday Night Live for that exact reason, because they're doing so many sketches all the time that when you pitch a sketch and it doesn't go. You can't ever pitch that again. It's dead. Like, that's the last year allowed to talk about it. You can't come back the next week and be like, oh, it'd be even better for John Malkovich. Like, you can't do that. And so I wonder if it's for that reason that they're just like, you know what? We're not even going to bother with the fact that somebody's going to

pitch the same joke over and over again. Eventually, that is going to get on air. And we're going to forget that it got on air because we all were so used to the joke. And then we're going to put it on the air again. Listeners of the show know that I have a dog, Jackson. I have had him since 2012, and it is almost 2026. I don't know from math, but you can say that it's a long time. And there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. There are so many things that I've already done for him. A recent example of something is my sweet and wonderful dog Jackson is starting to go a little bit blind.

And most of the time, it's a non-factor because he just snuggles in his bed or snuggles with my wife Rye. but sometimes it reveals itself in a pretty big way when it's time for him to go outside and use the restroom and he doesn't realize that our sliding glass door is still closed and he runs straight into it coming inside, coming outside. It's an issue and we're so nervous. We're so loving and protective of our dog that we went out and got some cute little decals of these paw prints

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The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. Soren, here's a song that I have on Run Mixes and Car Wash Mixes. And it's a score. I think you know the movie. Well, now it's screen sharing. so you'll, you definitely know the movie. I have not seen high horror alcovies.

Oh. Yeah. So this will be a nice surprise for me. Yeah. We're going to listen to like kind of a lot of it. There's a payoff. Hell yeah. All right.

All right. I have to wonder about you, Dan. Weather. I mean, your music taste is so easy to fucking pinpoint. And I can tell like where it all started. I know I could see it all. I can see like the trajectory. It's clear.

have to wonder if you didn't grow up in New Jersey and your brother played an upright bass or something like that, how much different your life would be? Because piano is so integral to your taste in music. Do you think the true romance thing that you sent is wildly different from what I sent? No, but yours is so piano forward and piano. I think you start to hear just like a tinkling on a piano at the beginning of a song and you're like, Yeah. Anything that starts like piano man, you're like, I'm fucking in. I thought you were, you specifically, like I, I bailed on one of the ones that I was going to pick for this because I thought you specifically would appreciate a song that starts with chaos and then mellows out into this kind of like, this very peaceful. Oh, I got up the hill on my bike and now I'm, now it's downhill.

I should have started by saying I do like this. That would have been a nice thing for me to do. And I do enjoy this. I would try to defend myself about how you can't put my taste in a box by saying at one point, the main theme, the voice that takes over the piano is a clarinet. And that's a different instrument. Yeah. It's an instrument that I grew up playing. So I don't think that does any damage to your case about me.

I think you get so much, you just get so much. comfort in a song. Like, you feel like you're in good hands immediately if there's piano to begin with. And it's piano forward. I think that that's like, that's clear to your taste. And I'm thinking that that has to do with, you were listening to a lot of piano when your childhood growing up in your house. Because your brother's a savant.

He's like the best piano player on planet Earth. Yeah. So I think that you probably, that there's, how that happened is clear to me. But man, is it, it's, you're so easy. You're so easy to pick. Pick up. I think the, I wish I knew the name of it, but another song or score that I would drop would be from City Slickers, the movie City Slickers, which is Mark Schaman. And I didn't know it was him.

I like him a lot. He's really, he's good. He's a big, like modern Broadway guy too. But he, yeah. I'm speaking your language, Soren. Yeah. I don't, you don't say anymore. Say no more.

Well, I was in my head, I'm thinking, is it going to be like that Western? It's very Western. It's very, it's like Aaron Copeland kind of, kind of, I think it's Aaron Copeland, the famous, like, composer of like big Americana Western things. But that's just great. I think it's great to have when I'm writing.

I think it's great to have while I'm running. The thing that I worry kills it for the purpose of your quick question. And this is a. show about delivering on assignments. You specifically said, if I'm a radio DJ, can I put this on? And I don't know that like that city slickers will fit that bill. I think any station in the world, unless you're specifically listening to like Americana scores of a certain era, I think I think people would have a problem with it.

Yeah, I do like that kind of like that Western sound. I really enjoy the sound of Westerns. I can't even like it. this is the same problem I have when I'm trying to do our episode or our show. And I go in with the guys who mix it and do all the music. And they're like, what do you want for this scene? And I'm like, oh, I want to be like a Western. Like, well, what do you mean by that?

