The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 224, E.T. Storybook with Lydia Bugg

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

The DOGGZZONE welcomes back Lydia Bugg! Hey 80's kids! We all loved Thriller, we all adored E.T.! Would you believe the spirit of these two titans of 1980's pop culture merged into one hateful sack of fetid audio swill so repugnant that it had to be litigated out of its very existence?? Grab a shovel and join the DOGGZZONE as we excavate the remains of the E.T. audio book read by everyone's favorite megastar hermit pervert, Michael Jackson, (for kids!) ...And we won't stop till we say you've had enough.

1-900-HOT-DAUGHT 1-900-HOT-DAUGHT Our podcast slams with maximum hype Say hot dog podcast, word Yeah When you taste that nitrate power You're in the dog zone for an hour Come on

You know the number 1-900 1-900-HOT-DAUGHT Welcome to the Talk Zone 9000, the official podcast of the final comedy website, 1900hotdog.com. We are supported by listeners like you and only listeners like you, so go to patreon.com slash 1900hotdog to subscribe. It's the best value in all of media. As little as $5 a month gets you daily articles

written by world-class hilarity technicians and madness journalists. We also have Discord events, bonus podcasts, and a commercial! Thank you for listening. I'm TV Sean Baby from the internet and my partner is slotted to become a Vroom Vroom Buns calendar hunk as soon as his congressional bill to add a 13th a month is ratified. He's author, writer, novelist Robert Brockway. Aw man, the hunktober is a month, and I will get it recognized. Here's a Brockway fact. As a young child, I too sat on Michael Jackson's lap and bounced around for a while.

But I'm not rich today because I'm not a fucking narc. No follow-up questions. That's my favorite Brockway fact. Our guest is the Monday columnist at 1900hotdog, where she has rejected the slogan, Life is less shitty when you start your week with Liddy. She's author, writer, novelist, Liddy a bug. I think I'm going to unreject that.

Yeah, you like it? It's grown on you? I like it. Yeah. Now that I thought about it and really stewed on it, I think that's we're going to put that at the top of my column now. We're going to put it on a button, sell it as a button. There we go. It could be a great button. A great button. Liddy exclusive merch. Well, welcome back.

Before we get started on our magical podcast, a friendship in magic, do you have anything to plug? What are you working on? I'm still working on a book. You won't hear about it for like four to five years. Then I'll finish it. But you can check me out on TikTok where about once a month I make a TikTok

that makes me $200. And I am like, this is actually kind of fun. And then a bunch of people in the comments are like really mean to me. I'm like, okay, I'll go back next month. The flip side of the internet. Yup, it's at Unolidia. It's worth it for like the two to $300 a month

I make on TikTok. Go there and say something nice maybe. Lots of people are nice too, yeah. I was gonna say it doesn't take a ton of negativity to be like, this place fucking sucks! Because those negative people, they know how to get you. They'll find your weakness. Eventually. They really do.

It's that one comment that just makes you be like, okay, never again, goodbye. You're right, I do look like shit from my left side. Fuck, now I'll think about that for the rest of my life. You can go there and be mean to the people who are mean to Litty. Like, you guys are asking, like, something real tough, which is to be nice to other people. Nobody wants to do that. Go there and be shitty to the people being shitty to Litty. There's another button!

That's a button. That's a button. It's not even, like, being mean. It's mainly people being stupid that makes you mad. Well, they'll, like, disagree with something that I absolutely did not say. And I'll be like, where are you even coming from? Like, what planet are you on? This is not in this video at all. They'll just be like, I just don't like the part where she said that aliens run the government or whatever. And I'll be like, what?

Yeah, that shit hatches spiders in your brain. And then you'll think about it like two days later, like, what did I say that made that maniac think that? And then you're like, oh, you'll eventually intellectualize it. Like, oh, it's just a maniac. You can't fuck, and then it'll pop back up again. Am I part of the government's agenda? Yeah, TikTok. Uh, Brockway, what are you working on?

For right now? Fucking nothing. Uh, it's great. You finally got done with your research on the flashbang grenade maniac? Yeah, well, that was a while ago. That was a couple of weeks ago. I'm done with that. I've vowed to stop researching crime, so this podcast is probably not going to turn out great for me. I did just finish

my book, so I got like a pretty blank slate for a little bit before I think the book comes out January 2026. And I'm not going to tell you what it is because I don't have to start promoting it yet. Oh, that's a good call. But we know some stuff because we're in it. Yeah, because you're in it. And there's a lot of a lot of hot dog Easter eggs in that book. And I will I just I know I'm going to have to talk about it nonstop for like at least nine months. So I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Like I realize and understand

this is why I'm never going to succeed as an author. But like, my tolerance for that is is real low and I'm not going to do it unless until the manuscript is like, like the cover, it's done and all the layout's done. And you can put it all up on a preorder link. Then I'll be like, fucking fine. I'll start a goddamn TikTok. But until that day, fuck you. I'm not telling you what it's called.

