The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 188 - The Domino's Pizza Story (Reverse Dollop)

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

It's a reverse Dollop! Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Tom Monaghan, the man who came up with Domino's Pizza. SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Hello you are listening to the dollop. This is an American History podcast each

week. Wait wait wait Dave. What's up? I gotta stop you. Why? Because this is the reverse dollop. What? Yes this is a quad biannually American History podcast where every now and then I'll explain a story from American history to my friend Dave Anthony who knows nothing about it. That's right you little stinker. God do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bum. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gara. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to become the tickly quad guy. Okay. You are queen fakie of hate uptown. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what? Frank? Hi Gaby. No. I see you done my friend. No. No. So first of all we are on the All Things Comedy Network. If you go to All Things Comedy.com you can see a bunch of great podcasts like ours by comedians. Everyone's

very funny. That's it. Also this podcast is brought to you by our subscribers on Patreon. I want to thank each and every one of you for subscribing and making this podcast possible. Yes. March 25th. What? 1937. Oh I whisper mine. Yeah I'm your opposite. You certainly are. I shout. You ready Derry? I'm gonna say that. It is fun. March 25th 1937. Tom Monahan was born into the world to two loving parents in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We should we should also say that again we're recording in a really bad situation. Oh yeah we're in a barn. We're in a horrible barn. There was problems. Tom was born into the world to two loving parents in Ann Arbor,

Michigan. His father was a truck driver who Tom idolized and always followed around and four years after Tom's birth on Christmas Eve the family was given the present of his dad's death. That's that's not a present. Huh? That's a bad way to... If it comes around Christmas and you didn't see it coming it's a present. Fair. I've always said that. I've always said that. Okay. The dad died from a bacterial infection known as parentitis brought on by his parentitis. It's weird if you're a parent and you die. That's what I'm thinking is that he died from being a parent. Well most do. Look at his kids and went this is for you.

Most. You killed daddy. Well he actually he died from putting a gun in his mouth and killing himself but they call it parentitis because he had a boy. It's actually brought on by severe ulceritis. Well there's other things but it's basically like bacteria in your stomach. His death. So yeah he died of a tummy ache. Tulsers bro. Lots of untreated ulcers. Tummy ache. You know what time we're dealing with. Technically it's a tummy ache. No. He was probably just throwing up black and they were like that's regular. You don't need to go see anybody and then it was Christmas and he was dead. His death put so much strain on his mother

that she ended up putting Tom and his brother James into St. Joseph home for the boys in 1943 on orphanage. How old was he? He was four. No he was he was like six when she put him in the orphanage. I gotta tell you nothing is better for a kid than being given up by a parent. Yeah. No always the best. It's you know it makes you feel good. Well and for like two years she she struggled trying to like make things right but then and then he went into a bunch of little orphanages but then eventually she called it quits. So he was coming in and out of orphanages and then she finally was like all right. It sounds like she was

treating orphanages like like babysitters and she would just drive them off for like a couple weeks make a little scratch pick them up again. I mean that's what they're for. Yeah. Also psychologically this is the best thing you can do. You've seen Oliver. You want to keep him unsteady. You want to keep him not knowing what's going on. It ends in fun. Are you going to live with mommy? Or are you going to live in a strange house? Are you going to live with mommy? Are you going to live in a strange house? Are you going to live with mommy? Are you going to live in a strange house? Which one do you want? You're confused huh? Soon you'll learn words. So so he goes there in 1943 and the orphanage sucked. His first day. Wait a minute. No Dave. The

orphanage sucked. Dave. The orphanage was. What kind of fucked up orphanage? You should have seen the brochures. What year is this? You should have seen the brochures. They show sandy beaches. Yeah. You get there. You're like I've been sold a bill of goods. Wait there's supposed to be tons of clowns. Where are the bikini women? Wait he's six. There's bikini women? No. You like how he's taking on like my fantasy? He's on a beach with like women of bikini. He's six. You're right. He would like be thinking about like cereal and comics. I thought there was going to be a bunch of packers and naked ladies. Where are all the Green Bay Packers, the naked ladies in all the pot? It's crazy. Stupid. I'm six. I wanted one thing. Three. That's me in an orphanage. What year is this again? This is 1943. Okay. So he his first day got into a fight and the rest of his stay was just filled with him pining for his mother and eating turnips. Yeah. But so he fucking did it right. You like when you go into prison, you're going to fight the first day to let him know how crazy you are. Very true. I mean, you're really six. That's really fucking hell on orphanage or federal pet. What if he beat up like a 30 year old? You find the toughest son of a bitch in there and you kick his ass the first day. If it's like a 30 year old janitor just curbs him. Shanks him six times. You don't mess with him. So they like their main food was turnips, which is so orphanage. They got other stuff from grocery stores. But really, lots of turnips. Oh fuck. Who doesn't love just a diet of turnips? At stereotypes orphanage, we'll be feeding you turnips. And tears. At the orphanage, Tom soaked up a lot of Catholicism. So it was like it was a obviously a Catholic orphanage. The nuns were mainly Polish and they were very strict, but Tom connected with a sister, Berata, more than anyone else. Berata. Berata Berata. How does one kid get the name Tom? Do you like his name Berata? No, no, no, no. Sister is a nun. Oh, his brother James is with him. Sorry. That's a good, that's a good call. Yeah. So he connects with a sister, sister Berata, who's a nun. More than anyone, a Polish nun. Are they dating? They're not dating, but obviously if I was him as a six year old, you'd be putting the vibe out there. Right. Yeah.

So what else do you like besides God? Like God's chill. What's going on underneath that robe? Are there beaches around here? Because I'd love to see you girls in something that ain't in a robe. You got a gonjus, sister? Come on, sister, past the sage. Puff, puff, past the sage. So Tom was a little distracted in her opinion, but he really felt a strong maternal connection with her and therefore to religion. So God, he became interested in the idea of God and she really implanted in his head the idea of getting into heaven. She made him promise that he would be good forever. And he did promise, quote, I was taught and I bought it that if I live a certain way, then I'm going to heaven. And if I live a certain way, then I was going to go to hell. And that's for eternity. And hell was worse than anyone you could imagine here. Heaven was better than anything you can imagine too. So to me, it's all simple. I get it. And I want other people to get it too for their own benefit. Is that illogical? Is that insanity? I don't know. I don't want to go to hell. Well, the way you're saying it, yes. Well, that that's insanity?

Yeah, it's a little intense. I don't know, you'll see. So Tom and James, his brother, were eventually adopted by a nice lady from the orphanage years later, their mom. She came back. What? She came back. Hi, kids. I didn't think you were fucking crazy enough yet. So I'm back. I've fallen in love with these two. They're very me. These two would really just complete the house.

How many years later is this? Six years later. Jesus Christ. Six years later, she busted him out of the joint. Hey guys, it was a joke. Ta-da! You know, after six years, I started to feel a little bit weird about dumping you. Yeah, I'll tell you, I had a hell of a six years too.

I just want to get in on the ground floor of adolescence. Have you ever been to Bora Bora? It is. It's such a great time without you guys. The beaches and the bikinis. Tom, you would love it. Oh, you would have loved it. You would love it, you little perv. However, shockingly, things with his mother weren't good.

See, Tom was 12, and when she collected them, it was sort of a combination of poor parenting and resentment, and it just made him and his mother bigger constantly. I can't believe this. I can't believe this relationship has a rocky... My question is, if you trace it back, could you find something that did that? Because I don't think so. No. Like, I don't think you can find one moment that caused all that. No, it's just probably, they just have different zodiac signs.

