The Ben Mulroney Show - Wildfire smoke – our "sincere" apology to America and Ben debates Superman

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

- Brent Chittendon / Co-host of True North Nerds podcast If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, July 11th. And to everybody in the country who is dealing with the repercussions and the impact of wildfires specifically in the province of Manitoba, I say, my heart goes out to you. I wish you safety. I wish you peace. And I wish you to get to the end of this ordeal

that seems to grip us each and every year in this country. Most recently, the news out of Alberta, rather Manitoba is that it is now, Wab Kanu, the premier has declared a second province-wide state of emergency. These wildfires have burnt through more than a million hectares of forest in that province, prompting the premier to declare the second emergency.

The province has said that, we really want to underscore just how serious this wildfire season is, said the premier. We need access to more facilities to be able to shelter this large number of Manitobans who are being forced to flee their homes. And I cannot imagine anything worse than being uprooted from the place that you call home. As I've said, for many reasons, whether it be a home invasion or whether it be a wildfire, that is your safe space.

It is the definition of a safe space. There's some nonsense safe spaces out there. This is the real one. This is the one that you've invested in. This is the one that you've poured love into. This is the one where you've formed memories. And beyond that front door is a world that you can't control.

And the fact that you've been taken out of that, my heart goes out to you. And I genuinely from the bottom of my heart, wish every single Manitoban peace and safety and getting to the other side of this as quickly as possible when the wildfires subside. My hope is your home is there to welcome you back. But again, this is all too commonplace these days. And it's not just in Canada, we saw what happened

in the palisades in Los Angeles, where Canadians stepped up and helped as best they could. We've seen that happen in Australia, we've seen wildfires rage everywhere is not specific to Canada. But right now, it does feel like it is our burden to carry. That being said, apparently our wildfire issue is a bit of a pesky nuisance to some people south of the border. And a number of members of Congress from Wisconsin and Minnesota

have heard from their constituents that their ability to enjoy the summer months has been negatively affected by these wildfires, that they decided that this rose to the level of writing a letter to the Canadian ambassador to Washington, Ambassador Kristen Hillman. And it says, among other things, our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created.

In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend outdoor recreating, enjoying time with family and creating new memories. But this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things. Canada has been a friendly neighbor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you for your time and consideration.

We look forward to your response. Listen, you know that social media doesn't suffer fools for your time and consideration. We look forward to your response. Listen, you know that social media doesn't suffer fools and it's even worse when some of the fools on social media don't suffer fools and you get a double fool. But in this case, there's only one fool to go around and it's the people who wrote the letter. There are so many reactions and not just from Canadians. they're very few I can actually read on the radio without incurring a fine.

That's how offended some people are. But here's a couple that I can read. You're smoking something all right, crack. It's crack. And another one, you live in a literal dumpster fire, go screw yourself. Like these are not an accurate representation of what people are actually saying and feeling

because I can't mine that treasure trove because the people are so angry that they're using language that is not suitable for radio. Here's Premier Wab Kanu and his feeling on this letter. Well, I've shaken the hands of American firefighters in Northern Manitoba who are helping us out. And I would challenge these ambulance chasers in the U.S. Congress to go and do the same

and to hear how much the American firefighting heroes who are here, how much they loved our province. And this is what turns people off from politics is when you got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we've lost lives in our province. There's no place for that in politics. If you can't get likes on Instagram from your own skills as a politician, don't bother trying to throw under people, other people under the bus during a state of emergency. I am not a man of Tobin. I do not listen to everything. Wab

canoe says, but everything I hear him say, I like he's almost note perfect every time he steps in front of a microphone. I can't say more good things about the guy. He's a leader today that I'm so glad is a national leader in Canada. And what he said right there was note perfect. But look, social media turns the temperature up, so do wildfires. And so the Ben Mulroney show,

in an attempt to turn the temperature down a little bit. I want to offer up a sincere mea culpa to our friends in the US Congress. And so on that note, please allow me to read some heartfelt words directly from the Ben Mulroney show. Dear Tom Tiffany, Tiff, Michelle Fishbach, Fish, Brad Finster, Finstad, and your other buddies in Congress, we're sorry that the apocalypse smells so bad. Really, from the bottom of our singed Canadian hearts. We apologize for the smoky skies drifting south and interfering with your tractor pulls and hot dog eating

contests in beautiful Wisconsin and Minnesota. We'll be sure to pass your concerns along to Mother Nature since none of this crap was planned. And while you're all clutching your pearls over a little haze in the air, just a gentle reminder, Canada is trying to keep millions of hectares of forest from going up in flames. Thousands of people have been evacuated and our firefighters are running on Tim Hortons and courage. But hey, since you're so concerned,