I'm going to be so nice to you on that TikTok. All my words are gonna make you feel so good. Just be utterly vicious to the people that are being mean to me. That's all I ask. I've been collecting old ventriloquist books. I'm not sure what for yet. I kind of just like to hear my bookshelves giggle at night, but I know I'll write about them.

But I think I like to try to spread out the nightmares a little. Like, you don't want to do more than 1.5 popular clown articles a year. And I pretty recently did one about a Ronald McDonald comic where he kidnapped a group of children on a flying hamburger. That's the part I didn't modify. That happened in the comic. And then I made it crazy. But like, well, I had him trap him within an infinite layer of suffering or something.

Yeah, I do shit like that. But it sounds normal when I describe it, but it was pretty weird. So anyway, that's what's keeping me from really tackling these ancient ventriloquist books. Do you ever worry you'll find out that you're not going to write about it, and then you'll just have all those books for no reason? That's been my life for probably 30 years, yeah.

I have just been. I worry about it all the time. Stacks of unexplainable books. Like, what are all these books about black dolls? I'm like, oh, god, yeah, I thought that might be funny, but it is not. There's nothing worse than the cursed artifact that you can't even write about.

And you're like, well, now I just have that. Now I'm just the guy that has that. Yeah, this is just a nightmare. Speaking of, I guess, normally on this show, we talk about bizarre nonsense or baller-y, misfits. It, whatever you want to call them, but today I want to talk about something that won't sound that cursed at first. In fact, it combines two of the greatest and most popular things that have ever been, Michael Jackson and the movie E.T. Lydie, I know you probably missed Michael in his prime being much younger than me, but how do you feel about Michael Jackson?

Yeah, mine and Michael Jackson was the, dangling the kid over the balcony. Yeah. You know? So prime Michael then. I can't, if that's his prime, yeah. Here's how much I love Michael Jackson. When he dangled the baby over the balcony, I was like, that's not so bad.

I thought, I'll let him have this one. I'll let him just endanger a baby. Cause I don't know, I dangle my baby a lot. And I know in my heart how hard a baby tries to escape a dangle. Like I've experienced this. Like you get a baby up in the air and it's like a chinchilla. It will just shoot for the floor as hard as it can.

I wouldn't have done that, is what I'm saying, as someone who has an owner of two babies. I wouldn't dangle one over the balcony. But that's how much I love Michaels when I saw him do that. I'm like, yeah, okay. He's an eccentric. He has trained for years. He was trained in the art of dance. Surely that translates to baby wrangling? Yeah, like strong fingers for baby grips. Great button. But the baby was trying to get away. Like you saw Michael like knew going into this very quickly, oh no, this baby's trying

to kill itself. But okay, so that's good. Brockway, we haven't really talked about Michael Jackson. You had to have been at least someone of a Michael fan. Oh yeah, when I was a kid for sure. I mean, I was very young child for his super prime, you know, thriller era, but I'm only a couple of years younger than you. Like his goodwill lasted firmly into early 90s

when I was buying albums and stuff. Yeah, I'm probably a super fan. Like I've dressed like him at almost 20 costume parties. There are literally hundreds of people from my past that would probably remember me as the Michael Jackson guy. This is a real story. I was once offered a professional gig

as a Michael Jackson impersonator. It was by a karaoke DJ at a wedding reception, but it was a hard cash offer. And I did count it as a fulfillment of my childhood dream of becoming a Michael Jackson impersonator. I was like, check. I didn't dig it. But off the table counting.

Six foot three muscular white man. It would have been a weird one. Plus it was at a bat mitzvah that he wanted me to do this show, which I thought it would have been a very strange surprise for this young girl. Yeah, that whole vibe would be Yeah, extremely weird. Hey, that's good. That's now we've sort of established our

relationship with Michael Jackson. If either of you listened to the 1982 ET storybook, narrated by Michael Jackson, absolutely not. Why would I have listened? What a ridiculous question. I love that. That's perfect. Because it is fucking crazy. So anyway, I'm just going to describe it to you just listen interrupt anytime you want, any questions.

This was very big at the time, as you might imagine. This is right when Thriller came out. In fact, it was exactly when Thriller came out, like in the same room. It used all the same producers, audio mixers, both covers used the same photographer. So this is the most talent-infused children audiobook of all time. It's a sequel to Thriller. This is the sequel to Thriller. Yes. The follow-up smash hit.

