Somewhere in the Skies - Maurice on Mars, Tim Barnes on Earth

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

On episode 270 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we welcome Tim Barnes. Barnes is a New York City based comedian, TV writer, and creator of the new Comedy Central animated series, Maurice on Mars. The series follows Maurice, a 25-year-old Black struggling artist-who happens to work minimum wage at a coffee shop on Mars. The Martian colony is supposed to be a utopia, yet old Earth problems still manage to pop up in the cafe, sometimes as fierce debates, and other times as fist fights. Each episode follows Maurice just trying to get through a day of work on a planet far away from home. The series, made in partnership with Cartuna, was written and created by Barnes (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), and features a cast including Lori Beth Danberg (All That), Clare O’Kane (Shrill), Dwayne Kennedy (How High, Martin). Today, we'll discuss the inception of the series, the social issues it touches on, and Barnes' thoughts on alien life, UFOs, and so much more! Watch Maurice on Mars at: https://bit.ly/3b3cPb4 Follow Tim Barnes on Twitter: @TimBarnes451 Help the people of Ukraine: https://bit.ly/37ELIRS Ryan is now on Cameo! Book your video today at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan’s book in paperback, ebook, or audiobook: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at: https://bit.ly/3rJpbd7 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2022 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song. Book Direct at choiceotails.com. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Brian Sprig. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Somewhere in the Skies, and we're going to be taking a bit of a departure today on the show. These are the episodes I love to do where we get to kind of stretch our muscles and talk to people in all walks of life, about UFOs, about

the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or even the future of space exploration and going to places we've never been before. For those of you who don't know, when I'm not a uphologist, a self-proclaimed term that we've coined here in the UFO world, I'm a playwright and a screenwriter, and I'm in that world of show business, and I absolutely love it. And you meet so many interesting people along the way. And you make connections you never thought you were. You would. And that's kind of what happened with our guest today. Many of you know Andrew Sanford, who has been on the podcast numerous times at this point, talking all about UFO-themed movies and stuff like that.

And he actually put me in touch with a comedian who we're going to be talking to today. And I'm super excited to have him on. We're going to talk about a new animated series that he has over at Comedy Central that just popped up and is making the rounds right now. So I'm super excited to talk to him. So let's not waste any more time. His cartoon or his animated series is called Maurice on Mars. And joining us today is the creator. And that is Tim Barnes.

Hello. Somewhere in the skies. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on. And I'm so like your life as a euphologist is so fascinating. First of all, I have to say, I'm not used to hearing the term euphologists and I love it. But you are the main character of so many science fiction shows and movies. movies, a passionate UFO, someone with UFO interest, someone who wants to discover what's

happening outside of our planet, who seeks new life, like they say in Star Trek, and who I imagine you have a lot of people in your life who don't believe a single word you say. And so that's what makes you a great protagonist. Like, you're the guy. Like, it's like I'm talking to the guy from all the sci-fi movies. Well, I really appreciate that. You know, full transparency. I am wearing an X-File shirt today. So that could not be more appropriate than today. But yeah, let's start with, I guess, how you and I first got connected. We both live here in New York City. I'm in Queens. You're in an undisclosed location because I don't want people dachshundsing you. But yeah, how did it? Of course, of course. Let's get the seven degrees of separation between you and I, if you don't mind. Yeah, so our mutual friend, Andrew Sanford, connected us. I met Andrew at a show that a mutual friend of ours had.

It was a one-man show about Star Wars that David Lawson did. And it was amazing. It was about his life growing up with, it was called The Prequels. And it was about growing up with the prequel movies coming out and how that affected his life. And Andrew was nice enough to ask me to open for that show. And Andrew was also at that show, and we've stayed in touch ever since. Actually, I interviewed the two of them in a podcast that I co-host with two other comedy writers called Yubnub that we kind of dive into all of the connective tissue of how I know Andrew and how I know David, which now leads me to you. Isn't it amazing how life works that way?

Yeah. It is, man. Again, like I can't tell you the weird connections I made through this podcast. alone. And that has to do with other comedians as well. We've had people like Reese Darby, Kumal Nangiani, Brian Husky on the show, all because of their connections through like something they love, which is the X-Files. And some of them are even, I think all of them were actually on the show at some point, which is crazy. So I'm waiting for that season 13 of the X-Files. Maybe they'll give me a call. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it is what it is. Well,

Well, the real reason we're here is when I started looking at your work, I saw this new animated series that you came out with over at Comedy Central, which is Maurice on Mars. And I'm going to read quickly the sort of quick synopsis of this. Maurice on Mars follows the struggles of Maurice Robinson, a 20-something artist who snuck onto a utopian Martian colony only to realize it's repeating the same old Earth problems, which does not surprise me one bit. It's brilliant, man. And I want to get into sort of how it came to be and everything. But let's start with who you are. Let's let the audience get to know you a little bit, if that's cool. How did you first get involved with comedy?

Do you do just writing or do you do stand-up? Yeah, what's your whole origin story, I guess? Yeah, yeah. I mean, my origin story is that I grew up in South Central L.A., and I wasn't allowed to go outside as a kid, really, like I wasn't allowed to go around the block. And it's not that I'm not that. I wanted to either.

Like, I really loved TV. I loved books. I loved creating my own universes. I love movies. And I love science fiction in particular. And so it's a swirl of things. My first true goal in life was to invent Flubber. Because when the Robin Williams Flubber movie was about to come out, you know how you would get those schoolastic book pamphlets?

I got myself the novelization of the Robin Williams version of Flubber. I read that. I went to go see the movie. I was dedicated. I was like, I want to be a mad scientist. I want to invent flubber, but I was so bad at math that I knew that that was impossible. And so then my brain was like, oh, well, clearly the thing that wants me to be a mad scientist is that these science fiction movies keep capturing my imagination, whether it be Flubber, whether it be Star Wars. And so I dove into really wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to create the stuff that I love. So then that was my huge passion. It still is. I'd love to start, you know, creating movies. I mean, this cartoon is a good step towards that in a sense. So went to Santa Barbara City College for a couple years to study film because they had a good film program there. Kind of stopped doing college, moved to, moved back home with my parents and I was working at a movie theater.

And I had this little thing where it's like I wanted to. I wanted to do comedy. And there were some people that that knew that because I was a type of guy who would kind of repeat the same casual conversational jokes in any social setting just to see if they get the same reaction, that kind of thing. And so my two friends who had a band, they asked me to open for one of their bigger shows in L.A.