you might recall that Canada actually sent water bombers to help with your wildfires. That's right. While we were busy battling our own infernos, we still managed to lend you our aircraft, lend you our pilots, our people. You're welcome. So if you could maybe return the favor instead of writing letters of complaint about your spoiled summer, you know, that would be helpful. And if you're drinking Kool-Aid in Congress, perhaps watch who does the mixing

because one of your colleagues believes forest fires are caused by Jewish space lasers. Anyway, sincerely, thank you. Thank you for your patience while we try to keep our entire country from catching on fire again. And when wildfire season kicks off in the United States, don't worry, Canadians will be there, probably apologizing, and most definitely sending help. Again, warmest regards, pun intended,

Canada. And if you can, you can put some fire emojis under this. So, yes. Well, listen, it's heartfelt. It really is. This is a, these are, I don't know if these Congress people are, if they have some agenda here, if they're trying to plant a seed that they can then use later on. I don't know.

This was so obtuse. This was so tone deaf that it warrants, it begs criticism. It begs ridicule. It begs derision. It is insulting. It lacks empathy. It lacks understanding of science and weather and climate.

And so I don't know how else to deal with this story it lacks understanding of science and weather and climate. And so I don't know how else to deal with this story, except with humor. And I hope that that came across. All right. Don't go anywhere because when we come back from the break, Mike Jolet, my producer tries yet again to stump me. Uh, he has failed us far in his mission to, to, to, for me to not be able to determine what is BS and what is real because the next segment is, is it BS or is it real?

Don't go anywhere, that's next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Oh my goodness, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. All right, the date is important today. We are Friday, July 11th, which means Superman. James Gunn's Superman hits theaters. By all accounts, it is going to make a ton of money at the box office. It has a massive positive review rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I've now seen it not once, but twice. I've got a lot to say, but listen, fresh off of my victory on is this BS or is this real, why not take another stab at a debate about Superman, who the best actor was, who the best Superman has been in popular culture. And I can't debate myself, so we brought on the cohost of True North Nerds,

Brent Chittenden. Brent, welcome to the show. Happy Superman Day. Thank you for having me. Happy Superman Day to you as well. Well, I gotta ask you, have you seen this new incarnation yet? No, I'm going to be going on Sunday night, just a family thing that I had scheduled months ago came up and my co

hosts and I like to go together that way we're not spoiling each other. So we all go at the same time. So I'm looking forward to seeing it though. Everything I've seen about it is promising. Yes, I've given a sort of a cursory review on the show, which is that the first 10 or 15 minutes are clunky to the point of raising some alarms in me. I was a little worried. I said, if this is what the rest of the movie's like,

I'm not on board. And almost immediately something happens and you are just, everything works. And one of the reasons I think is that James Gunn wasn't worried about health. He didn't want to bring us along on the world building that he needed to do. So he just dropped us into the deep end

and that required a little bit of discomfort off the top to level set. So that's where we stand there. But so the question is, we've had so many different interpretations for so many different reasons on so many different platforms by so many different actors. The goals every time were different.

And these superheroes in a lot of ways are a reflection back of the society that we're in at the time. And so sometimes he's darker, sometimes he's jokier. But that won't stop us right here on the show from debating who is the Superman of all Superman in which actor is worthy of being at the top of that pantheon as well. So I'm going to throw it over to you. And why don't you give me sort

of your high your top level assessment, we've got a number of actors Christopher Reeve, Henry Cavill, Tyler Hocklin, Brendan Routh, George Reeves, Dean Kane, Tom Welling, and of course, now David Corn sweat. For me, there's there's no debate. It's Christopher Reeve is the Superman. Yeah, he is the the standard bearer. He is the bar. He is it's gotten to the point where every actor who plays Superman has to judge what he's doing against what Christopher Reap did,

whether it's trying to emulate what he did or going away from what he did. He is the bar to the point where a lot of comic book writers, that's what they go to for when they're getting inspiration for how they're going to write the characters, his mannerisms and stuff like that. A lot of artists use his portrayal as like their standard as well. I completely agree. In a lot of ways, Christopher Reeve's performance and portrayal was Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr. did what he did.