This is the four credited names on the front are Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg, and John Williams. That's like when you buy the ET storybook. Those are the names you read. To give you context, the audio book of Timecop was read by star of MacGyver and Timecop, Bruce McGill, and also not produced by Quincy Jones.

Just saying, this is a lot of talent to throw. And when I say they came out at the same time as Thriller, it wasn't supposed to. Epic Records, they didn't want anyone to get confused. So they said, you can't put out the ET book before Thriller drops. And also ET book had this original song on the storybook. And they said, you're not allowed to release it as a single

You don't know this song. It's called someone in the dark. It's terrible It sounds like something a priest would sing to ET's feet. It is just a saccharine pile of shit It's up there if you know the song from free willy 2 where Michael's like have you seen my childhood? It's like that. It will turn your penis inside out listening to it. But anyway, these are small concessions, right? To get the biggest star on the planet. MC Records was like, sure, you let us borrow King of Pop Michael Jackson. And the biggest movie release. ET was absolutely massive. Right. And so it was an easy agreement. Like, we won't release a single and we'll wait for Thriller to drop before we put it into stores. So guess what they did?

Not that. Same day? Fucking both things. Absolutely. But like the idea that people would mistake Thriller for Michael Jackson's E.T. song is kind of crazy. I agree. I don't know all of the details on this. I looked up all the lawsuit information.

I feel like there might've been good intentions as if like, hey, we're spending all this marketing for Thriller, I don't want you to try to piggyback on that shit, or we don't want people to think this garbage song is part of the Thriller album. Like there's a, I could see that part. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's also kind of universal marketing.

Like in my book contracts, there's stuff in there about like, you are not allowed to write another book like this and release it within a window of your other book, because like, there's only so much money and goodwill your fans have, and they're going to say, well, I'm gonna buy one of these, I'm not gonna buy Thriller and the ET book, so the choice is easy. It's the ET book. Duh.

This means there's a non-zero amount of people who made that decision. Yeah. It did lead to a $2 million lawsuit, and they were suing for more than money. They sued to make it so Michael Jackson could never work with him again, and they had to recall all the projects he ever did with him. I have the exact wording. It enjoins MCA from employing or engaging Jackson to record his performances in any manner and from reproducing, selling, distributing, marketing, advertising, soliciting for sale or otherwise dealing in any phonograph record albums, single records, tapes, cassettes, discs, or other recordings containing any performance by Jackson. Like, that's just lawyer talk for, for we're scorching the earth.

Yeah. They were like pissed at Michael Jackson personally over this. Banishment. Yes. Absolute banishment. They are banishing him from all media. I like how they tried to list all media and then they eventually gave up. Said, look, whatever you have it recorded on, you can't do it.

Like, also the president of Epic Records told Michael Jackson's lawyer, he said, tell Michael he should stop kissing the monster. Because when you see Michael Jackson and ET together in the pictures, it does look like they're dating. And so- I like that he called him the monster too. He called him the monster, not does look like they're dating. I like that he called him the monster too. He called him the monster, not like the lovable childhood alien creatures.

The mask ups. Whatever the fucking... E.T. Oh my God, I looked it up and it looks like those JCPenney, like, glam shots that married couples would get. Yeah. It looks exactly like that. It looks like a married couple whose child just died.

So E.T., he's right, he's a monster. He's a filthy, moist tortoise Volvo from the stars. I'm just reading what it says in my notes. All completely accurate. Well, we should also say E.T. is the boy. Like E.T.'s behind, and he's protecting Michael Jackson. Like Michael Jackson is tiny and needs to be nurtured. Yeah, reaching up and holding E.T.'s hand. They are so weird.

If you've never seen those pictures, those very, very, very famous pictures, they're crazy. Please Google them. Yeah. So they had to pull the E.T. album and Someone in the Dark singles from the shelves. They'd printed over a million copies of the ET storybook. So this was a pretty big endeavor. They settled for a $500,000 plus whatever it costs to throw millions of albums in the trash. And some of that money they came up with by not paying Michael Jackson or Quincy Jones. So this was a very cursed production

right off the bat. I can't believe there are two mass media landfills of ET-related merchandise. It's like you would think the story is famous about the ET game for Atari, right? Where they just had to pull all the copies back and they buried them in a mass grave of their own hubris. And it's amazing to me that it was right next to this other mass grave of hubris based on ET. Yeah, when you said that, I was like, oh, is this the ET mass grave? Like, no, there's another one.

There's two. The second mass grave, yes. This isn't a side, but this isn't even the first time a singer got sued by ET for weird reasons. Do you know the, do you know the Neil Diamond song Heartlight? Yeah, I know the song. It goes like, okay, it goes, turn on your heart light. Yeah.