And I'm like, I think high strings, lots of strings. And I can't even like hum them a sample of it. It's just like the vibe is in my head, but I have no glossary of terms to help them. Yeah. There are so many... I can't even... I wouldn't be able to tell you. Whatever.

What a semester sounds like... Nope, that's not city slickers. It's so close. There's so close. It's so close. It's so close. It's so close. It's so close.

It's so close. It's so close. I don't actually know where they're from. And I feel like I've only experienced them from like a Simpsons or Looney Tune parody that that I don't realize that I've been humming

the score from the getaway. or The Great Escape or something. I do that. One of the songs that I would sing to my kids, when I was like sick of fucking singing songs with lyrics or like one of them was sleeping the other one wasn't, it's much easier to just hum and less distracting for the other. And I was hum this one song and I was like,

where is this even from? I would just start and it would kind of go in a direction. And I was like, it's the same song all the time. Where am I getting this from? Recently rewatched Fellowship of the Ring with my son because we just finished the book. And I was like, there it is. I'm doing the theme to Lord of the Rings.

I had forgotten that that was even the theme. It was just like one that I had. And I was like, I wonder if I made this beautiful piece of music up that sounds like fucking Enya. It's very frustrating to have a song in your head and no lyrics to Google and not have any way to know what you're talking about unless you're lucky enough to have a savant brother who knows all music. And I feel like I called my brother with a voice note at one point. And I was like, hey, do you know what this is? He was like, yeah, stop it.

That's take five by Michael Rubin. Like, thank you. It is. It's what I wanted. Thank you. Oh, man. Yeah, you need somebody with an encyclopedic knowledge like that in your life. Somebody who is your control F.

Yeah. Everybody needs a control F. And there are some things that are like, it's too embarrassing for me to think of a score and be like, it's, do you remember that one Simpson's episode where Maggie rallied the babies? to escape the nursery and they played music in the background. I think that's from something cool and I don't know what it is. And I bet like the cool thing is way more iconic than a C story in an episode of the Simpsons from 1994. But please forgive me.

I didn't see the iconic thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really have that. I know exactly what you mean. I can't. I will come up with songs in my head and I'm like, oh, fuck. It's going to take me forever to find this song again because I don't even remember.

I remember like the tone of it, but there's, I think there's a lyric in there that says jars, but I'm not even 100% sure that jars is the lyric. And then like the way that you would hunt that song out, you're just like, where is this? Where is it? And then, but in some ways, that's very beautiful because essentially that that song will come back to you in a crazy way where someone will be driving down the street with their window open and the song will be on. And you'll be like, hey, hey, you're running down the street. What's that so cool? And when you find that kind of song again, it feels like a miracle. It feels like you've been given this tremendous gift. So I don't know.

It's fine. It's fine. And also there are certain songs that I just have resigned myself to the fact that I'll never hear this song again. I don't remember what it was called. I can't convey it to anyone else. So I just get this little piece of it in my head that stays there. Yeah. Do you have more choices for your question for this?

No, I just love that song. I love that true romance theme song. It's just, if I want to listen to it, it's just true romance theme song. I think it's called Love. Let me see what they actually call it in the movie. Mine is called Omni from I Heart Huckabees. Oh, mine is called You're So Cool. You're So Cool?

Yeah. By Hans Zimmer. It's just beautiful. It's so good. Song titles are so fucking easy. Okay, I thought that too. And then I'm reading The Stand by Stephen King. And within, I don't know if you ever read it, but there's a, one of the main characters was before this whole pandemic happens in the book, he was a rock star, like on the very front edge of being a rock star where he has one hit and is about to go back into the studio and continue to recording and become a huge celebrity.

But the one hit that he's got is called Baby Can You Dig Your Man? And I was like, no, that's not a fucking song. And then occasionally throughout the episode, throughout the book, other people are kind of like humming song or they're singing the lyrics of it. And you're like, that's not a song. Stephen King, you can write books, but you have no idea what a song is. That is a pretty remarkable thing that I've noticed in books. And it's really hard, it's a hard needle to thread to come up with a good band name if you're a band. but for some reason it's impossible to come up with a good band name in a book for a band that is like

canonically good. It's really, really hard to come up with like a band. There's like, no, no, no. Trust me, Steel Dragon is, it would be a cool band. I'm like, no, it wouldn't. Not in America. Wouldn't fly here, buddy. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. It's really, really tough. Ethan Cohen did it. Ethan Cohen has that book, Gates of Eden, which is just a collection of short stories of his or ideas that didn't go anywhere. But part of it, he's talking about a band that's supposed to be a famous punk band. The band is called Faster You Fuckers. Yeah, that's a great name for a band.