Different vibes, yeah, different... I was just going to say different signs. Yeah. She sounds like a sage. Because otherwise, it's a lockdown, great relationship. We're saying the same thing, there's no blame. No. So Tom is still on his Catholic path, and he pursued priesthood after his freshman year of high school.

Which is amazing. But he was still a scamp, Dave. He was expelled from the seminary after being there for less than a year for crimes like talking too much and pillow fighting. Which we all know you can't get into. Wait. Huh? He was expelled for pillow fighting? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

He talked too much in seminary, and he was a known pillow fighter. Wait, wait, how old is he? He's like 13, 14. And he got expelled for pillow fighting? He got expelled in under a year. I mean, were other people, was he just, I mean, was it a pillow fight with other people, or was he just attacking people with a pillow? I think if he was attacking people with a pillow, I would hear he attacked people with pillows. It just doesn't seem like a...

I think my guess is it's him and another couple of guys get expelled for pillow fighting. It just feels like there's nothing in the Bible about pillow fighting. Well, but Dave, I mean, it's inferred. Pillow fighting? Over and over. Yeah. Oh, it's all over. Genesis?

Yeah. It's all pillow fighting. He shall not pillow his neighbor? Yeah. He shall not, he shall not hit thy, he shall not hit thy neighbor with the goose-filled garment, and thy neighbor shall do none upon to you. Oh, right. That's right. That's all about pillows.

I remember that one. Yeah. It's one of my favorite ones, besides John 3.16. So he, so then he goes back to high school. So since he gets kicked out of being a priest, he goes back to high school and he graduates dead last in his class. There's like 43 or 44 people. He graduated last. Well, it's not bad.

44. At this time, though, you got to think that that's like a big graduating class. Like it just shows how we bred like rats. Oh yeah, it's probably huge, because almost everyone died before they were. Yeah. Like the odds of you making it there were, you should have gotten a degree just if you made it to 18. Yeah. Or five.

Or five. Yeah. When you were dreaming about bikini-clad women. So he finishes dead last and then the caption under his senior year high school yearbook is, The harder I try to be good, the worse I get, but I may do something sensational yet. So. Wow. That's.

So Tom was trying to get a college education, but his grades were dog shit and he had no money. So one day he's strolling down the street and he notices a poster that advertises a great life and money. All the stuff you could get if you joined the U.S. Army. So he walks into the recruiter's office and he says, I want in. And that was that. He filled out his paperwork. He passed the physical and he was in the Army. However, right after it was all signed up, a fellow endless T gave Tom some startling news.

He had actually just joined the Marines, not the Army. Not to be one to complain. He went with the Marines and he stuck it out for three years and was honest and honorably discharged in 1959. That's the wrong part of the military. I have no idea. How is that possible? I don't know. But he literally.

Hey, yeah. I'm an Army guy, right? Yeah. Enjoy the boat. What? That's how they started the Marines, probably. They were like, uh-huh. Right this way.

Wow. Okay. I mean, I guess it's easy. He didn't put up a stink either. No. He was like, sure. All right. I hate water, but.

Okay. It's gonna be good. I did sign it. So he gets out in 1959. So he relocates to Detroit and he has a few thousand dollars to his name and he invests in an oil well project. It turned out that the oil well project was a scam and he lost everything that he had and he never heard from the man that he gave his money to again. Jesus Christ. This is the saddest sack in the world.

So there he was, a young man in the world and nothing to show for it. I mean, he had no money, but that, Dave, was about to change. Well, that's what God wanted him to. That's right. This is all about God. Dave. So in 1960, Tom's brother Jim was a mailman in Detroit and on his route one day, he met a man named Ipsalente, what I think is an Italian name. Friends he did.

Who wanted to sell his pizzeria. Right. I mean, that's what happens when you're out on the. That's what happens when you're in Rome, Michigan. I can't tell you. Every time I go to fucking Michigan, some guy's like, hey, you want to buy my meat to buy a house. I just picture this guy animated too. Hey, how are you doing?

You want to buy a pizza here? He's just got the pizza he's flipping. Yeah, how are you doing? Hey, how are you doing today? Come on. Hey, you want to buy a pizza today? You like to do this with the door. You want to buy a slice?

You want to buy a whole thing? Or what do you want? You want the slice? You want a pizza? You want a whole pizza shop? Let me get one slice. A calzone and the shop. Yeah, I'll take this one.

Okay. Okay. That one, I want to shout but I want to shout but pop it on. So, this guy wants to sell his Pizzeria. So he's not asking much for it. So, you know, Jim comes back and he tells Tom, and the brothers decided they would go in on it together. So they borrowed $900 and they bought Dominix Pizzeria. For $900?

$900. Oh, this doesn't sound good at all. 1960, $900. If someone's offering you, I don't care what year. If someone's offering you a pizzeria for 900 bucks, something's fucking off. Ipsalante, he was like, I must go back to Italy. Okay, so you guys are gonna die here, bye-bye. So they start working there, but it's not a dream

for Tom by any stretch, right? So he's working in this pizzeria, really what he wanted to be was an architect. He used to just sit down and he would sketch dream houses with everything included like the furnishings. It was like his day dreaming and it became a borderline obsession when he found Frank Lloyd Wright. So he becomes obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright.

But this was the hand he had been dealt. So he and his brother began splitting shifts at Dominix at the pizzeria, Dominix. But Jim wanted to go back to working at the post office full time. So he offered his brother a trade. Jim would take the VW delivery car for his stake in the business.

Tom didn't like it, but he agreed. His brother wanted to go and so he trades the one delivery car for his brother's half of Dominix pizzeria. You are listening to the idiot's hour, we'll be right back. Tom said, I kind of reconciled myself to it by saying, okay, so I'm not going to be a successful businessman.

What the fuck? And a successful businessman he became. This business lit a fire under his ass so hot it could burn across David. He went into over 300 rival pizza places to see what was working and what wasn't. So he'd just go in and order a slice and see what was going on.

Yeah, I don't know his like stake out mission. Maybe he didn't even do that. Hey, sir, can I help you? Yeah, you are. Oh yeah, you just keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, but would you like a slice? Just keep doing what you're doing. I love your slices.

I'm gonna stand right here. Keep going. You mind if I walk behind the counter there? Just gonna loosen the belt a little. Sir! I'm gonna, what do you got there? You got dough. I'd love to get my hand in this cheese.

Sir, sir, sir. Hey, don't bother, don't bother. Sir, you don't work here. Yeah, don't bother with me. Sir, get your hand out of the sauce. Oh, fuck me. Why are you putting the sauce on your pan crotch? Sir, sir, sir, sir.

Holy shit. Sir. You got any sausages? Yeah, they're right here. And no, wait, don't, no, I gave him the sausages. Oh God, oh my God. Put the clothes on, flip the clothes line. Flip it, flip it to the clothes sign.

Let me tell you. Flip it to the clothes sign, Larry. Did I tell you I own a pizzeria? I don't buy that. So, yeah, so he goes to these 300 rival pizzerias. 300. 300. He learns how many people to hire to make it good,

what sort of ingredients to use. So he goes to his place. What was he using before? I mean, he probably had no idea what he was. Those are like pickles and. Dude, his brother literally came back and was like, wanna own a pizza place? I know, but how hard is it to figure out fuckin' pizza?

Well, there's a difference. Come on, I mean, there's a difference between places. You know that. There is a difference, but it's not hard to know the ingredients. No, but he wants to like find out what the best ingredients are. This is a dude named Tom from Michigan who's running Ipsilante's pizzeria.

So what's he selling? He's walking to a place and he's been going, hey, man, what kind of pepperoni are you guys using? Look, dude. Hey, hey, hey, well. Excuse me, can I see your olive cans? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, look, I agree there's not a ton.