It's super fancy. You know that. So if you listen to that song, it's the plot to ET. He wrote that with Burke Baccarat and his wife, Carol Baer Seger, after the three of them watched ET, and presumably fucked. It's like they were so moved by the movie, they just wrote an unauthorized number one song about it. I had no idea that was about ET.

Yeah, that's an ET song. And I guess the people who made ET figured they had to do something. So they sued Neil Diamond for $25,000, which is only a dick move. Like that's what Neil Diamond spends on the hotel suite the night before the hearing. Like just a petty, meaningless gesture.

But anyway. When you said they had to do something, I assumed like, oh, they're gonna work it into an ET piece of related media? No. Are gonna make a... No, sue him for it. Yeah, their hearts are too black for that. How goddamn dare you?

So that's just another fun and secretly fascinating ET lawsuit fact. Well, these are really beautiful lyrics about ET. It's kind of like when there's a religious song and it could be about Jesus or your boyfriend. Is it maybe an adaptation of those pictures of Michael Jackson and ET? Yeah, they saw those pictures and they were so moved they made this pretty romantic song about ET. I'm so in love with that monster, with that uncircumcised penis monster. I have to, I, Neil Diamond, have to write a song about that.

The way I picture it, they're in the middle of their threesome, and then Neil Diamond pops up from just some glamorous hole and screams, guys, we gotta fucking write a song about ET. Immediately. Yeah, and that's why it's so sexually charged. Takes off the ET mask. Yeah, maybe he popped up in the mask, let's write a song about me. And they're like,

we've already written a song about you, Neil. We love you, baby. And he's like, no, no, no, no, me ET. The character I'm inhabiting right now. Don't break role playing during sex. I've told you about this. I'm worried about this train of thought. We should probably get back to the Michael Jackson story.

I wanna play some of the album for you, and I'm glad you haven't heard it because it might blow your mind. It's fucked up. Michael Jackson just pants the entire thing like he's being tickled and croaking his last words at the same time. It's so goddamn weird, but it's also good. It's hard to explain. Here's how it starts. The hatch opened and the crew came out. Odd little beings, moving quietly through the leaves.

Gathering, gathering. A blackberry bush, a rose, a tiny cedar tree. When suddenly, man came. when suddenly man came. One of the little beings was cut off, trapped in the trees, separated from his ship. He ran as fast as his short legs would carry him. His chest glowing red, a signal to the crew that he needed help. Turn on your hard light! His ship was ahead, glowing through the branches. He stumbled towards it, but the hatch slowly rising, then soared away, a comet swallowed by the night.

It's just, it's amazing, right? It sounds like you're being haunted by Janet Jackson. Who's credited with the honking sound? My pug, my old pugs. Rest in peace. It sounds exactly like an upset dog, like a dog that's running too fast. With the jangling and the honking, that's exactly what it used to sound like when I fed them dinner.

That's a pug-eating dinner. That's how they did that full-on work. Those aren't clips from the movie. Michael Jackson said, I'll only record it if it's in a room with 50 pugs. But yeah, he's like putting his entire soul into this, but in that like impish Michael Jackson way where he thinks we think he's a precocious nine-year-old. He's really hard to explain, I think. You also see that there's a lot of like indulgent clips

from the movie put in there. So if you haven't seen the movie, this is a lot of nonsense. Yeah, why would you listen to this instead of just watching the movie? I 100% agree. I guess there is that great single someone in the dark I wonder if you could turn off the sound on ET play this instead

Match them up and it's just like Michael Jackson annoying you like Pink Floyd and ET and ET Okay. Except it's ET and ET. I wonder if ET matches up to ET. No, no, no, the Michael Jackson one. The one where he is dying while orgasming the whole time. This is the clip where ET and Elliot meet for the first time. It's also kind of a long clip, but it's an audio format,

so you really need to allow a lot of time for description. Vivid description. There's not just 40 seconds of senseless goat noises. Here I'll play it. But those funny feet of his chipped him up in a garbage can. Elliot heard it and came running out. He chased whatever it was behind the house. But he wasn't sure that he really wanted to catch up. Suddenly it stopped and turned. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHA AXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Next day. Next, cut to next day after... Again, if you hadn't seen the movie, there's no way to read that scene just purely as a listener,

other than Elliot suddenly ate a cat. Like, we pause this lovely alien chase scene, and Elliot ate an entire cat whole, as E.T. sat there aghast. It sounded much spookier to me than the movie actually was. Like it's kind of, I don't know, it sounded scary. And it reminded me that my husband thought ET was a horror movie for like half his life because when he was a little kid,

he saw it like too young and couldn't get past this scene. And I always thought, that wasn't that spooky. But listening to it, I was like, did Elliot just eat a whole cat? Like, that's pretty spooky. The whole album is kind of like that. Like, it's a little spooky. It's 28 minutes long and about 23 minutes of it is just long clips of noise from the movie. That, um, like it just sort of sounds like something from the stars being terrified or being eaten. It's 28 minutes long?