They made a big deal about the band in Lost, the band that Charlie was in. And the hook in their hair. hit song was we all everybody and no you know seven seasons i watched that show and i'm just like okay so canonically they like that that is good because now i don't believe anything in this world if you fucking morons think we all everybody is is like a hit lyric you can't be trusted baby can you dick your man to his credit the the stand was written in like 1979 but come on even then you're not going to have a song called Baby Can You Dig Your Man, hit the top of the Billboard charts?

You know what's something I've been thinking about a lot lately since we're talking about song titles? What? You know that song that, can you meet me in the middle? Yeah. That song? Yeah. It's called Sister Golden Hair.

Isn't that fucking nuts? Do they say Sister Golden Hair in that song? And I don't want to take anything away from, from artists who I'm sure I write things and the title will be meaningful to me

or it'll be like a shout out to someone in my life and I don't want to rob Ars to that. But I do feel like if you write a song and everyone else

thinks it's Meet Me in the Middle Sorry, buddy it's meet me in the middle just change it make it the thing sorry as if tomorrow your live die repeat

it's not up to you You don't get to choose. This belongs to us now. It does happen. I mean, then they put in the parentheses afterwards. Like, this is the song you're thinking of. Yeah. Just like, let you know on Spotify and stuff like that.

Like, Bobo O'Reilly. Bobo O'Reilly is a terrible name for that song by the Who. Like, that song is called Teenage Wasteland. We all fucking know it's called Teenage Wasteland. We are, we're looking for it in karaoke or we're trying to find on Spotify to play someone and absolutely no one in the world is whatever arrive at Sister Golden Hair. If I'm trying to figure out is is meet me in the middle by Jackson Brown or by one of those other fucks, not in a, give me a thousand guesses and I'm not going to write Sister Golden Hair,

even though those words appear in that order in the song. Maybe they're there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, Dan. Well, do you have a question for me? I have a question, but it's going to take too long for this episode. But you think so?

So we're going to have, yeah, because I've been, I'm going to like send you. dockets about it and everything. The way that I always do, I send you reams of information for this show. You do more work for this podcast than I do. I'm always sending you dockets. That's a fair assessment of this show.

I do show to give people another little peek behind the curtain. We show up to this we do this program for you and Dan will be like, do you have anything? And I'm like, no. Should I have brought something? I will say,

I'll concede that that had been the order of things for a while. You have been, you've been throwing heaters to last like four or five weeks, though, I think. Oh. In a way that I, like over the holidays, talking with my wife, came up with like two or three ideas for episodes between the two of us. And I was like, this is great. It's so nice to have things banked. And I put them in my... little notes in my phone ready to take over.

And I, like, truly thought it was a New Year's resolution of yours or something because our first day back and you're like, I got something. And I thought, okay, well, Sorin's going to take this one. And then he'll tire himself out. And then I'll take over again next week. And then you just kept coming. Hit after hit after hit. Yeah, I think it's the realization.

Occasionally you realize in a relationship that you aren't pulling your weight. And you're like, well, you know what? I'm not going to apologize, but I'm going to start doing it. I think you pull your weight, soren. You just have less weight to pull because your bones are hollow. It's a sure thing. I feel very seen. What Dan is referencing is that I was born with bird bones.

I can do 47 pull-ups in a row because I weigh nothing. I'm surprisingly light. And people find that out occasionally, where they pick me up just as a joke or in a fight. And then it's game over for me because I don't wait. anything. I'm sure it's led to a lot of confused women in your past because

it's a somewhat sophisticated mode of flirting for a woman to say, I bet I can pick you up and then they pick you up. And when you're someone as strong looking as Sorin but as light as Sorin, it is if you're new to flirting,

it'll really throw off your game to just effortlessly lift this person like this isn't how it's supposed to go. This was supposed to be a display of my strength, not his lightness. What are you made of helium? Yeah, I think it's been a big contributor to my signature, which is jumping. Yeah. And so much of my life has been built around how high I can jump.