But it works, right? So he works, he ended up working. He made the freshest and the tastiest dough he could possibly make. He got it down to a science. He created a very simple menu and he worked just under 19 hours a day. I'm sorry?

He worked just under 19 hours a day. His brother left him. So how much meth is he doing? Oh, God. 19 hours a fucking day? Eating meth. Jesus Christ, this guy's insane. He never sat down.

No, well, how could he? And he made his employee. If he didn't, he'd fall asleep. The only time he sat down was to lay down to sleep if he was laying down. And he made his employees do the same. So his employees are on their feet all the day. I'll say he's just a fucking horrible son of a bitch.

He is a fucking machine. He isn't selling a machine. He sounds like a monster. He's a machine monster. And it's going well enough that he opens a second store in Mount Pleasant. Of course it's going well. He's making his employees work 19 hours a day.

He's a slave driver. So he opens a second store at Mount Pleasant, Michigan that would be aimed more at the local college market. He also began delivering, which, again, helped the college student market. So I'm assuming he got another car. At some point, he got another car. Somebody got a car.

So on his first delivery to Central Michigan University, he checked in with a receptionist named Marjorie. He liked what he saw, asked her on a date, and she said yes. Their next date went very well. So Valentine's Day was coming up. So what he did what any man would do, he made a heart-shaped pizza, and he delivered it to her at the dorm.

All the other girls, they're swooned at the romantic gesture, and Marjorie and Tom were married a year later. OK, so that's the saddest? Oh, that is a beautiful story. That's not a great story. That is a beautiful story. He met a receptionist dated her twice, then made a heart-shaped pizza, and they got married.

That's not love? No. Take that, Hollywood. OK? You write a story more romantic than that. OK. And all the girls in the dorm, too, were like, oh, my god. When am I going to find a guy?

Who makes the heart-shaped pepperoni pie for me? Oh, someday my prince will come. Oh, boy. I don't even want to eat it. I mean, I'm going to eat it. I can't even dream about something so great. But someday I hope that a man makes me a heart burger. I just want a man who doesn't shit on my chest.

What'd you say, Marjorie? Nothing. I'm just saying how great your Tom is. That most guys I'm with, well, let's just say they don't make heart-shaped pizzas for me. I think they're the wrong ones. I really pick a lot of losers, mostly scat guys. Anyway, I shouldn't.

I just want to fucking slice. Have a piece. Have a piece. I want to slice under 30 minutes. OK. So what he also did was he made delivery time a big deal. He made his delivery promise fast. He said it would be there in 30 minutes or less.

Quote, the idea of stressing 30 minute delivery grew out of my insistence on giving customers a quality pizza. That's not. That has nothing to do with the quality pizza. It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense to use the only best ingredients if the pizza was cold and tasteless

when it gets to a customer. You're right. There's no way it loses taste. It doesn't lose taste. But this is also a time when they couldn't like you weren't heating stuff. Why is it that every pizza we deliver after 30 minutes doesn't taste like anything?

Is it because the pizza's shitty? No, that can't be. And it's got to be the time. Oh, right. The time is what makes something taste. They keep calling it 31 minutes and saying it tastes like board. I think we might need to get it there in four minutes.

That's it. Four minute deliveries. Four minutes. So what he also did was in order to make sure that his drivers would adhere to this policy, a bonus was given to whichever driver collected the most tips, which was his barometer for what good delivery was. Or just going to the right house where people are generous.

Totally. So the system is. It's got nothing to do with this. All this guy's ideas are fucking horseshit. It's the only way to hedge his bets, really, is to just bait. But that's also, yeah, like you get a $20 tip. You're going to win all the money. This pizza place should be called Lucky Cunts.

It wasn't without incident, though. Monahan had a low threshold for bullshit. Quote, I didn't take abuse from anyone. If someone refused to pay a driver for an order, I didn't call the police. I just went and I demanded the money. What? Usually the culprits were a bunch of college guys

who decided to have a party at my expense. And I didn't hesitate to swing a punch to persuade them to pay up. Wait, what's happening? From time to time, we'd have a rash of pizza thefts from parked vehicles while drivers were busy with customers. So I'd hide in the back of the car,

and the next time it went to that neighborhood, I'd wait for him to try it again. I'd carry a meat tenderizing mallet or a pop bottle as a persuader, and that approach always solved the problem. Oh my god. So this guy, he would go with his delivery guys, and they would go and sell the behemoth like, you got robbed in that neighborhood the last time.

So he'd sit in the back with a fucking meat tenderizing mallet. Oh my god. And the second someone tried to rob it, he'd come out and try to beat the shit out of them. Now you're fucking brain dead. Now you know not to take a pizza. Hey, can you tell me now what the pizza tastes like? That's right, buddy, you can't taste it, you fucking animal.

He's just back there slicing guys at Kelly's heels. You're never going to walk again because you took a pizza. Tom, I don't think he was after the pizza. I think he was on a jog. He looked me in the fucking eyes. OK. He looked me in the eyes, and I was holding a pizza. Oh my god.

That guy's got to die. Oh my god, he's a monster. By the way, 30 minutes or less. Yeah, whatever you say, I'll suck your dick or whatever you need, man. OK. Whatever happens, happens, you know what I mean? Totally.

Once we're out of the pizza shop. I just want to see my family again. There are no fucking rules. OK. You know what I mean? Yeah, and you know the thing is I thought this was just about sauce and dough, but you're teaching me a lot.

I'm going to deliver your heart to a little place I call the lake. I'm going to give you my two weeks now. I feel I'm moving careers. Yeah. Yeah. Two weeks. He don't real touch me in our improvs. He real touch me, motherfucker.

Don't real touch me in our improvs. Wow, that's the worst yes and I've ever heard. Oh, that's a rule I've always said. Yes and unless you're touched, be aggressive. So in 1965, Tom was doing pretty well, and he bought two more stores. Four. So he's got four stores total now.

He also changed the name. How many people has he killed? He also, they're in the Rony. So he also changed. The pepperoni tastes different. Yeah. It tastes like Frank, doesn't it? Yeah, certainly does.

So he also changed the name from Dominix, to which he'd been running it as for a while, to Domino's. And a legend was born. This is the start of Domino's pizza. In 1967, Tom sold his first franchise, but he wanted to grow. He had his foot on the gas pedal, and he set the ambitious goal of opening a franchise a week.

So, I mean, that's crazy. Here's the deal. You pay me 20 grand. You open pizza place called Domino's. Anybody fucks with you, you get to kill them. You don't need to. You get to fucking kill them. You save money on your sausages.

Do you know what my mommy did to me? Do you know? That does scream mommy issues all over. So he wanted to try to open a franchise a week. He didn't go at that rate of expanding his empire, but he went pretty rapidly still, arguably too rapidly, because by 1969, he had 32 franchises set up, but almost half of them failed.

That's so weird. And he suddenly had gone from profit to debt, falling into $1.5 million, a $1.5 million hole. Which seems like, seems like not, not good. Not good. It was so bad that he sold the business. Oh, fuck, what? Yeah, so Monahan sold the company to Ken Hevlin

on May 1st, 1970, but he viewed it as a temporary sale. He wanted Domino's back and he got it back when he re-bought the company in 1973. How did he get the money to buy it back? He killed the guy with a meat tenderizer. Hey, welcome to meaties. What do you need? I don't know.