And I did, and to prep for that, I started going to open mics where it was like, I would be the only comedian type of thing. It was like poetry, open mics, music open nights. and I loved that, did the show. It went pretty good. And then I kind of hatched this plan with my friend Ian Abramson, who I went to high school with,

to move to Chicago and pursue comedy. We took some classes at Second City. I started to focus a little bit more on stand-up. But parallel to that, I was still doing a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. So I was like in the stand-up world, but I was also being a video producer for different companies, being a podcast producer for different companies. And every step along the way,

I kept trying to like sort of mold those two resumes together and get to a point where my resume would start to reflect the things that I wanted to do, which is essentially creating television, creating movies, creating just like fun, interactive stories for people to want to dive into. And, you know, that's how I got here. I don't know if I can, you know, be cramped into one label. That's something I have a little bit of

struggle with personally. But I think I'm just a, you know, a comedy creator, storyteller guy who does stand up sometimes, but writes for television and knows how to edit a podcast every now and then. You know what I mean? Like, you're hired. You're hired, man. We'll talk off there. I need an editor desperately. No, well, and you know, I've come across some videos. I know you were.

on, was it the late show or the Tonight Show? Yeah, the Tonight Show. Yeah, that was, my first official TV writing job was on the reboot of all that on Nickelodeon, and that was a dream coming true because I loved all that. Nickelodeon is a part of my DNA. It's a part of, you know, the comedy that sort of birthed my sensibilities was that 90s Nickelodeon stuff. Like, Hey Arnold, Rocko's Modern Life, all that. Good. Keene and Kell, that kind of stuff. So that was fun. Then I wrote for the Tonight Show for a year and a half,

all during the pandemic, a very twilight zone sort of situation where I'm writing for this historic institution of a late night program from my apartment. And I had never met Jimmy in person. Still haven't. Never set foot in 30 rock for the job.

It was just like a very surreal thing, but learned a whole lot from that. Since it was during the, it started off in Jimmy's house when all the late night hosts were doing it in their house all the way to when it was in the studio with an audience and all that kind of thing. I feel like I wrote for five different shows. So I gained a lot of skills from that. And then most recently I wrote for a Nickelodeon sitcom, a new one called Warped, which is about a comic book store in a mall and the teenagers who worked there. And that was very fun. I wrote an episode called Plagiarize that featured Kevin Smith as a special guest.

for that was really cool. I got to meet him in person. And all the while, in the summer of 2020, I had pitched this idea to Comedy Central for this animated project called Maurice on Mars. And I've been working on that for two years. And now it's finally out. And I'm excited that people can see it. Sorry, I always feel like I'm rambling on these things. No, man, see, this is what I like. I love hearing like the journey of a creative and how they got to where they are. Because I'm the same way.

Again, people know me on this show as a UFO person, but we all, outside of these, like, big hobbies or interests we have, it's more than a hobby for me at this point. It's basically a second job. I'm not going to lie. And I love it. It's as close to being Foxmolder as I'll ever get. But I love hearing, like, what inspires you to create things and kind of that journey. And there's so many, like, tangent questions I want to ask, but I know we only have limited in my life. of time. But like, I think it's great that you got to work with Kevin Smith, even though you didn't get to step foot in 30 Rock for the other job. And at least you got to meet Kevin Smith over at Nickelodeon, which again, I know. I'm a kid of the 90s. I love Kevin Smith. I love Nickelodeon back then. So I think I think you won out in that one. I know, I know. It's like two elements of the 90s came together in a way that no one would ever expect. You know what? But yeah, he's, he's really cool. I think I gave like absolutely. zero impression on him. You know what I mean? Because I never know if I should like fanboy out or I always try to play it cool and I think a little too cool. But what was amazing is that he is so dedicated to providing joy to people.

Like the way that he just kept keeping the crew laughing throughout the day that he was on set. It was it was absolutely phenomenal. Like he is he is a true entertainer, Kevin Smith. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. A keeper.

He's like a keeper of. of the flame of nerddom it feels like. Yes, we're lucky to have him, love him or hate him, love his work or hate his work. You can just see the passion and like, yeah, he made it to that level where like he can pretty much do what he wants and he continues to do the things he loves. And you can tell that's in the world of pop culture and comic books. And it's amazing. It's amazing to see someone like him and the trajectories take.

And, you know, I'm assuming you and I are kind of the same way. Like, if we ever reach that level, which would be amazing. And I think you're, you're well on your way, my friend, you're well on your way, that you stay true to like what you love. And I think that's why he has such a big following. Yeah, definitely. He's like a, he is sort of a character in the same way that Stan Lee was. Like he's created an essence that is beyond who, who like, the true Kevin Smith actually is. It's almost like he's his own superhero, you know? Yeah.

So, yeah, it makes you wonder who's the real Kevin Smith, Kevin Smith or Kevin Smith, you know what I mean? Ooh, yeah. He's got the glasses on and who doesn't. I got you. I got you. Well, I guess I got to ask who's the real Tim Bart? Have you ever?

And I'm sure you saw this question coming on a UFO podcast. Have you ever seen a UFO or what you think was a UFO? Have you ever had a weird paranormal experience? Anything like that? I mean, it's hard to, and I'm sure you've probably talked about this on the podcast before, where like sometimes you have a dream that's a little spiritual. And it feels like there's some wiggle room in terms of like what could be an alien, what could be, you know, something that usually people think is sort of a metaphysical or religious experience.

I will say that when I was a kid, I would very often, and I grew up in L.A., so lots of airplanes, close to L.A.X., you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. I would always think I was seeing a UFO at night, driving in L.A., where there's nothing but lights on the freeway, and then you look up at the sky and you see something. And I'm sure that they were all just airplanes, but it was always just like, yeah, I think I just saw a UFO. I had that feeling very often. But no, no, I can't say that I have any specific.

visions of or memories of feeling like I had an encounter with an alien. I had one dream when I was a kid where it was like I wanted to walk downstairs in this dream to get to the fridge. And I feel like I literally saw Satan at the bottom of the staircase. God. Wow. He clearly did not want you getting that midnight snack. Wow. Can I ask what did it look like?

Is it like a prototypical sort of Satan? Or what do we have going on there? I think it was sort of prototypical. I can't remember exactly. It looked a lot like that sort of, you know, there's that one character in the canteena scene and a new hope that has the horns and looks like the devil. It's kind of like that, I think. No, thank you.

Yeah, I think the only aliens from the canteena I want to see were the fun, the canteena band, to be honest. They were fun. But I think LA is probably the best area to be an alien probing Earth because it's nothing but, you know, it's constantly something in the sky, constantly hearing airplanes landing, constantly helicopters, you know, so it's the best. It is. I spent two years in L.A. and I had the, you know, the opportunity to go out to like the Mojave and stuff like that and actually go out where there's, I can't believe I'm saying this, where there's stars. because you and I have both lived in L.A. and New York where the light pollution is insane. And we don't see a lot of, there's not a lot of UFO reports in major cities, let alone New York or L.A. But you go just a little bit outside, either the Hudson Valley here in New York or, you know, out to like Joshua Tree out in California.