28 minutes long. The audio book? Yes. They leave out a lot of plot. They keep it in the part where Elliot gets drunk in school. Good. Thank god. They keep in the part where he dies.

But we're halfway through it already. Oh my god. That's a lot of ET gone. I feel like they didn't do ET justice, Michael Jackson. I agree completely. Well, the writer is not a superstar. I looked up the writer and he has his website. He brags about an award I haven't heard of

that he got in like 1975 and this. He's like, I did this and this. And I'm like, oh, dude. And one of the things they had to bury, they literally, one of the things the company had to dig a big hole in the desert and bury it there for all time so that it would never be spoken of again. Yeah, maybe the lawsuit was just an excuse. They heard this and they were like, we gotta go ahead and dig the hole. We'll find a reason to put it in.

I have another clip of when ET finally eats A Reese's Pieces. Everyone remembers that classic scene. And the marketing campaign. This is really something. ET crawled from the bushes. We all know Curiosity killed the cat. But he was too old to change now. Yeah, what? He put the little round object in his mouth

Hey guys real quick. This is Jamie here I'm gonna cut out the minute and a half of chewing for anybody out there like me who has misophonia The sound will make you punch your mom in the face, so I'm just gonna get rid of it You're welcome and on with the show it was delicious the tastiest thing he'd ever eaten in the whole universe It's so fucking okay. Why eaten in the whole universe. That's so fucking... Okay, why leave in the half minute of chewing? At 28 credits? And Lily's right like, what? Yes, so much, but it's chewing.

A meaningful percent of the book is Brice's chewing. Mm-hmm. That's an artistic choice. That must mean something. While he mad not delicious. But Lydia is right that it's such a weird light about curiosity killing the cat, but he's too old to change now because I did not know ET was like know how this goes Yeah, the vibe is way different when he's a senior citizen Doing all this. I don't like it. I don't like it anymore It made me think about how truly fucked it was for ET to just find something on the floor of an alien planet I'd be like, you know what I'm gonna do with this I'm gonna put this in my mouth and eat it like that could have been arsenic ET

Or whatever your version of arsenic is on your planet. You shouldn't just eat random... He didn't even have little goggles or something that identified stuff for him or pulled them if it was poisonous or anything. He's just shoving whatever in his mouth. That makes sense for as a toddler, but if he's a senior citizen,

did he maybe have dementia? It changes the vibe is all I'm saying. Because I guess in the context of the movie he is a scientist. Like he's supposed to be here collecting samples to take back. But now we find out he's not a stupid baby. Because again, when I grew up I just assumed he was the dumbest member of this team of space scientists. Or like one of their kids or something. I thought he was kind of like their snarf, like he was... Yeah.

Like a non-verbal idiot mascot. Like a scientist doesn't discover like a new fungus in the woods and go, what's this? I'm going to lick it and find out. Yeah, yum, yum, yum. Eh, they used to. We lost a lot of scientists to that. Yeah, cool scientists too. Yeah. Cool scientists, too. Yeah. And, Lydia, you're also right about there being a horror

element to this. Because your husband, when he experienced this as a child, got really scared. I think most kids got scared of ET the first time they saw it. And Michael Jackson really explores that element of horror in this next clip. Like, listen to this and tell me it doesn't sound like ET is gonna suck the liquid remains out of Elliot. I don't mean that in a sex way.

ET was just as scared as Elliot. But he had to hang in there. After all, he had to eat. He had to live. So he followed Elliot with the candy into the house and up the stairs. Just creepy as shit. I don't like knowing E.T.'s perspective. Yeah, the-

I don't want to know. The buddy had to eat. It doesn't help the story at all. That's- the implication is very clear. He had to eat the child. Sentience behind the being's eyes. But E.T. had to eat. At the very least, his innocence, if not his actual spleen. I have another clip. This turned into another whole thing. I'll play the clip and then we'll talk about it. But ET was gone, where no one could follow.

The starfire was out, and he was as cold as the moon. Creature's pressure is bottoming out. His complexes are slowing and widening. ET was moving. A light opened up in ET's heart, growing brighter and brighter. From orange to yellow to white. ET from home. The little guy was all worked up and Elliot had to shut him up so no one would know he was alive.