I don't know what he did. But that, like that would, I think what honestly happened is that it was being run, like it got cheaper when this dude took over. He didn't do it as well. Right, so then he was able to buy it back, which you'll see more of that. I'm gonna sell it to a fucking idiot

and I'm gonna buy it back when he's stupid. That's how you do it, or you just meat tenderize him until he's like, maybe we should do burgers. And then he's like, are you even a dollar for the business? He's like, yeah, okay, a dollar and the Coca-Cola. Okay, yeah, yeah. So Monahan was still set on franchising the shit out of this place,

but at a rate that he couldn't, but not at a rate that he couldn't handle. So he tweaked his system and he made it much, much better. He would force any potential franchise owner to manage an existing Domino's for a year so that they actually knew what they were doing. And then once their year was up, he would meet the franchisee at a pending Domino's

and he would literally just pull up a truck with everything they needed and unload it into the store. I was the captain of that ship, Monahan said. I worked my people real hard and they responded. And that first store was something really special. Every single guy that got married, that worked for me in that era, asked me to be his best man.

I worked their tail off. I was tough on them, but I was tougher on myself. That was really exciting and it was fun. Tom would be timed at making a pepperoni pizza from scratch to oven ready in 11 seconds. Hey, so listen, guys, I'm fucking crazy. I'm your best friend, right? We're all gonna make some pizzas together.

I don't know if you're my best friend, Tom. You seem cool, but... Hey, look me in the eyes. Uh... I'm your best friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're my best friend, Tom. You get married?

Yeah, yeah, in April, you know that. And what am I? Wait. You want to make some pizzas? What am I? My best friend. Okay, so where am I gonna be on your wedding day? Right up front, Tom, wherever you want to sit.

There you go. Wait, Tom, my brother is... My twin brother, he's been by my side. Is your fucking brother work here? Is he a pizza guy? You know we are pizza people. Are we pizza people? Yeah, you have a...

Look me in the eyes. We're pizza people, Tom. So we don't talk to anybody else anymore. That reminds me, you want to... We got no more friends. You want to be my best man? Yeah, you know I do. Okay, cool.

Just get out of my personal space and we'll be... All right, so the wedding's just me and you, right? Yep, yeah, I'm marrying my best friend and my best man in April. That's right. I'll tell Kathy when I get home. Let's make this pizza. Yeah, for sure. This one's really good.

It's good, Tom. Yeah, it's good to catch up. I love our chats. I always walk away with some good stuff from our chats. You ever see my meat tenderized? Nope, no, no, no. Did you get that pizza going? Okay, great, great, great.

Hey, Jimmy! Yeah? You my best friend? I don't know, I got a lot of good friends. Why, Tom? Come over here. What's going on? Hey, Frank, what's up, Tom?

But I do, there is something about, like, there's no way every single employee... No, he's out of his fucking mind. Like, he definitely... He was asking for it. He was pushing for it. He definitely is like pushing, yeah. There's no fucking way in hell. Nobody wants their boss to be their fucking best man.

Your boss? Your best man? You know how awkward those weddings were? I worked for it for six months and I never had a better friend in my whole life. You know how awkward those fucking weddings were? Everyone's like, what the fuck is happening? Why is the gym up there? Because that's his boss from Domino's.

What do you mean, the fucking shitty pizza place? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he picked them. So Monahan is rolling in it. He's making a lot and he's starting to spend it. When he opened his 1,000th franchise, Domino's, in 1983, he treated himself to buying his home state baseball team, the Detroit Tigers. Jesus Christ, what? So the Tigers hadn't won a title in 15 years.

He buys them after a couple free agent moves by the club, mainly signing Daryl Evans. The Tigers won it all in 83, his first year and he won the World Series. Daryl Evans was fucking garbage. In fact, after the game was over and the Tigers had won it, the fans went to the streets where they celebrated by lighting cars on fire. Sure, I mean, what else do you do? That's how you celebrate. We know how you celebrate.

And flipping them. Lighting them on fire and flipping them. We're Americans. Yeah, so this left a shitload of sports writers inside the stadium still afraid to exit. But don't worry. Help was on the way. Here comes Mead Mallet. Suddenly a helicopter flew above the stadium and descended right near second base.

The writers looked on confused and out came Monahan in his Sikorsky S-76 chopper with hundreds of fresh pizza from Domino's. So he lands a helicopter at second base. Yeah, that's great, Tom, but listen, take care guys. We actually have tons of food here because it's a stadium. Good luck guys. Enjoy the pizza. No.

Be careful on the streets, too. Guys are lighting fires. Can we get in the helicopter? You can't hear you too well. There's Benji in regular. He's like Trump. So that spending wise he was he would spend there. There are some parallels.

Ben also spent a lot of his money on planes and cars. He loved cars. He actually was the owner of one of the rare Bugatti Royals, which set him back over eight million dollars. And there was like six. You bought a car for eight million dollars? Yeah. There's like six of those made or something.

Does Leno have the other one? Leno has the other five. Yeah. I don't know. It's like I drive one of them and then the other one I take out on weekend every now and then. I put a special hole in it. I drive this one and then I let my chin right shuck it and the other one.

My Leno got awful. He also funded his Frank Lloyd Wright obsession further. He had he had so much of his work that he built a 10,000 square foot museum that held around 300 items of his work and it was valued around 30 million dollars. Monaghan was so obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright that at one point he wanted to build a tower dedicated to write at his new Domino's headquarters. He wanted to display his car collection and have animals like peacocks, pygmy goats, horses, what?

Chianana cattle and a museum that showed off farm equipment that was steam powered. I'm making a pizza arc. You mentioned if you walk you're like, well, I'm not in Domino's. I know I'm not in Domino's. There's all these cars and then there's pygmy goats. Not Domino's. What is it? Domino's is supposed to be here.

This is the address they gave me. What's happening? Where am I? You know what I want in here? Everything that doesn't make sense. I want all of that. Get me an elephant? Like picture a bargain bin at the Salvation Army like that level of randomness.

The only thing that connects it is that it's probably crazy. So he also meets with some guy who helps him make a pizza box that could hold heat inside longer. They started to use harder cardboard so that the boxes could be stacked and then keep the pizza hotter. So Domino's was not only the fastest pizza, they actually became the hottest and fastest pizza. And that became Domino's new selling point.

Domino's is the fattest and hottest selling, the fastest and hottest pizza. And the fattest. And the fattest, the people who eat it. With the fastest, hottest pizza around. With the fattest pizza. But how do you get the word out to the people, Dave? Oh, fuck. You got a fast, hot pizza arriving.

How do you let the people know? The Domino's pizza was always hot, but they needed an ad campaign that aided this. So in 1986, an AdJ agency locked its doors and went to work on a spokesperson for Domino's. Something that people would like, but still get their brand messaging across. Their creation was called the Noid. Fuck yeah, it was. A chubby bucktoothed, oddly voiced, weird-eared, animated, annoying little shit who was dead set on doing one thing, making your pizza cold.

The Noid was a villain of sorts. Is that what the Noid did? Yeah, that was his whole thing. He wanted to make your pizza cold? I didn't remember that either. That was his thing. His whole thing was he wanted to ruin your pizza experience. But why would you want that in your pizza ad?

Because the whole thing was Domino's pizza boxes will thwart the Noid. So the Noid is dead set on ruining the pizzas, but Domino's created a box and a system that gets it there so fast that the Noid, he can't figure his way out of this pickle. So yeah, he's a villain of sorts. The tagline was, avoid the Noid. It was attached to it, and an icon, for some reason, emerged. So the voice I'm about to play is this actor named... People love the Noid.

Some people don't remember the Noid. Oh, I remember the Noid. I very much remember the Noid. Yeah, so the voice that you hear is this guy, he's an actor, and his name is Ponds Mars. He's a fairly unknown actor, but Mars made the Noid kind of a giggling, garbled mouth villain. So he doesn't really say any words to the Noid. He's more of just a lunatic, so this is a commercial.