And you will see something, something extraordinary, whether it's from another planet or not. That's yet to be seen. Whether it's because of the ayahuasca or that too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get to the core of this. Maurice on Mars. How did this project come to be? What kind of inspired you to tackle the issue of colonization? That's kind of the overall theme here.

Yeah. What if we get to Mars? What if humans finally make it? And that is mirroring reality right now. Your series could not come at a better time. him. We're getting news, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, about we're almost there. Yeah, we're there. Yeah, we're getting audio from it. Yeah. Mars is something that I think every, you know, specular fiction writer, every science fiction writer is obsessed with. And it feels like a symbol at this point of either a threat or an opportunity for peace. And I feel like people have that same thing with aliens and UFOs, too. It's either a symbol of like someone who's trying to, attack us, to probe us, to experiment on us, or people who are coming seeking to help us.

And so using Mars as that symbol. And I've always been a fan of Ray Bradbury who wrote a book called The Martian Chronicles, which is a series of short stories speculating on adventures on Mars. And he also did a lot of stuff that tackled social issues with science fiction as well. He has a story in The Martian Chronicles about these black people in the science. South who pitched together money to build a rocket that will take them away from all of the dangers and the horrors of America onto a rocket to Mars. And it's all about how the white people around them are reacting to this news. And then in another book of his, another collection of short stories called The Illustrated Man, there's a story called The Other Foot, where the concept

is that black people left Earth many years ago, 20 years ago or so for Mars, and they've been living on a colony there. And then 20 years later, all of a sudden, there's a lone rocket to the planet from a white man telling them, okay, we've, we've destroyed Earth. World War III brought everything to a halt. We're in extreme danger. Can we please bring some people to your to your land here. We'll do whatever you want. So there's also a long history of like dealing with social issues. I mean, of course, with science fiction, science fiction being a sort of mirror to, to what's going on in our actual world. And I had been going through this thing in the past five years or so where reading all this news about Mars, seeing that all these billionaires are

planning, you know, to privatize space, to privatize to kind of bring an element of capitalism and of our Earth experiences to other planets and to outer space, it became pretty concrete in my mind that we are going to be on Mars in about 20 years or so. And so with that being a concrete fact, whether that's a little bit off or not, my question, whenever I was like a couple drinks in with someone at a bar or something, my goal to conversation, because this is what I've been thinking about, is, okay, what will happen to religion, what will happen to culture, what happens when there are two human cultures, one that's on one planet, one that's on another,

and how will certain things translate when we know for a fact that some people are going to be on another, an entirely different planet. And so with that circulating in my mind, we fast forward to, there's a global pandemic. I'm working for the Tonight Show from my apartment. There's the murder of George Floyd, which sparks this massive, wave of protests, people having a social and racial reckoning in America and across the globe. And I'll never forget it. It feels like, I believe it was the next day after Donald Trump probably tweeted or stated that he was going to sick the National Guard on the protesters, the Black Lives Matter protesters,

that the first SpaceX, the first private rocket launched into space. And to me, that was the clearest vision of what is actually. happening. You couldn't even write it. It's just like the world is on fire. The billionaires are going to, you know, the rich people are going to space. And so around that time, Comedy Central was looking for specific people to create something in the animated space. And I kind of filtered all that stuff that had been swirling in my brain into this one concept called Maurice on Mars, which is a, like you said, it's about a struggling artist who works at a coffee shop on Earth, sneaks onto a Martian colony.

That's supposed to be a utopia. The only job he can get there is also at a coffee shop. And the idea is that everyone who, to keep this a utopia, to make this utopia work, everyone gets a mandatory fact inhibitor chip that blocks certain Earth memories about things like war, things about all kinds of conflicts so that you can keep the peace on this colony.

But since Maurice snuck on, he doesn't have that chip. And so he's literally the only person who can see how this colony is just repeating the same problems. So he's kind of the only hope for actual change and peace on this colony. It's sort of a classic, you know, tree of knowledge situation or question happening there. And it's also a parallel of an element of my own life. When I had first moved to Chicago to pursue comedy, I remember one of my first jobs was at a Dunkin' Donuts,

a horrible job. And then I always had the night shift so I couldn't pursue my dream. of doing comedy at night because I was stuck selling donuts. So it's also about that sort of tension that I think a lot of artists have where you're not allowed to pursue the real thing that drives you because you got to pay rent, you know, making lattes or whatever. So there's kind of a lot that I tried to pack into it. It's only going to be three episodes and they're all about five minutes.

But I tried to pack enough in there that hopefully gets people interested. and if they want more, maybe it can become its own show, or maybe I'll just write a series of novels with this character. Cool. Well, and that's a thing. The way you explain, you know, kind of the overall theme of it, it's very powerful. And I think it's something that deserves a bigger space to tell that story

and kind of convey the messages you're trying to get out there. And, you know, those three episodes, like you said, could literally turn into anything. It could turn into a movie, a cartoon, a novel. But it is. It's these big ideas that have been around for a long time, but it's how you convey it to an audience. And I think, again, like, we're living in an age now where kind of, I guess, adult animation. Not like in the sense of like, oh, X, X, X, X, X, but like, adult. comedy such like family guy and

stuff like that. They're a big thing now and they weren't really a thing some 20 years ago and kind of tackling those social issues. You know, love or hate something like family guy. Like there were times they did tackle some really big things. Same with South Park. I mean, that South Park was so in your face with it that it was brilliant the way they tackle those things.

So I love this idea of, again, someone going to Mars and just like you said, the same issues start to arise. Because just because you're going somewhere different doesn't mean it's going to change, I guess, the problems you had on another planet. It's an easy escape from the problems in my opinion. And I love the concept, too, that Maurice is the only one who doesn't have these memories of, or excuse me, does have these memories of Earth. And nobody else does. And, you know, we can't run away from what we've done in the past. And, you know, just because we destroyed Earth and go to another planet doesn't mean we're not going to do the same thing over and over and over again.

Oh, God, it pisses me off so much, man. And I was also... Yeah, please. I also really wanted to create the world of Mars in a way that was casual and not hyper-sci-fi. because I think sort of like a hyper-ci-fi has already been done with shows like Futurama and, you know, this sort of, and I didn't want it to be a world where, you know, aliens necessarily exist. I wanted us to still have that issue on Mars that we have on Earth of not quite knowing if there is extraterrestrial life. But there is one character who very likely is an alien, but is in hiding. And so a question is, you know, why, why is she there? Is she there to study human life? Is she there to escape something, some bigger thing that's happening with other aliens beyond Mars?