Okay, so to me at this point... He's fully manic-depressive. Yes, he's really going through something. But at this point in the audio recording, that just sounds normal, right? That's just how Michael Jackson reads storybooks. Michael Jackson's biographer tells that story like it's this legendary event of the singer breaking down and crying because he was just now learning that ET died. So this was the first take.

Yes, first take. Never seen the... So she wrote about like Quincy Jones was there like, no, we gotta leave it in. I know Michael's breaking down emotionally, but like, we gotta make the bold choice to leave the authentic weeping in the final recording rather than do a second take. As if like Michael Jackson hasn't seen ET 50 times at this point. Like he didn't have six gallons of actual ET urine stored at Neverland Ranch. Come on! Yeah, there's no way you cuddle with ET like that for the picture and you don't know who this man is.

Right. What if he didn't, though? What if they were just like, Hey, Michael, check this fucking thing out. He's like, Oh my God, I love it. I love it so much. Do you want to take some glamour shots with me? Like, we're going to the prom?

And he's like, oh my god, he dies? Like, I just met him. Oh my god, there's a movie? There's a story about this guy? I thought it was just a really cool puppet. It is. It's a sad story. I don't mean the story Michael Jackson's reading. The idea that they tried to make this a reality. It's not as sad. There's a much sadder Jackson family video. This was after Michael Jackson died and his sister Latoya went to an ape prison to tell his chimpanzee he died. I, it did not remember her.

I have a clip. I told Lydia I wasn't gonna play this clip, but I'm hit and play. Bubbles, hi, do you remember me? Bubbles? He might be spitting. I think he is. Open. Bubbles. Bubbles. All right be spitting. I think he is.

Bubbles? Bubbles? Alright, now there's one for each of you guys. Bubbles, turn around. Can I see you? Can I see you? Latoya! He used to react to my name when Michael called me. Latoya! He used to also... Bubbles, here. Here. I think he kind of remembers me, guys. I think he's being shy with it. If you don't mind, I just want to say a couple of words to Bubbles a lot.

That's great. You can go around there. Just, yep, stay back. Bubbles. Yes. Hi, Bubbles. I haven't seen you in ages, Bubbles. Do you remember me?

Bubbles? Do you remember me bubbles? Do you remember me bubbles you're looking like you do do you bubbles Stop gaslighting this chimp. He doesn't know you let's oil. He doesn't know you! I don't know this lady! I know. I think you remember me, don't you? Yes, you do. Bubbles. Bubbles. You remember me, don't you? Look at you.

You remember me, don't you, Bubbles? Bubbles? Bubbles? Tell him, Latoya. Bubbles. I miss you, Bubbles. If I remember the video, I think he has his back turned to her at this point. Like, he is not facing- he's not- like, I am not going to acknowledge this.

Yep, it is appointed ignoring. He is deliberately telling her, I'm not looking at you. There was a mime named Bubbles in Portland that I used to pass all the time. And this is noticeably less sad if you pretend that she's talking to that mime the whole time. Like, just trying to do his act and she's like, oh bubbles, bubbles? And he's like, I'm in a box.

I'm doing bubbles. No, this is the wind. I'm not trying to pull you closer. I was promised a magical podcast of friendship and magic and that's not what I'm getting. And you know what sucks is that's not even the saddest part of this podcast because I accidentally copied these seven zany gags for punsify.com's

200 plus Michael Jackson jokes. Oh, a rival pun robot. There's a rival pun robot. Okay, all right. I was told these only happened on Broadway's episodes. The Punsteria ones. I don't know what happened. Like he says, an accident.

I did not mean to do this. Now as an experiment, I am very interested to know if they could possibly be worse. It's like, is there a knockoff of Ponsteria? Or is Ponsteria the knockoff? Which one's the Hydrox? We're about to find out. All right. Michael Jackson's favorite part of the joke? The punch line. Do they think he's a boxer? He likes-

That's the only explanation, right? If all these are boxer puns, this is gonna be so weird. Is there maybe there's an amateur boxer named Michael Jackson and the robot crawled through and it's like it's weird to me that you asked for a bunch of puns about this amateur boxer, but sure. I think you both get this one. Why did the Scarecrow love Michael Jackson? Okay, I need to know what the what the thing at the end is, though, because he was outstanding in his field with Bubbles the Chimp. Just take out with Bubbles the Chimp. That's you got it. Oh, it's got the same. It's got the exact same failure.

Yeah, exact same failure. Just taking them right off the Snapple Jar lids. Yep. Throw them. This one's great. Uh, what did Michael Jackson say to the tomato? Bubbles? Do you know me, Bubbles? Bubbles?