So the Noid at the end of that is sitting in... He's sitting in icicles. He was trying... He had a fire extinguisher, some sort of jackfrost machine that was freezing the pizzas. But again, Domino's boxes were better. So the Noid blew up. He was an effective spokesman, and he helped the business grow even further. Hats, shirts, mugs, stuffed animal Noids, posters, glasses, everything Noid began to

pop up. It's not to love. The Noid was even the star of not one, but two Nintendo video games. What? The first came in 1989 when Avoid the Noid was for some reason unleashed to a public that asked for none of this. In this game, you play a delivery driver who wants to make a delivery to doom industries while avoiding the Noid and all of his shenanigans.

The Noid wants to destroy the pizzas, and you must save them. Once all the pizzas are destroyed, the game is over and the Noid wins. Hey Tommy, you want to play Domino's? No, right now I'm playing Burger King. I got to make a bunch of hamburgers in like five minutes. There was that era, remember, when it was like... We've gotten into a weird advertising realm now where branded marketing is almost a little too subversive, but they were trying for a while stuff like that, making it so that

you would be entertained by your food was something they were attempting like when they made Mac and Me, which is essentially a two hour McDonald's commercial that is just atrocious. Great movie. A great movie, an absolutely great movie. But they made two Noid video games, I mean the first one was successful. The first one was not successful, it was handed nobody liked it. The second game... Well might as well do it again, because you know what, it wasn't the fact that it was

the Noid, it was the game itself. This is even more telling as to how shit the Noid was. You know what kids love? Delivering pizzas on video. I'm going to go escape this boring world by getting a job. I'm sick of school and all this nonsense. I'm going to go deliver pizzas in the basement for a couple hours to get to chill out a little bit.

Hey what level are you on in the game? I don't know, this guy's my best man. I don't know, the guy's making me work overtime and I just had to hire the manager to be my best man. We also just killed the guy who he said robbed us. He didn't. He was just a guy in a parking lot. He was jogging.

This was a jogger. He said I'm sure of it. I don't know, he's huffing something out of a rag. So the second game, the second game was from the video game manufacturer Capcom, who tweaked an existing Japanese game called Kameno Ninja Hanamaru and the game was changed to Yo Noid. It was a weird hodgepodge game where the Noid had to save New York with nothing more than a yo-yo. Well this totally makes sense.

It so doesn't make sense. Eventually you would face Mr. Green, a Noid that was green to save the pizzas. So as terrible as that was, they did take like a successful model of a game and then just pretend it was the Noid. So the game actually gained fanfare, did okay, both games... That's like what Quentin Tarantino did with City on Fire. Oh really? Wait, what do you mean?

That's what Reservoir Dogs is. He just took a Japanese movie and re-did it. You'll be alright. Rided up for a dollop, Dave. So you can actually play either game online now. You can find them and they are both terrible. The Noid appeared on The Simpsons as well as Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video. Jesus Christ, what?

It was 19... How the fuck is he in a Michael Jackson video? Dude. Did Michael Jackson have him over for... Have a little sip of this cola. Hey, I really like the Noid. Because the Noid is tiny. Hey, Emmanuel, I'm done with you.

The Noid's here. Okay. Yes, baby. Cool down, Noid. Cool down, Noid. Have a little sip of this Jesus juice. You ever met a llama, Noid? There's one under this sheet.

There you go. Shh. Quiet down. Have another sip of that wine from this coke can. I mean, there's not a lot of podcasts where Michael Jackson bangs the Noid. Okay. So it's 1989 and everyone loves the Noid. Well, everyone besides one man.

Oh, God. So one man sat in his home hearing the Noid commercial again and again and it had been driving him mad and he felt like the Noid was talking to him. Well, he probably was. Probably because his name was Kenneth Lamar Noid. No, what? A 22-year-old schizophrenic who was convinced these commercials were aimed at him. Oh my God, his name was Noid?

His last name. Well, they were aimed at him. So he's a 22-year-old schizophrenic and these commercials are driving him crazy. As they should. You know what? They were driving us all crazy. So, I don't know what this guy's going to do, but I'm down with it. Okay.

The ads fueled the fire in his head that made him think he was in a battle with none other than Domino's CEO, President and Founder Tom Mono. Here we go. Mono, a fucking Mono. He finally met his goddamn man. Kenneth Noid believed he was the Noid. Well, he is the Noid. So on January 30, 1989, he did what any Noid would do and he walked into a Domino's store

in Georgia. And he made that pizza. He had a 1557 Magnum and held two employees hostage. I thought we're going to make the pizza cold. No. He demanded $100,000, a getaway car, and a copy of the novel The Widow's Son, a book about secret societies and French prisons, and a pizza. He wanted a pizza, too.

Oh, you can just get that book at a library or you actually don't have to take a hostage. You can buy it at a Barnes & Noble or you can just go to a Domino's and hold up some employees. Right, but that's not... No. That... From where I'm looking at this entire scenario, this is the worst way to get a book. So here are the...

He asked for a number of things. Here are the two things he couldn't get, $100,000 and a getaway car. Outside of that, he asked for a book and a pizza. So those... That he got? Uh, well, no. He got neither. The standoff lasted for about five hours until the two employees snuck away and Noid

was arrested. Wait a minute. They snuck away? No. They literally... Everything I read just said they snuck away. Hey, No... Hey, Noid, you know what?

He was probably like opening the pizza boxes like, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh. So Noid spent the next... But they just fucking walked off? They just walked out and then he was like, no, my leverage. Wow, I'm not gonna get my book. No. Uh, sadly, Noid spent the next few months in a psych ward. Years later, he would kill himself.

No. But he was not the only Noid that died from that day. What the fuck? The controversy and general Noid fatigue had set in and the claymation Noid was also killed off shortly after. Well, as soon as people are taking hostages, the Noid's done. Yeah. I...

You can't keep a... I think we would now. I think now we'd keep him. I think back then people were probably like, whoa, that was crazy. Now we'd be like, hey, what do you want? Change your last name, asshole. Get in line. Yeah, you shouldn't have been a Noid.

Sorry. You shouldn't have been a Noid. Oh, snap. Are we high-fiving? What's happening? I don't know. Maybe we're gonna kiss. So now around the same time that all this was going on, that the Tiger...

So around the same time that he bought the Tiger's monohand had sort of felt like he stopped being a faithful Catholic and he didn't like it. He felt like he would go to mass once a week at most. He would often be late or not present because he was preoccupied with his business. That just drags on you. He felt that he had betrayed his religion. Well, he had. When he heard that devout Catholic and dolphin head coach Don Shula went to mass daily, monohand

felt he needed to change it up. If Shula could handle it, he should, too. What do you mean Don Shula went to mass every fucking day? He heard that Don Shula went to mass. He's a fucking football coach. How much fucking time he doesn't have? That's what he's saying. That's his point to you.

That's why he never won a fucking Super Bowl. Shula won one. Whatever. Before he started going to church. No. Shula won the undefeated season. Yeah. Shula had arguably the best football season ever.

They didn't play as many as 12 games. Might have been 14. I think it was 14 with playoffs in the Super Bowl. It is true. It is a baby season. Those kids aren't going to let that go. They started going to church all the time and all of a sudden he's got Dan Moreno. He can't win one.

You know what I'm talking about? You void the Noid, Moreno. You void the Noid. Moreno's like, the Noid's talking to my arm. So he finds out this thing about Shula, that sort of takes him back and he really decides he wants to be the Catholic that he promised Sister Beretta he would always be when he was a kid. Thank God.