Some of that was just, there's nothing holding me down. Gravity has no sway on me. Did you, we're pivoting to a fatherhood podcast now. Did you teach your kids to jump? Because Instagram feeds me all of my education at this point. And they're doing a lot of parenthood, Instagram reels, little cute things. And there was one that was father teaching little girl to jump. And it was really, really charming.

And it's him like jumping and her like, she'll raise her arms up and not jump or she'll get like one foot up. And then when she finally gets it, he's so pumped. and she's so pumped. It's very charming. It's so adorable. And the cabs are like, she's going to jump forever now. All she wants to do is jump.

And I know the point of that is to, I mean, the point of it is to trick me to stare at my phone for longer and see more ads. But the spirit of the thing is like, look at this cute thing. My takeaway was, is that something else I need to. What does the child need to actually be taught? and what what will they just get from the streets like I did

or from from Looney Tunes like I did? They learn to jump by themselves. They learn to jump by themselves? Okay, great. They learn to jump. It's like the next thing. As soon as they learn to walk, even stand and walk,

they're like, I wonder if I could. They want to do it. I feel like are definitely my purview, like, oh, like the kid will not know how to read. They will need to learn how to read. They'll need to learn how to count. And like, how to draw a star without breaking the lines in that,

that fun quick way. These are things I teach him to do a cool ass. Super important. Yeah, the StussyS, all that kind of stuff. That's going to be my purview. But then I'll see an Instagram thing that it was like, baby learns to breathe for first time. And I'm like, well, hold on.

Is that until I need to. That's me too? Yes, it is shocking the number of things where you're like, oh, fuck, you don't know how to do anything. Them eating for the first time is so demoralizing because you're, Like, we're going to feed them some solid foods. We're going to give them some mashed up avocado or whatever. And you put it on their lips.

And they don't even know to, like, put the food, like, to, like, use their tongue or, like, move it back into their mouth. It all just comes pouring out the front. Like, there's no concept in their mind of what they're supposed to do with this thing. They like the taste, maybe, but they have no idea that it's supposed to then go down their throat. Like, you've got to help. It's like, oh, no, we're so far behind. I mean, there's, okay, all right. And then also I'm playing baseball with my kids a lot now, and so much of that is technical.

You got to teach him baseball, too? Learning how to throw a ball or run and catch at the same time is a really complicated. I think there's a lot of adults that don't know how to be, how to catch a ball mid stride. Hell yeah. And so it's like, oh, if you can learn this thing, it's going to translate across multiple sports for you. Please, let's just like focus on this. And as soon as they don't like a thing. or they think they're not good at it.

They're like, I'll just won't be a person who does that. And you're like, no, you have no idea how long your life is. I'm telling you right now, this is going to be valuable to you. Please, just trust me. Like, let's do this thing. And you will help you. Like learning how to roller skate for the first time when I think my brothers were teaching me. And it was like, and when it's a hard thing to teach, I think, in general.

And then when it's a kid teaching a kid, it's even harder. But even when you're saying, everything correctly, it still sounds like impossible nonsense because they're like, you're, you're stepping, so it's down, but you're also kind of falling forward. So you've got to like step and push at the, at the same time. And you do a whole lot of, or I did anyway, just like stomping and then sliding foot out and then stomping with the other one and sliding foot out. Yeah. The same way, like if you had tried to learn how to moonwalk right now from a YouTube video, they will break it down and it's like this foot is sliding backwards while this one stays put

and then you swap these things and you just look like a lunatic stomping around. There's nothing fluid to it. But then once you get roller skating or moonwalking, once you do it, it's like, oh, I get it now. And it's not like stepping and moving forward, you idiot. It's like roller skating. You should have told me from the beginning. It's this thing that now has its own word. Yeah, there's, you can only help them so far.

And it is, every sport, every activity is, it's about distribution of weight and it's about hips, like the movement of your hips. And like, that's impossible to show somebody. Because when I, I'll like, I'll try to give my kids the mechanics without overdoing it so that they're not constantly thinking about that and ruining whatever, like, ability they had before that point. Because, like, some of it has to be an eight. But getting the idea that you're shifting your weight, like having my son. or my daughter write a skateboard, where I'm like, you have to put the weight on this thing.