You, you seem, you seem well read. Oh, that's nice. Oh no, it's don't stop till you get enough. Tomato part was irrelevant and you're a racist for thinking it would be. He was just having a conversation with the tomato and then he referenced his song. It has nothing to do with the tomato, sir. You'll do better with this one. What did Michael Jackson say when he lost his hat?

Hi Michael Jackson's hat, please come back. I'm Michael Jackson. That's really close. Is it beat it? Beat it I didn't want that hat anyway. It doesn't know who Michael Jackson is. It just knows like his name. Michael Jackson said to his hat, don't stop till you get enough. I was close. You were close.

I was close. It knows some song titles. It knows some Michael Jackson. Okay. How does Michael Jackson like his coffee? Don't stop till you get enough. It's a great guess with a little moonwalk of cream. Oh my God.

What do you think? I need to know what that robot thinks a moonwalk is. I think this is the Hydrox. Yeah, maybe. If I'm having the Hydrox. Yeah, maybe. If I'm having to vote. Cut. It's close. It's really giving like a robot

that's like glitching in a video game with a moonwalk of cream. Cream. What? Cream. Cream. I mean, he did black and white. You could do, all right, not my mind, go, go. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to...

He could like it with a... He sang a song about a pet rat. He might like it with a nice pet rat in it. What's Michael Jackson's favorite song to sing in the shower? Thriller. Good guess. It's so close that it's gonna drive me fucking crazy. If I don't get it. I'm not gonna get it. What is it?

Don't stop till you get enough. Damn it. Okay. I was like. It does one song. Oh shit. Don't stop. All right.

Don't stop till you get enough. The last one, I promise it's not exactly that. What did Michael Jackson say to his friend who was sad? Don't stop till you get enough happiness. Holy shit. Yeah, I think you're almost gonna say, he's lying. It's don't stop till you get enough. It was don't stop till you get enough.

Smiles. Ah! I get a point. I know that's not a game, but I get a point. You get a point. You've learned the machine too well. I think it's negative. I think it I get a point. You get a point. You've learned the machine too well. I think it's negative. I think it's psychic damage to you that you did good.

Yeah. It's gonna be, when I get older, I'm gonna be an award somewhere for people with AI pun poisoning. Back to what we were talking about. There was a lot of press about this recording. None of the reporting at the time mentioned Michael being blindsided by E.T.'s death

during the audio book recording four months after the movie came out. He did say a lot of crazy shit though. He and ET were on the cover of Ebony Magazine in December of 1982. The exact picture that we've been making fun of is just on the cover of Ebony Magazine. He said, and I quote,

ever since I was a little boy, I've dreamed about being able to fly. And I still dream about it all the time. Look at the story. He's in a strange place and wants to be accepted, which is a situation that I've found myself in many times while traveling from city to city all over the world. He's most comfortable with children,

and I have a great love for kids. He gives love and wants love in return, which is me! And he has that superpower which lets him lift off and fly whenever he wants to get away from things on Earth, and I can identify with that. He and I are alike in many ways. He can identify with flying? He can. He's been on a plane. So there you have it. ET loves kids and has a flying machine just like Michael Jackson. It's like a mirror. It's like a monster in the mirror.

There's no way that interviewer asked, how are you and ET alike? The interviewer was like, I did not, I don't know what to do with any of that information, sir. I asked how you got hired to do this album. I just want, I think you got a lot of problems. Yeah. No, they interviewed him like he's a regular human person. They asked him if he'd ever had sex. And he said his response to that was that he talks to Brooke Shields a lot on the phone and they moved right past that. Yeah they really asked him that and so they're like... Do you think ET has ever had sex? How old was he at this point? He was an adult man right?

Absolutely he's he's been the most famous man on earth for probably five years. Okay. Then they asked if there's any black ladies in his life, because it is Ebony Magazine, and Michael Jackson said, yeah, but you wouldn't take me seriously. I want to marry Diana Ross. And they're like, okay, buddy, you're kidding, right? She's so old. And then Michael's like, no, I want to put it in Diana Ross. Put that in your fucking magazine.

So anyway, this insane train wreck we've been talking about won a Grammy Award. What? About a year after he recorded it, Michael won it for best children's album. Also, that night he won seven more. He won eight Grammys that year. He was nominated for 13. One of his acceptance speeches was just holding up Emanuel Lewis and saying, How you doing, ladies? I'm holding Emanuel Lewis.