He wanted to prove that he would always be good like she said she wanted him to be. Now we have a good ending. So he started a foundation so he could help give more money to the Catholic Church called the Ave Maria Foundation. One day he explained his plans for the foundation to a fellow Catholic church going writer named Ralph Martin. One thought and then told Monahan, you know, Tom, just because it's Catholic doesn't mean it's correct.

You can give to things that are Catholic and do the church more harm than good. Martin didn't really understand, or Monahan didn't really understand, so Martin told Monahan of some of the church's less than pleasant transgressions, i.e. child rape scandal and other problems with the church. It's nay on the thing. That's the headline. But this was sort of news to Monahan. I mean, he sort of had heard rumblings, but he didn't think this was affecting the church.

He knew little of anything other than great things about his religion that he just started a fund for. So Martin explained to Monahan, for example, the situation in Nicaragua, which was dire in his opinion. At this time in Nicaragua, there was a faction between the Catholics in Nicaragua. There was a group of Catholics in Nicaragua that were under power under President Daniel Ortega, who used Catholicism to help push Marxism onto the people. There was also a group of traditionalists that opposed what he was doing and thought

it was anti-Catholic. The Pope was on the side of the traditionalists, but this just made the Ortega government not like those Catholics more, and he claimed they were funding the contra insurgency that had formed inside of his country. And so what did he do? He sent the noise. I feel like if the noise was like a fighting machine, we could just say, that is like our Terminator.

Jesus! Ah! Nine dead! And they just do it under the guise of making him think there's pizzas around there. They're no pizza. They're the cold poop. Saddam Hussein killed by the noise. So Monahan traveled to a village in Honduras where he met father Enrique Solvestre.

Monahan was so taken with the priest that he purchased a pickup truck to replace his mule and bought him a generator for his hydroelectric plant that he was building. I'm sorry? He was building a hydroelectric plant. Sure he was. So might as well buy him a generator for that. Well, he has some money at the psycho priest. Hey, I see you're building a hydroelectric plant.

You want a generator? I'm also building a Stargate. Sure! Take a million dollars. Get me out of here. So eventually in 1990, Ortega was voted out of office in Nicaragua and everything sort of chilled out. After that, Monahan got a call from a priest in Boston asking if he would be interested

in helping rebuild a Nicaraguan church that had been damaged in an earthquake almost 20 years earlier. Monahan liked the feeling of helping through Catholicism, so he said yes. However, when he saw the blueprints, he had notes. He didn't think it was big enough. The Frank Lloyd Wright in him was structurally offended. What was the point if they weren't really going to build something? It's just a place of worship.

Quote, if you're going to build a cathedral, build a cathedral, he told them. It's not a cathedral. It's a place of worship. It's just a... When it was all said and done, it would cost 4.5 million dollars. Oh good. Don't give that to the starving people. Make a fucking giant house.

The result was a domed structure that the locals think look like a pair of tits. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Sister Beretta. Oh God, I miss the sister. Also my mommy. Imagine being a priest there too. You're like, yeah, no, nothing about this makes me want to fornicate at all. God, I'd love to.

You know what I'm building over in Honduras is a big old dick. I'm going to let the priest tiddy fuck and then go to mass. So Montaghan, so Domino's continues to dominate and by 1989, it has 5,000 stores in the United States and 200 stores internationally. But to Tom Montaghan, this wasn't as exciting as spreading the Lord's will. So Montaghan was now learning that he could influence with his money and help spread his religion. Again, he was on a mission from a nun to get people into heaven, Dave.

This is when he found his new main flagship cause, abortion. Yes, Tom became obsessed with the lives of the unborn. In 1988, a Michigan measure was being fought over that would keep state funding from some clinics that performed abortions. It is always weird to me that we call it say performed, like it's a show. So Montaghan, the way I do it. Was that a dove? So Montaghan donates 50 Gs to help fight the funding for them.

That's it. 50 G. I know that's what I think too. It's a little shitty, but don't worry. He just built the $4 million pair of tits. He just built the Karag with tits. So it didn't work, probably because he gave such a little money, but the national organization of women demanded a Domino's Boycott didn't affect business too badly in Montaghan's opinion.

Pizza's pizza. The pizza's pizza. Women gotta eat pizza too. And they want it there within 30 minutes. That's what I'm talking about. I like the rest of us. Oh man, I want a shitty pizza. I want it fast.

It's a heart shape. So in 1989, Montaghan decided he wanted to focus more on his Catholic endeavors and step down as the CEO of Domino's. Bigger changes came when one day he read the Catholic classics and read a C.S. Lewis passage that caught him, quote, right between the eyes. It stated that pride was a great sin, the essential vice, the utmost evil. It was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice.

It is the complete anti-God state of mind. After Montaghan read this, it dawned on him, the only way to make a difference was to let go of his pride and do something big. So the next day, the purge began. He stopped construction on his $7 million dream house. He sold almost all of his Frank Lloyd Wright collection. He gave up his chopper. He gave up the rare Bugatti.

He sold an island resort that he had put $35 million into for $3 million. That's a bad deal. He even sold the Tigers to the guy who ran Little Caesars. Another pizza place. Tigers, Tigers. Keeping it. Yeah, seriously. Tiger, Tiger.

You find out the Noida and the Little Caesars are dating. So he kept it in the pizza family, but this became his new focus. Dominoes, however, was faltering again. Pizza Hut had begun overtaking them in categories that Dominoes had had a lock on for years. They even had to drop the 30-minute delivery promise after a number of fatal accidents, several lawsuits, and numerous complaints from consumers who said that drivers would be driving around like fucking maniacs in their neighborhoods so that they wouldn't break the Domino's pledge.

Monahan came back and ran the company again. He made tough cuts and it bounced back, and in 1998, Monahan sold Dominoes for $1 billion. He was now a billionaire and said, what you rarely hear a billionaire say, I want to die broke. He now started the Ave Maria Radio, the Ave Maria List Pro-Life Political Action Committee, a public interest law firm called Thomas Moore Law Center, which was aimed at hammering conservative issues such as opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and secularism. Monahan gave money to the Priest for Life, a Roman Catholic pro-life organization.

But in 1998, he wanted to even go bigger. So he started his own university at an old elementary school called the Ave Maria College. He wanted to create a university that would teach religion and make more good Catholics in the world. So later that year, he has an interesting run-in with some Detroit law professors. They tell him about the plan they've been hatching to build a Catholic law school, a real Catholic law school, because other Catholic law schools had permitted a few Michigan Supreme Court members to appear at the school's annual red mass and they weren't Catholics.

Schools like Notre Dame and shit, they were like, not Catholic enough. So they're moving further to the right. Their school could spread religion through law. So he's trying to start a Catholic law school. Those are the best kind of law schools. The school's stated goal is to educate competent moral attorneys who will influence all aspects of the legal profession and advance the natural law theory. Oh, fuck.

I know where this is going now. Monahan had heard enough. He knew a good idea when he heard it, and he started the process of making his own Catholic law school. Monahan went on the search for a dean for his new Catholic Ave Maria Law School. So he reached out to Bernard Dabransky, who was the dean at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University. So he's literally poaching from a place called Catholic University, which isn't Catholic

enough for him. This guy Dabransky was so early in his term there that he didn't feel like he could leave that gig so quickly, but he said he would think about it. So the next day, Dabransky is having lunch with Supreme Court Justice and broke down James Gandolfini, Antonin Scalia. Scalia urged Dabransky to take the job. You gotta get out of there. And Dabransky agreed.