Is she from Mars? There are a lot of things to be explored there. But I didn't want to, I didn't want it to be in that sort of science fiction lane where there are just tons of weird-looking aliens everywhere. I wanted to be a very grounded science fiction exploration of humanity, basically, and also funny, and I hope people find it funny, too. Yeah. Yeah, this ain't your canteena, for sure. Well, let's rewind just a little bit, Tim, if you don't mind. Could you tell us about the creative team behind this? I've got the little cartoona there. I know these are the animators. I believe they're in Brooklyn.

And how did it come to be that you got hooked up with this company and your voice actors? Some pretty notable people, I might say. Yeah, tell us a little about the creative process, if you don't mind. Yeah, it was a bit of a journey. There are a few different options of animation companies to work with, and I chose Cartoona because they had, they've done so many different styles of animation. and as someone who's new to both writing for animation and creating something animated, I wanted to work with the company that was a little more experienced.

And so that was like a big reason why I chose them. And knowing that they could tackle a lot of different styles gave me confidence that we could figure out a specific style for Mesa on Mars. And beyond Cartoona, I was very excited to bring on this artist, Uche, who has this great webcomic called vibe check. And he's on Instagram as, I think it's UCH-O-M-A-A-A-A-A-A. And he creates these web comics that are so funny. I think he has a very unique style.

So we brought him on to design the characters. And I think you can see an element of that and the look of all the characters in Maurice on Mars. It's, yeah, and everything, it's all this very specific process for animation where we had whittled down who we wanted to reach out to for cast. And I think we ended up with a wonderful set of voice actors. We have Lori Beth Denberg from all that, of all that fame,

from the vital information for your everyday life. She's the voice of Beta, Maurice's boss. We've got this wonderful comedian and Saturday Night Live writer Clara O'Kane, who voices Maurice's co-worker Janice. We've got this great comedian, Sean White, not the snowboarder, the comedian, to voice this character who's like a combination of, he's a combination of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson. And his name is Braxton Tusk.

And so he pops up every round and then. I do not want to meet that character. We've got a Shoke Condobolu. I used to produce a podcast that he would co-host with his brother, Hari Condobolu. And he voices this sort of Martian hipster. his name is Alster and finally we have

Joe he's the regular in the coffee shop he's always reading a weird different book and he's voiced by one of the greatest comedians of all time Dwayne Kennedy Chicago comic who I think should be a household name

he's just the funniest person in the world some of the funniest lines in all three episodes are things that he just had lived while recording and I think he's just like, it's the best. He's the best. His character's amazing. And so, yeah, so with animation, it's the first thing you do is you get your cast. This was recorded in the height of the pandemic. So we sent specialized mics to each actor, recorded them all individually, one at a time. So we got

different styles of them saying different lines. And once we compiled all of that, the first thing you get is the radio, play. And that's just the audio, maybe with a few sound effects and gave some notes on that. And once that's locked, that radio play gets sent off to the animators. And before it actually starts getting animated, there is a storyboard. So a storyboard artist draws images of what each shot will look like to match the radio play. And that gets edited into what's called an animatic. So there's levels of notes and approval for each of these steps. And the animatic is just those images playing alongside the radio play. Lock that down.

You send it to the animators, you get one cut of it, since the notes, get another cut, since the notes. You say, can I get a blink here? Can they smile here? Can, you know, his hand do this, that kind of thing? Wow. And I learned a lot about just having to be super specific with my notes because there was only a certain number of rounds of notes that I could give.

and I am so blessed that Comedy Central made me completely unaware of the budget. So I'm sure that there probably were a few times that I, especially on the first episode, where it's just like I'm kind of wiggling with what's technically within the means, you know. Right. But since the first episode, especially, like I had to just be hyper-focused on being as specific as possible with my notes. knowing that there's a limited number of times that I can, can, you know, rev this machine until we get the locked episode.

And it's been just a wonderful experience because of someone who loves film, studied film. This animation is filmmaking, and it deserves to be to be treated as such. And there's so many talented people that are involved and that it takes to make something like this possible. and I already had a lot of respect going in, but I gained so much more coming out of it. And I love animation and would love to work in that space more if there's ever an opportunity. Again, I'm rambling, aren't I?

No, this is so cool. I think, you know, for me, and I hope the audience, too, like I had no idea what went into making a cartoon or an animated series. And that's, I never dawned on me. Yeah, it's kind of like a play. Like you start with a radio play Like in the old days

You just hear it You imagine When you're listening to these old radio shows You are imagining What's happening? What do these characters look like? You're sort of molding it in your head And manifesting it

And that's so cool. When you see a cartoon, you're like, oh, it all just kind of falls into place. But no, there's so many unbelievably complex steps going into it. So that's cool that you had like a learning process through it all. And now I have so much more respect on how these things are made. That's crazy. And it's, it's crazy too to think nowadays, yeah, you can mail a mic to an actor in Zimbabwe and have them,

you know, voice a character for you. And boom, like, things have changed. This pandemic has really changed the workforce in many, many different ways. Like you mentioned, your work with, with all the late night shows and whatnot. Like these were all done remotely. These were all done remotely. which is crazy to think. Like, we're kind of in this age where like, do we need all these, you know, 50-story buildings in New York City? I know. It's almost like we're cooking ourselves up to a matrix of individualized matrices. Yes, exactly, man.

Well, okay, that's cool. Well, I want to, before we move on from this series, some of those social issues, you know, in the first episode I watch, you've got the idea of colonization. and you also have this idea of drones. And I don't know, maybe I'm off the mark, but when I watch the episode, these drones, they are, quote, unquote, like a law enforcement. And the way they talk, the way they do things,

it's very reminiscent of some of the social issues we're dealing with in today's world with law enforcement. And that's kind of what I took from it, is this, you know, we live in an age where we can literally profile someone in a heartbeat, facial recognition, stuff like this, which is terrifying and scary. And I kind of saw that played out through the drone characters in the first episode. So what are some of the social issues you'll be tackling in future episodes, too?

Episode two is about sports on Mars. And episode three is about the very first recession on Mars. So when it comes to sports, the conversation is about why we attach. attach so much emotional importance to teams and what it means to own a team. And I'll just say it. Episode two is about it's about that Braxton Tusk character who's a combination of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos. He owns the only two sports teams on Mars.