You can look it up. That's fucking 90% precise. So he won all the other Grammys for Thriller, right? Yes, this was the only Grammy. He got one Grammy for the ET storybook and then the rest for Thriller. What utter madness that awards show would be where you're sitting there hearing, oh, it's Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson for Thriller. Let's have a hand everybody. Oh, you won't believe this, best song, best song, it's Thriller. Best album. It's Thriller. Best children's book. Somehow it's Michael

Jackson again. Children's authors like what the fuck is happening? This is shenanigans. This is some bullshit. I do have the ending of the storybook. I think you'll find Michael Jackson is very restrained in it. Like he's gone through the emotional trauma of watching ET die. He's just kind of numb. He had to, like, sit down and have a Gatorade before they did the ending, because he was so upset about ET's death. He's like, I gotta fucking process this.

So all he does is he just describes ET leaving our planet, like he does in the movie. He does not, and this is not a trick, he does not start screaming incoherent shit about rainbows. I'm just gonna play the clip. Would they ever see him again? Where would he be? I'll be right here. The hatch closed. The ship lifted off.

Up into the sky. Trailing a rainbow rainbow ET's rainbow What a moving ending. I was expecting a Shatner-esque RAINBOOOOOO! LOOK FOR IT! I don't remember E.T. very well, I guess I was not a huge fan. I saw it as a kid of course, but never really revisited it. Does it end with his ship trailing a rainbow? I don't think so.

Is it like a rainbow drive? It does now. Yeah. And if it did, it's not maybe worth five minutes of your audiobook to scream about it. Look for it! Look for the rainbow! You know what it means! It means ET's come for you! And me! He's come to rescue me from the hell of being Michael Jackson! I hope ET did rescue him from the hell of being Michael Jackson. Like, especially at this point in the timeline, just pluck him right out and take him.

That would have been the move. That would have been a beautiful love story. I've seen the photos. Then we never would have got Earthsong. Everyone remembers the classic Earthsong. I don't know a single Michael Jackson song that isn't Thriller. That was part of the fun game being so hard for me.

You don't know Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. Is that real? I've never heard Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. I've probably heard that song six times a month. No, I don't know. Maybe I've heard it and I don't know Don't Stop Till You Get Enough? Is that real? I've probably heard that song six times a month. No, I don't know. Maybe I've heard it and I don't know that it's him or like at the grocery store or something. I think that's 60% of the words already. It goes, keep on, what the fun, don't stop, don't stop till you get enough. That's the whole song. Nothing. And it rules. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, no, I've heard that. I've heard that for sure. Don't stop till you get enough. We're just fucking around at this point.

I don't even know if this is still like the main podcast. Imagine being got at the height of not just your fame, but anybody's fame. I don't think there is anybody as famous as Michael Jackson right when Thriller came out. I don't think there has been since, and I'm not sure there ever will be.

The market is just not the same. Like, we don't... Maybe Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift shifts economies. Yeah, Michael Jackson with Taylor though. Taylor Swift is existing in a media ecosystem with 800 billion things more than Michael Jackson had to compete with.

She could be on her own merits more famous, but there's plenty of people that like, I've never intentionally heard a Taylor Smith song. I'm sure I've heard it in a commercial or whatever. I don't, I couldn't tell you which songs are hers. Everybody on earth heard Michael Jackson's thriller, like every single part of it, non-stop, all the time, just based on like how narrow media bandwidth was back then. He is the peak of all human fame and like the concurrent project that he did with the peak of all human fame and artistry was sexually pant-screaming about a little dick monster. You're like, those are your two things that you're doing is like the peak of all human artistry and and fucking ET. They say like your your sophomore effort after the big hit dictates like what you're going to be. Like that everybody wants to know like this is the hit what's next and you would say technically

only a few hours later really it's this it's the ET storybook. I'm gonna fuck that turtle monster watch me. What a life lesson for like when you hit a home run go home. Yeah you just you need to stop and think about what you're doing next for a while like let them sit with that home run don't start fucking the ball don't start fucking the ball right there on the field. You know what I'm gonna fuck the ball like no. I thought you were gonna say I'm going to Disneyland. No, I'm fucking that ball right now. Not me.

I live my life by Michael Jackson's standards. I stop at second and I marry a turd creature from space. I feel like I really learned something today. Thank you so much, Sean, for inviting me. That's my pleasure. It's my absolute pleasure. Are you not a Michael Jackson super fan now? No.

Oh, the opposite of that. The opposite of that in every way. Yeah, the opposite. If he had stopped at Thriller, yeah, sure. God, imagine if he had just like, I'm not saying that you deserve to, or I wish you died at Thriller, but imagine if he did die like right at Thriller.

What an untouchable like legend it would be. Before he could make this, like he did thrillers, he was like, okay, I'm gonna go outside for a smoke real quick, get hit by a car, can't ever do this. The timeline is forever changed. If they just shot him in his space with a rainbow trail. Look for Michael's rainbow. Look for it! Look for it! Einstein 100 Frankfurt Einstein 100 Frankfurt Our podcast is great!

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