Because if you, I know that that feels weird because it could slide off any other direction, but your weight has to go on that foot until you put the other foot down. You can't have weight on both of them at the same time. It just doesn't work. Trying to learn or teach someone how to swing on a swing

is, it's a similar gulf of learning how to roller skate, where someone is just like, you know, you have to like pump your arms and kick your legs. And if you do that, if you're doing that, it looks really jerky. It looks really disconnected. It looks like not the thing that you see. But then if you just start like imitating what it looks like, if you're doing what someone else swinging looks like, it's like, oh, I'm doing it now.

And it's not these two, it's not these two movements. It's just like, I'm just like swinging. I'm just. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. I'm doing the thing. And so you see them when they get it. where they're doing something where they're like, yeah, they'll stick their legs out forward and then they'll push.

Like they'll lean back in the swing and you're like, yes. And they feel it. They're like, oh, I'm generating movement. I sense it. You should just tell me this. Just wait until you feel the generation of movement. Yeah. You're like, well, I don't know.

Where did you get those words from? I'm still waiting for that moment of feeling the generation of movement in my quest to learn how to golf, by the way. I'm still at this point, like, hearing all of the, the separate mechanics in my head of just like, this is what my wrist do, this is what my shoulders do, this is what my hips do, this is what my foot's do, stomp, twist, swing, none of it works. One day, I will hit a golf ball properly and my brain will click and just go, oh, why didn't you fucking tell me it's, yeah, golf, just do a golf move at the golf ball. And that's, no one told me that. golf, playing golf has made me more sympathetic

and more patient with my children when I'm teaching them to bat in baseball because batting is super hard it turns out it's like watching them your instinct

is to like not swing across your body is to like swing down a little bit or swing up like come up with a big swing and I'm like

no, no it's got to start your hips and then it's like you're coiling a spring basically and then your hips go and then your hands

follow knob is facing the pitcher for a very long time. Like trying to get them their hand, their idea of, here's how you generate the most power from something. And golf is that, to a tee. Golf is so hard because it is just like, with baseball, I remember trying to learn how to swing a baseball bat.

And I'm getting closer, but certainly when I was younger, how there's no, there are no points in, nailing some of it. Like I would be up to bat in a little league game and strike out and because I'm stepping my foot out of the batters box

or because I'm not keeping the bat level but I can't walk off the field and the coach be like, hey listen I watched you out there your eyes followed the ball the whole time. I gave you, I told you to do three things and you blew two of them but I watched you get one of them correctly

and like we're building it. No one does that kind of evaluation. But that's what I would do in baseball. I was like, I'm trying to remember three things at once. Right. And I think it's pretty good if I get one or two of those things. I didn't hit the ball. I never hit the ball.

But like. I wasn't even close. There was no danger. I kept my feet planted. Surely. Yeah. Surely. That's something.

I deserve to run a little bit like all the other kids. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also that they with golf and with my children, it breaks every once in a while. Like they have it for a little bit. And then all of a sudden something, either they grow or they tinker with one section of it and the whole thing falls apart again. And you're like, uh, and they get really panicked because they're like, and this is forever now. And you're like, no, no, no.

You're just, there's these, these tiny little mechanic changes that are going to mess everything up for a while. But it's going to be okay. You'll get hard again. Yeah. It is really funny in the middle of a game of golf to be like amazing off the T-box and be like, I'm, I think I'm good at golf now. And then by like, whole seven. like, oh shit, something is seriously wrong and I don't know how to fix it.

I think, I think, this is going to sound unorthodox. But let's do whole three again. I think we all really liked that set up. Which also doesn't work. Because when I would go visit my parents in North Carolina and we would do like

an executive course down there, I would come up to the hole that I was like, this was the one. that last year I did really well on this one. This is, I'm just going to get really this one. I'm going to keep getting good.

And then I would blow it and like, well then, well then shit. This was, this, I was going to make up a lot of ground on this hole. I think, and like to bring it back to our actual jobs,

I think this is a lot like writing. I think that that's the really scary thing about writing, is that you can do it a lot. And occasionally you're doing it a lot. doing it a lot and all of a sudden you can't do it. Like jokes, whatever it is, structure, you're just like, what the fuck happened? Like, did I lose it? Did I lose this intangible thing with no metric?