And so the question arrives, what... Love, I love a monopoly if I've ever heard. Yeah, yeah. What does it mean to have a monopoly like that? What does it mean to know that that's a monopoly and not care? And what, you know, what even is a sport? So we dive into all of that. Interesting.

I really think that just like, seriously, saying anything and then putting on Mars at the end is already fun and feels like there's so much, so many ways to explore it, you know? So, you know, policing on Mars, sports on Mars, recession on Mars. I think it's just a great way to draw connections to what's happening in our own reality right now. But also, hopefully, you know, everything is universal enough that you can attach it to other things as time goes by. Yeah, and I just naturally find so much humor in, I mean, it sounds horrible. Like, the world is horrible. but I think like many comedians, it's in those tense societal issues that a comedic eye can point out certain ironies

and still make it funny but still make it something that you can think about in a way that you wouldn't have otherwise. And so that was a big goal for Mery's on Mars. And I think like this is the first project that is like something I've made on my own. and that I think expresses my comedic voice in a very concise way. So I'm just super excited that it's out and I hope that other people can connect with it. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no.

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Terms apply. Hey guys, Ryan here. The Summer in the Sky's podcast is a labor of love every week. And with that comes many different costs to keep the show running. That's where our Patreon campaign comes in. You give what you think the show is worth. There's different rewards available all the time, including shoutouts on the show, early editions of main episodes, bonus episodes and content, and very soon, monthly patron hangouts, where we sit back and chat all things UFOs. So I hope you'll consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today. To learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies.

Thank you for your support and keep looking up. Do you like stories of the strange, the weird, and the unexplained? Then we want you to check out Jim Harold's campfire. The concept is pretty simple. Jim talks to regular people about strange stuff that happens to them. And yes, that includes UFOs, along with cryptids, ghosts, and head scratchers. He doesn't exaggerate or play a lot of spooky music, kind of like I'm doing right now. The stories speak for themselves.

One's like a ghost story involving serial killer Ted Bundy or the young man who encountered an eight-legged demon. Then there's the story of an alien abduction by what could be considered a reptilian. Now, not all the stories are horrifying. Some are actually pretty heartwarming, like a visit from a past loved one or a peaceful near-death experience. Regardless, these are true and fascinating stories. told by ordinary people who've had extraordinary experiences. Tune in to Jim Harold's Campfire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to somewhere in the skies. And remember, stay spooky.

And we should mention you are in the show. You do play Maurice, right? Yeah, we didn't even mention that. I know. I do play Maurice. And I, you know, as vain as that may seem, I do think of him as someone other than myself. And like, if you look at all my emails, whenever I give notes about him, I say, can Maurice do this? Can Maurice do that? Can Marie say this? Because I have to separate him for

myself. I think it would be absolutely insane if I were, if I were, you know. But I think for, for the, the process, it was, it just made sense to make the character look like me. I, I was, up until like the very last minute about the decision, I was kind of torn about, Should I have someone else play Maurice? Should Maurice have a different look? But I think with this all, like I was saying, being so condensed in what is my actual comedic voice, it ended up making the most sense to make Maurice look like me. But he's much younger than me. He has a little more hope than I actually do.

And yeah, yeah, he's an all around, sweet guy, that Maurice. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Hey, a lot of people who listen and watch my podcast. you know, they sometimes think I'm playing a character. And to an extent, yeah, we're all performing in some way, shape, or form.

So I'd like to think of myself the same way. I come off very optimistic on the podcast. And then I unrecord, you know, push, stop. And I'm like, oh, God, the world is a horrible, scary place. But hopefully the aliens will come and save us all someday, someday. But, hey, there's our transition. There we go. Yes.

Are the aliens going to save us, Tim? Before we get to that question, what do you think? What are your personal thoughts on alien life? Do you think we've been visited? We have thousands of people claiming they've seen UFOs or they've encountered beings or even been kidnapped by them. I mean, this lore goes back centuries, decades, if not centuries at this point. But what are your personal thoughts on these bigger questions of, are we alone? and if we aren't alone, what would that mean for our planet if, you know, they did come and land here one day or we did get the Mars and find, holy crap, they've been here for, you know, billions of years.

Those are a lot of big, broad questions I just asked. I know. Yeah, what do you think about alien life? I think there definitely is alien life. I think it's foolish to think that there isn't. And so I'm naturally just always interested in that question of like, when we discover this alien life. in life, how that will affect everything. Because I think it will be a situation that's similar to the discovery that the earth isn't flat or that the, you know, the sun doesn't revolve around Earth. We revolve around the sun.

I think we have, we tend as humans to have this very selfish view of things. And I think there is some danger in how, you know, the classic, the day the earth's still situation of how we will react to the discovery. of alien life. I also don't think it'll be, oddly, after the experiences of the last few years, I have a newfound appreciation for the human ability to adapt.

I think that we would actually, the two sides of the coin for me are like, the world will be on fire, there'll be worldwide panic, you know, religions will have to shuffle to figure out how they're going to deal with this new knowledge. Do you try to convert the aliens?

do you try and hear what their religions are? But at the other end of that is that we have the ability to adapt to so many things that maybe this just won't be actually as big a deal as we think. I mean, the fact that the sort of UFO revelations from the government came out during this pandemic. Oh, God. It was like the height of just not knowing how to take any information in that that stuff started coming out.

Um, I, I, like what a, what, you know, the, the, the fantasy prone part of my brain is like, okay, what is it going to look like when the government finally admits UFOs are real. And I honestly can tell you, it wasn't in the middle of a freaking pandemic. And, um, you know, political. That's the right to do it. Maybe. Well, hey, that's a lot of people think. They're like, okay, we've thrown everything else at them. Like, if we're going to tell them. that we've known for decades, aliens exist, something crashed in New Mexico in the 40s, and we got bodies. Like, now's the time. So I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they're slowly getting there. And we got a space force now.

Like so many things happened in the last few years that were in the height of misinformation and just not knowing how to take anything in that, like, I genuinely want to know. Like maybe Donald Trump heard, had some weird information that was like, you know, maybe this is maybe we should have a space force. I don't know. I don't know what it means. So I definitely have this overall feeling that, uh, that we are preparing for something. If I were to put my conspiracy hat on, I think the government is trying to prepare us for something. I just don't know exactly what that is. Um, but maybe, you know, I, I think there's alien life, there has to be intelligent alien life, the equivalent of ourselves or higher. But, you know,

I want to talk, I want to meet, you know, I want to see an alien cow. I want to see an alien, you know, we're so obsessed with the intelligent part. Like, I feel like we don't like an alien bird or, you know, let's talk about those. Like, I'm sure, has life technically already been discovered on a microscopic level yet on Mars or anywhere else? I'm sure it has. I mean, there have been several times now where astrophysicists or astrobiologists have claimed that life has been found. That there, you know, we have the lake beds that have been found on Mars where they believe that ice and water had been there for centuries and that there was most likely life there at some point. And then you've got these little tardigrade things that are kind of just making their way through interstellar space. They can survive literally in any climate.