This guy's the pizza guy, right? How could you not go to the fucking pizza? Look, look at me. He'll be your best man. You want to stay at a school that you just took a job at that's been around forever called Catholic University. Exactly. When there's a crazy old pizza guy, you talking about the guy who started the noi?

I need to go to Domino's University. Yeah, the guy who started the noi. You're absolutely right. I'm glad we did this, Antonin. Yeah, I'm Antonin Scalia. I'm glad we did this. Every decision I make is great. Are you sweating, linguine?

I certainly am. You smell like clams. So he's like, yeah, I'll do it. He talks to Scalia and he's like, yes, I'll do it. So Dabransky agrees. And when they're talking about potential professors that can kind of make a splash, they start talking about former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Why wouldn't you?

Robert Bork was a good dude. He opposed rules about serving people equally based on race. He opposed consurception for married couples. And he disliked and opposed gender equality. He was a monster. In the 80s, Bork was nominated by Ronald Reagan to be a Supreme Court justice. It was going OK for a while. However, Ted Kennedy, who once killed a woman and called his lawyer before the cops, delivered

a speech in the Senate that pretty much slammed that door. To be fair, he was driven off the bridge by a pizza delivery guy. The noid? That'll be called. This is what Ted Kennedy said on the Senate floor. Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, and school children could not be taught about evolution.

Scary world, huh? I'm not seeing any problems. Scary world. Sounds very different. Think about that. This condemned it. Bork was not confirmed, but lucky for him, Ave Maria University Law School was hiring and when Bork got the offer, he accepted the position of professor.

The Ave Maria Law School opened its doors in 2000 near Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Monahan was born. Every room had a crucifix in it, and the students were strongly, strongly, strongly encouraged to attend Daily Mass. So this all sounds sort of like some weird Scientology school, right? But the first class that graduated went on to pass the Michigan bar at a rate of 93%, the best in the state. That's horrifying.

Catholic lawyers finally had a school. Monahan wanted to move the schools to the Domino's Farms that he had a little further away. Did you just say Domino's Farms? Yeah, he had like a Domino's compound. I don't really know what, it just reminds me of Foxcatcher. That's what I picture. I just picture a psycho with his plan, and he just calls it Domino's Farms, and he's

just like, come over here, yo, Russell, whatever, I'll paint everything black and lose my shit. So Monahan wanted to move it there. However, that move had to be approved by the state of Michigan, and the people were already sort of growing tired of Monahan and his shit. He wanted to build a 250-foot crucifix with a 40-foot Jesus nailed into it on his new site. And when people heard that, it became too much for the town, and they denied his request. So what to do?

Where to go? Obviously, Florida. Oh, by the way, the 40-foot Jesus is going to scream the whole time, like he's just been nailed in there. Every 20 minutes, it'll shoot blood out of the crown of thorns. In the whole tattle here, it'll be like, ah! His mouth is going to be a speaker. You'll love it.

It's going to be great. The dimensions are great. No, 24-7, and every 20 minutes, it's 24-4. Also, tornadoes prevalent around this area. Not to worry. Don't worry about that. Don't worry. So he goes to Florida.

Now initially, he goes there, and he sees Naples, and he's like, oh, this has got to be it. He felt like Naples would be perfect. So he offered the city of Naples $100 million for some of the property in the eastern area, but it just didn't happen. Luckily for Monahan, something better came along. A local land development company called Baron Collier had an idea. They would sell him some of their land that they had already purchased for his school,

and they could build homes and stores around the school, thus upping everyone's profit. Domino's town. Monahan offered $100 million, and they sold it to him. So this dude is literally building a Catholic city. Jesus Christ. The dude who ran Domino's is building a town where if you're not Catholic, you're fucking weird. You got to get out of there if you're not Catholic.

So this was an exciting prospect for Monahan. He felt that the town could end up, hopefully, ideally being 90% Catholic. He had his own little Vatican city. He had his, I mean, just hodgepodge savages. We got to have somebody to persecute. So he has this city. Now, did he speak out a little too publicly about his plans? Perhaps.

He came under fire in 2004 when he said, quote, there is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria town. If you go to the drugstore and you want to buy a pill or the condom or contraception, you won't be able to get it in Ave Maria town. Hold on. I'm going to back it up. Did he say the condom? No.

I said the condom. I wish. I said the condom. Although I do say pill or the condom. He might have said that. The condom? He actually, he did say that. This is what he said exactly.

There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria town. If you go to the drugstore and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria town. Hey, Tom. Hey, Tom, I got to stop you there. Listen. Uh-huh. You're going to stop me.

Okay. No, listen, there's actually more than one condom. Uh-huh. I don't know. I'm talking about the one. I know. But wait. The holy condom.

Okay. I got the condom. I'm a little freaked out right now. It's the condom that when you... How does the holy condom work? Well, when you finally go into it and you finish, it forms into a ghost, the holy ghost, which sort of floats with the condom drooping over it like a ghost costume. And then it goes up to heaven, pulls down God's fire alarm.

He's like, oh, wait, what? And then he makes it rain. And then you got to get all the animals onto one thing. And by animals, I mean non-Catholics. Two by two. Two by two. Well that ruffled some feathers for some reason, Dave. And the present of Baron Collier, the place that sold him the land, had to come out and

explain just what Tom meant. Quote, it was never intended to be a restricted or Catholic-only community, and we are not restricting the contraceptives, he said. Then he added, in deference to Tom's request and to the Catholic University, we're requesting the contraceptives not be sold. But we're not restricting. There's a big difference. So that's the guy who's defending him.

So people can bring them in? Yeah. But what he's creating is a black market for condoms. Yes. Yeah, essentially. Eventually. Hey buddy, you want some for your dick? Huh?

No, I'm Catholic, dude. You want some for your dick? Look, I'm Catholic. Hey, check it out. What? Check it out. Look at him. I'm wearing him.

You see how good those look? You see how good those look? How much pop? Two bucks pop. I wasn't born yesterday. All right. Let's get out of here. A buck.

Go ahead. I was born on a day, but it wasn't yesterday. Touch it. Check it out. Go ahead. Look at it. Big heart. Give me a bunch.

Give me a handful. Give me a handful. Give me a handful. Give me a handful. You're not under cover, are you? You're under arrest. Ah, damn it. So Monahan even elaborated further, quote, we want to be a family town, but if there's

an openly gay couple living next door to some family and those kids would have to be subjected to that, I don't know. In the first place, I don't know how many gay couples are going to want to come and live in this town. No, I agree with that. And if we can't prevent it, well, we'll tolerate it. Oh my God. The worst.

It's been tolerated. There were even bigger problems with relocating two schools halfway across the country, like the students. He had been spoiled by the ease of franchisee managers who would move at the drop of a hat. He admitted it wasn't ideal, but something they should all still be doing. This was heaven we're talking about. He offered to move willing students on his dime. So the Ave Maria Law School was proving to be an even bigger quandary.

So that's the regular school that he's already moved. He's trying to move the Ave Maria Law School, but it was proving to be an even bigger problem as far as the relocation. Two theories on why they didn't want to move, both are about the board at the school. He set up this board. One is that the board of trustees worries that it wouldn't be able to thrive outside of Ann Arbor. They had a good thing going, and it was risky.

The second is that they had concerns about the power Monahan had and how he was handling said power. They worried, quote, that he would just treat us like pieces of pizza or pieces of equipment. In 2006, Naples went through some market issues and property value. They kept that on brand. Isn't that great? That's like a guy to be like, huh? Put that in your newspaper.

In 2006, Naples went through some market issues and property values plummeted. So some of the students were not relocating at a high rate, and things were looking bleak. Monahan himself even grew dubious of where this was all headed, referring to the Ave Maria Foundation as a spigot. And he claimed that it was, quote, things that it was going to dry up, and I've got a real tough period between now and when the dividends start coming in from that town. That's 2010. I've got a real squeeze between now and then.