And it, and it's only because you've practiced in a weird way or your mind is now, you've created this new neural pathway that's like, this is how I think now and I can't do the other thing anymore. And it's like, it's not gone forever. But it is like you fuck it up every once in a while and you're like, I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. Yeah. And the other way they're similar is that one of the things that I've noticed about golf,

and one of the reasons that my nephew is so naturally good at it, is because he doesn't know that it's supposed to be hard, as my mom always says, is that he just gets up there and just like, it looks like I'm going to play golf, so I'm going to, like, do what golf looks like, and he does it effortlessly. and me with my practice and my lessons, I know it's supposed to be hard, and that's why I screw it up so much. If you're having writers block,

if you're really struggling doing something, it's because you know so much and you've learned so much and you're more discerning about what you're doing. And it's not that you were, it's not that you were a better writer when you were 20 and you were more productive. It's just that you didn't know any better

and you were just looser and free. and when you're writing and when you're golfing, you have to forget a little bit of what you know. You have to sort of, like, drop the expertise out of the front part of your brain and trust that it's somewhere in the back still. You have to just, because if you're thinking about everything you know when you're writing, then you're going to stop yourself because you know what a perfect sentence is supposed to look like or what a perfect joke is supposed to look like.

And you need to forget that because it's really important that, you write a sentence or write a joke and fix it later because that's what your actual skill is when you've been writing for this long. I don't know how the fix it later part translates to golf. I was feeling really good about this for a while. I think you're absolutely right. I used to write columns once a week for cracked. And at the beginning it was like, this is so hard because I'm out of practice or I'm rusty or I'm not used to writing 2,000 words at a time. and you want it to be all cohesive

and you want the jokes to be good and the jokes are a struggle. Like it takes you a long time to be like, be like, this isn't a good joke. Like let's just, I'm going to beat this. And then you think after a while

this will get way easier. And it just doesn't. Just like somehow it gets harder. The more you're writing every week, the more and more something is building up inside of you where you're like, I know what a good joke should look like now. I know what the best joke looks like,

but I can't get there. It becomes harder to lower your own standards which is an essential part of writing. It gets hard because you you're a writer, you're

not a hobbyist, you're a craftman. You know how to fix something shitty. If someone handed you, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and Jill fell down after, you would know, you would look at that and be like the bones are here, but this is a shitty nothing story.

I don't feel anything when Jack falls down. So let's make Jack an asshole so it's satisfying when he falls down. Or you would say, I don't think it's good that Jill tumbles afterwards without a reason. Make Jack her brother or her lover. Or you would say, I don't want Jill to fall down. I want Jack to fall and her to continue up the hill. You have, in three different ways, made the story better.

We would all be so happy if someone handed us a shitty thing like, like rough draft Jack and Jill because then we would know how to fix it. The unfortunate thing with being a writer is you have to give yourself the shitty thing, which means you have to like on purpose write something shitty as a first draft.

And that stops us a lot of the time because it's like no, I would save a lot of time if I just wrote this good from the beginning. Yeah. But that's not the process. You have to be okay with writing something shitty. I don't know. I think maybe I disagree with you a little bit. I think that I think that sometimes, let's say somebody gave you a piece of AI and they're like, hey, here's a script written in AI.

You'd be like, this is horseshit. This is absolute dog shit. And in looking at it, it would sort of, you're breaking your normal neural pathway brain for a little while to like understand what they're going for and trying to work within those parameters is. way, way harder and fix something like that is way, way harder than just starting over and building the proper foundation from the start. I think that's so crucial early on to get

the right foundation under the house that you're building, and then you can do all the little add-ons afterwards. But if that foundation is fucked, I can't always fix it. If I see a really bad script, I might be like, I know that this is bad. I can give you little like little

patches that might help, but this is a systemic problem. This is a systemic problem. There's nothing that I can, I don't know how to fix this in its current form. I think you do. I think even like ripping it out, ripping it down to the studs is a form of fixing it. I think if I handed you, or if AI handed you Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, the end. That is so far from anything. That's basically nothing story. But even that gives you enough that your writer brain could be like, well, they need to either get the water or not get the water. They need to get up the hill or decide they don't want to get up the hill anymore. And if you decide or you as a writer can even decide the hill is a stupid goal, they should do something else.

And also Jack and Jill are shit names. Yeah. I want to start with something else. You are still responding to the shit draft that you saw. Yeah, I guess that's true. I guess that's sort of true. It's so much more work, though, than just getting it right to first. And I think this speaks to the way you and I used to write columns, too, is that my first paragraph, I would spend the whole week on just that, my intro paragraph.