And those technically, those are not from here. Those are extraterrestrial. Now, I don't know how much more people need to really. I mean, they found like microbial stuff in rocks on Mars like in the 60s or 70s or something. But it's always, it's not enough, Tim. And I think that's what people, they want that Martian. They want that intelligent, sentient life. But hey, if we've discovered microbial life somewhere, those are the building blocks up to what we became on our planet.

So hopefully it's out there somewhere. But yeah, man, I'm kind of with you. You know, I've been studying UFOs my whole life since age 13. And I'm no closer to any answers of if we've been visited by something, if that's what are piloting these claimed UFOs that people have seen. But I can say, of course, I believe in alien life. It has to be. Mathematically, it has to be out there. So, yeah, a lot of questions. There's also the switcheroo theory, right?

Yeah, please, please. From Mission to Mars, remember that movie? I think Don Cheadle was in it, where the idea is that Martians left their DNA on Earth in order, and that we kind of. So we're the aliens somehow? There is this idea of panspermia, they call it. it where we were seated somewhere else in the universe and we just happened. The meteor fell on earth and that's where we came out of the ooze and it evolved into the beautiful, I guess I'm

using beautiful very liberally creatures that we are today. But yeah, you do truly have to wonder, are we alien to our own planet? That's a big profound question to ask and brings up a lot of societal questions too. Like, you know, what if we do find those aliens? Uh, how will that change the way we perceive ourselves? Um, you know, when we see a creature with a billion arms or, or legs and, or something like in the movie arrival, like something so what we never expect. Like abstract. Yeah. Yeah. And then we look at each other and like, wow, your, your skin's like two shades lighter or darker than mine. And we're like having riots and wars. And we're like having riots and wars over this kind of shit. Like, come on. Look at this. Look at this thing in the sky. Let's,

let's work together on this. Please, please. If there's one thing I agree with Ronald Reagan on, it's we have to come together and realize we're humanity, you know. So, I don't know. Big, big, big, big questions. You mentioned the government. I'd love to put that conspiracy theory hat on for just a second. We have gotten in the past few years, were that there was a secret Pentagon UFO program and that they were looking at all these military UFO videos, stuff like that. Crazy, crazy.

And then we learned that they're creating a new Pentagon UFO program. And there were just congressional hearings on UFOs. Again, dude, this is like my dreams coming true in a time where like so much is going on that no one's really paying attention. But what do you think governmental, wise if you had to put on that conspiracy theory hat why now why are they doing all this um you know we have a crisis not a crisis we have a full bone invasion and war going on in in europe right now um to deal with and then we have oh by the way these ufos our military are seeing they're not russia they're not

china they're not ours what the hell are they that's literally what our government said yeah yeah So yeah, what do you think? Why are they doing this all? And I'm trying to think of it. Yeah. If I'm trying to think of a practical reason, perhaps this is an agreement that the governments have to say, we're all spying on each other,

but we don't want each other to get in trouble because we know that's the deal. We're never going to stop spying on each other. So let's just say that we don't know who. That's the, that is. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We have to admit, like, oh, yeah, we got drones over in Russia. We got satellites. That's how we know what they're doing. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. But I, you know, I really don't, I don't know. I, I, I, my brain goes to, and, you know, you have this brain as well where you're always constructing plots. And like, if I were to make a movie or, you know, my brain goes to the idea that there is intelligent life. And the heads of our governments are always making deals with them because they know that we can't handle the level of intensity of things. So maybe there's a space Illuminati, you know, maybe there's an alien.

Nice. What do they want from us? What do they want from us? Maybe they asked us to start draining the oil out of Earth because there's something they'll get from that, you know? Maybe it turns into a nice. cookie or something once all the oil gets drained out. That's it. We've solved it. That's it right there. I love it. Well, water too. A lot of these UFOs are seen over our oceans. And a lot of people are like, huh, do they have an interest

in our water? Is that a source of like propulsion for them? Or do they need it on their planet? So they're taking it? Like, we don't know. But they, you're right. There are these connections you can make and I agree. I do live in that world of like creating movie plots and and I think it's actually it hinders my my perception of the real world a lot because you know with this whole Russia thing first started two days in I'm like world's ending like the bombs going off this is it yeah and it it took my my partner to sit me down slap me and be like right this isn't a movie like there's so many moving parts to these things and like get out of that molder-esque brain space for just a minute and realize like the world's much bigger and far more complex than we can truly think.

So I agree with you. Have you seen the show Brain Dead? I'm obsessed with the show. You have to watch it. Do you have Paramount Plus? I do. Yes. I got it just to watch the Tonys. There's the theater nerd. This show is going to blow your mind. They only had one season and it aired on CBS of all of all networks during the the 2016 election cycle. Okay. And so

it is about alien insects who land on Earth in Washington, D.C. And they go into the brains of people in the Senate and things like that.

Half of their brain oozes out of their ears. And so they're in control of all of American politics. And like they, they are the reason for the intensification of all of American politics. And it is the most surreal show that you can imagine coming on the CBS network. And I just, I love it so much. It was so good. And the And of course, it probably got canceled, right? Yeah, it got canceled. But the creators of that are great. Like, they have that show evil. And, um, yeah, like, I'm just obsessed with everything that they, that they make. Um, so that my brain goes to those sorts of things, too sometimes. Not that I'm, I'm a reptile, everyone's a reptile kind of like reptile reptilian secret society, government kind of guy.

But, um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, there's a time and a place for those conversations. We won't go there today, but yeah. But I think there's a human need to, to, even if there isn't, to seek this concept of higher beings and higher powers interrupting. And whether or not aliens are real, I think that there could just be an element of that natural need that we have to have some sort of explanation for certain odd phenomenon and things like that. Cool, cool. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, I want to touch on, there's been a few recent news stories, Tim, that have broke. And I'd love to get your thoughts on these as kind of an outsider to the world of UFOs. These stories are mainstream, and they're out there like never before.

We're getting stories in CNN, Fox, insert mainstream media outlet here, of UFOs. And it's become like a part of everyday conversation. And I've got a couple of videos. I'd love to play if you're willing to stick around. Yeah. And your thoughts on these. Let me pull up the first one here. This is a story about NASA.