In other words, this performance was so iconic and so successful that it quite literally opened the door to the film industry seeing there was a place in film for superheroes. And so he did that, Robert Downey Jr. did that for the feasibility of the MCU moving forward. So without him, you don't have the rest of it, which is why I think he's the most important actor, and that's the most important character of the MCU moving forward. So without him, you don't have the rest of it,

which is why I think he's the most important actor and that's the most important character in the MCU. But writ large superhero movies, you do not have a conversation about making a movie like Iron Man or building out a universe if he is not as successful and iconic as he is in that character. And not for nothing, Brent, I'd love your take on this.

I mean, it's something that's been said many times before, but some of our viewers and listeners may not know this. What makes Superman different is Superman is the person. Clark Kent is his secret identity versus the person being Bruce Wayne and the character that he plays is Batman. Yeah, it's interesting because those two characters are created basically like a year and something apart from one another and become publicated.

And the the idea is is Superman came from afar and loves where he has come from, where he is raised and is trying to encapsulate that as like a human. He is not quite a human being and he knows that, but he loves like his parents and he loves where he's from and encapsulates that all into like the guy that you know next door. He can lift buildings and throw things into outer space. Yeah.

Whereas Batman is Batman. Like the minute you can argue the minute his parents die is when Bruce Wayne dies. But yeah, yeah. That's when he goes back. And Brent, I love what you just said about the identity of Superman slash Clark Kent, because if that's what resonates with you, then this new movie will resonate with you. I'm not gonna give you any more than that.

And I'll say one other thing. There are certain people out there who are trying to imprint today's politics on that movie. I sat there during the second showing that I watched, trying to see that side of the argument. I didn't see it. I did not see a political statement being made in this movie. I'm sure you could argument, I didn't see it. I did not see a political statement being made in this movie.

I'm sure you could see it if you wanna see it. I did not see it. I didn't have to work hard to not see it. But Christopher Reeve was so good because with his physicality, and I think it's a testament to the film itself, they allowed both sides of Superman and Clark Kent, that sort of the goofy Clark Kent,

to be played almost on an equal footing. And you could see the duality that this one man had to hold and had to be able to play. Other guys don't really get that. For some reason, when you look at Henry Cavill in Man of Steel, when you look at Brandon Routh in Superman Returns, they weren't able to play both sides

as balanced as we saw with Christopher Reeve. Henry Cavill, he's such a big, giant guy. And when he wore a flannel shirt, still big, giant guy and didn't play goofy at all. And while Brandon Routh, I thought probably had the chops to do it. The filmmaker did not give him the the the room to do it. That's a that's always been my argument. I have thought Brandon Routh is the Superman who didn't get his due. I

agree. I agree. He was in a movie that Kevin Smith famously said something along the lines of he's in a Superman movie where Superman's biggest foe is an island and the island nearly wins. Yeah. It was a terrible movie. It was a terrible movie. And he was the only person who was properly cast in it. Everything about it was bad. And one of the things I didn't know about it was as a way to recoup their money on all of these failed starts on other Superman movies, they took all of that pre-production cost and threw it onto the budget of this movie,

which meant this movie had to make even more money on the back end. And so it was destined to fail and I was so very disappointed. Now, I very much loved Man of Steel as a film. I get that it wasn't a pure Superman movie, but I loved everything about the movie. I liked that they tried something different. A Man of Steel is one of those movies that I liked initially when it came out. And to Henry

Cavill's credit, again, I think it's a case of the material not supporting the actor enough. Superman versus Batman is where he loses that. Yeah, I was supposed to. That was the movie I was waiting for my whole life and it disappointed. It's they bring out doomsday and kill them off in the second movie. Like they introduce them in the first one, we don't have enough time to care about them. And then they murder them outright. Yeah, have enough time to care about them, and then they murder them outright. Yeah. Like a bad CGI from Lord of the Rings Reject. Yeah, I agree.

Well, listen, we don't have a lot of time left, but I do want to say, I want to spend just a minute on this movie that's out in theaters now. If you liked the optimism, if you liked the bright color, if you liked the comic book feel and this sense of wonderment that came from the first movie. Don't forget in the first movie, the tagline was this summer, you'll believe a man can fly.

And this one, the tagline is look up. Both of them harken to the same feeling of that childlike wonder. And they both, in my opinion, capture it. And Brent, I would be very curious and I hope you'll let me know what you think of this movie because I suspect in this short conversation, that you and I are of the same mind. I think you're gonna like it a

lot. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it. Because that's what Superman should be is powerful, hopeful. I've heard little tidbits of like some of the the Silver Age stuff that they're bringing into it, which is definitely an interesting choice, but one that I love a lot. Brent Chittenden from Co-host of True North Nerds, please come back and nerd out with me another time. Maybe we do it for Fantastic Four. All the best, sir. Thank you next time.