Yeah. Which, no, people don't fucking read on the list article. They're just going to the list. But I was like, I want this to be perfect. And if this is perfect, then I can build off of that. And I can always fix after that. But if this first thing is absolutely perfect, then I can do, I can move on. I remember that.

That's so, that's really bringing back memories of you sweating over an intro. and I would write a whole column and then at the end of it be like Oh yeah, intro Movies are fun, some are good, some are bad This article is about that second category of movies Number one I thought

You need like the right launch pad And if you don't have it, you're doomed But that maybe that's That's just me I do get, you know we have to edit scripts all the time And if something comes back and it's not working, I can't always identify what's not working about it. You just feel it.

Like you can hear it. And it's just that you get the sense. It's like it's not playing right. And so it takes somebody else sometimes to identify what that thing is. Joe Chandler, friend of the show, was showrunner in another show for a while. And he was getting that sense. Something was coming back.

And he was like, the jokes are funny. But when I'm watching it, it's just not working. And he couldn't. Like, he's a great. great writer. He's good at dissecting this kind of stuff and he couldn't find it. And then he was realizing that it's, they had music over some sections for the show. And when there's music under a joke, it kills the joke. When it's not like a visual joke, when it's a dialogue joke and there's music under it, it was killing it. And he was like, oh my God. And they started like watching

different shows and stuff. And it was true. Like everywhere, like all these different shows, like that was very true. Or it could be something as simple as like, you go to the wide for a joke. You don't stay in a single for a joke. Like that kind of stuff is, is wild to think about. And then you start seeing it in every other show, and you're like, oh, that was the element of the formula that I just didn't get until now.

There's, to close things out, because it's over an hour now, and it's unfortunate that we didn't even get to the good stuff until the end. But there's, I want to do two things. And one of them is in the interest of, of shaking anyone off the idea that any, piece of writing is a advice is an ironclad rule. I'm going to disagree with myself from earlier

and agree with Soren just to make sure that no one knows that everyone knows that nothing is prescriptive. It's all what works for you. And I do have very clear memory of someone writing a script for a sketch at Cracked and me taking it and we knew we wanted to do the sketch somehow based on this thing. We knew we wanted to do the sketch. And I was rewriting it, and it was so bad that I was like, don't send me the script. I don't want the script in my computer. I don't want it to touch my shit because I'm not using a single letter from it. It's going to poison my version.

And so that just goes to show that nothing is ironclad. And the other thing that I would say that I think is helpful for writers and very relevant to this conversation, is Michael Arndt who wrote Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3 and a number of other things. He, it's like one of the most valuable writing masterclasses I've ever seen and it's completely free. It's Toy Story 3, mistakes made, lessons learned. You could find it on YouTube. It's over an hour long. But it is just him going through the process of figuring out Toy Story 3.

And it's really remarkable. how you as a writer or you probably just as like a movie lover or an audience goer can see how a scene doesn't work and that's what this what this video really is

he was just like I was hired to write this thing we knew a couple of things about Toy Story and I knew that I needed to get the toys from this place to some other place so here's the scene that I wrote and there's an animatic that shows it and you can see how it didn't work

and it's so clear now because we've seen Toy Story 3 but it's also clear as he like patiently takes you through it that was like yeah I took this bad thing and you just watched this thing and I played it in a room full of people and everyone was like I don't like this because it makes Woody passive it makes him just responding to things so I redid it and now I don't like this because well now the the antagonist is in the dry seat

and we can't do that all of this is to reinforce the idea that you need to make something shitty so you can see what's wrong with it and turn it into something good and no one should be afraid to make something shitty because the guy from Toy Story 3 made like

four shitty versions of Toy Story 3 before he made this perfect one that we all love. Oh, that was it? Huh? It's Toy Story 3 mistakes made lessons learned. Okay. I got it. Great. All right.

Well, that's our show, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening to Dan and I bullshit for 40 minutes and then talk about something you'd actually like to hear for 10. Mm-hmm. If you like this podcast, you can watch it on YouTube. If you like it so much you want more, we do a biweekly version on Patreon that is shorter, but really fun. And if you subscribe to our Patreon, you can listen to that. If you like this podcast in general, that's because of Gabe Harder. Gabe Harder is the glue to this show.

He's the producer, engineer, sound editor. Chief. I'm going to say Chief in general. And if you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex. Thank you. Goodbye. Bye. There's an answer they're gonna find it

I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time new