And, you know, we've got this thing in the Pentagon starting where they're going to look at UFOs over military installations, like hundreds of reports of these things. But then we've got NASA, who you presumably would think would be the ones to look for UFOs, getting in the game now. So I'm going to go ahead and play that for you now. Okay. UFO news. There have been unexplained sightings of flying objects in the sky for decades. The Pentagon recently formed a new office to study UFO reports, and now it's NASA's turn. The space agency launching a new team to investigate who or what may be behind the unexplained sightings.

Here's NBC's Gotti Schwartz. The effort to uncover the mystery behind those UFO sightings is about to get some help from some serious space probes. NASA announcing it'll fly. form a new and independent team to investigate unidentified aerial phenomenon or UAPs, but instead of focusing on classified encounters with military jets, the agency plans to examine data they've already possibly captured and may even include recordings taken by civilians. Just last month, this video shot on an iPhone during an air show in Miami appears to show something shooting up out of the water with people swimming nearby. And I saw it when I was like, what in the, like no way.

This review, like this possible sighting captured in Utah by a film crew in 2016. I don't think it's a bird. I don't think it's a bug. I think it's exactly what a UFO stands for an identified black object. Once the investigative team officially launches in the fall, they're hoping to cross-reference things like video with other data, like satellite images or low-orbid observations made by the space agency. This is what we do at now. So this is not our first rodeo. We discover and explore many, many things in ways that, frankly, at the beginning, look almost like a miracle. And then as we go forward, looks like something new we never would have guessed. It all comes just weeks after Congress held its first public UFO hearing in half a century,

following hundreds of unexplainable sightings by the military in restricted airspace. And while most of those are expected to remain classified, including at least 11 near misses with military jets, more everyday Americans, Affled by what they've seen are now hoping NASA could soon provide more public answers. Do you have enough data to say what these could be? At this moment in time, we do not have enough data to really conclude. Does that mean that it's not extraterrestrial life? I'm a scientist.

And if somebody asks me, is this extraterrestrial life? Frankly, at this moment in time, the simple answer is the right one, which is I don't know. So that, what are your initial thoughts on that? NASA is finally getting it. I love that last part. I'm a scientist. So the most objective answer I can give is I don't know, which I love it. But yeah, NASA is going to be looking at like civilian UFO sightings, which I think is cool. Like the government's just interested in like UFOs over military installations and like things, whatever, like breaching national security issues. But now we have NASA a government funded program who's going to be like, yeah, yo, you. You see a UFO, send us the video. We'll try to find an explanation for it. I don't know. What do you make of this?

NASA getting involved. I don't know what to make of it. You would think it was something in that more the military or something or something a little more, something that would at least give the illusion of we think that all UFOs are something to do with, you know, probes from other countries or some sort of spy gear. But the NASA of it all definitely makes you first think that this is something from outer space. Good point. I think that's kind of the big thing here is, you know, militarily, they're looking at things, you know, just that their pilots have seen flying in the air.

But like space, breaking that barrier between sky and space is a whole different story. So I'm hoping we're going to get like more stuff from maybe there's videos that were taken from the International Space Station or stuff like that. Yeah. I want to know more about this department and who's working there and what, you know, when they get a case and they go back to the office. And that's. Can you imagine? Would you do at work today? Oh, just looked at UFOs all day.

One of them seemed to be, you know, sucking up tons of water from the oceans. Yeah. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. One almost just, well, that video said too, like the Pentagon, 11 near misses, which is terrifying. That like pilots have almost or even like civilian airplanes have almost hit these UFOs, no matter what they are. Whether they're like an interstellar craft or like a drone. Like people could potentially get hurt from these things.

So yeah, they probably should figure out what the hell they are in my opinion. Now, is there also a theory that that these UFOs, foes could be, can they be us from the future? Is that not a theory? Dude, okay. I think you are a psychic because that is our next video. You are the king of transitions. I'm going to go ahead and play our next video. That is what we call synchronicity, ladies and gentlemen. Let me pull this one up. And then we will definitely have something to talk about on the other side here. A lot of stuff in the papers over the last couple of weeks.

The American government, basically, is going public on these sightings of so-called UFOs, unidentified flying objects, by marine pilots. And the more marine pilots who report these strange sightings of objects that seem to move at incredible speed around them, change directions suddenly, no power source visible. The more reports come in, the less inhibited they are reporting them. And there have been a lot of sightings. They're taking very seriously. They're taking it very seriously. What do you make of it?

Absolutely. I think it's interesting that the US government has made this public. The reporters out, there have been over a hundred incidents. They're calling them unexplained aerial phenomena, UAP. There's been a hearing in Congress. Of course, there weren't many answers to the questions because that's the whole point about the phenomena is still very much unexplained. But I think it's a good thing that there are discussions being had and this information is being made available. But what's your private theory? You must have one. Do you think these are things from realms beyond? Do you think they're, something to do with development of secret weapons by China, Russia? I don't think it's the development of any state nation or non-state organization, not at all. I think when you see the video footage, it is quite remarkable. It does seem extraordinary as to what these machines are capable of. There is no explanation for it.

There are several theories about could it be something that has been developed in a classified program, but then why would this information be made public? Absolutely. If that were the case. Is it some sort of uncrewed sort of robotic type objects from another civilization? Is it something I heard one theory where a pilot was talking about potentially in the future they've developed time travel? Is it something that's come back from the future? So there are all these theories going around about what they could be, but ultimately we do not know.

ding, ding, ding. So, again, I can't believe you brought that up. This Tim Peek, one of our, whoops, hold on, sorry. There we go. There we go, man. Exactly what we were talking about. Us from the future, this is a interesting concept. And to hear someone like Tim Peek, one of our leading astronauts on the International Space Station, bring that up, was really interesting.

Because a lot of people just think, oh, yeah, it's ET. or, you know, yeah, it's something from another planet. But there's all these other theories out there. Could they be interdimensional? Could they be us from the future? So what do you think? Us from the future, why? Why do you think they would be coming back to visit us if that is the case?

I would almost argue that more interesting than it being us from the future. If it's us from the future, it's probably a tourist thing. or, you know, like you get a tourist experience of the past or just trying to capture certain things. And the question is, at all those spaces that you do, that people document these unidentifiedifying objects, what is so interesting about these spaces that you're seeing them? If they're coming from the future, I'm not necessarily sure.

But if they're coming from the past, if somehow the technology, this technology existed with beyond our knowledge in the past, and let's say you're Russia or something, and you're trying to get a glimpse of the future so that you can control certain things in the moment. I don't know. For me, that's the more interesting potential

for time travel with unidentified flying objects. Yeah, how do you feel about it? Have you talked about it on the show before? Yeah, so there's this really interesting case back in 1980. This happened in Suffolk, England. there were two NATO bases, joint military bases, one owned by England, one owned by the U.S. And forgive the ambulance here in Queens, if you can hear it. Yeah, so two joint military bases back during the Cold War.