So that's 2006. What does that mean? He's got a real squeeze. He means that it's not going well. He's basically, he has to keep giving money for, he's already, he paid $100 million for this. Oh, and he's just keeping it going. He's keeping it going.

It's running on fumes. It's such a great idea. I don't know why it's not working. The Indian Bar Association approved the Ave Maria Law School move in 2009. July 1st was the start date. There was a celebration to be had. Fuck yeah, there was. The law school had over 300 students that would move to Ave Maria's vineyard campus.

Whatever. Vineyard campus. The keynote speaker at the event was none other than Tom Monahan, who told them, oh, how did they get him? He was available. His manager. He told them, quote, we were originally going to be located on 1600 acres near the Domino's headquarters in Michigan, but when we couldn't get the zoning approval, we decided to come

to the best place in the world, Southwest Florida. It's proved incredibly difficult, he said. There were some faculty members who really dug in their heels and resisted the move. In addition to waging a smear campaign in the media, with the final hurdles out of the way to move to Florida, we're a little wounded. But the most important components are still intact. This country needs a school like the Ave Maria School of Law to bring God back into our courtrooms and back to our society.

Isn't that the most, aren't you like, was that written? Jesus Christ. He's just being, he's really peeling the curtain back. He goes, we could have relocated here, but then we couldn't have decided to go to the best place in the world. That's not where we initially wanted another place. The second best place in the world, Florida. No one's ever said the best place in the world in Florida, in the same sense.

Never. Unless they were like meth. October 18th, 2009, Naples Daily News headline reads, three suspended Ave Maria Law School professor's file suit. The suit went after Dean Bernard Dombranski and board chairman Tom Monaghan. The suit states that the three were wrongfully fired after they reported the school's administration to law enforcement and other legal folk. Deborah Gordon, the civil rights lawyer who represented the three who were suing, said

it was the start of a, quote, big, huge battle royale. The suit claimed that Monaghan had conflicts of interest by having a stake in other businesses besides the school in the area. We think, quote, we think we can prove a legal activity by showing the connections between Monaghan, the board, and his other organizations, she said. This is like racketeering. What's happening? It's that he, it's that he's, it's that he's building a, it's that he's building a town

around the thing. So they're forced to. Yeah. And it's crazy. And like people are seeing what he's doing. So, okay. So that gets revealed. Thankfully, other things were revealed like this.

A fun fact that, quote, claimed that Monaghan claimed that the Virgin Mary personally directed him to develop the Ave Maria town and Ave Maria University in Southwest Florida. Hold on. Hold on. They said multiple witnesses could corroborate that. I was going to say prove he didn't, but now you got a hard time because he's got multiple witnesses. He's got a few people there who were like, yeah.

No, I heard it. This prayer took a turn. I, no, I, I heard it. I was there and I heard the lady say the thing. No, no, they've got people who could corroborate that he said that crazy shit, not that the Virgin Mary spoke to him. Oh no, but he's probably got some witnesses on his side too. I'm sure he does.

I'm sure he does. Jehovah's Witnesses. But how can you prove that she didn't? You know, that's the thing. The whole fucking, the whole fucking religion is based on, on the same thing. That's the thing with this. That is the thing with this. How do you do it?

How do you prove it? So the case settled out of court. The school was already. The case settled out of court. Yeah. I really hated after she called it a battle royale and then I looked up what happened. It's not a battle royale. Yeah.

And you can't ever find out what the settlements are. So the school was already having it bad. Earlier that year, Dean Dabronsky had received a vote of no confidence from the staff and the students and they wanted him out. The school did nothing of the sort. Monahan was obsessed with making sure his school leaders, the main, uh, main goal was to stay pious at all costs. So when he hires someone in a position he likes, he won't listen.

He's a lot like the noit in that way, Dave. The suit also claims that the school lied about the involvement of Robert Bork, who was seemingly never there. The school stood in the way of the Michigan criminal investigation into a local priest involvement in accused sex offenses also. That's part of the thing that you're supposed to do. While all this was going on, Monahan still had the balls to file a lawsuit against Obamacare's contraception coverage.

Well, you gotta, you gotta keep the eye on the prize, right? It's the best. The obituary of schools are a scare, are scaring a couple of ways. The main being that no matter how open a place like this appears to be to people, there is clearly an agenda. The school's goal is to limit women's rights, stop progress with same sex laws, and mainly do what they can to outlaw abortion. That is what the students believe, and that is what the school preaches.

It's obviously not on their website or anything, but that is their mission. Speaking of the website, it says some crazy shit. Quote, Obamacare University is dedicated to the formation of joyful, intentional followers of Jesus Christ through word and sacrament, scholarship, and service. This is perhaps the single most vital task for Catholic academics. To explicate the truths and the face, 50 or more years ago, they included Marxism, Nazism, and Freudism. Today, they include abortion, fetal research, cloning, same sex marriage, moral relativism,

and world terrorism. Yes, the website compares same sex marriages to Nazis. Okay, well, I mean, that's fair. I mean, Hitler, what Hitler did is similar to people. It almost feels like what Hitler did is similar to what Ave Maria the town is doing, as opposed to vice versa. Excuse me. Sorry, I'm just an idiot.

Do you hate pizza or something? I do not like pizza, actually. No, I do. The town has tried to do a better job of not seeming like a crazy Catholic city. It's too late. The Barron Collier spokesman claims that they are open to the idea of other religious buildings, which will never happen. Other religious buildings.

Because Ave Maria is its own town in Florida. It's its own city. It has schools within the city, along with houses, and a good amount of commerce. It's like a little Truman Show town. There are no bans on abortion or contraceptives in the town, but there is only one OBGYN, and he won't prescribe any birth control, and also no pharmacies in the town that sell any birth control or contraception, and there are no hospitals that could provide abortions or give birth control.

There is a dentist, though. It sounds like Oklahoma. It sounds a lot like Oklahoma. Some consider Ave Maria a town to be unconstitutional, but I have yet to see why. Ave Maria is one of the fastest growing communities in southwest Florida. What? And it boasted 283 new homes in 2015. Shut up.

It's successful? It's successful. And it started by the dude who started those. That's terrifying. I thought you were going to say it wasn't working at the end. What's weird is, as you go through it, there is a time, like when he's saying, when he's calling it a spigot, where you're like, oh, this is not going to work. I mean, it shouldn't work.

Of course it worked. But it works because he had a billion dollars, and he loves Catholicism. Oh, we're so fucked. We can go there. The website is amazing. The website looks like it's located on a water slide. It's like, everything's fine. Jesus is coming.

Well, I mean, maybe they're right. Maybe Jesus will come back, and that's what he'll be. How great would it be if when Jesus did come back, he came through a water slide? What's up? That's what I would do if I was Jesus. And then Moses parts the water for him. What's up, motherfuckers? Wait, so it's like a duo?

Wait, I'm thinking of the Ninja Turtles. All right. There's your reverse dollop. Some people like the reverse dollops. Some don't. I've heard from both. Oh, some people don't? Yeah, someone was like, you should do one soon, and I was like, I'm going until I'm working

on one. And then someone else was like, down. Oh, really? Yeah. Like on Twitter or something? Yeah. She said, I think she said that it reminds her of, like it's like weird like if mom and dad were to switch clothes or something.

She has to work some stuff out. I don't know if she said that. I don't want to. That might be from my own sick, twisted thoughts. Anyway, reverse dollop. We sign cars. Sign cars. Take the reverse dollop off.

So much for this earnings.