So we were over there ready, if anything, got really heated and whatnot. And this UFO was tracked on radar and then went into this forest, which was actually, it was called Rendlesham Forest. It was between the bases. A UFO landed in the forest. So then you had all these military personnel, some like 70 plus officers that went out and actually investigated what the hell is this thing that just landed between our military bases. And when they got out there, man, and there's been a handful or so of the officers who have come forward since this happened and said straight up UFO. Like it was like triangular in shape.

It had weird lights. It was sort of just hovering there. And some of them, including the deputy base commander at the time, he went out there with a tape recorder and was recording what was happening in real time. And he said that this UFO that was hovering, it pierced a beam through the bunkers on the base

and like affected the nuclear ordinance that was being housed there at the time, which is insane. And this is available. You can listen to the audio recordings of this. I might even put it in right here if people want to listen to it. It's a little startling to hear this thing happening back in 1980 and these officers being like, holy shit, like what is going on? Like, is the world about to end? Are these aliens?

Is this Russia? Like, what is happening? So one of these guys says that he touched the craft. It got so low to the ground. He touched it. And immediately some weird code was like downloaded into his brain. I'm not kidding you. This guy has said that when he touched the craft, something went into his head and told him,

we are from the future. We're here to tell you to stop messing around with these nukes. Like this is going to be really bad in the future. Hence why we're coming back and messing with them so that, you know, you're like, stop doing this. And yeah, so pretty crazy. Again, this is one man's claim. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, there is a few books out right now by a professor named Michael Masters who has coined this term.

I think it's temporal terrestrials where it's not so much extraterrestrial from another planet, but it's us from the future. And he goes into sort of the evolution of, um, like, Like you said, they could be tourists or they could be coming back to try to change things of like quantum leap in some respects. Dr. Samuel Beckett coming back. I don't know. But maybe it's, yeah, yeah. You know how on Google Maps, when they're trying to get those images of exactly what your neighborhood looks like so that you can do that POV thing, that 360 thing? Maybe it's just that.

Maybe it's, this is a future Google tech coming back. that you can get a 360 image of every decade on earth. So you go back in time and then now you have a downloadable... You can basically watch the past because there's a 3D rendering of it that we've gone back in time to get. So you can look at your grandfather meet your grandmother. And you can look at... That's a little scary. I'm not going to mind.

Of all the things, that's the scariest that you... I want to go back and watch like the Lincoln assassination. I can't even imagine the things people would want to go back in the past at our present expense. I know, yeah, yeah. Pornhub version is not there. Yeah. What'd you say? The Pornhub ramifications of that are I'm afraid of...

Yep, yep. Hey, hey, we had to go there. Tim, man, this has been so refreshing, man, to kind of have this conversation with you. It's unlike most of our episodes where we just cover like specific UFO cases and stuff like that. But before I let you go, I'd love to just get an idea from you of why you've made Maurice on Mars. What do you want the audience to really take away from the themes that you tried to convey in this? And yeah, what do you hope people take away from watching the animated series? I'm hoping that they find the characters endearing and that they want to learn more about them.

And ultimately, I just want this to be a fun show that makes people think a little bit in a speculative way about our future and how, you know, the future of what's happening on Maurice on Mars is potentially, a result of what happens because of the decisions we make now. And Maurice on Mars intentionally takes place in an unspecific future. There's no timestamp on when Maurice on Mars takes place. And beyond that, I think just

what excites me about some of the characters is that they just explore different questions like Beta, Maurice's boss, is a self-hating robot who doesn't, you know, want to be identified as a robot and as an entrepreneur. And so there's questions about, you know, when is sentience and how do we define robot sentience from human sentience? All very under the surface of this comedic cartoon. Right, right. That's only five-minute episodes.

But, and even just like, you know, if there were to be more, we definitely would explore a lot about, alien life, what it would mean to coexist with aliens, things like that. So ultimately, I just hope that if there are people who enjoy science fiction and enjoy science fiction cartoons and enjoy a certain casual, low-key comedy, you know, that this stands out to you and that you might want more, that's all I can say. I'm the type of guy who can keep rambling until you start playing the orchestra. The theme music. Cue the Oscar speech music.

No, man. I, again, like, I know we talked about it at the top of the show, but I think what science fiction and comedy do best is put that mirror back on us. And I think with Maurice on Mars, you've hit a very subtle way of looking at ourselves and asking these questions. And that's very important, especially in today's world. And I think that's what comedy does best, you know. It kind of brings the light out of the dark, whereas drama brings the dark into the light.

I think you've really touched on some powerful things in the limited time you have in an animated series. So I can't wait to see the future of the series where it goes from there. So, yeah, of course, the final most important question, where can we find Maurice on Mars? And where can we find everything you're up to, man? Give us the shameless place. Maurice on Mars, the best place you can find it is on Comedy Central's animated YouTube channel. So just go on to YouTube, type in the words of Maurice on Mars. If you like it, one like or share or a positive review will go a long way.

And for me, on Twitter, I'm at Tim Barnes 4-51. That's the temperature at which jokes burn. You can also find more stuff about me at Tim Barnescom. I just got that. I love it. Yeah, yeah. I'm always tweeting jokes, writing for different shows, and I hope, you know, you follow me and get some joy out of the stuff that I do. You know what I mean?

Just, all right, don't we all love a shameless plug? That was it. That was it. I could tell you're a humble guy. No, I loved it, man. I can't wait to check out your other work from here. We'll have links to the YouTube Comedy Central YouTube channel and the show notes and links to your stuff. But I got to thank you for taking a chance and coming on a UFO podcast.

I'm sure. Thank you. I'm sure when I reached out, you were like, oh, what am I getting myself in me? But I hope it was a fun conversation. Yeah. And I hope that the regular listeners are not totally disappointed by my lack of intense knowledge. I want to learn more. I want to believe.

And yes, continue. And you're such a great host. if there's ever a reason that you would want me back on, or if I ever get abducted by aliens, you're the first person I'm calling. Thanks, man. I've honored on both fronts. No, we have a very supportive audience here at Somewhere in the sky.

So, guys, go check out the series, please, over on YouTube. And, yeah, yeah, it really made me look in the mirror and ask some pretty tough questions, which I think is all you can ask in today's work. and especially in these different art forms. So Tim, once again, thank you for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Thank you for having me. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions,

in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.